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I— H
THE FAIRY-FAITH
IN
CELTIC COUNTRIES
BY
W. Y. EVANS WENTZ
M.A. STANFORD UNIVP:RSITY CALIFORNIA U.S.A.
DOCTEUR-ES-LETTRES UNIVERSITY OF RENNES BRITTANY
B.SC, JESUS COLLEGE OXON.
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
1911
. Y\f 4-
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
• ••
/- :
THIS BOOK
DEPENDS CHIEFLY UPON THE ORAL AND WRITTEN TESTIMONY
SO FREELY CONTRIBUTED BY ITS MANY CELTIC AUTHORS,
THE PEASANT AND THE SCHOLAR, THE PRIEST AND THE SCIENTIST,
THE POET AND THE BUSINESS MAN, THE SEER AND THE NON-SEER, —
AND IN HONOUR OF THEM
I DEDICATE
IT TO
TWO OF THEIR BRETHREN IN IRELAND :
A. E.,
WHOSE UNWAVERING LOYALTY TO THE FAIRY-FAITH
HAS INSPIRED MUCH THAT I HAVE HEREIN WRITTEN,
WHOSE FRIENDLY GUIDANCE IN MY STUDY OF IRISH MYSTICISM
I MOST GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE ;
AND
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
WHO BROUGHT TO ME AT MY OWN ALMA MATER IN CALIFORNIA
THE FIRST MESSAGE FROM FAIRYLAND,
AND WHO AFTERWARDS IN HIS OWN COUNTRY
LED ME THROUGH THE HAUNTS OF FAIRY KINGS AND QUEENS.
Oxford
November 191 1.
235566
* It remains for ever true that the proper study of mankind is man ;
and even early man is not beneath contempt, especially when he proves
to have had within him the makings of a great race, with its highest
notions of duty and right, and all else that is noblest in the human soul.'
The Right Hon. Sir John Rhys.
CONTENTS
PAGES
Preface xi-xiii
Introduction xv-xxviii
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER I
Environment 1-16
Psychical Interpretation — The Mysticism of Erin and
Armorica — In Ireland — In Scotland — In the Isle of Man —
Jn Wales — In Cornwall — In Brittany^
CHAPTER II
The Taking of Evidence 17-225
Method of Presentation — The Logical Verdict — Trustworthi^
ness of Legends — ^The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated
Celt as well as by the Celtic Peasant — The Evidence is
complete and adequate — Its Analysis — The Fairy Tribes
dealt with — Witnesses and their Testimony : from Ireland,
with Introduction by Dr. Doiiglas Hyde; from Scotland, with
Introduction by Dr. Alexander Carmichael ; from the Isle of
Man, with Introduction by Miss Sophia Morrison ; from Wales,
with Introduction by the Right Hon. Sir John Rh^s ; from
Cornwall, with Introduction by Mr. Henry Jenner ; and from
Brittany, with Introduction by Professor Anatole Le Braz.
CHAPTER III
An Anthropological Examination of the Evi-
dence . . 226-82
The Celtic Fairy-Faith as Part of a World-wide Animism —
Shaping Influence of Social Psychology — Smallness of Elvish
Spirits and Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and
Occult Sciences — The Changeling Belief and its Explanation
according to the Kidnap, Human-Sacrifice, Soul-Wandering,
and Demon-Possession Theory — Ancient and Modern Magic
and Witchcraft shown to be based on definite psychological laws
— Exorcisms — Taboos, of Name, Food, Iron, Place — Taboos
among Ancient Celts — Food-Sacrifice — Legend of the Dead
— Conclusion : the Background of the Modern Belief in Fairies
is Animistic.
viii CONTENTS
SECTION II
THE RECORDED FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER IV
PAGES
The People of the Goddess Dana or the Sidhb 283-307
The Goddess Dana and the Modern Cult of St. Brigit — The
Tuatha De Danann or Sidhe conquered by the Sons of Mil —
But Irish Seers still see the Sidhe — Old Irish Manuscripts faith-
fully represent the Tuatha De Danann — The Sidhe as a Spirit
Race — Sidhe Palaces — The ' Taking ' of Mortals — Hill Visions
of Sidhe Women — Sidhe Minstrels and Musicians — Social
Organization and Warfare among the Sidhe — The Sidhe War-
Goddesses, the Badh — The Sidhe at the Battle of Clontarf,
A. D. 1014 — Conclusion,
CHAPTER V
^ Brythonic Divinities and the Brythonic Fairy-
Faith . . 308-31
The God Arthur and the Hero Arthur — Sevenfold Evidence
to show Arthur as an Incarnate Fairy King — Lancelot the
Foster-son of a Fairy Woman — Galahad, the Offspring of
Lancelot and the Fairy Woman Elayne — Arthur as a Fairy
King in Kulhwch and Olwen — Gwynn ab Nudd — -Arthur like
Dagda, and like Osiris — Brythonic Fairy Romances : their
Evolution and Antiquity — Arthur in Nennius, Geoffrey,
Wace, and in Layamon — CambrensisC^ Otherworld Tale —
Norman-French writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
— Romans d' A venture and Romans Bretons — Origins of the
^ ' Matter of Britain ' — Fairy Romance Episodes in Welsh
^Literature — Brythonic Origins.
CHAPTER VI
The Celtic Otherworld 332-57
General Ideas of the Otherworld : its Location ; its Sub-
jectivity ; its Names ; its Extent ; Tethra one of its kings —
The Silver Branch and the Golden Bough ; and Initiations —
The Otherworld the Heaven-World of all Religions — Voyage
of Bran — Cormac in the Land of Promise — Magic Wands —
Cuchulainn's Sick-Bed — Ossian's Return from Fairyland —
Lanval's going to Avalon — Voyage of Mael-Duin — Voyage
of Teigue — Adventures of Art — Cuchulainn's and Arthur's
Otherworld Quests — Literary Evolution of idea of Happy
Otherworld.
CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER VII
PAGES
The Celtic Doctrine of Re-Birth . . . 358-96
Re-birth and Otherworld — As a Christian Doctrine — General
Historical Survey — According to the Barddas MSS. ; accord-
ing to Ancient and Modern Authorities — Re-incarnation of
the Tuatha De Danann — King Mongan's Re-birth — Etain's
Birth — Dermot's Pre-existence — Tuan's Re-birth — Re-birth
among Brythons — Arthur as a Re-incarnate Hero — Non-
Celtic Parallels — Re-birth among Modern Celts : in Ireland ;
in Scotland ; in the Isle of Man ; in Wales ; in Cornwall ; in
Brittany — Origin and Evolution of Celtic Re-birth Doctrine.
SECTION III
THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES,
AND THE DEAD
CHAPTER VIII
The Testimony of Archaeology . . . 397-426
Inadequacy of Pygmy Theory — According to the Theories
concerning Divine Images and Fetishes, Gods, Daemons, and
Ancestral Spirits haunt Megaliths — Megaliths are religious
and funereal, as shown chiefly by Cenn Cruaich, Stonehenge,
Guernsey menhirs. Monuments in Brittany, by the Circular
Fairy-Dance as an Ancient Initiatory Sun-Dance, by Breton
Earthworks, Archaeological Excavations generally, and by
present-day Worship at Indian Dolmens — New Grange and
Celtic Mysteries : Evidence of manuscripts ; Evidence of Tradi-
tion — The Aengus Cult — New Grange compared with Great
Pyramid : both have Astronomical Arrangement and same
Internal Plan — Why they open to the Sunrise — Initiations in
both — Great Pyramid as Model for Celtic Tumuli — Gavrinis
and New Grange as Spirit Temples.
CHAPTER IX
The Testimony of Paganism .... 427-41
Edicts against Pagan Cults — Cult of Sacred Waters and its
Absorption by Christianity — Celtic Water Divinities — Druidic
Influence on Fairy-Faith — Cult of Sacred Trees — Cult of
Fairies, Spirits, and the Dead — Feasts of the Dead — Con-
clusion.
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
PAGES
The Testimony of Christianity .... 442-55
Lough Derg a Sacred Lake originally — Purgatorial Rites as
Christianized Survivals of Ancient Celtic Rites — Purgatory
as Fairyland — Purgatorial Rites parallel to Pagan Initiation
Ceremonies — The Death and Resurrection Rite — Breton
Pardons compared — Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic
Cave-Temples — Origin of Purgatorial Doctrine pre-Christian
— Celtic and Roman Feasts of dead shaped Christian ones —
Fundamental Unity of Mythologies, Religions, and the Fairy-
Faith.
SECTION IV
MODERN SCIENCE AND THE FAIRY-FAITH;
AND CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER XI
Science and Fairies 456-91
Method of Examination : Exoteric and Esoteric aspects —
The X-quantity — Scientific attitudes toward the Animistic
Hypothesis : Materialistic Theory ; Pathological Theory ;
Delusion and Imposture Theory ; Problems of Conscious-
ness : Dreams ; Supernormal Lapse of Time — Psychical
Research and Fairies: Myers's researches — Present Position of
Psychical Research — Psychical Research and Anthropology
in Relation to the Fairy-Faith, according to a special
contribution from Mr. Andrew Lang — Final Testing of the
X-quantity — Conclusion : the Celtic Belief in Fairies and
in Fairyland is scientific.
CHAPTER XII
The Celtic Doctrine of Re-Birth and Otherworld
Scientifically Examined .... 492-515
The Extension of the Terms Fairy and Fairyland — The Real
Man as an Invisible Force acting through a Body-Conductor
— A Psychical Organ essential for Memory — Pre-existence
a Scientific Necessity — ^The Vitalistic View of Evolution —
Old Theory of Heredity disproved — Embryology supports
Re-birth Doctrine — Psycho-physical Evolution — Memory
of previous Existences in Subconsciousness — Examples —
Dream Psychology furnishes clearest Illustrations — No Post-
existence without Pre-existence — Resurrection as Re-birth
— The Circle of Life — The Mystical Corollary — Conclusion :
the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth and Otherworld is essentially
scientific.
Index 516-24
PREFACE
During the years 1907-9 this study first took shape,
being then based mainly on Hterary sources ; and during
the latter year it was successfully presented to the Faculty of
Letters of the University of Rennes, Brittany, for the Degree
of Docteur-h-Lettres, Since then I have re-investigated the
whole problem of the Celtic belief in Fairies, and have
collected very much fresh material. Two years ago the scope
of my original research was limited to the four chief Celtic
countries, but now it includes all of the Celtic countries.
In the present study, which has profited greatly by
criticisms of the first passed by scholars in Britain and
in France, the original literary point of view is combined
with the broader point of view of anthropology. This
study, the final and more comprehensive form of my views
about the * Fairy-Faith *, would never have been possible
had I not enjoyed during many months the kindly advice
and constant encouragement of Mr. R. R. Marett, Reader in
Social Anthropology in the University of Oxford, and Fellow
of Exeter College.
During May 19 10 the substance of this essay in its
pan-Celtic form was submitted to the Board of the Faculty
of Natural Science of Oxford University for the Research
Degree of Bachelor of Science, which was duly granted.
But the present work contains considerable material not
contained in the essay presented to the Oxford examiners,
the Right Hon. Sir John Rh^^s and Mr. Andrew Lang ; and,
therefore, I alone assume entire responsibility for all its
possible shortcomings, and in particular for some of its
more speculative theories, which to some minds may appear
to be in conflict with orthodox views, whether of the theo-
logian or of the man of science. These theories, however
venturesome they may appear, are put forth in almost every
/(
xii PREFACE
case with the full approval of some reliable, scholarly Celt ;
and as such they are chiefly intended to make the exposition
of the belief in fairies as completely and as truly Celtic
as possible, without much regard for non-Celtic opinion,
whether this be in harmony with Celtic opinion or not.
As the new manuscript of the * Fairy-Faith ' lies beforp
me revised and finished, I realize even more fully than I did
two years ago with respect to the original study, how little
right I have to call it mine. Those to whom the credit for
it really belongs are my many kind friends and helpers in
Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany,
and many others who are not Celts, in the three great nations
— happily so intimately united now by unbreakable bonds
of goodwill and international brotherhood —Britain, France,
and the United States of America ; for without the aid of
all these Celtic and non-Celtic friends the work could never
have been accomplished. They have given me their best
and rarest thoughts as so many golden threads ; I have
only furnished the mental loom, and woven these golden
threads together in my own way according to what I take
to be the psychological pattern of the Fairy-Faith.
I am under a special obligation to the following six dis-
tinguished Celtic scholars who have contributed, for my
second chapter, the six introductions to the fairy-lore
collected by me in their respective countries : — Dr. Douglas
Hyde (Ireland) ; Dr. Alexander Carmichael (Scotland) ;
Miss Sophia Morrison (Isle of Man) ; the Right Hon.
Sir John Rhys (Wales) ; Mr. Henry Jenner (Cornwall) ;
Professor Anatole Le Braz (Brittany).
I am also greatly indebted to the Rev. J. Estlin Carpenter,
Principal of Manchester College, for having aided me with
the parts of this book touching Christian theology; to
Mr. R. I. Best, M.R.I. A., Assistant Librarian, National
Library, Dublin, for having aided me with the parts de-
voted to Irish mythology and Uterature ; and to Mr. William
McDougall, Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy in the
University of Oxford, for a similar service with respect to
Section IV, entitled Science and Fairies. And to these
PREFACE xiu
and to all the other scholars whose names appear in this
preface, my heartiest thanks are due for the assistance which
they have so kindly rendered in reading different parts of
the Fairy-Faith when in proof.
With the deep spirit of reverence which a student feels
towards his preceptors, I acknowledge a still greater debt
to those among my friends and helpers who have been
my Celtic guides and teachers. Here in Oxford University
I have run up a long account with the Right Hon. Sir John
Rh^s, the Professor of Celtic, who has introduced me to
the study of Modern Irish, and of Arthurian romance and
mythology, and has guided me both during the year 1907-8
and ever since in Celtic folk-lore generally. To Mr. Andrew
Lang, I am likewise a debtor, more especially in view of the
important suggestions which he has given me during the
past two years with respect to anthropology and to psychical
research. In my relation to the Faculty of Letters of the
University of Rennes, I shall always remember the friendly
individual assistance offered to me there during the year
1908-9 by Professor Joseph Loth, then Dean in that
University, but now of the College of France, in Paris,
particularly with respect to Brythonic mythology, philology,
and archaeology ; by Professor Georges Dottin, particularly
with respect to Gaelic matters ; and by Professor Anatole
Le Braz, whose continual good wishes towards my work
have been a constant source of inspiration since our first
meeting during March 1908, especially in my investigation
of La Legende de la Mort, and of the related traditions and
living folk-beliefs in Brittany — Brittany with its haunted
ground of Carnac, home of the ancient Brythonic Mysteries.
W. Y. E. W.
Jesus College, Oxford.
All Saints' Day, 191 1.
* There, neither turmoil nor silence. ...
' Though fair the sight of Erin's plains, hardly will they seem so after
you have known the Great Plain. ...
. ' A wonder of a land the land of which I speak ; no youth there grows
to old age. ...
'We behold and are not beheld.' — The God Midir, in Tochmarc Etaine.
INTRODUCTION
' I have told what I have seen, what I have thought, and what I have
learned by inquiry.' — Herodotus.
I. The Religious Nature of the Fairy-Faith
There is probably no other place in Celtic lands more
congenial, or more inspiring for the writing down of one's
deeper intuitions about the Fairy-Faith, than Carnac, under
the shadow of the pagan tumulus and mount of the sacred
fire, now dedicated by triumphant Christianity to the
Archangel Michael. The very name of Carnac is signifi-
cant ; ^ and in two continents, Africa and Europe — to follow
the certain evidence of archaeology alone ^ — there seem
to have been no greater centres for ancient religion than
Karnak in Egypt and Carnac in Brittany. On the banks of
the Nile the Children of Isis and Osiris erected temples as
perfect as human art can make them ; on the shores of
the Morbihan the mighty men who were, as it seems, the
teachers of our own Celtic forefathers, erected temples of
unhewn stone. The wonderful temples in Yucatan, the
temple-caves of prehistoric India, Stonehenge in England, the
Parthenon, the Acropolis, St. Peter's at Rome, Westminster
Abbey, or Notre-Dame, and the Pyramids and temples of
Egypt, equally with the Alignements of Carnac, each in
their own way record more or less perfectly man's attempt
to express materially what he feels spiritually. Perfected
art can beautify and make more attractive to the eye and
mind, but it cannot enhance in any degree the innate spiritual
* Quite appropriately it means place of cairns or tumuli — those pre-
historic monuments religious and funereal in their purposes. Carnac seems
to be a Gallo-Roman form. According to Professor J. Loth, the Breton
(Celtic) forms would be : old Celtic, Carndco-s ; old Breton (ninth-eleventh
century), Carnoc ; Middle Breton (eleventh-sixteenth century), Carneuc ;
Modern Breton, Carnec.
* For we cannot offer any proof of what at first sight appears like a philo-
logical relation or identity between Carnac and Karnak.
i}
xvi INTRODUCTION
ideals which men in all ages have held ; and thus it is that
we read amid the rough stone menhirs and dolmens in
Brittany, as amid the polished granite monoliths and
magnificent temples in Egypt, the same silent message from
the past to the present, from the dead to the living. This
message, we think, is fundamentally important in under-
standing the Celtic Fairy- Faith ; for in our opinion the
belief in fairies has the same origin as all religions and
mythologies.
And there seems never to have been an uncivilized tribe,
a race, or nation of civilized men who have not had some
form of belief in an unseen world, peopled by unseen beings.
In religions, mythologies, and the Fairy-Faith, too, we
behold the attempts which have been made by different
peoples in different ages to explain in terms of human ex-
perience this unseen world, its inhabitants, its laws, and
man's relation to it. The Ancients called its inhabitants
gods, genii, daemons, and shades ; Christianity knows them
as angels, saints, demons, and souls of the dead ; to un-
civilized tribes they are gods, demons, and spirits of ances-
tors ; and the Celts think of them as gods, and as fairies of
many kinds.
II. The Interpretation of the Fairy-Faith
By the Celtic Fairy-Faith we mean that specialized form
of belief in a spiritual realm inhabited by spiritual beings
which has existed from prehistoric times until now in
Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany,
or other parts of the ancient empire of the Celts. In study-
ing this belief, we are concerned directly with living Celtic
folk-traditions, and with past Celtic folk-traditions as re-
corded in literature. And if fairies actually exist as invisible
beings or intelligences, and our investigations lead us to the
tentative hypothesis that they do, they are natural and not
supernatural, for nothing which exists can be supernatural ;
and, therefore, it is our duty to examine the Celtic Fairy
Races just as we examine any fact in the visible realm
INTRODUCTION xvii
wherein we now live, whether it be a fact of chemistry, of
physics, or of biology. However, as we proceed to make
such an examination, we shall have to remember constantly
that there is a new set of ideas to work with, entirely different
from what we find in natural sciences, and often no adequate
vocabulary based on common human experiences. An
American who has travelled in Asia and an Englishman who
has travelled in Australia may meet in Paris and exchange
travelling experiences with mutual understanding, because
both of them have experienced travel ; and they will have
an adequate vocabulary to describe each experience, because
most men have also experienced travel. But a saint who
has known the spiritual condition called ecstasy cannot
explain ecstasy to a man who has never known it, and if
he should try to do so would discover at once that no modern
language is suitable for the purpose. His experience is rare
and not universal, and men have developed no complete
vocabulary to describe experiences not common to the
majority of mankind, and this is especially true of psychical
experiences. It is the same in dealing with fairies, as these
are hypothetically conceived, for only a few men and women
can assert that they have seen fairies, and hence there is
no adequate vocabulary to describe fairies. Among the
Ancients, who dealt so largely with psychical sciences, there
seems to have been a common language which could be used
to explain the invisible world and its inhabitants ; but we
of this age have not yet developed such a language. Con-
sequently, men who deny human immortality, as well as
men with religious faith who have not through personal
psychical experiences transformed that faith into a fact,
nowadays when they happen to read what Plato, lamblichus,
or any of the Neo-Platonists have written, or even what
moderns have written in attempting to explain psychic facts,
call it all mysticism. And to the great majority of Europeans
and Americans, mysticism is a most convenient noun, applic-
able to anything which may seem reasonable yet wholly
untranslatable in terms of their own individual experience ;
and mysticism usually means something quite the reverse'
WENTZ b
xviii INTRODUCTION
of scientific simply because we have by usage unwisely
limited the meaning of the word science to a knowledge of
things material and visible, whereas it really means a know-
ing or a knowledge of everything which exists. We have
tried to deal with the rare psychical experiences of Irish,
Scotch, Manx, Welsh, or Breton seers, and psychics generally,
in the clearest language possible ; but if now and then we
are charged with being mystical, this is our defence.
III. The Method of Studying the Fairy-Faith
In this study, which is first of all a folk-lore study, we
pursue principally an anthropo-psychological method of
interpreting the Celtic belief in fairies, though we do not
hesitate now and then to call in the aid of philology ; and
we make good use of the evidence offered by mythologies,
religions, metaphysics, and physical sciences. Folk-lore,
a century ago was considered beneath the serious considera-
tion of scholars ; but there has come about a complete
reversal of scholarly opinion, for now it is seen that the
beliefs of the people, their legends, and their songs are the
source of nearly all literatures, and that their institutions
and customs are the origin of those of modern times. And,
to-day, to the new science of folk-lore, — which, as Mr.
Andrew Lang says, must be taken to include psychical
research or psychical sciences, — archaeology, anthropology,
and comparative mythology and religion are indispensable.
Thus folk-lore offers the scientific means of studying man in
the sense meant by the poet who declared that the proper
study of mankind is man.
IV. Divisions of the Study
This study is divided into four sections or parts. The first
one deals with the living Fairy-Faith among the Celts them-
selves ; the second, with the recorded and ancient Fairy-
Faith as we find it in Celtic literature and mythology ; the
third, with the Fairy-Faith in its religious aspects ; and in
the fourth section an attempt has been made to suggest
INTRODUCTION xix
how the theories of our newest science, psychical research,
explain the belief in fairies.
I have set forth in the first section in detail and as clearly
as possible the testimony communicated to me by living
Celts who either believe in fairies, or else say that they have
seen fairies ; &nd throughout other sections I have pre-
ferred to draw as much as possible of the material from men
and women rather than from books. Books too often are
written out of other books, and too seldom from the life of
man ; and in a scientific study of the Fairy-Faith, such as
we have undertaken, the Celt himself is by far the best, in
fact the only authority. For us it is much less important
to know what scholars think of fairies than to know what
the Celtic people think of fairies. This is especially true in
considering the Fairy-Faith as it exists now.
V. The Collecting of Material
In June, 1908, after a year's preparatory work in things
Celtic under the direction of the Oxford Professor of Celtic,
Sir John Rhys, I began to travel in Wales, Ireland, Scotland,
and Brittany, and to collect material there at first hand
from the people who have shaped and who still keep alive
the Fairy-Faith ; and during the year 1909-10 fresh folk-
lore expeditions were made into Brittany, Ireland, and
Wales, and then, finally, the study of the Fairy-Faith was
made pan-Celtic by similar expeditions throughout the Isle
of Man, and into Cornwall. Many of the most remote parts
of these lands were visited ; and often there was no other
plan to adopt, or any method better, or more natural, than
to walk day after day from one straw-thatched cottage to
another, living on the simple wholesome food of the peasants.
Sometimes there was the picturesque mountain-road to
climb, sometimes the route lay through marshy peat-lands,
or across a rolling grass-covered country ; and with each
change of landscape came some new thought and some new
impression of the Celtic life, or perhaps some new descrip-
tion of a fairy,
j b 2
XX INTRODUCTION
This immersion in the most striking natural and social
environment of the Celtic race, gave me an insight into the
mind, the religion, the mysticism, and the very heart of the
Celt himself, such as no mere study in libraries ever could
do. I tried to see the world as he does ; I participated in
his innermost thoughts about the great problem of life and
death, with which he of all peoples is most deeply concerned ;
and thus he revealed to me the source of his highest ideals
and inspirations. I daily felt the deep and innate serious-
ness of his ancestral nature ; and, living as he lives, I tried
in all ways to be like him. I was particularly qualified for
such an undertaking : partly Celtic myself by blood and
perhaps largely so by temperament, I found it easy to
sympathize with the Celt and with his environments.
Further, being by birth an American, I was in many places
privileged to enter where an Englishman, or a non-Celt of
Europe would not be ; and my education under the free
ideals of a new-world democracy always made it possible
for me to view economic, political, religious, and racial
questions in Celtic lands apart from the European point of
view, and without the European prejudices which are so
numerous and so greatly to be regretted. But without any
doubt, during my sojourn, extending over three years,
among the Celts, these various environments shaped my
thoughts about fairies and Fairyland — as they ought to
have done if truth is ever to be reached by research.
These experiences of mine lead me to believe that the
natural aspects of Celtic countries, much more than those of
most non-Celtic countries, impress man and awaken in him
some unfamiliar part of himself — call it the Subconscious
Self, the Subliminal Self, the Ego, or what you will — which
gives him an unusual power to know and to feel invisible,
or psychical, influences. What is there, for example, in
London, or Paris, or Berlin, or New York to awaken the
intuitive power of man, that subconsciousness deep-hidden
in him, equal to the solitude of those magical environments
of Nature which the Celts enjoy and love ?
In my travels, when the weather was too wild to venture
INTRODUCTION xxi
out by day, or when the more favourable hours of the night
had arrived, with fires and candles lit, or even during a road-
side chat amid the day's journey, there was gathered together
little by little, from one country and another, the mass of
testimony which chapter ii contains. And with all this my
opinions began to take shape ; for when I set out from
Oxford in June, I had no certain or clear ideas as to what
fairies are, nor why there should be belief in them. In less
than a year afterwards I found myself committed to the
Psychological Theory, which I am herein setting forth.
VI. Theories of the Fairy-Faith
We make continual reference throughout our study to
this Psychological Theory of the Nature and Origin of the
Celtic Fairy-Faith, and it is one of our purposes to demon-
strate that this is the root theory which includes or absorbs
the four theories already advanced to account for the belief
in fairies. To guide the reader in his own conclusions, we
shall here briefly outline these four theories.
The first of them may be called the Naturalistic Theory,
which is, that in ancient and in modern times man's belief
in gods, spirits, or fairies has been the direct result of his
attempts to explain or to rationalize natural phenomena.
Of this theory we accept as true that the belief in fairies
often anthropomorphically reflects the natural environment
as well as the social condition of the people who hold the
belief. For example, amid the beautiful low-lying green
hills and gentle dells of Connemara (Ireland), the ' good
people ' are just as beautiful, just as gentle, and just as
happy as their environment ; while amid the dark-rising
mountains and in the mysterious cloud-shadowed lakes of
the Scotch Highlands there are fiercer kinds of fairies and
terrible water-kelpies, and in the Western Hebrides there is
the much-dreaded * spirit-host ' moving through the air at
night.
The Naturalistic Theory shows accurately enough that
natural phenomena and environment have given direction
xxii INTRODUCTION
to the anthropomorphosing of gods, spirits, or fairies, but
after explaining this external aspect of the Fairy-Faith it
cannot logically go any further. Or if illogically it does
attempt to explain the belief in gods, spirits, or fairies as
due entirely to material causes, it becomes, in our opinion,
like the psychology of fifty years ago, obsolete ; for now
the new psychology or psychical research has been forced to
admit — if only as a working hypothesis — the possibility of
invisible intelligences or entities able to influence man and
nature. We seem even to be approaching a scientific proof
of the doctrines of such ancient philosophical scientists as
Pythagoras and Plato, — that all external nature, animated
throughout and controlled in its phenomena by daemons
acting by the will of gods, is to men nothing more than the
visible effects of an unseen world of causes.
In the internal aspects of the Fairy-Faith the fundamental
fact seems clearly to be that there must have been in the
minds of prehistoric men, as there is now in the minds of
modern men, a germ idea of a fairy for environment to act
upon and shape. Without an object to act upon, environ-
ment can accomplish nothing. This is evident. The Natura-
listic Theory examines only the environment and its effects,
and forgets altogether the germ idea of a fairy to be acted
upon ; but the Psychological Theory remembers and
attempts to explain the germ idea of a fairy and the effect
of nature upon it.
The second theory may be called the Pygmy Theory,
which Mr. David MacRitchie, who is definitely committed
to it, has so clearly set forth in his well-known work, entitled
The Testimony of Tradition. This theory is that the whole
fairy- belief has grown up out of a folk-memory of an actual
Pygmy race. This race is supposed to have been a very
early, prehistoric, probably Mongolian race, which inhabited
the British Islands and many parts of Continental Europe.
When the Celtic nations appeared, these pygmies were
driven into mountain fastnesses and into the most inac-
cessible places, where a few of them may have survived
until comparatively historical times.
INTRODUCTION xxiii
Over against the champions of the Pygmy Theory may
be set two of its opponents, Dr. Bertram C. A. Windle and
Mr. Andrew Lang.^ Dr. Windle, in his Introduction to
Tyson's Philological Essay concerning the Pygmies of the
Ancients, makes these six most destructive criticisms or
points against the theory : (i) So far as our present know-
ledge teaches us, there never was a really Pygmy race
inhabiting the northern parts of Scotland ; (2) the mounds
with which the tales of little people are associated have not,
in many cases, been habitations, but were natural or sepul-
chral in their nature ; (3) little people are not by any
means associated entirely with mounds ; (4) the association
of giants and dwarfs in traditions confuses the theory ;
(5) there are fairies where no pygmies ever were, as, for
example, in North America ; (6) even Eskimos and Lapps
have fairy beliefs, and could not have been the original
fairies of more modern fairy-lore. Altogether, as we think
our study will show, the evidence of the Fairy-Faith itself
gives only a slender and superficial support to the Pygmy
Theory. We maintain that the theory, so far as it is prov-
able, and this is evidently not very far, is only one strand,
contributed by ethnology and social psychology, in the
complex fabric of the Fairy-Faith, and is, as such, woven
round a psychical central pattern — the fundamental pattern
of the Fairy-Faith. Therefore, from our point of view, the
Pygmy Theory is altogether inadequate, because it over-
looks or misinterprets the most essential and prominent
elements in the belief which the Celtic peoples hold concern-
ing fairies and Fairyland.
The Druid Theory to account for fairies is less widespread.
It is that the folk-memory of the Druids and their magical
practices is alone responsible for the Fairy-Faith. The
first suggestion of this theory seems to have been made by
the Rev. Dr. Cririe, in his Scottish Scenery, published in
1803.2 Three years later, the Rev. Dr. Graham published
* Andrew Lang, Kirk's Secret Commonwealth (London, 1893), p. xviii;
and History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1900-07).
* Cf . David MacRitchie's published criticisms of our Psychological Theory
xxiv INTRODUCTION
an identical hypothesis in his Sketches Descriptive of Pic-
turesque Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire.
Mr. MacRitchie suggests, with all reason, that the two
writers probably had discussed together the theory, and
hence both put it forth. Alfred Maury, in Les Fees du
Moyen-Age, published in 1843 at Paris, appears to have made
liberal use of Patrick Graham's suggestions in propounding
his theory that the fees or fairy women of the Middle Ages
are due to a folk-memory of Druidesses. Maury seems to
have forgotten that throughout pagan Britain and Ireland,
both much more important for the study of fairies than Celtic
Europe during the Middle Ages, Druids rather than Druidesses
had the chief influence on the people, and that yet, despite
this fact, Irish and Welsh mythology is full of stories about
fairy women coming from the Otherworld ; nor is there any
proof, or even good ground for argument, that the Irish
fairy women are a folk-memory of Druidesses, for if there
ever were Druidesses in Ireland they played a subordinate
and very insignificant role. As in the case of the Pygmy
Theory, we maintain that the Druid Theory, also, is in-
adequate. It discovers a real anthropomorphic influence
at work on the outward aspects of the Fairy- Faith, and
illogically takes that to be the origin of the Fairy- Faith.
The fourth theory, the Mythological Theory, is of very
great importance. It is that fairies are the diminished
figures of the old pagan divinities of the early Celts ; and
many modern authorities on Celtic mythology and folk-lore
hold it. To us the theory is acceptable so far as it goes.
But it is not adequate in itself nor is it the root theory,
because a belief in gods and goddesses must in turn be
explained ; and in making this explanation we arrive at the
Psychological Theory, which this study — perhaps the first
one of its kind — attempts to set forth.
in The Celtic Review (January 1910), entitled Druids and Mound-Dwellers ;
also his first part of these criticisms, ib. (October 1909), entitled A New
Solution of the Fairy Problem.
INTRODUCTION xxv
VII. The Importance of Studying the Fairy-Faith
I have made a very careful personal investigation of the
surviving Celtic Fairy-Faith by living for many months
with and among the people who preserve it ; I have com-
pared fairy phenomena and the phenomena said to be
caused by gods, genii, daemons, or spirits of different kinds
and recorded in the writings ef ancient, mediaeval, and
modern metaphysical philosophers. Christian and pagan
saints, mystics, and seers, and now more or less clearly
substantiated by from thirty to forty years of experimenta-
tion in psychical sciences by eminent scientists of our own
times, such as Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge
in England, and M. Camille Flammarion in France. As
a result, I am convinced of the very great value of a serious
study of the Fairy-Faith. The Fairy-Faith as the folk-
religion of the Celts ought, like all religions, to be studied
sympathetically as well as scientifically. To those who take
a materialistic view of life, and consequently deny the
existence of spirits or invisible intelligences such as fairies
are said to be, we should say as my honoured American
teacher in psychology, the late Dr. William James, of
Harvard, used to say in his lectures at Stanford University,
* Materialism considered as a system of philosophy never
tries to explain the Why of things.' But in our study of
the Fairy-Faith we shall attempt to deal with this Why of
things ; and, then, perhaps the value of studying fairies
and Fairyland will be more apparent, even to materialists.
