Dance the elves of night,
Unheard, unseen.
Yet where their midnight pranks have been,
The circled turf will betray to-morrow.”
Nor was the superstition unknown to Shakspeare; was there anything unknown to him? Listen:—
“And nightly meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring;
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And, Honi soit qui mal y pense, write