them and took notice of them, they were struck blind of an eye. They lived under ground, and generally came out of a molehill.”

The Dæmonology of King James is our authority for the statements that "there was a King and Queene of Pharie; that they had a jolly Court and Traine; that they had a Teynd and Duetie, as it were, of all goods. They naturally rode and went, eate and dranke, and dic all other actions like natural Men and Women. Witches have been transported with the Pharie to a Hill, which opening, they went in and there saw a faire Queene, who, being now lighter, gave them a Stone that had sundrie Virtues."

The Phoenix Britannicus of Morgan reprints a curious tract (1696), purporting to give an account of one Anne Jefferies of Cornwall, who for six months was fed by "a small sort of airy people called fairies,” and of the marvellous cures she effected with the aid of salves and medicines obtained from the ministering sprites, "for which she never took one penny of her patients." The tract, which is most circumstantial, giving the date of her birth, in the parish of St Teath in Cornwall, as December 1626, and affirming the fact of her being alive at the period of its writing, besides particulars of her marriage, deposes that as she was one day in 1645 knitting in an arbour in the garden there came over the hedge, of a sudden, "six persons of a small stature all clothed in green, which frighted her so much as to throw her into a great sickness. They continued their appearance to her, never less than two at a time, nor never more than eight, always in even numbers; 2, 4, 6, 8." Thereupon she ceased to eat the food provided by the family in whose service she was, being fed by these fairies from harvest time to the ensuing Christmas day; upon which she went to the family table, and said she would partake of some roast beef by reason of the festival; and she accordingly did so, One day she gave the writer of the narrative a piece of her fairy bread, which proved to be the most delicious he ever ate, either before or since; and, on another, his sister Mary was presented by these entities with a silver cup, of the capacity of a quart, which she was bidden to give to her mother, but which the dame refused to accept. Although he never himself set eyes on the fairies, he presumes it was on this occasion that his sister saw them, as she represented. Anne used to be dancing among the trees in the orchard, and she affirmed that it was in their company. Be the explanation of her visions what it may, however, it appears that Anne was afterwards thrown into gaol as an impostor, and we have no explanation of the singular fact that the fairies, like false friends of earth, forsook her in the season of her adversity.

Their haunts were thought to be groves, mountains, the southern slopes of hills, and verdant meadows, in which their diversion was dancing hand-in-hand in a circle; and the traces of their tiny feet, which were held to be visible on the grass long afterwards, were called fairy rings. Thus, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, we have

"To dance on ringlets to the whistling wind;"

and again in the Tempest

"Ye elves you demy puppets, that

By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites."

Ringlets of grass, annotates Guy, “are very common in meadows, which are higher, sourer, and of a deeper green than the grass that grows round them; and by the common people are usually called Fairy Circles."

So also we have

“To dew her orbs upon the green;"

which Johnson explains to be the circles, whose verdure is due to the careful watering of them by the fairies.

Thus Drayton

"They in their courses make that round

In meadows and in marshes found,

Of them so called the Fairy Ground."

In Randolph's Amyntas we read

"They do request you now

To give them leave to dance a Fairy Ring;"

and Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (1614) describes

"A pleasant mead

Where fairies often did their measures tread,
Which in the meadows made such circles green
As if with garlands it had crownèd been.
Within one of these rounds was to be seen
A hillock rise, where oft the Fairy Queen
At twilight sat."

"They had fine music always among themselves," writes the author of Round about our Coal-fire, "and danced in a moonshiny night, around or in a ring, as one may see at this day upon every common in England where mushrooms grow."

The Athenian Oracle embodies the popular belief that, if a house were erected on ground marked with these fairy rings, those who inhabited it would prosper amazingly; and Waldron, in his description of the Isle of Man, testifies to having seen these circles frequently, and to having once thought he heard a whistle as it were in his ear, when nobody was beside him to make it.

Some refer the phenomena to the operation of electricity, as they frequently appear after heavy storms, the colour and the < brittleness of the grass-roots favouring the theory. In the Philosophical Transactions it is recorded that Mr Walker, on going out after a storm of thunder and lightning, observed a circle of about five yards in diameter, the rim of which was nearly a foot broad, newly burnt bare, as was evidenced by the hue and frangibility of the roots. Others take them to be the signs of moles working runs for themselves underground; but it may be questioned whether their operations are conducted in a circular manner. Thus Pennant's British Zoology (1776) speaks of their "burrowings by circumgyrations," which, loosening the soil, imparted to the surface a

greater fertility and rankness of grass than is attained by the other parts within or without the rings. In short, Fancy has exercised herself in endeavouring to account for these objects, and people have not been wanting even to regard them as trenches dug out by the early inhabitants of Britain, and used for celebration either of sports or of religious rites. The clearest and most satisfactory explanation of fairy rings probably is that by Dr Wollaston, contained in the Philosophical Transactions (for 1807). As the result of observations pursued for years in the country, that authority decides that their appearance is caused by the growth of a certain species of agaric, which so entirely absorbs all nutriment from the soil beneath that the herbage is for a time destroyed.

Endowed with all the passions and wants of human beings, fairies were represented to be great lovers and exemplars of cleanliness and propriety. For the due observance of these virtues they were said frequently to reward good servants by dropping money into their shoes during the night; and their neglect was punished most severely by the pinching of sluts and slovens till they were black and blue. Thus in the old ballad of Robin Goodfellow

"Cricket to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap

Where fires thou find'st unrak'd and hearths unswept ;
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry :
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery."

So in Luellin (1679)—

"We nere pity Girles that doe
Find no treasure in their shoe,
But are nip't by the tyrannous Fairy.

