"
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
warning them of their peculiar nature. A few miles from Alnwick was a
fairy-ring, round which if people ran more than nine times, some evil
was supposed to befall them.
It is generally agreed that fairies were extremely fond of dancing
around oaks, and thus in addressing the monarch of the forest a poet has
exclaimed:
"The fairies, from their nightly haunt,
In copse or dell, or round the trunk revered
Of Herne's moon-silvered oak, shall chase away
Each fog, each blight, and dedicate to peace
Thy classic shade."
In Sweden the miliary fever is said by the peasantry to be caused by the
elf-mote or meeting with elves, as a remedy for which the lichen aphosus
or lichen caninus is sought.
The toadstools often found near these so-called fairy-rings were also
thought to be their workmanship, and in some localities are styled
pixy-stools, and in the North of Wales "fairy-tables," while the
"cheeses," or fruit of the mallow, are known in the North of England as
"fairy-cheeses.
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