Local news tries to convince us that Massachusetts' "elf town" was created by a child, not actual elves

Toward the end of summer, a curious phenomenon began to take shape at an empty lot in Somerville, Massachusetts: A miniature elf village appeared. Faced with incontrovertible knowledge that tiny mystical creatures walk among us—and, presumably, speak with Boston accents—the local news has scrambled to cover up the village’s miraculous construction by claiming an eight year-old is responsible for it.

A CBS Boston news segment introduces the miniature village, which has been named “Elfland,” by repeating the absurd fiction that it was “born out of the imagination of an 8-year-old boy.” We’re shown views of Elfland’s tiny library, hospital, hedgehog stables, and dinosaur farm and learn that the settlement was created in the lot of a former gas station that’s lain vacant for several years now.

The elves’ human representatives are interviewed, filmed with their faces obscured in order to maintain their anonymity and, we must assume, protect them from questioning by the Men In Black.

“Our son saw the elves and the elves asked for help making houses,” the dad says, camera pointed at his feet. “And, so, we started building houses.

An article on Elfland from The Boston Globe tells us that the child posing as the village’s architect began working on the display in August before, probably after having threats whispered to them every night from the cracks in their walls, others in the neighborhood were enlisted to chip in with their own additions.

By his own account, the boy says he got to work after seeing “’a bunch of invisible things’ digging holes in the ground and planting seeds.” The child explains that these strange creatures were elves who requested that he build them homes. (They can’t do it themselves because, as he writes on the Elfland Instagram, they were cursed by trolls.)

He’s also put up a sign that dates Elfland’s original, ethereal construction back to 1382 and has told press that elves “keep crickets as pets,” “mainly live underground,” “don’t age,” and form family groups of “about 22 elves” each.

In a real fairy tale ending, The Boston Globe reports that a meeting will be held on December 16th regarding “potential development” plans that would destroy Elfland. This may seem like a mundane example of real estate development, but we know that it’s actually a cover-up orchestrated by the fae folk now that too much attention has been focused on their Somerville homes.

[via Boing Boing]

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