every corner of the forest, and returned from his sleeveless errand, not a little vexed at his disappointment. "A fool," says he, "I went, and a fool I returned." Alfred Maury, Les Forêts de la Gaule, 1867, p. 331.

Fairies in Scotland.—It appears that in Scotland formerly "Fairies held from time immemorial certain fields which could not be taken away without gratifying those merry sprites by a piece of money" but that at a later period (the 18th century) "Fairies, without requiring compensation, have renounced their possessions." From the same source we derive the following details respecting a remarkably romantic linn formed by the water of the Crichup, co. Dumfries, inaccessible in a great measure to real beings. Stat. Acc. of Scotland, xxi., 148. "This linn was considered as the habitation of imaginary ones; and at the entrance into it there was a curious cell or cave, called the Elf's Kirk, where, according to the superstition of the times, the imaginary inhabitants of the Linn were supposed to hold their meetings. This cave, proving a good free stone quarry, has lately (1794) been demolished for the purpose of building houses, and from being the abodes of elves, has been converted into habitations for men." Ibid., xiii., 245. "The Queen of Fairie, mentioned in Jean Weir's Indictment, is probably the same Sovereign with the Queen of Elf-land, who makes a figure in the case of Alison Pearson, 15th May, 1588; which I believe is the first of the kind in the Record.' Additions and Notes to Maclaurin's Arguments and Decisions in remarkable Cases. Law Courts, Scotland, 1774, p. 726. In 1795, the statistical report on Stronsay and Eday, two parishes in Orkney, supplied the annexed items of information: "The common people of this district remain to this day so credulous, as to think that fairies do exist: that an inferior species of witchcraft is still practiced, and that houses have been haunted, not only in former ages, but that they are haunted, at least noises are heard which cannot be accounted for on rational principles, even in our days. An instance of the latter happened only three years ago, in the house of John Spence, boat-carpenter." xv., 430. Under another head (Parish of Kirkmichael) the report states: "Not more firmly established in this country is the belief in ghosts than that in fairies. The legendary records of fancy, transmitted from age to age, have assigned their mansions to that class of genii, in detached hillocks covered with verdure, situated on the banks of purling brooks, or surrounded by thickets of wood.

In

These hillocks are called sioth-dhunan, abbreviated sioth-anan, from sioth, peace, and dun, a mound. They derive this name from the practice of the Druids, who. were wont occasionally to retire to green eminences to administer justice, establish peace, and compose differences between As that venerable contending parties. order taught a Saoghl hal, or World beyond the present, their followers, when they were no more, fondly imagined, that seats where they exercised a virtue so beneficial to mankind, were still inhabited by them in their disembodied state. the autumnal season, when the moon shines from a serene sky, often is the wayfaring traveller arrested by the musick of the hills, more melodious than the straine of Orpheus. Often struck with a more solemn scene, he beholds the visionary hunters engaged in the chace, and pursuing the deer of the clouds, while the hollow rocks, in long-sounding echoes, reverberate their cries. "There are several now living, who assert that they have seen and heard this aërial hunting, and that they have been suddenly surby a multitude of voices. rounded by visionary forms, and assailed About fifty years ago (this was written about 1793), a clergyman in the neighbourhood, whose cism of philosophy than the credulity of faith was more regulated by the sceptito yield his assent to the opinion of the superstition, could not be prevailed upon times. At length, however, he felt from experience that he doubted what he ought to have believed. One night as he was returning home, at a late hour, from a presbytery, he was seized by the fairies, and carried aloft into the air. Through fields of æther and fleecy-clouds he journied many a mile, descrying, like Sancho Panza on his Clavileno, the earth far distant below him, and no bigger than a nut-shell. Being thus sufficiently convinced of the reality of their existence, they let him down at the door of his own house, where he afterward often recited to the wondering circle the marvellous tale of his adventure," xii., 461. A note adds: "Notwithstanding the progressive increase of knowledge and proportional decay of superstition in the Highlands, these genii are still supposed by many of the people to exist in the woods and sequestered valleys of the mountains, where they frequently appear to the lonely traveller, clothed in green, with dishevelled hair floating over their shoulders, and with faces more blooming than the vermil blush of a summer morning. At night in particular, when fancy assimilates to its own preconceived ideas every appearance and every sound, the wandering enthusiast is frequently entertained by their musick, more melodious

than he ever before heard. It is curious to observe, how much this agreeable delusion corresponds with the superstitious opinion of the Romans, concerning the same class of genii, represented under different names. The Epicurean Lucretius describes the credulity in the following beautiful verses:

Hæc loca capripedes satyros, nymphasque tenere

Finitimi pingunt, et faunos esse loquuntur;

Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti Adfirmant

volgo

taciturna silentia rumpi Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulcesque querelas

Tibia quas fundit digitas pulsata canentum":

A farther note by Brand himself in reference to the above incident says:

"In plain English, I should suspect that spirits of a different sort from fairies had taken the honest clergyman by the head, and though he has omitted the circumstance in his marvellous narration, I have no doubt but that the good man saw double on the occasion, and that his own mare, not fairies, landed him safe at his own door."

