I've been reticent about sharing this. But what else is this forum for? I'm quite materialistic, becoming more so as time goes on. I've been reading for years how asking whatever house elves one chooses to return lost objects elicits results. While I've found the consistency of those accounts interesting, I've always known there are other explanations to account for missing objects happening to turn up after genii are asked to provide them, including that the teller of the story is being creative with the truth to make it sound more in line with how weird they feel it is rather than how weird it really is. What I'm saying is, I know there are all kinds of explanations for this, and it's just anecdotal, but this is the fortean forums.
So, my brother does my gardening because of my parkinsons, and also I've always hated gardening and he likes it. We have a workshop at the end of the garden which houses our gardening tools, the key to which lives in a cupboard in the kitchen with all the other keys next to the back door. My brother has on occasion put away the tools and left the key in his pocket and taken it home, so he's got in the habit of checking the key is in the cupboard before leaving.
A few days ago, he planted a rose in the garden. That's the last time we could remember the key would have been used. Three days ago, he was visiting and we discussed some tiles that needed replacing in the kitchen, so we went for the workshop key to see if we still had matching spare tiles in the workshop. The key wasn't there!
So we turned the place upside down. No key, but then there was no reason he would finish the gardening and put the key anywhere other than the cupboard. If it had fallen from his pocket, he'd likely have heard it hit the path. He said not to worry, it could only be at his house, and he'd find it. So, for the next couple of days, two houses and his car were being scoured for this key.
Today, he rang and said he'd be here shortly, to take the brown bin out to the front driveway, tip it up and see if the key was in there. For those not aware, the brown bin is a wheelie bin used for garden waste, which I think the council takes away for composting. His only thought was that the key had fallen from his pocket into some prunings and been deposited in the bin. It was clear that, as we'd previously discussed, as a last resort the next step would be to unscrew the hinges of the workshop door to buy a new lock. So, I made a choice before he arrived.
Interested as I am in folklore, I've read many times accounts of people finding their lost items by asking the fairies. I've always resisted trying it myself. I didn't resist this time. I stood in the dining room and said aloud, 'Boggarts of the house, if you know where our missing key is, could you please leave it somewhere we'll come across it? Thank you!' I didn't expect it to work. I don't know whether it was an experiment or an act of desperation. I wouldn't be posting here had the key not turned up within minutes.
So, my brother and sister-in-law arrived, and we rolled the bin out to the front driveway. My brother turned it upside down without anything spilling out. My sister-in-law watched him, and as she saw the top of the bin hit the ground, she also saw the key, sitting in a crack in the concrete that we've all been walking over for the last couple of days.
I don't present this as evidence of anything, obviously. I don't know how the key ended up there. There are a few possibilities, all of which are unlikely, all of which are more likely than fairies exist. I don't know how many people have called on their resident spirits to produce lost objects and it simply hasn't worked, so they haven't had an anecdote to provide. All I know is I've tried it once, and that when I took that key back to the cupboard in which it usually resides, I said, 'Thank you, boggarts of the house.'