The great majority of men in cities are apt to pride them-
selves on their own exemption from * superstition ', and to
smile pityingly at the poor countrymen and countrywomen
who believe in fairies. But when they do so they forget that,
with all their own admirable progress in material invention,
with cdl the far-reaching data of their acquired science, with
all the vast extent of their commercial and economic conquests,
they themselves have ceased to be natural. Wherever under
modern conditions great multitudes of men and women are
herded together there is bound to be an unhealthy psychical
^
xxvi INTRODUCTION
atmosphere never found in the country — an atmosphere
which inevitably tends to develop in the average man who
is not psychically strong enough to resist it, lower, at the
expense of higher forces or qualities, and thus to inhibit any
normal attempts of the Subliminal Self (a well-accredited
psychological entity) to manifest itself in consciousness. In
this connexion it is highly significant to note that, as far as
can be determined, almost all professed materialists of the
uncritical type, and even most of those who are thinking and
philosophizing sceptics about the existence of a supersensuous
realm or state of conscious being, are or have been city-
dwellers — usually so by birth and breeding. And even where
we find materialists of either type dwelling in the country,
we generally find them so completely under the hypnotic
sway of city influences and mould of thought in matters of
education and culture, and in matters touching religion, that
they have lost all sympathetic and responsive contact with
Nature, because unconsciously they have thus permitted
conventionality and unnaturalness to insulate them from it.
The Celtic peasant, who may be their tenant or neighbour,
is — if still uncorrupted by them — in direct contrast uncon-
ventional and natural. He is normally always responsive to
psychical influences — as much so as an Australian Arunta
or an American Red Man, who also, like him, are fortunate
enough to have escaped being corrupted by what we egotisti-
cally, to distinguish ourselves from them, call ' civilization '.
If our Celtic peasant has psychical experiences, or if he
sees an apparition which he calls one of the * good people ',
that is to say a fairy, it is useless to try to persuade him that
he is under a delusion : unlike his materialistically-minded
lord, he would not attempt nor even desire to make himself
believe that what he has seen he has not seen. Not only has
he the will to believe, but he has the right to believe ; because
his belief is not a matter of being educated and reasoning
logically, nor a matter of faith and theology — it is a fact of his
own individual experiences, as he will tell you. Such peasant
seers have frequently argued with me to the effect that * One
does not have to be educated in order to see fairies '.
INTRODUCTION xxvii
Unlike the natural mind of the uncorrupted Celt, Arunta,
or American Red Man, which is ever open to unusual psychical
impressions, the mind of the business man in our great cities
tends to be obsessed with business affairs both during his
waking and during his dream states, the politician's with
politics similarly, the society-leader's with society ; and the
unwholesome excitement felt by day in the city is apt to
be heightened at night through a satisfying of the feeling
which it morbidly creates for relaxation and change of
stimuli. In the slums, humanity is divorced from Nature
under even worse conditions, and becomes wholly decadent.
But in slum and in palace alike there is continually a feverish
nerve-tension induced by unrest and worry ; there is impure
and smoke-impregnated air, a lack of sunshine, a substitu-
tion of artificial objects for natural objects, and in place of
solitude the eternal din of traffic. Instead of Nature, men
in cities (and paradoxically some conventionalized men in
the country) have ' civilization ' — and * culture '.
Are city-dwellers like these, Nature's unnatural children,
who grind out their lives in an unceasing struggle for wealth
and power, social position, and even for bread, fit to judge
Nature's natural children who believe in fairies ? Are they
right in not believing in an invisible world which they cannot
conceive, which, if it exists, they — even though they be
scientists — are through environment and temperament alike
incapable of knowing ? Or is the country-dwelling, the
sometimes * unpractical ' and * unsuccessful ', the dreaming,
and ' uncivilized ' peasant right ? These questions ought to
arouse in the minds of anthropologists very serious reflection,
world-wide in its scope.
At all events, and equally for the unbeliever and for the
believer, the study of the Fairy-Faith is of vast importance
historically, philosophically, religiously, and scientifically.
In it lie the germs of much of our European religions and
philosophies, customs, and institutions. And it is one of
the chief keys to unlock the mysteries of Celtic mythology.
We believe that a greater age is coming soon, when all the
ancient mythologies wiU be carefully studied and interpreted,
xxviii INTRODUCTION
and when the mythology of the Celts will be held in very
high esteem. But already an age has come when things
purely Celtic have begun to be studied ; and the close observer
can see the awakening genius of the modern Celt manifesting
itself in the realm of scholarship, of literature, and even
of art — throughout Continental Europe, especially France
and Germany, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and
throughout the new Celtic world of America, as far west
as San Francisco on the great calm ocean of the future
facing Japan and China. In truth the Celtic empire is
greater than it ever was before Caesar destroyed its political
unity ; and its citizens have not forgotten the ancient faith
of their ancestors in a world invisible.
W. Y. E. W.
* • * *
' • • » » »
• » »• , . '
'i » » > ' '
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER I
ENVIRONMENT
'In the Beauty of the World lies the ultimate redemption of our mortality.
When we shall become at one with nature in a sense profounder even than
the poetic imaginings of most of us, we shall understand what now we fail
to discern.' — Fiona Macleod.
Psychical interpretation — The mysticism of Erin and Armorica — In Ireland
— In Scotland — In the Isle of Man — In Wales — In Cornwall — In
Brittany.
As a preliminary to our study it is important, as we
shall see later, to give some attention to the influences and
purely natural environment under which the Fairy-Faith
has grown up. And in doing so it will be apparent to what
extent there is truth in the Naturalistic Theory ; though
from the first our interpretation of Environment is funda-
mentally psychical. In this first chapter, then, in so far as
they can be recorded, we shall record a few impressions,
which will, in a way, serve as introductory to the more
definite and detailed consideration of the Fairy-Faith itself.
Ireland and Brittany, the two extremes of the modern
Celtic world, are for us the most important points from
which to take our initial bearings. Both washed by the
waters of the Ocean of Atlantis, the one an island, the other
a peninsula, they have best preserved their old racial life in
its simplicity and beauty, with its high ideals, its mystical
traditions, and its strong spirituality. And, curious though
the statement may appear to some, this preservation of
older manners and traditions does not seem to be due so
much to geographical isolation as to subtle forces so strange
and mysterious that to know them they must be felt ; and
their nature can only be suggested, for it cannot be described.
WENTZ R
\
2< ..;: r TH]^ LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
€
r
Over Erin and Armorica, as over Egypt, there hovers a halo
of romance, of strangeness, of mysticism real and positive ;
and, if we mistake not the language of others, these phrases
of ours but echo opinions common to many Celts native of
the two countries — they who have the first right to testify ;
and not only are there poets and seers among them, but
men of the practical world as well, and men of high rank in
scholarship, in literature, in art, and even in science.
In Ireland
If anyone would know Ireland and test these influences —
influences which have been so fundamental in giving to the
Fairy-Faith of the past something more than mere beauty
of romance and attractive form, and something which even
to-day, as in the heroic ages, is ever-living and ever-present
in the centres where men of the second-sight say that they
see fairies in that strange state of subjectivity which the
peasant calls Fairyland — let him stand on the Hill of Tara
silently and alone at sunset, in the noonday, in the mist
of a dark day. Let him likewise silently and alone follow
the course of the Boyne. Let him enter the silence of New
Grange and of Dowth. Let him muse over the hiero-
glyphics of Lough Crew. Let him feel the mystic beauty of
Killarney, the peacefulness of Glendalough, of Monaster-
boise, of Clonmacnois, and the isolation of Aranmore. Let
him dare to enter the rings of fairies, to tempt the * good
folk ' at their raths sjid forts. Let him rest on the ancient
cairn above the mountain-palace of Finvara and look out
across the battlefields of Moytura. Let him wander amid
the fairy dells of gentle Connemara. Let him behold the
Irish Sea from the Heights of Howth, as Fionn Mac Cumhail
used to do. Let him listen to the ocean-winds amid Dun
Aengus. Let him view the stronghold of Cuchulainn and the
Red Branch Knights. Let him linger beside that mysterious
lake which lies embosomed between two prehistoric cairns
on the summit of enchanted Slieve Gullion, where yet dwells
invisible the mountain's Guardian, a fairy woman. Let
him then try to interpret the mysticism of an ancient Irish
CH. I ENVIRONMENT IN IRELAND 3
myth, in order to understand why men have been told that
in the plain beneath this magic mountain of Ireland mighty
warfare was once waged on account of a Bull, by the hosts
of Queen Meave against those of Cuchulainn the hero of
Ulster. Let him be lost in the mists on the top of Ben
Bulbin. Let him know the haunts of fairy kings and queens
in Roscommon. Let him follow in the footsteps of Patrick
and Bridgit and Columba. When there are dark days and
stormy nights, let him sit beside a blazing fire of fragrant
peat in a peasant's straw-thatched cottage listening to tales
of Ireland's golden age — tales of gods, of heroes, of ghosts,
and of fairy-folk. If he will do these things, he will know
Ireland, and why its people believe in fairies.
As yet, little has been said concerning the effects of clouds,
of natural scenery, of weird and sudden transformations in
earth and sky and air, which play their part in shaping the
complete Fairy-Faith of the Irish ; but what we are about
to say concerning Scotland will suggest the same things for
Ireland, because the nature of the landscape and the atmo-
spheric changes are much the same in the two countries,
both inland and on their rock-bound and storm-swept
shores.
In Scotland
In the moorlands between Trossachs and Aberfoyle,
a region made famous by Scott's Rob Roy, I have seen
atmospheric changes so sudden and so contrasted as to
appear marvellous. What shifting of vapours and clouds,
what flashes of bright sun-gleams, then twilight at midday !
Across the landscape, shadows of black dense fog-banks
rush like shadows of flocks of great birds which darken all
the earth. Palpitating fog-banks wrap themselves around
the mountain-tops and then come down like living things to
move across the valleys, sometimes only a few yards above
the traveller's head. And in that country live terrible water-
kelpies. When black clouds discharge their watery burden
it is in wind-driven vertical water-sheets through which the
world appears as through an ice-filmed window-pane. Per-
haps in a single day there may be the bluest of heavens and
B 2
4 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the clearest air, the densest clouds and the darkest shadows,
the calm of the morning and the wind of the tempest. At
night in Aberfoyle after such a day, I witnessed a clear
sunset and a fair evening sky ; in the morning when I arose,
the lowlands along the river were inundated and a thousand
cascades, large and small, were leaping down the mountain-
highlands, and rain was falling in heavy masses. Within
an hour afterwards, as I travelled on towards Stirling, the
rain and wind ceased, and there settled down over all
the land cloud-masses so inky-black that they seemed like the
fancies of some horrible dream. Then like massed armies
they began to move to their mountain-strongholds, and
stood there ; while from the east came perfect weather
and a flood of brilliant sunshine.
And in the Highlands from Stirling to Inverness what
magic, what changing colours and shadows there were on
the age-worn treeless hills, and in the valleys with their
clear, pure streams receiving tribute from unnumbered little
rills and springs, some dropping water drop by drop as
though it were fairy-distilled ; and everywhere the heather
giving to the mountain-landscape a hue of rich purplish-
brown, and to the air an odour of aromatic fragrance.
On to the north-west beyond Inverness there is the same
kind of a treeless highland country ; and then after a few
hours of travel one looks out across the water from Kyle
and beholds Skye, where Cuchulainn is by some believed to
have passed his young manhood learning feats of arms from
fairy women, — Skye, dark, mountainous, majestic, with its
waterfalls turning to white spray as they tumble from cliff
to cliff into the sound, from out the clouds that hide their
mountain-summit sources.
In the Outer Hebrides, as in the Aranmore Islands off
West Ireland, influences are at work on the Celtic imagina-
tion quite different from those in Skye and its neighbouring
islands. Mountainous billows which have travelled from
afar out of the mysterious watery waste find their first
impediment on the west of these isolated Hebridean isles,
and they fling themselves like mad things in full fury
CH. I ENVIRONIMENT IN SCOTLAND 5
against the wild rocky islets fringing the coast. White spray
flashes in unearthly forms over the highest cliff, and the un-
restrained hurricane whirls it far inland. Ocean's eternally
murmuring sounds set up a responsive vibration in the soul
of the peasant, as he in solitude drives home his flocks
amid the weird gloaming at the end of a December day ;
and, later, when he sits brooding in his humble cottage at
night, in the fitful flickering of a peat fire, he has a mystic
consciousness that deep down in his being there is a more
divine music compared with which that of external nature
is but a symbol and an echo ; and, as he stirs the glowing
peat- embers, phantoms from an irretrievable past seem to
be sitting with him on the edge of the half-circle of dying
light. Maybe there are skin-clad huntsmen of the sea and
land, with spears and knives of bone and flint and shaggy
sleeping dogs, or fearless sea-rovers resting wearily on shields
of brilliant bronze, or maybe Celtic warriors fierce and
bold ; and then he understands that his past and his present
are one.
Commonly there is the thickest day-darkness when the
driving storms come in from the Atlantic, or when dense
fog covers sea and land ; and, again, there are melancholy
sea-winds moaning across from shore to shore, bending the
bushes of the purple heather. At other times there is a
sparkle of the brightest sunshine on the ocean waves, a fierce-
ness foreign to the more peaceful Highlands ; and then
again a dead silence prevails at sunrise and at sunset if one
be on the mountains, or, if on the shore, no sound is heard
save the rhythmical beat of the waves, and now and then
the hoarse cry of a sea-bird. All these contrasted conditions
may be seen in one day, or each may endure for a day ; and
the dark days last nearly all the winter. And then it is,
during the long winter, that the crofters and fisher-folk con-
gregate night after night in a different neighbour's house
to tell about fairies and ghosts, and to repeat all those old
legends so dear to the heart of the Celt. Perhaps every one
present has heard the same story or legend a hundred times,
yet it is always listened to and told as though it were the
6 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
latest bulletin of some great world-stirring event. Over
those little islands, so far away to the north, out on the edge
of the world, in winter-time darkness settles down at four
o'clock or even earlier ; and the islanders hurry through
with their dinner of fish and oat-bread so as not to miss
hearing the first story. When the company has gathered from
far and near, pipes are re-filled and lit and the peat is heaped
up, for the story-telling is not likely to end before midnight.
* The house is roomy and clean, if homely, with its bright
peat fire in the middle of the floor. There are many present
— men and women, boys and girls. All the women are
seated, and most of the men. Girls are crouched between
the knees of fathers or brothers or friends, while boys are
perched wherever — boy-like — they can climb. The house-
man is twisting twigs of heather into ropes to hold
down thatch, a neighbour crofter is twining quicken root
into cords to tie cows, while another is plaiting bent grass
into baskets to hold meal. The housewife is spinning,
a daughter is carding, another daughter is teazing, while
a third daughter, supposed to be working, is away in
the background conversing in low whispers with the son
of a neighbouring crofter. Neighbour wives and neigh-
bour daughters are knitting, sewing, or embroidering.*^
Then when the bad weather for fishing has been fully dis-
cussed by the men, and the latest gossip by the women,
and the foolish talk of the youths and maidens in the corners
is finished, the one who occupies the chair of honour in the
midst of the ceilidh ^ looks around to be sure that everybody
is comfortable and ready ; and, as his first story begins, even
the babes by instinct cease their noise and crying, and young
and old bend forward eagerly to hear every word. It does
' Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica (Edinburgh, 1900), i, p. xix.
* The ceilidh of the Western Hebrides corresponds to the veillee of Lower
Brittany (see pp. 221 ff.), and to similar story-telling festivals which
formerly flourished among all the Celtic peoples. * The ceilidh is a literary
entertainment where stories and tales, poems, and ballads, are rehearsed
and recited, and songs are sung, conundrums are put, proverbs are quoted*
and many other literary matters are related and discussed.' — Alexander
Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, i, p. xviii.
CH. I ENVIRONMENT IN SCOTLAND 7
not matter if some of the boys and girls do topple over
asleep, or even some of the older folk as the hour gets late ;
the tales meet no interruption in their even, unbroken flow.
And here we have the most Celtic and the most natural
environments which the Fairy- Faith enjoys in Scotland.
There are still the Southern Highlands in the country
around Oban, and the islands near them ; and of all these
isles none is so picturesque in history as the one Columba
loved so well. Though lona enjoys less of the wildness of
the Hebrides furthest west, it has their storm- winds and fogs
and dark days, and their strangeness of isolation. On it, as
Adamnan tells us, the holy man fought with black demons
who came to invade his monastery, and saw angelic hosts ;
and when the angels took his soul at midnight in that little
chapel by the sea-shore there was a mystic light which
illuminated all the altar like the brightest sunshine. But
nowadays, where the saint saw demons and angels the
Islanders see ghosts and * good people ', and when one of
these islanders is taken in death it is not by angels — it is
by fairies.
In the Isle of Man
In the midst of the Irish Sea, almost equidistant from
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and concentrating in itself
the psychical and magnetic influences from these three Celtic
lands, and from Celto-Saxon England too, lies the beautiful
kingdom of the great Tuatha De Danann god, Manannan
Mac Lir, or, as his loyal Manx subjects prefer to call him,
Mannanan-Beg-Mac-y-Leir. In no other land of the Celt
does Nature show so many moods and contrasts, such perfect
repose at one time and at another time the mightiness of
its unloosed powers, when the baffled sea throws itself angrily
against a high rock-bound coast, as wild and almost as weather-
worn as the western coasts of Ireland and the Hebrides.
But it is Nature's calmer moods which have greater effect
upon the Manx people : on the summit of his ancient strong-
hold, South Barrule Mountain, the god Manannan yet dwells
invisible to mortal eyes, and whenever on a warm day he
throws off his magic mist-blanket with which he is wont to
8 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
cover the whole island, the golden gorse or purple heather
blossoms become musical with the hum of bees, and sway
gently on breezes made balmy by the tropical warmth of an
ocean stream flowing from the far distant Mexican shores
of a New World. Then in many a moist and sweet-smelling
glen, pure and verdant, land-birds in rejoicing bands add to
the harmony of sound, as they gather on the newly-ploughed
field or dip themselves in the clear water of the tinkling
brook ; and from the cliffs and rocky islets on the coast
comes the echo of the multitudinous chorus of sea-birds.
At sunset, on such a day, as evening calmness settles down,
weird mountain shadows begin to move across the dimly-
lighted glens ; and when darkness has fallen, there is a mystic
stillness, broken only by the ceaseless throbbing of the sea-
waves, the flow of brooks, and the voices of the night.
In the moorland solitudes, even by day, there sometimes
broods a deeper silence, which is yet more potent and full
of meaning for the peasant, as under its spell he beholds the
peaceful vision, happy and sunlit, of sea and land, of gentle
mountains falling away in land-waves into well-tilled plains
and fertile valleys ; and he comes to feel instinctively the old
Druidic Fires relit within his heart, and perhaps unconsciously
he worships there in Nature's Temple. The natural beauty
without awakens the divine beauty within, and for a second
of time he, out of his subconsciousness, is conscious that in
Nature there are beings and inaudible voices which have no
existence for the flippant pleasure-seeking crowds who come
and go. To the multitude, his ancestral beliefs are foolish-
ness, his fairies but the creatures of a fervid Celtic imagina-
tion which readily responds to unusual phenomena and
environments. They wiU not believe with him that all beauty
and harmony in the world are but symbolic, and that behind
these stand unseen sustaining forces and powers which are
conscious and eternal ; and though by instinct they willingly
personify Nature they do not know the secret of why they
do so : for them the outer is reality, the inner non-existent.
From the Age of Stone to the civilized era of to-day, the
Isle of Man has been, in succession, the home of every knoi"^^
\
CH. I ENVIRONMENT IN THE ISLE OF MAN 9
race and people who have flourished in Western Europe ;
and though subject, in turn, to the Irish Gael and to the
Welsh Brython, to Northmen and to Danes, to Scots and
to English, and the scene of sweeping transformations in
religion, as pagan cults succeeded one another, to give way
to the teaching of St. Patrick and his disciples St. German
and St. Maughold, and this finally to the Protestant form of
Christianity, the island alone of Celtic lands has been
strangely empowered to maintain in almost primitive purity
its ancient constitution and freedom, and though geographic-
ally at the very centre of the United Kingdom, is not a part
of it. The archaeologist may still read in mysterious symbols
of stone and earth, as they lie strewn over the island's sur-
face, the history of this age-long panoramic procession of
human evolution ; while through these same symbols the
Manx seer reads a deeper meaning ; and sometimes in the
superhuman realm of radiant light, to which since long ago
they have oft come and oft returned, he meets face to face
the gods and heroes whose early tombs stand solitary on
the wind-swept mountain-top and moorland, or hidden away
in the embrace of wild flowers and verdure amid valleys ;
and in the darker mid-world he sees innumerable ghosts of
many of these races which have perished.
In Wales
Less can be said of Wades than of Ireland, or of Scotland
as a whole. It has, it is true, its own peculiar psychic atmo-
sphere, different, no doubt, because its people are Brythonic
Celts rather than Gaelic Celts. But Wales, with conditions
more modernized than is the case in Ireland or in the Western
Hebrides of Scotland, does not now exhibit in a vigorous or
flourishing state those Celtic influences which, when they
were active, did so much to create the precious Romances of
Arthur and his Brotherhood, and to lay the foundations for
the Welsh belief in the Tylwyth Teg, a fairy race still sur-
viving in a few favoured localities.
^ Wales, like all Celtic countries, is a land of long sea-coasts,
, ^^i^hough there seems to be, save in the mountains of the north,
10 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
less of mist and darkness and cloud effects than in Ireland
and Scotland. In the south, perhaps the most curious in-
fluences are to be felt at St. David's Head, and in St. David's
itself — once the goal for thousands of pilgrims from many
countries of mediaeval Europe, and, probably, in pagan
times the seat of an oracle. And a place of like character
is the peninsula of Gower, south of Swansea. Caerphilly
Castle, where the Green Lady reigns now amid its ruined
acres, is a strange place ; and so is the hill near Carmarthen,
where Merlin is asleep in a cave with the fairy-woman
Vivian. But in none of these places to-day is there a strong
living faith in fairies as there is, for example, in West Ireland.
The one region where I found a real Celtic atmosphere — and
it is a region where everybody speaks Welsh — is a moun-
tainous country rarely visited by travellers, save archaeo-
logists, a few miles from Newport; and its centre is the
Pentre Evan Cromlech, the finest cromlech in Wales if not
in Britain. By this prehistoric monument and in the
country round the old Nevern Church, three miles away,
there is an active belief in the * fair-folk ', in ghosts, in
death-warnings, in death-candles and phantom-funerals, and
in witchcraft and black magic. Thence on to Newcastle-
Emlyn and its valley, where many of the Mabinogion stories
took form, or at least from where they drew rich material in
the way of folk-lore,^ are environments purely Welsh and as
yet little disturbed by the commercial materialism of the age.
There remain now to be mentioned three other places
in Wales to me very impressive psychically. These are :
ancient Harlech, so famous in recorded Welsh fairy-romance
— Harlech with its strange stone-circles, and old castle from
which the Snowdon Range is seen to loom majestically and
clear, and with its sun-kissed bay ; Mount Snowdon, with
its memories of Arthur and Welsh heroes ; and sacred
Anglesey or Mona, strewn with tumuli, and dolmens, and
pillar-stones — Mona, where the Druids made their last stand
* I am indebted for this information to the late Mr. Da vies, the com-
petent scholar and antiquarian of Newcastle-Emlyn, where for many years
he has been vicar.
CH. I ENVIRONMENT IN WALES ii
against the Roman eagles — and its little island called Holy-
head, facing Ireland.
However, when all is said, modern Wales is poorer in its
fairy atmosphere than modern Ireland or modern Brittany.
Certainly there is a good deal of this fairy atmosphere yet,
though it has become less vital than the similar fairy atmo-
sphere in the great centres of Erin and Armorica. But the
purely social environment under which the Fairy-Faith of
Wales survives is a potent force which promises to preserve
underneath the surface of Welsh national life, where the
commercialism of the age has compelled it to retire in a state
of temporary latency, the ancestral idealism of the ancient
Brythonic race. In Wales, as in Lower Brittany and in
parts of Ireland and the Hebrides, one may still hear in
common daily use a language which has been continuously
spoken since unknown centuries before the rise of the
Roman empire. And the strong hold which the Druidic
Eisteddfod (an annual national congress of bards and literati)
continues to have upon the Welsh people, in spite of their
commercialism, is, again, a sign that their hearts remain
uncorrupted, that when the more favourable hour strikes
they will sweep aside the deadening influences which now
hold them in spiritual bondage, and become, as they were
in the past, true children of Arthur.
In Cornwall
. Strikingly like Brittany in physical aspects. Southern and
Western Cornwall is a land of the sea, of rolling plains and
moorlands rather than of high hills and mountains, a land
of golden-yellow furze-bloom, where noisy crowds of black
crows and white sea-gulls mingle together over the freshly-
turned or new-sown fields, and where in the spring-time the
call of the cuckoo is heard with the song of the skylark.
Like the Isle of Man, from the earliest ages Cornwall has
been a meeting-place and a battle-ground for contending
races. The primitive dark Iberian peoples gave way before
Aryan-Celtic invaders, and these to Roman and then to
Germanic invaders.
12 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Nature has been kind to the whole of Cornwall, but chiefly
upon the peninsula whose ancient capital is Penzance (which
possibly means * the Holy Headland '), and upon the land
immediately eastward and northward of it, she has bestowed
her rarest gifts. Holding this territory embosomed in the
pure waters of Ocean, and breathing over it the pure air of
the Atlantic in spring and in summer calm, when the warm
vapours from the Gulf Stream sweep over it freely, and
make it a land of flowers and of singing-birds. Nature pre-
serves eternally its beauty and its sanctity. There are there
ruined British villages whose builders are long forgotten,
strange prehistoric circular sun-temples like fortresses crown-
ing the hill-tops, mysterious underground passage-ways, and
crosses probably pre-Christian. Everywhere are the records
of the mighty past of this thrice-holy Druid land of sunset.
There are weird legends of the lost kingdom of Fair Lyonesse,
which seers sometimes see beneath the clear salt waves, with
all its ancient towns and flowery fields ; legends of Phoeni-
cians and Oriental merchants who came for tin ; legends
of gods and of giants, of pixies and of fairies, of King Arthur
in his castle at Tintagel, of angels and of saints, of witches
and of wizards.
On Dinsul, ' Hill dedicated to the Sun,' pagan priests and
priestesses kept kindled the Eternal Fire, and daily watched
eastward for the rising of the God of Light and Life, to greet
his coming with paeans of thanksgiving and praise. Then
after the sixth century the new religion had come proclaim-
ing a more mystic Light of the World in the Son of God,
and to the pious half-pagan monks who succeeded the
Druids the Archangel St. Michael appeared in vision on the
Sacred Mount.^ And before St. Augustine came to Britain
the Celts of Cornwall had already combined in their own
mystical way the spiritual message of primitive Christianity
with the pure nature- worship of their ancestors ; and their
* In the Gnosis, St. Michael symboUzes the sun, and thus very appro-
priately at St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, at Mont St. Michel, Carnac, and
also at Mont St. Michel on the coast of Normandy, replaced the Great God
of Light and Life, held in supreme honour among the ancient Celts.
CH. I ENVIRONMENT IN CORNWALL 13
land was then, as it most likely had been in pagan days,
a centre of pilgrimages for their Celtic kinsmen from Ireland,
from Wales, from England, and from Brittany. When in
later times new theological doctrines were superimposed on
this mysticism of Celtic Christianity, the Sacred Fires were
buried in ashes, and the Light and Beauty of the pagan
world obscured with sackcloth.
But there in that most southern and western corner of
the Isle of Britain, the Sacred Fires themselves still burn on
the divine hill-tops, though smothered in the hearts of its
children. The Cornishman's vision is no longer clear. He
looks upon cromlech and dolmen, upon ancient caves of
initiation, and upon the graves of his prehistoric ancestors,
and vaguely feels, but does not know, why his land is so holy,
is so permeated by an indefinable magic ; for he has lost his
ancestral mystic touch with the unseen — he is ' educated '
^and ' civilized '. The hand of the conqueror has fallen more
heavily upon the people of Cornwall than upon any other
Celtic people, and now for a time, but let us hope happily
only for this dark period of transition, they sleep — until
Arthur comes to break the spell and set them free.
In Brittany
As was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter,
Ireland and Brittany are to be regarded as the two poles of
the modern Celtic world, but it is believed by Celtic mystics
that they are much more than this, that they are two of
its psychic centres, with Tara and Carnac as two respective
points of focus from which the Celtic influence of each
country radiates.^ With such a psychical point of view, it
makes no difference at all whether one scholar argues Carnac
to be Celtic and another pre-Celtic, for if pre-Celtic, as it
most likely is, it has certainly been bequeathed to the people
who were and are Celtic, and its influence has been an un-
broken thing from times altogether beyond the horizon of
^ In this connexion we may think of the North and South Magnetic Poles
of the earth as centres of definite yet invisible forces which can be detected,
and to some extent measured scientifically.
14 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
history. According to this theory (and in following it we
are merely trying to put on record unique material trans-
mitted to us by the most learned of contemporary Celtic
mystics and seers) there seem to be certain favoured places
on the earth where its magnetic and even more subtle forces
are most powerful and most easily felt by persons suscep-
tible to such things ; and Carnac appears to be one of the
greatest of such places in Europe, and for this reason, as
has been thought, was probably selected by its ancient
priest-builders as the great centre for religious practices, for
the celebration of pagan mysteries, for tribal assemblies,
for astronomical observations, and very likely for establishing
schools in which to educate neophytes for the priesthood.
Tara, with its tributary Boyne valley, is a similar place in
Ireland, so selected and so used, as, in our study of the cult
of fairies and the cult of the dead, manuscript evidence will
later indicate. And thus to such psychical and magnetic, or,
according perhaps to others, religious or traditional in-
fluences as focus themselves at Tara and Carnac, though in
other parts of the two countries as well, may be due in
a great, even in an essential measure, the vigorous and ever-
living Fairy-Faith of Ireland, and the innate and ever-con-
scious belief of the Breton people in the Legend of the Dead
and in a world invisible. For fairies and souls of the dead,
though, strictly speaking, not confused, are believed to be
beings of the subjective world existing to-day, and influ-
encing mortals, as they have always existed and influenced
them according to ancient and modern traditions, and as
they appear now in the eyes even of science through the
work of a few pioneer scientists in psychical research. And
it seems probable that subjective beings of this kind, grant-
ing their existence, were made use of by the ancient Druids,
and even by Patrick when the old and new religions
met to do battle on the Hill of Tara. The control of
Tara, as a psychical centre, meant the psychical control
of all Ireland. To-day on the Hill of Tara the statue
of St. Patrick dwarfs the Liath Stone beside it ; at Carnac
the Christian Cross overshadows dolmens and menhirs.
CH. I ENVIRONMENT IN BRITTANY 15
A learned priest of the Roman Church told me, when
I met him in Galway, that in his opinion those places in
Ireland where ancient sacrifices were performed to pagan or
Druid gods are still, unless they have been regularly exor-
cized, under the control of demons (daemons) . And what
the Druids were at Tara and throughout Erin and most
probably at Carnac as well, the priests were in Egypt, and
the pythonesses in Greece. That is to say, Druids, Egyptian
priests, priestesses in charge of Greek oracles, are said to
have foretold the future, interpreted omens, worked all
miracles and wonders of magic by the aid of daemons, who
were regarded as an order of invisible beings, intermediary
between gods and men, and as sometimes including the
shades from Hades.
I should say as before, if he who knowing Ireland, the
Land of Faerie, would know in the same manner Brittany,
the Land of the Dead, let him silently and alone walk many
times — in sun, in wind, in storm, in thick mist — through
the long, broad avenues of stone of the Alignements at Carnac.
Let him watch from among them the course of the sun from
east to west. Let him stand on St. Michael's Mount on the
day of the winter solstice, or on the day of the summer
solstice. Let him enter the silence of its ancient underground
chamber, so dark and so mysterious. Let him sit for hours
musing amid cromlechs and dolmens, and beside menhirs,
and at holy wells. Let him marvel at the mightiest of
menhirs now broken and prostrate at Locmariaquer, and
then let him ponder over the subterranean places near it.
Let him try to read the symbolic inscriptions on the rocks
in Gavrinis. Let him stand on the tie de Sein at sunrise
and at sunset. Let him penetrate the solitudes of the Forest
of Broceliande, and walk through the Val-Sans-Retour (Vale-
Without-Return) . And then let him wander in footpaths
with the Breton peasant through fields where good dames
sit on the sunny side of a bush or wall, knitting stockings,
where there are long hedges of furze, golden-yellow with
bloom — even in January — and listen to stories , about
corrigans, and about the dead who mingle here with the
i6 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
living. Let him enter the peasant's cottage when there is
fog over the land and the sea-winds are blowing across the
shifting sand-dunes, and hear what he can tell him. Let
him, even as he enjoys the picturesque customs and dress of
the Breton folk and looks on at their joyous ronde (perhaps
the relic of a long-forgotten sun-dance), observe the depth
of their nature, their almost ever-present sense of the serious-
ness of human life and effort, their beautiful characters as
their mystic land has shaped them without the artificiality
of books and schools, their dreaminess as they look out
across the ocean, their often perfect physique and fine
profiles and rosy cheeks, and yet withal their brooding
innate melancholy. And let him know that there is with
them always an overshadowing consciousness of an invisible
world, not in some distant realm of space, but here and now,
blending itself with this world; its inhabitants, their dead
ancestors and friends, mingling with them daily, and await-
ing the hour when the A nkou (a King of the Dead) shall call
each to join their invisible company.
SECTION I
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH
CHAPTER II
THE TAKING OF EVIDENCE
' During all these centuries the Celt has kept in his heart some affinity
with the mighty beings ruling in the Unseen, once so evident to the heroic
races who preceded him. His legends and faery tales have connected his
soul with the inner lives of air and water and earth, and they in turn have
kept his heart sweet with hidden influence.' — A. E.
Method of presentation — The logical verdict — Trustworthiness of legends
— The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated Celt as well as by the
Celtic peasant — The evidence is complete and adequate — Its analysis —
The Fairy-Tribes dealt with — Witnesses and their testimony : from
Ireland, with introduction by Dr. Douglas Hyde ; from Scotland,
with introduction by Dr. Alexander Carmichael ; from the Isle of
Man, with introduction by Miss Sophia Morrison ; from Wales, with
introduction by the Right Hon. Sir John Rhys ; from Cornwall, with
introduction by Mr. Henry Jenner; and from Brittany, with intro-
duction by Professor Anatole Le Braz.
i
I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Various possible plans have presented themselves for
setting forth the living Fairy-Faith as I have found it during
my travels in the six Celtic countries among the people
who hold it. To take a bit here and a bit there from a mis-
cellaneous group of psychological experiences, fairy legends
and stories which are linked together almost inseparably in
the mind of the one who tells them, does not seem at all
satisfactory, nor even just, in trying to arrive at a correct
residt. Classification under various headings, such, for
example, as Fairy Abductions, Changelings, or Appearances
of Fairies, seems equally unsatisfactory ; for as soon as the
details of folk-lore such as I am presenting are isolated from
one another — even though brought together in related
groups — they must be rudely torn out of their true and
natural environment, and divorced from the psychological
WENTZ r
i8 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
atmosphere amidst which they were first presented by the
narrator. The same objection applies to any plan of divid-
ing the evidence into (i) that which is purely legendary ;
(2) that which is second-hand or third-hand evidence from
people who claim to have seen fairies, or to have been in
Fairyland or under fairy influences ; and (3) that which is
first-hand evidence from actual percipients : these three
classes of evidence are so self-evident that every reader will
be able to distinguish each class for himself as it occurs,
and a mechanical classification by us is unnecessary. So no
plan seems so good as the plan I have adopted of permitting
all witnesses to give their own testimony in their own way
and in its native setting, and then of classifying and weigh-
ing such testimony according to the methods of comparative
religion and the anthropological sciences.
