Before the sun set a dance would begin, to ward off they of the woods. The bards would weave a tale of old to guide them in their writhing, telling of when the fair came from lands of mist and light. The age of the land was dark and foul, but it was not always so. Men trudged forward forever more to recapture the marble of yesterday. They came on foot on fin on hoof the last sometimes cloven. The kin of Oberon reclaimed their lands and burnt the nests of men. Accreted to a single point, humans took their last stand. Though safe for now they would fear the fair, in one last circle of land. Thrice kings tried to make amends and thrice the kings were slain. By the high fey in curling woods royal sausages were made. The olive branches they extended were buried and grew as trees, but the signs of them were lost on beings whose voices they thought we parroted.
	That was the cause that bred the dance. The story that must be told. A tale to tell each child, that they may pray for the old. To the dancers the poor and the rich dropped coins of gold and silver. These were meant not for the performance, but an offering to ancestors long departed. As the flames grew high the faithful chanted beseeching and ambivalent god. Spare their kind a horrid death and they would bring glory in his name. On the pyre were offerings to sate angels most greedy. Barley and spices and oyster pearls not to mention prayers cut into leather.
	The blacksmith cast in a coat of mail, each ring of polished gold. The dairy maids gathered eldest rinds and cast in wheels of masterwork that smelled of mold and salt. The tanner scratched holy runes into the oiled skin of a calf, and fed the ward into the flames as he prayed for his only son. The cart man kindled one carved with flowers, four months had been spent on that. The furrier gave over a the coat of beavers he had barely slept a wink.