When I got there they made me think of Fairyland. The trees were sparkling with the same frost-diamonds I had noticed on the roofs, and through the criss-cross branches above my head the sky was as blue as blue. A jolly little robin was twittering in a bush, enjoying himself no end; his bright red breast reminded me of the holly I had stuck over Father's mantelpiece, and I began to feel sad again. For it did seem hard lines that though Christmas was my birthday, no one, not even Father, had thought of it.
"I wish that I hadn't been born on Christmas Day!" I said aloud, when I had reached the very heart of the wood, and I sat down to rest on the stump of a tree close to a little circle of bright green. It was here I had come that day with Father, and he had told me that though it was called a "Fairy Ring," it was really made by the spread of a very small fungus, or mushroom. I liked the idea of the fairy ring much better, and as I touched it with my foot I wished again that I wasn't a Christmas child. And then I heard a sigh.
It wasn't the robin, for he was still twittering on his bush, and it wasn't the wind, for the air was quite sheltered behind the bank, which was sweet with wild thyme in summer. The next moment I heard another sigh, and this seemed to come from a frond of bracken just outside the fairy ring. It was brown and withered, but the frost had silvered it all over, and as I looked at it I saw the loveliest little creature you can imagine clinging to the stem. She was only about three inches high, but her tiny form was full of grace, and her eyes so bright and beautiful that they shone like stars. Her hair was the palest silver-gold, and she had a crown of diamonds and an amethyst wand that sparkled when she moved it. The scarf wreathed round her shoulders flashed all the colours of mother-of-pearl, and throwing it from her she hummed to herself a little song about violets and eglantine, and sweet musk roses. Her notes were as clear as the lark's, and as if she had called them, more Fairies showed amidst the bracken.
They were lovely too, though not so lovely as she. One was dressed in pink, like a pink pea; another had a long grey coat, spangled with drops of dew, while the third had wings like a big grey moth, and the smallest Elf was all in brown.