In most cases, as examination will show, the evidence is
so clear that little or no comment is necessary. Most of the
evidence also points so much in one direction that the
only verdict which seems reasonable is that the Fairy-Faith
belongs to a doctrine of souls ; that is to say, that Fairyland
is a state or condition, realm or place, very much like, if
not the same as, that wherein civilized and uncivilized men
alike place the souls of the dead, in company with other
invisible beings such as gods, daemons, and all sorts of good
and bad spirits. Not only do both educated and uneducated
Celtic seers so conceive Fairyland, but they go much further,
and say that Fairyland actually exists as an invisible world
within which the visible world is immersed like an island in
an unexplored ocean, and that it is peopled by more species
of living beings than this world, because incomparably more
vast and varied in its possibilities.
We should be prepared in hearing the evidence to meet
with some contradictions and a good deal of confusion, for
many of the people who believe in such a strange world as
we have just described, and who think they sometimes have
entered it or have seen some of its inhabitants, have often
had no training at all in schools or colleges. But when we
hear legendary tales which have never been recorded save
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE ; INTRODUCTION 19
in the minds of unnumbered generations of men, we ought
not on that account to undervalue them ; for often they
are better authorities and more trustworthy than many an
ancient and carefully inscribed manuscript in the British
Museum ; and they are probably far older than the oldest
book in the world. Let us, then, for a time, forget that
there are such things as libraries and universities, and betake
ourselves to the Celtic peasant for instruction, living close to
nature as he lives, and thinking the things which he thinks.
' But the peasant will not be our only teacher, for we shall
also hear much of first importance from city folk of the
highest intellectual training. It has become, perhaps always
has been in modern times, a widespread opinion, even among
some scholars, that the belief in fairies is the property solely
of simple, uneducated country-folk, and that people who
have had ' a touch of education and a little common sense
knocked into their heads ', to use the ordinary language,
' wouldn't be caught believing in such nonsense.' This same
class of critics used to make similar remarks about people
who said there were ghosts, until the truth of another
* stupid superstition * was discovered by psychical research.
So in this chapter we hope to correct this erroneous opinion
about the Fairy-Faith, an opinion chiefly entertained by
scholars and others who know not the first real fact about
fairies, because they have never lived amongst the people
who believe in fairies, but derive all their information from
books and hearsay. In due order the proper sort of wit-
nesses will substantiate this position, but before coming to
their testimony we may now say that there are men and
women in Dublin, in other parts of Ireland, in Scotland, in
the Isle of Man, and in Brythonic lands too, whom all the
world knows as educated leaders in their respective fields of
activity, who not only declare their belief that fairies were,
but that fairies are ; and some of these men and women say
that they have the power to see fairies as real spiritual
beings.
In the evidence about to be presented there has been no
selecting in favour of any one theory ; it is presented as
c 2
20 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
discovered. The only liberty taken with some of the evidence
has been to put it into better grammatical form, and some-
times to recast an ambiguous statement when I, as collector,
had in my own mind no doubt as to its meaning. Transla-
tions have been made as literal as possible ; though some-
times it has been found better to offer the meaning rather
than what in English would be an obscure colloquialism or
idiomatic expression. The method pursued in seeking the
evidence has been to penetrate as deeply and in as natural
a way as possible the thoughts of the people who believe in
fairies and like beings, by living among them and observing
their customs and ways of thought, and recording what
seemed relevant to the subject under investigation — chance
expressions, and legends told under various ordinary con-
ditions — rather than to collect long legends or literary fairy-
stories. For these last the reader is referred to the many
excellent works on Celtic folk-lore. We have sought to
bring together, as perhaps has not been done before, the
philosophy of the belief in fairies, rather than the mere
fairy-lore itself, though the two cannot be separated. In
giving the evidence concerning fairies, we sometimes give
evidence which, though akin to it and thus worthy of record,
is not strictly fairy-lore. All that we have omitted from
the materials in the form first taken down are stories and
accounts of things not sufficiently related to the world
of Faerie to be of value here.
In no case has testimony been admitted from a person
who was known to be unreliable, nor even from a person who
was thought to be unreliable. Accordingly, the evidence we
are to examine ought to be considered good evidence so
far as it goes ; and since it represents almost all known
elements of the Fairy-Faith and contains almost all the
essential elements upon which the advocates of the Natura-
listic Theory, of the Pygmy Theory, of the Druid Theory,
of the Mythological Theory, as well as of our own Psycho-
logical Theory, must base their arguments, we consider it
very adequate evidence. Nearly every witness is a Celt
who has been made acquainted with the belief in fairies
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE ; INTRODUCTION 21
through direct contact with people who believe in them, or
through having heard fairy-traditions among his own kindred,
or through personal psychological experiences. And it is
exceedingly fortunate for us that an unusually large pro-
portion of these Celtic witnesses are actual percipients and
natural seers, because the eliminations from the Fairy-Faith
to be brought about in chapter iii by means of an anthropo-
logical analysis of evidence will be so extensive that, scien-
tifically and strictly speaking, there will remain as a residual
or unknown quantity, upon which our final conclusion must
depend, solely the testimony of reliable seer-witnesses. That
is to say, no method of anthropological dissection of the
evidence can force aside consideration of the ultimate truth
which may or may not reside in the testimony of sane and
thoroughly reliable seer-witnesses.
Old and young, educated and uneducated, peasant and
city-bred, testify to the actual existence of the Celtic Fairy-
Faith ; and the evidence from Roman Catholics stands
beside that from Protestants, the evidence of priests sup-
ports that of scholars and scientists, peasant seers have
testified to the same kind of visions as highly educated
seers ; and what poets have said agrees with what is told
by business men, engineers, and lawyers. But the best of
witnesses, like ourselves, are only human, and subject to
the shortcomings of the ordinary man, and therefore no
claim can be made in any case to infallibility of evidence :
all the world over men interpret visions pragmatically and
sociologically, or hold beliefs in accord with their own per-
sonal experiences; and are for ever unconsciously immersed
in a sea of psychological influences which sometimes may be
explainable through the methods of sociological inquiry,
sometimes may be supernormal in origin and nature, and
hence to be explained most adequately, if at all, through
psychical research. Our study is a study of human nature
itself, and, moreover, often of human nature in its most
subtle aspects, which are called psychical ; and the most
difficult problem of all is for human nature to interpret
and understand its own ultimate essence and psychological
22 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
instincts. Our whole aim is to discover what reasonableness
may or may not stand behind a belief so vast, so ancient,
so common (contrary to popular non-Celtic opinion) to all-
classes of Celts, and so fundamental a shaping force in
European history, religion, and social institutions.
When we state our conviction that the Fairy-Faith is*
common to all classes of Celts, we do not state that it
is common to all Celts. The materialization of the age has
affected the Fairy-Faith as it has affected all religious beliefs
the world over. This has been pointed out by Dr. Hyde,
by Dr. Carmichael, and by Mr. Jenner in their respective
introductions for Ireland, Scotland, and Cornwall. Never-
theless, the Fairy-Faith as the folk-religion of the Celtic
peoples is still able to count its adherents by hundreds of
thousands. Even in many cases where Christian theology
has been partially or wholly discarded by educated Celts,
in the country or in the city, as being to them in too many
details out of harmony with accepted scientific truths, the-
belief in fairies has been jealously retained, and will, so it
would seem, be retained in the future.
We are now prepared to hear about the Daoine Maithe,-
the * Good People ', as the Irish call their Sidhe race ; about
the ' People of Peace ', the ' Still-Folk ' or the ' Silent
Moving Folk ', as the Scotch call their SHh who live in green
knolls and in the mountain fastnesses of the Highlands ;
about various Manx fairies ; about the Tylwyth Teg, the
' Fair-Family ' or ' Fair-Folk ', as the Welsh people call
their fairies ; about Cornish Pixies ; and about Fees (fairies) ,
Corrigans, and the Phantoms of the Dead in Brittany. And
along with these, for they are very much akin, let us hear
about ghosts — sometimes about ghosts who discover hidden
treasure, as in our story of the Golden Image — about goblins,
about various sorts of death-warnings generally coming
from apparitions of the dead, or from banshees, about death-
candles and phantom-funerals, about leprechauns, about
hosts of the air, and all kinds of elementals and spirits —
in short, about all the orders of beings who mingle together
in that invisible realm called Fairyland.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 23
II. IN IRELAND
Introduction by Douglas Hyde, LL.D., D. Litt., M.R.I.A.
{An Craoihhin Aoihhinn), President of the Gaelic League;
author of A Literary History of Ireland, &c.
Whatever may be thought of the conclusions drawn by
Mr. Wentz from his explorations into the Irish spirit-world,
there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of the data from
which he draws them. I have myself been for nearly a
quarter of a century collecting, off and on, the folk-lore of
Western Ireland, not indeed in the shape in which Mr. Wentz
has collected it, but rather with an eye (partly for linguistic
and literary purposes) to its songs, sayings, ballads, proverbs,
and sgealta, which last are generally the equivalent of the
German Marchen, but sometimes have a touch of the saga
nature about them. In making a collection of these things
I have naturally come across a very large amount of folk-
belief conversationally expressed, with regard to the ' good
people ' and other supernatural manifestations, so that
I can bear witness to the fidelity with which Mr. Wentz
has done his work on Irish soil, for to a great number of
the beliefs which he records I have myself heard parallels,
sometimes I have heard near variants of the stories, some-
times the identical stories. So we may, I think, unhesitat-
ingly accept his subject-matter, whatever, as I said, be the
conclusions we may deduce from them.
The folk-tale (sean-sgeal) or Marchen, which I have spent
so much time in collecting, must not be confounded with
the folk-belief which forms the basis of Mr. Wentz's studies.
The sgeal or story is something much more intricate, com-
plicated, and thought-out than the belief. One can quite
easily distinguish between the two. One (the belief) is short,
conversational, chiefly relating to real people, and contains
no great sequence of incidents, while the other (the folk-tale)
is long, complicated, more or less conventional, and above
aU has its interest grouped around a single central figure,
that of the hero or heroine. I may make this plainer by an
example. Let us go into a cottage on the mountain-side, as
24 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Mr. Wentz and I have done so often, and ask the old man
of the house if he ever heard of such things as fairies, and
he will tell you that * there is fairies in it surely. Didn't
his own father see the " forth " ^ beyond full of them, and he
passing by of a moonlight night and a little piper among '
them, and he playing music that mortal man never heard
the like ? ' or he'll tell you that * he himself wouldn't say
agin fairies for it 's often he heard their music at the old bush
behind the house '. Ask what the fairies are like, and he
will tell you — well, pretty much what Mr. Wentz tells us.
From this and the like accounts we form our ideas of fairies
and fairy music, of ghosts, mermaids, pitcas, and so on, but
there is no sequence of incidents, no hero, no heroine, no ,
story.
Again, ask the old man if he knows e'er a sean-sgeal (story
or Marchen), and he will ask you at once, ' Did you ever
hear the Speckled Bull ; did you ever hear the Well at the
end of the world ; did you ever hear the Tailor and the
Three Beasts ; did you ever hear the Hornless Cow ? '
Ask him to relate one of these, and if you get him in the
right vein, which may be perhaps one time in ten, or if you
induce the right vein, which you may do perhaps nine times
out of ten, you will find him begin with a certain gravity
and solemnity at the very beginning, thus, ' There was once,
in old times and in old times it was, a king in Ireland ' ; or
perhaps ' a man who married a second wife ' ; or perhaps
' a widow woman with only one son ' : and the tale proceeds
to recount the life and adventures of the heroes or heroines,
whose biographies told in Irish in a sort of stereotyped
form may take from ten minutes to half an hour to get
through. Some stories would burn out a dip candle in the
telling, or even last the whole night. But these stories have
little or nothing to say to the questions raised in this book.
The problem we have to deal with is a startling one, as
thus put before us by Mr. Wentz. Are these beings of the
spirit world real beings, having a veritable existence of their
own, in a world of their own, or are they only the creation
* Anglo-Irish for rath, a circular earthen fort.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 25
of the imagination of his informants, and the tradition of
bygone centuries ? The newspaper, the ' National ' School,
and the Zeitgeist have answered to their own entire satis-
faction that these things are imagination pure and simple.
Yet this off-hand condemnation does not always carry with
it a perfect conviction. We do not doubt the existence of
tree-martins or kingfishers, although nine hundred and
ninety-nine people out of every thousand pass their entire
lives without being vouchsafed a glimpse of them in their
live state ; and may it not be the same with the creatures
of the spirit world, may not they also exist, though to only
one in a thousand it be vouchsafed to behold them ? The
spirit creatures cannot be stuffed and put into museums,
like rare animals and birds, whose existence we might doubt
of if we had not seen them there ; yet they may exist
just as such animals and birds do, though we cannot see
them. I, at least, have often been tempted to think so.
But the following considerations, partly drawn from com-
parative folk-lore, have made me hesitate about definitely
accepting any theory.
In the first place, then, viewing the Irish spirit-world as
a whole, we find that it contains, even on Mr. Wentz's show-
ing, quite a number of different orders of beings, of varying
shapes, appearances, size, and functions. Are we to believe
that all those beings equally exist, and, on the principle that
there can be no smoke without a fire, are we to hold that
there would be no popular conception of the banshee, the
leprechaun, or the Maighdean-mhara (sea-maiden, mermaid),
and consequently no tales told about them, if such beings
did not exist, and from time to time allow themselves to be
seen like the wood-martin and the kingfisher ? This question
is, moreover, further complicated by the belief in the appear-
ance of things that are or appear to be inanimate objects,
not living beings, such as the deaf coach or the phantom
ship in full sail, the appearance of which Mr. Yeats has
immortalized in one of his earliest and finest poems.
Again, although the bean-sidhe (banshee), leprechaun,
puca, and the like are the most commonly known and usually
26 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
seen creatures of the spirit world, yet great quantities of
other appearances are beheved to have been also sporadi-
cally met with. I very well remember sitting one night some
four or five years ago in an hotel in Indianapolis, U.S.A.,
and talking to four Irishmen, one or two of them very
wealthy, and all prosperous citizens of the United States.
The talk happened to turn upon spirits — the only time
during my entire American experiences in which such
a thing happened — and each man of the four had a story
of his own to tell, in which he was a convinced believer,
of ghostly manifestations seen by him in Ireland. Two of
these manifestations were of beings that would fall into no
known category ; a monstrous rabbit as big as an ass, which
plunged into the sea (rabbits can swim), and a white heifer
which ascended to heaven, were two of them. I myself,
when a boy of ten or eleven, was perfectly convinced that
on a fine early dewy morning in summer when people were
still in bed, I saw a strange horse run round a seven-acre
field of ours and change into a woman, who ran even swifter
than the horse, and after a couple of courses round the field
disappeared into our haggard. I am sure, whatever I may
believe to-day, no earthly persuasion would, at the time,
have convinced me that I did not see this. Yet I never saw
it again, and never heard of any one else seeing the same.
My object in mentioning these things is to show that if
we concede the real objective existence of, let us say, the
apparently well-authenticated banshee (Bean-sidhe, ' woman-
fairy '), where are we to stop ? for any number of beings,
more or less well authenticated, come crowding on her heels,
so many indeed that they would point to a far more exten-
sive world of different shapes than is usually suspected, not
to speak of inanimate objects like the coach and the ship.
Of course there is nothing inherently impossible in all these
shapes existing any more than in one of them existing, but
they all seem to me to rest upon the same kind of testimony,
stronger in the case of some, less strong in the case of others,
and it is as well to point out this clearly.
My own experience is that beliefs in the Sidhe (pronounced
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 27
( Shee) folk, and in other denizens of the invisible world is,
in many places, rapidly dying. In reading folk-lore collec-
tions like those of Mr. Wentz and others, one is naturally
inclined to exaggerate the extent and depth of these tradi-
tions. They certainly still exist, and can be found if you go
to search for them ; but they often exist almost as it were
by sufferance, only in spots, and are ceasing to be any longer
a power. Near my home in a western county (County Ros-
common) rises gently a slope, which, owing to the flatness
of the surrounding regions, almost becomes a hill, and is
a conspicuous object for many miles upon every side. The
old people called it in Irish Mullach na Sidhe. This name is
now practically lost, and it is called Fairymount. So extinct
have the traditions of the Sidhe-ioXk, who lived within the
hill, become, that a high ecclesiastic recently driving by
asked his driver was there an Irish name for the hill, and
what was it, and his driver did not know. There took place
a few years ago a much talked of bog-slide in the neigh-
bouring townland of Cloon-Sheever [Sidhhhair or Siabhra),
* the Meadow of the Fairies,' and many newspaper corre-
spondents came to view it. One of the natives told a sym-
pathetic newspaper reporter, * Sure we always knew it was
going to move, that 's why the place is named Cloon-Sheever,
the bog was always in a " shiver " \ ' I have never been
able to hear of any legends attached to what must have at
one time been held to be the head-quarters of the Sidhe for
a score of miles round it.
Of all the beings in the Irish mythological world the Sidhe
are, however, apparently the oldest and the most distinctive.
Beside them in literature and general renown all other beings
sink into insignificance. A belief in them formerly domi-
nated the whole of Irish life. The Sidhe or Tuatha De
Danann were a people like ourselves who inhabited the hills
— not as a rule the highest and most salient eminences, but
I think more usually the pleasant undulating slopes or gentle
hill-sides — and who lived there a life of their own, marrying
or giving in marriage, banqueting or making war, and
leading there just as real a life as is our own. All Irish
28 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
literature, particularly perhaps the ' Colloquy of the An-
cients ' {Agallamh na Sendrach) abounds with reference to
them. To inquire how the Irish originally came by their
belief in these beings, the Sidhe or Tuatha De Danann, is to
raise a question which cannot be answered, any more than
one can answer the question, Where did the Romans obtain
their belief in Bacchus and the fauns, or the Greeks their
own belief in the beings of Olympus ?
But granting such belief to have been indigenous to the
Irish, as it certainly seems to have been, then the tall,
handsome fairies of Ben Bulbin and the Sligo district, about
whom Mr. Wentz tells us so much interesting matter, might
be accounted for as being a continuation of the tradition
of the ancient Gaels, or a piece of heredity inherent in the
folk-imagination. I mean, in other words, that the tradition
about these handsome dwellers within the hill-sides having
been handed down for ages, and having been perhaps ex-
ceptionally well preserved in those districts, people saw just
what they had always been told existed, or, if I may so put
it, they saw what they expected to see.
Fin Bheara, the King of the Connacht Fairies in Cnoc
Meadha (or Castlehacket) in the County Galway, his Queen
Nuala, and all the beautiful forms seen by Mr. Wentz's seer-
witness (pp. 60 ff.), all the banshees and all the human figures,
white women, and so forth, who are seen in raths and moats
and on hill-sides, are the direct descendants, so to speak, of
the Tuatha De Danann or the Sidhe, Of this, I think, there
can be no doubt whatever.
But then how are we to account for the little red-dressed
men and women and the leprechauns ? Yet, are they any
more wonderful than the pygmies of classic tradition ? Is
not the Mermaid to be found in Greece, and is not the
Lorelei as Germanic as the Kelpy is Caledonian. If we grant
that all these are creatures of primitive folk-belief, then
how they come to be so ceases to be a Celtic problem, it
becomes a world problem. But granted, as I say, that they
were all creatures of primitive folk-belief, then their occa-
sional appearances, or the belief in such, may be accounted
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 29
for in exactly the same way as I have suggested to be possible
in the case of the Ben Bulbin fairies.
As for the belief in ghosts or revenanls (in Irish tais or
taidhbhse), it seems to me that this may possibly rest to
some extent upon a different footing altogether. Here we
are not confronted by a different order of beings of different
shapes and attributes from our own, but only with the
appearances, amongst the living, of men who were believed
or known to be dead or far away from the scene of their
appearances. Even those who may be most sceptical about
the Sidhe-iolk and the leprechauns are likely to be con-
vinced (on the mere evidence) that the existence of * astral
bodies ' or * doubles ', or whatever we may call them, and
the appearances of people, especially in the hour of their
death, to other people who were perhaps hundreds of miles
away at the time, is amply proven. Yet whatever may have
been the case originally when man was young, I do not
think that this had in later times any more direct bearing
upon the belief in the Sidhe, the leprechauns, the mermaid,
and similar beings than upon the belief in the Greek Pan-
theon, the naiads, the dryads, or the fauns ; all of which
beliefs, probably arising originally from an animistic source,
must have differentiated themselves at a very early period.
Of course every real apparition, every ' ghost ' apparition,
tends now, and must have tended at all times, to strengthen
every spirit belief. For do not ghost apparitions belong, in
a way, to the same realm as all the others we have spoken of,
that is, to a realm equally outside our normal experience ?
Another very interesting point, and one hitherto generally
overlooked, is this, that different parts of the Irish soil
cherish different bodies of supernatural beings. The North
of Ireland believes in beings unknown in the South, and
North-East Leinster has spirits unknown to the West.
Some places seem to be almost given up to special beliefs.
Any outsider, for instance, who may have read that powerful
and grisly book. La Legende de la Mort, by M. Anatole Le
Braz, in two large volumes, all about the awful appearances
of Ankou (Death), who simply dominates the folk-lore of
30 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Brittany, will probably be very much astonished to know
that, though I have been collecting Irish folk-lore all my life,
I have never met Death figuring as a personality in more
than two or three tales, and these mostly of a trivial or
humorous description, though the Deaf Coach {Cdiste
Bodhar), the belief in which is pretty general, does seem
a kind of parallel to the creaking cart in which Ankou rides.
I would suggest, then, that the restriction of certain forms
of spirits, if I may so call them, to certain localities, may be
due to race intermixture. I would imagine that where the
people of a primitive tribe settled down most strongly, they
also most strongly preserved the memory of those super-
natural beings who were peculiarly their own. The Sidhe-
folk appear to be pre-eminently and distinctively Milesian,
but the geancanach (name of some little spirit in Meath and
portion of Ulster) may have been believed in by a race
entirely different from that which believed in the cluracaun
(a Munster sprite) . Some of these beliefs may be Aryan, but
many are probably pre-Celtic.
Is it not strange that while the names and exploits of the
great semi-mythological heroes of the various Saga cycles of
Ireland, Cuchulainn, Conor mac Nessa, Finn, Osgar, Oisin, and
the rest, are at present the inheritance of all Ireland, and are
known in every part of it, there should still be, as I have said,
supernatural beings believed in which are unknown outside of
their own districts, and of which the rest of Ireland has never
heard ? If the inhabitants of the limited districts in which
these are seen still think they see them, my suggestion is that
the earlier race handed down an account of the primitive
beings believed in by their own tribe, and later generations,
if they saw anything, saw just what they were told existed.
Whilst far from questioning the actual existence of certain
spiritual forms and apparitions, I venture to throw out these
considerations for what they may be worth, and I desire
again to thank Mr. Wentz for all the valuable data he has
collected for throwing light upon so interesting a question.
Ratra, Frenchpark,
County Roscommon, Ireland,
September 1910.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 31
The Fairy Folk of Tara
On the ancient Hill of Tara, from whose heights the High
Kings once ruled all Ireland, from where the sacred fires in
pagan days announced the annual resurrection of the sun,
the Easter Tide, where the magic of Patrick prevailed over
the magic of the Druids, and where the hosts of the Tuatha
De Danann were wont to appear at the great Feast of
Samain, to-day the fairy-folk of modern times hold un-
disputed sovereignty. And from no point better than Tara,
which thus was once the magical and political centre of the
Sacred Island, could we begin our study of the Irish Fairy-
Faith. Though the Hill has lain unploughed and deserted
since the curses of Christian priests fell upon it, on the calm
air of summer evenings, at the twilight hour, wondrous music
still sounds over its slopes, and at night long, weird proces-
sions of silent spirits march round its grass-grown raths and
forts} It is only men who fear the curse of the Christians ;
the fairy-folk regard it not.
The Rev. Father Peter Kenney, of Kilmessan, had
directed me to John Graham, an old man over seventy
years of age, who has lived near Tara most of his life ; and
after I had found John, and he had led me from rath to rath
and then right through the length of the site where once
stood the banquet hall of kings and heroes and Druids, as
he earnestly described the past glories of Tara to which
these ancient monuments bear silent testimony, we sat
down in the thick sweet grass on the Sacred Hill and began
talking of the olden times in Ireland, and then of the ' good
people ' : —
The ' Good Peoples ' Music. — * As sure as you are sitting
down I heard the pipes there in that wood (pointing to
* Throughout Ireland there are many ancient, often prehistoric, earth-
works or tumuli, which are popularly called forts, raths, or dtins, and in
folk-belief these are considered fairy hills or the abodes of various orders
of fairies. In this belief we see at work a definite anthropomorphism which
attributes dwellings here on earth to an invisible spirit-race, as though this
race were actually the spirits of the ancient Irish who built the forts. As
we proceed, we shall see how important and varied a part these earthworks
play in the Irish Fairy-Faith (cf. chapter viii, on Archaeology).
32 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect. 1
a wood on the north-west slope of the Hill, and west of the
banquet hall). I heard the music another time on a hot
summer evening at the Rath of Ringlestown, in a field where
all the grass had been burned off ; and I often heard it in
the wood of Tara. Whenever the good people play, you
hear their music all through the field as plain as can be ;
and it is the grandest kind of music. It may last half the
night, but once day comes, it ends.'
Who the ' Good People ' are. — I now asked John what sort
of a race the ' good people ' are, and where they came from,
and this is his reply : — * People killed and murdered in war
stay on earth till their time is up, and they are among the
good people. The souls on this earth are as thick as the grass
(running his walking-stick through a thick clump), and you
can't see them ; and evil spirits are just as thick, too, and
people don't know it. Because there are so many spirits
knocking (going) about they must appear to some people.
The old folk saw the good people here on the Hill a hundred
times, and they'd always be talking about them. The good
people can see everything, and you dare not meddle with
them. They live in raths, and their houses are in them. The
opinion always was that they are a race of spirits, for they
can go into different forms, and can appear big as well as
little.'
Evidence from Kilmessan, near Tara
John Boylin, born in County Meath about sixty years
ago, will be our witness from Kilmessan, a village about
two miles from Tara ; and he, being one of the men of the
vicinity best informed about its folk-lore, is able to offer
testimony of very great value : —
The Fairy Tribes. — ' There is said to be a whole tribe of
little red men living in Glen Odder, between Ringlestown
and Tara ; and on long evenings in June they have been
heard. There are other breeds or castes of fairies ; and it
seems to me, when I recall our ancient traditions, that some
of these fairies are of the Fir Bolgs, some of the Tuatha De
Danann, and some of the Milesians. All of them have^been
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 33
seen serenading round the western slope of Tara, dressed in
ancient Irish costumes. UnHke the little red men, these
fairy races are warlike and given to making invasions. Long
processions of them have been seen going round the King's
Chair (an earthwork on which the Kings of Tara are said
to have been crowned) ; and they then would appear like
soldiers of ancient Ireland in review.'
The Fairy Procession. — ' We were told as children, that, as
soon as night fell, the fairies from Rath Ringlestown would
form in a procession, across Tara road, pass round certain
bushes which have not been disturbed for ages, and join the
gangkena (?) or host of industrious folk, the red fairies. We
were afraid, and our nurses always brought us home before
the advent of the fairy procession. One of the passes used
by this procession happened to be between two mud-wall
houses ; and it is said that a man went out of one of these
houses at the wrong time, for when found he was dead:
the fairies had taken him because he interfered with their
procession.' ^
Death through Cutting Fairy-Bushes. — ' A man named
Caffney cut as fuel to boil his pot of potatoes some of these
undisturbed bushes round which the fairies pass. When
he put the wood under the pot, though it spat fire, and fire-
sparkles would come out of it, it would not burn. The man
pined away gradually. In six months after cutting the fairy-
bushes, he was dead. Just before he died, he told his
experiences with the wood to his brother, and his brother
told me.'
The Fairies are the Dead. — ' According to the local belief,
fairies are the spirits of the departed. Tradition says
that Hugh O'Neil in the sixteenth century, after his march
to the south, encamped his army on the Rath or Fort of
Ringlestown, to be assisted by the spirits of the mighty
dead who dwelt within this rath. And it is believed that
* An Irish mystic, and seer of great power, with whom I have often
discussed the Fairy-Faith in its details, regards * fairy paths ' or ' fairy
passes ' as actual magnetic arteries, so to speak, through which circulates
the earth's magnetism.
WENTZ D
34 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Gerald Fitzgerald has been seen coming out of the Hill of
Mollyellen, down in County Louth, leading his horse and
dressed in the old Irish costume, with breastplate, spear,
and war outfit.'
Fairy Possession, — * Rose Carroll was possessed by a
fairy-spirit. It is known that her father held communion
with evil spirits, and it appears that they often assisted
him. The Carr oils' house was built at the end of a fairy
fort, and part of it was scooped out of this fort. Rose grew
so peculiar that her folks locked her up. After two years
she was able to shake off the fairy possession by being taken
to Father Robinson's sisters, and then to an old witch-
woman in Drogheda.'
In the Valley of the Boyne
In walking along the River Boyne, from Slane to Knowth
and New Grange, I stopped at the cottage of Owen Morgan,
at Ross-na-Righ, or ' the Wood of the Kings ', though the
ancient wood has long since disappeared ; and as we sat
looking out over the sunlit beauty of Ireland's classic river,
and in full view of the first of the famous moats, this is what
Owen Morgan told me : —
How the Shoemaker's Daughter became the Queen of Tara. —
' In olden times there lived a shoemaker and his wife up
there near Moat Knowth, and their first child was taken by
the queen of the fairies who lived inside the moat, and
a little leprechaun left in its place. The same exchange was
made when the second child was born. At the birth of the
third child the fairy queen came again and ordered one of
her three servants to take the child ; but the child could
not be moved because of a great beam of iron, too heavy to
lift, which lay across the baby's breast. The second servant
and then the third failed like the first, and the queen her-
self could not move the child. The mother being short of
pins had used a n^fidle to fasten the child's clothes, and that
was what appeared to the fairies as a beam of iron, for there
was virtue in steel in those days.
' So the fairy queen decided to bestow gifts upon the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 35
child ; and advised each of the three servants to give, in
turn, a different gift. The first one said, " May she be the
grandest lady in the world " ; the second one said, " May
she be the greatest singer in the world " ; and the third one
said, " May she be the best mantle-maker in the world."
Then the fairy queen said, " Your gifts are all very good,
but I will give a gift of my own better than any of them :
the first time she happens to go out of the house let her come
back into it under the form of a rat." The mother heard all
that the fairy women said, and so she never permitted her
daughter to leave the house.
' When the girl reached the age of eighteen, it happened
that the young prince of Tara, in riding by on a hunt, heard
her singing, and so entranced was he with the music that he
stopped to listen ; and, the song ended, he entered the house,
and upon seeing the wonderful beauty of the singer asked
her to marry him. The mother said that could not be, and
taking the daughter out of the house for the first time
brought her back into it in an apron under the form of a rat,
that the prince might understand the refusal.
* This enchantment, however, did not change the prince's
love for the beautiful singer ; and he explained how there
was a day mentioned with his father, the king, for all the
great ladies of Ireland to assemble in the Halls of Tara, and
that the grandest lady and the greatest singer and the best
mantle-maker would be chosen as his wife. When he added
that each lady must come in a chariot, the rat spoke to him
and said that he must send to her home, on the day named,
four piebald cats and a pack of cards, and that she would
make her appearance, provided that at the time her chariot
came to the Halls of Tara no one save the prince should be
allowed near it ; and, she finally said to the prince, " Until
the day mentioned with your father, you must carry me as
a rat in your pocket."
* But before the great day arrived, the rat had made
everything known to one of the fairy women, and so when
the four piebald cats and the pack of cards reached the girl's
home, the fairies at once turned the cats into the four most
D 2
36 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
splendid horses in the world, and the pack of cards into
the most wonderful chariot in the world ; and, as the
chariot was setting out from the Moat for Tara, the fairy
queen clapped her hands and laughed, and the enchant-
ment over the girl was broken, so that she became, as
before, the prettiest lady in the world, and she sitting in the
chariot.
' When the prince saw the wonderful chariot coming, he
knew whose it was, and went out alone to meet it ; but
he could not believe his eyes on seeing the lady inside.
And then she told him about the witches and fairies, and
explained everything.
* Hundreds of ladies had come to the Halls of Tara from
all Ireland, and every one as grand as could be. The contest
began with the singing, and ended with the mantle-making,
and the young girl was the last to appear ; but to the amaze-
ment of all the company the king had to give in (admit)
that the strange woman was the grandest lady, the greatest
singer, and the best mantle-maker in Ireland ; and when
the old king died she became the Queen of Tara.'
After this ancient legend, which Owen Morgan heard from
the old folks when he was a boy, he told me many anecdotes
about the * good people ' of the Boyne, who are little men
usually dressed in red.
The * Good People ' at New Grange. — Between Knowth and
New Grange I met Maggie Timmons carrying a pail of
butter-milk to her calves ; and when we stopped on the road to
talk, I asked her, in due time, if any of the * good people * ever
appeared in the region, or about New Grange, which we
could see in the field, and she replied, in reference to New
Grange : — * I am sure the neighbours used to see the good
people come out of it at night and in the morning. The
good people inherited the fort.*
Then I asked her what the ' good people * are, and she
said : — * When they disappear they go like fog ; they must
be something Hke spirits, or how could they disappear in that
way ? I knew of people,' she added, * who would milk in
the fields about here and spill milk on the ground for the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 37
good people ; and pots of potatoes would be put out for
the good people at night.' (See chap, viii for additional New
Grange folk-lore.)
