mythology, long centuries before Peter the Hermit was born, or Frank and Moslem dreamt of making the Holy Sepulchre a casus belli. It is a curious fact in connection with fairy lore, and we have not seen it noticed elsewhere, that although these anomalous beings are always credited with much capriciousness, and are constantly described as sensitive in the extreme to anything like slight or insult, keenly vindictive in their dispositions and easily irritated, they are never represented as encompassing the death of human beings. They tease, terrify, and torment in a thousand ways where they take a dislike, but they never kill. Their power is described as great, but it is also limited--the issues of life and death are beyond their reach. In the fairy song (temp. Charles I.) first quoted, there are two amusing verses indicating such pranks as fairies could play on mortals, if mortals offended them. Thus concludes Queen Mab her song:-- "Next turned to mites in cheese, forsooth, We get into some hollow tooth; Wherein, as in a Christmas hall, We frisk and dance, the devil and all! "Then we change our wily features, Into yet far smaller creatures, And dance in joints of gouty toes, To painful tunes of groans and woes."-- A pathology of toothache and gout that we recommend to the attention of the faculty. The fairy ring agaric is one of the British species of mushroom that may be eaten with safety. For our own part we abominate the whole tribe. Our table may be scantier at times than we could wish, but it will be scantier far than a kind Providence has ever yet permitted it to be before we shall think of dining or supping on funguses. Chacun à son goût, however, and if anybody wants mushrooms in abundance, now is the time, and Nether Lochaber is the place for them. The new moon that comes in this morning (the 6th) will be the harvest moon of the year. It is full on the 20th, and for a few evenings before and after will be very beautiful, and well worth attention. If you can command telescopic aid on the occasion, so much the better, but even without it, it were strange if we could not view with admiration and delight the silver orb that probably at some such conjunction as that of the 20th, when walking in her brightness and her beauty, tempted the patriarch of old to kiss his hand in acknowledgment of her excellency, and bow before her in adoration. CHAPTER XXVII. The disappearance of the glories of Autumn, and the advent of Winter--Innovations and Innovators--New Version of the Scriptures--The Milkmaid and her Fairy Lover, translated from the Gaelic.