“Why, the fairies, the fairies, to be sure; dost thou not know the fairy goblets? This dell belongs to king Oberon and queen Titania, and joyous indeed are the revels they hold here.”
“I should like to see one of the fairies,” said Lilla.
“Come with me,” said Nut-cracker, “and I will show you one.”
So he went leaping along over the green moss, and as Lilla ran after, it seemed to her that she was flying, so fast did she have to run that she might keep pace with him. He led her into an open part of the dell, where the trees were not so thick, and where the ground was entirely covered with flowers of almost every hue.
“There is Dew-drop, a very pretty fairy,” said Nut-cracker, pointing to a sylph-like figure in the midst of the flowers.
“Let us go,” said Lilla, “and see what she is doing.”
So they went to the fairy, and they said, “What dost thou with the flowers, pretty being? thou dost not seem to be plucking them.”
“Do you see the beautiful figures on these flowers?” asked the fairy.
“Oh! yes,” replied Lilla.
“Well,” said the fairy, “they have a meaning which, perhaps, you have not dreamed of; these pencilings are musical notes, and we alone can understand them—and we sing our songs from them. There are about the flowers great mysteries; on some of them are beautiful stories, and the songs which we sing are here written—and when we learn them, we write them on the brain of some sleeping mortal whose soul delights in melodies; when he awakes he gives them forth to the world. The stories we write on the brain, as we said, but the mysteries we keep to ourselves.”