:

In a statistical report of the condition of Strachur and Stralachlan, co. Argyle, in the 18th century, occurs the subjoined passage: "About eight miles to the eastward of Cailleachvear, a small conical hill rises considerably above the neighbouring hills. It is seen from Inverary, and from many parts at a great distance. It is called Sien-Sluia, the fairy habitation of a multitude": adding in a note, "A belief in fairies prevailed very much in the Highlands of old nor at this day is it quite obliterated. A small conical hill, called Sien, was assigned them for a dwelling, from which melodious music was frequently heard, and gleams of light seen in dark nights." Stat. Acc., iv., 560. Pinkerton, writing in 1799, informs us that "The fairies are little beings of doubtful character, some times benevolent, sometimes mischievous. On Hallowe'en and on some other evenings, they and the Gyar-Carlins are sure to be abroad and to stap those they meet and are displeased with, full of butter and heare-awns. In winter nights they are heard curling on every sheet of ice. Having a septennial sacrifice of a human being to make to the Devil, they sometimes carry away children, leaving little vixens of their own in the cradle. diseases of cattle are very commonly attributed to their mischievous operation. Cows are often elf-shot." Heron's Journey, ii., 227. A writer describing the superstitions current in the vicinity of

The

"In pri

St. Andrew's, Scotland, says: vate breweries, to prevent the interference of the fairies, a live coal is thrown into the vat. A cow's milk no fairy can take away, if a burning coal is conducted. across her back and under her belly immediately after her delivery. The same mischievous elves cannot enter into a house. at night if, before bedtime, the lower end of the crook or iron chain, by which a vessel is suspended over the fire, be raised up a few links." Letter from Professor Playfair to Mr. Brand, January 26, 1804.

Fairy Butter. A species of gela-tine. See Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830, p. 108.

Fairy Poetry. In the "Maydes Metamorphosis," 1601, occurs the following fairy song:

"Round about, round about, in a fine

ring-a:

green-a,

All about, in and out, for our brave queen-a.

We've danc'd round about in a fine ring-a:

We have danc'd lustily, and thus we sing-a:

All about, in and out, over this green-a, To and fro, trip and go, to our brave queen-a."

So, again, Drayton :

"Doron. Come, frolick youth, and follow me,

My frantique bov. and I'le show thee The countrey of the fayries." -Muses Elizium, 1630, p. 24. Randolph describes fairy hunting:

"Dor. I hope King Oberon and his royal Mab are well?

Joe. They are. I never saw their
Graces eat such a meal before.
Joe. They are rid a hunting.
Dor. Hare, or deer, my lord?

Joe. Neither: a brace of snails of the first head."

I find the following in Herrick's "Hespe-rides:

"The Fairies."

If ye will with Mab finde grace, Set each platter in its place; Rake the fier up and get Water in ere sun be set:

Wash your pailes and clense your
dairies,

Sluts are loathsome to the fairies:
Sweep your house, who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe."

There are some allusions in Corbet's ballad entitled "The Fairies Farewell." "Farewell rewards and fairies,

Good house wives now may say;
For now fowle sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they :

And, though they sweepe their hearths no lesse

Then maides were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for cleanlinesse
Findes six pence in her shooe?

Lament, lament. old Abbies,
The fairies lost command,
They did but change priest's babies,
And now grown puritanes,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleepe and sleath
These pretty ladies had :
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cisse to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.
Witnesse those rings and roundelayes
Of theirs which yet remaine,
Were footed in Queene Maries dayes
On many a grassy plaine.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And who so kept not secretly
Their mirth was punisht sure.
It was a iust and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blew :

O how the Common-wealth doth need
Such Iustices as you!"

"A roasted ant that's nicely done By one small atom of the sun; These are flies eggs in moon - shine poach'd;

This is a flea's thigh in collops scotch'd, 'Twas hunted yesterday i' th' Park, And like t' have scap'd us in the dark. This is a dish entirely new,

Butterflies brains dissolv'd in dew; These lovers' vows, these courtiers' hopes.

Things to be eat by microscopes : These sucking mites, a glow-worm's heart,

This is a delicious rainbow-tart."

King's Works, 1776, 111, 112. And Pope

says:

"Of airy elves by moon-light shadows

seen,

The silver token and the circled green." -Rape of the Lock.

