ily through the sudden rack of the
clouds, showed the river raging from bank to brae. As he shook the
moisture from his clothes, he was not without a wish that the day would
dawn, and that he might be preserved on a road which his imagination
beset with greater perils than the raging river; for his superstitious
feeling let loose upon his path elf and goblin, and the current
traditions of the district supplied very largely to his apprehension the
ready materials of fear.

"Just as he emerged from the wood, where a fine sloping bank, covered
with short greensward, skirts the limit of the forest, his horse made a
full pause, snorted, trembled, and started from side to side, stooped his
head, erected his ears, and seemed to scrutinise every tree and bush. The
rider, too, it may be imagined, gazed round and round, and peered warily
into every suspicious-looking place. His dread of a supernatural
visitation was not much allayed when he observed a female shape seated on
the ground at the root of a huge old oak-tree, which stood in the centre
of one of those patches of verdant sward, known by the name of 'fairy
rings,' and avoided by all peasants who wish to prosper. A long thin
gleam of eastern daylight enabled him to examine accurately the being
who, in this wild place and unusual hour, gave additional terror to this
haunted spot. She was dressed in white from the neck to the knees; her
arms, long and round and white, were perfectly bare; her head, uncovered,
allowed her long hair to descend in ringlet succeeding ringlet, till the
half of her person was nearly concealed in the fleece. Amidst the whole,
her hands were constantly busy in shedding aside the tresses which
interposed between her steady and uninterrupted gaze down a line of old
road which wound among the hills to an ancient burial-ground.

"As the traveller continued to gaze, the figure suddenly rose, and,
wringing the rain from her long locks, paced round and round the tree,
chanting in a wild and melancholy manner an equally wild and delirious
song.

THE FAIRY OAK OF CORRIEWATER.

The small bird's head is under its wing,
The deer sleeps on the grass;
The moon comes out, and the stars shine down,
The dew gleams like the glass:
There is no sound in the world so wide,
Save the sound of the smitten brass,
With the merry cittern and the pipe
Of the fairies as they pass.
But oh! the fire maun burn and burn,
An