FAIRIES, imaginary beings of both sexes and human shape, who are fabled to frequent the haunts of men, to dance in meadows, and to be distinguished by a variety of fantastical actions, either innocent or mischievous. In traditions and romances they are frequently represented as beings of diminutive stature and exquisite beauty: and sometimes as women of an order superior to human nature, yet subject to wants, passions, accidents, and even death; sprightly and benevolent whilst young and handsome; morose, peevish, and malignant if ugly or in the decline of their beauty; generally robed in green, but fond also of appearing in white; from which circumstance they were sometimes called the White Ladies.
Concerning these imaginary beings, Jervaise of Tille-
berry, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, thus writes:—"It has been asserted by persons of unexceptionable credit, that fairies used to select lovers from among men, and rewarded their attachment with an affluence of worldly goods; but if they deserted them or revealed the connection, they smarted severely for such indiscretion." Similar tales were current in Languedoc; and throughout the province there was not a village without some ancient seat or cavern which had the honour of being a fairy's residence, or at least some spring in which a fairy used to lave its tiny form. This idea of fairies has a near affinity with that of the Greeks and Romans concerning the nymphs of the woods, mountains, and springs; and an ancient scholiast on Theocritus says, that "the nymphs are demons (spirits) which appear on the mountains in the figure of women." The Arabs and other orientals have also their Peris, of whom they entertain notions somewhat similar to those held in the west respecting fairies.
Fairies have usually been described as of small stature, though capable of assuming various forms and dimensions. It is scarcely necessary to add that the most charming representation of these children of romantic fancy is to be found in the Midsummer Night's Dream. For an elaborate account of fairies in general, see Keightley's Fairy Mythology, 2 vols. 8vo, in which the legends of different countries are collected.
Fairy of the Mine, an imaginary being, fabled to inhabit mines; wandering about the drifts and chambers, always employed in cutting ore, turning the windlass, &c., but effecting nothing. The Germans believed in two species; one fierce and malevolent, the other harmless. Such is the relation of Agricola, in his book De Animantibus Subterraneis.
Fairy Circle or Ring, a phenomenon pretty frequent in the fields, and supposed by the peasantry to have been traced by the fairies in their dances. There are two kinds of fairy ring: one of about seven yards in diameter, containing a round bare path, about a foot broad, with green grass in the middle of it; and another of different dimensions, encompassed with a circumference of grass. The formation of these rings was formerly ascribed to the action of lightning; and some have attributed them to the labours of ants; but Mr Cavallo, in his Treatise on Electricity, points to their true origin when he says—"They seem to be rather beds of mushrooms than the effects of lightning." These rings are seldom of a perfect form, and frequently spread with great irregularity, forming, as it were, a series of arcs of circles. This irregularity is occasioned by the peculiar mode of growth of the fungi by which they are produced. In the words of Dr Carpenter (Principles of Physiology), "The masses of fungous vegetation which form the progressively extending fairy rings or magic circles of the grassy meadow may be said to be several years of age, although, as fast as new tissue is generated on the exterior of the ring, that of the central side dies and decays, so that no individual part has more than a brief duration."