fairy dance

plural fairy dances

1. artsA dance performed by fairies, especially one in which humans are enticed only to find that when released years or centuries have passed.
2. obsoleteSynonym of fairy ring (“a ring of fungi; a place where fairies dance”).

   Fairy-circles, fairy-rings, or fairy-dances, circles of coarse green grass often seen in meadows and downs, and attributed to the dancing of the fairies.

   1846, James Orchard Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, London: John Russell Smith, page 345

   2 more examples

   [B]y which means, all the virtue is drawn forth and carried away, leaving little more than a dry and inſipid congeſtion of Caput Mortuum, and perhaps a florid green Circle, or Fairy dance at the bottom, which the impregnated rains have inrich'd with what it has waſh'd from the heap.

   1679, John Evelyn, Sylva, or a Discourſe of Foreſt-trees, London: John Martyn, page 226

   In the yeare 1633-4, soone after I had entered into my grammar at the Latin Schoole at Yatton Keynel, our curate Mr. Hart was annoy’d one night by these elves or fayries, Comming over the downes, it being neere darke, and approching one of the faiery dances, as the common people call them in these parts, viz. the greene circles made by those sprites on the grasse, he all at once sawe an innumerable quantity of pigmies or very small people dancing rounde and rounde, and singing, and making all maner of small odd noyses.

   a. 1697, John Aubrey, (untitled MS); quoted in Alexander Dyce, Sir Thomas More: A Play, London: The Shakespeare Society, 1844, page 235

   Synonyms: fairy ring