Fairy

“ You and I, and all the people we know, walk through the world with this same strange fairy; who seems to frown, and scold, and force us on through cruel storms, and yet who is really smiling upon us, and shielding our shrinking forms with tender care, and leading us gently home. ”

“ THE INHABITED ROSE SPONGE.
And who shall say that our pretty fay is a myth, or her magic wand a wild creation of the fancy? May we not see the wonder-workings of that potent wand on every hand, even though our fairy has eluded us while she cast the spell? There are a host of these wee fairies continually flitting about among the trees plotting all sorts of mischief, and leaving an astonishing witness of their visitation in their trail as they pass from leaf to leaf or twig to twig. ”

“ For fairy natures are compounded all
Of whimsies and of freaks fantastical,
And what the best of fairies loves the best
(Except pure kindness) is an artless jest.
And so wise men have argued, on the whole,
That the misguided creatures have no soul;
But as for me, if the bright fairy elf
Has none, I'll get along without, myself!
These fairies laughed and danced and sang sweet songs,
And did all else that to their craft belongs,—
All tricks and pranks of whole-souled jollity
That make life merry 'neath the greenwood tree. ”

“ The boy-fairy in jewelled
coat.
The fiddlers they laughed till
they scarce could see,
And then they fiddled so cheerily, O,
And the fairies and children around the tree,
They all went tripping so merrily, O.
The fiddlers they boxed up their fiddles all;
The fairies they silently flew away;
But every child at the Christmas ball
Had danced with a fairy first, they say.
So they told their mothers—and did not you
Ever have such a lovely time at your play,
My boy and my girl, that it seemed quite true
That you'd played with a fairy all the day? ”

“ Is fairies' night when they receive
All their friends and all their slaves,
The goblins, witches, trollish knaves.
And if the olden tales be true,
All men and maids have cause to rue,
Who on this night dare go abroad
And touch a foot to fairy sod;
For naught will save them but to jump
Right o'er a fire or blazing stump.
But if you're brave and do not fear
That for your rashness you'll pay dear,
Then stand beneath an elder tree
And King of Fairies you may see. ”

“ Enter, from opposite sides, a Fairy, and Puck.
Puck.
How now, spirit! whither wander you?
Fairy.
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be: In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. ”

“ The child is interested, too, in the strange people he meets in the fairy tales: the clever little elves who lived in the groves and danced on the grass; the dwarfs who inhabited the earth-rocks and the hills; the trolls who dwelt in the wild pine forest or the rocky spurs, who ate men or porridge, and who fled at the noise of bells; the fairies who pleased with their red caps, green jackets, and sprightly ways; the beautiful fairy godmother who waved her wonderful wand ”

“ When the moon shines, and the stars are bright, and the warm winds blow, the fairies meet together. They come from everywhere.
The fairy queen, Titania, sends one to hang pearls of dew on the flowers. She sends another to kill the worms that are eating the roses. She sends others to frighten away the birds that cry at night. ”

“ Beauty, full of surprise, but very happy, suffered the prince to lead her to his palace, where she found her father and sisters, who had been brought there by the fairy-lady whom she had seen in a dream the first night she came.
“Beauty,” said the fairy, “you have chosen well, and you have your reward, for a true heart is better than either good looks or clever brains. ”

“ FAIRY MUSIC
When the fiddlers play their tunes you may sometimes hear,
Very softly chiming in, magically clear,
Magically high and sweet, the tiny crystal notes
Of fairy voices bubbling free from tiny fairy throats. ”

“ As we read and meditate, its mountains and its vales, its verdant fields and lucid streams, objects on which we probably never again shall gaze, rise up in their primal freshness and beauty before us, and we are once more present, buoyant with youth, in the scenes where we first heard the fairy-legends of which we are now to treat. ”

“ At these words the fairies sprang up eagerly; and their queen, smiling upon them, waved her wand toward the center of the clearing. At once a beautiful fairy loom appeared in the space. It was not such a loom as mortals use. ”

“ But that fairy has promised, when poppies are fair,
To come back again and to wait for you there.
Yes, you can go out when the skies are all blue
And see what I've seen,
And go where I've been.
You can have fairies to lead you away,
To show you strange sights and to share in your play;
And the grown-ups may say that your fancies are wild,
But fairies are real to an innocent child.
Shoes
I'll tell you it's a problem, when a youngster's nine years old,
To keep his feet in leather and to keep him heeled
and soled ”

“ But the three hundred and sixty-five authors who try to write new fairy tales are very tiresome. They always begin with a little boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms: ‘Flowers and fruits, and other winged things.’ These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed. ”

“ Let the ethnologist frame what theory he will upon this subject, my own private belief is that once upon a time a good fairy who loved mankind put on the wings of a stormy petrel and flew over many lands, carrying in her hand a sieve full of tiny seeds, and shaking it upon those spots where there appeared to be most children. The seeds, falling to earth after this fashion, sprang up and bore many-colored fairy tales, to rejoice all hearts for evermore. ”

“ Upon this the people cried with one accord: "We will, we will! We have been gloomy and miserable too long already." And they all took hands and danced round the Queen and Delicia and the good fairy, singing: "Yes, yes; we will, we will!"
Then there were feasts and fireworks in every street in the town, and early the next morning the fairy, who had been all over the world in the night, brought back with her in her flying chariot the most handsome and good-tempered Prince she could find anywhere. ”

“ Outside his gate, in the long boreen,
They crossed themselves, and said between
Their mattered prayers, “He has no luck!
For sure the woman is fairy-struck,
To leave her child a fairy guest,
And love the weak, wee wean the best!” ”

