Where the Sídhe Dance

According to lore, a ring of mushrooms mark the spot where the faries have danced in the cover of the fog, in Irish folk stories.
According to lore, a ring of mushrooms mark the spot where the faeries have danced in the cover of the fog, in Irish folk stories.

The grass grows green where the Sídhe dance
Unseen by men in the fog
The mushroom circle is kissed by the dew
Round the trees at the edge of the bog…

The fool who walks the road at night
Misfortune on his kin does bring
Finds himself in the Underworld
A giant in front of the Faerie King

“Why do you walk the forest walk
When the fog it strikes the ground
The cloak for the Little Folk
Who neath it dancing are to be found?”

“I am but a fool my King”
Answers the terrified man, though tall,
I was drinking the health of my new born son,
Now I find myself in your hall…

I’d give anything to hold my wife again,
So see my new born son,
I never meant to spoil the merriment,
Woe the disturbance on it I put upon…

The king took on a look of delight
A titter rippled over the place
His queen, quite drunk, fell from her throne
Apologising for her lack of grace

Said the king, “I’ll trade you your infant son,
Should you wish to be free,
We will place a changling in his cot,
Your son will be raised by me…

“To my wife” begged the man, “say never a word,
Let me see my son once a year!”
“He will look on you as a proud stag”, the king said,
As such a beast he will appear”

So it went on for many years
His wife never took to the child
Supposedly theirs, that seemed so strange
With a wild look in his eyes…

One day out shooting in the woods
The man made at a shadow a quick shot
The shadow was a stag, that turned into a boy
“My son!” he cried! – “I hope its not”

But it was, as he buried his son in the darkened woods
From his wife he had to hold his grief
They had no more children in the family
The changeling made their happiness brief

Bad tempered and quarrelsome, he did not fit in
For he belonged to another word, it was true,
His mother never understood him or tried to at all
His friends they were very few…

One day angered, the father took the changeling to the woods
Anniversary of the stags shooting set him in fury wild,
He placed antlers on the boys head,
Then shot him dead, the Faerie Childe

But when walking home, a fog came down,
Covered him like a cape,
The more he ran, the more he was lost,
For him there was no escape!

He was back in front of the Faerie King
Who in anger, roaring before him shook…
He would never escape the Underworld now…
As the Changlelings life he had took!

So, should you yourself in the woods yourself find…
With a thick mist gathering there…
Run for your life from among the tree’s
Avoid such a fate as our friend was of unaware!

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