The fairies | Up the aery mountain

Up the aery mountain

Language: English

Up the aery mountain, 
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go ahunting
for fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, Red cap
And white owl's feather.

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes,
Of yellow tide foam;

Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watchdogs,
all night awake.

High on the hilltop the old king sits;
He is now so old and grey
He's nigh lost his wits
With a bridge of white mist...

Columkille he crosses
On his stately journies 
From Slieve
League to Rosses.

Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
for seven years long,
And when she came down again
Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought she was fast asleep,
But she was dead from sorrow.

They have kept her ever since
Deep within a lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
Watching till she wake...

By the craggy hillside,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorntrees,
For pleasure here and there.

Is any man so daring,
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

by William Allingham (1824 - 1889), "The fairies", appears in Poems, first published 1850 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Hubert Bath (1883 - 1945), "Fairies" [ reciter ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, Sir (1883 - 1953), "The fairies", 1905, published 1907 [ voice and piano ], from Six Songs, no. 6 [sung text not yet checked]
by Seóirse Bodley (b. 1933), "The Fairies", <<1968 [sung text not yet checked]
by James Henry Baseden Butt (b. 1929), "Up the aery mountain", published 1961 [sung text not yet checked]
by Bernard van Dieren (1887 - 1936), "The Fairies", 1920 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by John Herbert Foulds (1880 - 1939), "The fairies", op. 86 no. 5 (1925) [ voice and piano ], from Garland of Youth, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
by Louis Gruenberg (1884 - 1964), "The Fairy Folk", published 1934 [sung text not yet checked]
by Henry Kimball Hadley (1871 - 1937), "The Fairies", published 1894 [ chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Mirrie Irma Hill (1892 - 1986), "We daren't go ahunting", 1971 [ chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Walter Cecil Macfarren (1826 - 1905), "The fairies", published 1872 [ chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Paul Mimart , "The little men", <<1940 [sung text not yet checked]
by Alicia Adélaïda Needham (1863 - 1945), "Up the aery mountain", published 1927 [ SS chorus a cappella? ] [sung text not yet checked]
by George Rathbone (1874 - ?), "Up the airy mountain" [ 2-part women's chorus or boys' chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Henry L. Read , "Up the airy mountain", published [1927] [ SS chorus (a cappella?) ], London: Joseph Williams [sung text not yet checked]
by Hugh Stevenson Roberton, Sir (1874 - 1952), "Up the aery mountain", published 1952 [ unison chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Arthur T. Robinson , "The Fairies", published 1895 [ four-part chorus a cappella? ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Martin Edward Fallas Shaw (1875 - 1958), "Up the aery mountain", published 1920 [ 2-part chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Jessie Lovel Smith (1863 - 1921), as Jessie Lovel Gaynor, "The Fairy Folk", published 1920 [sung text not yet checked]
by Gladys Taylor , "Up the aery mountain", published 1934 [ unison chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Mansel Treharne Thomas (b. 1909), "The Fairies", published 1952 [ SSA chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
possibly by Frank Edwin Ward (1872 - 1953), "The fairies", published c1914 [ partsong for SAATBB chorus a cappella ], note: composer given as F. E. Ward [sung text not yet checked]
by Felix Harold White (1884 - 1945), "Up the aery mountain", published 1922 [sung text not yet checked]
by (Hubert) Leslie Woodgate (1902 - 1961), "Up the aery mountain", published 1938 [ 2-part chorus ] [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 48
Word count: 224