68 p F a n t bor©, b e g e q t ) /, ooR b ijn o /, p F an fó tR© @Jali*l©ii), 69
li
111
n
!l !
They come from the beds of the Lichen green.
They creep from the Mullein’s velvet screen,
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swing in their cobweb hammocks high.
And rocked about in the evening breeze ;
Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest,
Had driven him out by Elfin power,
And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow crest,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour ;
Some had lain in a scarp of the rock,
By glittering ising-stars inlaid, ^
And some had opened the ‘ Four-o’-Clock,
And stolen within its purple shade ;
And now they throng the moonlight glade.
Above, below,—on every side,
Their little minim forms arrayed, zr »
In the tricksy pomp of Fairy pride. —Dr. Drake s Culpnt Fay.
Like the Witches, Fairies dearly love to ride to the trysting-
place on an aerial steed. A straw, a blade of Grass, a Fern, a
Rush, or a Cabbage-stalk, alike serve the purpose of the little
people. Mounted on such simple steeds, each joyous E lf sings—
“ Now I go, now I fly,
Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I,
O what a dainty pleasure ’tis
To ride in the air,
When the morn shines fair,
And sing and dance, and toy and kiss ! ”
Arrived at the spot selected for the F airy revels—mayhap,
“ a bank whereon the wild Thyme blows, where Oxlips and the
nodding Violet grows ’’—the gay throng wend their way to a grassy
link or neighbouring pasture, p d there the merry Elves trip and
pace the dewy green sward with their printless feet, causing those
dark green circles that are known to mortals as “ Fairy Rings.”
The Fays that haunt the moonlight dell.
The Fives that sleep in the Cowslip’s bell,
The tricksy Sprites that cóme and go,
Swifter than a gleam of light ;
Where the murmuring waters flow,
And the zephyrs of the night,
Bending to the flowers that grow,
Basking in the silver sheen.
With their voices soft and low,
Sing about the rings of green
Which the Fairies’ twinkling feet.
In their nightly revels, beat.
Old William Browne depiffis a Fairy trysting-place as being in
proximity to one of their sylvan haunts, and moreover gives us an
insight into the proceedings of the F ays and their queen at one of
their meetings. He says :—
“ Near to this wood there lay a pleasant meade
Where Fairies often did their measures treade.
Which in the meadows made such circles greene,
As if with garlands it had crowned beene,
Or like the circle where the signes we tracke,
And learned shepheards call’t the zodiacke ;
Within one of these rounds was to be seene
A hillock rise, where oft the Fairie queene
At twilight sat, and did command her Elves
To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves;
And further, if by maiden’s oversight,
Within doors water were not brought at night,
Or if they spread no table, set no bread,
They should have nips from toe unto the head,
And for the maid that had performed each thing,
She in the water-pail bade leave a ring.”
St. John’s E v e was undoubtedly chosen for important communication
between the distant Elfin groves and the settlements of
men, on account of its mildness, brightness, and unequalled beauty.
Has not Shakspeare told us, in his ‘ Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,’ of
the doings, on this night, of Oberon, Ariel, Puck, Titania, and her
F airy followers?—
“ The darling puppets of romance’s view ;
Fairies, and Sprites, and Goblin Elves we call them,
Famous for patronage of lovers true ;
No harm they act, neither shall harm befall them,
So do not thou with crabbed frowns appal them.”
Yet timorous and ill-informed folk, mistrusting the kindly disposition
of Elves and Fairies, took precautions for excluding Elfin
visitors from their dwellings by hanging over their doors boughs
of St. John’s Wort, gathered at midnight on St. John’s Eve. A
more kindly feeling, however, seems to have prevailed at Christmas
time, when boughs of evergreen were everywhere hung in houses in
order that the poor frost-bitten Elves of the trees might hide themselves
therein, and thus pass the bleak winter in hospitable shelter.
p F a n t ^ ,
In Devonshire the fiowers of Stitchwort are known as Pixies.
Of plants which are specially affected by the Fairies, first
mention should be made of the E lf Grass {Veslena- ccerulea), known
in Germany as Elfenkraut or Elfgras. This is the Grass forming
the Fairy Rings, round which, with aerial footsteps, have danced
“ Ye demi-puppets, that
By moonlight do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites.”^—Shakspeare's Tempest,
The Cowslip, or F airy Cup, Shakspeare tells us forms the
couch of Ariel—the “ dainty Ariel ” who has so sweetly sung of
his F a iry life—
“ Where the bee sucks, there lurk I ;
In a Cowslip’s bell I lie ;
There I couch when owls do cry;
On a bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs ou the bough.”