England has ever been full of the favourite haunts of those pleasantest of all the supernatural sprites of childhood and superstition--elves and fairies. Volumes might be filled with the stories of their feats and pranks in all parts of England; and our greatest poet has for ever embalmed this superstition in the richest hues of poetic imagery and fancy--especially in his _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The _Fairies_, or "Hill Folk," yet live amongst the rural people of Lancashire. Antique tobacco-pipes, "formerly belonging to the fairies," are still occasionally found in the corners of newly-ploughed fields. They themselves still gambol on the grassy meads at dewy eve, and their revels are yet believed to be witnessed at times by some privileged inhabitants of our "calm sequestered vales." It is generally stated that, in order to see one of these diminutive beings, the use of ointments, four-leaved clover, or other specific preparations, is necessary; but a near relative of the writer, not more imbued with superstition than the majority, firmly believed that he once saw a real dwarf or fairy, without the use of any incantation. He had been amusing himself one summer evening on the top of Mellor Moor, near Blackburn, close to the remains of the Roman encampment, when his attention was arrested by the appearance of a dwarf-like man, attired in full hunting costume, with top-boots and spurs, a green jacket, red hairy cap, and a thick hunting whip in his hand. He ran briskly along the moor for a considerable distance, when, leaping over a low stone wall, he darted down a steep declivity, and was lost to sight. The popular opinion of the neighbourhood is, that an underground city exists at this place; that an earthquake swallowed up the encampment, and that on certain days in the year the hill folk may be heard ringing their bells, and indulging in various festivities. Considerable quantities of stone, which still remain around the ditches of this rectangular place, may have suggested the ideas of a city and an earthquake. On other occasions the fairies are supposed to exhibit themselves in military array on the mountain sides; their evolutions conforming in every respect to the movements of modern troops. Such appearances are believed to portend the approach of civil commotions, and are said to have been more than usually common about the time of the rebellion in 1745-6. This would suggest an explanation of a more rational character. [Doubtless the mirage, Fata Morgana, or Spectral appearances of the Hartz mountains.] One Lancashire Fairy tale runs thus:--