Fairyland

“ To-day the fairies are shy; for so many curious inventions of men have come into use that the wonders of Fairyland are somewhat tame beside them, and even the boys and girls can not be so easily interested or surprised as in the old days. So the sweet and gentle little immortals perform their tasks unseen and unknown, and live mostly in their own beautiful realms, where they are almost unthought of by our busy, bustling world. ”

“ These little creatures were fairies, and ever after dwelt among the Earth children, helping to beautify the world. They wander about us in the moonshine and are sometimes caught in the mist, but they can never come out in the sunlight. One of the laws in Fairyland is to be in bed before the dawn. From dusk until dawn the fairies lead a gay life. They hold their revels, they dance, and they travel the world over, frolicking like mad sometimes, but only the Moon’s white light shines on their silver dresses. ”

“ The old quest of Fairyland is as active now as ever it was. We still presume, in our unworthiness, to pass the barriers, and to walk upon those paths which lead to the enchanted forests and through them to the city of the Moon. ”

“ In the afternoon, as the shadows lengthen, and a slim suspicion of a sea-breeze wafts in from the lagunes, it is fairyland, peopled, if not with fairyfolk, at least with as conglomerate a horde as may be seen in Europe. ”

“ The queen of the fairies took me off to yon green hill, and now I'm a fairy, lithe and limber. In Fairyland we know neither sickness nor pain. We quit our body, or repair unto them, when we please. We can inhabit, earth, or air, as we will. Our shapes and size we can convert to either large or small. We sleep in rose-buds, revel in the stream, wanton lightly on the wind, or glide on a sunbeam. I would never tire, Janet, to dwell in Elfland, were it not that every seven years a tithe is paid to hell, and I am so fair of flesh, I fear 'twill be myself. ”

“ The magician answered: "Between hill and valley and amid the silent ravines dwell the blessed. I will go back once more and search for her there."
So he wandered about on the five holy hills, by the four great rivers and through the islands of the sea. He went everywhere, and finally came to fairyland. ”

“ Now this is Fairy Land, the dear sweet land of Once Upon a Time, where there is constant light, and summer days, and everlasting flowers, and pleasant fields and streams, and long dreams without rough waking, and ease of life, and all things strange and beautiful; where nobody wonders at anything that may happen; where good fairies are ever on the watch to help those whom they love ”

“ Shall we find the realm on sea or land?
In that wonderful hour when dreams come true
There’s a fairy palace for me and you,
I am the Queen you understand,
And you are the King of Fairyland.”
In less time than it takes to tell it, the Fairies led Little Boy into Fairyland.
[66]
They had a Birthday Party and danced round and round in a ring and for all I know they are dancing yet.
If you ever hear an old staircase go “creak, creak” when you are on it, put your ear close to one of the steps and listen. ”

“ That the chief amusement in Fairyland is to stand upon one toe for a distressingly long time.
That the fairies, when they speak, don't seem to have more H.'s to their tongues, than clothes to their backs. ”

“ In previous chapters we have seen that human beings are sometimes taken by fairies into Fairyland, and that they are there kept for a longer or shorter period, or, it may be, are never permitted to return to earth at all. ”

“ Anyhow, the fairies woke up one fine day about the time when your great-grandfather got married, to discover that they were not believed in, so they patched up their quarrel and they sent fairies to cast spells, and any amount of people began to be taken to Fairyland, until at last every one was forced to believe their evidence and to say that Fairyland existed. ”

“ There, too, are legends which resemble those of Orpheus and Eurydike, of Eros and Psyche, of Jason and the Golden Fleece, of the labours of Herakles, of Sigurd and Brynhilt, of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. There, too, in forms which can be traced with ease, we have the stories of Fairyland—the germs of the Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights, the narratives of giants, and dwarfs, and enchanters; of men and maidens transformed by magic arts into beasts and birds ”

“ The writers of such books went in their dreams to Fairyland, invented earth-names for the High Fairies they encountered there, and brought back great annals of adventure. Others of the High Fairies hope that some day a writer will come and give them earth-names, so that they and their adventures may be known by mortals. ”

“ Fairyland exists as a supernormal state of consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams, trances, or in various ecstatic conditions; or for an indefinite period at death. (2) Fairies exist, because in all essentials they appear to be the same as the intelligent forces now recognized by psychical researchers, be they thus collective units of consciousness [Pg 491] like what William James has called ‘soul-stuff’, or more individual units, like veridical apparitions. ”

“ The different stages of this progress have everywhere left their mark on the tales and songs, the sayings and superstitions, the social, religious and political institutions—in other words, on the belief and practice—of mankind.
Starting from these premises, we have examined five groups, or cycles, of tales concerning the Fairy Mythology. We have found Fairyland very human in its organization. Its inhabitants marry, sometimes among themselves, sometimes into mankind. They have children born to them; and they require at such times female assistance. ”

