A month later, in October, I saw a great assembling of Oreads, by which I was able to connect more than one experience. I could now understand the phenomenon of the luminous ring.
I reached the valley by about six o'clock in the evening. It was twilight, not yet dusk. The sun was off the hollow, which lay in blue mist, but above the level of the surrounding hills the air was bathed in the sunset glow. The hush of evening was over all, the great cup of the down absolutely desert; there were no birds, nor voices of birds; not a twig snapped, not a leaf rustled. Imperceptibly the shadows lengthened, faded with the light; and again behind the silence I guessed at, rather than discerned, a preparatory, gathering music. So finally, by twos and threes, they came to their assembling.
Once more I never saw them come. Out of the mist they drifted together. There had been a moment when they were not there; there was a moment when I saw them. I saw three of them together, two females and a male. They formed a circle, facing inwards, their arms intertwined. The pale colour of their garments, the grey tones in their flesh were so perfectly in tune with the hazy light, that it would have been impossible, I am certain, to have seen them at all at a hundred yards' distance. I could not determine whether they were conversing or not: if they were, it was without speech. I have never heard an articulate sound from any one of them, and have no provable reason for connecting the unvoiced music I have sometimes discerned with any act of theirs. It has accompanied them, and may have proceeded from them—but I don't know that. Of these three linked together I remember that one of them threw back her head till she faced the sky. She did not laugh, or seem to be laughing: there was no sound. It was rather as if she was bathing her face in the light. She threw her head back so far that I could see the gleam in her wild eyes; her hair streamed downward, straight as a fall of water. The other two regarded her, and the male presently withdrew one of his arms from the circle and laid his hand upon her. She let it be so; seemed not to notice.
Imperceptibly others had come about these three. If I took my eyes off a group for a moment they were attracted to other groups or single shapes. Some lay at ease on the sward, resting on elbow; some prone, on both elbows; some seemed asleep, their heads on molehill pillows; some sat huddling together, with their chins upon their knees; some knelt face to face and held each other fondly; some were teasing, some chasing others, winding in and out of the scattered groups. But everything was doing in complete silence.
Now and again one, flying from another, would rise in the air, the pursuer following. They skimmed, soared, glided like swallows, in long sweeping curves—there was no noise in their flight. They were quite without reticence in their intercourse; desired or avoided, loved or hated as the moment urged them; strove to win, struggled to escape, achieved or surrendered without remark from their companions. They were like children or animals. Desire was reason good; and if love was soon over, hate lasted no longer. One passion or the other set them scuffling: when it was spent they had no after-thought.
One pretty sight I saw. A hare came lolloping over the valley bottom, quite at his ease. In the midst of the assembly he stopped to nibble, then reared himself up and cleaned his face. He saw them and they him without concern on either side.
The valley filled up; I could not count the shifting, crossing, restless shapes I saw down there. Presently, without call or signal, as if by one consent, the Oreads joined hands and enclosed the whole circuit in their ring. The effect in the dusk was of a pale glow, as of the softest fire, defining the contour of the valley; and soon they were moving, circling round and round. Shriller and louder swelled the hidden music, and faster span the ring. It whirled and wavered, lifted and fell, but so smoothly, with such inherent power of motion, that it was less like motion visible than motion heard. Nothing was distinguishable but the belt of pale fire. That which I had seen before they had now become—a ring of flame intensely swift. As if sucked upward by a centripetal force it rose in the air. Wheeling still with a sound incredibly shrill it rose to my level, swept by me heralded by a keen wind, and was followed by a draught which caught leaves and straws of grass and took them swirling along. Round and up, and ever up it went, narrowing and spiring to the zenith. There, looking long after it, I saw it diminish in size and brightness till it became filmy as a cloud, then melted into the company of the stars.