The Testimony of an Irish Priest
We now pass directly to West Ireland, in many ways our
most important field, and where of all places in the Celtic
world the Fairy-Faith is vigorously alive ; and it seems very
fitting to offer the first opportunity to testify in behalf of
that district to a scholarly priest of the Roman Church, for
what he tells us is almost wholly the result of his own
memories and experiences as an Irish boy in Connemara,
supplemented in a valuable way by his wider and more
mature knowledge of the fairy-belief as he sees it now among
his own parishioners : —
Knock Ma Fairies. — * Knock Ma, which you see over there,
is said to contain excavated passages and a palace where the
fairies live, and with them the people they have taken. And
from the inside of the hill there is believed to be an entrance
to an underground world. It is a common opinion that after
consumptives die they are there with the fairies in good
health. The wasted body is not taken into the hill, for it is
usually regarded as not the body of the deceased but rather
as that of a changeling, the general belief being that the real
body and the soul are carried off together, and those of an
old person from Fairyland substituted. The old person left
soon declines and dies.'
Safeguards against Fairies. — ' It was proper when having
finished milking a cow to put one's thumb in the pail of
milk, and with the wet thumb to make the sign of the cross
on the thigh of the cow on the side milked, to be safe against
fairies. And I have seen them when churning put a live
coal about an inch square under the churn, because it was
an old custom connected with fairies.'
Milk and Butter for Fairies. — ' Whatever milk falls on the
ground in milking a cow is taken by the fairies, for fairies
need a little milk. Also, after churning, the knife which is
run through the butter in drying it must not be scraped
38 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
clean, for what sticks to it belongs to the fairies. Out of
three pounds of butter, for example, an ounce or two would
be left for the fairies. I have seen this several times.'
Crossing a Stream, and Fairies. — ' When out on a dark
night, if pursued by fairies or ghosts one is considered quite
safe if one can get oyer some stream. I remember coming
home on a dark night with a boy companion and hearing
a noise, and then after we had run to a stream and crossed
it feeling quite safe.'
Fairy Preserves. — ' A heap of stones in a field should not be
disturbed, though needed for building — especially if they are
part of an ancient tumulus. The fairies are said to live inside
"" the pile, and to move the stones would be most unfortunate.
If a house happens to be built on a fairy preserve, or in
a fairy track, the occupants will have no luck. Everything
will go wrong. Their animals will die, their children fall
sick, and no end of trouble will come on them. When the
house happens to have been built in a fairy track, the doors
on the front and back, or the windows if they are in the
line of the track, cannot be kept closed at night, for the
fairies must march through. Near Ballinrobe there is an
old fort which is still the preserve of the fairies, and the
land round it. The soil is very fine, and yet no one would
/ dare to till it. Some time ago in laying out a new road
the engineers determined to run it through the fort, but
the people rose almost in rebellion, and the course had to
be changed. The farmers wouldn't cut down a tree or bush
growing on the hill or preserve for anything.'
Fairy Control over Crops. — * Fairies are believed to control
crops and their ripening. A field of turnips may promise
well, and its owner will count on so many tons to the acre,
but if when the crop is gathered it is found to be far short
of the estimate, the explanation is that the fairies have
extracted so much substance from it. The same thing is
the case with corn.'
November Eve and Fairies. — * On November Eve it is not
right to gather or eat blackberries or sloes, nor after that
X time as long as they last. On November Eve the fairies
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 39
pass over all such things and make them unfit to eat. If one
dares to eat them afterwards one will have serious illness.
We firmly believed this as boys, and I laugh now when
I think how we used to gorge ourselves with berries on the
last day of October, and then for weeks after pass by bushes
full of the most luscious fruit, and with mouths watering for
it couldn't eat it.*
Fairies as Flies. — ' There is an old abbey on the river, in
County Mayo, and people say the fairies had a great battle
near it, and that the slaughter was tremendous. At the time,
the fairies appeared as swarms of flies coming from every
direction to that spot. Some came from Knock Ma, and
some from South Ireland, the opinion being that fairies can
assume any form they like. The battle lasted a day and
a night, and when it was over one could have filled baskets
with the dead flies which floated down the river.*
Those who Return from Faerie. — ' Persons in a short
trance-state of two or three days' duration are said to be
away with the fairies enjoying a festival. The festival may
be very material in its nature, or it may be purely spiritual.
Sometimes one may thus go to Faerie for an hour or two ; or
one may remain there for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years.
The mind of a person coming out of Fairyland is usually
a blank as to what has been seen and done there. Another
idea is that the person knows well enough all about Fairy-
land, but is prevented from communicating the knowledge.
A certain woman of whom I knew said she had forgotten all
about her experiences in Faerie, but a friend who heard her
objected, and said she did remember, and wouldn't tell. A
man may remain awake at night to watch one who has been
to Fairyland to see if that one holds communication with
the fairies. Others say in such a case that the fairies know
you are on the alert, and will not be discovered.'
The Testimony of a Galway Piper
Fairies = Sidhedga. — According to our next witness, Steven
Ruan, a piper of Galway, with whom I have often talked,
there is one class of fairies ' who are nobody else than the
40 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
spirits of men and women who once lived on earth * ; and
the banshee is a dead friend, relative, or ancestor who
appears to give a warning. 'The fairies', he says, 'never
care about old folks. They only take babies, and young men
and young women. If a young wife dies, she is said to have
been taken by them, and ever afterwards to live in Fairyland.
The same things are said about a young man or a child who
dies. Fairyland is a place of delights, where music, and
singing, and dancing, and feasting are continually enjoyed ;
and its inhabitants are all about us, as numerous as the
blades of grass.'
A Fairy Dog. — In the course of another conversation,
Steven pointed to a rocky knoll in a field not far from his
home, and said : — ' I saw a dog with a white ring around
his neck by that hill there, and the oldest men round Galway
have seen him, too, for he has been here for one hundred
years or more. He is a dog of the good people, and only
appears at certain hours of the night.'
An Old Piper in Fairyland. — And before we had done
talking, the subject of fairy-music came up, and the follow-
ing little story coming from one of the last of the old Irish
pipers himself, about a brother piper, is of more than ordinary
value : — ' There used to be an old piper called Flannery who
lived in Oranmore, County Galway. I imagine he was one
of the old generation. And one time the good people took
him to Fairyland to learn his profession. He studied music
with them for a long time, and when he returned he was as
great a piper as any in Ireland. But he died young, for the
good people wanted him to play for them.'
The Testimony of * Old Patsy ' of Aranmore
Our next witness is an old man, familiarly called ' Old
Patsy ', who is a native of the Island of Aranmore, off the
coast from Galway, and he lives on the island amid a little
group of straw-thatched fishermen's homes called Oak
Quarter. As * Old Patsy ' stood beside a rude stone cross
near Oak Quarter, in one of those curious places on Aran-
more, where each passing funeral stops long enough to erect
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 41
a little memorial pile of stones on the smooth rocky surface
of the roadside enclosure, he told me many anecdotes about
the mysteries of his native island.
Aranmore Fairies. — Twenty years or so ago round the
Bedd of Dermot and Grania, just above us on the hill, there
were seen many fairies, ' crowds of them,' said ' Old Patsy ',
and a single deer. They began to chase the deer, and
followed it right over the island. At another time similar
little people chased a horse. ' The rocks were full of them,
and they were small fellows.*
A Fairy Beating — in a Dream. — * In the South Island,' he
continued, ' as night was coming on, a man was giving his
cow water at a well, and, as he looked on the other side of
a wall, he saw many strange people playing hurley. When
they noticed him looking at them, one came up and struck
the cow a hard blow, and turning on the man cut his face
and body very badly. The man might not have been so
badly off, but he returned to the well after the first encounter
and got five times as bad a beating ; and when he reached
home he couldn't speak at all, until the cock crew. Then
he told about his adventures, and slept a little. When he
woke up in the daylight he was none the worse for his beat-
ing, for the fairies had rubbed something on his face.' Patsy
says he knew the man, who if still alive is now in America,
where he went several years ago.
Where Fairies Live. — When I asked Patsy where the fairies
live, he turned half around, and pointing in the direction of
Dun Aengus, which was in full view on the sharp sky-line
of Aranmore, said that there, in a large tumulus on the hill-
side below it, they had one of their favourite abodes. But, A
he added, * The rocks are full of them, and they are small ^ >/ ^
fellows.' Just across the road from where we were standing,
in a spot near Oak Quarter, another place was pointed out
where the fairies are often seen dancing. The name of it is
Moneen an Damhsa, ' the Little Bog of the Dance.' Other
sorts of fairies live in the sea ; and some of them who live
on Aranmore (probably in conjunction with those in the
sea) go out over the water and cause storms and wind.
42 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
The Testimony of a Roman Catholic Theologian
The following evidence, by the Rev. Father , came
out during a discussion concerning spirits and fairies as re-
garded by Roman Catholic theology, which he and I enjoyed
when we met as fellow travellers in Galway Town : —
0/ Magic and Place-spirits. — * Magic, according to Catholic
theology, is nothing else than the solicitation of spiritual
powers to help us. If evil spirits are evoked by certain
irrational practices it is unholy magic, and this is altogether
forbidden by our Church. All charms, spells, divination,
necromancy, or geomancy are unholy magic. Holy magic is
practised by carrying the Cross in Christ. Now evil magic
has been practised here in Ireland : butter has been taken
so that none came from the churning ; cows have been
made to die of maladies ; and fields made unproductive.
^ A cow was bought from an old woman in Connemara, and
i no butter was ever had from the cow until exorcism with
holy water was performed. This is reported to me as a fact.'
And in another relation the Rev. Father said what
for us is highly significant : — * My private opinion is that in
certain places here in Ireland where pagan sacrifices were
practised, evil spirits through receiving homage gained
control, and still hold control, unless driven out by exor-
cisms.'
The Testimony of the Town Clerk of Tuam
To the town clerk of Tuam, Mr. John Glynn, who since
his boyhood has taken a keen interest in the traditions of
his native county, I am indebted for the following valuable
summary of the fairy creed in that part of North Galway
where Finvara rules : —
Fairies of the Tuam Country. — ' The whole of Knock Ma
(Cnoc Meadha'^), which probably means Hill of the Plain,
is said to be the palace of Finvara, king of the Connaught
* ' Irish scholars differ as to the signification of Meadha. Some say that
it is the genitive case of Meadh, the name of some ancient chieftain who
was buried in the hilL Knock Magh is the spelUng often used by writers
who hold that the name means " Hill of the Plain ".' — John Glynn. '
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 43
fairies. There are a good many legends about Fin vara, but
very few about Queen Meave in this region.'
Famine of 1846-7 caused by Fairies. — * During 1846-7
the potato crop in Ireland was a failure, and very much
suffering resulted. At the time, the country people in these
parts attributed the famine to disturbed conditions in the
fairy world. Old Thady Steed once told me about the con-
ditions then prevailing, " Sure, we couldn't be any other
way ; and I saw the good people and hundreds besides me
saw them fighting in the sky over Knock Ma and on towards
Galway." And I heard others say they saw the fighting
also.* \
Fairyland ; and the Seer ess. — * Fairies are said to be
immortal, and the fairy world is always described as an
immaterial place, though I do not think it is the same as
the world of the dead. Sick persons, however, are often said
to be with the fairies, and when cured, to have come back.
A woman who died here about thirty years ago was com-
monly believed to have been with the fairies during her
seven years' sickness when she was a maiden. She married
after coming back, and had children ; and she was always
able to see the good people and to talk with them, for she
had the second-sight. And it is said that she used to travel
with the fairies at night. After her marriage she lived in
Tuam, and though her people were six or seven miles out
from Tuam in the country, she could always tell all that
was taking place with them there, and she at her own home
at the time.'
Fairies on May Day. — ' On May Day the good people can
steal butter if the chance is given them. If a person enters
a house then, and churning is going on, he must take a hand
in it, or else there will be no butter. And if fire is given
away on May Day nothing will go right for the whole year.'
The Three Fairy Drops. — * Even yet certain things are
due the fairies ; for example, two years ago, in the Court
Room here in Tuam, a woman was on trial for watering milk,
and to the surprise of us all who were conducting the pro-
ceedings, and, it can be added, to the great amusement of
44 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the onlookers, she swore that she had only added " the three
fairy drops "/
Food of Fairies. — * Food, after it has been put out at night
for the fairies, is not allowed to be eaten afterwards by man
or beast, not even by pigs. Such food is said to have no real
substance left in it, and to let anything eat it wouldn't
be thought of. The underlying idea seems to be that the
fairies extract the spiritual essence from food offered to
them, leaving behind the grosser elements.'
Fairy Warfare. — * When the fairy tribes under the various
kings and queens have a battle, one side manages to have
a living man among them, and he by knocking the fairies
about turns the battle in case the side he is on is losing. It
is always usual for the Munster fairy king to challenge
Finvara, the Connaught fairy king.'
County Sligo, and the Testimony of a Peasant Seer ^
The Ben Bulbin country in County Sligo is one of those
rare places in Ireland where fairies are thought to be visible,
and our first witness from there claims to be able to see
the fairies or * gentry ' and to talk with them. This mortal
so favoured lives in the same townland where his fathers
have lived during four hundred years, directly beneath the
shadows of Ben Bulbin, on whose sides Dermot is said to
have been killed while hunting the wild-boar. And this
famous old mountain, honeycombed with curious grottoes
ages ago when the sea beat against its perpendicular flanks,
^ On September 8, 1909, about a year after this testimony was given,
Mr. , our seer-witness, at his own home near Grange, told to me again
the same essential facts concerning his psychical experiences as during
my first interview with him, and even repeated word for word the expres-
sions the ' gentry ' used in communicating with him. Therefore I feel that
he is thoroughly sincere in his beliefs and descriptions, whatever various
readers may think of them. As his neighbours said to me about him —
and I interviewed a good many of them — * Some give in to him and some
do not ' ; but they always spoke of him with respect, though a few natur-
ally consider him eccentric. At the time of our second meeting (which
gave me a chance to revise the evidence as first taken down) Mr.
made this additional statement :— ' The gentry do not tell all their secrets,
and I do not understand many things about them, nor can I be sure that
everything I tell concerning them is exact.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 45
is the very place where the * gentry ' have their chief abode.
Even on its broad level summit, for it is a high square table-
land like a mighty cube of rock set down upon the earth
by some antediluvian god, there are treacherous holes,
wherein more than one hunter may have been lost for ever,
penetrating to unknown depths ; and by listening one can hear
the tides from the ocean three or four miles away surging
in and out through ancient subterranean channels, connected
with these holes. In the neighbouring mountains there are
long caverns which no man has dared to penetrate to the
end, and even dogs, it is said, have been put in them never
to emerge, or else to come out miles away.
One day when the heavy white fog-banks hung over Ben
Bulbin and its neighbours, and there was a weird almost-
twilight at midday over the purple heather bog-lands at
their base, and the rain was falling, I sat with my friend
before a comfortable fire of fragrant turf in his cottage and
heard about the ' gentry ' : —
Encounters with the * Gentry '. — * When I was a young man
I often used to go out in the mountains over there (point-
ing out of the window in their direction) to fish for trout,
or to hunt ; and it was in January on a cold, dry day while
carrying my gun that I and a friend with me, as we were
walking around Ben Bulbin, saw one of the gentry for the
first time. I knew who it was, for I had heard the gentry
described ever since I could remember ; and this one was
dressed in blue with a head-dress adorned with what seemed
to be frills.^ When he came up to us, he said to me in a sweet
and silvery voice, " The seldomer you come to this moun-
tain the better. A young lady here wants to take you away."
Then he told us not to fire off our guns, because the gentry
dislike being disturbed by the noise. And he seemed to be
like a soldier of the gentry on guard. As we were leaving
the mountains, he told us not to look back, and we didn't.
Another time I was alone trout-fishing in nearly the
same region when I heard a voice say, "It is bare-
* A learned and more careful Irish seer thinks this head-dress should
really be described as an aura.
46 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
footed and fishing." Then there came a whistle Hke music
and a noise Hke the beating of a drum, and soon one of the
gentry came and talked with me for half an hour. He said,
" Your mother will die in eleven months, and do not let her
die unanointed." And she did die within eleven months.
As he was going away he warned me, " You must be in the
house before sunset. Do not delay ! Do not delay ! They
can do nothing to you until I get back in the castle." As I
found out afterwards, he was going to take me, but hesitated
because he did not want to leave my mother alone. After
these warnings I was always afraid to go to the mountains, but
lately I have been told I could go if I took a friend with me.'
* Gentry ' Protection. — * The gentry have always befriended
and protected me. I was drowned twice but for them.
Once I was going to Durnish Island, a mile off the coast.
The channel is very deep, and at the time there was a rough
sea, with the tide running out, and I was almost lost. I
shrieked and shouted, and finally got safe to the mainland.
The day I talked with one of the gentry at the foot of the
mountain when he was for taking me, he mentioned this, and
said they were the ones who saved me from drowning then.'
' Gentry ' Stations. — ' Especially in Ireland, the gentry live
inside the mountains in beautiful castles ; and there are
a good many branches of them in other countries. Like
armies, they have various stations and move from one to
another. Some live in the Wicklow Mountains near Dublin.'
' Gentry ' Control Over Human Affairs. — ' The gentry take
a great interest in the affairs of men, and they always stand
for justice and right. Any side they favour in our wars,
that side wins. They favoured the Boers, and the Boers did
get their rights. They told me they favoured the Japanese
and not the Russians, because the Russians are tyrants.
Sometimes they fight among themselves. One of them once
said, " I'd fight for a friend, or I'd fight for Ireland." '
The ' Gentry ' Described. — In response to my wish, this
description of the ' gentry ' was given :— * The folk are the
grandest I have ever seen. They are far superior to us, and
that is why they are called the gentry. They are not a
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 47
working class, but a military-aristocratic class, tall and noble-
appearing. They are a distinct race between our own and
that of spirits, as they have told me. Their qualifications
are tremendous. " We could cut off half the human race,
but would not," they said, " for we are expecting salvation."
And I knew a man three or four years ago whom they struck
down with paralysis. Their sight is so penetrating that
I think they could see through the earth. They have
a silvery voice, quick and sweet. The music they play is
most beautiful. They take the whole body and soul of
young and intellectual people who are interesting, trans-
muting the body to a body like their own. I asked them
once if they ever died, and they said, " No ; we are always
kept young." Once they take you and you taste food in
their palace you cannot come back. You are changed to
one of them, and live with them for ever. They are able
to appear in different forms. One once appeared to me, and
seemed only four feet high, and stoutly built. He said,
*' I am bigger than I appear to you now. We can make the
old young, the big small, the small big." One of their
women told all the secrets of my family. She said that my
brother in Australia would travel much and suffer hard-
ships, all of which came true ; and foretold that my nephew,
then about two years old, would become a great clergyman
in America, and that is what he is now. Besides the gentry,
who are a distinct class, there are bad spirits and ghosts,
which are nothing like them. My mother once saw a lepre-
chaun beside a bush hammering. He disappeared before she
could get to him, but he also was unlike one of the gentry.' ^
* I have been told by a friend in California, who is a student of psychical
sciences, that there exist in certain parts of that state, notably in the
Yosemite Valley, as the Red Men seem to have known, according to their
traditions, invisible races exactly comparable to the ' gentry ' of this Ben
Bulbin country such as our seer-witness describes them and as other seers
in Ireland have described them, and quite like the ' people of peace ' as
described by Kirk, the seventh son, in his Secret Commonwealth (see this
study, p. 85 n.). These Calif ornia races are said to exist now, as the Irish and
Scotch invisible races are said to exist now, by seers who can behold them ;
and, like the latter races, are described as a distinct order of beings who
48 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Evidence from Grange
Our next witness, who lives about three miles from our
last witness, is Hugh Currid, the oldest man in Grange ; and
so old is he that now he does little more than sit in the
chimney-corner smoking, and, as he looks at the red glow
of the peat, dreaming of the olden times. Hugh knows
Enghsh very imperfectly, and so what he narrated was in
the ancient Gaelic which his fathers spoke. W^en Father
Hines took me to Hugh's cottage, Hugh was in his usual
silent pose before the fire. At first he rather resented having
his thoughts disturbed, but in a few minutes he was as
talkative as could be, for there is nothing like the mention
of Ireland to get him started. The Father left us then ;
and with the help of Hugh's sister as an interpreter I took
down what he said : —
The Flax-Seller's Return from Faerie. — ' An old woman
near Lough More, where Father Patrick was drowned,^ who
used to make her living by seUing flax at the market, was
taken by the gentry, and often came back afterwards to her
three children to comb their hair. One time she told a
neighbour that the money she saved from her dealings in
flax would be found near a big rock on the lake-shore,
which she indicated, and that she wanted the three children
to have it.'
A Wife Recovered from the * Gentry '. — * A man's young
wife died in confinement while he was absent on some busi-
ness at Ballingshaun, and one of the gentry came to him and
have never been in physical embodiments. If we follow the traditions of
the Red Men, the Yosemite invisible tribes are probably but a few of
many such tribes scattered throughout the North American continent ;
and equally with their Celtic relatives they are described as a warHke race
•with more than human powers over physical nature, and as able to subject
or destroy men.
* This refers to a tale told by Hugh Currid, in August, 1908, about
Father Patrick and Father Dominick, which is here omitted because
re-investigation during my second visit to Grange, in September, 1909,
showed the tale to have been incorrectly reported. The same story, how-
ever, based upon facts, according to several reliable witnesses, was more
accurately told by Patrick Waters at the time of my re-investigation, and
appears on page 31.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 49
said she had been taken. The husband hurried home, and
that night he sat with the body of his wife all alone. He
left the door open a Httle, and it wasn't long before his
wife's spirit came in and went to the cradle where her child
was sleeping. As she did so, the husband threw at her
a charm of hen's dung which he had ready, and this held
her until he could call the neighbours. And while they were
coming, she went back into her body, and lived a long time
afterwards. The body was stiff and cold when the husband
arrived home, though it hadn't been washed or dressed.'
A Tailor's Testimony
Our next witness is Patrick Waters, by trade a tailor,
living in Cloontipruckilish, a cross-road hamlet less than
two miles from Hugh Currid's home. His first story is
a parallel to one told about the minister of Aberfoyle who
was taken by the ' good people ' (pp. 89 ff .) : —
The Lost Bride. — ' A girl in this region died on her wedding-
night while dancing. Soon after her death she appeared to
her husband, and said to him, " I'm not dead at all, but
I am put from you now for a time. It may be a long time,
or a short time, I cannot tell. I am not badly off. If you
want to get me back you must stand at the gap near the
house and catch me as I go by, for I live near there, and see
you, and you do not see me." He was anxious enough to
get her back, and didn't waste any time in getting to the
gap. When he came to the place, a party of strangers were
just coming out, and his wife soon appeared as plain as
could be, but he couldn't stir a hand or foot to save her.
Then there was a scream and she was gone. The man firmly
believed this, and would not marry again.'
The Invisible Island. — ' There is an enchanted island
which is an invisible island between Innishmurray and the
mainland opposite. It is only seen once in seven years.
I saw it myself, and so did four or five others with me. A
boatman from Sligo named Carr took two strange men with
him towards Innishmurray, and they disappeared at the spot
where the island is, and he thought they had fallen over-
WENTZ E
50 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
board and been drowned. Carr saw one of the same men
in Connelly (County Donegal), some six months or so after,
and with great surprise said to him, " Will you tell me the
wonders of the world? Is it you I saw drowned near
Innishmurray ? " " Yes," he said ; and then asked, " Do
you see me ? " " Yes," answered Carr. " But," said the man
again, " you do not see me with both eyes ? " Then Carr
closed one eye to be sure, and found that he saw him with
one eye only. And he told the man which one it was. At
this information the fairy man blew on Carr's face, and Carr
never saw him again.'
A Dream. — ' My father dreamt he saw two armies coming
in from the sea, walking on the water. Reaching the strand,
they lined up and commenced a battle, and my father was
in great terror. The fighting was long and bloody, and
when it was over every fighter vanished, the wounded
and dead as well as the survivors. The next morning an old
woman who had the reputation of talking with the fairies
came in the house to my father, who, though greatly dis-
tiurbed over the dream, had told us nothing of it, and asked
him, " Have you anything to tell ? I couldn't but laugh
at you," she added, and before my father could reply, con-
tinued, ** Well, Jimmy, you won't tell the news, so I will."
And then she began to tell about the battle. " Ketty ! " ex-
claimed my father at this, " can it be true ? And who were
the men beside me ? " When Ketty told him, they turned
out to be some of his dead friends. She received her in-
formation from a drowned man whom she met on the spot
where the gentry armies had come ashore ; and, in the place
where they fought, the sand was all burnt red, as from fire.'
As the narrator reflected on this dream story, he remarked
about dreams generally : — * The reason our dreams appear
different from what they are is because while in them we
can't touch the body and transform it. People believe them-
selves to be with the dead in dreams.*
During September 1909, when I had several fresh inter-
views with Patrick Waters, I verified all of his 1908 testimony
such as it appears above ; and among unimportant anec-
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 51
dotes I have omitted from the matter taken down in 1908
one anecdote about our seer- witness from County Sligo,
because it proved to be capable of opposite interpretations.
Patrick Waters, however, Hke many of his neighbours,
thoroughly supports Hugh Currid's opinion that our seer-
witness * surely sees something, and it must be the gentry ' ;
and of Hugh Currid himself, Patrick Waters said, * Hugh
Currid did surely see the gentry ; he saw them passing this
way like a blast of wind.' Patrick's fresh testimony now
follows, the story about Father Patrick and Father Dominick
coming first : —
Father Patrick and Father Dominick. — ' Father Patrick
Noan while bathing in the harbour at Cams (about three
miles north-west of Grange) was drowned. His body was
soon brought ashore, and his brother, Father Dominick Noan,
was sent for. When Father Dominick arrived, one of the
men who had collected around the body said to him, " Why
don't you do something for your brother Patrick ? " " Why
don't somebody ask me ? " he replied, " for I must be asked
in the name of God." So Jimmy McGowan went on his
knees and asked for the honour of God that Father Dominick
should bring Father Patrick back to life ; and, at this.
Father Dominick took out his breviary and began to read.
After a time he whistled, and began to read again. He
whistled a second time, and returned to the reading. Upon
his whistling the third time. Father Patrick's spirit appeared
in the doorway.
* ** Where were you when I whistled the first time ? "
Father Dominick asked. " I was at a hurling match with
the gentry on Mulloughmore strand." ** And where were
you at the second whistle ? " '* I was coming over Corrick
Fadda ; and when you whistled the third time I was here
at the door." Father Patrick's spirit had gone back into
the body, and Father Patrick lived round here as a priest
for a long time afterwards.
* There was no such thing as artificial respiration known
hereabouts when this happened some fifty or sixty years
ago. I heard this story, which I know is true, from many
£ 2
52 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
persons who saw Father Dominick restore his brother
to life/
A Druid Enchantment. — After this strange psychical narra-
tive, there followed the most weird legend I have heard in
Celtic lands about Druids and magic. One afternoon Patrick
Waters pointed out to me the field, near the sea-coast
opposite Innishmurray, in which the ancient menhir contain-
ing the ' enchantment ' used to stand ; and, at another time,
he said that a bronze wand covered with curious marks (or
else interlaced designs) was found not far from the ruined
dolmen and allee couverte on the farm of Patrick Bruan,
about two miles southward. This last statement, like the
story itself, I have been unable to verify in any way.
* In times before Christ there were Druids here who
enchanted one another with Druid rods made of brass,
and metamorphosed one another into stone and lumps of
oak. The question is, Where are the spirits of these Druids
now ? Their spirits are wafted through the air, and the man
or beast they meet is smitten, while their own bodies are
still under enchantment. I had such a Druid enchantment
in my hand ; it wasn't stone, nor marble, nor flint, and had
human shape. It was found in the centre of a big rock on
Innis-na-Gore ; and round this rock light used to appear at
night. The man who owned the stone decided to blast it
up, and he found at its centre the enchantment — just like
a man, with head and legs and arms.^ Father Mealy took
the enchantment away, when he was here on a visit, and
said that it was a Druid enchanted, and that to get out of
the rock was one part of the releasement, and that there
would be a second and complete releasement of the Druid.*
The Fairy Tribes Classified. — Finally I asked Patrick to
classify, as far as he could, all the fairy tribes he had ever
heard about, and he said : — * The leprechaun is a red-capped
fellow who stays round pure springs, generally shoemaking
* It happened that I had in my pocket a fossil, picked out of the neigh-
bouring sea-cliff rocks, which are very rich in fossils. I showed this to
Pat to ascertain if what he had had in his hand looked anything like it,
and he at once said * No '.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 53
for the rest of the fairy tribes. The lunantishees are the
tribes that guard the blackthorn trees or sloes ; they let
you cut no stick on the eleventh of November (the original
November Day), or on the eleventh of May (the original
May Day). If at such a time you cut a blackthorn, some
misfortune will come to you. Pookas are black-featured
fellows mounted on good horses ; and are horse-dealers.
They visit racecourses, but usually are invisible. The gentry
are the most noble tribe of all ; and they are a big race who
came from the planets — according to my idea ; they usually
appear white. The Daoine Maithe (though there is some
doubt, the same or almost the same as the gentry) were next
to Heaven at the Fall, but did not fall ; they are a people
expecting salvation.'
Bridget O'Conner's Testimony
Our next witness is Bridget O'Conner, a near neighbour
to Patrick Waters, in Cloontipruckilish. When I approached
her neat little cottage she was cutting sweet-pea blossoms
with a pair of scissors, and as I stopped to tell her how
pretty a garden she had, she searched out the finest .white
bloom she could find and gave it to me. After we had talked
a little while about America and Ireland, she said I must
come in and rest a few minutes, and so I did ; and it was
not long before we were talking about fairies : —
The Irish Legend of the Dead. — * Old Peggy Gillin, dead
these thirty years, who lived a mile beyond Grange, used to
cure people with a secret herb shown to her by her brother,
dead of a fairy-stroke. He was drowned and taken by the
fairies, in the big drowning here during the herring season.
She would pull the herb herself and prepare it by mixing
spring water with it. Peggy could always talk with her dead
relatives and friends, and continually with her brother, and
she would tell everybody that they were with the fairies.
Her daughter, Mary Short, who inherited some of her
mother's power, died here about three or four years ago.
* I remember, too, about Mary Leonard and her daughter,
Nancy Waters. Both of them are dead now. The daughter
54 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
was the first to die, as it happened, and in child-birth.
When she was gone, her mother used to wail and cry in an
awful manner ; and one day the daughter appeared to her
in the garden, and said, " The more you wail for me, the
more I am in torment. Pray for me, but do not wail." *
A Midwife Story. — * A country nurse was requested by
a strange man on horseback to go with him to exercise her
profession ; and she went with him to a castle she didn't
know. When the baby was born, every woman in the place
where the event happened put her finger in a basin of water
and rubbed her eyes, and so the nurse put her finger in and
rubbed it on one of her eyes. She went home and thought
no more about it. But one day she was at the fair in Grange
and saw some of the same women who were in the castle
when the baby was born ; though, as she noticed, she only
could see them with the one eye she had wet with the water
from the basin. The nurse spoke to the women, and they
wanted to know how she recognized them ; and she, in
reply, said it was with the one eye, and asked, " How is the
baby?" "Well," said one of the fairy women; "and
what eye do you see us with ? " " With the left eye,"
answered the nurse. Then the fairy woman blew her breath
against the nurse's left eye, and said, " You'll never see
me again." And the nurse was always blind in the left
eye after that.'
The Spirit World at Carns
The Carns or Mount Temple country, about three miles
from Grange, County Sligo, has already been mentioned by
witnesses as a * gentry ' haunt, and so now we shall hear what
one of its oldest and most intelligent native inhabitants says
of it. John McCann had been referred to, by Patrick Waters,
as one who knows much about the ' gentry ' at first hand, and
we can be sure that what he offers us is thoroughly reliable
evidence. For many years, John McCann, born in 1830, by
profession a carpenter and boat-builder, has been official
mail-carrier to Innishmurray ; and he knows quite as much
about the strange httle island and the mainland opposite it
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 55
as any man living. His neat little cottage is on the shore
of the bay opposite the beautiful fairy-haunted Darnish
Island ; and, as we sat within it beside a brilliant peat fire,
and surrounded by all the family, this is what was told
me : —
A ' Gentry ' Medium. — * Ketty Rourk (or Queenan) could
tell all that would happen — funerals, weddings, and so forth.
Sure some spirits were coming to her. She said they were
the gentry ; that the gentry are everywhere ; and that my
drowned uncles and grandfather and other dead are among
them. A drowned man named Pat Nicholson was her
adviser. He used to live just a mile from here ; and she
knew him before he was drowned.'
Here we have, clearly enough, a case of * mediumship *, or
of communication with the dead, as in modern Spiritualism.
And the following story, which like this last has numerous
Irish parallels, illustrates an ancient and world-wide animistic
belief, that in sickness — as in dreams — the soul goes out of
the body as at death, and meets the dead in their own
fairy world.
The Clairvoyance of Mike Farrell. — ' Mike Farrell, too,
could tell all about the gentry, as he lay sick a long time.
And he told about Father Brannan's youth, and even the
house in Roscommon in which the Father was born ; and
Father Brannan never said anything more against Mike
after that. Mike surely saw the gentry ; and he was with
them during his illness for twelve months. He said they
Hve in forts and at Alt Darby (" the Big Rock "). After
he got well, he went to America, at the time of the famine.'
The ' Gentry ' Army. — ' The gentry were beheved to live
up on this hill (Hill of the Brocket Stones, Cluach-a-brac),
and from it they would come out like an army and march
along the road to the strand. Very few. persons could see
them. They were thought to be hke living people, but in
different dress. They seemed like soldiers, yet it was known
they were not living beings such as we are.'
The Seership of Dan Quinn. — ' On Connor's Island (about
two miles southward from Cams by the mainland) my uncle,
56 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Dan Quinn, often used to see big crowds of the gentry come
into his house and play music and dance. The house would
be full of them, but they caused him no fear. Once on such
an occasion, one of them came up to him as he lay in bed,
and giving him a green leaf told him to put it in his mouth.
