The Woman Who Stepped Off the Path — The Meath Woods Encounter

In 2022, a woman from County Meath, Ireland, went for what was supposed to be a simple walk near her home — a quick way to boost her FitBit step count before sunset. But what began as a casual stroll turned into something she still can’t quite explain.

She told a local paper that, before entering the forest, she felt strangely drawn to two trees standing side by side at the trailhead. She touched them both — one felt warm to the touch, almost alive; the other was slick, wet, and cold. She brushed it off and continued down the trail.

A few minutes in, the path split into two directions. She chose the left fork, wandering into an area thick with waist-high weeds and strange plants she didn’t recognize. She could hear other walkers somewhere nearby, but she realized she was no longer on the main trail.

Trying to correct herself, she turned back to the fork and went right instead — but this new path ended just as abruptly, swallowed by overgrowth. When she turned around to retrace her steps, the familiar trail she’d come from was gone.

The air grew heavier, the light dimmed, and clouds began to gather overhead. Uneasy, she decided it was time to leave. She reached for her phone to check Google Maps, but there was no signal. Not even a flicker.

So, she walked — or at least, she thought she did. Every path led her deeper into tangled vegetation. Then, from somewhere beyond the brush, she heard it: a woman’s voice, high-pitched and distant, calling out,

“Over here!”

At first, she thought it might be another hiker. But when the voice broke into laughter — sharp, echoing laughter that didn’t sound entirely human — fear surged through her.

On instinct, she remembered an old Irish superstition: if you find yourself lost in the fairy woods or among the “stray sod,” turn your clothing inside out to break the enchantment. She stripped off her t-shirt, flipped it inside out, and pulled it back on.

The moment she did, the path appeared — clear and familiar as if it had never disappeared. She followed it without looking back, reaching her car with trembling hands.

When she checked her FitBit, it showed an impossible number: 10,000 extra steps — on top of the 8,000 she’d already taken earlier that day.

She hadn’t walked that far. She couldn’t have.

Some locals later suggested she’d wandered into a fairy portal — a thin place between worlds opened when she touched those two trees. Others believed she’d stepped onto a stray sod, a cursed patch of earth said to transport the unwary into the Otherworld.

Whatever happened in those woods, she insists one thing is certain —

for a while that day, she was somewhere else.