A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure;
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth was punished sure.
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue;
O how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you.
Now they have left our quarters;
A Register they have,
Who can peruse their charters,
A man both wise and grave.
A hundred of their merry pranks
By one that I could name
Are kept in store; con twenty marks
To William for the same.
To William Churne of Staffordshire
Give laud and praises due,
Who every meal can mend your cheer
With tales both old and true:
To William all give audience,
And pray ye for his noddle;
For all the fairies’ evidence
Were lost if it were addle.
Possibly the fairies may yet linger in the dales of Ettrick Forest, where poor Hogg used to see them, and sung so many beautiful lays in their honour that he may be styled the Poet Laureate of the Fairies. But he is gone now—gone after many another great and shining light of the age, having made the shepherd’s plaid almost as glorious as the prophet’s mantle—and they may not choose to reveal themselves to another. They may possibly yet pay an occasional visit to Staffordshire, the county of William Churne; and we have, indeed, heard of them doing some pleasant miracles on Midsummer-eve on Calden-Low. If we are to believe the report of a certain little damsel, as given in Tait’s Magazine, of June 1835—
Some, they played with the water,
And rolled it down the hill;
And this, they said, shall merrily turn
The poor old miller’s mill.
For there has been no water
Ever since the first of May,
And a blithe man shall the miller be
By the dawning of the day.
O, the miller, how he will laugh
As he sees the mill-dam rise—
The jolly old miller how he will laugh
Till the tears fill both his eyes.
And some they seized the little winds,
That sounded over the hill,
And each put a horn into his mouth,
And blew so sharp and shrill.
“And there,” said one, “the merry winds go
Away from every horn,
And these shall clear the mildew dank
From the blind old widow’s corn.”
O! the poor blind widow—
Though she has mourned so long,
She’ll be merry enough when the mildew’s gone,
And the corn stands stiff and strong.