Fey

“ But before they left their shelter she broke off a little bit of the rock, spoke some magic words over it, and threw it in the direction her mother was coming from. In a moment a glittering palace arose before the eyes of the Fairy which blinded her with its dazzling splendour, and with its many doors and passages prevented her for some time from finding her way out of it. In the meantime the black girl hurried on with the Prince, hastening to reach the river, where once on the other side they would for ever be out of the wicked Fairy’s power. ”

“ So, with the help of her friend, the queen soon made ready her pasty and carried it to the Lion Fairy.
‘Not enough pepper,’ said the giantess, gulping down large morsels, in order the hide the surprise she felt. ‘Well, you have escaped this time, and I am glad to find I have got a companion a little more intelligent than the others I have tried. Now, you had better go and build yourself a house.’
So the queen wandered away, and picking up a small axe which lay near the door she began with the help of her friend the frog to cut down some cypress trees for the purpose. ”

“ But there was a time when "fairy" suggested also the knights and ladies of romance, about whom fine spirited tales were told when the world was younger. Spenser's Faery Queen, for instance, deals with dream-people, beautiful and brave, as do the old stories of Arthur and Roland; people who either [12] never lived, or who, having lived, were glorified and magnified by tradition out of all kinship with common men. Our fairies are fairies in the modern sense. We will make it a rule, from the beginning, that they must be small, and we will put out any who are above the regulation height. ”

“ One was bright and glittering, and drawn by swans and peacocks, while the Fairy who sat in it was beautiful as a sunbeam; but the other was drawn by bats and ravens, and contained a frightful little Dwarf, who was dressed in a snake’s skin, and wore a great toad upon her head for a hood. The chariots met with a frightful crash in mid-air, and the Princess looked on in breathless anxiety while a furious battle took place between the lovely Fairy with her golden lance, and the hideous little Dwarf and her rusty pike. ”

“ The beautiful Rainbow informed Fairer-than-a-Fairy that he was young, the son of a powerful king, and that the Fairy, Lagree, who owed his parents a grudge, had revenged herself by depriving him of his natural shape for some years; that she had imprisoned him in the palace, where he had found his confinement hard to bear for some time, but now, he owned, he no longer sighed for freedom since he had seen and learned to love Fairer-than-a-Fairy. ”

“ I condemn you to resemble the animals whose ways you have imitated. You have made yourself like the lion by your anger, and like the wolf by your greediness. Like a snake, you have ungratefully turned upon one who was a second father to you; your churlishness has made you like a bull. Therefore, in your new form, take the appearance of all these animals.’
The Fairy had scarcely finished speaking when Prince Darling saw to his horror that her words were fulfilled. ”

“ Although his task was no easier than that of the day before, the youth set out much more cheerfully, because he knew he could count on the help of the black girl. With quicker and lighter step he crossed the bridge of clouds, and hardly had he reached the other side than his friend stood before him and greeted him cheerfully. When she heard what the Fairy demanded this time, she answered smilingly, ‘Never fear,’ and handed him another draught, which very soon caused the Prince to sink into a deep sleep. ”

“ Some sea-gods had accompanied the Fairy. Their applause was the first effect produced by the charms of the fortunate Plousine. She looked at her image in the water, and could not recognise herself. Her silence and her astonishment were for the moment the only indications of her thankfulness.
"I have fulfilled all your wishes," said the generous Fairy. "You ought to be content; but I shall not be so if my favours do not far exceed your desires. In addition to the wit and beauty I have endowed you with, I bestow on you all the treasures at my disposal. They are inexhaustible. ”

“ There was the little fairy just appearing above the tops of his knees, — brown hood, brown cloak, brown staff, and all. She sat down with her staff in her hand and nodded to him, smiling. “Good-morning,” she said.
“Good-morning,” said Teddy. “Mrs. Fairy, I was wondering whether you wouldn’t like it if I kept my knees down, and then there wouldn’t be any hill.”
“No,” said the fairy, “I like to be up high so that I can look about me, only it’s hard climbing sometimes. Now, how about a story? Would you like to see one to-day?” ”