“ And a third Fairy took up the Plea, and said, “We are kindly Things; and it is we that sit at evening, and shake rich odours from sweet bowers upon discoursing lovers, that seem to each other to be their own sighs; and we keep off the bat, and the owl, from their privacy, and the ill-boding whistler; and we flit in sweet dreams across the brains of infancy, and conjure up a smile upon its soft lips to beguile the careful mother, while its little soul is fled for a brief minute or two to sport with our youngest Fairies.” ”

“ The question aroused a dozen suggestions, each fairy seeming to favor a different mortal. Every member of this band, as you doubtless know, was the unseen guardian of some man or woman or child in the great world beyond the forest, and it was but natural that each should wish her own ward to have the magic cloak.
While they thus disputed, another fairy joined them and pressed to the side of the queen. ”

“ Once, as I passed by a cottage, there came out a lovely fairy child, with two wondrous toys, one in each hand. The one was the tube through which the fairy-gifted poet looks when he beholds the same thing everywhere; the other that through which he looks when he combines into new forms of loveliness those images of beauty which his own choice has gathered from all regions wherein he has travelled. Round the child’s head was an aureole of emanating rays. As I looked at him in wonder and delight, round crept from behind me the something dark, and the child stood in my shadow. ”

“ Let him people every glen with fairies, every island with Crusoes. Let him gift every bird and beast with human interests, which he will share when the dear fairy godmother arrives with an introduction. ”

“ But perhaps, before going further, you would like to know how the Fairies make the lovely tiles which pave the Hall. It is really rather interesting, and serves to show how very clever they are. Well! This is what they do!
A FLOWER FAIRY.
When the wind blows the petals from the flowers—as it does every day—the Fairies at night time go and collect them. ”

“ He promised her all the grass of the field and all the trees of the forest if she would only tell him what was the matter, and, to satisfy the desire of his sister’s heart, the golden-haired youth set off next morning for the garden of the fairy queen. He went on and on, smoking his chibook and drinking coffee, till he reached the boundaries of the fairy realm. He came to deserts where no caravan had ever gone; he came to mountains where no bird could ever fly; he came to valleys where no serpent can ever crawl. ”

“ I have never seen a man fairy nor a woman fairy, but my mother saw a troop of them. She herself and the other maidens of the townland were once out upon the summer sheiling (grazing) . They were milking the cows, in the evening gloaming, when they observed a flock of fairies reeling and setting upon the green plain in front of the knoll. And, oh King! but it was they the fairies themselves that had the right to the dancing, and not the children of men! ”

“ Fairies black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, [394]
Attend your office and your quality.
Crier Hob-goblin, make the fairy O-yes.
Pist. Elves, list your names! silence, you airy toys!
Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap;
Where fires thou findest unraked, and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:
Our radiant queen, hates sluts and sluttery.
Fals. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.
I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye. ”

“ Why suppose you had found one fairy in your desk, and it had been the Grammar Fairy, or the Football Fairy—what would you have done then?”
“Is there a Football Fairy?” Edwin asked.
“Of course. There’s a fairy for everything you have to learn. There’s a Patience Fairy, and a Good-temper Fairy, and a Fairy to teach people to make bread, and another to teach them to make love. ”

“ So the old fairies put their heads together, to find a proper name for the new fairy flower-baby, that was to live among the cold mountain tops and refuse to be frightened, or frozen, or be driven down lower, or to be cuddled up in meadows, near men’s houses, where it was warm. ”

“ We wonder if she is a fairy, but instantly conclude that she is not, for in measuring out a peck of onions she spills some of them; a small boy laughs at the mishap, and she indignantly shies the measure at his head. Fairies, you know, don't throw peck measures at small boys' heads. ”

“ 'I don't believe in fairies,' there's a fairy somewhere that falls down dead." ”

“ They may even steal quietly in among the great trees, listening, and hoping to hear the low knock of some fairy who will tell them where to find the key which will unlock the door and let her out—for that is the only way one could hope to see a fairy in the daytime. ”

“ The fairy, out of pity for such a fair young girl, who had two spurs to make her fall—little help, and plenty of love for an unknown object—gave her a letter of recommendation to a sister of hers, who was also a fairy. ”

“ A heavenly fairy makes her appearance, and claims the suit of feathers; but the fisherman holds to his treasure trove. She urges the impiety of his act—a mortal has no right to take that which belongs to the fairies. ”

“ As often as they opened their mouths and lips, and let sounds come out of their throats, the fairy would listen and could distinguish between what they said, and what the dogs meant, when they barked, or the horses, when they whinnied. ”

“ There is an old story of a man who lay down to sleep inside a fairy ring, a circle of greener grass where the fairies danced by night. The fairies carried him away and kept him seven years, and after he had been rescued from them he would neither eat nor speak. ”

“ The few stories about fairies that I have been able to collect are given in these pages, and are very much the same as those related in other countries. Of the more elaborate fairy tale—that which recounts the adventures of a life-time, and in which a supernatural being—commonly called a fairy, but who has little or nothing in common with the fays who dance on the green sward by the light of the moon—is the directing influence either for good or bad,—I have been able to discover only the very slightest trace. ”

“ These honest folk used to meet together in the evenings and tell fairy tales, so that they and their little ones, as they grew up in their wooden shoes, might know just what fairies were good for. This was done, because they supposed that everything unusual, or wonderful in nature, was the work of the fairies, and they felt that human beings ought, in other ways, to beat them in a contest of wits. ”