The name of Linton appears in Montagu in the letter next that in which he describes the Fairy Cave. We may understand that Charlotte Brontë's romantic imagination was entranced, as she says Catherine Linton's was, with the mention of the Fairy Cave; and Jane Eyre is testimony that after writing Wuthering Heights she turned again to consider its possibilities of suggestion.
In fact, I find that Charlotte Brontë when she chose the name of Janet Eyre for herself was also calling herself the Fairy Janet. And where, then, read Charlotte Brontë of the fairy Janet Eyre? The evidence of Montagu's work proves that when she wrote the name Eyre, she was implying by this Derbyshire variant the name Aire or Ayre, meaning the river Ayre. Where acquired Charlotte Brontë so intimate an acquaintance with the history of the Fairy Janet of the Aire as to take upon herself poetically, the rôle of that Craven elf and her name?
Mr. Harry Speight recently, in The Craven Highlands, told us "the Fairy Jennet or Janet was queen of the Malhamdale elves" who frequented the enchanted ground round the source of the Aire. But prior to Montagu's dealing with Janet's Cave, the home of the Malhamdale fays, the queen-elf had been referred to as Gennet. Montagu spelt the name Jannet, and later writers having referred to him, the fairy cave now bears the name Janet's Cave. A Malham writer prior to Montagu referred only briefly to the Fairy Cave, and quite prosily. In his Malham letter Montagu says:—
"Leaving a farmhouse at the entrance of the vale to the left, we [he and his boy-guide] proceeded over two fields, then ascended about twenty yards, suddenly turned an acute angle, and penetrating some bushes we stood at the entrance of a deep and narrow glen, before a perpendicular fall of water. At the foot of this cascade is
Jannet's Cave.
It is so called from the queen or governess of a numerous tribe of faeries, which tradition assures us anciently held their court here; and as there may be some of my readers who may like at the moonlit hour to be entertained at one of Jannet's banquets, I will give an idea as to the mode of obtaining admission into such society.... On the evening when I first learned the mystic lore, the golden sun had kissed every flower, even unto the retiring lily, and was gliding westward when, from the heart's couch of a moss rose, there came the eldest daughter of faeryland, probably the self-same Jannet's daughter, saying:—
'I have come from whence
Peace with white sceptre wafting to and fro,
Smooths the wide bosom of the Elysian world,'
and who, upon being informed that I was desirous of swearing allegiance to her sweet mother, said that she would bring intelligence whether I might be admitted to her pretty vassalage; she then bade her attendants bring her car, which was a leaf of a favourite hyacinth, drawn by two lady-birds who were guided by reins of gossamer; the mellow horn of the herald bee summoned her attendants, who, to the number of twenty, obeyed the call; and taking the coronets from off their brows, made low obeisance to their young princess, which she pleasingly acknowledged. Then they each captured a sphere of thistle-down, and seating themselves thereon, followed their princess; who, attended by her guards, each armed with a maiden's eye-lash, journeyed onwards towards the realms of enchanted ground. I should think that not many minutes elapsed when the cavalcade returned, and the charter written upon the leaf of a 'forget-me-not,' with the gold from a butterfly's wing, was placed into my hand by 'a fay,' with injunctions not to divulge the secrets of the order. I would have promised but awoke from this pleasant dream."
We will now read Montagu's description of the Fairy Janet, and a fairy coming to him at sundown when adapted by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre.
Adèle asks Rochester whether she is to go to school without her governess, Jane Eyre:—