Mistress Lindsay, a widow, and her son Alan, who was a little boy then, lived in a cottage near Rothley. One winter’s night Alan refused to go to bed with his mother, saying, “I wish to sit up for a little while longer, for I am not a bit sleepy.”
His mother told him that if he sat up by himself the old fairy wife would most certainly come and take him away. But the boy laughed at this, and his mother went to bed, leaving him sitting by the fire.
He had not been there long, watching the fire and enjoying its cheerful warmth, when a bonny little figure, about the size of a child’s doll, hopped down the chimney and alighted on the hearth. The little fellow was somewhat startled at first, but the fairy’s smile as it danced to and fro before him soon overcame his fears. At last he inquired, “What do they call thee?”
“Ainsel,”1 replied the little thing, tossing its wee head.
After a bit it turned to Alan with the same question, “And what do they call thee?”
“My Ainsel,” answered Alan.
So they began playing together like any two children. Their gambols went on till the fire began to grow dim. But when Alan took up the poker to stir it, a hot cinder fell accidentally upon the foot of his playmate. Her tiny voice was instantly raised to a most terrific yell, and Alan had scarcely time to crouch into the box bed behind his mother before the voice of the old fairy wife was heard shouting: “Who’s done it? Who’s done it?”
“Hoots! it was ‘my Ainsel’!” answered the tiny fairy.
“Why, then,” said her mother, as she kicked her up the chimney, “what’s all this noise for? There’s no one to blame but thine Ainsel.”