[Editor: This short story for children, by Eva Oakley, was published in Real Australian Fairy Stories (1945).]
The Mushrooms and the Fairies
Once there grew a wonderful crop of Mushrooms, just where some beautiful little Fairies came to dance at night time. The Mushrooms grew to love the Fairies so much, that, as soon as they arrived, each evening, they turned the edges of their tops upwards, so that, instead of looking like little umbrellas, they were just like tiny, fancy chairs. Then they invited the Fairies to sit in them; this the Fairies did, and were comfortable and happy.
One day a crowd of people set out to gather Mushrooms, and came to the place where the Fairies’ lovely Mushrooms grew. Of course they picked them, and took them home for dinner. When they had cooked them, they all sat around the dining table and ate them, and said they were the loveliest Mushrooms they had ever tasted.
When the Fairies came back that evening, however, they felt very sad; but they thought how lovely it would be to make up a pretty dance, and call it, “The Fairies’ Mushroom Dance”: so they lifted up the top frills of their little gauze skirts, and draped them over their heads, so that they looked like dainty little umbrellas, and also like glistening white Mushrooms. Then they stood on the tips of their tiny toes, and tripped round, doing most wonderful steps, while the glow-worms lit up the patch of lovely, green, green grass for them.
Now to this day, no more Mushrooms have grown there; but those dear little Fairies come each evening, and dance “The Fairies’ Mushroom Dance,” in memory of the ones they loved.
Source:
Eva Oakley, Real Australian Fairy Stories, Melbourne: Austral Printing & Publishing Company, [1945], p. 1
Editor’s notes:
trip = to dance, run, or walk with quick light steps; a lively movement (especially of the feet, e.g. “to trip the light fantastic”, to dance); to flow easily (e.g. a phrase which trips lightly off the tongue); an excursion, jaunt, journey, voyage
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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