This question comes from a Brownie pack to whom my friend Cath, a folklorist, gave a talk about fairies. The kids had a lot of questions about the nature and reality of the tooth fairy in particular, but this one was my favourite.
She doesn’t often think of god, but sometimes,
After a long night of climbing into windows,
And feeling gently under sleeping heads
To take the tooth from underneath the pillow
And leave a coin,
After she’s written back five thousand times
To letters asking if she’s really real
And sprinkled fairy dust on all the beds
And shinned down drainpipes to be home by dawn
The heavy bag of teeth over her shoulder…
She sometimes thinks that, if there is a god,
It might be nice if he, or she, or it
Would work a little harder for belief.
Tom Juniper Poetry 