After that we had a few minutes of silence, while I sorted out the pebbles, and amused myself with watching Bruno’s plan of gardening.
It was quite a new plan to me, he always measured each bed before he weeded it, as if he was afraid the weeding would make it shrink, and once, when it came out longer than he wished, he set to work to thump the mouse with his little fist, crying out “There now! It’s all gone wrong again! Why don’t oo keep oor tail straight when I tell oo!”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Bruno said in a half whisper, as we worked. “Oo like fairies, don’t oo?”
“Yes,” I said, “of course I do, or I should have gone to some place where there are no Fairies.”
Bruno laughed contemptuously. “Why, oo might as well say oo’d go to some place where there wasn’t any air – supposing oo didn’t like air!”
This was a rather difficult idea to grasp. I tried a change of subject.
“You,re nearly the first fairy I ever saw. Have you ever seen any people besides me?”
“Plenty!” said Bruno. “We see ,em when we walk in the road.”
“But they can’t see you. How is it they never tread on you?”
“Can’t tread on us,” said Bruno, looking amused at my ignorance. “Why, suppose oo’re walking, here,” (making little marks on the ground) “and suppose there’s a fairy – that’s me – walking here. Very well then, oo put one foot here, and one foot here, so oo doosn’t tread on the fairy.”
This was all very well as an explanation, but it didn’t convince me.
“Why shouldn’t I put one foot on the fairy?” I asked.
“I don’t know why,” the little fellow said in a thoughtful tone. “But I know oo wouldn’t. Nobody never walked on the top of a fairy.”
By this time we had nearly finished the garden. I had fetched some violets, and Bruno was just helping me to put in the last, when he suddenly stopped and said “I’m tired.”
“Rest then,” I said, “I can go on without you quite well.”
Bruno needed no second invitation. He at once began arranging the dead mouse as a kind of sofa. “And I’ll sing oo a little song,” he said, as he rolled it about.
“Do,” said I, “I like songs very much.”
“Which song will oo choose?” Bruno said, as he dragged the mouse into a place where he could get a good view of me. “‘Ting, ting, ting, is the nicest.”
There was no resisting such a strong hint as this, however, I pretended to think about it for a moment, and then said “Well, I like ‘Ting, ting, ting,, best of all.”
“That shows oo’re a good judge of music,” Bruno said, with a pleased look. He seated himself on the dead mouse (he never seemed really comfortable anywhere else), and, looking up at me with a merry twinkle in his eyes, he began.
He sang the first four lines briskly and merrily, but the last two he sang quite slowly and gently.
“Hush, Bruno!” I interrupted in a warning whisper. “She’s coming!”
Bruno checked his song, and, as Sylvie slowly made her way through the long grass, he suddenly rushed out headlong at her, shouting “Look the other way! Look the other way!”
“Which way?” Sylvie asked, in rather a frightened tone.
“That way!” said Bruno, carefully turning her round with her face to the wood. “Now, walk backwards, walk gently – don’t be frightened – oo shan’t trip!”
But Sylvie did trip notwithstanding, he was far too much excited to think of what he was doing.
I silently pointed out to Bruno the best place to lead her to, so as to get a view of the whole garden at once. It was a little rising ground, about the height of a potato, and, when they had mounted it, I drew back into the shade, that Sylvie mightn’t see me.
I heard Bruno cry out triumphantly “Now oo may look!” and then followed a clapping of hands, but it was all done by Bruno himself. Sylvie was silent – she stood and gazed with her hands clasped together. Bruno too was watching her anxiously, and when she jumped down off the mound, and began wandering up and down the little walks, he cautiously followed her about, evidently anxious that she should form her own opinion of it all, without any hint from him.
And when at last she drew a long breath, and gave her verdict, in a hurried whisper, and without the slightest regard to grammar, “It’s the loveliest thing as I never saw in all my life before!” the little fellow looked as well pleased as if it had been given by all the judges and juries in England put together.
“And did you really do it all by yourself, Bruno?” said Sylvie. “And all for me?”
“I was helped a bit,” Bruno began, with a merry little laugh at her surprise. “We’ve been at it all the afternoon – I thought oo’d like—” and here the poor little fellow’s lip began to quiver, and all in a moment he burst out crying, and running up to Sylvie he flung his arms passionately round her neck, and hid his face on her shoulder.
There was a little quiver in Sylvie’s voice too, as she whispered “Why, what’s the matter, darling?” and tried to lift up his head and kiss him.
But Bruno only clung to her, sobbing, and wouldn’t be comforted till he had confessed. “I tried – to spoil oor garden – first – but I’ll never – never,” and then came another burst of tears, which drowned the rest of the sentence. At last he got out the words “I liked – putting in the flowers – for oo, Sylvie – and I never was so happy before.”
After that they went through the whole garden again, flower by flower, as if it were a long sentence they were spelling out, with kisses for commas, and a great hug by way of a full stop when they got to the end.
“Doos oo know, that was my river-edge, Sylvie?” Bruno solemnly began.
Sylvie laughed merrily. “What do you mean?” she said. And she pushed back her heavy brown hair with both hands, and looked at him with dancing eyes.