When he did this, instantly he could not see the gentry, but
could still hear their music. Uncle Dan always believed he
recognized in some of the gentry his drowned friends. Only
when he was alone would the gentry visit him. He was a
silent old man, and so never talked much ; but I know that
this story is as true as can be, and that the gentry always
took an interest in him.'
Under the Shadow of Ben Bulbin and Ben Waskin
I was driving along the Ben Bulbin road, on the ocean
side, with Michael Oates, who was on his way from his
mountain-side home to the lowlands to cut hay ; and as we
looked up at the ancient mountain, so mysterious and silent
in the shadows and fog of a calm early morning of summer,
he told me about its invisible inhabitants : —
The * Gentry ' Huntsmen. — ' I knew a man who saw the
gentry hunting on the other side of the mountain. He saw
hounds and horsemen cross the road and jump the hedge in
front of him, and it was one o'clock at night. The next day
he passed the place again, and looked for the tracks of the
huntsmen, but saw not a trace of tracks at all.'
The ' Taking ' of the Turf -Cutter. — After I had heard about
two boys who were drowned opposite Innishmurray, and
who afterwards appeared as apparitions, for the gentry had
them, this curious story was related : — * A man was cutting
turf out on the side of Ben Bulbin when a strange man came
to him and said, " You have cut enough turf for to-day.
You had better stop and go home." The turf-cutter looked
around in surprise, and in two seconds the strange man had
disappeared ; but he decided to go home. And as soon as he
was home, such a feeling came over him that he could not
tell whether he was alive or dead. Then he took to his bed
and never rose again.*
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 57
Hearing the ' Gentry ' Music. — At this Michael said to his
companion in the cart with us, WilHam Barber, * You tell
how you heard the music ' ; and this followed : — * One
dark night, about one o'clock, myself and another young
man were passing along the road up there round Ben Bulbin,
when we heard the finest kind of music. All sorts of music
seemed to be playing. We could see nothing at all, though
we thought we heard voices like children's. It was the music
of the gentry we heard.'
My next friend to testify is Pat Ruddy, eighty years old,
one of the most intelligent and prosperous farmers living
beside Ben Bulbin. He greeted me in the true Irish way,
but before we could come to talk about fairies his good wife
induced me to enter another room where she had secretly
prepared a great feast spread out on a fresh white cloth,
while Pat and myself had been exchanging opinions about
America and Ireland. When I returned to the kitchen the
whole family were assembled round the blazing turf fire,
and Pat was soon talking about the * gentry ' : —
Seeing the * Gentry ' Army. — * Old people used to say the
gentry were in the mountains ; that is certain, but I never
could be quite sure of it myself. One night, however, near
midnight, I did have a sight : I set out from Bantrillick to
come home, and near Ben Bulbin there was the greatest
army you ever saw, five or six thousand of them in armour
shining in the moonlight. A strange man rose out of the
hedge and stopped me, for a minute, in the middle of
the road. He looked into my face, and then let me go.'
An Ossianic Fragment. — * A man went away with the good
people (or gentry), and returned to find the townland all in
ruins. As he came back riding on a horse of the good people,
he saw some men in a quarry trying to move a big stone.
He helped them with it, but his saddle-girth broke, and he
fell to the ground. The horse ran away, and he was left
there, an old man ' ^ (cf. pp. 346-7).
* After this Ossianic fragment, which has been handed down orally,
I asked Pat if he had ever heard the old people talk about Dermot and
Grania, and he replied : — ' To be sure I have. Dermot and Grania used to
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
A Schoolmaster's Testimony
A schoolmaster, who is a native of the Ben Bulbin country,
offers this testimony : — * There is implicit belief here in the
gentry, especially among the old people. They consider them
the spirits of their departed relations and friends, who visit
them in joy and in sorrow. On the death of a member of
a family, they believe the spirits of their near relatives are
present ; they do not see them, but feel their presence.
They even have a strong belief that the spirits show them
the future in dreams ; and say that cases of affliction are
always foreshown in a dream.
* The belief in changelings is not now generally prevalent ;
but in olden times a mother used to place a pair of iron tongs
over the cradle before leaving the child alone, in order that
the fairies should not change the child for a weakly one of
their own. It was another custom to take a wisp of straw,
and, lighting one end of it, make a fiery sign of the cross
over a cradle before a babe could be placed in it.'
With the Irish Mystics in the Sidi/e World
Let us now turn to the Rosses Point country, which, as
we have already said, is one of the very famous places for
seeing the * gentry ', or, as educated Irish seers who make
pilgrimages thither call them, the Sidhe. I have been told
by more than one such seer that there on the hills and Green-
lands (a great stretch of open country, treeless and grass-
grown), and on the strand at Lower Rosses Point — called
Wren Point by the country-folk — these beings can be seen
and their wonderful music heard ; and a well-known Irish
artist has shown me many drawings, and paintings in oil,
of these Sidhe people as he has often beheld them at those
live in these parts. Dermot stole Finn MacCoul's sister, and had to flee
away. He took with him a bag of sand and a bunch of heather ; and when
he was in the mountains he would put the bag of sand under his head at
night, and then tell everybody he met that he had slept on the sand (the
sea-shore) ; and when on the sand he would use the bunch of heather for
a pillow, and say he had slept on the heather (the mountains). And so
nobody ever caught him at all.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 59
places and elsewhere in Ireland. They are described as
a race of majestic appearance and marvellous beauty, in
form human, yet in nature divine. The highest order of
them seems to be a race of beings evolved to a superhuman
plane of existence, such as the ancients called gods ; and
with this opinion, strange as it may seem in this age, aU the
educated Irish seers with whom I have been privileged to
talk agree, though they go further, and say that these
highest Sidhe races still inhabiting Ireland are the ever-
young, immortal divine race known to the ancient men of
Erin as the Tuatha De Danann.
Of all European lands I venture to say that Ireland is the
most mystical, and, in the eyes of true Irishmen, as much
the Magic Island of Gods and Initiates now as it was when
the Sacred Fires flashed from its purple, heather-covered
mountain-tops and mysterious round towers, and the Greater
Mysteries drew to its hallowed shrines neophytes from the
West as well as from the East, from India and Egypt as
well as from Atlantis ; ^ and Erin's mystic-seeing sons still
watch and wait for the relighting of the Fires and the restora-
tion of the old Druidic Mysteries. Herein I but imperfectly
echo the mystic message Ireland's seers gave me, a pilgrim
to their Sacred Isle. And until this mystic message is inter-
preted, men cannot discover the secret of Gaelic myth and
song in olden or in modern times, they cannot drink at the
ever-flowing fountain of Gaelic genius, the perennial source
of inspiration which lies behind the new revival of literature
and art in Ireland, nor understand the seeming reahty of
the fairy races.
An Irish Mystic's Testimony
Through the kindness of an Irish mystic, who is a seer,
I am enabled to present here, in the form of a dialogue,
very rare and very important evidence, which will serve to
illustrate and to confirm what has just been said above about
the mysticism of Ireland. To anthropologists this evidence
may be of more than ordinary value when they know that
* As to probable proof that there was an Atlantis, see p. 333 n.
6o THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
it comes from one who is not only a cultured seer but who
is also a man conspicuously successful in the practical life
of a great city : —
Visions. —
Q. — Are all visions which you have had of the same
character ?
A". — ' I have always made a distinction between pictures
seen in the memory of nature and visions of actual beings
now existing in the inner world. We can make the same
distinction in our world : I may close my eyes and see you
as a vivid picture in memory, or I may look at you with my
physical eyes and see your actual image. In seeing these
beings of which I speak, the physical eyes may be open or
closed : mystical beings in their own world and nature are
never seen with the physical eyes.'
Otherworlds. —
Q. — By the inner world do you mean the Celtic Other world ?
A. — * Yes ; though there are many Otherworlds. The
Tir-na-nog of the ancient Irish, in which the races of the
Sidhe exist, may be described as a radiant archetype of
this world, though this definition does not at all express its
psychic nature. In Tir-na-nog one sees nothing save har-
mony and beautiful forms. There are other worlds in which
we can see horrible shapes.*
Classification of the * Sidhe '. —
Q.-^Do you in any way classify the Sidhe races to which
you refer ?
A. — * The beings whom I call the Sidhe, I divide, as I have
seen them, into two great classes : those which are shining,
and those which are opalescent and seem lit up by a light
within themselves. The shining beings appear to be lower
in the hierarchies ; the opalescent beings are more rarely
seen, and appear to hold the positions of great chiefs or
princes among the tribes of Dana.'
Conditions of Seer ship. —
Q. — Under what state or condition and where have you
seen such beings ?
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 6i
A. — ' I have seen them most frequently after being away
from a city or town for a few days. The whole west coast
of Ireland from Donegal to Kerry seems charged with a
magical power, and I find it easiest to see while I am there.
I have always found it comparatively easy to see visions
while at ancient monuments like New Grange and Dowth,
because I think such places are naturally charged with
psychical forces, and were for that reason made use of long
ago as sacred places. I usually find it possible to throw
myself into the mood of seeing ; but sometimes visions have
forced themselves upon me.'
The Shining Beings. —
Q. — Can you describe the shining beings ?
A. — ' It is very difficult to give any intelligible descrip-
tion of them. The first time I saw them with great vividness
I was lying on a hill-side alone in the west of Ireland, in
County Sligo : I had been listening to music in the air, and
to what seemed to be the sound of bells, and was trying to
understand these aerial clashings in which wind seemed to
break upon wind in an ever-changing musical silvery sound.
Then the space before me grew luminous, and I began to
see one beautiful being after another.'
The opalescent Beings. —
Q. — Can you describe one of the opalescent beings ?
A. — * The first of these I saw I remember very clearly,
and the manner of its appearance : there was at first a dazzle
of light, and then I saw that this came from the heart of
a tall figure with a body apparently shaped out of half-
transparent or opalescent air, and throughout the body ran
a radiant, electrical fire, to which the heart seemed the centre.
Around the head of this being and through its waving lumi-
nous hair, which was blown all about the body like living
strands of gold, there appeared flaming wing-like auras.
From the being itself light seemed to stream outwards in
every direction ; and the effect left on me after the vision
was one of extraordinary lightness, joyousness, or ecstasy.
* At about this same period of my life I saw many of these
' ^
62 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
great beings, and I then thought that I had visions of
Aengus, Manannan, Lug, and other famous kings or princes
among the Tuatha De Danann ; but since then I have seen
so many beings of a similar character that I now no longer
would attribute to any one of them personal identity with
particular beings of legend ; though I believe that they
correspond in a general way to the Tuatha De Danann or
ancient Irish gods.'
Stature of the ' Sidhe '. —
Q. — You speak of the opalescent beings as great beings ;
what stature do you assign to them, and to the shining
beings ?
A. — * The opalescent beings seem to be about fourteen
feet in stature, though I do not know why I attribute to
them such definite height, since I had nothing to compare
them with ; but I have always considered them as much
taller than our race. The shining beings seem to be about
our own stature or just a little taller. Peasant and other
Irish seers do not usually speak of the Sidhe as being little,
but as being tall : an old schoolmaster in the West of
Ireland described them to me from his own visions as tall
beautiful people, and he used some Gaelic words, which
I took as meaning that they were shining with every
colour.'
The worlds of the ' Sidhe.' —
Q. — Do the two orders of Sidhe beings inhabit the same
world ?
A. — * The shining beings belong to the mid-world ; while
the opalescent beings belong to the heaven-world. There
are three great worlds which we can see while we are
still in the body : the earth- world, mid- world, and heaven-
world/
Nature 0/ the ' Sidhe,' —
Q. — Do you consider the life and state of these Sidhe
beings superior to the life and state of men ?
A. — ' I could never decide. One can say that they them-
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 63
selves are certainly more beautiful than men are, and that
their worlds seem more beautiful than our world.
' Among the shining orders there does not seem to be any
individualized life : thus if one of them raises his hands all
raise their hands, and if one drinks from a fire-fountain
all do ; they seem to move and to have their real existence in
a being higher than themselves, to which they are a kind of
body. Theirs is, I think, a collective life, so unindividualized
and so calm that I might have more varied thoughts in five
hours than they would have in five years ; and yet one feels
an extraordinary purity and exaltation about their life*
Beauty of form with them has never been broken up by the
passions which arise in the developed egotism of human
beings. A hive of bees has been described as a single organism
with disconnected cells ; and some of these tribes of shining
beings seem to be little more than one being manifesting
itself in many beautiful forms. I speak this with reference
to the shining beings only : I think that among the opales-
cent or Sidhe beings, in the heaven- world, there is an even
closer spiritual unity, but also a greater individuality.'
Influence of the ' Sidhe ' on Men. —
Q. — Do you consider any of these Sidhe beings inimical
to humanity ?
A. — ' Certain kinds of the shining beings, whom I call
wood beings, have never affected me with any evil influences
I could recognize. But the water beings, also of the shining
tribes, I always dread, because I felt whenever I came
into contact with them a great drowsiness of mind and,
I often thought, an actual drawing away of vitality.'
Water Beings Described. —
Q. — Can you describe one of these water beings ?
A. — ' In the world under the waters — under a lake in the
West of Ireland in this case — I saw a blue and orange
coloured king seated on a throne ; and there seemed to be
some fountain of mystical fire rising from under his throne,
and he breathed this fire into himself as though it were his
life. As I looked, I saw groups of pale beings, almost grey
64 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
in colour, coming down one side of the throne by the fire-
fountain. They placed their head and lips near the heart of
the elemental king, and, then, as they touched him, they
shot upwards, plumed and radiant, and passed on the other
side, as though they had received a new life from this chief
of their world/
Wood Beings Described. —
Q. — Can you describe one of the wood beings ?
A. — * The wood beings I have seen most often are of
a shining silvery colour with a tinge of blue or pale violet,
and with dark purple-coloured hair.*
Reproduction and Immortality of the ' Sidhe \ —
Q. — Do you consider the races of the Sidhe able to reproduce
their kind ; and are they immortal ?
A. — ' The higher kinds seem capable of breathing forth
beings out of themselves, but I do not understand how they
do so. I have seen some of them who contain elemental
beings within themselves, and these they could send out
and receive back within themselves again.
* The immortality ascribed to them by the ancient Irish
is only a relative immortality, their space of life being much
greater than ours. In time, however, I believe that they
grow old and then pass into new bodies just as men do, but
whether by birth or by the growth of a new body I cannot
say, since I have no certain knowledge about this.*
Sex among the ' Sidhe \ —
Q. — Does sexual differentiation seem to prevail among the
Sidhe races ?
A. — * I have seen forms both male and female, and forms
which did not suggest sex at all.*
* Sidhe ' and Human Life. —
Q. — (i) Is it possible, as the ancient Irish thought, that
certain of the higher Sidhe beings have entered or could
enter our plane of life by submitting to human birth ?
(2) On the other hand, do you consider it possible for men
in trance or at death to enter the Sidhe world ?
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 65
A.— (i) ' I cannot say/ (2) ' Yes ; both in trance and
after death. I think any one who thought much of the
Sidhe during his Hfe and who saw them frequently and
brooded on them would likely go to their world after death. *-_, ^^^ .
Social Organization of the * Sidhe '. —
Q. — You refer to chieftain-like or prince-like beings, and
to a king among water beings; is there therefore definite
social organization among the various Sidhe orders and
races, and if so, what is its nature ?
A. — * I cannot say about a definite social organization.
I have seen beings who seemed to command others, and who
were held in reverence. This implies an organization, but
whether it is instinctive like that of a hive of bees, or con-
sciously organized like human society, I cannot say.'
Lower ' Sidhe ' as Nature Elementals. —
Q. — You speak of the water-being king as an elemental
king ; do you suggest thereby a resemblance between lower
Sidhe orders and what mediaeval mystics called elementals ?
A. — * The lower orders of the Sidhe are, I think, the nature
elementals of the mediaeval mystics.'
Nourishment of the Higher ' Sidhe '. —
Q. — The water beings as you have described them seem to
be nourished and kept alive by something akin to electrical
fluids ; do the higher orders of the Sidhe seem to be similarly
nourished ?
A. — ' They seemed to me to draw their life out of the Soul
of the World.'
Collective Visions of ' Sidhe ' Beings. —
Q. — Have you had visions of the various Sidhe beings in
company with other persons ?
A. — ' I have had such visions on several occasions.*
And this statement has been confirmed to me by three
participants in such collective visions, who separately at
different times have seen in company with our witness the
same vision at the same moment. On another occasion, on
the Greenlands at Rosses Point, County Sligo, the same
WENTZ p
66 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Sidhe being was seen by our present witness and a friend
with him, also possessing the faculty of seership, at a time
when the two percipients were some little distance apart,
and they hurried to each other to describe the being, not
knowing that the explanation was mutually unnecessary.
I have talked with both percipients so much, and know
them so intimately that I am fully able to state that as
percipients they fulfil all necessary pathological conditions
required by psychologists in order to make their evidence^
acceptable.
Parallel Evidence as to the Sidhe Races
In general, the rare evidence above recorded from the
Irish seer could be paralleled by similar evidence from at
Jeast two other reliable Irish people, with whom also I have
been privileged to discuss the Fairy-Faith. One is a member
of the Royal Irish Academy, the other is the wife of a well-
known Irish historian ; and both of them testify to having
likewise had collective visions of Sidhe beings in Ireland.
This is what Mr. William B. Yeats wrote to me, while this
study was in progress, concerning the Celtic Fairy King-
dom : — * I am certain that it exists, and will some day be
studied as it was studied by Kirk.' ^
Independent Evidence from the Sidhe World
One of the most remarkable discoveries of our Celtic
researches has been that the native population of the Rosses
Point country, or, as we have called it, the Sidhe world, in
most essentials, and, what is most important, by inde-
pendent folk-testimony, substantiate the opinions and state-
ments of the educated Irish mystics to whom we have
just referred, as follows : —
John Conway's Vision of the ' Gentry '. — In Upper Rosses
Point, Mrs. J. Conway told me this about the ' gentry ' : —
' John Conway, my husband, who was a pilot by profession,
^ This refers to Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, who wrote The Secret
Commonwealth (see this study, p. 85 n.).
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 67
in watching for in-coming ships used to go up on the high
hill among the Fairy Hills ; and there he often saw the
gentry going down the hill to the strand. One night in par-
ticular he recognized them as men and women of the gentry ;
and they were as big as any living people. It was late at
night about forty years ago.'
Ghosts and Fairies. — When first I introduced myself to
Owen Conway, in his bachelor quarters, a cosy cottage at
Upper Rosses Point, he said that Mr. W. B. Yeats and other
men famous in Irish literature had visited him to hear about
the fairies, and that though he knew very little about the
fairies he nevertheless always likes to talk of them. Then
Owen began to tell me about a man's ghost which both he
and Bran Reggan had seen at different times on the road to
Sligo, then about a woman's ghost which he and other people
had often seen near where we were, and then about the
exorcizing of a haunted house in Sligo some sixty years ago
by Father McGowan, who as a result died soon afterwards,
apparently having been killed by the exorcized spirits.
Finally, I heard from him the following anecdotes about
the fairies : —
A Stone Wall overthrown by ' Fairy ' Agency. — * Nothing is
more certain than that there are fairies. The old folks
always thought them the fallen angels. At the fcack of this
house the fairies had their pass. My neighbour started to
build a cow-shed, and one wall abutting on the pass was
thrown down twice, and nothing but the fairies ever did it.
The third time the wall was built it stood.'
Fairies passing through Stone Walls. — * Where MacEwen's
house stands was a noted fairy place. Men in building the
house saw fairies on horses coming across the spot, and the
stone walls did not stop them at all.'
Seeing the ' Gentry \ — ' A cousin of mine, who was a pilot,
once went to the watch-house up there on the Point to take
his brother's place ; and he saw ladies coming towards him
as he crossed the Greenlands. At first he thought they were
coming from a dance, but there was no dance going then,
and, if there had been, no human beings dressed like them
F 2
68 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
and moving as they were could have come from any part of
the globe, and in so great a party, at that hour of the night.
Then when they passed him and he saw how beautiful they
were, he knew them for the gentry women.'
* Michael Reddy (our next witness) saw the gentry down
on the Greenlands in regimentals like an army, and in day-
light. He was a young man at the time, and had been sent
out to see if any cattle were astray.*
And this is what Michael Reddy, of Rosses Point, now
a sailor on the ship Tartar, sailing from Sligo to neighbour-
ing ports on the Irish coast, asserts in confirmation of Owen
Conway's statement about him : — * I saw the gentry on the
strand (at Lower Rosses Point) about forty years ago. It
was afternoon. I first saw one of them like an officer point-
ing at me what seemed a sword ; and when I got on the
Greenlands I saw a great company of gentry, like soldiers,
in red, laughing and shouting. Their leader was a big man^
and they were ordinary human size. As a result [of this
vision] I took to my bed and lay there for weeks. Upon
another occasion, late at night, I was with my mother
milking cows, and we heard the gentry all round us talking,
but could not see them.'
Going to the * Gentry ' through Death, Dreams, or Trance. —
John O' Conway, one of the most reliable citizens of Upper
Rosses Point, offers the following testimony concerning the
* gentry * : — * In olden times the gentry were very numerous
about forts and here on the Greenlands, but rarely seen.
They appeared to be the same as any living men. When
people died it was said the gentry took them, for they would
afterwards appear among the gentry,'
* We had a ploughman of good habits who came in one
day too late for his morning's work, and he in excuse very
seriously said, " May be if you had travelled all night as
much as I have you wouldn't talk. I was away with the
gentry, and save for a lady I couldn't have been back now.
I saw a long hall full of many people. Some of them I knew
and some I did not know. The lady saved me by telling
me to eat no food there, however enticing it might be." '
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 69
* A young man at Drumcliffe was taken [in a trance state],
and was with the Daoine Maithe some time, and then got
back. Another man, whom I knew well, was haunted by
the gentry for a long time, and he often went off with them '
(apparently in a dream or trance state).
' Sidhe ' Music. — The story which now follows substan-
tiates the testimony of cultured Irish seers that at Lower
Rosses Point the music of the Sidhe can be heard : — ' Three
women were gathering shell-fish, in the month of March, on
the lowest point of the strand (Lower Rosses or Wren Point)
when they heard the most beautiful music. They set to
work to dance with it, and danced themselves sick. They
then thanked the invisible musician and went home.'
The Testimony of a College Professor
Our next witness is the Rev. Father , a professor in
a CathoHc college in West Ireland, and most of his state-
ments are based on events which happened among his own
acquaintances and relatives, and his deductions are the result
of careful investigation : —
Apparitions from Fairyland. — ' Some twenty to thirty
years ago, on the borders of County Roscommon near County
Sligo, according to the firm belief of one of my own relatives,
a sister of his was taken by the fairies on her wedding-night,
and she appeared to her mother afterwards as an apparition.
She seemed to want to speak, but her mother, who was in
bed at the time, was thoroughly frightened, and turned her
face to the wall. The mother is convinced that she saw this
apparition of her daughter, and my relative thinks she
might have saved her.
* This same relative who gives it as his opinion that his
sister was taken by the fairies, at a different time saw the
apparition of another relative of mine who also, according
to similar belief, had been taken by the fairies when only
five years old. The child-apparition appeared beside its
living sister one day while the sister was going from the
yard into the house, and it followed her in. It is said
the child was taken because she was such a good girl.'
70 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Nature of the Belief in Fairies. — 'As children we were always
afraid of fairies, and were taught to say " God bless them !
God bless them ! " whenever we heard them mentioned.
' In our family we always made it a point to have clean
water in the house at night for the fairies.
* If anything like dirty water was thrown out of doors
after dark it was necessary to say " Hugga, hugga salach ! "
as a warning to the fairies not to get their clothes wet.
' Untasted food, like milk, used to be left on the table at
night for the fairies. If you were eating and food fell from
you, it was not right to take it back, for the fairies wanted it.
Many families are very serious about this even now. The
luckiest thing to do in such cases is to pick up the food and eat
just a speck of it and then throw the rest away to the fairies.
* Ghosts and apparitions are commonly said to live in
isolated thorn-bushes, or thorn-trees. Many lonely bushes of
this kind have their ghosts. For example, there is Fanny's
Bush, Sally's Bush, and another I know of in County Sligo
near Boyle.'
Personal Opinions. — * The fairies of any one race are the
people of the preceding race — the Fomors for the Fir Bolgs,
the Fir Bolgs for the Dananns, and the Dananns for us.
The old races died. Where did they go ? They became
spirits — and fairies. Second-sight gave our race power to
see the inner world. When Christianity came to Ireland the
people had no definite heaven. Before, their ideas about the
other world were vague. But the older ideas of a spirit world
remained side by side with the Christian ones, and being pre-
served in a subconscious way gave rise to the fairy world.'
Evidence from County Roscommon
Our next place for investigation will be the ancient pro-
vince of the great fairy-queen Meave, who made herself
famous by leading against Cuchulainn the united armies of
four of the five provinces of Ireland, and all on account
of a bull which she coveted. And there could be no better
part of it to visit than Roscommon, which Dr. Douglas Hyde
has made popular in Irish folk-lore.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 71
Dr. Hyde and the Leprechaun. — One day while I was privi-
leged to be at Ratra, Dr. Hyde invited me to walk with him
in the country. After we had visited an old fort which belongs
to the * good people ', and had noticed some other of their
haunts in that part of Queen Meave's realm, we entered
a straw-thatched cottage on the roadside and found the
good house-wife and her fine-looking daughter both at
home. In response to Dr. Hyde's inquiries, the mother
stated that one day, in her girlhood, near a hedge from
which she was gathering wild berries, she saw a leprechaun
in a hole under a stone : — * He wasn't much larger than a
doll, and he was most perfectly formed, with a little mouth
and eyes.' Nothing was told about the little fellow having
a money-bag, although the woman said people told her after-
wards that she would have been rich if she had only had
sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance.^
The Death Coach. — The next tale the mother told was
about the death coach which used to pass by the very
house we were in. Every night until after her daughter
was born she used to rise up on her elbow in bed to listen
to the death coach passing by. It passed about midnight,
and she could hear the rushing, the tramping of the horses,
and most beautiful singing, just like fairy music, but she
could not understand the words. Once or twice she was
brave enough to open the door and look out as the coach
passed, but she could never see a thing, though there was
* In going from East Ireland to Gal way, during the summer of 1908,
I passed through the country near Mullingar, where there was then great
excitement over a leprechaun which had been appearing to school-children
and to many of the country-folk. I talked with some of the people as
I walked through part of County Meath about this leprechaun, and most
of them were certain that there could be such a creature showing itself ; and
I noticed, too, that they were all quite anxious to have a chance at the
money-bag, if they could only see the little fellow with it. I told one good-
natured old Irishman at Ballywillan — where I stopped over night — as we
sat round his peat fire and pot of boiling potatoes, that the leprechaun
was reported as captured by the police in Mullingar. ' Now that couldn't be,
at all,' he said instantly, ' for everybody knows the leprechaun is a spirit
and can't be caught by any blessed policeman, though it is likely one might
get his gold if they got him cornered so he had no chance to run away.
But the minute you wink or take your eyes off the little devil, sure enough
he is gone.'
72 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the noise and singing. One time a man had to wait on the
roadside to let the fairy horses go by, and he could hear their
passing very clearly, and couldn't see one of them.
When we got home, Dr. Hyde told me that the fairies of
the region are rarely seen. The people usually say that they
hear or feel them only.
The * Good People ' and Mr. Gilleran. — After the mother
had testified, the daughter, who is quite of the younger
generation, gave her own opinion. She said that the * good
people ' live in the forts and often take men and women or
youths who pass by the forts after sunset ; that Mr. Gilleran,
who died not long ago, once saw certain dead friends and
recognized among them those who were believed to have
been taken and those who died naturally, and that he saw
them again when he was on his death-bed.
We have here, as in so many other accounts, a clear con-
nexion between the realm of the dead and Fairyland.
The Testimony of a Lough Derg Seer
Neil Colton, seventy-three years old, who lives in Tamlach
Townland, on the shores of Lough Derg, County Donegal,
has a local reputation for having seen the 'gentle folk', and so
I called upon him. As we sat round his blazing turf fire,
and in the midst of his family of three sturdy boys — for he
married late in life — this is what he related : —
A Girl Recovered from Faerie. — * One day, just before
sunset in midsummer, and I a boy then, my brother and
cousin and myself were gathering bilberries (whortleberries)
up by the rocks at the back of here, when all at once we
heard music. We hurried round the rocks, and there we
were within a few hundred feet of six or eight of the gentle
folk, and they dancing. When they saw us, a little woman
dressed all in red came running out from them towards us,
and she struck my cousin across the face with what seemed
to be a green rush. We ran for home as hard as we could,
and when my cousin reached the house she fell dead. Father
saddled a horse and went for Father Ryan. When Father
Ryan arrived, he put a stole about his neck and began pray-
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 73
ing over my cousin and reading psalms and striking her with
the stole ; and in that way brought her back. He said if
she had not caught hold of my brother, she would have been
taken for ever.*
The * Gentle Folk \ — ' The gentle folk are not earthly
people ; they are a people with a nature of their own. Even
in the water there are men and women of the same character.
Others have caves in the rocks, and in them rooms and
apartments. These races were terribly plentiful a hundred
years ago, and they'll come back again. My father lived
two miles from here, where there were plenty of the gentle
folk. In olden times they used to take young folks and keep
them and draw all the life out of their bodies. Nobody could
ever tell their nature exactly/
Evidence from County Fermanagh
From James Summerville, eighty-eight years old, who
lives in the country near Irvinestown, I heard much about
the * wee people ' and about banshees, and then the following
remarkable story concerning the ' good people ' : —
Travelling Clairvoyance through ' Fairy ' Agency. — * From
near Edemey, County Fermanagh, about seventy years ago,
a man whom I knew well was taken to America on Hallow
Eve Night ; and they (the good people) made him look down
a chimney to see his own daughter cooking at a kitchen fire.
Then they took him to another place in America, where he
saw a friend he knew. The next morning he was at his own
home here in Ireland.
' This man wrote a letter to his daughter to know if she
was at the place and at the work on Hallow Eve Night, and
she wrote back that she was. He was sure that it was the
good people who had taken him to America and back in
one night.*
Evidence from County Antrim
At the request of Major R. G. Berry, M.R.I.A., of Richill
Castle, Armagh, Mr. H. Higginson, of Glenavy, County
Antrim, collected all the material he could find concerning
the fairy-tradition in his part of County Antrim, and sent
74 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
to me the results, from which I have selected the very in-
teresting, and, in some respects, unique tales which follow : —
The Fairies and the Weaver. — * Ned Judge, of Sophys
Bridge, was a weaver. Every night after he went to bed
the weaving started of itself, and when he arose in the morn-
ing he would find the dressing which had been made ready
for weaving so broken and entangled that it took him hours
to put it right. Yet with all this drawback he got no poorer,
because the fairies left him plenty of household necessaries,
and whenever he sold a web [of cloth] he always received
treble the amount bargained for.'
Meeting Two Regiments of * Them \ — * William Megarry,
of Ballinderry, as his daughter who is married to James
Megarry, J. P., told me, was one night going to Crumlin on
horseback for a doctor, when after passing through Glenavy
he met just opposite the Vicarage two regiments of them
(the fairies) coming along the road towards Glenavy. One
regiment was dressed in red and one in blue or green uniform.
They were playing music, but when they opened out to let
him pass through the middle of them the music ceased until
he had passed by.'
In Cuchulainn's Country : A Civil Engineer's
Testimony
In the heroic days of pagan Ireland, as tradition tells, the
ancient earthworks, now called the Navan Rings, just out-
side Armagh, were the stronghold of Cuchulainn and the
Red Branch Knights ; and, later, under Patrick, Armagh
itself, one of the old mystic centres of Erin, became the
ecclesiastical capital of the Gaels. And from this romantic
country, one of its best informed native sons, a graduate
civil engineer of Dublin University, offers the following
important evidence : —
The Fairies are the Dead. — * When I was a youngster near
Armagh, I was kept good by being told that the fairies
could take bad boys away. The sane belief about the fairies,
however, is different, as I discovered when I grew up. The
old people in County Armagh seriously believe that the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 75
fairies are the spirits of the dead ; and they say that if you
have many friends deceased you have many friendly fairies,
or if you have many enemies deceased you have many fairies
looking out to do you harm.'
Food-Offerings to Place-Fairies. — * It was very usual
formerly, and the practice is not yet given up, to place
a bed, some other furniture, and plenty of food in a newly-
constructed dwelling the night before the time fixed for
moving into it ; and if the food is not consumed, and the
crumbs swept up by the door in the morning, the house
cannot safely be occupied. I know of two houses now that
have never been occupied, because the fairies did not show
their willingness and goodwill by taking food so offered to
them.*
On the Slopes of Slieve Gullion
In climbing to the summit of Cuchulainn's mountain,
which overlooks parts of the territory made famous by the
'Cattle Raid of Cooley', I met John O'Hare, sixty-eight
years old, of Longfield Townland, leading his horse to pasture,
and I stopped to talk with him about the ' good people '.
* The good people in this mountain,' he said, ' are the people
who have died and been taken ; the mountain is enchanted.'
The * Fairy ' Overflowing of the Meal-Chest. — ' An old
w^oman came to the wife of Steven Callaghan and told her
not to let Steven cut a certain hedge. "It is where we
shelter at night," the old woman added ; and Mrs. Callaghan
recognized the old woman as one who had been taken in
confinement. A few nights later the same old woman
appeared to Mrs. Callaghan and asked for charity ; and she
was offered some meal, which she did not take. Then she
asked for lodgings, but did not stop. When Mrs. Callaghan
saw the meal-chest next morning it was overflowing with
meal : it was the old woman's gift for the hedge.'
The Testimony of two Dromintee Percipients
After my friend, the Rev. Father L. Donnellan, C.C, of
Dromintee, County Armagh, had introduced me to Alice
Cunningham, of his parish, and she had told much about
76 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the 'gentle folk', she emphatically declared that they do exist
— and this in the presence of Father Donnellan — because
she has often seen them on Carrickbroad Mountain, near
where she lives. And she then reported as follows concern-
ing enchanted Slieve Gullion : —
The ' Sidhe ' Guardian of Slieve Gullion. — * The top of
Slieve Gullion is a very gentle place. A fairy has her house
there by the lake, but she is invisible. She interferes with
nobody. I hear of no gentler places about here than Carrick-
broad and Slieve Gullion.'
