“For good or for evil,” says Kanè to himself, “I have seen the fairies’ children.”
The children made an end of their dancing, and sat them upon the ground in a ring. “Leader! Leader!” they cried. “Fetch us the mallet.” Then there rose up a beautiful boy, about fourteen or fifteen years old, the eldest and the tallest there. He lifted a mossy stone quite close to Kanè’s head. Underneath was a plain little mallet of white wood. The boy took it up and went and stood within the circle of children. He laughed and cried, “Now what will you have?”
“A kite, a kite,” calls out one of the children.
The boy shakes the mallet, and lo and behold he shakes a kite out of it!—a great kite with a tail to it, and a good ball of twine as well.
“Now what else?” asks the boy.
“Battledore and shuttlecock for me,” says a little girl.
And sure enough there they are, a battledore of the best, and twenty shuttlecocks, meetly feathered and gilded.
“Now what else?” says the boy.
“A lot of sweets.”
“Greedy!” says the boy, but he shakes the mallet, and there are the sweets.