| Deadly
fairy rings
One aspect of fairy lore that does not
apply to the tales of the trows is the phenomenon known as fairy rings.
In
Orkney, these rings were not, as elsewhere in Britain, circular tracks where the
grass was worn away, but narrow rings of short green grass on ground otherwise
covered by heath.
There are few surviving traditions concerning
these rings, but the following story, told by a schoolteacher who worked on Hoy
in the late 1920s, gives a very graphic example of the supposed power of the fairy ring:
"One day I went up to the top of the Ward Hill with
a girl and her uncle and grandparents.
We came on a dark green circle, and they
said it was a fairy ring. On hearing this, the girl jumped into it, and the grown-ups
were greatly annoyed.
The girl died very early in life
(possibly in childbirth). Years afterwards I met the uncle
in Edinburgh and began to speak about the girl.
'Aye', he said, 'she jumped into
the fairy ring and look what happened to her!'" |
