So who they be that ouphant fairies strike,
  Their souls shall wander to King Offa’s dike.

The entrenchment, which served as lists for the combatants, is said by Gervase to have been the work of the pagan invaders of Britain.  In the metrical romance of Arthour and Merlin, we have also an account of Wandlesbury being occupied by the Sarasins, i.e. the Saxons; for all pagans were Saracens with the romancers.  I presume the place to have been Wodnesbury, in Wiltshire, situated on the remarkable mound, called Wansdike, which is obviously a Saxon work.—­GOUGH’S Cambden’s Britannia, pp. 87—­95.]

To the same current of warlike ideas, we may safely attribute the long train of military processions which the Fairies are supposed occasionally to exhibit.  The elves, indeed, seem in this point to be identified with the aerial host, termed, during the middle ages, the Milites Herlikini, or Herleurini, celebrated by Pet.  Blesensis, and termed, in the life of St Thomas of Canterbury, the Familia Helliquinii.  The chief of this band was originally a gallant knight and warrior; but, having spent his whole possessions in the service of the emperor, and being rewarded with scorn, and abandoned to subordinate oppression, he became desperate, and, with his sons and followers, formed a band of robbers.  After committing many ravages, and defeating all the forces sent against him, Hellequin, with his whole troop, fell in a bloody engagement with the Imperial host.  His former good life was supposed to save him from utter reprobation; but he and his followers were condemned, after death, to a state of wandering, which should endure till the last day.  Retaining their military habits, they were usually seen in the act of justing together, or in similar warlike employments.  See the ancient French romance of Richard sans Peur.  Similar to this was the Nacht Lager, or midnight camp, which seemed nightly to beleaguer the walls of Prague,

  “With ghastly faces thronged, and fiery arms,”

but which disappeared upon recitation of the magical words, Vezele, Vezele, ho! ho! ho!—­For similar delusions, see DELRIUS, pp. 294, 295.

The martial spirit of our ancestors led them to defy these aerial warriors; and it is still currently believed, that he, who has courage to rush upon a fairy festival, and snatch from them their drinking cup, or horn, shall find it prove to him a cornucopia of good fortune, if he can bear it in safety across a running stream.  Such a horn is said to have been presented to Henry I. by a lord of Colchester.—­GERVAS TILB. p. 980.  A goblet is still carefully preserved in Edenhall, Cumberland, which is supposed to have been seized at a banquet of the elves, by one of the ancient family of Musgrave; or, as others say, by one of their domestics, in the manner above described.  The Fairy train vanished, crying aloud,

  If this glass do break or fall,
  Farewell the luck of Edenhall!