My mother taught me this song I wrote it down and I've had these lyrics in a notebook since about 1980. She also taught me the melody on the piano and told me that she performed it in a play at school. This would have been in Ashland, Ohio during the depression years.
She said the name of the school play was "The Queer Prince" but I've
not that title.
I uploaded these lyrics to the session dot org few years ago. I have since been learning how to use Harmony ASsistant and only recently learned about MudCat !
Here is the Harmony Assistant version of ABC which will print out both the melody line and lyrics together after you change the extension of the text file to dot abc:

X:1    %Music
T:The Fairy Ring               %Tune name
C:Composer :Unknown               %Tune composer
N:Remarks : A song Hogan's mother and Grandmother used to Sing

(1800's ?)       %Tune infos
Q:1/4=120    %Tempo
V:1    %
    %!STAVE 0 'Piano 1' @
    %!INSTR '...' 0 0 @
M:6/8    %Meter
L:1/8    %
K:C
GEG c B2 |G A2 E E2 |F G2 CCB, |C E2 z3 |
w:As Ka tie one night by moon light bright sat bus-y

spin-ning her thread.
E D2 ECD |EFG AGA |BdB G A2 |D G2 z3 |
w:'twas Tim came by ~with~ a laugh in his eye and now

list-en to~ what he said:
G G2 DDC |D E2 A A2 |E F2 B B2 |A G2 c c2 |
w:I've had a fling in-a fair-y~ ring where fai-ries

dance-and play and sing-
B/c/ d2 A A2 |B c2 G G2 |c B4 z |A G4 z |
w:won't you come this night while stars are bright

you'll see you'll see
c d2 A A2 |BcB A G2 |A G4 z |d c4 z |
w:for I'm the lad-the fair-ies have~~~ had to tea-to

tea-
GEG c B2 |G A2 E E2 |F G2 CCB, |C E2 z3 |
w:As Ka ty one night by moon light bright sat bus-y

spin-ning her thread.
E D2 ECD |EFG AGA |BdB G A2 |D G2 z3 |
w:'twas Tim came by ~with~ a laugh in his eye and now

list-en to~ what he said:
G G2 DDC |D E2 A A2 |E F2 B B2 |A G2 c c2 |
w:I've had a fling in-a fair-y~ ring where fai-ries

dance-and play and sing-
B/c/ d2 A A2 |B c2 G G2 |c B4 z |A G4 z |
w:won't you come this night while stars are bright

you'll see you'll see
c d2 A A2 |BcB A G2 |A G4 z |d c4 |
w:for I'm the lad-the fair-ies have~~~ had to tea-to

tea
z6 |]
    %End of file
__________________________________________________________________

You can contact me through my Youtube page which is www dot youtube dot com slash b0dhran (http://www.youtube.com/b0dhran) I will post
a video there of the song played on my harp soon.

-- Glad to know there is interest in this song !

Braveharp (b0dhran)