Resurrected from a decent burial in historical anthologies, this mid- 19th-century Irish poem parades a troop of little men intent on mischief from baby-snatching to putting thorns in human beds. Strongly accented, ir regular cadences in the lines suggest the scampering activities of the little fel lows. In pages filled with Hague's sig nature smoky palette, several stylistic influences try in vain for harmony. The grotesque fairy folk, with their bulbous heads and spindly limbs, are close kin to Palmer Cox's brownies, oddly in compatible with some romantically re alistic plant life that could be home for Cicely Barker's flower fairies. Else where, contorted trees with wooden faces nod their distant acquaintance with Arthur Rackham, while the Queen of the Northern Lights is a dim remind er of the oriental grace favored by such masters as Edmund Dulac.
Description:
Resurrected from a decent burial in historical anthologies, this mid- 19th-century Irish poem parades a troop of little men intent on mischief from baby-snatching to putting thorns in human beds. Strongly accented, ir regular cadences in the lines suggest the scampering activities of the little fel lows. In pages filled with Hague's sig nature smoky palette, several stylistic influences try in vain for harmony. The grotesque fairy folk, with their bulbous heads and spindly limbs, are close kin to Palmer Cox's brownies, oddly in compatible with some romantically re alistic plant life that could be home for Cicely Barker's flower fairies. Else where, contorted trees with wooden faces nod their distant acquaintance with Arthur Rackham, while the Queen of the Northern Lights is a dim remind er of the oriental grace favored by such masters as Edmund Dulac.