Father Donnellan and I called next upon Thomas McCrink and
his wife at Carr if amay an, because Mrs. McCrink claims to have
seen some of the * good people ', and this is her testimony : —
Nature of the * Good People \ — * I've heard and felt the
good people coming on the wind ; and I once saw them down
in the middle field on my father's place playing football.
They are still on earth. Among them are the spirits of our
ancestors ; and these rejoice whenever good fortune comes
our way, for I saw them before my mother won her land
[after a long legal contest] in the field rejoicing.
* Some of the good people I have thought were fallen
angels, though these may be dead people whose time is not
up. . We are only like shadows in this world : my mother
died in England, and she came to me in the spirit. I saw
her plainly. I ran to catch her, but my hands ran through
her form as if it were mere mist. Then there was a crack,
and she was gone.' And, finally, after a moment, our per-
cipient said : — ' The fairies once passed down this lane here
on a Christmas morning ; and I took them to be suffering
souls out of Purgatory, going to mass.'
- The Testimony of a Dromintee Seeress
Father Donnellan, the following day, took me to talk with
almost the oldest woman in his parish, Mrs. Biddy Grant,
eighty-six years old, of Upper Toughal, beside Slieve Gullion.
Mrs. Grant is a fine specimen of an Irishwoman, with white
hair, clear complexion, and an expression of great natural
intelligence, though now somewhat feeble from age. Her
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND ^'j
mind is yet clear, however ; and her testimony is sub-
stantiated by this statement from her own daughter, who
Hves with her : — * My mother has the power of seeing
things. It is a fact with her that spirits exist. She has
seen much, even in her old age ; and what she is always
telling me scares me half to death.*
The following is Mrs. Grant's direct testimony given at
her own home, on September 20, 1909, in answer to our
question if she knew anything about the * good people ' : —
Seeing the * Good People ' as the Dead. — * I saw them once
as plain as can be — big, little, old, and young. I was in bed
at the time, and a boy whom I had reared since he was born
was lying ill beside me. Two of them came and looked at
him ; then came in three of them. One of them seemed to
have something like a book, and he put his hand to the boy's
mouth ; then he went away, while others appeared, opening
the back window to make an avenue through the house;
and through this avenue came great crowds. At this I shook
the boy, and said to him, " Do you see anything ? " " No,"
he said ; but as I made him look a second time he said,
" I do." After that he got well.
' These good people were the spirits of our dead friends,
but I could not recognize them. I have often seen them
that way while in my bed. Many women are among them.
I once touched a boy of theirs, and he was just like feathers
in my hand ; there was no substance in him, and I knew
he wasn't a living being. I don't know where they live ;
I've heard they live in the Carrige (rocks). Many a time I've
heard of their taking people or leading them astray. They
can't live far away when they come to me in such a rush.
They are as big as we are. I think these fairy people are all
through this country and in the mountains.'
An Apparition of a * Sidhe ' Woman ? — * At a wake I went
out of doors at midnight and saw a woman running up and
down the field with a strange light in her hand. I called out
my daughter, but she saw nothing, though all the time the
woman dicssed in white was in the field, shaking the light
and running back and forth as fast as you could wink.
78 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
I thought the woman might be the spirit of Nancy Frink,
but I was not sure/ (Cf. pp. 60 ff., 83, 155, 215.)
Evidence from Lough Gur, County Limerick
One of the most interesting parts of Ireland for the
archaeologist and for the folk-lorist alike is the territory
immediately surrounding Lough Gur, County Limerick.
Shut in for the most part from the outer world by a circle
of low-lying hills on whose summits fairy goddesses yet
dwell invisibly, this region, famous for its numerous and well-
preserved cromlechs, dolmens, menhirs, and tumuh, and for
the rare folk-traditions current among its peasantry, has
long been popularly regarded as a sort of Otherworld pre-
serve haunted by fairy beings, who dwell both in its waters
and on its land.
There seems to be no reasonable doubt that in pre-
Christian times the Lough Gur country was a very sacred
spot, a mystic centre for pilgrimages and for the celebration
of Celtic religious rites, including those of initiation. The
Lough is still enchanted, but once in seven years the spell
passes off it, and it then appears like dry land to any one
that is fortunate enough to behold it. At such a time of
disenchantment a Tree is seen growing up through the lake-
bottom — a Tree like the strange World-Tree of Scandinavian
myth. The Tree is covered with a Green Cloth, and under it
sits the lake's guardian, a woman knitting.^ The peasantry
about Lough Gur still believe that beneath its waters there
is one of the chief entrances in Ireland to Ttr-na-nog, the
' Land of Youth ', the Fairy Realm. And when a child is
stolen by the Munster fairies, * Lough Gur is conjectured to
be the place of its unearthly transmutation from the human
to the fairy state.' ^
VCf. David Fitzgerald, Popular Tales of Ireland, in Rev. Celt., iv. 185-
92 ; and All the Year Round, New Series, iii. 'This woman guardian of
the lake is called Toice Bhrean, "untidy " or "lazy wench ". According
to a local legend, she is said to have been originally the guardian of the
sacred well, from which, owing to her neglect, Lough Gur issued ; and in
this r6le she corresponds toLiban, daughter of Eochaidh Finn, the guardian
of the sacred well from which issued Lough Neagh, according to the
Dinnshenchas and the tale of Eochaidh MacMairido.' — J. F. Lynch.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 79
To my friend, Count John de Salis, of Balliol College,
I am indebted for the following legendary material, collected
by him on the fairy-haunted Lough Gur estate, his ancestral
home, and annotated by the Rev. J. F. Lynch, one of the
best-informed antiquarians living in that part of South
Ireland : —
The Fairy Goddesses, Aine and Fennel {or Finnen). —
* There are two hills near Lough Gur upon whose summits
sacrifices and sacred rites used to be celebrated according to
living tradition. One, about three miles south-west of the
lake, is called Knock Aine, Aine or Ane being the name of
an ancient Irish goddess, derived from an, " bright." The
other, the highest hill on the lake-shores, is called Knock
Fennel or Hill of the Goddess Fennel, from Finnen or Finnine
or Fininne, a form oi fin, " white." The peasantry of the
region call Aine one of the Good People ; ^ and they say that
* It was on the bank of the little river Camog, which flows near Lough
Gur, that the Earl of Desmond one day saw Aine as she sat there combing
her hair. Overcome with love for the fairy-goddess, he gained control
over her through seizing her cloak, and made her his wife. From this
union was bom the enchanted son Ceroid larla, even as Galahad was born
to Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake. When Geroid had grown into young
manhood, in order to surpass a woman he leaped right into a bottle and
right out again, and this happened in the midst of a banquet in his father's
castle. His father, the earl, had been put under taboo by Aine never to
show surprise at anything her magician son might do, but now the taboo
was forgotten, and hence broken, amid so unusual a performance ; and
immediately Geroid left the feasting and went to the lake. As soon as its
water touched him he assumed the form of a goose, and he went swimming
over the surface of the Lough, and disappeared on Garrod Island.
According to one legend, Aine, like the Breton Morgan, may sometimes
be seen combing her hair, only half her body appearing above the lake.
And in times of calmness and clear water, according to another legend,
one may behold beneath Aine's lake the lost enchanted castle of her son
Geroid, close to Garrod Island — so named from Geroid or ' Gerald '.
Geroid lives there in the under-lake world to this day, awaiting the time
of his normal return to the world of men (see our chapter on re-birth,
p. 386). But once in every seven years, on clear moonlight nights,
he emerges temporarily, when the Lough Gur peasantry see him as a
phantom mounted on a phantom white horse, leading a phantom or fairy
cavalcade across the lake and land. A well-attested case of such an appari-
tional appearance of the earl has been recorded by Miss Anne Baily, the
percipient having been Teigue O'Neill, an old blacksmith whom she knew
(see All the Year Round, New Series, iii. 495-6, London, 1870). And Moll
8o THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Fennel (apparently her sister goddess or a variant of herself)
lived on the top of Knock Fennel' (termed Finnen in a
State Paper dated 1200).
The Fairy Boat-Race. — * Different old peasants have told
me that on clear calm moonlight nights in summer, fairy
boats appear racing across Lough Gur. The boats come
from the eastern side of the lake, and when they have arrived
at Garrod Island, where the Desmond Castle lies in ruins,
they vanish behind Knock Adoon. There are four of these
phantom boats, and in each there are two men rowing and
a woman steering. No sound is heard, though the seer can
see the weird silvery splash of the oars and the churning of
the water at the bows of the boats as they shoot along. It
is evident that they are racing, because one boat gets ahead
of the others, and all the rowers can be seen straining at the
oars. Boats and occupants seem to be transparent, and you
Riall, a young woman also known to Miss Baily, saw the phantom earl by
himself, under very weird circumstances, by day, as she stood at the margin
of the lake washing clothes (ib., p. 496).
Some say that Aine's true dwelling-place is in her hill ; upon which on
every St. John's Night the peasantry used to gather from all the immediate
neighbourhood to view the moon (for Aine seems to have been a moon god-
dess, like Diana), and then with torches (cliars) made of bunches of straw
and hay tied on poles used to march in procession from the hill and after-
wards run through cultivated fields and amongst the cattle. The underlying
purpose of this latter ceremony probably was — as is the case in the Isle of
Man and in Brittany (see pp. 1 24 n., 273), where corresponding fire-ceremonies
surviving from an ancient agricultural cult are still celebrated — to exorcise
the land from all evil spirits and witches in order that there may be good
harvests and rich increase of flocks. Sometimes on such occasions the
goddess herself has been seen leading the sacred procession (cf. the Bacchus
cult among the ancient Greeks, who believed that the god himself led his
worshippers in their sacred torch-light procession at night, he being like
Aine in this respect, more or less connected with fertility in nature). One
night some girls staying on the hill late were made to look through a magic
ring by Aine, and lo the hill was crowded with the folk of the fairy goddess
who before had been invisible. The peasants always said that Aine is
* the best-hearted woman that ever lived ' (cf. David Fitzgerald, Popular
Tales of Ireland, in Rev. Celt., iv. 185-92).
In Silva Gadelica (ii. 347-8), Aine is a daughter of Eogabal, a king of
the Tuatha De Danann, and her abode is within the sidh, named on her
account 'Aine cliach, now Cnoc Aine, or Knockany '. In another passage
we read that Manannan took Aine as his wife (ib., ii. 197). Also see in
Silva Gadelica, ii, pp. 225, 576.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 8i
cannot see exactly what their nature is. One old peasant
told me that it is the shining brightness of the clothes on
the phantom rowers and on the women who steer which
makes them visible.
* Another man, who is about forty years of age, and as far
as I know of good habits, assures me that he also has seen
this fairy boat-race, and that it can still be seen at the
proper season.*
The Bean-Tighe} — ' The Bean-tighe, the fairy housekeeper
of the enchanted submerged castle of the Earl of Desmond, is
supposed to appear sitting on an ancient earthen monument
shaped like a great chair and hence called Suidheachan, the
** Housekeeper's Little Seat," on Knock Adoon (Hill of the
Fort), which juts out into the Lough. The Bean-tighe, as
I have heard an old peasant tell the tale, was once asleep on
her Seat, when the Buachailleen ^ or " Little Herd Boy "
* ' In some local tales the Bean-tighe, or Bean a'tighe is termed Bean-
sidhe (Banshee), and Bean Chaointe, or " wailing woman ", and is identified
with Aine. In an elegy by Ferriter on one of the Fitzgeralds, we read : —
Aine from her closely hid nest did awake,
The woman of wailing from Gur's voicy lake.
'Thomas O'Connellan, the great minstrel bard, some of whose com-
positions are given by Hardiman, died at Lough Gur Castle about 1700,
and was buried at New Church beside the lake. It is locally believed that
Aine stood on a rock of Knock Adoon and " keened " O'Connellan whilst
the funeral procession was passing from the castle to the place of burial.' —
J. F. Lynch.
A Banshee was traditionally attached to the Baily family of Lough
Gur ; and one night at dead of night, when Miss Kitty Baily was dying
of consumption, her two sisters, Miss Anne Baily and Miss Susan Baily,
who were sitting in the death chamber, ' heard such sweet and melan-
choly music as they had never heard before. It seemed to them like
distant cathedral music. . . . The music was not in the house. ... It seemed
to come through the windows of the old castle, high in the air.' But when
Miss Anne, who went downstairs with a lighted candle to investigate
the weird phenomenon, had approached the ruined castle she thought the
music came from above the house ; ' and thus perplexed, and at last
frightened, she returned.' Both sisters are on record as having distinctly
heard the fairy music, and for a long time {All the Year Round, New Series,
iii. 496-7 ; London, 1870).
* ' The Buachailleen is most likely one of the many forms assumed by
the shape-shifting Fer Fi, the Lough Gur Dwarf, who at Tara, according
to the Dinnshenchas of Tuag Inbir (see Folk-Lore, iii ; and A. Nutt, Voyage
of Bran, i. 195 ff.), took the shape of a woman ; and we may trace the tales
WENTZ G
82 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
stole her golden comb. When the Bean-tighe awoke and saw
what had happened, she cast a curse upon the cattle of the
Buachailleen, and soon all of them were dead, and then
the " Little Herd Boy " himself died, but before his death
he ordered the golden comb to be cast into the Lough.' ^
Lough Gur Fairies in General. — * The peasantry in the
Lough Gur region commonly speak of the Good People or of
the Kind People or of the Little People, their names for the
fairies. The leprechaun indicates the place where hidden
treasure is to be found. If the person to whom he reveals
such a secret makes it known to a second person, the first
person dies, or else no money is found : in some cases the
money is changed into ivy leaves or into furze blossoms.
* I am convinced that some of the older peasants still
believe in fairies. I used to go out on the lake occasionally
on moonlight nights, and an old woman supposed to be
a " wise woman " (a seeress), hearing about my doing this,
told me that under no circumstances should I continue the
practice, for fear of " Them People " (the fairies). One
evening in particular I was warned by her not to venture on
the lake. She solemnly asserted that the " Powers of Dark-
ness " were then abroad, and that it would be misfortune
for me to be in their path.^
* Under ordinary circumstances, as a very close observer
of the Lough Gur peasantry informs me, the old people will
of Ceroid larla to Fer Fi, who, and not Ceroid, is believed by the oldest of
the Lough Cur peasantry to be the owner of the lake. Fer Fi is the son
of Eogabal of Sidh Eogabail, and hence brother to Aine. He is also foster-
son of Manannan Mac Lir, and a Druid of the Tuatha De Danann (cf.
Silva Gadelica,n. 225 ; also Dinnshenchas of Tuag Inbir). At Lough Cur
various tales are told by the peasants concerning the Dwarf, and he is
still stated by them to be the brother of Aine. For the sake of experi-
ment I once spoke very disrespectfully of the Dwarf to John Punch, an
old man, and he said to me in a frightened whisper : " Whisht ! he'll
hear you." Edward Fitzgerald and other old men were very much afraid
of the Dwarf.' — J. F. Lynch.
* ' Compaxe the tale of Excalibur, the Sword of King Arthur, which
King Arthur before his death ordered Sir Bedivere to cast into the lake
whence it had come.' — J. F. Lynch.
* ' It is commonly believed by young and old at Lough Cur that a human
being is drowned in the Lake once every seven years, and that it is the
Bean Fhionn, or " White Lady " who thus takes the person.' — J. F. Lynch.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN IRELAND 83
pray to the Saints, but if by any chance such prayers remain
unanswered they then invoke other powers, the fairies, the
goddesses Aine and Fennel, or other pagan deities, whom
they seem to remember in a vague subconscious manner
through tradition.'
Testimony from a County Kerry Seer
To another of my fellow students in Oxford, a native
Irishman of County Kerry, I am indebted for the following
evidence : —
A Collective Vision of Spiritual Beings. — ' Some few weeks '
before Christmas, 1910, at midnight on a very dark night,
I and another young man (who like myself was then about
twenty-three years of age) were on horseback on our way
home from Limerick. When near Listowel, we noticed a
light about half a mile ahead. At first it seemed to be no
more than a light in some house ; but as we came nearer
to it and it was passing out of our direct line of vision we
saw that it was moving up and down, to and fro, diminishing
to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous flame.
Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one
hundred yards to our right, resembling the hght seen first.
Suddenly each of these lights expanded into the same sort
of yellow luminous flame, about six feet high by four feet
broad. In the midst of each flame we saw a radiant being
having human form. Presently the lights moved toward
one another and made contact, whereupon the two beings
in them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings'
bodies were formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like
the radiance of the sun, and much brighter than the yellow
light or aura surrounding them. So dazzling was the radiance,
like a halo, round their heads that we could not distinguish
the countenances of the beings ; we could only distinguish
the general shape of their bodies ; though their heads were
very clearly outlined because this halo-like radiance, which
was the brightest light about them, seemed to radiate from
or rest upon the head of each being. As we travelled on;
a house intervened between us and the lights, and we saw
G2
84 - THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
no more of them. It was the first time we had ever seen
such phenomena, and in our hurry to get home we were not
wise enough to stop and make further examination. But
ever since that night I have frequently seen, both in Ireland
and in England, similar lights with spiritual beings in them.'
(Cf. pp. 60 ff., ^T, 133, 155, 215, 483.)
Reality of the Spiritual World. — ' Like my companion, who
saw all that I saw of the first three lights, I formerly had
always been a sceptic as to the existence of spirits ; now
I know that there is a spiritual world. My brother, a phy-
sician, had been equally sceptical until he saw, near our
home at Listowel, similar lights containing spiritual beings
and was obliged to admit the genuineness of the phenomena.
' In whatever country we may be, I believe that we are
for ever immersed in the spiritual world ; but most of us
cannot perceive it on account of the unrefined nature of
our physical bodies. Through meditation and psychical
training one can come to see the spiritual world and its
beings. We pass into the spirit realm at death and come
back into the human world at birth ; and we continue to
reincarnate until we have overcome all earthly desires and
mortal appetites. Then the higher life is open to our con-
sciousness and we cease to be human ; we become divine
beings.' (Recorded in Oxford, England, August 12, 1911.)
III. IN SCOTLAND
Introduction by Alexander Carmichael, Hon. LL.D. of
the University of Edinburgh ; author of Carmina Gadelica.
The belief in fairies was once common throughout Scot-
land — Highland and Lowland. It is now much less pre-
valent even in the Highlands and Islands, where such
beliefs linger longer than they do in the Lowlands. But it
still lives among the old people, and is privately entertained
here and there even among younger people ; and some who
hold the belief declare that they themselves have seen fairies.
. Various theories have been advanced as to the origin of
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 85
fairies and as to the belief in them. The most concrete form
in which the beUef has been urged has been by the Rev.
Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, in Perthshire.^ Another
theory of the origin of fairies I took down in the island of
Miunghlaidh (Minglay) ; and, though I have given it in
Carmina Gadelica, it is sufficiently interesting to be quoted
here. During October 1871, Roderick Macneill, known as
* Ruaraidh mac Dhomhuil, then ninety-two years of age,
told it in Gaelic to the late J. F. Campbell of Islay and the
writer, when they were storm-stayed in the precipitous
island of Miunghlaidh, Barra : —
* The Proud Angel fomented a rebellion among the angels
of heaven, where he had been a leading light. He declared
that he would go and found a kingdom for himself. When
going out at the door of heaven the Proud Angel brought
prickly lightning and biting lightning out of the doorstep
with his heels. Many angels followed him — so many that at
last the Son called out, " Father ! Father ! the city is being
emptied ! " whereupon the Father ordered that the gates
of heaven and the gates of hell should be closed. This was
instantly done. And those who were in were in, and those
who were out were out ; while the hosts who had left
heaven and had not reached hell flew into the holes of the
earth, like the stormy petrels. These are the Fairy Folk — ever
since doomed to live under the ground, and only allowed to
emerge where and when the King permits. They are never
allowed abroad on Thursday, that being Columba's Day ;
nor on Friday, that being the Son's Day ; nor on Saturday,
that being Mary's Day ; nor on Sunday, that being the
Lord's Day.
God be between me and every fairy.
Every ill wish and every druidry ;
To-day is Thursday on sea and land,
I trust in the King that they do not hear me.
* It was the belief of the Rev. Robert Kirk, as expressed by him in his
Secret Commonwealth of Elves^ Fauns, and Fairies, that the fairy tribes are
a distinct order of created beings possessing human-like intelligence and
supernormal powers, who live and move about in this world invisible to
all save men and women of the second-sight (see this study, pp. 89, 91 n).
86 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
On certain nights when their hruthain (bowers) are open
and their lamps are lit, and the song and the dance are
moving merrily, the fairies may be heard singing light-
heartedly : —
Not of the seed of Adam are we.
Nor is Abraham our father ;
But of the seed of the Proud Angel,
Driven forth from Heaven.'
The fairies entered largely into the lives and into the
folk-lore of the Highland people, and the following examples
of things named after the fairies indicate the manner in
which the fairies dominated the minds of the people of
Gaeldom : — teine sith, ' fairy fire * (ignis fatuus) ; hreaca
sith, ' fairy marks,' livid spots appearing on the faces of
the dead or dying ; marcachd shith, ' fairy riding,' paralysis
of the spine in animals, alleged to be brought on by the
fairy mouse riding across the backs of animals while they
are lying down ; piob shith, ' fairy pipe ' or * elfin pipe ',
generally found in ancient underground houses ; miaran na
mna sithe, ' the thimble of the fairy woman,' the fox-glove ;
lion na mna sithe, * lint of the fairy woman,' fairy flax, said
to be beneficial in certain illnesses ; and curachan na mna
sithe, ' coracle of the fairy woman,' the shell of the blue
valilla. In place-names sith, ' fairy,' is common. Glenshee,
in Perthshire, is said to have been full of fairies, but the
screech of the steam-whistle frightened them underground.
/ There is scarcely a district of the Highlands without its
fairy knoll, generally the greenest hillock in the place .\
* The black chanter of Clan Chattan ' is said to have been
given to a famous Macpherson piper by a fairy woman who
loved him ; and the Mackays have a flag said to have been
given to a Mackay by a fairy sweetheart. The well-known
fairy flag of Dunvegan is said to have been given to a Macleod
of Macleod by a fairy woman ; and the Macrimmons of
Bororaig, pipers to the Macleods of Macleod, had a chanter
called ^ Sionnsair airgid na mna sithe \ ' the silver chanter of
the fairy woman.* A family in North Uist is known as
Dubh-sitht ' Black fairy,' from a tradition that the family
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 87
had been familiar with the fairies in their secret flights and
nightly migrations.
Donald Macalastair, seventy-nine years of age, crofter,
Druim-a-ghinnir, Arran, told me, in the year 1895, the
following story in Gaelic : — * The fairies were dwelling
in the knoll, and they had a near neighbour who used to
visit them in their home. The man used to observe the
ways of the fairies and to do as they did. The fairies took
a journey upon them to go to Ireland, and the man took
upon him to go with them. Every single fairy of them
caught a ragwort and went astride it, and they were pell-mell,
every knee of them across the Irish Ocean in an instant, and
across the Irish Ocean was the man after them, astride
a ragwort like one of themselves. A little wee tiny fairy
shouted and asked were they all ready, and all the others
replied that they were, and the little fairy called out : —
My king at my head,
Going across in my haste,
On the crests of the waves,
To Ireland.
" Follow me," said the king of the fairies, and away they went
across the Irish Ocean, every mother's son of them astride his
ragwort. Macuga (Cook) did not know on earth how he would
return to his native land, but he leapt upon the ragwort as he
saw the fairies do, and he called as he heard them call, and in
an instant he was back in Arran. But he had got enough of the
fairies on this trip itself, and he never went with them again/
The fairies were wont to take away infants and their
mothers, and many precautions were taken to safeguard
them till purification and baptism took place, when the
fairy power became ineffective. Placing iron about the bed,
burning leather in the room, giving mother and child the
milk of a cow which had eaten of the mothan, pearl-wort
(Pinguicula vulgaris), a plant of virtue, and similar means
were taken to ensure their safety. If the watching-women
neglected these precautions, the mother or child or both
were spirited away to the fairy bower. Many stories are
current on this subject.
88 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Sometimes the fairies helped human beings with their
work, coming in at night to finish the spinning or the house-
work, or to thresh the farmer's corn or fan his grain. On
such occasions they must not be molested nor interfered
with, even in gratitude. If presented with a garment they
will go away and work no more. This method of getting
rid of them is often resorted to, as it is not easy always to
find work for them to do.
Bean chaol a chot uaine 's na gruaige buidhe, ' the slender
woman of the green kirtle and of the yellow hair,' is
wise of head and deft of hand. She can convert the white
water of the rill into rich red wine and the threads of the
spiders into a tartan plaid. From the stalk of the fairy reed
she can bring the music of the lull of the peace and of the
repose, however active the brain and lithe the limb ; and she
can rouse to mirth and merriment, and to the dance, men and
women, however dolorous their condition. From the bower
could be heard the pipe and the song and the voice of
laughter as the fairies ' sett ' and reeled in the mazes of the
dance. Sometimes a man hearing the merry music and
seeing the wonderful light within would be tempted to go
in and join them, but woe to him if he omitted to leave
a piece of iron at the door of the bower on entering, for the
cunning fairies would close the door and the man would find
no egress. There he would dance for years — but to him the
years were as one day — while his wife and family mourned
him as dead.
The flint arrow-heads so much prized by antiquarians are
called in the Highlands Saighead sith, fairy arrows. They
are said to have been thrown by the fairies at the sons and
daughters of men. The writer possesses one which was
thrown at his own maid-servant one night when she went
to the peatstack for peats. She was aware of something
whizzing through the silent air, passing through her hair,
grazing her ear and falling at her feet. Stooping in the
bright moonlight the girl picked up a fairy arrow !
* But faith is dead — such things do not happen now,' said
a courteous informant. If not quite dead it is almost dead.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 89
hastened by the shifting of population, the establishment of
means of communication, the influx of tourists, and the scorn
of the more materialistic of the incomers and of the people
themselves.
Edinburgh,
October 1910.
Aberfoyle, the Country of Robert Kirk
My first hunt for fairies in Scotland began at Aberfoyle,
where the Highlands and the Lowlands meet, and in the
very place where Robert Kirk, the minister of Aberfoyle,
was taken by them, in the year 1692. The minister spent
a large part of his time studying the ways of the ' good people *,
3,nd he must have been able to see them, for he was a seventh
son. Mrs. J. MacGregor, who keeps the key to the old
churchyard where there is a tomb to Kirk, though many say
there is nothing in it but a coffin filled with stones, told me
that Kirk was taken into the Fairy Knoll, which she pointed
to just across a little valley in front of us, and is there yet,
for the hill is full of caverns, and in them the * good people *
have their homes. And she added that Kirk appeared to
a relative of his after he was taken, and said that he was in
the power of the * good people ', and couldn't get away.
* But,' says he, * I can be set free if you will have my cousin
do what I tell him when I appear again at the christening
of my child in the parsonage.' According to Mr. Andrew
Lang, who reports the same tradition in more detail in his
admirable Introduction to The Secret Commonwealth, the
cousin was Grahame of Duchray, and the thing he was to do
was to throw a dagger over Kirk's head. Grahame was at
hand at the christening of the posthumous child, but was so
astonished to see Kirk appear as Kirk said he would, that he
did not throw the dagger, and so Kirk became a perpetual
prisoner of the * good people '.
After having visited Kirk's tomb, I called on the Rev.
William M. Taylor, the present successor of Kirk, and, as
we sat together in the very room where Kirk must have
written his Secret Commonwealth, he told me that tradition
90
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
reports Kirk as having been taken by the fairies while he
was walking on their hill, which is but a short way from
the parsonage. ' At the time of his disappearance, people
said he was taken because the fairies were displeased with
him for prying into their secrets. At all events, it seems
likely that Kirk was taken ill very suddenly with something
like apoplexy while on the Fairy Knoll, and died there.
I have searched the presbytery books, and find no record of
how Kirk's death really took place ; but of course there is
not the least doubt of his body being in the grave.' So
thus, according to Mr. Taylor, we are to conclude that if the
fairies carried off anything, it must have been the spirit or
soul of Kirk. I talked with others round Aberfoyle about
Kirk, and some would have it that his body and soul were
both taken, and that what was buried was no corpse at all.
Mrs. Margaret MacGregor, one of the few Gaelic speakers
of the old school left in Aberfoyle, holds another opinion,
for she said to me, ' Nothing could be surer than that the
good people took Kirk's spirit only.'
In the Aberfoyle country, the Fairy-Faith, save for the
stories about Kirk, which will probably persist for a long
time yet, is rapidly passing. In fact it is almost forgotten
now. Up to thirty years ago, as Mr. Taylor explained, before
the railway reached Aberfoyle, belief in fairies was much
more common. Nowadays, he says, there is no real fairy-
lore among the peasants ; fifty to sixty years ago there was.
And in his opinion, ' the fairy people of three hundred years
ago in Scotland were a distinct race by themselves. They
had never been human beings. The belief in them was
a survival of paganism, and not at all an outgrowth of
Christian belief in angelic hosts.'
A Scotch Minister's Testimony
A Protestant minister of Scotland will be our next wit-
ness. He is a native of Ross-shire, though he draws many
of his stories from the Western Hebrides, where his calling
has placed him. Because he speaks from personal know-
ledge of the living Fairy-Faith as it was in his boyhood and
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 91
is now, and chiefly because he has had the rare privilege of
conscious contact with the fairy world, his testimony is
of the highest value.
Reality of Fairies. — * When I was a boy I was a firm
believer in fairies ; and now as a Christian minister I believe
in the possibiHty and also the reality of these spiritual
orders, but I wish only to know those orders which belong
to the realm of grace. It is very certain that they exist.
I have been in a state of ecstasy, and have seen spiritual
beings which form these orders.^
* I believe in the actuality of evil spirits ; but people in
the Highlands having put aside paganism, evil spirits are
' not seen now.'
This explanation was offered of how fairies may exist and
yet be invisible : — * Our Saviour became invisible though
in the body ; and, as the Scriptures suggest, I suppose we
are obliged to concede a similar power of invisibility to
spirits as well, good and evil ones alike.'
Precautions against Fairies. — * I remember how an old
woman pulled me out of a fairy ring to save me from being
taken.
* If a mother takes some bindweed and places it burnt
at the ends over her babe's cradle, the fairies have no power
over the child. The bindweed is a common roadside
convolvulus.
' As a boy, I saw two old women passing a babe over red-
hot coals, and then drop some of the cinders in a cup of
water and give the water to the babe to drink, in order to
cure it of a fairy stroke.*
Fairy Fights on Halloween. — ' It is a common belief now
that on Halloween the fairies, or the fairy hosts, have fights.
* The Rev. Robert Kirk, in his Secret Commonwealth ^ defines the second-
sight, which enabled him to see the * good people ', as * a rapture, transport,
and sort of death '. He and our present witness came into the world
with this abnormal faculty ; but there is the remarkable case to record of
the late Father Allen Macdonald, who during a residence of twenty years
on the tiny and isolated Isle of Erisgey, Western Hebrides, acquired the
second-sight, and was able some years before he died there (in 1905) to
exercise it as freely as though he had been a natural-born seer.
92
THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Lichens on rocks after there has been a frost get yellowish-
red, and then when they thaw and the moisture spreads out
from them the rocks are a bright red ; and this bright red
is said to be the blood of the fairies after one of their battles.'
Fairies and the Hump-back. — The following story by the
present witness is curious, for it is the same story of a hump-
back which is so widespread. The fact that in Scotland the
hump is removed or added by fairies as it is in Ireland, in
Cornwall by pixies, and in Brittany by corrigans, goes far to
prove the essential identity of these three orders of beings.
The story comes from one of the remote Western Hebrides,
Benbecula : — * A man who was a hump-back once met the
fairies dancing, and danced with their queen ; and he sang
with them, " Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," so well that
they took off his hump, and he returned home a straight-
bodied man. Then a tailor went past the same place, and
was also admitted by the fairies to their dance. He caught
the fairy queen by the waist, and she resented his familiarity.
And in singing he added "Thursday " to their song and
spoilt it. To pay the tailor for his rudeness and ill manners,
the dancers took up the hump they had just removed from
the first man and clapped it on his back, and the conceited
fellow went home a hump-back.'
Libations to Fairies. — * An elder in my church knew a
woman who was accustomed, in milking her cows, to offer
libations to the fairies.^ The woman was later converted to
Christ and gave up the practice, and as a result one of her
cows was taken by the fairies. Then she revived the practice.
' The fairy queen who watches over cows is called Grua-
gach in the Islands, and she is often seen. In pouring
libations to her and her fairies various kinds of stones,
usually with hollows in them, are used.^
* In his note to Le Chant des Trepasses {Barzaz Breiz, p. 507), Villemarque
reports that in some localities in I>ower Brittany on All Saints Night
libations of milk are poured over the tombs of the dead. This is proof
that the nature of fairies in Scotland and of the dead in Brittany is
thought to be the same.
^ ' In many parts of the Highlands, where the same deity is known, the
stone into which women poured the libation of milk is called Leac na
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 93
* In Lewis libations are poured to the goddess [or god]
of the sea, called Shoney} in order to bring in seaweed.
Until modern times in lona similar libations were poured to
a god corresponding to Neptune.'
In the Highlands
I had the pleasure as well as the great privilege of setting
out from Inverness on a bright crisp September morning in
company with Dr. Alexander Carmichael, the well-known
folk-lorist of Scotland, to study the Fairy-Faith as it exists
now in the Highlands round Tomatin, a small country
village about twenty miles distant. We departed by an
early train ; and soon reaching the Tomatin country began
our search — Dr. Carmichael for evidence regarding rare and
curious Scotch beliefs connected with folk-magic, such as
blood-stopping at a distance and removing motes in the
eye at a distance, and I for Highland ghosts and fairies.
Our first experience was with an old man whom we met
on the road between the railway station and the post office,
who could speak only Gaelic. Dr. Carmichael talked with
him awhile, and then asked him about fairies, and he said
there were some living in a cave some way off, but as the
distance was rather too far we decided not to call on them.
Then we went on to see the postmaster, Mr. John Mac-
Dougall, and he told us that in his boyhood the country-folk
Gruagaich, "Flag-stone of the Gruagach." If the libation was omitted in
the evening, the best cow in the fold would be found dead in the morning.'
— Alexander Carmichael.
^ Dr. George Henderson, in The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland
(Glasgow, 1901), p. loi, says : — ' Shony was a sea-god in Lewis, where ale
was sacrificed to him at Hallowtide. After coming to the church of St.
