tails of horses. Fairies of the Picts, tattooed to the eyelids, their plaids dyed with crotal and the root of the yellow iris, wearing badges of mountain fern or bog-myrtle and bearing jars of heather ale. Fairies of Britain, in deerskin cloaks fastened with brooches of enamel, with golden torques circling their throats, bearing sprays of mistletoe. Fairies of the Tuatha-de, with all the youth of the world in their eyes, clad in robes of saffron, crowned with rowans and bearing harps. Fairies from Greece, erect and lissom, beautiful as a sculptor's dream, crowned with wild olive and bearing each the roll of a book. Fairies of old England, in Lincoln green, with feathers of the gray goose in their caps, bearing bows of yew and branches of the may. Fairies from Baghdad, radiant as visions of the night-time, their turbans and their crooked scimitars jewelled with rubies of Badakshan, bearing magic lamps. Fairies from Quinsay, dainty as porcelain, their silken robes embroidered with blossoms of the almond and the peach tree, bearing jars of coral lac wrought in the likeness of dragons, and on their heads the poppy flowers that bring sleep. And in the middle of the ring stood a throne carved out of a single beryl, green as the sea; and on the throne sat the King of the Fairies, with eyes bright as the dawn and deep as the sea caves, in a cloak of Tyrian purple with clasps of amethyst. His crown and sceptre were of white gold, white gold which has long since perished out of the upper world, and in the end of his sceptre was set a double pentacle of clear crystal brought from the Island of Desire. And in the beryl throne, if he looked at it through the crystal, were shown to him the reflections of all things that he might wish to see. If he looked directly, he saw all that had happened in the world in the past; and if he reversed the crystal, he saw all that should happen in the future; but if he held the pentacle edgewise, then he saw the present, which no man ever sees, and was the greatest magic of all. Round the throne stood his guards, black as Moors, in jackets and trousers of emerald green clasped with orange zircons; half of them bore trumpets of silver, and half of them carried spears with heads of green obsidian as sharp as steel. And on either side of the throne, on a stool, sat a strange creature, a little wizened elf with a large book on his knee. One wore a white cap, and he bore an inkhorn and a bundle of long quills; the other wore a black cap, and he bore a penknife. Fiona edged herself as far forward as she could into the ring of strange beings, and found herself next an old Leprechaun with a face like a wrinkled apple, who seemed quite inclined to be friendly.