FAIRY, in ancient traditions and romances, signifies a sort of sprite, or imaginary genius, of this lower sphere, and distinguished by a variety of fantastical actions either good or bad.

Fairies were commonly imagined to be women of an order superior to human nature, yet subject to wants, passions, accidents, and even death; sprightly and benevolent whilst young and handsome; morose, peevish, and malignant, if ugly, or in the decline of their beauty; and fond of appearing in white, from which circumstance they were often called the WTiite Ladies.

Concerning these imaginary beings, Jervaise of Tille-berry, marshal of the kingdom of Arles, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, writes thus in a work inscribed to the Emperor Otho IV. :—“It has been asserted by persons of unexceptionable credit, that fairies used to choose themselves gallants from among men, and rewarded their attachment with an affluence of worldly goods; but if they married, or boasted of a fairy’s favours, they as severely smarted for such indiscretion.” Similar tales still were current in Languedoc; and throughout the whole province there was not a village without some ancient seat or cavern which had the honour of being a fairy’s residence, or at least some spring in which a fairy used to lave its tiny form. This idea of fairies has anear affinity with that of the Greeks and Romans concerning the nymphs of the woods, mountains, and springs; and an ancient scholiast on Theocritus says, that “the nymphs arc demons which appear on the mountains in the figure of women.” The Arabs and other orientals have also their Peris, of whom they entertain notions somewhat similar to those held in the west respecting fairies.

But fairies have likewise been described as of either sex, and generally as of small stature, though capable of assuming various forms and dimensions. The most charming representation of these children of romantic fancy is to be found in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, in referring to which we no doubt have been already anticipated by the recollection of the reader.

Fairy of the Mine, an imaginary being, an inhabitant of mines. The Germans believed in two species: one fierce and malevolent; the other a gentle race, appearing as little old men dressed like the miners, and not much above two feet in height. These sprites wander about the drifts and chambers of the works; seem perpetually employed, yet do nothing; and appear to cut the ore, or fling what is cut into vessels, or turn the windlass; but never do any harm to the miners, unless provoked. Such is the relation of Agricoa, in his book .De Animantibus Subterrancis. Fairy Circle, or Ring, a phenomenon pretty frequent in the fields, and supposed by the vulgar to have been traced by the fairies in their dances. There are two kinds of fairy ring: one of about seven yards in diameter, containing a round bare path, about a foot broad, with green grass in the middle of it; and another of different dimensions, encompassed with a circumference of grass. Jessop and Walker, in the Philosophical Transactions, ascribe these rings to lightning; and this is thought to be confirmed by their being most frequently produced after thunder storms, as well as by the colour and brittleness of the grass-roots when first observed. Lightning, like all other fires, moves round, and burns more in the extremity than in the middle; and the second circle arises from the first, as the grass burnt up grows very plentifully afterwards. But others maintain that these circles are formed by ants, which are frequently found in great numbers therein. Mr Cavallo, in his Treatise on Electricity, does not think that lightning is at all concerned in the formation of them. “They are not,” says he, “always of a circular figure;, and, as I am informed, they seem to be rather beds of mushrooms than the effects of lightning.”