manured for a richer following vegetation.[6] Amongst the many other
conjectures as to the cause of these verdant circles, some have ascribed
them to lightning, and others have maintained that they are produced by
ants.[7] In the "Tempest" (v. i) Prospero invokes the fairies as the
"demi-puppets" that:

"By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms."

And in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5) Mistress Quickly says:

"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."

Drayton, in his "Nymphidia" (1. 69-72), tells how the fairies:

"In their courses make that round,
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the fayrie ground,
Of which they have the keeping."

These fairy-rings have long been held in superstitious awe; and when in
olden times May-dew was gathered by young ladies to improve their
complexion, they carefully avoided even touching the grass within them,
for fear of displeasing these little beings, and so losing their
personal charms. At the present day, too, the peasant asserts that no
sheep nor cattle will browse on the mystic patches, a natural instinct