The Rev. John Horsley in his Materials for the History of Northumberland, gathered in 1729-30, and printed by the late Mr. Hodgson Hinde, says, ‘The stories of fairies seem now to be much worn both out of date and out of credit.’ This is, however, incorrect, so far as regards country people, long after Horsley’s time. An old man once said to me that in the part of Northumberland where he dwelt there was a time when there was not a solitary hawthorn tree away out on the green hills, standing amid its circuit of fine cropped grass, that was not witness to the fairy revel and dance held beneath its encircling branches in the twilight or by the pale light of the moon. The Northumbrian fairies, numerous as they were, had been once a shy people, and little now can be gathered about their ongoings, which, however, have the same peculiarities as have been told of them in other favourite haunts. Denham 136-137