Note: This is an expansion of a short post I made over at According to Hoyt, in response to Mary Catelli and Foxfier. As per usual, this description is based off our own experiences and encounters, as well as those descriptions that were related to us by others.
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Dwende is/are the Filipino catch-all term for faeries, brownies, nature spirits. It’s accepted belief that they share ‘space’ with human beings and encounters with them – intended and unintended – are part of the reason why superstitious belief is very strong in the Philippines. (Larry Correia’s Monster Hunters could probably go on safaris in the Philippines.) This post is to give a rough description of the dwende as we’ve encountered them (note I use present tense; even now I hear about encounters from my mother’s household.)
Because dwende are spirits who dwell in the land, they can be found anywhere, even urbanized areas. They are most often found in places where there is a bit of quiet -anything from deep forest to a small, stinking alleyway. Generally they are invisible to human eyes, though people with the gift of third sight or sixth sense can see or feel their presence. They vary in description from the typical small brownie, or small winged fairies, to manifesting as human-sized, or larger, beings; size seems to be relative to their ‘strength’ in ‘power’. They range from strange in appearance, fair, or ugly – not much different from the Western descriptions of fae.