Everyone's Eliot: Introduction

 On an island shaped like the leg of a faun there exists a clandestine society called Port Eliot. It’s near rich-green coastal waters and kisses a river called Tiddy that laps at the moon in high-tide and exposes dark, dank, writhing streams of muddy abyss during low-tide. Port Eliot meanders through green countryside of shorn grass and stone houses seated next to quiet brown lakes speckled with lily pads and fallen quail feathers. Winding roads past winding trees and windy cliffs lead to Port Eliot, although these vistas are impossible to see over dense hedges like flexed hands against passing cars. Only horses seem capable of skipping natural obstacles to explore without worry in these enchanting lands. Horses and fauns, of course. And giants, and fairies.

While Port Eliot’s society exists always in the hearts of its inhabitants, only once yearly does it reveal itself to the wider island, swathed in leather and silk. The annual Festival is a fiesta of thoughts, words, and movement, a constantly growing and undulating entity that feeds and feeds upon itself in glittery, light blue fluidity. From all corners of the island, and some corners of islands further afield, flock festival-goers. They arrive on feet and engines. They load cars, trains, and planes with resources for days of frivolity and sharing—food, books, cameras, tall rubber boots in case of necessary bog-jumping. Traders cart wares, items for sale or display, hired to provide resources absent in Port Eliot’s natural greenery. Entertainers arrive carting boxes in baffling geometric shapes. Children pounce immediately upon entry, predator and prey to the grass and the sun, forming fast friendships while tumbling across hay bales which, by the end of the festival, meld seamlessly with trampled grass. Together the people of Port Eliot Festival enjoy its myriad of enchantments. They dance and sing, flaunt and flow, buy and sell, intermingling in endless loops across the rich Eliot Estate.

There is a certain ambience during the Port Eliot Festival. A full moon knows this, commanding clouds in the sky to part, pulling the Tiddy into its yellow embrace. The clouds cheekily sneak in, filling the Tiddy and its valleys with smooth silver mist, delighting giggling ghosts. The greater island quietly murmurs; passer-by near the Festival grounds may not hear its music but they can sense a certain electricity, maybe from Jupiter or Middle Earth. There are no signs providing directions on main roads in to the festival. Coordinates are provided by the stars.

And this is how one first realizes that Port Eliot is an expression of a very human propensity to associate among like individuals. Port Eliot is, like so many contemporary societies, governed by a royal family. This royal family kindly invites visitors to partake in its annual festival, thusly forming an extreme microcosm of a socio-economic stratification that already exists on the island. Despite the risk of allowing the proletariat such close proximity to assets contained in the secret cellars of the estate house, the Eliot’s willingly host potentially peering eyes because they, like so many contemporary elite, value arts and culture. And yet the infamous royalty watch from afar, governing via chosen elite. Largely unaware of this underlying discretion, attendees loosely segment themselves as people do: Traders, artists, and visitors. It is a stratification bolstered by the branding of brightly-colored fabric wristbands that slowly tighten throughout the course of the weekend under distracted tugs. On the last day the wristbands threaten to cut off circulation in the very arms so proudly displayed for their adornment only days before.

Among those lucky enough to attend Port Eliot Festival, a question is unsaid: Who belongs here? Port Eliot is ruled by its royalty but during the course of the festival they retreat, hidden from view, preferring to watch curiously and warily the interactions of attendees. The festival cannot belong to its visitors, who are privy to planned provisions. It can’t belong the elite, who depend on visitor’s populace. It cannot belong to the traders, many of whom commute in and lead double-lives while there, never wholly one with the crowd and yet serve as a cornerstone. Port Eliot does not belong to the artists, who haunt the woods and blend with visitors when not displaying their craft to adoring crowds. It does not belong to the staff like the security guards, valiant soldiers watching happenings adorned by walkie-talkie swords. And somehow, within all of this, it does not belong to a handful of outsiders like me, forgotten fairies that hopped the right leaf to land on this rose petal. We inhale Port Eliot until we turn blue in the face, refusing to exhale lest our luck escape us. Port Eliot: Everyone’s Eliot, and yet no one’s Eliot…