Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/165

Rh fear of meeting King Oberon; while he, attended by the mischief-loving Puck, spent his time in devising plots to tease his dainty consort.

Thus it was that the dew forgot to fall; the fairy circles, no longer used for moonlight revels, had overgrown with rank weeds; the thick air breathed pestilent vapors; the moon shone with watery light; and all the months, missing their guardian fairies, were out of humor, so that stately August wept like changeful April, and merry May was as rude and boisterous as March.

The cause of the quarrel was trifling enough. Titania had a changeling,one of those charming earth children whom the elves sometimes steal from their cradles, leaving in their stead some sprite from fairy-land, to tease the human parents with its goblin ways. Only Titania had not stolen this earth child, who was her charge. It was the offspring of an Indian princess who had died; and dying, preferred to give her boy to the fairy queen, rather than leave it to the mercies of the cold world. So Titania kept him tenderly, and loved him as dearly as if he were a fairy. But Oberon, who was both jealous and exacting,as much so as an earth-born lord,saw she boy, and coveted him to be his cup-bearer, to bring him dew in flower-cups, or to gather