SHADOW FOLK OF HEATHER 

 HAUNTS 



"Awake ye light fairies that trip o'er the Heather!'' 



-Hogg. 



River Spirit. 

 Sleep'st thou, brother? 



Mountain Spirit. 



Brother, nay 



On my hills the moonbeams play. 

 From Craig-cross to Skelfhill-pen, 

 By every rill, in every glen, 

 Merry elves their morrice pacing, 



To aerial minstrelsy, 

 Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, 



Trip it deft and merrily. 

 Up, and mark their nimble feet; 

 Up, and list their music sweet 



Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



FAIRIES are generally believed to inhabit all cam- 

 panulate flowers, and many references occur 

 both in the prose and poetry of Scotland to the 

 presence of these elfin folk in Heather bells. 



Like the feld elfin of the Saxons, the usual dress 

 of the fairies was said to be green, though on the 

 moors they have sometimes been observed in heath - 

 brown, or in weeds dyed with the stone-row or lichen. 

 Their dwellings were the fairy hillocks or tomhans, 



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