“The Fairies” by William Allingham

Watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Katie, got curious about this line spoken by a knife sharpener to Charlie outside the Wonka factory:

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;

Turns out it’s from The Fairies by William Allingham. I found it at the Baldwin Project for children’s online literature, which is fantastic.

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3 Responses to “The Fairies” by William Allingham

  1. aaren healy says:

    im actually related to william allingham. my nan is called rosemary allingham. However, i cant quite remember how im related to him.

  2. Les Jones says:

    “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

    Last night Melissa was showing me some old books of hers. One was Singing on Our Way, a 1949 collection of children’s songs. Flipping through it I found a song called “Who Has the Button?”, attributed to Verna Meads Surer. I stopped, because I instant…

  3. Anonymous says:

    doubt if I am relaed to Willm Allingham but always loved the poem The Faries ,and am hoping to organise a painting competition among local artist asking for pictures based on the poem
    This would be the sixth competition I have organised