FAIRY RINGS.

I mentioned, in a former page, that fairy rings abound in various parts of this county. Botanists variously account for their formation; a common opinion, however, is that they are caused by a species of vegetable growth, which radiates from a centre and spreads wider and wider in a circle, causing the grass at its circumference to assume a deep green colour and rank appearance. Upon the rim of one of these fairy rings being dug into, a whitish, fibroust, starchy-looking matter appears under the sod, amongst the roots of the grass, and at certain seasons several species of fungi or agarics grow in great numbers upon such rims. Some writers consider that the fibrous matter is either the roots or spawn of the fungi, and that its presence causes the grass to be of a deeper colour at the rims; others suppose that they are caused by the fall of electric matter during thunder storms. But let us leave the regions of science to the botanists, and return to the more genial realms of fairyland.

Shakespeare alludes to fairy rings in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," in a scene between Puck and another fairy, as follows:"Puck.-How now, spirit! whither wander you? "Fairy.-Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through briar,

Over park, over pale,

Through flood, through fire:

I do wander every where,

Swifter than the moone's sphere;

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green," &c.

In a scene between Oberon and Titania there are the following

lines:

"Oberon.-How long within this wood intend you stay?
"Titania.-Perchance till after Thesus' wedding day.

• See P. 412.

If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us, &c.

+ That it is fibrous I believe there can be no doubt; for several years ago I had a portion of it examined by a gentleman, with a powerful microscope, who pronounced it to be fibrous.

The rings are also noticed in the "Life of Robin Good-fellow," as follows:

"There was wont to walke many harmlesse spirits, called fay ries, dancing in brave order in fayry rings on greene hills, with sweete musicke (sometime invisible), in divers shapes," &c. And in Robin's song†, as follows:

"Elves, urchins, goblins all, and little fairyes,

That doe fillch, blacke, and pinche mayds of the dairyes,
Make a ring on the grasse with your quicke measures;
Tom shall play, and I'le sing for all your pleasures."

And in the" Pranks of Puck," as follows:

"Whenas my fellow elves and I,

In circled ring do trip a round," &c.

In an "Episode of Fairies," published in 1600§, there are the following lines:

"Round about, round about, in a fine ring-a,

Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing-a;

Trip and go, to and fro, over this green-a,

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

:

And in Drayton's "Nymphidia ||," as follows:

"And in their courses make that round

In meadows and in marshes found,

Of them so call'd the fairy-ground,

Of which they have the keeping."

And in the " Wiltshire Collections of Aubrey relative to the Fairies," the following curious particulars are stated:

In the yeare 1633-4, soone after I had entered into my grammar at the Latin Schoole at Yatton Keynel, our curate, Mr. Hart, was annoy'd one night by these elves or fayries. Com

* See Halliwell's "Fairy Mythology," p. 122.

+ Ibid., p. 149.

Ibid., p. 168.

§ Ibid., p. 180.

| Ibid., p. 197.

¶Ibid., pp. 235, 236.

ming over the downes, it being neere darke, and approching one of the fairey dances, as the common people call them in these parts, viz., the greene circles made by those sprites on the grasse, he, all at once, sawe an innumerable quantitie of pigmies or very small people, dancing rounde and rounde, and singing, and making all manner of small odd noyses. . . . . . As to these circles, I presume they are generated from the breathing out of a fertile subterraneous vapour, which comes from a kinde of conical concave, and endeavours to get out at a narrow passage at the top, which forces it to make another cone inversely situated to the other, the top of which is the green circle. . . . If you digge under the turfe of this circle, you will find at the rootes of the grasse a hoare or mouldinesse. . . . . . Mem.-That pidgeon's dung and nitre, steeped in water, will make the fayry circles: it drawes to it the nitre of the aire, and will never weare out."

The following recipe is given in Adams's work on "Flowers, their Moral, Language, and Poetry," whereby, it is said, a sight of the fairies may be obtained.

