How the faere-folk dance and what Arthur Rackham saw on a moonlit night .....

         Loving certain faery-art as all we faeries do, this one has been thinking about summer music. The faere-folk practise their wild tunes and symphonies out under the stars - but then where else could music be played she wonders?

      A hundred or so years ago, when we were not poisoned almost to extinction, there were more of us to be joyful. Then, the ineffable Arthur Rackham, who must surely have been blessed with the gift of faery-sight, caught us singing and playing just for our own pleasure and depicted us to perfection :

'Small fairy singing' from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'  Arthur Rackham

        Here, Muddypond takes the oportunity to mix a sweet poem by Rose Fyleman with a few of Mister Rackham's illustrations, and hopes that you will enjoy both.

'Peter Pan and the Fairy Orchestra' from 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens' by J M Barrie

illustrated by Arthur Rackham

This is the Way the Fairies Sing

This is the way the fairies sing:

They all stand round in a shining ring

On quiet nights when the moon is high,

And lift their faces up to the sky.

They read the music out of the stars,

There aren't any notes and there aren't any bars.

And sweet their song as the clover flower,

And soft it is as a summer shower,

And gay as leaves that the June airs shake,

And sad as the mist on an Autumn lake.

None shall light on a lovelier thing

Than the magical song that the fairies sing.

'The Fairies' Song' from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

illustrated by Arthur Rackham

This is the way the fairies dance:

They point their toes and they leap and prance

Over and under and round and round,

Now in the air and now on the ground,

In a shimmering, glimmering, moon-lit maze

To a wonderful music that nobody plays.

And swift their dance as the coming of Spring,

And light as the touch of a butterfly' wing,

And strange as the gleams in a stormy sky

And changing-bright as the peacock's dye.

Oh, lucky are you if you get the chance

To learn the way that the fairies dance.

Rose Fyleman

From 'The Fairy Flute'  Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1921

'The Fairy Orchestra' from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

illustrated by Arthur Rackham

There's plenty more 'musical faery art' from different artists to see on Muddypond's website and main DiaryBlog this week - in answer to the question -
' Do faeries and other magics have summer music festivals?'.