“What I can do I’ll do it for you, my lady fairy.”
She told him to be at the walled plot the following day at noon, and left.
IV.
The next day at noon, the queen and her daughter and three hundred other fairies came up the cliff to the green grass plot, and they carried a pole, and a tape, and a mirror. When they reached the plot they planted the pole in the ground, and hung the mirror on the pole. The queen took the tape, which measured ten yards and was fastened to the top of the pole, and walked round in a circle, and wherever she set her feet the grass withered and died. Then the fairies followed up behind the queen, and each fairy carried a harebell in her left-hand, and a little blue cup of burning perfume in her right. When they had formed up the queen called the lad to her side, and told him to walk by her throughout. They then started off, all singing in chorus:
“Round and round three times three,
Tell me what you see.”
When they finished the first round, the queen and lad stopped before the mirror, and she asked the lad what he saw?
“I see, I see, the mirror tells me,
It is the witch that I see,”
said the lad. So they marched round again, singing the same words as before, and when they stopped a second time before the mirror the queen again asked him what he saw?
“I see, I see, the mirror tells me,
It is a hare that I see,”
said the lad.