"We have a precious unguent, prepared according to the receipt of a celebrated alchymist, which applied to your visual orbs, will enable you to behold without difficulty or danger, the most potent Fairy or Spirit you may encounter. This is the form of the preparation:-R. A pint of sallet-oyle, and put it into a vial-glasse; but first wash it with rose-water, and marygolde water: the flowers to be gathered towards the east. Wash it till the oyle come white; then put it into the glasse, ut supra; and then put thereto the budds of hollyhocke, the flowers of marygolde, the flowers or toppers of wild thime, the budds of young hazle and the thyme must be gathered neare the side of a hill where Fayries use to be and take the grasse of a fayrie throne; then, all these put into the oyle, into the glasse: and sette it to dissolve three dayes in the sunne, and then keep it for thy use; ut supra*.'

66

Ashmolean MS. 1406, written about the year 1600. See also Halliwell's Fairy Mythology,” p. 229.

THE SEVEN WHISTLERS.

Whether these were fairies, wizards, or fates, I cannot pretend to say; but I have been informed by Mr. J. Pressdee, of Worcester, that, when a boy, he used to hear the country people talk a good deal about the "Seven Whistlers," and that he frequently heard his late grandfather, John Pressdee, who lived at Cuckold's Knoll, in Suckley, say that oftentimes, at night, when he happened to be upon the hill by his house, he heard six out of the "Seven Whistlers" pass over his head, but that no more than six of them were ever heard by him, or by any one else, to whistle at one time, and that should the seven whistle together the world would be at an end *.

This is a very remarkable legend; and it is strange that such a fancy should thus have been credited, almost to our own time. It probably took its rise either from the occasional peculiar whistling of the windt, or from flights of wild fowl, such as plovers, widgeons, or teal, which sometimes fly at night, making a peculiar whistling noise. Supposing, however, that the legend was based upon such natural causes, it certainly became most strangely mystified.

This legend has been noticed in the "Athenæum ‡,' in connection with a curious account in Grimm's "German Mythology," descriptive of the "Swan Maidens," who are represented as being heard flying through the air at night.

There is a place called "Whistlers" in Lulsley, and also a little hill in Ireland, called " Knock-na-feadalea," which, according to Neilson, signifies the "Whistling Hill." He states that

the place took this name from reports that the music of the fairies had been often heard to proceed from it§.

I have also heard a similar account from others,

"Like the darkened moon he (Crugal's ghost) retired, in the midst of the whistling blast."-Ossian, "Fingal," Book ii.

"Often are the steps of the dead in the dark-eddying blasts."—Ossian, "Temora," Book vii.

For September 19th and November 14th, 1846, pp. 955, 1162, 1163. § See Thoms' "Lays and Legends of Ireland," p. 51.

THE DEVIL'S DREAM.

As an old fiddler, named Pengree, about fifty years ago, was one night returning home by himself to Old Storage, from the wake which had been held at Knightsford Bridge Inn, he had to pass a place called Hell Garden," which is situated at the bottom of the Cherry Bank, near to the Upper House, in Alfrick. When he came there (we give the narrative in his own words), he said, “Oh, I am come to Hell Garden!' Well, I'll give the 'Devil's Dream;'" which, no sooner had he struck up, than about 150 strange female figures came and danced all round him in pattens, which made him not only unshoulder his fiddle pretty quickly, but take to his heels as fast as he could run. This, he assured my informant (Mr. John Pressdee) was perfectly true*; nor is it unlikely that he did see some dancing shadows there; for we may rest quite satisfied, that that wonder-working spirit called "Old Cider," had not only entered into, but taken full possession of our hero f.

THE MYSTERIOUS BLACK CAT.

The late John Spooner, Esq., of Hopton Court, Leigh, kept a pack of hounds; and Mr. John Pressdee has informed me that he frequently used to follow them; and that whenever they passed through a certain field in Leigh Sinton, called "The Oak and Crab Tree," the hounds used invariably to run full cry after something which nobody could see, and never ceased the pursuit until they arrived at a cottage, situated about a mile and a half off, at Crumpal (otherwise Crumpen or Crumpton) Hill, in Cradley, which was inhabited by an old woman named Cofield, when they would turn back again. He added, that Mr. Spooner at such times used to say, "Ah, they are gone after that old witch, Dame Cofield ;" and upon one occasion, about forty years ago, when he

I have also been told the same anecdote by others.

In the "Athenæum" for September 11th, 1847, p. 958, there is a curious Flemish account of an old fiddler, who, returning home from the fair at Opbrakel, met with a rather similar adventure.