THE FAIRIES' CUPBEARER.

"The lady kilted her kirtle green
A little aboon her knee,
The lady snooded her yellow hair
A little aboon her bree,
And she's gane to the good greenwood
As fast as she could hie.

And first she let the black steed pass,
And syne she let the brown,
And then she flew to the milk-white steed,
And pulled the rider down:
Syne out then sang the queen o' the fairies,
Frae midst a bank of broom,
She that has won him, young Tamlane,
Has gotten a gallant groom."

_Old Ballad_.

"The romantic vale of Corriewater, in Annandale, is regarded by the
inhabitants, a pastoral and unmingled people, as the last border refuge
of those beautiful and capricious beings, the fairies. Many old people
yet living imagine they have had intercourse of good words and good deeds
with the 'good folk'; and continue to tell that in the ancient days the
fairies danced on the hill, and revelled in the glen, and showed
themselves, like the mysterious children of the deity of old, among the
sons and daughters of men. Their visits to the earth were periods of joy