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THE HILL FAIRIES.
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ing slily through the leaves and branches to try to see Kana better, because he was an unusually handsome man. Sometimes they looked over the roots behind which the men lay, sometimes from behind the trunks of the trees, showing themselves when the fire was low and shrinking back when it blazed up. They were a bright merry little people with white skins and fair hair like Europeans—not at all like the Maori people, who at that time had never seen a white man. As they lurked among the bushes they sang a merry song—indeed they are almost always singing in low pleasant tones. Kana was terribly frightened, although they seemed so harmless, for he knew that they were not human as he was. So he thought to please them by making an offering of his jewels. He only had his earrings, one of jade and one of shark’s tooth, and his neck ornament, but he took these off and spread them out on a fallen tree. The fairies came up to look at them; but they would not touch the ornaments, they only took the shadows or likeness of the jewels away, leaving the real ones behind. Then they all disappeared, still singing. Kana and his men waited till daylight, and then returned home, but they never hunted for Kiwi on that hill again.