Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/354

 324 to beat they were to have their sprees in Doolas Woods, and if the fairies of the lake, they were to have their sprees under water; but the fairies of the land beat the fairies of the lake, and their sprees were in Doolas Woods. They feasted and danced for three nights and three days; and they danced so hard that the leprehauns were heard in every quick and ditch—rap-tap went their hammers, mending the shoes.

The food that they ate was berries much resembling the mountain ash; and on leaving the fairylands the king made them promise that none of them would lose a berry outside the fairylands; for if they did, a tree of many branches would spring up, and if an old woman of eighty ate one of those berries she would become as youthful as though she was sixteen, and if a little maid ate one of them she would become a flower of beauty. So the king made them promise that they would not lose a single berry. But one of the little fairies drank too freely of the mountain dew and lost a berry, and immediately a tree of many branches sprang up.

The king of the fairylands proposed to get married to the queen of another fairyland, and the queen sent out six of her heralds to catch butterflies, for she wanted a suit of clothes made of the butterflies' wings for herself and her twelve maids of honour. They were sent to Doolas Woods to capture the butterflies, and as they entered the wood they found a great noise of birds and bees. They looked towards the noise and they saw the beautiful fairy-tree, and when they had captured the butterflies, and went back to the fairylands they told the queen what they had seen. The queen told the king, and the king called his people from the four corners of the fairyland and enquired which of them all had lost the berry, and they said "none of them." He asked were they all there, and they found that there was one a-missing. So the king sent out four of his heralds, and they found him hiding in the ferns. He was brought before the king, and he was asked why did he not