The End of Faery

Garth lay still in the gilded cage

Unable to move a thing,

The bars were merely spiders’ webs

Of a faery’s magicking.

He’d wandered into the Faery Ring

Where he’d seen the mushrooms spread,

And now was caught in a faery spell

With the rest of the living dead.

 

With Tom, the Candlestick Maker’s son

And a barrel of candlewax,

He’d dawdled home from the marketplace

And lay in the beckoning grass.

He woke to find he was tightly bound

With a faery up on his chest,

She said, ‘Lock him in the cage as well,

Along with all of the rest.’

 

And Madge, the maid with a milking pail

Who was sent to milk the cow,

She’d wandered off on her way; she thought,

She needed to feed the sow.

She woke to mushrooms, ten feet tall

All towering over her head,

The stalks were bars, set under the stars

And her limbs, they felt like lead.

 

While Tim the Tinker was there as well

With his knives and sharpening tools,

His grindstone lay in a pile of hay

And the bonds on him were cruel.

The beggar lay in his filthy rags

While the rich man muttered, ‘Shame!’

He’d soiled his boots and his Regency suit,

Was bound with his watch and chain.

 

They lie not far from the caravans

Of a gypsy camping ground,

So Faeries say: ‘Let’s take them away

Before they’re seen and found!’

But dancing into the faery ring

Is the Gypsy, Mavourneen,

Who stumbles over the gilded cage

And steps on the Faery Queen.

 

The top flies off from the gilded cage,

The webs of the bars are torn,

And Garth crawls over the mushroom heads

To swear, ‘I feel reborn!’

The faeries weep as they carry their Queen

In death, to their Faery Dell,

There’s mushrooms still in that Faery Ring,

But now, Toadstools as well!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[TPK Stories]

Sounds like a faerie tale...great story....

[TL Boehm]

I've heard that faeries are for all their beauty capricious and dangerous little things. But to think one got squished in such and unceremonious manner made me giggle. I suppose that's inappropriate of me.

[Claire in VA]

Very entertaining. I am sure that you know that your writing is a favorite of mine. I just love the magical elements and imagination found in your work, not to mention meter and rhyme and all that good stuff.

1,000, HERE YOU COME!!

[Lyn Anderson]

First off, let me say I love this spelling of Fairy. It is so much more mystical and magical. And another wonderful faery tale ride.

[Lena M. P.]

That was off the beaten path for you but I liked it just the same. You have a bit of the blarney in you to have wrote such an engaging tale.

[Marie]

Excellent. I love the part about the bars being spiders' webs.Adelicate gilden cage that no one could escape--until the gypsy set them free.