With Oak, Ash, and Thorn

'Of theirs which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
On many a grassy plain.
But since of late Elizabeth,
And later James came in,
Are never seen on any heath
As when the time hath been.'

‘It’s some time since I heard that sung, but there’s no good beating about the bush: it’s true. The People of the Hills have all left. I saw them come into Old England and I saw them go. Giants, trolls, kelpies, brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits; heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes and the rest—gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash, and Thorn are gone I shall go too.’

• Rudyard Kipling, Weland's Sword - Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906)

Puck explains that apart from himself ("I came into England with Oak, Ash, and Thorn, and when Oak, Ash, and Thorn are gone I shall go too") all the magical people of myth and legend have left England.

[caption id="attachment_5896" align="aligncenter" width="650"] 'Britain's Oldest Oak Tree'. Late 19th century image of the Bowthorpe Oak.[/caption]