If anyone has ever been to my area of the country, you have most definitely heard the legend of the Fairy Cross. It is an old Cherokee legend handed down through almost 2,000 years. Herein contains some of the legend. If you ask a Cherokee about it, he will show you a tiny cross to prove his story. The Cherokee had no temples, no shrines, no idols. The Sun and the Moon and the Stars were the trinity. The lightning and the wind, the thunder and the rain provoked both reverence and fear. For these were the only messages of God. Here is the story.
"When the world was young there lived in these mountains a race of little people. They were spirit people. Like the fairies you read about. One day when these little people had gathered to dance and sing around a deep pool deep in the woods, a spirit messenger arrived from a strange city far away in the Land of the Dawn. Soon the dancing and singing stopped, for the messenger brought them sad tidings. The messenger told them Christ was dead. The little people were silent and sad. And as they listened to the story of how Christ had died on the Cross, they wept and their tears fell upon the earth and turned into small stones. The stones were not round or square. Each was in the form of a beautiful little cross. Hundreds of tears fell to earth and turned into tiny stone crosses, but the little people were so dazed and heart broken, they did not notice what was happening. So, with the joy gone from their hearts, they wandered away into the forest into their homes. But around the spot where they had been dancing and singing, where they had stopped to shed their tears, the ground was covered with these symbols of the death of Christ. What happened to the little people? No one knows for sure what happened to them. The old men of the tribes said that after that day, the little people were never seen again. But they say on still nights you could hear them whispering along the river and that when there is a gentle breeze their sighs could be heard in the tall trees."
There is a belief among the Cherokee that the crosses had the power to render the owner invisible at will. Some say the stones are a reward for goodness and kindesss to all people. The Nunnehi, were immortals who dwelled in the fastness of the mountains. They had their townhouses under the Cherokee mounds and under the hills. They were the spirit people who could make themselves invisible at will after they had come into possession of the tiny fairy crosses. In some instances, the tiny crosses were supposed to give the owner the power of diving into the ground and coming up again among the enemy to scalp and kill with sudden terror and destruction.
The crosses have found their way into rare collections of gems and artifacts. In some instances, they have been polished and ground to beautiful symmetry and mounted in gold and used as good luck emblems.
The crosses are actually made of staurolite. This has been designated the official state mineral. They form a perfect cross at a certain temperature. They are usually less than an inch in length.
I hope you have enjoyed this Cherokee tale of the Fairy Cross.
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