Uncle Joe's Stories

by Baron Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen Brabourne

After a time they separated, and, gaily dancing upon one side, came out into an open space where was luxuriant grass, a perfect carpet of daisies and buttercups being beneath their feet. Here the class formed themselves once more into a circle, and danced round and round as if they were never going to stop. Again they sang, words as pleasant and music as sweet as before, but again Evelyn found herself entirely unable to recollect the air or the words afterwards.

At last, whilst they were still dancing, a faint, very faint streak of light began to glimmer in the sky, and to lessen the darkness of the night. Soon after, even as they danced, the note of a robin broke upon their ears: the earliest songster of the wood, waking up at the first dawn of light, and carolling forth his morning hymn before setting out to search for his breakfast.

Scarcely had the sound been heard when the fairy queen let fall the hand of her companion elf, and waved her own in the air. Every one of her attendants immediately and exactly followed her example, and Evelyn naturally did the same as the rest. Then they turned without another word or sound, and scampered away as fast as they could go into the thickest part of their favourite glade. Evelyn unhesitatingly went with them, having in fact nothing else to do, and she followed the example of her companions by crouching underneath the fern at the foot of one of the trees which grew around the glade, and hiding herself as well as she could from the gaze of any possible passer-by.

All this time, in everything that she did, there seemed to be nothing at all strange, or out of the common way. She felt just as if she had been a fairy all her life, and took everything just as it came with the most perfect unconcern. She thought not of her parents, her home or the pursuits which had daily occupied her whilst she was an ordinary mortal child. All these had passed away from her mind altogether. There was only an intense feeling of present happiness and light-heartedness, and not only no wish to return to her former state, but an entire forgetfulness that she had ever been anything else than that which she now felt herself to be—a subject of the Fairy Queen, and a woodland fairy herself to all intents and purposes.

It has often been disputed, by those learned in the history of elves and Elf-land, whether the little creatures ever sleep, or whether, like spirits, they seek and require no rest, but wander over the world at will without sense of fatigue.

Evelyn's experience may furnish an answer to the curious inquirer upon this point. She slept; and slept soundly, and always explained the matter in a perfectly intelligible manner. It is not, she said, that fairies are ever really tired: there are different degrees and various kinds of fairies, possessing greater or less power in relation to the earth and to mortal affairs, in accordance with their own rank and position in the great fairy family. But there is no fairy, except some of the very inferior description, who cannot perform almost any given feat of strength if required to do so; and no fairy, properly so called, was ever actually tired in the sense that mortal beings feel fatigue.

But that fairies sleep is absolutely certain, and there are two reasons for their doing so. In the first place, their power is much greater by night than by day, and many of them have the greatest objection to the sunlight, though to some few it is little less pleasant than to human beings. This being the case, they find it on all accounts desirable to seek shelter from the rays of the sun during the day, and do not see the use, when doing this, of keeping their eyes open when it is more comfortable to close them. And their other reason is also extremely sensible, namely, that they have an opinion that it is monotonous and tedious to be always running about, sporting, playing, or interfering with the business of mankind, and that by taking some few hours' rest in every twenty-four hours, they come again with greater zest to their ordinary pursuits, and enjoy themselves a great deal more than they would do if they never left off.

This was always Evelyn's theory, and having been, as we know, a fairy herself, I have no reason to doubt that it is the correct one. Be this as it may, it is quite certain that, upon the occasion in question, both Evelyn and her companions slept sweetly and quietly, couched under the grass and plants beneath the fern, and sheltered from the rays and warmth of the sun by the overhanging branches of the great forest trees.

But yet the sleep of fairies is not such but that they awake, readily and easily enough, if it is necessary that they should be stirring. To believe Evelyn, the voice of a man, or even the passing footstep of an animal pushing its way through the brushwood, was always quite enough to arouse the whole elfin world into activity; and, at the first sound of the kind, a score or two of little elfin heads might be seen peering out from their secret hiding-places, eagerly gazing on every side to discover who or what might be the intruder.

No one appeared to disturb this first fairy sleep of our little heroine, and she slumbered calmly on with her new companions. Slowly the sun rose over the forest, tinging the leaves with his golden rays, and warming all creation into life as he lighted up the world with his glorious lamp. Then the sounds in the forest became more and more frequent. From every thicket birds carolled forth their joyous songs; the wood-pigeon softly cooed to her mate in the fir-trees; the jackdaw cackled in the old pollard as he looked out from the hole in which his nest was built; the jay screamed in his harsh, discordant notes, trying to put the blackbirds and thrushes out of tune, and failing signally; the woodpecker began to tap merrily, trying the trees all round till he found one that suited his beak; the squirrels climbed to the top of the highest trees to see what sort of a morning it was, and the still silence of the forest was gradually changed into moving life and bustling sound.