Nowhere is a Faerie of the second kind so fully and circumstantially described as in the beautiful romance of Orfeo and Heurodis. There are, indeed, copious extracts from this poem in Sir Walter Scott's Essay on the Fairies of Popular Superstition; and we have no excuse to offer for repeating what is to be found in a work so universally diffused as the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, but that it is of absolute necessity for our purpose, and that romantic poetry is rarely unwelcome. Orfeo and Heurodis were king and queen of Winchester. The queen happening one day to sleep under an ymp[82] tree in the palace orchard, surrounded by her attendants, had a dream, which she thus relates to the king: As I lay this undertide (_afternoon_) To sleep under the orchard-side, There came to me two faire knightes Well arrayed allè rightes, And bade me come without lettíng To speakè with their lord the king; And I answér'd with wordès bolde That I ne durstè ne I nolde: Fast again they can (_did_) drive, Then came their kingè all so blive (_quick_) With a thousand knights and mo, And with ladies fifty also, And riden all on snow-white steedes, And also whitè were their weedes. I sey (_saw_) never sith I was borne So fairè knightès me by forne. The kingè had a crown on his head, It was not silver ne gold red; All it was of precious stone, As bright as sun forsooth it shone. All so soon he to me came, Wold I, nold I he me name (_took_), And madè me with him ride On a white palfrey by his side, And brought me in to his palís, Right well ydight over all ywis. He shewed me castels and toures, Meadows, rivers, fields and flowres, And his forests everiche one, And sith he brought me again home. The fairy-king orders her, under a dreadful penalty, to await him next morning under the ymp tree. Her husband and ten hundred knights stand in arms round the tree to protect her, And yet amiddès them full right The queenè was away y-twight (_snatched_); With Faëry forth y-nome (_taken_); Men wist never where she was become. Orfeo in despair abandons his throne, and retires to the wilderness, where he solaces himself with his harp, charming with his melody the wild beasts, the inhabitants of the spot. Often while here,