I think I
can trace the good effects of this ancient fairy sway over household
concerns, in the care that prevails to the present day among English
housemaids, to put their kitchens in order before they go to bed.
I have said, too, that these fairy superstitions seemed to me to
accord with the nature of English scenery. They suit these small
landscapes, which are divided by honeysuckled hedges into sheltered
fields and meadows, where the grass is mingled with daisies,
buttercups, and harebells. When I first found myself among English
scenery, I was continually reminded of the sweet pastoral images which
distinguish their fairy mythology; and when for the first time a
circle in the grass was pointed out to me as one of the rings where
they were formerly supposed to have held their moonlight revels, it
seemed for a moment as if fairy-land were no longer a fable. Brown, in
his Britannia's Pastorals, gives a picture of the kind of scenery to
which I allude:
"------A pleasant mead
Where fairies often did their measures tread;
Which in the meadows make such circles green,
As if with garlands it had crowned been.
Within one of these rounds was to be seen
A hillock rise, where oft the fairy queen
At twilight sat.
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