"O how they skipped it, Capered and tripped it, Under the greenwood tree!"
The popular belief in the origin of these bright green circles, that they were caused by fairy feet in many a midnight merry-go-round, is frequently alluded to in the poetry alike of Celt and Saxon. Thus a fairy song of the time of Charles the First begins--
"We dance on hills above the wind, And leave our footsteps there behind, Which shall to after ages last, When all our dancing days are past."
The reader will probably remember Queen Mab's very quaint and beautiful song in Percy's Reliques of English Poetry:--
"Come, follow, follow me, You fairy elves that be: Which circle on the green, Come follow Mab your queen. Hand in hand let's dance around, For this place is fairy ground.
"Upon a mushroom's head Our table-cloth we spread; A grain of rye or wheat, Is manchet which we eat: Pearly drops of dew we drink, In acorn cups fill'd to the brink.
"The grasshopper, gnat, and fly, Serve for our minstrelsy: Grace said, we dance a while, And so the time beguile; And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights us home to bed.
"On tops of dewy grass So nimbly do we pass, The young and tender stalk Ne'er bends when we do walk; Yet in the morning may be seen Where we the night before have been."
"O'er the dewy green, By the glow-worm's light, Dance the elves of night, Unheard, unseen. Yet where their midnight pranks have been, The circled turf will betray to-morrow."
Nor was the superstition unknown to Shakspeare; was there anything unknown to him? Listen:--
"And nightly meadow-fairies, look you sing, Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring; The expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And, Honi soit qui mal y pense, write In emerald tufts, flowers, purple, blue, and white: Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee! Fairies use flowers for their charactery."