Mulvay at night a man was sent to wade into the sea, saying : " Shony,
I give you this cup of ale hoping that you will be so kind as to give us
plenty of sea-ware for enriching our ground the ensuing year." As 6 from
Norse would become o, and /w becomes mm, one thinks of Sjofn, one of the
goddesses in the Edda. In any case the word is Norse.' It seems, there-
fore, that the Celtic stock in Lewis have adopted the name Shony or
Shoneyy and possibly also the god it designates, through contact with
Norsemen ; but, at all events, they have assimilated him to their own
fairy pantheon, as we can see in their celebrating special libations to him
on the ancient Celtic feast of the dead and fairies, Halloween,
94 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
round Tomatin believed thoroughly in fairies. He said
they thought of them as a race of spirits capable of making
themselves visible to mortals, as living in underground
places, as taking fine healthy babes and leaving changelings
in their place. These changelings would waste away and die
in a short time after being left. So firmly did the old people
believe in fairies then that they would ridicule a person for
not believing. And now quite the reverse state has come
about .^
The Testimony of John Dunbar of Invereen
We talked with other Highlanders in the country round
Tomatin, and heard only echoes, mostly fragmentary, of
what their forefathers used to believe about fairies. But at
Invereen we discovered John Dunbar, a Highlander, who
really knows the Fairy-Faith and is not ashamed to explain
it. Speaking partly from experience and partly from what
he has heard his parents relate concerning the * good people ',
he said : —
The Sheep and the Fairy-Hunting. — * I believe people saw
fairies, but I think one reason no one sees them now is
because every place in this parish where they used to appear
has been put into sheep, and deer, and grouse, and shooting.
According to tradition, Coig na Fearn is the place where the
last fairy was seen in this country. Before the big sheep
came, the fairies are supposed to have had a premonition
that their domains were to be violated by them. A story is
told of a fight between the sheep and fairies, or else of
the fairies hunting the sheep : — James MacQueen, who could
traffic with the fairies, whom he regarded as ghosts or spirits,
one night on his old place, which now is in sheep, was lying
down all alone and heard a small and big barking of dogs,
and a small and big bleating of sheep, though no sheep were
there then. It was the fairy-hunting he heard. " I put an
• • This, as Dr. Carmichael told me, I believe very justly represents the
present state of folk-lore in many parts of the Highlands. There are, it is
true, old men and women here and there who know much about fairies,
but they, fearing the ridicule of a younger and ' educated ' generation, are
generally unwilling to admit any belief in fairies.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 95
axe under my head and I had no fear therefore," he always
repeated when teUing the story. I beheve the man saw and
heard something. And MacQueen used to aid the fairies,
and on that account, as he was in the habit of saying, he
always found more meal in his chest than he thought
he had.'
Fairies. — * My grandmother believed firmly in fairies, and
I have heard her tell a good many stories about them. They
were a small people dressed in green, and had dwellings
underground in dry spots. Fairies were often heard in the
hills over there (pointing) , and I believe something was there.
They were awful for music, and used to be heard very often
playing the bagpipes. . A woman wouldn't go out in the dark
after giving birth to a child before the child was christened,
so as not to give the fairies power over her or the child.
And I have heard people say that if fairies were refused
milk and meat they would take a horse or a cow ; and that
if well treated they would repay all gifts.'
Time in Fairyland. — ' People would be twenty years in
Fairyland and it wouldn't seem more than a night. A bride-
groom who was taken on his wedding-day was in Fairyland
for many generations, and, coming back, thought it was next
morning. He asked where all the wedding-guests were, and
found only one old woman who remembered the wedding.*
Highland Legend of the Dead. — As I have found to be the
case in all Celtic countries equally, fairy stories nearly
always, in accordance with the law of psychology known as
* the association of ideas ', give place to or are blended
with legends of the dead. This is an important factor for
the Psychological Theory. And what follows proves the
same ideas to be present to the mind of Mr. Dunbar : —
* Some people after death are seen in their old haunts ; no ^
mistake about it. A bailiff had false corn and meal measures, ^^^^-^
and so after he died he came back to his daughter and told
her he could have no peace until the measures were burned.
She complied with her father's wish, and his spirit was never
seen again. I have known also of phantom funerals of people
who died soon afterwards being seen on the road at night.'
96 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
To THE Western Hebrides
From Inverness I began my journey to the Western
Hebrides. While I waited for the steamer to take me from
Kyle to the Isle of Skye, an old man with whom I talked on
the docks said this about Neill Mackintosh, of Black Island :—
* You can't argue with the old man that he hasn't seen fairies.
He can tell you all about them.'
Evidence from the Isle of Skye
Miss Frances Tolmie, who was born at Uignish, Isle of Skye,
and has lived many years in the isle in close touch with some
of its oldest folk, contributes, from Edinburgh, the evidence
which follows. The first two tales were told in the parish
of Minginish a number of years ago by Mary Macdonald,
a goat-herd, and have their setting in the region of the
Koolian ^ range of mountains on the west side of Skye.
The Fatal Peat Ember. — * An aged nurse who had fallen
fast asleep as she sat by the fire, was holding on her knees
a newly-born babe. The mother, who lay in bed gazing
dreamily, was astonished to see three strange little women
enter the dwelling. They approached the unconscious child,
and she who seemed to be their leader was on the point of
lifting it off the nurse's lap, when the third exclaimed : —
** Oh ! let us leave this one with her as we have already
taken so many ! " " So be it," replied the senior of the
party in a tone of displeasure, " but when that peat now
burning on the hearth shall be consumed, her life will surely
come to an end." Then the three little figures passed out.
The good wife, recognizing them to be fairies, sprang from
her bed and poured over the fire all the water she could find,
and extinguished the half-burnt ember. This she wrapped
* The following note by Miss Tolmie is of great interest and value,
especially when one bears in mind Cuchulainn's traditional relation with
Skye (see p. 4) : — ' The Koolian range should never be written Cu-chullin.
The name is written here with a K, to ensure its being correctly uttered
and written. It is probably a Norse word ; but, as yet, a satisfactory
explanation of its origin and meaning has not been published. In Gaelic
the range is always alluded to (in the masculine singular) as the Koolian.
GH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 97
carefully in a piece of cloth and deposited at the very bottom
of a large chest, which afterwards she always kept locked.
' Years passed, and the babe grew into a beautiful young
woman. In the course of time she was betrothed ; and,
according to custom, not appearing in public at church on
the Sunday preceding the day appointed for her marriage,
remained at home alone. To amuse herself, she began to
search the contents of all the keeping-places in the house,
and came at last to the chest containing the peat ember.
In her haste, the good mother had that day forgotten the
key of the chest, which was now in the lock. At the bottom
of the chest the girl found a curious packet containing
nothing but a morsel of peat, and this apparently useless
thing she tossed away into the fire. When the peat was well
kindled the young girl began to feel very ill, and when her
mother returned was dying. The open chest and the blazing
peat explained the cause of the calamity. The fairy's pre-
diction was fulfilled.'
Results of Refusing Fairy Hospitality. — ' Two women were
walking toward the Point when one of them, hearing churning
going on under a hillock, expressed aloud a wish for some butter-
milk. No sooner had she spoken than a very small figure of
a woman came out with a bowlful and offered it to her, but
the thirsty woman, ignorant of fairy customs and the penalty
attending their infringement, declined the kind offer of re-
freshment, and immediately found herself a prisoner in the
hillock. She was led to an apartment containing a chest full
of meal and a great bag of wool, and was told by the fairy
that when she had eaten all the meal and spun all the wool
she would be free to return to her home. The prisoner at
once set herself to eating and spinning assiduously, but with-
out apparent result, and despairing of completing the task
consulted an old man of very sad countenance who had long
been a captive in the hillock. He willingly gave her his
advice, which was to wet her left eye with saliva each morn-
ing before she settled down to her task. She followed this
advice, and gradually the wool and the meal were exhausted.
Then the fairy granted her freedom, but in doing so cursed
WENTZ H
98 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the old man, and said that she had it in her power to keep
him in the hillock for ever/
The Fairies' * Waulking' (Fulling). — * At Ebost, in Braca-
dale, an old woman was living in a little hut, with no com-
panion save a wise cat. As we talked, she expressed her
wonder that no fairies are ever seen or heard nowadays. She
could remember hearing her father tell how he, when a herd-
boy, had heard the fairies singing a "waulking" song in
Dun-Osdale, an ancient and ruined round tower in the
parish of Duirinish, and not far from Heleval mhor (great)
and Heleval bheag (less) — two hills occasionally alluded to
as " Macleod's Tables ". The youth was lying on the grass-
grown summit of the ruin, and heard them distinctly. As
if with exultation, one voice took the verse and then the
whole company joined in the following chorus : " Ho f
fir-e ! fair-e, foirm I Ho I Fair-eag-an an eld ! (Ho ! well
done ! Grand ! Ho ! bravo the web [of homespun] ! " *
Crodh Chailean, — ' This tale was related by Mr. Neil
Macleod, the bard of Skye : — " Colin was a gentleman of
Clan Campbell in Perthshire, who was married to a beautiful
maiden whom the fairies carried off on her marriage-day, and
on whom they cast a spell which rendered her invisible for a
day and a year. She came regularly every day to milk the cows
of her sorrowing husband, and sang sweetly to them while she
milked, but he never once had the pleasure of beholding her,
though he could hear perfectly what she sang. At the expiry
of the year she was, to his great joy, restored to him." ' ^
* Dr. Alexander Carmichael found that the scene of this widespread tale
is variously laid, in Argyll, in Perth, in Inverness, and in other counties
of the Highlands. From his own collection of folk-songs he contributes
the following verses to illustrate the song (existing in numerous versions),
which the maiden while invisible used to sing to the cows of Colin : —
Crodh Chailean ! crodh Chailean !
Crodh Chailean mo ghaoil,
Crodh Chailean mo chridhe.
Air lighe cheare fraoish.
(Cows of Colin ! cows of Colin I
Cows of Colin of my love.
Cows of Colin of my heart,
In colour of the heather-hen.)
In one of Dr. Carmichael's versions, ' Colin 's wife and her infant child had
been lifted away by the fairies to a fairy bower in the glen between the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 99
Fairy Legend of the Macleod Family. — * There is a legend
told of the Macleod family : — Soon after the heir of the
Macleods was born, a beautiful woman in wonderful raiment,
who was a fairy woman or banshee (there were joyous as
well as mourning banshees) appeared at the castle, and went
directly to the babe's cradle. She took up the babe and
chanted over it a series of verses, and each verse had its own
melody. The verses foretold the future manhood of the
young child, and acted as a protective charm over its life.
Then she put the babe back into its cradle, and, going out,
disappeared across the moorlands.
* For many generations it was a custom in the Macleod
family that whoever was the nurse of the heir must sing
those verses as the fairy woman had sung them. After
a time the song was forgotten, but at a later period it was
partially recovered, and to-day it is one of the proud folk-
lore heritages of the Macleod family.' ^
Origin and Nature of the Fairy-Faith, — Finally, with
respect to the origin and nature of the Scotch Fairy-Faith,
Miss Tolmie states : — * As a child I was not permitted to
hear about fairies. At twenty I was seeking and trying to
understand the beliefs of my fathers in the light of modern
ideas. I was very determined not to lose the past.
* The fairy-lore originated in a cultured class in very
ancient times. The peasants inherited it ; they did not
invent it. With the loss of Gaelic in our times came the
loss of folk-ideals. The classical and English influences com-
bined had a killing effect ; so that the instinctive religious
feeling which used to be among our people when they kept
alive the fairy-traditions is dead. We have intellectually-
constructed creeds and doctrines which take its place.
* We always thought of fairies as mysterious little beings
hills.' There she was kept nursing the babes which the fairies had stolen,
until ' upon Hallow Eve, when all the bowers were open ', Colin by
placing a steel tinder above the lintel of the door to the fairy bower was
enabled to enter the bower and in safety lead forth his wife and child.
* In this beautiful fairy legend we recognize the fairy woman as one of
the Tuatha De Danann-like fairies — one of the women of the Sidhe, as
Irish seers call them.
H2
roo THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
living in hills. They were capricious and irritable, but not
wicked. They could do a good turn as well as a bad one.
They were not aerial, but had bodies which they could make
invisible ; and they could make human bodies invisible in
the same way. Besides their hollow knolls and mounds there
seemed to be a subterranean world in which they also lived,
where things are like what they are in this world.'
The Isle of Barra,i Western Hebrides
We pass from Cuchulainn's beautiful island to what is
now the most Celtic part of Scotland — the Western Hebrides,
where the ancient life is lived yet, and where the people have
more than a faith in spirits and fairies. And no one of the
Western Hebrides, perhaps excepting the tiny island of
Erisgey, has changed less during the last five hundred years
than Barra. v^
Our Barra guide and interpreter, Michael Buchanan, a
native and a life-long resident of Barra, is seventy years
old, yet as strong and active as a city man at fifty. He
knows intimately every old man on the island, and as he
was able to draw them out on the subject of the ' good
people ' as no stranger could do, I was quite willing, as well
as obliged on account of the Scotch Gaelic, to let him act
* It is interesting to know that the present inhabitants of Barra, or at
least most of them, are the descendants of Irish colonists who belonged
to the clan Eoichidh of County Cork, and who emigrated from there to
Barra in A. d. 917, They brought with them their old customs and beliefs,
and in their isolation their children have kept these things alive in almost
their primitive Celtic purity. For example, besides their belief in fairies,
May Day, Baaltine, and November Eve are still rigorously observed in the
pagan way, and so is Easter — for it, too, before being claimed by Chris-
tianity, was a sun festival. And how beautiful it is in this age to see the
youths and maidens and some of the elders of these simple-hearted Chris-
tian fisher-folk climb to the rocky heights of their little island-home on
Easter morn to salute the sun as it rises out of the mountains to the east,
and to hear them say that the sun dances with joy that morning because
the Christ is risen. In a similar way they salute the new moon, making
as they do so the sign of the cross. Finn Barr is said to have been a County
Cork man of great sanctity ; and he probably came to Barra with the
colony, for he is the patron saint of the island, and hence its name. (To
my friend, Mr. Michael Buchanan, of Barra, I am indebted for this history
and these traditions of his native isle.)
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTf.AND 'id,!:
on my behalf in all my collecting on Barra. Mr. Buchanan
is the author of a little book called The MacNeils of Barra
Genealogy, published in the year 1902. He was the official
interpreter before the Commission of Inquiry which was
appointed by the British Parliament in 1883 to search into
the oppression of landlordism in the Highlands and Islands,
and he acted in the same capacity before the Crofters' Com-
mission and the Deer-Forest Commission. We therefore feel
perfectly safe in allowing him to present, before our jury
trying the Fairy-Faith, the evidence of the Gaelic-speaking
witnesses from Barra.
John MacNeil's Testimony
We met the first of the Barra witnesses on the top of
a rocky hill, where the road from Castlebay passes. He was
carrying on his back a sack of sand heavy enough for a
college athlete, and he an old man between seventy and
eighty years of age. Michael Buchanan has known John
MacNeil all his life, for they were boys together on the
island ; and there is not much difference between them in
age, our interpreter being the younger. Then the three of
us sat down on a grassy knoll, all the world like a fairy
knoll, though it was not ; and when pipes were lit and the
weather had been discussed, there was introduced the subject
of the * good people ' — all in Gaelic, for our witness now
about to testify knows no English — and what John MacNeil
said is thus interpreted by Michael Buchanan : —
A Fairy's Visit. — * Yes, I have ' (in answer to a question
if he had heard of people being taken by the ' good people ' or
fairies) . ' A fairy woman visited the house of a young wife
here in Barra, and the young wife had her baby on her breast
at the time. The first words uttered by the fairy woman
were, ** Heavy is your child ; " and the wife answered,
" Light is everybody who lives the longest." " Were it not
that you have answered my question," said the fairy
woman, " and understood my meaning, you should have
been less your child." And then the fairy woman departed.'
Fairy-Singing. — * My mother, and two other women well
> t
' / r
( f ■
• ♦ *.
• » *
ao2 . .' '-::'- ' TilE 1:IVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
known here in Barra, went to a hill one day to look after
their sheep, and, a thick fog coming on, they had to rest
awhile. They then sat down upon a knoll and began to
sing a walking (cloth- working) song, as follows : — " It is
early to-day that I have risen ; " and, as they sang, a fairy
woman in the rocks responded to their song with one of
her own.'
Nature of Fairies. — Then the question was asked if fairies
were men or spirits, and this is the reply : — * I never saw
any myself, and so cannot tell, but they must be spirits
from all that the old people tell about them, or else how
could they appear and disappear so suddenly ? The old
people said they didn't know if fairies were flesh and blood,
or spirits. They saw them as men of more diminutive
stature than our race. I heard my father say that fairies
used to come and speak to natural people, and then vanish
while one was looking at them. Fairy women used to go
into houses and talk and then vanish. The general belief
was that the fairies were spirits who could make themselves
seen or not seen at will. And when they took people they
took body and soul together.'
The Testimony of John Campbell, Ninety-four
Years Old
Our next witness from Barra is John Campbell, who is
ninety-four years old, yet clear-headed. He was born on
Barra at Sgalary, and lives near there now at Breuvaig. We
were on our way to call at his home, when we met him
coming on the road, with a cane in each hand and a small
sack hanging from one of them. Michael saluted him as an
old acquaintance, and then we all sat down on a big boulder
in the warm sunshine beside the road to talk. The first thing
John wanted was tobacco, and when this was supplied we
gradually led from one subject to another until he was
talking about fairies. And this is what he said about
them : —
The Fairy and the Fountain. — * I had a companion by the
name of James Galbraith, who was drowned about forty
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 103
years ago, and one time he was crossing from the west side
of the island to the east side, to the township called Sgalary,
and feeling thirsty took a drink out of a spring well on the
mountain- side. After he had taken a drink, he looked about
him and saw a woman clad in green, and imagined that no
woman would be clad in such a colour except a fairy woman.
He went on his way, and when he hadn't gone far, looked
back, and, as he looked, saw the woman vanish out of his
sight. He afterwards reported the incident at his father's
house in Sgalary, and his father said he also had seen a
woman clad in clothes of green at the same place some
nights before.'
A Stepson Pitied by the Fairies. — * I heard my father say
that a neighbour of his father, that is of my grandfather,
was married twice, and had three children from the first
marriage, and when married for the second time, a son and
daughter. His second wife did not seem to be kind enough
to the children of the first wife, neglecting their food and
clothing and keeping them constantly at hard work in the
fields and at herding.
' One morning when the man and his second wife were
returning from mass they passed the pasture where their
cows were grazing and heard the enjoyable skirrels of the
bagpipes. The father said, " What may this be ? " and
going off the road found the eldest son of the first wife
playing the bagpipes to his heart's pleasure ; and asked him
earnestly, " How did you come to play the bagpipes so
suddenly, or where did you get this splendid pair of bag-
pipes ? '* The boy replied, " An old man came to me while
I was in the action of roasting pots in a pit-fire and said,
' Your step-mother is bad to you and in ill-will towards
you.' I told the old man I was sensible that that was the
case, and then he said to me, * If I give you a trade will
you be inclined to follow it ? ' I said yes, and the old man
then continued, * How would you like to be a piper by
trade ? ' * I would gladly become a piper,' says I, ' but what
am I to do without the bagpipes and the tunes to play ? '
* I'll supply the bagpipes,' he said, * and as long as you have
104 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
them you'll never want for the most delightful tunes.* "
The male descendants of the boy in question were all famous
pipers thereafter, and the last of them was a piper to the
late Cluny MacPherson of Cluny.'
Nature of Fairies. — At this point, Michael turned the
trend of John's thoughts to the nature of fairies, with the
following result : — * The general belief of the people here
during my father's lifetime was that the fairies were more of
the nature of spirits than of men made of flesh and blood,
but that they so appeared to the naked eye that no difference
could be marked in their forms from that of any human
being, except that they were more diminutive. I have heard
my father say it was the case that fairy women used to take
away children from their cradles and leave different children
in their places, and that these children who were left would
turn out to be old men.
* At Barra Head, a fairy woman used to come to a man's
window almost every night as though looking to see if the
family was home. The man grew suspicious, and decided
the fairy woman was watching her chance to steal his wife,
so he proposed a plan. It was then and still is the custom
after thatching a house to rope it across with heather-spun
ropes, and, at the time, the man was busy spinning some of
them ; and he told his wife to take his place that night to
spin the heather-rope, and said he would take her spinning-
wheel. They were thus placed when the fairy woman made
the usual look in at the window, and she seeing that her
intention was understood, said to the man, ** You are your-
self at the spinning-wheel and your wife is spinning the
heather-rope."
*I have heard it said that the fairies live in knolls on
a higher level than that of the ground in general, and that
fairy songs are heard from the faces of high rocks. The
fairies of the air (the fairy or spirit hosts) are different from
those in the rocks. A man whom I've seen, Roderick Mac-
Neil, was lifted by the hosts and left three miles from where
he was taken up. The hosts went at about midnight. A
man awake at midnight is in danger. Cows and horses are
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 105
sometimes shot in place of men ' (and why, will be explained
by later witnesses).
Father MacDonald's Opinions. — We then asked about the
late Rev. Donald MacDonald, who had the reputation of
knowing all about fairies and spirits when he lived here in
these islands, and John said : — ' I have heard my wife say
that she questioned Father MacDonald, who was then a
parish priest here in Barra, and for whom she was a house-
keeper, if it was possible that such beings or spirits as fairies
were in existence. He said " Yes ", and that they were those
who left Heaven after the fallen angels ; and that those
going out after the fallen angels had gone out were so
numerous and kept going so long that St. Michael notified
Christ that the throne was fast emptying, and when Christ
saw the state of affairs he ordered the doors of Heaven to be
closed at once, saying as he gave the order, " Who is out is
out and who is in is in." And the fairies are as numerous
now as ever they were before the beginning of the world.*
(Cf. pp. 47, 53, 67, 76, 85, 109, 113, 116, 129, 154, 205, 212.)
Here we left John, and he, continuing on his way up the
mountain road in an opposite direction from us and round
a turn, disappeared almost as a fairy might.
An Aged Piper's Testimony
We introduce now as a witness Donald McKinnon, ninety-
six years old, a piper by profession ; and not only is he the
oldest man on Barra, but also the oldest man among all our
witnesses. He was born on the Island of South Uist, one of
the Western Hebrides north of Barra, and came to Barra in
1836, where he has lived ever since. In spite of being four
years less than a hundred in age, he greeted us very heartily,
and as he did not wish us to sit inside, for his chimney
happened not to be drawing very well, and was filling the
straw-thatched cottage with peat smoke, we sat down out-
side on the grass and began talking ; and as we came to
fairies this is what he said : —
Nature of Fairies. — ' I believe that fairies exist as a tribe
of spirits, and appear to us in the form of men and women.
io6 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
People who saw fairies can yet describe them as they appeared
dressed in green. No doubt there are fairies in other coun-
tries as well as here.
' In my experience there was always a good deal of differ-
ence between the fairies and the hosts. The fairies were
supposed to be living without material food, whereas the
hosts were supposed to be living upon their own booty.
Generally, the hosts were evil and the fairies good, though
I have heard that the fairies used to take cattle and leave
their old men rolled up in the hides. One night an old
witch was heard to say to the fairies outside the fold, ** We
cannot get anything to-night." The old men who were left
behind in the hides of the animals taken, usually disappeared
very suddenly. I saw two men who used to be lifted by the
hosts. They would be carried from South Uist as far south
as Barra Head, and as far north as Harris. Sometimes when
these men were ordered by the hosts to kill men on the road
they would kill instead either a horse or a cow ; for in that
way, so long as an animal was killed, the injunction of the
hosts was fulfilled.' To illustrate at this point the idea of
fairies, Donald repeated the same legend told by our former
witness, John Campbell, about the emptying of Heaven and
the doors being closed to keep the remainder of its popula-
tion in. Then he told the following story about fairies : —
The Fairy-Belt. — * I heard of an apprentice to carpentry
who was working with his master at the building of a boat,
a little distance from his house, and near the sea. He went
to work one morning and forgot a certain tool which he
needed in the boat-building. He returned to his carpenter-
shed to get it, and found the shed filled with fairy men and
women. On seeing him they ran away so greatly confused
that one of the women forgot her gird (belt), and he picked
it up. In a little while she came back for the gird, and asked
him to give it her, but he refused to do so. Thereupon she
promised him that he should be made master of his trade
wherever his lot should fall without serving further appren-
ticeship. On that condition he gave her the gird ; and rising
early next morning he went to the yard where the boat was
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 107
a-building and put in two planks so perfectly that when the
master arrived and saw them, he said to him, " Are you
aware of anybody being in the building-yard last night, for
I see by the work done that I am more likely to be an
apprentice than the person who put in those two planks,
whoever he is. Was it you that did it ? " The reply was
in the affirmative, and the apprentice told his master the
circumstances under which he gained the rapid mastership
of his trade.'
Across the Mountains
It was nearing sunset now, and a long mountain-climb
was ahead of us, and one more visit that evening, before we
should begin our return to Castlebay, and so after this story
we said a hearty good-bye to Donald, with regret at leaving
him. When we reached the mountain-side, one of the rarest
of Barra's sights greeted us. To the north and south in the
golden glow of a September twilight we saw the long line of
the Outer Hebrides like the rocky backbone of some sub-
merged continent. The scene and colours on the land and
ocean and in the sky seemed more like some magic vision,
reflected from Faerie by the * good people ' for our delight,
than a thing of our own world. Never was air clearer or sea
calmer, nor could there be air sweeter than that in the
mystic mountain-stillness holding the perfume of millions
of tiny blossoms of purple and white heather ; and as the
last honey-bees were leaving the beautiful blossoms their
humming came to our ears like low, strange music from
Fairyland.
Marian MacLean of Barra, and her Testimony
Our next witness to testify is a direct descendant of the
ancient MacNeils of Barra. Her name now is Marian Mac-
Lean ; and she lives in the mountainous centre of Barra at
Upper Borve. She is many years younger than the men who
have testified, and one of the most industrious women on the
island. It was already dark and past dinner-time when we
entered her cottage, and so, as we sat down before a blazing
peat-fire, she at once offered us some hot milk and biscuits.
io8 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
which we were only too glad to accept. And, as we ate, we
talked first about our hard climb in the darkness across the
mountains, and through the thick heather-bushes, and then
about the big rock which has a key-hole in it, for it contains
a secret entrance to a fairy palace. We had examined it in
the twilight as we came through the mountain pass which it
guards, and my guide Michael had assured me that more
than one islander, crossing at the hour we were, had seen
some of the fairies near it. We waited in front of the big
rock in hopes one might appear for our benefit, but, in spite
of our strong belief that there are fairies there, not a single
one would come out. Perhaps they came and we couldn't
see them ; who knows ?
Fairies and Fairy Hosts (* Sluagh ')} — * O yes,' Marian said,
as she heard Michael and myself talking over our hot milk,
' there are fairies there, for I was told that the Pass was a
notable fairy haunt.' Then I said through Michael, * Can you
tell us something about what these fairies are ? ' And from that
time, save for a few interruptions natural in conversation, we
listened and Marian talked, and told stories as follows : —
* Generally, the fairies are to be seen after or about sunset,
and walk on the ground as we do, whereas the hosts travel
in the air above places inhabited by people. The hosts used
to go after the fall of night, and more particularly about
midnight. You'd hear them going in fine weather against
a wind like a covey of birds. And they were in the habit of
lifting men in South Uist, for the hosts need men to help in
shooting their javelins from their bows against women in the
action of milking cows, or against any person working at
night in a house over which they pass. And I have heard
of good sensible men whom the hosts took, shooting a horse
or cow in place of the person ordered to be shot.
^ * Sluagh, " hosts," the spirit-world. The " hosts " are the spirits of
mortals who have died. . . . According to one informant, the spirits fly
about in great clouds, up and down the face of the world like the starlings,
and come back to the scenes of their earthly transgressions. No soul of
them is without the clouds of earth, dimming the brightness of the works
of God, nor can any win heaven till satisfaction is made for the sins of
earth.' — Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, ii. 330.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 109
' There was a man who had only one cow and one daughter.
The daughter was milking the cow at night when the hosts
were passing, and that human being whom the hosts had
lifted with them was her father's neighbour. And this
neighbour was ordered by the hosts to shoot the daughter
as she was milking, but, knowing the father and daughter, he
shot the cow instead. The next morning he went where the
father was and said to him, " You are missing the cow."
" Yes," said the father, " I am." And the man who had
shot the cow said, " Are you not glad your cow and not
your daughter was taken ? For I was ordered to shoot your
daughter and I shot your cow, in order to show blood on my
arrow." " I am very glad of what you have done if that
was the case," the father replied. " It was the case," the
neighbour said.
* My father and grandfather knew a man who was carried
by the hosts from South Uist here to Barra. I understand
when the hosts take away earthly men they require another
man to help them. But the hosts must be spirits. My
opinion is that they are both spirits of the dead and other
spirits not the dead. A child was taken by the hosts and
returned after one night and one day, and found at the back
of the house with the palms of its hands in the holes in the
wall, and with no life in its body. It was dead in the spirit.
It is believed that when people are dropped from a great
height by the hosts they are killed by the fall. As to fairies,
my firm opinion is that they are spirits who appear in the
shape of human beings.'
The question was now asked whether the fairies were
anything like the dead, and Marian hesitated about answer-
ing. She thought they were like the dead, but not to be
identified with them. The fallen-angel idea concerning fairies
was an obstacle she could not pass, for she said, * When the
fallen angels were cast out of Heaven God commanded
them thus : — " You will go to take up your abodes in
crevices, under the earth, in mounds, or soil, or rocks."
And according to this command they have been condemned
to inhabit the places named for a certain period of time, and
no THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
when it is expired before the consummation of the world,
they will be seen as numerous as ever/
Now we heard two good stories, the first about fairy
women spinning for a mortal, the second about a wonderful
changeling who was a magic musician : —
Fairy-Women Spinners. — ' I have heard my father,
Alexander MacNeil, who was well known to Mr. [Alexander]
Carmichael and to Mr. J. F. Campbell of Islay, say that his
father knew a woman in the neighbourhood who was in
a hurry to have her stock of wool spun and made into cloth,
and one night this woman secretly wished to have some
women to help her. So the following morning there appeared
at her house six or seven fairy women in long green robes,
all alike chanting, " A wool-card, and a spinning-wheel."
And when they were supplied with the instruments they
were so very desirous to get, they all set to work, and by
midday of that morning the cloth was going through the
process of the hand-loom. But they were not satisfied with
finishing the work the woman had set before them, but
asked for new employment. The woman had no more
spinning or weaving to be done, and began to wonder how
she was to get the women out of the house. So she went
into her neighbour's house and informed him of her position
in regard to the fairy women. The old man asked what they
were saying. " They are earnestly petitioning for some
work to do, and I have no more to give them/' the woman
repHed. ** Go you in,'* he said to her, " and tell them to
spin the sand, and if then they do not move from your
house, go out again and yell in at the door that Dun Borve
is in fire ! " The first plan had no effect, but immediately
on hearing the cry, ** Dun Borve is in fire ! " the fairy
women disappeared invisibly. And as they went, the woman
heard the melancholy wail, " Dun Borve is in fire ! Dun
Borve is in fire ! And what will become of our hammers
and anvil ? " — for there was a smithy in the fairy-dwelling.'
The Tailor and the Changeling. — * There was a young wife
of a young man who lived in the township of Allasdale, and
the pair had just had their first child. One day the mother
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND iii
left her baby in its cradle to go out and do some shearing,
and when she returned the child was crying in a most un-
usual fashion. She fed him as usual on porridge and milk,
but he wasn't satisfied with what seemed to her enough for
any one of his age, yet every suspicion escaped her attention.
As it happened, at the time there was a web of home-made
cloth in the house waiting for the tailor. The tailor came
and began to work up the cloth. As the woman was going
out to her customary shearing operation, she warned the
tailor if he heard the child continually crying not to pay
much attention to it, adding she would attend to it when
she came home, for she feared the child would delay him in
his work.
* All went well till about noon, when the tailor observed
the child rising up on its elbow and stretching its hand to
a sort of shelf above the cradle and taking down from it a
yellow chanter [of a bagpipe]. And then the child began to
play. Immediately after the child began to play the chanter,
the house filled with young fairy women all clad in long
green robes, who began to dance, and the tailor had to dance
with them. About two o'clock that same afternoon the
women disappeared unknown to the tailor, and the chanter
disappeared from the hands of the child also unknown to
the tailor ; and the child was in the cradle crying as usual.
* The wife came home to make the dinner, and observed
that the tailor was not so far advanced with his work as he
ought to be in that space of time. However, when the
fairy women disappeared, the child had enjoined upon the
tailor never to tell what he had seen. The tailor promised to
be faithful to the child's injunctions, and so he said nothing
to the mother.
* The second day the wife left for her occupation as usual,
and told the tailor to be more attentive to his work than the
day before. A second time at the same hour of the day
the child in the cradle, appearing more like an old man than
a child, took the chanter and began to play. The same
fairy women filled the house again, and repeated their
dance, and the tailor had to join them.
112 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
* Naturally the tailor was as far behind with his work the
second day as the first day, and it was very noticeable to
the woman of the house when she returned. She thereupon
requested him to tell her what the matter might be. Then
he said to her, " I urge upon you after going to bed to-night
not to fondle that child, because he is not your child, nor is
he a child : he is an old fairy man. And to-morrow, at dead
tide, go down to the shore and wrap him in your plaid and
put him upon a rock and begin to pick that shell-fish which
is called limpet, and for your life do not leave the shore
until such a time as the tide will flow so high that you will
scarcely be able to wade in to the main shore." The woman
complied with the tailor's advice, and when she had waded
to the main shore and stood there looking at the child on
the rock, it cried to her, " You had a great need to do what
you have done. Otherwise you'd have seen another ending
of your turn ; but blessing be to you and curses on your
adviser." When the wife arrived home her own natural
child was in the cradle.'
The Testimony of Murdoch MacLean
The husband of Marian MacLean had entered while the
last stories were being told, and when they were ended
the spirit was on him, and wishing to give his testimony he
began : —
Lachlann's Fairy Mistress. — ' My grandmother, Catherine
Maclnnis, used to tell about a man named Lachlann, whom
she knew, being in love with a fairy woman. The fairy
woman made it a point to see Lachlann every night, and he
being worn out with her began to fear her. Things got so
bad at last that he decided to go to America to escape the
fairy woman. As soon as the plan was fixed, and he was
about to emigrate, women who were milking at sunset out
in the meadows heard very audibly the fairy woman singing
this song: —
What will the brown-haired woman do
When Lachlann is on the billows ?
