them, she
became lovelier than the flower of beauty.

The fairies guarded the berries as carefully as a miser guards his
gold, and whenever they were about to leave fairyland they had to
promise in the presence of the king and queen that they would not give
a single berry to mortal man, nor allow one to fall upon the earth;
for if a single berry fell upon the earth a slender tree of many
branches, bearing clusters of berries, would at once spring up, and
mortal men might eat of them.

But it chanced that this time they were in Dooros Wood they kept up
the feasting and dancing so long, and were so full of joy because of
their victory over the lake fairies, that one little, weeny fairy, not
much bigger than my finger, lost his head, and dropped a berry in the
wood.

When the feast was ended the fairies went back to fairyland, and were
at home for more than a week before they knew of the little fellow's
fault, and this is how they came to know of it.

A great wedding was about to come off, and the queen of the fairies
sent six of her pages to Dooros Wood to catch fifty butterflies with
golden spots on their purple wings, and fifty white without speck or
spot, and fifty golden, yellow as the cowslip, to make a dress for
herself, and a hundred white, without speck or spot, to make dresses
for the bride and bridesmaids.

When the pages came near the wood they heard the most wonderful music,
and the sky above them became quite dark, as if a cloud had shut out
the sun. They looked up, and saw that the cloud was formed of bees,
who in a great swarm were flying towards the wood and humming as they
flew. Seeing this they were sore afraid until they saw the bees
settling on a single tree, and on looking closely at the tree they saw
it was covered with fairy berries.

The bees took no notice of the fairies, and so they were no longer
afraid, and they hunted the butterflies until they had captured the
full number of various colours. Then they returned to fairyland, and
they told the queen about the bees and the berries, and the queen told
the king.

The king was very angry, and he sent his heralds to the four corners
of fairyland to summon all his subjects to his presence that he might
find out without delay who was the culprit.

They all came except the little weeny fellow who dropped the berry,
and of course every one said that it was fear that kept him away, and
that he must be guilty.

The heralds were at once sent