A MYTH OF MIDRIDGE;
Or, A Story anent a witless Wight's Adventures with the Midridge Fairies in the Bishoprick of Durham; now more than two Centuries ago.
Talking about fairies the other day to a nearly Octogenarian female neighbour, I asked, had she ever seen one in her youthful days. Her answer was in the negative; "but," quoth she, "I've heard my grandmother tell a story, that Midridge (near Auckland) was a great place for fairies when she was a child, and for many long years after that." A rather lofty hill, only a short distance from the village, was their chief place of resort, and around it they used to dance, not by dozens, but by hundreds, when the gloaming began to show itself of the summer nights. Occasionally a villager used to visit the scene of their gambols in order to catch if it were but a passing glance of the tiny folks, dressed in their vestments of green, as delicate as the thread of the gossamer: for well knew the lass so favoured, that ere the current year had disappeared, she would have become the happy wife of the object of her only love; and also, as well ken'd the lucky lad that he too would get a weel tochered lassie, long afore his brow became wrinkled with age, or the snow-white blossoms had begun to bud forth upon his pate. Woe to those, however, who dared to come by twos or by threes, with inquisitive and curious eye, within the bounds of their domain; for if caught, or only the eye of a fairy fell upon them, ill was sure to betide them through life. Still more awful, however, was the result if any were so rash as to address them, either in plain prose or rustic rhyme. The last instance of their being spoken to, is thus still handed down by tradition:—''Twas on a beautifully clear evening in the month of August, when the last sheaf had crowned the last stack in their master's hagyard, and after calling the "harvest home," the daytale-men and household servants were enjoying themselves over massive pewter quarts foaming over with strong beer, that the subject of the evening's conversation at last turned upon the fairies of the neighbouring hill, and each related his oft-told tale which he had learned by rote from the lips of some parish grandame. At last the senior of the mirthful party proposed to a youthful mate of his, who had dared to doubt even the existence of such creatures, that he durst not go to the hill, mounted on his master's best palfrey, and call aloud, at the full extent of his voice, the following rhymes:
"Rise little Lads,
Wi' your iron gads,
And set the Lad o' Midridge hame."
Tam o' Shanter-like, elated with the contents of the pewter vessels, he nothing either feared or doubted, and off went the lad to the fairy hill; so, being arrived at the base, he was nothing loth to extend his voice to its utmost powers in giving utterance to the above invitatory verses. Scarcely had the last words escaped his lips ere he was nearly surrounded by many hundreds of the little folks, who are ever ready to revenge, with the infliction of the most dreadful punishment, every attempt at insult. The most robust of the fairies, who I take to have been Oberon, their king, wielding an enormous javelin, thus, also in rhymes equally rough, rude, and rustic, addressed the witless wight:
"Silly Willy, mount thy filly;
And if it isn't weel corn'd and fed,