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,