“ The Fairy-lore of the North of France, at least of Normandy, is, as was to be expected, similar to that of the other portions of the Gotho-German race. We meet it in the fées or fairies, and the lutins or gobelins, which answer to the Kobolds, Nisses, and such like of those nations. [546]
The Fées are small and handsome in person; they are [Pg 473] fond of dancing in the night-time, and in their dances which are circular they form the Cercles des Fées, or fairy-rings. If any one approaches their dance, he is irresistibly impelled to take part in it. ”

“ But no sooner had he struck the first blow with his axe than it broke into a thousand pieces against the tree. The poor youth was so terrified he did not know what to do, for he was in mortal dread of the punishment the wicked old Fairy would inflict on him. He wandered to and fro in the wood, not knowing where he was going, and at last, worn out by fatigue and misery, he sank on the ground and fell fast asleep.
He did not know how long he had slept when a sudden sound awoke him, and opening his eyes he saw a black girl standing beside him. ”

“ At any rate, he carried me off at a prodigious speed, and set me gently down in this very castle of which you are now the master. We entered by one of the windows, and when the Bird had handed me over to the Giant from whom you have been good enough to deliver me, and given the Fairy’s message, it departed.
‘Then the Giant turned to me, saying,
‘“So you are an idler! Ah! well, we must teach you to work. You won’t be the first we have cured of laziness. ”

“ Meantime the Fairy had carried off the little Prince to her own castle, and placed him under the care of a young peasant woman, whom she bewitched so as to make her think that this new baby was one of her own children. So the Prince grew up healthy and strong, leading the simple life of a young peasant, for the Fairy thought that he could have no better training; only as he grew older she kept him more and more with herself, that his mind might be cultivated and exercised as well as his body. ”

“ Fairy’s appearance in the shed caused the stranger to turn round, and seeing a lady he took off his hat and bowed so profoundly, at the same time stepping back, and gracefully hinting, by a wave of his hand, that his business would wait till hers was concluded, removed any lingering doubts in her mind as to his nationality. He was French, she was sure, and for the first time in her life, to her knowledge, Fairy found herself face to face with a Frenchman, as great a curiosity then as a Japanese or Chinaman is now. ”

“ When she awoke the next morning the Fairy appeared to her with a gracious smile upon her countenance, which she had not seen her wear since the fatal day she had requested the gift of love. "At length," said the kind Fairy, "I have fortunately brought you hither. Your heart is free, and therefore it may be happy. I have cured you of a baneful passion; but, Hebe, may I trust that the fearful torments to which you have been exposed will sufficiently induce you to shun for ever those places in which you might chance to meet the ungrateful Atimir." ”

“ Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin. He was very much surprised, and sat down in a corner of his room feeling quite ashamed of himself.
“I believe the Fairy is laughing at me,” he thought. “Surely I can have done no great wrong in just kicking a tiresome animal! What is the good of my being ruler of a great kingdom if I am not even allowed to beat my own dog?” ”

“ Hundreds of years passed by, for in fairy land, there are no clocks. Still the pair of pigeons did their work faithfully, for they loved it. By [125] her spell, Queen Freya kept these carrier pigeons ever young and strong, for she had a secret power, by which they became like herself, and never grew old.
But by and bye, it came to pass that Queen Freya took off the spell, and let the two white doves become carrier pigeons, and unharnessed again. Then, like other birds, they cooed and billed, and laid eggs, and reared their young, and yet were good carriers, stronger and better than ever. ”

