Fairies Wear Boots

Fairies Wear Boots (1970) is a song by the rock music group, Black Sabbath, about a man who insists that you must believe that he saw “fairy boots” dancing with a dwarf. “You gotta believe me … I tell you no lies … I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes.”

The lead singer of this song, Ozzy Osbourne, says that he has no idea what the song is about since he wrote the lyrics during a night of hard drugs and drinking. The only reason he knows that he wrote the lyrics is that his friends told him that he did. 

Goin' home, late last night

Suddenly I got a fright

Yeah I looked through a window and surprised what I saw

A fairy with boots and dancin' with a dwarf,

All right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

Oh all right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

All right now!

So I went to the doctor

See what he could give me

He said Son, son, you've gone too far.

'Cause smokin' and trippin' is all that you do.

Fairies Wear Boots lyrics © T.R.O. INC.

In legal usage, eyewitness testimony is considered to be admissible evidence but it must be consistent with known facts, not fanciful, and the eyewitness must be examined carefully to ensure that the chance for intentional or even unintentional bias is minimal. Ancient Jewish practice insisted that eyewitness testimony must be provided by two men of unquestioned character before it could be believed.

Of course, some people will believe in almost anything (ghosts, visits by extraterrestrial beings, telepathy, fairy folk, etc.) just because someone adamantly insists that they “saw it with their own two eyes.”

Religious movements have sprung up around charismatic individuals. These movements seem to be primarily cults of personality, based primarily on the individuals themselves. The founders claim, with no verifiable proofs, to have seen visions (Edgar Cayce), or mysterious holy objects (Mormonism). Some claim to have met Ascended Masters who gave them messages for the world. There are at least twenty religions based on the UFO phenomenon. 

Christian belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is itself based on eyewitness testimony, but with a major qualitative difference. In the Bible, there are numerous reported post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, one to a group of over 500 people AND there is even an implied challenge to naysayers. If most of the 500 were still alive at the time of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, all anyone had to do was hunt them down and ask them what they saw.

"After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;"    1 Corinthians 15:6

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, of their orthodoxy or lack of it, or of their actions.  Readers are encouraged to suggest persons who should be included on this list.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Ozzy Osbourne: (b. 1948, England, aka: John Michael Osbourne; The Prince of Darkness) Heavy metal vocalist and songwriter.  Best known for his song, “Crazy Train.” Anglican.

Dion: (b. 1939, New York, USA, aka: Dion Francis DiMucci) Singer, songwriter best known for his songs “Run Around Sue,” and “The Wanderer.” Evangelical.

Bob Dylan: (b. 1941, Minnesota, USA; aka: Robert Allen Zimmerman) Singer, songwriter, painter, sketcher.  Best known for his songs “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changin,’” and “Like a Rolling Stone.”  2012 United States Presidential Medal of Freedom winner. He was a convert from Judaism.

Uyaraq: This man was the first Inupiak convert in Alaska (late Nineteenth Century) and spent the last twenty years of his life as an evangelist in Alaska (USA).  He was known to break long-standing social taboos, ridicule the local animist shamans, and hold the Bible up in the air to demonstrate its power.  

Bob Marley: (b. 1945, Jamaica- d. 1981; aka: Robert Nesta Marley)  Singer, songwriter, guitarist. Marley is considered to have been the face of the Reggae music movement.  He was a Rastafarian who, in 1981, was baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  His final words were, “Jesus take me.”