Fairs. A fair is a greater kind of market, granted to any town by privilege, for the more speedy and commodious providing of such things as the place stands in need of. Fairs are generally kept once or twice in a year. Proclamation is to be made how long they are to continue, and no person is allowed to sell any goods after the time of the fair is ended, on forfeiture of double their value. The term appears to be derived from Latin foris, outside the town, whence the French foire, because fairs, as distinguished from markets, were held beyond the urban precincts. Warton tells us, that before flourishing towns were established, and the necessaries of life, from the convenience of communication and the increase of provincial civility, could be procured in various places, goods and commodities of every kind were chiefly sold at fairs; to these, as to one

"There is Mab, the mistress fairy,
That doth nightly rob the dairy,
And can help or hurt the churning
As she please, without discerning.
She that pinches country wenches
If they rub not clean their benches :
And with sharper nails remembers,
When they rake not up the embers.
But if so they chance to feast her,
In their shooe she drops a tester.
This is she that empties cradles,
Takes out children, puts in ladles.
Trains forth midwives in their slum-
ber

With a sive, the holes to number;

And then leads them from their boroughs

Thorough ponds and water-furrows."

odically, and supplied most of their wants for the ensuing year. The display of merchandise and the conflux of customers, at these principal and almost only emporia of domestic commerce, were prodigious and they were often held on open and extensive plains on that account as well as to prevent infection. Robert of Brunne, in 1303, notices that fairs disappeared in a night. He likens to their short existence ill-gotten wealth:

"Here mayst thou se, euyl wunne thyng,

With eyre shal neuer make gode endyng; Namly with thyng of holy cherche

Shalt thou neuer spede wel to werche, That mayst thou se by parsones eyres: Hyt fareth wyth hem as doth with these

feyres;

Now ys the feyre byggede weyl,
And on the morne ys ther neuer a deyl.
Ryche tresoure now furthe men leye,
And on the touther day hyt ys all
aweye."

:

Handlyng Synne, i. ed. Furnivall, p.
292. A constant incidence of the grant
of manors in ancient times was the leave
to establish local fairs and markets, to
the tolls of which the lord might be en-
titled, and which would gradually tend to
develope his property. Of attend-
ance at fairs on the Sabbath, Humphrey
Roberts of King's Langley speaks in his
Complaint for Reformation,' 1572:
"Leaue therefore," he says,
66 your care-
full toyle and labours vpon the Saboth
day as cartyng, carying of sackes and
packes, byinge and sellyng: yea keping
of faiers and markets-." Sometimes,
when the day fell on the Sabbath, the fair
was held on the Monday, as Hearne says
of Wantage Fair in 1723, where among
other sports introduced were backsword or
cudgel-play between the hill-country and
the vale-country, Berkshire being cele-
brated for this amusement. Wantage at
this time enjoyed three fairs, one on July
7 (Translation of St. Thomas á Becket), a
second on October 6 (St. Faith's Day),
and a third, then of recent origin, called
the Constable's Fair, granted by the high
constable after being chosen for Wantage.
Hearne's Diary, July 10, 1723. In 1872
the fairs at Charlton, near Woolwich, and
Blackheath, were held for the last time.
The former was known as Horn Fair, and
from the disorderly character of the pro-
ceedings arose the proverb, "All is fair
at Horn Fair." Hazlitt's Proverbs, 1882,
p. 49. Greenwich Fair was still kept within
living memory, one of the attractions being
that of rolling down the hill. There
is a small broadside account in dog-
gerel verse of the humours of Bow Fair.
Among the attendants at fairs in the
olden time, the sharpers and pickpockets
mustered pretty strongly. In the ballad
of "Ragged and Torn and True," it is
said:

"The pick-pockets in a throng,
At a market or a faire,
Will try whose purse is strong,

haps intentionally) leaving the door unlocked, they all decamped.

There are two old English proverbs that relate to fairs: "Men speak of the fair as things went with them there"; as also, "To come a day after the fair." The first seems intended to rhyme. The second is still perfectly common.

Mr. Cornelius Walford has collected in his volume on the subject, 1883, a large body of information on Fairs in England, their origin, antiquity, development, and disappearance. Some of those still held date from AngloSaxon times, and were established by virtue of royal grants; they necessarily occasioned a body of statutory enactments peculiarly bearing on their incidence, of which not the least remarkable and troublesome was the complication arising from the strong alien element in these institutions. C. Walford, Fairs, Past and Present, 1883, p. 19, et seqq.; Wheatley, Round about Piccadilly and Pall Mall, 1870, pp. 200-02. In his valuable paper on the King's Peace, Mr. Hubert Hall has explained the meaning and origin of the Peace of the Fair," other words the official regulations for the maintenance of order and justice in view of the large body of foreigners whom these institutions gradually attracted. Antiquary, November 1888, p. 189.

and at

or in

more

At the Lammas Fair at Exeter and at Barnstaple the opening of the proceedings was denoted by the hoisting of a large glove on a pole, the latter place, in recent times, the pole was dressed III. c. 13, it was ordered that "A cry with dahlias. By the Statute of 2 Edw. shalbe made at the begynnyng of euery feyre how longe it shall indure & that none shall sell after vpon payne to be greThe authority of the proprietor or lord uously punyshed agaynst the Kynge.' of the fair was only co-existent in duration with the fair itself; merchants continuing to trade after the legal conclusion of the fair were amerced in double the value of the goods so sold; nothing but the necessaries of life were to be on sale on feast-days and Sundays; except only "fore sonday in the heruyst"; the Londoners were permitted to attend all fairs under pain of ten pounds' fine to the hinderer or hinderers. The articles

are