“ She took the little fairy's hand, and up they all rose into the clear air, flying far and far away till they left their fairyland behind and came at last to the sadder lands where humans lived. There Wonderwings showed them where hunger and sorrow and death trampled the10 city streets, and the band of fairies flew lower and lower to look. ”

“ The country people, indeed, did not always clearly distinguish between the Fairies and the dead. They called them both the "Silent People"; and the Milky Way they thought was the path along which the dead were carried to Fairyland. ”

“ Flowers belong to fairyland; the flowers and the birds and the butterflies are all that the world has kept of its Golden Age; the only perfectly beautiful things on earth, joyous, innocent, half divine, useless, say they who are wiser than God. ”

“ A certain woman of whom I knew said she had forgotten all about her experiences in Faerie, but a friend who heard her objected, and said she did remember, and wouldn’t tell. A man may remain awake at night to watch one who has been to Fairyland to see if that one holds communication with the fairies. ”

“ So on his departing out of the fairylands the queen gave him a handful of berries that he might give the giant, that the giant might feast or live on them and sleep in the branches at night, and that his breath might be poison to birds and bees.
The fairies escorted him out of the fairylands, and as he was going up the high mountain he looked back with a sick heart on the mossy paths of the fairylands; perhaps he would never leave foot again on them; and as he ascended the top of the high mountain and looked back once more a great mist shut out the fairylands. ”

“ All across the world, indeed, wherever there were gardened minds tender enough to grow fairy seed, these flakes of thought would settle down in sleep, and blossom in due season into a crop of magic beauty. ”

“ I think that if they gave me leave Within that world to stand, I would be good through all the day I spent in fairyland. They should not hear a word from me Of selfishness or scorn, If only I could find the door, If only I were born. ”

“ And Fairy Land is always the same, and always has been, whether it is close to us—so close that we may enter it in a moment—or whether it is far off; in the stories that have come to us from the most ancient days, and the most distant lands, and in those which kind and clever story-tellers write for us now. It is the same in the legends of the mysterious East, as old as the beginning of life; the same in the glowing South, in the myths of ancient Greece; the same in the frozen regions of the Scandinavian North, and in the forests of the great Teuton land, and in the Islands of the West ”

“ Some say that one of the fairies brings the dreams. They say that it is Queen Mab, a queen of the fairies, who brings them. The following poem tells about this good fairy, who flutters down from the moon. It tells how she waves her silver wand above the heads of boys and girls when they are asleep. Then, at once, they begin to dream. They dream of the pleasantest things. They dream of delicious fruit trees and bubbling [Pg 7] fountains. Sometimes, like Tom, they dream of an elf or a dwarf who leads them over fairy hills to fairyland itself. ”

“ From the top of the high bridge they could see far away the magnificent spires and splendid domes of the superb city, sparkling like brilliant jewels as they towered above the emerald walls. The shaggy man drew a deep breath of awe and amazement, for never had he dreamed that such a grand and beautiful place could exist—even in the fairyland of Oz. ”

“ and if we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly I was. ”

“ We see many fine sunsets here, unique in the splendour of their colour. No doubt the surroundings in this fairyland of blue and white do much to increase their beauty. ”

“ Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes, and lofty souls, even though in a hovel or a mine, there is Fairyland." ”

“ The Seven Crickets in the hedge are still, the birds sleep in their nests, the brook dreams of the mountain home it stole away from yester morning. Tell me, therefore, whence comes this wondrous fairy music, and show me the strange musicians that make it."
"Look to the grass and the flowers," said the fairy queen. "In every blade and in every bud lie hidden notes of fairy music. Each violet and daisy and buttercup,—every modest wild-flower (no matter how hidden) gives glad response to the tinkle of fairy feet. ”

“ For just what the flower says to you, would the face and form of the fairy say; only so much more plainly as a face and human figure can express more than a flower. For the house or the clothes, though like the inhabitant or the wearer, cannot be wrought into an equal power of utterance. Yet you would see a strange resemblance, almost oneness, between the flower and the fairy, which you could not describe, but which described itself to you. Whether all the flowers have fairies, I cannot determine, any more than I can be sure whether all men and women have souls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ One need but to recall A Midsummer Night's Dream to realise how important and how delicate and pleasing was the charm pertaining to fairy lore. Beauty was the most characteristic attribute of the fairies. Not only were they beautiful in face and form, but also beautiful in all their surroundings. When they rode abroad they were mounted on the best of horses, slenderly shaped and delicately prancing. None of such quality were ever possessed by mortals. In the fields the fairies flew hawks superior in breed and training to the best that belonged to human beings. ”

“ The fairy had a splendid mansion constructed for the boy, and a chariot, made of shells, and little fairy horses, so small that it took six of them to draw him. He had servants to wait on him, his table was supplied every day, with the most luscious fruits; he heard the sweetest music, and the fairy herself used to spend the most of her time with him, yet she noticed that he was often silent and sad. One day she found him weeping, and begged him to tell her the cause of his grief,—if there was anything yet wanting to complete his happiness? ”