THE WORK OF THE FROST FAIRIES.
ON the fells and high moors the Spirit of the Mist makes a league with the frost fairies to decorate for Christmas the forms of mountain plants, and the faces of the chiselled rocks that border the leaping mountain streams. Here is material of every dainty kind for the frost fairies to try their hands upon. In the niches of their walls the ferns, even if dead and brown, linger late, and on the shelves where the earth can gather are the star-shaped leaves of what in summer are the burn-side flowers. From the wet rocks hang curtains and streamers of moss, green as malachite and soft as plush, down which the water-drops trickle like beads, and fall into the stream. Where a minor tributary has burrowed its way far below the peat and rushes and soaks, on the fell-side far above it spouts in a last leap from the crevice in the rock into the rushing channel of the burn. In their elfin crafts- manship the frost fairies are aided by the favour of the clouds. The freezing vapours moving on the face of the fell sow gently, as if with invisible hands, the fog crystals on every vegetable substance that grows upon the fell. The heather buds; the exquisite sprays of the whortleberry leaves, where these have not yet fallen, but hide, like tiny myrtles, in the sheltered corners of the rocks amid protecting heather; the winter rushes, the cushions of sphagnum moss, the bents, the heather roots hanging over the broken sides of the burns, the dead 'bracken leaves, and the trailing mountain briars,—all these are transformed into the stems, branches, or supports of the flowers of the frost-fog. Constantly sweeping in gentle breaths of air across the fell, it builds up the fair and imponderable forms of flowers, wrought from minute crystals and glittering spikes of ice. Some are like the drooping plumes of coxcombs, some like the upright feathers of the reeds. Others are like the diamond stars of the Order of the Garter or the Bath ; others like sprays fashioned from tiny sparkling brilliants. A spray of heather becomes an ostrich plume, with barbules of ice-crystal; a winter fern, with its graceful curve, is transformed into the frontlet of a tiara of white and shining crystal. So light and so fleeting are the jewels of the mist, that the frailest stem or fibre shows no flexure beneath their glittering adornment, and the gems which bead the outlines of their form might be strung upon a thread of gossamer and fail to weigh it down. To the living waters of the becks the frost fairies come in a pettish mood, for running waters, as every one knows, have a divinity of their own, too potent for ghosts to cross them, and on which neither fairy, elf, nor sprite can lay impertinent control. They fear to make trial of the becks and streams, which flow on for ever unbridled and unchecked. So the frost fairies tease the Children of the becks, the dripping fountains, and the streaks down the rock faces, and put them into limbo, or place them finder a spell, or turn them into changelings of ice whom no one could recognise. What was a shelf overhanging the brow
of the rock, whence, from the old year's beginning to the new year's end, the waters were distilled in drops over fringes of moss, and fell with everlasting plash and tinkle into the pool below, are now hard white fangs of ever-lengthening ice- jags, down each of which the still flowing drop descends, but
is caught at last and set fast by the side of all its companions in this long limbo of ice. So the frost fairies play the river an impish trick for once, by withholding from it the tribute of its children, whose down•coming the smooth waters of the
pool had ever welcomed with dimpling smiles. But, like all fairy malice, it is short-lived and fleeting, and the substantial world sets itself right in due course as if awakening from a dream.
In the valleys, where the frost-fog lies still, like motionless smoke, it adorns the trees and all things which rise into its upper strata after a different fashion. The fog crystals take the form of thin discs of ice, which look as if strung upon the branches, as though suspended upon thread. In each day of frost-fog the discs widen, until they resemble strings of coins. The first day they are threepenny pieces, the next day shillings, the next half-crowns,—until, if there is a week of this freezing mist, the telegraph-wires are as thick as two- inch cables.
When the frost fairies have a- material ready for original design, they often produce in the hours of darkness most exquisite decorations, suitable for the walls of Queen Mab's best parlour. The window-panes are their drawing-paper, and the window-frames serve as picture-frames on those particular occasions. There are said to be no less than a thousand forms of snow crystals, every one of them of the finest finish, and of unimpeachable symmetry. Some are like the patterns in Honiton lace, while others are elaborated with geometrical patterns so complex that it is difficult to analyse them. But on the window-panes the frost pic- tures are by no means confined to what are "standard patterns " in snow-flakes (for it is said that as a rule each fall of snow is made up of crystals of similar form), but show the most various and dainty schemes of orna- ment. Some are like starry flowers, set with stars in the centre, and with starry shoots and comets flying into space around them. Others take the shape of leaves, arranged in set form by some human designers. The endive pattern is among the most beautiful, the curves and " motive" being often scarcely distinguishable from those in which a goldsmith of the days of Louis XV. modelled the ormolu in which he graced some priceless vase of jasper or of crystal. The strawberry-leaf pattern is another favourite frost subject. Scale patterns, like the scales of fishes with striated lines upon the overlapping discs, wavy patterns, set with stars, fern patterns, moss patterns, and formalised sprays of maiden- hair, are among the choicest on the list.
Early in the autumn, in the clear nights when the stars look down on leaves and flowers, and no curtain of cloud comes between the firmament and the cooling surface of the earth, the plants and shrubs lose their heat so fast that each becomes a freezing machine which cools the vapours round it, and turns them into the white and sparkling crystals of ice-dust which we call hoar-frost. All the flat surfaces are powdered with frost, the upper sides of leaves, the posts and bars of gates, the roofs of houses, and the felloes and tyres of the waggons standing in the yards. But even the arrangement of the hoar- frost seems to show the touch of fairy fingers on every leaf, and tree, and spray. On the grass of the lawns the frost marks every blade with a double -rim of white, fringing the edge from base to point. It is then that the form and growth of the short grasses are best seen and distinguished, and their elegance appreciated. The same motive of decoration, by running a white border along the edges of the leaves, is even more effective on the holly-bushes. There the leaves are symmetrical, yet with edges crimped and scalloped ; and when each of the thousands of dark and shiny leaves has received its trimming of boar-frost, the tree seems enchanted, or as one seen in the fancies of dreamland. The earliest boar-frosts come before the flowers are dead, and tip the roses with silver, and ice the violets. It is a favourite freak of the frost fairies at such times to decorate the spiders' webs, spun in a brief hour or so of sunshine the day before, with the white powder of this frozen breath of the sleeping earth. Every circle and every line in the little geometrician's web is marked in frost, which, later in the day, turns into minute drops of water quivering in the sun.
The pink china roses are tipped with crystal, and' the scarlet berries of the wild roses are adorned with a semi- transparent glaze. It is a curious fact that grass trodden upon when the hoar-frost lies on it turns black, and long after the sun is up the marks of footprints remain upon lawn or meadow. In the autumn the hoar-frost leaves no trace of
' mischief behind. But in the early spring death follows to the young and growing leaves which part with their heat to assume their beautiful but chilly adornment.
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