The Song Of The Nightshade Berry Fairy

"You see my berries, how they gleam and glow,

Clear ruby-red, and green, and orange-yellow;

Do they not tempt you, fairies, dangling so?"

The fairies shake their heads and answer, "No!

You are a crafty fellow!"

"What, won't you try them? There is

naught to pay!"

Why should you think my berries poisoned things?

You fairies may look scared and fly away-

The children will believe me when I say

My fruit is fruit for kings!"

But all good fairies cry in anxious haste,

"O children, do not taste!"

(You must believe the good fairies, though the 

berries look nice. This is Woody Nightshade, which 

has purple and yellow flowers in summer.-CMB)

Woody Nightshade Berries

Yes, good children, and good adults too, take the

advice of the fairies and do not try and eat these berries!

Although the leaves of the plant have been long used in

folk remedies as an external cure for tumors and warts,

Nightshade is considered extremely poisonous to humans

and fairies alike.

The purple and yellow Nightshade flower

"The Song Of The Nightshade Berry Fairy"

Illustration and poem by

 Cecily Mary Barker

(1895-1973)

English artist and poetess

Portrait painter of the English fairies