FAIRY

See also:

• RING (O.E. hring; a word common to Teutonic languages; and probably cognate with the Lat. circus, Gr. KtpKOS or KpLKOS, Skt'. chakra, wheel, circle, cf. also " harangue "); in art, a band of circular shape of varying sizes, made of any material and used f

RING  , the popular name for the circular patches of a dark green colour that are to be seen occasionally on permanent grass-land, either lawn or meadow, on which the fairies were supposed to hold their midnight revels . They mark the area of growth of some fungus, starting from a centre of one or more plants . The mycelium produced from the spores dropped by the fungus or from the " spawn " in the soil, radiates outwards, and each year's successive crop of fungi rises from the new growth round the circle . The rich colour of the grass is due to the fertilizing quality of the decaying fungi, which are peculiarly rich in nitrogenous substances . The most complete and symmetrical grass rings are formed by Alarasmius orcades,the fairy ring champignon, but the mushroom and many other species occasionally form rings, both on grass-lands and in woods . Observations were made on a ring in a pine-wood for a period of nine years, and it was calculated that it increased from centre to circumference about 8i in. each year . The fungus was never found growing within the circle during the time the ring was under observation, the decaying vegetation necessary for its growth having become exhausted . FAI'HFULL, EMILY (1835–1895), English philanthropist, was the youngest daughter of the Rev . Ferdinand Faithfull, and was born at Headley Rectory, Surrey, in 1835 . She took a great interest in the conditions of working-women, and with the object of extending their sphere of labour, which was then painfully limited, in 186o she set up in London a printing establishment for women . The " Victoria Press," as it was called, soon obtained quite a reputation for its excellent work, and Miss Faithfull was shortly afterwards appointed printer and publisher in ordinary to Queen Victoria . In 1863 she began the publication of a monthly organ, The Victoria Magazine, in which for eighteen years she continuously and earnestly advocated the claims of women to remunerative employment .

In 1868 she published a novel,

Change upon Change . She also appeared as a lecturer, and with the object of furthering the interests of her sex, lectured widely and successfully both in England and the United States, which latter she visited in 1872 and 1882 . In 1888 she was awarded a civil list Pension of L5o . She died in Manchester on the 31st of May 1895 .