Reed Fairy –
In Praise of Love

The Story of how I came to know Ági is a remarkable tale in and of itself. The letter she sent to me explained, “I have wanted to play music in my whole life. My parents have taken me to the best-known teachers, but I can’t play the piano. I have to lift my arms with my mouth. I was sent away from every place. Miss Klári, you are my last hope, if you say it’s impossible, I’ll give it up”. I responded that very day and she arrived for my next class. Ági was a bit anxious initially, but gradually cheered up in the happy ring of the other children in the class. 

Ági became a reed fairy on a grey Budapest morning, among the colourless walls of a narrow video studio, courtesy of Orsi. Orsi did not even want to come in that day, and when she arrived she remained leaning against the stove in the hall, complaining of a headache and drowsiness. When she finally walked in, Orsi opened her eyes, and stuck reeds around Ági’s wheelchair. I had collected the reeds at Lake Balaton and there they were now, swaying on the metal sheets of the wheelchair. As the music played, the children built a moss-nest on the reeds and filled it with white pebble-eggs. 

They have all seen great reed-warblers hatching their eggs – I didn’t have to cut the bird-figures out of paper – and they could all see the Reed Fairy in Ági, I didn’t have to explain. “The wheelchair was so ugly, full of metal and plastic” Orsi later said “and Ági was a Reed Fairy, it could plainly be seen”. It could indeed, because she knew immediately how to take care of eggs, how to rock the nest gently, delicately, until the warblers’ mother flies away for food.

The Reed Fairy sings and dances. She is the special guest of our classes. She is the shell of the snails, the friend and adviser of the wild ducks. She is the leaf on which bees stop for some rest. This Reed Fairy is the lake for frogs, sea for the whales, a lunch of live coal for the magic steeds, owl-doctor for the injured birds, nut tree for the rolling nuts, aunt Moon for the dancing stars, and a nest for the ladybirds.