Thomas Fairwood

A cousin of the famous fairy John Hollyshoes, Thomas Fairwood was also the father of Alessandro Simonelli. He unfortunately took no interest in his son - nor much indeed in his son's mother, whom he neglected to marry - and appears to have been fonder of such diversions as horse-racing and cock-fighting than of addressing his family responsibilities. Even by the lax standards of the fairy race he was dilatory in his ways, often writing to promise a visit and then delaying his arrival by a period of years. He was also in the habit of paying his addresses to more than one lady at a time, which sadly was the seed of his downfall. Having antagonized a miller's daughter and a baker's daughter by courting both together, he was destroyed when the indignant females threw him into a mill-race, pinned him down with a millstone and left him to drown. He would have done well to recall the canny Scots saying:

"Tis best to be off wi' the auld love
Before ye be on wi' the new."

According to Hollyshoes (by no means a reliable source) Fairwood would have been a great enthusiast for the port of Genoa, had he ever had the happiness to visit Italy [LoGA].