233 
FAIRY RINGS. 
tl In days of old, when Arthur filled the throne, 
Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown, 
The King of Elfs, and little Fairy Queen, 
Gambolled on heaths, and danced on every green ; 
And where the jolly troop had led the round, 
The grass, unbidden, rose and marked the ground.” 
As the autumn green takes possession of the meadows, 
and the hope of another spring cheers the labour of the 
husbandman, a thousand curious things may be seen in 
hedgerows, on commons, in copses, and by the stony 
wayside. Not the leatt interesting of these strange 
sights and autumn wonders are those rings of rich green 
grass which appear on lawns and old pastures, familiarly 
known as “ Fairy Rings”—subjects of inquiry to the 
curious, and of poetic interest to the imaginative. These 
rings are of all sizes, ranging from the circumference of 
a common cart-wheel to wide sweeps of fifteen or twenty 
feet diameter, and distinctly marked in outline by the 
rich greenness of the grass which forms the exterior cir¬ 
cumference. There are not a few of those who love to 
ramble in green and shady places, and who know some¬ 
what of the economy of the fields, who consider fairy 
rings mere pleasant fictions, whereas they are genuine 
