The gaiety of summer has passed and there's a sense of anticipation creeping over the wood as the mornings turn frosty. The forest folk are busy preparing for winter. Nuts and roots are being stowed away in hollows beneath the trees and Faerie mounds. Store cellars are packed with dried berries and bundles of fragrant herbs, while cauldrons of steaming acorn coffee and rose hip cider hang over hearths. Tuala, Maeve and Rowan have been sent to collect the last acorns for the Autumn Feast. Along the way they find a ring of tiny brightly coloured toadstools, a few whispered words and an enchantment is laid. Winter nights are long and the Faeries delight in catching unsuspecting wayfarers in their Faerie rings, to dance the nights away with.
A Song of the Woods
“My leaves are turning crimson,” the giant oak tree said,
“It’s almost time these children should seek their winter’s bed,
But how they still cling to me and gleam with crimson hue,
They truly are more lovely than cirrus clouds of blue.
“And now throughout the forest – list! hear their voices ring,
But ’tis in tones of sadness and sighing they now sing –
‘Alas! ’tis gone, fair summer, and winter’s reign is near,
He cruelly strips the forest of all her summer cheer
By killing all her lovely leaves and likewise flowers gay
And driving all her fairy folk to homes of far away.
by Winifred Sackville Stoner, Jr
The listings for Tuala, Maeve, and Rowan are here.