Bruno drew in a long breath, and made up his mouth for a great effort. “I mean revenge,” he said, “now oo under’tand.” And he looked so happy and proud at having said the word right at last, that I quite envied him. I rather think Sylvie didn’t ‘under’tand, at all, but she gave him a little kiss on each cheek, which seemed to do just as well.
So they wandered off lovingly together, in among the buttercups, each with an arm twined round the other, whispering and laughing as they went, and never once looked back at poor me. Yes, once, just before I quite lost sight of them, Bruno half turned his head, and nodded me a little goodbye over one shoulder. And that was all the thanks got for my trouble.
The very last thing I saw of them was this – Sylvie was stooping down with her arms round Bruno’s neck, and saying coaxingly in his ear, “Do you know, Bruno, I’ve quite forgotten that hard word. Do say it once more. Come! Only this once, dear!”
But Bruno wouldn’t try it again.
The Fiddler in the Fairy Ring
By Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
READING TIME: 10 MINUTES
There are many stories about fairy fiddlers, whose music is so sweet that all who hear it must dance, whether they want to or not. In this story, the fiddler is a human, but his music is just as powerful.
There once lived a farmer’s son, who had no great harm in him, and no great good either. He always meant well, but he had a poor spirit, and was too fond of idle company.
One day his father sent him to market with some sheep for sale, and when business was over for the day, the rest of the country folk made ready to go home, and more than one of them offered the lad a lift in his cart.
“Thank you kindly, all the same,” said he, “but I am going back across the downs with Limping Tim.”
Then out spoke a steady old farmer and bade the lad go home with the rest, and by the main road. For Limping Tim was an idle, graceless kind of fellow, who fiddled for his livelihood, but what else he did to earn the money he squandered, no one knew. And as to the sheep path over the downs, it stands to reason that the highway is better travelling after sunset,
for the other is no such very short cut, and has a big fairy ring near it.
But the farmer’s son would go his own way, and that was with Limping Tim, and across the downs.
So they started, and the fiddler had his fiddle in his hand, and a bundle of marketings under his arm, and he sang snatches of strange songs, the like of which the lad had never heard before. And the moon drew out their shadows over the short grass till they were as long as the great stones of Stonehenge.
At last they turned the hill, and the fairy ring looked dark under the moon, and the farmer’s son blessed himself that they were passing it quietly, when Limping Tim suddenly pulled his cloak from his back, and handing it to his companion, cried, “Hold this for a moment, will you? I’m wanted. They’re calling for me.”
“I hear nothing,” said the farmer’s son.
But before he had got the words out of his mouth, the fiddler had completely disappeared. The farmer’s son shouted aloud, but in vain, and had begun to think of proceeding on his way, when the fiddler’s voice cried, “Ah, this is dancing! Come in, my lad, come in!
” But the farmer’s son was not totally without prudence, and he took good care to keep at a safe distance from the fairy ring.
“Come back, Limping Tim! Come back!” he shouted.
Again heard his friend’s voice, crying, “Take care of it for me! The money dances out of my pocket.” And the fiddler’s purse was hurled to the farmer’s son, where it fell with a heavy chinking of gold within.
He picked it up, and, after waiting for a long time, he made the best of his way home alone, hoping that the fiddler would follow, and come to reclaim his property.
The fiddler never came. And when at last there was a fuss about his disappearance, the farmer’s son, who had but a poor spirit, began to be afraid to tell the truth of the matter.
“Who knows but they may accuse me of theft?” said he.
So he hid the cloak, and the bundle, and the money bag in the garden.
But when three months passed, and still the fiddler did not return, it was whispered that the farmer’s son had been his last companion, and the place was searched, and they found the cloak and the money bag and the lad was taken to prison.
Now, when it was too late, he plucked up a spirit, and told the truth, but no one believed him, and it was said that he had murdered the fiddler for the sake of his money and goods. And he was taken before the judge, found guilty, and sentenced to death.
Fortunately, his old mother was a wise woman. And when she heard that he was condemned, she said, “Only follow my directions, and we may save you yet, for I can guess how it is.”
So she went to the judge, and begged for her son three favours before his death.
“I will grant them,” said the judge, “if you do not ask for his life.”
“The first,” said the old woman, “is, that he may choose the place where the gallows shall be erected. The second, that he may fix the hour of his execution. And the third favour is, that you will not fail to be present.”
“I grant all three,” said the judge. But when he learnt that the criminal had chosen a certain hill on the downs for the place of execution, and an hour before midnight for the time, he sent to beg the sheriff to bear him company on this important occasion.
The sheriff placed himself at the judge’s disposal, but he commanded the attendance of the jailer as some sort of protection, and the jailer, for his part, implored his reverence the chaplain to be of the party, as the hill was not in good spiritual repute. So, when the time came, the four started together, and the hangman and the farmer’s son went before them to the foot of the gallows.
Just as the rope was being prepared, the farmer’s son called to the judge, and said, “If your Honour will walk twenty paces down the hill, to where you will see a bit of paper, you will learn the fate of the fiddler.”
“That is, no doubt, a copy of the poor man’s last confession,” thought the judge.
