have never seen a man fairy nor a woman fairy, but my mother saw a troop of
them. She herself and the other maidens of the townland were once out upon
the summer sheiling (grazing). They were milking the cows, in the evening
gloaming, when they observed a flock of fairies reeling and setting upon the
green plain in front of the knoll. And, oh King! But it was they the fairies
themselves that had the right to dancing, and not the children of men!
Bell-helmets of blue silk covered their heads, and garments of green satin
covered their bodies, and sandals of yellow membrane covered their feet.
Their heavy brown hair was streaming down their waist, and its lustre was of
the fair golden sun of summer. Their skin was as white as the swan of the
wave, and their voice was as melodious as the mavis of the wood, and they
themselves were as beauteous of feature and as lithe of form as a picture,
while their step was as light and stately and their minds as sportive as the
little red hind of the hill. The damsel children of the sheiling-fold never
saw sight but them, no never sight but them, never aught so beautiful.There is not a wave of prosperity upon the fairies of the knoll, no, not a wave. There is no growth nor increase, no death nor withering upon the fairies. Seed unfortunate they! They went away from the Paradise with the One of the Great Pride. When the Father commanded the doors closed down and up, the intermediate fairies had no alternative but to leap into the holes of the earth, where they are, and where they will be.
This is what I heard upon the knee of my beloved mother. Blessings be with her ever evermore!