“ While, as we have seen, the fairies are endowed with many supernatural qualities, they have much in common with ordinary mortals; there are fairy [Pg 56] men, fairy women, and fairy children. I have more than once heard of a fairy's funeral; they intermarry with mortals, and I have been told that those who bear the name of Ferris are descended from fairies. I presume Ferris is a corruption of Fir Sidhe. Fairies are never associated with churchyards, nor are they usually looked on as the spirits of the departed. The banshee may, indeed, partake to some extent of a ghostly character. ”

“ He had hardly spoken these words when the lid of the box fell back on the floor with a terrible noise, and to their horror out sprang the Yellow Dwarf, mounted upon a great Spanish cat. “Rash youth!” he cried, rushing between the Fairy of the Desert and the King. “Dare to lay a finger upon this illustrious Fairy! Your quarrel is with me only. I am your enemy and your rival. That faithless Princess who would have married you is promised to me. See if she has not upon her finger a ring made of one of my hairs. ”

“ The good Fairy, who had saved her life by condemming her to sleep one hundred years, was in the kingdom of Matakin, twelve thousand leagues off, when this accident befel the Princess, but she was instantly informed of it by a little Dwarf, who had boots of seven leagues, that is, boots with which he could tread over seven leagues of ground at one stride. The Fairy left the kingdom immediately, and arrived at the palace in about an hour after, in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons. ”

“ Here you see him by the river; how tired his Frog looks! He is talking to the Water Fairy. Well, he and the Water Fairy had a long talk, and the end of it was that the Fairy found only one way of{20} saving the Princess. She flew to the King, and said, “I can only help you by making the Princess vanish clean away. I have a bird here on whose back she can fly away in safety. The Dwarf will not get her, but you will never see her again, unless a brave Prince can find her where she is hidden, and guarded by my Water Fairies.” ”

“ I am rather a gossip, and I can tell you some surprising things that you will like to hear. Don’t imagine that you are the daughter of the poor laborer who brought you up; your mother was a queen who had six girls already, and the King threatened that unless she had a son who could inherit his kingdom she should have her head cut off.
“So when the Queen had another little daughter she was quite frightened, and agreed with her sister (who was a fairy) to exchange her for the fairy’s little son. ”

“ I am pursued by rats.’
The Prince when he heard this got up also, and ran after the King, and they had not gone far when they both fell into the river and were never heard of again.
Then the good Fairy ran to tell the Queen, and they went together to the black dungeon where Delicia was imprisoned. The Fairy touched each door with her wand, and it sprang open instantly, but they had to go through forty before they came to the Princess, who was sitting on the floor looking very dejected. ”

“ Fairy, who had of course often seen the carnival before, was full of childish delight at the prospect, and kept assuring Rex it was the most wonderful sight he had ever seen; there was nothing like it in England; she was sure he would be enchanted; the only drawback was there were sure to be one or two riots, as some turbulent spirits always insulted the Roman Catholics before the evening was over.
“Well, I hope they won’t insult my father; he is a Roman Catholic,” said Rex.
“Your father a Roman Catholic, Rex! Are you one, too?” asked Fairy, turning a little pale. ”

“ However, at last we stopped at a large farm, and the farmer and his wife ran out as soon as they saw the Fairy, and helped us to dismount.
‘I knew that they were really a King and Queen, whom the Fairies were punishing for their ignorance and idleness. You may imagine that I was by this time half dead with fatigue, but Mirlifiche insisted upon my feeding her unicorn before I did anything else. To accomplish this I had to climb up a long ladder into the hayloft, and bring down, one after another, twenty-four handfuls of hay. ”

“ He sent for his horses presently, and drove Miss Mordaunt and her niece to all the beautiful spots in the neighborhood; and he joined Fay in her canters through the lanes, and found fault with Fairy, much to her little mistress’s dismay; but Fay blushed very prettily when one day a beautiful little chestnut mare, with a lady’s side-saddle, was brought to the cottage-door, where Fay was waiting in her habit.
“I want you to try Bonnie Bell,” he said, carelessly, as he put her on her saddle. “You ride perfectly, and Fairy is not half good enough for you;” ”