Stories from the Ballads | Page 2

little green folk, yet ofttimes he would come back to visit the land of his birth.
Now many were the hills and dells haunted by the fairy folk. Yet neither hill nor dell pleased them more than the lone plain of Carterhaugh, where the soft-flowing rivers of Ettrick and Yarrow met and mingled.
Many a long day after fairies were banished from the plain of Carterhaugh would the peasant folk come to gaze at the circles which still marked the green grass of the lone moor. The circles had been made, so they said, by the tiny feet of the fairies as they danced round and round in a ring.
Well, in the days before the fairies were banished from the plain of Carterhaugh, strange sights were to be seen there by the light of the moon.
Little folk, dressed all in green, would flit across the moor. They would form tiny rings and dance on their tiny toes until the moonlight failed.
Little horsemen dressed in green would go riding by, the bells on the fairy bridles playing magic music the while. Sounds too, unknown to mortals, would tremble on the still night air.
Full of mischief too were these little elfin folk, and wise mortals feared to tread where fairy feet were tripping.
Wise mortals would warn the merry children and the winsome maidens lest they should venture too near the favourite haunts of fairydom.
To Carterhaugh came, as I have told you, many of the fairy folk; but more often than any other came a little elfin knight, and he was the young Tamlane, who had been carried away to Fairyland when he was only nine years old.
Beyond all other of the little green folk was the elf knight feared. And little was that to be wondered at, for well was it known that over many a fair-haired child, over many a beauteous maiden, he had used his magic power. Nor would he let them go until they promised to come back another moonlit eve, and as a pledge of their promise he would seize from the children a toy, from the maidens a ring, or it might be their mantle of green.
Now about two miles from the plain of Carterhaugh stood a castle, and in the castle there lived a fair maiden named Janet.
One day her father sent for his daughter and said, 'Janet, ye may leave the castle grounds, an ye please, but never may ye cross the plain of Carterhaugh. For there ye may be found by young Tamlane, and he it is who ofttimes casts a spell o'er bonny maidens.'
Now Janet was a wilful daughter. She answered her father never a word, but when she had left his presence she laughed aloud, she tossed her head.
To her ladies she said, 'Go to Carterhaugh will I an I list, and come from Carterhaugh will I an I please, and never will I ask leave of any one.'
Then when the moonbeams peeped in at her lattice window, the lady Janet tucked up her green skirt, so that she might run, and she coiled her beautiful yellow hair as a crown above her brow. And she was off and away to the lone plain of Carterhaugh.
The moonlight stole across the moor, and Janet laughed aloud in her glee. She ran across to the well, and there, standing alone, riderless, stood the steed of the little elfin knight.
Janet put out her hand to the rose-tree that grew by the well and plucked a dark red rose. Sweet was its scent and Janet put out her hand and plucked another rose, but ere she had pulled a third, close beside her stood a little wee man. He reached no higher than the knee of the lady Janet.
'Ye have come to Carterhaugh, Janet,' he cried, 'and yet ye have not asked my leave. Ye have plucked my red roses and broken a branch of my bonny rose-tree. Have ye no fear of me, Janet?'
The lady Janet tossed her head, though over her she felt creeping slow the spell of the little elfin knight. She tossed her head and she cried, 'Nay, I have no fear of you, ye little wee man. Nor will I ever ask leave of you as I come to and fro across the plain of Carterhaugh. Ye shall know that the moor belongs to me, me!' and Janet stamped her foot. 'My father made it all my own.'
But the young Tamlane took the white hand of the lady Janet in his own, and so gentle were his words, so kind his ways, that soon the maiden had no wish to leave the little wee man. Hand in hand they wandered through the red rose-bushes that grew by the side of the well. And in the light of the moon the elf knight wove