a friend of mine did a presentation on fairy belief in ireland just this week and said something that makes me think of this. Apparently when asked if they believe in fairies, irish people often answer that they don't, but then they say that their mother or neighbor or someone had an encounter with the fairies and that this is an honest person who would never tell a lie.

I'm not sure that it's the same thing but it makes me think of that.

EDIT: Also because fairies inhabit ancient monuments such as fort remains, if there's a plan to destroy a monument for construction then the entire community rallies to stop it because it would upset the fairies and bad things would happen, and at least in the case that my friend described are successful. So even though irish people tend to be ambivalent about whether or not they believe in the fairies, either way there's a deeply felt emotional sense that they share the world with them.

--Janusz