List! the noice of the Chaires
Wakes the Wench to her pray'rs.
Queen Mab comes worse than a Witch in;

Back and sides she entailes

To the print of her nailes :

She'l teach her to snort in the Kitchin."

Again in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (1614) —

-"Where oft the Fairy Queen

At twilight sat and did command her Elves

To pinch those Maids that had not swept their shelves;
And further, if by Maidens oversight

Within doors water was not brought at Night;

Or if they spread no Table, set no bread,

They shall have Nips from Toe unto the head:

And for the Maid that had perform'd each thing
She in the Water-pail bade leave a Ring."

"When the master and mistress were laid on their pillows, the men and maids, if they had a game at romps and blundered upstairs, or jumbled a chair, the next morning every one would swear 'twas the fairies, and that they heard them stamping up and downstairs all night, crying, Waters lock'd, Waters lock'd, when there was not

water in every pail in the kitchen."

The passage is taken from

Round about our Coal-fire.

Herrick's reference is as follows

"If ye will with Mab finde grace,

Set each platter in its place;

Rake the Fire up and get

Water in ere Sun be set :

Wash your pales and cleanse your daries,
Sluts are loathsome to the Fairies:
Sweep your house; who doth not so

Mab will pinch her by the Toe."

"Grant that the sweet fairies may nightly put money in your shoes, and sweepe your house cleane," is one of the good wishes introduced by Holyday in his comedy of Technogamia.

Under the head of Superstitions and Customs relating to children, the practice of fairies stealing unbaptized infants and replacing them with their own progeny has before been noticed. We know not why, but they are reported to have been particularly fond of making cakes, and to have been most noisy during their operations. Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589) ascribes the superstition to nurses and, a century later, the Irish Hudibras has an allusion to it

"Drink dairies dry, and stroke the cattle;

Steal sucklings, and through keyholes sling,
Topeing and dancing in a ring."

Gay's Fable of the Mother, Nurse and Fairy laughs at the notion of changelings, a fairy's tongue being the vehicle of his elegant ridicule

"Whence sprung the vain, conceited lie
That we the world with fools supply?
What! give our sprightly race away
For the dull, helpless sons of clay?
Besides, by partial fondness shown,
Like you, we doat upon our own.
Wherever yet was found a mother
Who'd give her booby for another?

And, should we change with human breed,
Well might we pass for fools indeed."

Mount Tabor (1639) records an extraordinary accident that befell the author, a native of Gloucestershire, while he was still in swaddling clothes, indeed, within a few days of his birth. He was taken out of the bed from beside his mother, "and by my suddain and fierce crying recovered again, being found sticking between the bed's head and the wall: and if I had not cryed in that manner as I did, our gossips had a conceit that I had been quite carried away by the fairies they know not whither, and some one else, or changeling (as they call it) laid in my room." He gives the narrative as supplied by the gossips, but charges the Devil with the attempted abduction. "Whatever the midwives talk of it, it came from the malice of that arch enemy of mankind who is continually going about seeking whom he may betray

and devoure;" and he blesses God for His goodness in preserving him from "the manifold plots and stratagems of destruction" of the Evil One, "so as now in the seventieth yeare of mine age, I yet live to praise and magnifie His wonderfull mercies towards me in this behalfe."

In the island of Lewis, one of the Western Islands, Martin says it was a time-honoured custom to make a fiery circle about the houses, corn, cattle, and other property belonging to each individual family. This ceremony, which they called Dessil, from "dess" signifying the hand used therein, consisted in a man carrying fire around in his right hand; and it was also adopted in the case of women before churching, and of children prior to their christening, the ceremony being repeated both in the morning and at night. It was held to be effectual for the preservation of both mothers and infants from the influence of evil spirits, who were reputed ready at such times to do mischief by carrying off the latter and returning them poor meagre skeletons, with "voracious appetites, constantly craving for meat." Those who believed that their children had been thus abducted were wont to dig a grave in the field upon quarter-day, and thereon to deposit the "fairy skeleton" till next morning, when the parents repaired to the spot fully persuaded they should find their legitimate infant in place of the supposititious one.

The fairies, according to Grose, enjoyed the credit in Ireland of frequently laying bannocks (oaten cakes) in the way of travellers over the mountains, who, if they declined the proffered favour, seldom escaped a hearty beating "or something worse."

In addition to those who peopled the earth, a race of infernal fairies dwelt in mines, where they were frequently heard to imitate the actions of the workmen, toward whom they were well affected, and whom they never injured unless provoked by some insult. In Wales this species was denominated "knockers," and they were good enough to indicate rich veins of silver and lead. Of this class the Germans believed in two varieties; one a fierce and malevolent race, the other mild and benevolent, making their appearance as little old men in miners' habit, their stature slightly exceeding two feet.

Wells also have been the reputed habitations of fairies. Hutchinson records the careful preservation in Eden Hall in Cumberland of an old painted drinking-glass called "The luck of Eden Hall," which had the reputation of having been a sacred chalice; but the legendary account was that the butler, going on one occasion to draw water, surprised a company of fairies amusing themselves upon the green adjoining St Cuthbert's well, on the margin of which stood the glass. He seized it, and they tried to recover it; but, failing to dispossess him of it, they flew away with the exclamation

"If that glass either break or fall,

Farewell the luck of Eden Hall."

This cup is celebrated in the Duke of Wharton's ballad upon the remarkable drinking match held at Sir Christopher Musgrave's.

Nor is the list of fairies yet exhausted, for there was another variety of them called from their sun-burnt complexions Brownies, who