“There is Mab, the mistress fairy,
That doth nightly rob the dairy;
And can help or hurt the churning
As she please without discerning.
This is she that empties cradles,
Takes out children, puts in ladles.”
The fairies—the good people as they were often called—were on the whole kindly and beneficent. During the Middle Ages these little beings had obtained so much credit that the clergy, who wished to reserve to themselves the power of blessing or banning, grew seriously jealous, and endeavoured earnestly to disestablish them from the hearts of men. That this was by no means in accordance with the feelings of the laity may be very well seen in the following extract from the “Canterbury Tales”:—
“I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo;
For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limetoures and other holy freres
That searchen every land and every streme
As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,
Blessing halles, chambers, kichenes and bowres,
Cities, and burghes, castles highe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepines and dairies
This maketh that there ben no fairies;
For thir as wont to walken was an elf,
Their walketh now the limetour himself.”
The fairy rings to be seen in the meadows and woodlands were accepted with undoubted faith as the scenes of midnight revelry, and in most cases were regarded with some little dread from the belief that they were enchanted ground. Hence when people went to look after their cattle in the morning they were always careful to avoid walking too near these rings:—
“Some say the screech-owl, at each midnight hour,
Awakes the Fairies in yon ancient tower.
Their nightly dancing ring I always dread,
Nor let my sheep within that circle tread;
Where round and round all night in moonlight fair,
They dance to some strange music of the air.”
The effect produced on those who incautiously entered these charmed circles seems to have been sufficiently startling, if we may credit the old popular beliefs, to justify the greatest precautions and the most open-eyed watchfulness. In some cases the victim of carelessness or short-sightedness would imagine that he had been absent but a few minutes with the fairies, when he had really been away a century or more; while in other cases a man would suppose that he had lived for a long period in Elf-land when he had been but away an hour. Probably in some cases the spirits were alcoholic. We read of a young man who went out one morning and probably trod in one of these rings; however that may be, he was attracted by the especially sweet singing of some unknown bird. After waiting, as he thought, some few minutes, he resumed his journey, when he noticed to his surprise that the fresh and verdant tree in which the sweet songster had been embowered was scathed and leafless. The well-known house to which he was going had disappeared with all its inhabitants, and in its place a new structure had arisen. On going up to it an old man, who was evidently the owner, came out and asked his business, and on learning his name, told him that he had been away a hundred years or more. “I remember when I was a child hearing my grandfather speak of your disappearance one day many years before I was born, and that, after searching for you far and wide, he learned from a wise woman that you had fallen amongst the fairies, and that you would only be released when the sap had ceased to flow in yonder aged tree!” He had scarcely uttered the words when he beheld his long-lost kinsman fall away to a heap of dry dust!!
A popular Welsh legend tells us that two countrymen were one night crossing the mountains, when one of them, thinking he heard some strains of music, lingered a little behind, and could not afterwards be found. After fruitless search, his friends learned from a Seer that he had fallen amongst the fairies, and that the only way to recover him was to go on the anniversary of his absence to the place where he had disappeared, and that they must then pull him out of a fairy ring. Some few bold spirits were equal to the occasion, and on going to the place at the stipulated time they discovered their lost relative in the midst of an immense number of very small people, who were all dancing round in a circle. They pulled him out, but he died of exhaustion almost directly, as he had been dancing without intermission for the twelve months he had been missing. Another tradition current in Wales tells us of a young shepherd who peacefully tended his flock on the steeps of Brynnan Mawr. One day setting forth as usual at daybreak from his homestead near the hills, the lofty summit was enveloped in mist, but, as he proceeded, it gradually cleared away towards the Pembrokeshire side, a sure sign of a fine day. Our shepherd felt all the elevation of spirit which youth and the early dawn of a day in the “leafy month of June” might be expected to produce. Whilst trudging on his way gaily up the steep, he discerned the extraordinary spectacle of a party of persons, brilliantly dressed, and in active movement near the summit of the mountain. He gazed for some time before he could be convinced that what he saw was real. He climbed farther and farther, forgetting his sheep and all else in the world at the apparition of so many bright beings at that desolate spot. At last he drew very near the party, whom he was now convinced were either the Fairies, or some kindred sprites, concluding their nightly revels. Bursts of gentle music, like the melodious murmuring of an Æolian harp, ever and anon entranced him with delight. They were comely little beings to behold, and seemed very merry, while their habiliments of white, or green, or red, glistened with more than earthly beauty. The male sex wore red bonnets, and their fair companions flaunted in head-dresses outrivalling the gossamer in their texture; and many either galloped about on tiny white steeds, or pursued each other with the swiftness of the breeze. The greater portion of the party, however, were intently engaged in their favourite sport of dancing in the circle. Our shepherd did not know how it was, but he felt an irresistible inclination to make one of this joyous group, and growing bolder as the actors in the scene became more familiar to him, he at last ventured forward, and being encouraged by the friendly signals from all around, he advanced one step within the ring. The most exquisite melody now filled the air, and in an instant all was changed. Brynnan Mawr, with its well-known scenery, was seen no more. He was suddenly transported to a gorgeous palace radiant with gold and precious stones. Groves of odoriferous shrubs, intermingled with flowers unknown in this world, which might have rivalled those of the Valley of Gardens in “Lalla Rookh,” shed around a fragrance excelling that of the “spicy East.” Here did our shepherd wander from day to day amidst porphyry halls, and pavilions of pearl. Time sped away, but years seemed insufficient to explore all the wonders of that veritable Fairyland. He was attended in his wanderings by kind and gentle beings, who anticipated every want, and even invented sports and pastimes to amuse him. In the midst of the gardens there was a well of the clearest water, filled with many rainbow-tinted fish. There was but one limitation affixed to his movements and his curiosity: he was forbidden to drink of this well, on pain of having all his happiness blasted. It might be thought that, surrounded as he was with all that he could desire, there would have been no danger of his violating this command, but the result proved the error of this Utopian way of viewing the probabilities. One day he cautiously advanced toward the forbidden spot, and placing his hand within the well, drew forth some water in his palm and drank it. The shrieks of many voices instantly filled the air, all the fair scenes of enchanting loveliness vanished, and the luckless and too curious shepherd found himself on the summit of Brynnan Mawr with his sheep quietly grazing around him in the early morning just as when he had first entered the fairy-ring. Though years apparently had passed away while he was under the magic spell yet it was evident that in reality not many minutes could have elapsed.
Our readers will doubtless recall Shakespeare’s reference to these “fairy rings,” in the first scene of the fifth act in the “Tempest”:—
“Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,
When he comes back; you, demi-puppets, that
By moon-shine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be,) I have be-dimm’d
The noon-tide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And ’twixt the green sea and the azure vault
Set roaring war.”
The flint arrow-heads or celts so dear to antiquaries, and so commonly to be found in and near the tumuli that mark the resting-places of our remote ancestors, are popularly called fairy-darts or elf-bolts. Though the wound of an elf-bolt was supposed to cause instant death to man and beast when directed by an aggrieved or mischievous fairy, the possession of one of these celts secured its owner from all ill consequences. When cattle or horses fell lame without the reason being forthcoming, it was concluded that they had been wounded by these invisible archers, in which case it was only necessary to touch the tender place with another elf-bolt or to make the animal drink the water in which one had been dipped.