Thomas Sternberg collected Northamptonshire fairy lore in the 1840s and printed it in 1851. He wrote that the county's fairies were fond of water and liked to bathe in lonely ponds or at the bend of a brook, and that in some parts of the county such ponds were called fairy pools. Near the village of Brington was one so named, where, he was assured, a few years earlier they might be seen rollicking on the surface and playing among the water plants round the edge.
He also described the green ringlets found on pasture, which were believed to be made by fairies, with the fairy dwelling underneath the area inside the dark circle. In the parish of Brington was one so celebrated that it was called the fairies' ring. It was believed to have existed since the earliest times and to have survived every attempt by the plough to erase it, although attempts had, he said, often been made, with awful consequences for those who made them.
The village tradition was that if you ran round the ring nine times on the first night of the full moon, sounds of mirth and revelry could be heard coming from the underground dwelling.
Sternberg does not say exactly where in the parish the ring or the pool lay, and gives no names or dates for the people who claimed to have seen the fairies. The pin is placed on Great Brington and marks the parish, not a specific spot. This is a Victorian record of a folk belief rather than a modern sighting.
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