Fairies of the fen

“Ma! They came again!” Coerl ran into the well-mudded woven house. “Ma! The fairies!”

“Did they? Did you bring in their dishes?”

“Oh!”

The child ran out into the grey dawn again and came back with a carved-wood bowl and a bucket. Not a trace was left of the food they had set out in them at sunset. Beodit had filled the bucket with fine loaves of bread and a half a wheel of cheese, while the bowl had been stacked with roots and half a dozen red apples. With winter coming on the fairies would be needing extra food, she knew.

“It is still our secret, is it not?” Beodit asked her tiny son. He suddenly ceased his cavorting around the small cottage and looked down at his feet.

“Who did you tell?” When he didn’t answer, she took a step forward, but the look on her face confused the boy and he could not answer. She did not look angry so much as afraid.

“Who did you tell?” This time fear was stronger and he began to cry.

“Mechlin! Only Mechlin!”The words began to tumble out. “He was bragging about the fine new shoes the fairies left him, and he said that his family was especially chosen because his da was a great warrior, and that the fairies would never come to us because I was a bastard, so I told him about the firewood and the new harness for the pony and the fish!”

His voice trailed off as he noticed the white face of his mother. “Did anybody hear you?” she asked.

“No. Nobody. I don’t think. I’m sorry!” he sobbed. “Are the fairies going to stop coming now?”

“I don’t know. But you must not so much as mention the fairies again outside this house. To anybody. There's no knowing who might hear. And I'll be speaking the Mechlin's ma, you can be sure.” Beodit gathered the boy into her arms until he quietened. “Now. Why don’t you wash out these dishes and put them away? By the time you finish, breakfast will be ready.”

This fragment seems to fit with the Marshes thick and waving poem...a later point in the story.