THE PAIRY RINGS. 153 



to be the case elsewhere, but in this and the neighbouring districts 

 ■we have again and again remarked how very plentiful all kinds 

 of mushrooms — the whole family of Agarici — are this season. 

 Never have we seen so many beautiful " fairy rings," many 

 of them almost mathematically perfect circles. Although they 

 are always interesting and beautiful, you cannot help being a 

 little startled, and feeling a shade of awe mingling with your 

 curiosity and admiration, as you suddenly come upon one of these 

 emerald rings in burnside meadow or upland glade, and contrast 

 the vivid green and well-defined periphery of the charmed circle 

 with the general every-day colour of the surrounding verdure. 

 We are not surprised — on the contrary, we can perfectly under- 

 stand — how in the good old times, ere yet the schoolmaster was 

 abroad, or science had become a popular plaything, people — 

 and, doubtless, very honest, decent people too — attributed those 

 inexplicable emerald circles to supernatural agency; if, indeed, 

 anything connected with the " good folks " or " men of peace " 

 could properly be called sw^er-natural in times when a belief in 

 fairies, and every sort of fairy freak and frolic, was deemed the 

 most correct and natural thing in the world. Didn't these circles, 

 it was argued, appear in the course of a single night? In the 

 sequestered woodland glade, nor herd nor milkmaid could see any- 

 thing odd or unusual as the sun went down, and, lo ! next morning, 

 as they drove their flocks afield, there was the mysterious circle, 

 round as the halo about the wintry moon. Was not the colour, 

 too, of these circles green, and not only green, but a deeper, richer, 

 and more vivid green than natural verdure is ever seen to be 1 and 

 whose work, therefore, could it be but that of the fairies, whose own 

 favourite, peculiar colour was green, that no mere mortal durst 

 wear but at his peril, and who, it was well known, delighted to 

 dance handin-hand in meiTy circles round, footing it featly, as the 

 owl flittered ghost-like by the scene, all by the silvery light of the 

 moon, until the dawn of day. As Tom D'Urfey has it — 



