pFarit bo re, b e g c q ö / / an i. bqric/, pFantiè 0^ tRe Sfai nei).
'fl
'ü I
I/ i il :1
' ►"
I I
I
It was believed that the Fairy folk made their homes m the
recesses of forests or secluded groves, whence they issued after
sunset to gambol in the fields; often startling with their sudden
appearance the tired herdsman trudgmg_ homeward to hm cot, or
the goodwife returning from her expedition to market. Thus we
read of “ Fairy Elves whose midnight revels by a forest side or
fountain some belated peasant sees.”
“ Would you the Fairy regions see,
Hence to the greenwoods run with me ;
From mortals safe the livelong night,
There countless feats the Fays delight.”—Zi/i'/jy.
In the Isle of Man the Fairies or Elves used to be seen
hopping from trees and skipping from bough to bough, whilst
wending their way to the Fairy midnight haunts.
In such esteem were they held by the country folk of Devon
and Cornwall, that to ensure their friendship and good offices, the
Fairies, or Pixies, used formerly to have a certain share of the
fruit crop set apart for their special consumption.
Hans Christian Andersen tells of a certain Rose E lf who
was instrumental in punishing the murderer of a beautiful young
maiden to whom he was attached. The Rose, in olden times, was
reputed to be under the especial protection of Elves, Fairies, and
Dwarfs, whose sovereign, Laurin, carefully guarded the Rosegarden.
“ Four portals to the garden lead, and when the gates are closed,
No living wight dare touch a Rose, ’gainst his strict command opposed.
Whoe’er would break the golden gates, or cut the silken thread,
Or who would dare to waste the flowers down beneath his tread,
Soon for his pride would leave to pledge a foot and hand ;
Thus Laurin, King of Dwarfs, rules within his land.”
A curious family of the Elfin tribe were the Moss- or Wood-
Folk, who dwelt in the forests of Southern Germany. _ Their stature
was small, and their form weird and uncouth, bearing a strange
resemblance to certain trees, with which they flourished and
decayed. Describing a Moss-woman, the author of ‘ The Fairy
Fam ily’ says :—
A Moss-woman ! ’ the hay-makers cry.
And over the fields in terror they fly.
She is loosely clad from neck to foot
In a mantle of Moss from the Maple’s root,
And like Lichen grey on its stem that grows
Is the hair that over her mantle flows.
Her skin, like the Maple-rind, is hard,
Brown and ridgy, and furrowed and scarred;
And each feature flat, like the bark we see,
Where a bough has been lopped from the bole of a tree,
When the newer bark has crept healingly round,
And laps o’er the edge of the open wound;
Her knotty, root-like feet are bare,
And her height is an ell from heel to hair.”
The Moss- or Wood-Folk also lived in some parts of Scandinavia.
Thus, we are told that, in the churchyard of Store
Hedding, in Zealand, there are the remains of an Oak wood which
were trees by day and warriors by night.
The Black Dwarfs were a race of Scandinavian Elves,
inhabiting coast-hills and caves ; the favourite place of their feasts
and carousings, however, was under the spreading branches of the
Elder-tree, the strong perfume of its large moon-like clusters of
fiowers being very grateful to them. As has been before pointed
out, an unexplained connection of a mysterious character has
always existed between this tree and the denizens of Fairy-land,
The Still-Folk of Central Germany were another tribe of the
F airy Kingdom : they inhabited the interior of hills, in which they
had their spacious halls and strong rooms filled with gold, silver,
and precious stones—the entrance to which was only obtained by
mortals by means of the Luck-fiower, or the Key-fiower (Schlüsselblume).
They held communication with the outer world, like the
Trolls of Scandinavia, through certain springs or wells, which
possessed great virtues : not only did they give extraordinary
growth and fruitfulness to all trees and shrubs that grew near
them, whose roots could drink of their waters, or whose leaves be
sprinkled with the dews condensed from their vapours, but for
certain human diseases they formed a sovereign remedy.
In Monmouthshire, in years gone by, there existed a good
Fairy, or Brocca, who was wont to appear to Welshmen in the
guise of a handful of loose dried grass, rolling and gambolling
before the wind.
i J a i r ^ Ì^& '96Fìò.
The English Fays and Fairies, the Pixies of Devon—
“ Fantastic Elves, that leap
The slender Hare-cup, climb the Cowslip bells,
And seize the wild bee as she lies asleep,”
according to the old pastoral poets, were wont to bestir them-
selves soon after sunset—a time of indistinctness and gloomy
grandeur, when the moonbeams gleam fitfully through the wind-
stirred branches of their sylvan retreats, and when sighs and
murmurings are indistinctly heard around, which whisper to the
listener of unseen beings. But it is at midnight that the whole
F airy kingdom is alive: then it is that the faint music of the
blue Harebell is heard ringing out the call to the Elfin meet:
“ ’Tis the hour of Fairy ban and spell,
The wood-tick has kept ihe minutes well,
He has counted them all with click and stroke,
Deep on the heart of the forest Oak;
And he has awakened the sentry Elve,
That sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
And call the Fays to their revelry.
F— 2
Tifrahflf