For certain people, particularly men who are a little insecure about their manhood, it might be hard to tell their friends that they are going to the Fairie Festival this weekend.

		Western Pennsylvania Fairie Festival Where: Coopers Lake, Slippery Rock. When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $12; $5 ages 3 to 12. Go to www.wpafairiefestival.com. Schedule: Saturday: Richard Brentar (10:15 a.m.), Erin Price & Pittsburgh Gypsy Dancers (11:15 a.m.); Vincent Magic (noon); Wizards Dream (1:30 p.m.); Life in Balance (2 p.m.); Fairie Queen crowning ceremony and parade (3 p.m.); Dragon Scales & Faerie Tales with Animal X (4 p.m.); Richard Brentar and Vincent Magic (5 p.m.); KIVA (6 p.m.); Closing Parade (7 p.m.). Sunday: Opening Parade (10 a.m.); Guided Meditation with Life In Balance (10:30 a.m.); Life In Balance (11 a.m.); T'ai Chi with Suzen Sharda Segall (11 a.m.); Wizards Dream (noon); Dragon Scales & Faerie Tales with Animal X & Albion (1 p.m.); KIVA (2 p.m.); Heather Kropf (3 p.m.); Hooley (4 p.m.); Between the Waters (5 p.m.)

It's going to arouse some snickers, but ... well, no buts. It sounds funny. Period.

But -- OK, here's the but -- it will probably be very nice, wondrous even, if gypsies, pixies and fairies are your thing.

The first-ever Western Pennsylvania Fairie Festival will be an enchanted village filled with fairy-led dances, gypsy performers, craftspeople, holistic and metaphysical practitioners, morning meditations and a parade with the Fairie Queen and her court.

The festival is the brainchild of Linda Varos, an illustrator and a former board member of the Erie Festival of the Arts. It was originally intended as a small, one-day event, but then Varos found an Internet community in waiting and turned it into two days at Coopers Lake in Slippery Rock.

"It's a very broad audience," Varos says, "all of the fairy collectors, women who have loved the fairy stories from the time they were little and still collect them. Children, of course. And the Renaissance festival people, who enjoy going into another time period."

Varos says it will differ from the Greater Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival later this summer in that the "Fairie Festival is more gentle. Fairies have an ethereal quality, and that will be present. It's more nature-oriented than it is period-oriented."

Varos sees the renewed interest in the mythical as a reflection of our war-torn times.

"It mirrors what happened in the Victorian era, when fairy art became so popular. Economics were poor and people didn't have control of their lives. People looked into mythological for an escape. I feel that's come full circle, that people don't have the sense of the security in their own homes or their own country. Where can you go to release that concern?"

The Fairie Festival will feature performances by KIVA, a percussive, acoustic, worldbeat ensemble from Washington, D.C., that celebrates the magic of nature and ancient bardic traditions. Varos also enlisted the Celtic group Hooley, ethereal pop group Between the Waters, ambient ensemble Life in Balance and singer-songwriter Heather Kropf.

The Fairie Queen is none other than Candice Night, singer of the Renaissance folk group Blackmore's Night (which also features her partner, former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore). They would perform at the festival but are in the middle of a tour of castles in Germany, and that's where their equipment is. Night will autograph copies of Blackmore's Night's "Village Lantern" and may do a few songs. There's no word on whether Blackmore will darken the doorstep.