“Murder will out, Mr Sheriff,” said he, and in the interests of truth and justice he hastened to pick up the paper.
But the farmer’s son had dropped it as he came along, by his mother’s direction, in such a place that the judge could not pick it up without putting his foot on the edge of the fairy ring. No sooner had he done so than he perceived an innumerable company of little people dressed in green cloaks and hoods, who were dancing round in a circle as wide as the ring itself.
They were all about two feet high, and had aged faces, brown and withered, like the knots on gnarled trees in hedge bottoms, and they squinted horribly, but, in spite of their seeming age, they flew round and round like children.
“Mr Sheriff ! Mr Sheriff !” cried the judge, “come and see the dancing. And hear the music, too, which is so lively that it makes the soles of my feet tickle.”
“There is no music, my Lord Judge,” said the sheriff, running down the hill. “It is the wind whistling over the grass that your lordship hears.”
But when the sheriff had put his foot by the judge’s foot, he saw and heard the same, and he cried out, “Quick, jailer, and come down! I should like you to be witness to this matter. And you may take my arm, jailer, for the music makes me feel unsteady.”
“There is no music here, sir,” said the jailer, “but your worship doubtless hears the steady creaking of the gallows.”
But no sooner had the jailer’s feet touched the fairy ring, than he saw and heard like the rest, and he called lustily to the chaplain to come and stop the unhallowed measure.
“It is a delusion of the Evil One,” said the parson, “there is not a sound in the air but the distant croaking of some frogs.” But when he too touched the ring, he perceived his mistake.
At this moment the moon shone out, and in the middle of the ring they saw Limping Tim the fiddler, playing till great drops stood out on his forehead, and dancing as madly as he played.
“Ah, you rascal!” cried the judge.
“Is this where you’ve been all the time, and a better man than you as good as hanged for you? But you shall come home now.”
Saying which, he ran in, and seized the fiddler by the arm, but Limping Tim resisted so stoutly that the sheriff had to go to the judge’s assistance, and even then the fairies so pinched and hindered them that the sheriff was obliged to call upon the jailer to put his arms about his waist, who persuaded the chaplain to add his strength to the string. But as ill luck would have it, just as they were getting off, one of the fairies picked up Limping Tim’s fiddle, which had fallen in the scuffle, and began to play. And as he began to play, everyone began to dance – the fiddler, and the judge, and the sheriff, and the jailer, and even the chaplain.
“Hangman! Hangman!” screamed the judge, as he lifted first one leg and then the other to the tune, “come down, and catch hold of his reverence the chaplain. The prisoner is pardoned, and he can lay hold too.”
The hangman knew the judge’s voice, and ran towards it, but as they were now quite within the ring he could see nothing, either of him or his companions.
The farmer’s son followed, and warning the hangman not to touch the ring, he directed him to stretch his hands forwards in hopes of catching hold of someone. In a few minutes the wind blew the chaplain’s cassock against the hangman’s fingers, and he caught the parson round the waist. The farmer’s son then seized him in like fashion, and each holding firmly by the other, the fiddler, the judge, the sheriff, the jailer, the parson, the hangman, and the farmer’s son all got safely out of the fairy circle.
“Oh, you scoundrel!” cried the judge to the fiddler, “I have a very good mind to hang you up on the gallows without further ado.”
But the fiddler only looked like one possessed, and upbraided the farmer’s son for not having the patience to wait three minutes for him.
“Three minutes!” cried he, “why, you’ve been here three months and a day.”
This the fiddler would not believe, and as he seemed in every way beside himself, the
y led him home, still upbraiding his companion, and crying continually for his fiddle.
As to the farmer’s son, it is said that thenceforward he went home from market by the high road, and spoke the truth straight out, and was more careful of his company.
The Fairy Wife
By Patrick Kennedy
READING TIME: 8 MINUTES
In the story Fairy Ointment by Joseph Jacobs, the ointment makes everything appear more beautiful than it really is, but in this story it makes everything look worse. This is one of the many stories in which a person is stolen away by the fairies, and another person hopes to rescue them, which usually takes great courage and steadfastness. In Irish fairy stories, people who neglect their prayers or don’t go to church are always at more risk of being stolen by the fairies. In this story, ‘fairy man, means a man who claims to have skill in curing the illnesses and disorders that fairies cause.
There was once a little farmer and his wife living near Coolgarrow. They had three children, and my story happened while the youngest was a baby. The wife was a good wife enough, but her mind was all on her family and her farm, and she hardly ever went to her knees to pray without falling asleep, and she thought the time spent in the chapel was twice as long as it need be. So, friends, she let her husband and her two children go before her one day to Mass, while she called to consult a fairy man about a disorder one of her cows had. She was late at the chapel, and was sorry all the day after, for her husband was in grief about it.
Late one night the farmer was wakened up by the cries of his children calling out, “Mother! Mother!”
When he sat up and rubbed his eyes, there was no wife by his side, and when he asked the little ones what was become of their mother, they said they saw the room full of nice little men and women, dressed in white and red and green, and their mother in the middle of them, going out by the door as if she was walking in her sleep.
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