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 113
' Lachlann emigrated to Cape Breton, landing in Nova
Scotia ; and in his first letter home to his friends he stated that
the same fairy woman was haunting him there in America.' ^
Abduction 0/ a Bridegroom. — * I have heard it from old
people that a couple, newly married, were on their way to
the home of the bride's father, and for some unknown reason
the groom fell behind the procession, and seeing a fairy-
dwelling open along the road was taken into it. No one
could ever find the least trace of where he went, and all
hope of seeing him again was given up. The man remained
with the fairies so long that when he returned two genera-
tions had disappeared during the lapse of time. The town-
ship in which his bride's house used to be was depopulated
and in ruins for upwards of twenty years, but to him the
time had seemed only a few hours ; and he was just as
fresh and youthful as when he went in the fairy-dwelling.'
Nature of Fairies. — Previous to his story-telling Murdoch
had heard us discussing the nature and powers of fairies,
and at the end of this account he volunteered, without our
asking for it, an opinion of his own : — * This (the story just
told by him) leads me to believe that the spirit and body
[of a mortal] are somehow mystically combined by fairy
enchantment, for the fairies had a mighty power of enchant-
ing natural people, and could transform the physical body
in some way. It cannot be but that the fairies are spirits.
According to my thinking and belief they cannot be anything
but spirits. My firm belief, however, is that they are not
the spirits of dead men, but are the fallen angels.'
Then his wife Marian had one more story to add, and she
at once, when she could, began : —
The Messenger and the Fairies. — * Yes, I have heard the
* This curious tale suggests that certain of the fairy women who entice
mortals to their love in modern times are much the same, if not the same,
as the succubi of Middle-Age mystics. But it is not intended by this observa-
tion to confuse the higher orders of the Sidhe and all the fairy folk like
the fays who come from Avalon with succubi ; though succubi and fairy
women in general were often confused and improperly identified the one
with the other. It need not be urged in this example of a ' iairy woman '
that we have to do not with a being of flesh and blood, whatever various
readers may think of her.
WENTZ I
114 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
following incident took place here on the Island of Barra about
one hundred years ago : — A young woman taken ill suddenly
sent a messenger in all haste to the doctor for medicine. On
his return, the day being hot and there being five miles to
walk, he sat down at the foot of a knoll and fell asleep ; and
was awakened by hearing a song to the following air : " Ho,
ho, ho, hi, ho, ho. Ill it becomes a messenger on an im-
portant message to sleep on the ground in the open air."* '
And with this, for the hour was late and dark, and w^e
were several miles from Castlebay, we bade our good friends
adieu, and began to hunt for a road out of the little mountain
valley where Murdoch and Marian guard their cows and
sheep. And all the way to the hotel Michael and I discussed
the nature of fairies. Just before midnight we saw the
welcome lights in Castlebay across the heather-covered hills,
and we both entered the hotel to talk. There was a blazing
fire ready for us and something to eat. Before I took my
final leave of my friend and guide, I asked him to dictate
for me his private opinions about fairies, what they are and
how they appear to men, and he was glad to meet my
request. Here is what he said about the famous folk-lorist,
the late Mr. J. F. Campbell, with whom he often worked in
Barra, and for himself : —
Michael Buchanan's Deposition ' Concerning Fairies
' I was with the late Mr. J. F. Campbell during his first
and second tour of the Island of Barra in search of legendary
lore strictly connected with fairies, and I know from daily
conversing with him about fairies that he held them to be
spirits appearing to the naked eye of the spectator as any
of the present or former generations of men and women,
except that they were smaller in stature. And I know
equally that he, holding them to be spirits, thought they
could appear or disappear at will. My own firm belief is that
the fairies were or are only spirits which were or are seen in
the shape of human beings, but smaller as regards stature.
I also firmly believe in the existence of fairies as such ; and
accept the modern and ancient traditions respecting the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND 115
ways and customs of various fairy tribes, such as John
Mackinnon, the old piper, and John Campbell, and the
MacLeans told us. And I therefore have no hesitation in
agreeing with the views held by the late Mr. J. F. Campbell
regarding fairies.'
The Reciters* Lament, and their Story
The following material, so truly Celtic in its word-colour
and in the profound note of sadness and lamentation dominat-
ing it, may very appropriately conclude our examination of
the Fairy-Faith of Scotland, by giving us some insight into
the mind of the Scotch peasants of two generations ago, and
into the then prevailing happy social environment under
which their belief in fairies flourished. For our special use
Dr. Alexander Carmichael has rendered it out of the original
Gaelic, as this was taken down by him in various versions
in the Western Hebrides. One version was recited by Ann
Macneill, of Barra, in the year 1865, another by Angus
Macleod, of Harris, in 1877. In relation to their belief in
fairies the anti-clerical bias of the reciters is worth noting as
a curious phenomenon : —
' That is as I heard when a hairy little fellow upon the
knee of my mother. My mother was full of stories and
songs of music and chanting. My two ears never heard
musical fingers more preferable for me to hear than the
chanting of my mother. If there were quarrels among
children, as there were, and as there will be, my beloved
mother would set us to dance there and then. She herself
or one of the other crofter women of the townland would
sing to us the mouth-music. We would dance there till we
were seven times tired. A stream of sweat would be falling
from us before we stopped — hairful little lassies and stumpy
little fellows. These are scattered to-day ! scattered to-day
over the wide world ! The people of those times were full
of music and dancing stories and traditions. The clerics
have extinguished these. May ill befall them ! And what
have the clerics put in their place ? Beliefs about creeds,
I 2
ii6 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
and disputations about denominations and churches ! May
lateness be their lot ! It is they who have put the cross
round the heads and the entanglements round the feet
of the people. The people of the Gaeldom of to-day are
anear perishing for lack of the famous feats of their fathers.
The black clerics have suppressed every noble custom among
the people of the Gaeldom — precious customs that will
never return, no never again return.' (Now follows what
the Reciters heard upon the knee of their mother) : —
\* " I have never seen a man fairy nor a woman fairy, but
my mother saw a troop of them. She herself and the other
maidens of the townland were once out upon the summer
shelling (grazing) . They were milking the cows, in the even-
ing gloaming, when they observed a flock of fairies reeling
and setting upon the green plain in front of the knoll. And,
oh King ! but it was they the fairies themselves that had
the right to the dancing, and not the children of men !
Bell-helmets of blue silk covered their heads, and garments
of green satin covered their bodies, and sandals of yellow
membrane covered their feet. Their heavy brown hair was
streaming down their waist, and its lustre was of the fair
golden sun of summer. Their skin was as white as the swan of
the wave, and their voice was as melodious as the mavis of the
wood, and they themselves were as beauteous of feature and
as lithe of form as a picture, while their step was as light and
stately and their minds as sportive as the little red hind of the
hill. The damsel children of the sheiling-iold never saw sight
but them, no never sight but them, never aught so beautiful.
' " There is not a wave of prosperity upon the fairies of
the knoll, no, not a wave. There is no growth nor increase,
no death nor withering upon the fairies. Seed unfortunate
they ! They went away from the Paradise with the One of
the Great Pride. When the Father commanded the doors
closed down and up, the intermediate fairies had no alter-
native but to leap into the holes of the earth, where they
are, and where they will be."
* This is what I heard upon the knee of my beloved mother.
Blessings be with her ever evermore I '
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 117
IV. IN THE ISLE OF MAN
Introduction by Sophia Morrison, Hon. Secretary of the
Manx Language Society.
The Manx hierarchy of fairy beings people hills and glens,
caves and rivers, mounds and roads ; and their name
is legion. Apparently there is not a place in the island but
has its fairy legend. Sir Walter Scott said that the * Isle
of Man, beyond all other places in Britain, was a peculiar
depository of the fairy-traditions, which, on the Island being
conquered by the Norse, became in all probability chequered
with those of Scandinavia, from a source peculiar and more
direct than that by which they reached Scotland and
Ireland '.
A good Manxman, however, does not speak of fairies —
the word ferish, a corruption of the English, did not exist
in the island one hundred and fifty years ago. He talks of
* The Little People ' {Mooinjer veggey) , or, in a more familiar
mood, of * Themselves ', and of * Little Boys ' {Guillyn
veggey), or * Little Fellas*. In contradistinction to mortals
he calls them * Middle World Men *, for they are believed to
dwell in a world of their own, being neither good enough
for Heaven nor bad enough for Hell.
At the present moment almost all the older Manx peasants
hold to this belief in fairies quite firmly, but with a certain
dread of them ; and, to my knowledge, two old ladies of the
better class yet leave out cakes and water for the fairies
every night. The following story, illustrative of the belief,
was told to me by Bill Clarke : —
' Once while I was fishing from a ledge of rocks that runs
out into the sea at Lag-ny-Keilley, a dense grey mist began
to approach the land, and I thought I had best make for
home while the footpath above the rocks was visible. When
getting my things together I heard what sounded like a lot
of children coming out of school. I lifted my head, and
behold ye, there was a fleet of fairy boats each side of the
rock. Their riding-lights were shining hke little stars, and
I heard one of the Little Fellas shout, " Hraaghyn boght as
ii8 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
earish hroigh, skeddan dy liooar ec yn mooinjer seihll shoh,
cha net veg ain *' (Poor times and dirty weather, and herring
enough at the people of this world, nothing at us). Then
they dropped off and went agate o' the flitters.*
' Willy-the-Fairy,' as he is called, who lives at Rhenass,
says he often hears the fairies singing and playing up the
Glen o' nights. I have heard him sing airs which he said
he had thus learned from the Little People}
Again, there is a belief that at Keeill Moirrey (Mary's
Church), near Glen Meay, a little old woman in a red cloak
is sometimes seen coming over the mountain towards the
keeill, ringing a bell, just about the hour when church
service begins. Keeill Moirrey is one of the early little
Celtic cells, probably of the sixth century, of which nothing
remains but the foundations.
And the following prayer, surviving to our own epoch, is
most interesting. It shows, in fact, pure paganism ; and
we may judge from it that the ancient Manx people regarded
Manannan, the great Tuatha De Danann god, in his true
nature, as a spiritual being, a Lord of the Sea, and as belong-
ing to the complex fairy hierarchy. This prayer was given
to me by a Manxwoman nearly one hundred years old, who
is still living. She said it had been used by her grandfather,
and that her father prayed the same prayer — substituting
St. Patrick's name for Manannan's : —
Manannan beg mac y Leirr, fer vannee yn Elian,
Bannee shin as nyn maatey, mie goll magh
As cheet stiagh ny share lesh bio as marroo " sy vaatey ".
(Little Manannan son of Leirr, who blest our Island,
Bless us and our boat, well going out
And better coming in with living and dead [fish] in the
boat).
It seems to me that no one of the various theories so far
advanced accounts in itself for the Fairy-Faith. There is
* ' " Willy-the-Fairy," otherwise known as William Cain, is the musician
referred to by the late Mr. John Nelson (p. 131). The latter 's statement
that William Cain played one of these fairy tunes at one of our Manx
entertainments in Peel is perfectly correct.' — Sophia Morrison.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 119
always a missing factor, an unknown quantity which has
yet to be discovered. No doubt the Pygmy Theory explains
a good deal. In some countries a tradition has been handed
down of the times when there were races of diminutive men
in existence — beings so small that their tiny hands could
have used the flint arrow-heads and scrapers which are like
toys to us. No such tradition exists at the present day in
the Isle of Man, but one might have filtered down from the
far-off ages and become innate in the folk-memory, and now,
unknown to the Manx peasant, may possibly suggest to his
mind the troops of Little People in the shadowy glen or on
the lonely mountain-side. Again, the rustling of the leaves
or the sough of the wind may be heard by the peasant as
strange and mysterious voices, or the trembling shadow of
a bush may appear to him as an unearthly being. Natural
facts, explainable by modern science, may easily remain
dark mysteries to those who live quiet lives close to Nature,
far from sophisticated towns, and whose few years of school-
ing have left the depths of their being undisturbed, only, as
it were, ruffling the shallows.
But this is not enough. Even let it be granted that nine
out of every ten cases of experiences with fairies can be
analysed and explained away — there remains the tenth. In
this tenth case one is obliged to admit that there is some-
thing at work which we do not understand, some force in
play which, as yet, we know not. In spite of ourselves we
feel * There 's Powers that 's in '. These Powers are not
necessarily what the superstitious call * supernatural '. We
realize now that there is nothing supernatural — that what
used to be so called is simply something that we do not
understand at present. Our forefathers would have thought
the telephone, the X-rays, and wireless telegraphy things
* supernatural '. It is more than possible that our descen-
dants may make discoveries equally marvellous in the realms
both of mind and matter, and that many things, which
nowadays seem to the materialistically-minded the creations
of credulous fancy, may in the future be understood and
recognized as part of the one great scheme of things.
120 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Some persons are certainly more susceptible than others
to these unknown forces. Most people know reliable
instances of telepathy and presentiment amongst their
acquaintances. It seems not at all contrary to reason that
both matter and mind, in knowledge of which we have not
gone so very far after all, may exist in forms as yet entirely
unknown to us. After all, beings with bodies and per-
sonalities different from our own may well inhabit the
unseen world around us : the Fairy Hound, white as driven
snow, may show himself at times among his mundane com-
panions ; Fenodyree may do the farm-work for those whom
he favours ; the Little People may sing and dance o' nights
in Colby Glen. Let us not say it is ' impossible '.
Peel, Isle of Man,
September 1910.
On the Slopes of South Barrule
I was introduced to the ways and nature of Manx fairies
in what is probably the most fairy-haunted part of the isle —
the southern slopes of South Barrule, the mountain on whose
summit Manannan is said to have had his stronghold, and
whence he worked his magic, hiding the kingdom in dense
fog whenever he beheld in the distance the coming of an
enemy's ship or fleet. And from a representative of the
older generation, Mrs. Samuel Leece, who lives at Balla-
modda, a pleasant village under the shadow of South
Barrule, I heard the first story : —
Baby and Table Moved by Fairies. — ' I have been told of
their (the fairies') taking babies, though I can't be sure it is
true. But this did happen to my own mother in this parish
of Kirk Patrick about eighty years since : She was in bed
with her baby, but wide awake, when she felt the baby
pulled off her arm and heard the rush of them. Then she
mentioned the Almighty's name, and, as they were hurrying
away, a httle table alongside the bed went round about the
floor twenty times. Nobody was in the room with my
mother, and she always allowed it was the little fellows.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 121
Manx Tales in a Snow-bound Farm-house
When our interesting conversation was over, Mrs. Leece
directed me to her son's farm-house, where her husband,
Mr. Samuel Leece, then happened to be ; and going there
through the snow-drifts, I found him with his son and the
family within. The day was just the right sort to stir Manx
memories, and it was not long before the best of stories
about the * little people ' were being told in the most natural
way, and to the great delight of the children. The grand-
father, who is eighty-six years of age, sat by the open fire
smoking ; and he prepared the way for the stories (three of
which we record) by telling about a ghost seen by himself
and his father, and by the announcement that * the fairies
are thought to be spirits '.
Under ' Fairy ' Control. — ' About fifty years ago,* said
Mr. T. Leece, the son, * Paul Taggart, my wife's uncle, a
tailor by trade, had for an apprentice, Humphrey Keggan,
a young man eighteen or nineteen years of age ; and it often
happened that while the two of them would be returning
home at nightfall, the apprentice would suddenly disappear
from the side of the tailor, and even in the midst of a con-
versation, as soon as they had crossed the burn in the field
down there (indicating an adj oining field) . And Taggart could
not see nor hear Humphrey go. The next morning Humphrey
would come back, but so worn out that he could not work,
and he always declared that little men had come to him in
crowds, and used him as a horse, and that with them he
had travelled all night across fields and over hedges.' The
wife of the narrator substantiated this strange psychological
story by adding : — * This is true, because I know my Uncle
Paul too well to doubt what he says.' And she then related
the two following stories : —
Heifer Killed by Fairy Woman's Touch. — * Aunt Jane was
coming down the road on the other side of South Barrule
when she saw a strange woman ' (who Mr. T. Leece
suggested was a witch) * appear in the middle of the gorse
and walk right over the gorse and heather in a place where
122 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
no person could walk. Then she observed the woman go
up to a heifer and put her hand on it ; and within a few
days that heifer was dead.'
The Fairy Dog. — ' This used to happen about one hundred
years ago, as my mother has told me : — Where my grand-
father John Watterson was reared, just over near Kerroo
Kiel (Narrow Quarter) , all the family were sometimes sitting
in the house of a cold winter night, and my great grand-
mother and her daughters at their wheels spinning, when
a little white dog would suddenly appear in the room. Then
every one there would have to drop their work and prepare
for the company to come in : they would put down a fire and
leave fresh water for them, and hurry off upstairs to bed.
They could hear them come, but could never see them, only
the dog. The dog was a fairy dog, and a sure sign of their
coming.'
Testimony of a Herb-Doctor and Seer
At Ballasalla I was fortunate enough to meet one of the
most interesting of its older inhabitants, John Davies, a
Celtic medicine-man, who can cure most obstinate maladies
in men or animals with secret herbs, and who knows very
much about witchcraft and the charms against it. * Witches
are as common as ducks walking barefooted,' he said, using
the duck simile, which is a popular Manx one ; and he cited
two particular instances from his own experience. But for
us it is more important to know that John Davies is also an
able seer. The son of a weaver, he was born in County Down,
Ireland, seventy-eight years ago ; but in earliest boyhood
he came with his people to the Isle of Man, and grew up in
the country near Ramsay, and so thoroughly has he identified
himself with the island and its lore, and even with its ancient
language, that for our purposes he may well be considered a
Manxman. His testimony about Manx fairies is as follows : —
Actual Fairies Described, — * I am only a poor ignorant
man ; when I was married I couldn't say the word " matri-
mony " in the right way. But one does not have to be
educated to see fairies, and I have seen them many a time.
CH. IT TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 123
I have seen them with the naked eye as numerous as I have
seen scholars coming out of Ballasalla school ; and I have
been seeing them since I was eighteen to twenty years of
age. The last one I saw was in Kirk Michael. Before
education came into the island more people could see the
fairies ; now very few people can see them. But they (the
fairies) are as thick on the Isle of Man as ever they were.
They throng the air, and darken Heaven, and rule this lower
world. It is only twenty-one miles from this world up to
the first heaven.^ There are as many kinds of fairies as
populations in our world. I have seen some who were about
two and a half feet high ; and some who were as big as we
are. I think very many such fairies as these last are the
lost souls of the people who died before the Flood. At the
Flood all the world was drowned ; but the Spirit which God
breathed into Adam will never be drowned, or burned, and
it is as much in the sea as on the land. Others of the fairies
are evil spirits : our Saviour drove a legion of devils into
a herd of swine ; the swine were choked, but not the devils.
You can't drown devils ; it is spirits they are, and just like
a shadow on the wall.' I here asked about the personal
aspects of most fairies of human size, and my friend said : —
' They appear to me in the same dress as in the days when
they lived here on earth ; the spirit itself is only what God
< blew into Adam as the breath of life.'
- It seems to me that, on the whole, John Davies has had
genuine visions, but that whatever he may have seen has
been very much coloured in interpretation by his devout
knowledge of the Christian Bible, and by his social environ-
ment, as is self-evident.
Testimony of a Ballasalla Manxwoman
A well-informed Manxwoman, of Ballasalla, who lives in
the ancient stone house wherein she was born, and in which
before her lived her grandparents, offers this testimony : —
Concerning Fairies. — * I've heard a good deal of talk
* This is the Mid-world of Irish seers, who would be inclined to follow
the Manx custom and call the fairies ' the People of the Middle World '.
124 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
about fairies, but never believed in them myself; the old
people thought them the ghosts of the dead or some such
things. They were like people who had gone before (that is,
dead). If there came a strange sudden knock or noises, or
if a tree took a sudden shaking when there was no wind,
people used to make out it was caused by the fairies. On
the nth of May ^ we used to gather mountain-ash (Cuini)
with red berries on it, and make crosses out of its sprigs, and
put them over the doors, so that the fairies would not come
in. My father always saw that this was done ; he said we
could have no luck during the year if we forgot to do it.'
Testimony Given in a Joiner's Shop
George Gelling, of Ballasalla, a joiner, has a local reputa-
tion for knowing much about the fairies, and so I called on
him at his workshop. This is what he told me : —
Seeing the Fairies. — ' I was making a coffin here 4n the
shop, and, after tea, my apprentice was late returning ; he
was out by the hedge just over there looking at a crowd of
little people kicking and dancing. One of them came up and
asked him what he was looking at ; and this made him run
back to the shop. When he described what he had seen,
I told him they were nothing but fairies.'
Hearing Fairy Music. — ' Up by the abbey on two different
occasions I have heard the fairies. They were playing tunes
not of this world, and on each occasion I listened for nearly
an hour.'
Micklehy and the Fairy Woman. — * A man named Mickleby
was coming from Derbyhaven at night, when by a certain
* ' May 1 1 =in Manx Oie Voaldyn, " May-day Eve." On this evening the
fairies were supposed to be peculiarly active. To propitiate them and to
ward off the influence of evil spirits, and witches, who were also active at
this time, green leaves or boughs and sumark or primrose flowers were
strewn on the threshold, and branches of the cuirn or mountain ash made
into small crosses without the aid of a knife, which was on no account to
be used (steel or iron in any form being taboo to fairies and spirits), and
stuck over the doors of the dwelling-houses and cow-houses. Cows were
further protected from the same influences by having the Bollan-feaill-
Eoin (John's feast wort) placed in their stalls. This was also one of the
occasions on which no one would give fire away, and on which fires were
and are still lit on the hills to drive away the fairies.' — Sophia Morrison.
CH. 11 TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 125
stream he met two ladies. He saluted them, and then
walked along with them to Ballahick Farm. There he saw
a house lit up, and they took him into it to a dance. As he
danced, he happened to wipe away his sweat with a part of
the dress of one of the two strange women who was his
partner. After this adventure, whenever Mickleby was
lying abed at night, the woman with whom he danced
would appear standing beside his bed. And the only way
to drive her away was to throw over her head and Mickleby
a linen sheet which had never been bleached.'
Nature of Fairies. — * The fairies are spirits. I think they
are in this country yet : A man below here forgot his cow,
and at a late hour went to look for her, and saw that crowds
of fairies like little boys were with him. [St.] Paul said that
spirits are thick in the air, if only we could see them ; and
we call spirits fairies. I think the old people here in the
islancT thought of fairies in the same way.*
The Fairies' Revenge. — ^William Oates now happened to
come into the workshop, and being as much interested in
the subject under discussion as ourselves, offered various
stories, of which the following is a type : — ' A man named
Watterson, who used often to see the fairies in his house at
Colby playing in the moonlight, on one occasion heard them
coming just as he was going to bed. So he went out to
the spring to get fresh water for them ; and coming into the
house put the can down on the floor, saying, *' Now, little
beggars, drink away." And at that (an insult to the fairies)
the water was suddenly thrown upon him.'
A Vicar's Testimony
When I called on the Rev. J. M. Spicer, vicar of Malew
parish, at his home near Castletown, he told me this very
curious story : —
The Taking of Mrs. K . — ' The belief in fairies is quite
a living thing here yet. For example, old Mrs. K ,
about a year ago, told me that on one occasion, when her
daughter had been in Castletown during the day, she went
out to the road at nightfall to see if her daughter was yet
126 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
in sight, whereupon a whole crowd of fairies suddenly sur-
rounded her, and began taking her off toward South Barrule
Mountain ; and, she added, " I couldn't get away from them
until I had called my son." *
A Canon's Testimony
I am greatly indebted to the Rev. Canon Kewley, of
Arbory, for the valuable testimony which follows, and
especially for his kindness in allowing me to record what is
one of the clearest examples of a collective hallucination
I have heard about as occurring in the fairy-haunted regions
of Celtic countries : —
A Collective Hallucination. — * A good many things can be
explained as natural phenomena, but there are some things
which I think cannot be. For example, my sister and myself
and our coachman, and apparently the horse, saw the same
phenomenon at the same moment : one evening we were
driving along an avenue in this parish when the avenue
seemed to be blocked by a great crowd of people, like a
funeral procession ; and the crowd was so dense that we
could not see through it. The throng was about thirty to
forty yards away. When we approached, it melted away,
and no person was anywhere in sight.'
The Manx Fairy-Faith. — * Among the old people of this
parish there is still a belief in fairies. About eighteen years
ago, I buried a man, a staunch Methodist, who said he once
saw the road full of fairies in the form of little black pigs,
and that when he addressed them, " In the name of God
what are ye ? " they immediately vanished. He was certain
they were the fairies. Other old people speak of the fairies
as the little folk. The tradition is that the fairies once in-
habited this island, but were banished for evil-doing. The
elder-tree, in Manx tramman, is supposed to be inhabited by
fairies. Through accident, one night a woman ran into such
a tree, and was immediately stricken with a terrible swelling
which her neighbours declared came from disturbing the
fairies in the tree. This was on the borders of Arbory
parish.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 127
The Canon favours the hypothesis that in much of the
folk-beUef concerning fairies and Fairyland there is present
an instinct, as seen among all peoples, for communion with
the other world, and that this instinct shows itself in another
form in the Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints.
Fairy Tales on Christmas Day
The next morning, Christmas morning, I called at the
picturesque roadside home of Mrs. Dinah Moore a Manx-
woman living near Glen Meay ; and she contributed the best
single collection of Manx folk-legends I discovered on the
island. The day was bright and frosty, and much snow still
remained in the shaded nooks and hollows, so that a seat
before the cheerful fire in Mrs. Moore's cottage was very
comfortable ; and with most work suspended for the ancient
day of festivities in honour of the Sun, re-born after its
death at the hands of the Powers of Darkness, all conditions
were favourable for hearing about fairies, and this may
explain why such important results were obtained.
Fairy Deceit. — ' I heard of a man and wife who had no
children. One night the man was out on horseback and
heard a little baby crying beside the road. He got off his
horse to get the baby, and, taking it home, went to give it
to his wife, and it was only a block of wood. And then the
old fairies were outside yelling at the man : ** Eash un oie,
s' cheap t'ou mollit ! " (Age one night, how easily thou art
deceived 1).*
A Midwife s Strange Experience. — * A strange man took
a nurse to a place where a baby^boy was born. After the
birth, the man set out on a table two cakes, one of them
broken and the other one whole, and said to the nurse :
** Eat, eat ; but don't eat of the cake which is broken nor
of the cake which is whole." And the nurse said : " What
in the name of the Lord am I going to eat ? " At that all
the fairies in the house disappeared ; and the nurse was left
out on a mountain-side alone.'
A Fairy-Baking. — * At night the fairies came into a house
in Glen Rushen to bake. The family had put no water out
128 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
for them ; and a beggar-man who had been left lodging on
the sofa downstairs heard the fairies say, " We have no
water, so we'll take blood out of the toe of the servant who
forgot our water/' And from the girl's blood they mixed
their dough. Then they baked their cakes, ate most of
them, and poked pieces up under the thatched roof. The
next day the servant-girl fell ill, and was ill until the old
beggar-man returned to the house and cured her with a bit
of the cake which he took from under the thatch.'
A Changeling Musician. — * A family at Dalby had a poor
idiot baby, and when it was twenty years old it still sat by
the fire just like a child. A tailor came to the house to work
on a day when all the folks were out cutting corn, and the
idiot was left with him. The tailor began to whistle as he
sat on the table sewing, and the little idiot sitting by the fire
said to him : "If you'll not tell anybody when they come
in, I'll dance that tune for you." So the little fellow began
to dance, and he could step it out splendidly. Then he said
to the tailor : "If you'll not tell anybody when they come
in, I'll play the fiddle for you." And the tailor and the idiot
spent a very enjoyable afternoon together. But before the
family came in from the fields, the poor idiot, as usual, was
sitting in a chair by the fire, a big baby who couldn't hardly
talk. When the mother came in she happened to say to
the tailor, " You've a fine chap here," referring to the idiot.
" Yes, indeed," said the tailor, " we've had a very fine
afternoon together ; but I think we had better make a good
fire and put him on it." " Oh ! " cried the mother, " the
poor child could never even walk." " Ah, but he can dance
and play the fiddle, too," replied the tailor. And the fire
was made ; but when the idiot saw that they were for
putting him on it he pulled from his pocket a ball, and this
ball went rolling on ahead of him, and he, going after it,
was never seen again.' After this strange story was finished
I asked Mrs. Moore where she had heard it, and she said : —
* I have heard this story ever since I was a girl. I knew
the house and family, and so did my mother. The family's
name was Cubbon.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 129
The Fenodyrees (or * Phynnodderee's ') Disgust. — * During
snowy weather, like this, the Fenodyree would gather in the
sheep at night ; and during the harvest season would do the
threshing when all the family were abed. One time, how-
ever, just over here at Gordon Farm, the farmer saw him,
and he was naked ; and so the farmer put out a new suit of
clothes for him. The Fenodyree came at night, and looking
at the clothes with great disgust at the idea of wearing such
things, said : —
Bayrn da'n chione, doogh da'n chione,
Cooat da'n dreeym, doogh da'n dreeym,
Breechyn da'n toin, doogh da'n toin,
Agh my she Ihiat Gordon mooar,.
Cha nee Ihiat Glion reagh Rushen.
(Cap for the head, alas ! poor head,
Coat for the back, alas ! poor back.
Breeches for the breech, alas ! poor breech.
But if big Gordon [farm] is thine.
Thine is not the merry Glen of Rushen.) ^
And off he went to Glen Rushen for good.'
Testimony from the Keeper of Peel Castle
From Mrs. Moore's house I walked on to Peel, where
I was fortunate in meeting, in his own home, Mr. William
Cashen, the well-known keeper of the famous old Peel Castle,
within whose yet solid battlements stands the one true
round tower outside of Ireland. I heard first of all about
the fairy dog — the Moddey Doo (Manx for Black Dog) — which
haunts the castle ; and then Mr. Cashen related to me the
following anecdotes and tales about Manx fairies : —
Prayer against the Fairies. — * My father's and grand-
father's idea was that the fairies tumbled out of the battle-
ments of Heaven, falling earthward for three days and three
nights as thick as hail ; and that one third of them fell into
^ I am wholly indebted to Miss Morrison for these Manx verses and their
translation, which I have substituted for Mrs. Moore's English rendering.
Miss Morrison, after my return to Oxford, saw Mrs. Moore and took them
down from her, a task I was not well fitted to do when the tale was told.
VVENTZ K
130 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the sea, one third on the land, and one third remained in
the air, in which places they will remain till the Day of
Judgement. The old Manx people always believed that this
fall of the fairies was due to the first sin, pride ; and here is
their prayer against the fairies : — " Jee sane mee voish cloan
ny moyrn " (God preserve me from the children of pride [or
ambition])/
A Man's Two Wives. — * A Ballaleece woman was captured
by the fairies ; and, soon afterwards, her husband took a new
wife, thinking the first one gone for ever. But not long after
the marriage, one night the first wife appeared to her former
husband and said to him, and the second wife overheard
her : '' You'll sweep the barn clean, and mind there is not
one straw left on the floor. Then stand by the door, and at
a certain hour a company of people on horseback will ride
in, and you lay hold of that bridle of the horse I am on, and
don't let it go." He followed the directions carefully, but
was unable to hold the horse : the second wife had put some
straw on the barn floor under a bushel.'
Sounds of Infinity. — * On Dalby Mountain, this side of
Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa the old Manx people used to put their
ears to the earth to hear the Sounds of Infinity (Sheean-ny-
Feaynid), which were sounds like murmurs. They thought
these sounds came from beings in space ; for in their belief
all space is filled with invisible beings.' ^
To THE Memory of a Manx Scholar
Since the following testimony was written down, its
author, the late Mr. John Nelson, of Ramsey, has passed
out of our realm of life into the realm invisible. He was
one of the few Manxmen who knew the Manx language
really well, and the ancient traditions which it has preserved
* It has been suggested, and no doubt correctly, that these murmuring
sounds heard on Dalby Mountain axe due to the action of sea-waves, close
at hand, washing over shifting masses of pebbles on the rock-bound shore.
Though this be the true explanation of the phenomenon itself, it only
proves the attribution of cause to be wrong, and not the underlying
animistic conception of spiritual beings.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 131
both orally and in books. In his kindly manner and with
fervent loyalty toward all things Celtic, he gave me leave,
during December 1909, to publish for the first time the
interesting matter which follows ; and, with reverence, we
here place it on record to his memory : —
A Blinding by Fairies. — ' My grandfather, William Nelson,
was coming home from the herring fishing late at night, on
the road near Jurby, when he saw in a pea-field, across a
hedge, a great crowd of little fellows in red coats dancing
and making music. And as he looked, an old woman from
among them came up to him and spat in his eyes, saying :
" You'll never see us again " ; and I am told that he was
blind afterwards till the day of his death. He was certainly
blind for fourteen years before his death, for I often had to
lead him around ; but, of course, I am unable to say of my
own knowledge that he became blind immediately after his
strange experience, or if not until later in life ; but as a
young man he certainly had good sight, and it was believed
that the fairies destroyed it.*
The Fairy Tune. — * William Cain, of Glen Helen (formerly
Rhenass), was going home in the evening across the moun-
tains near Brook's Park, when he heard music down below
in a glen, and saw there a great glass house like a palace, all
lit up. He stopped to listen, and when he had the new tune
he went home to practise it on his fiddle ; and recently he
played the same fairy tune at Miss Sophia Morrison's Manx
entertainment in Peel.'
Manannan the Magician. — Mr. Nelson told a story about
a Buggane or Fenodyree, such as we already have, and
explained the Glashtin as a water-bull, supposed to be
a goblin half cow and half horse, and then offered this
tradition about Manannan : — ' It is said that Manannan
was a great magician, and that he used to place on the sea
pea-shells, held open with sticks and with sticks for masts
standing up in them, and then so magnify them that enemies
beheld them as a strong fleet, and would not approach the
island. Another tradition is that Manannan on his three
legs (the Manx coat of arms) could travel from one end to
K 2
132 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the other of his isle with wonderful swiftness, moving Hke
a wheel.' ^
Testimony of a Farmer and Fisherman
From the north of the island I returned to Peel, where
I had arranged to meet new witnesses, and the first one of
these is James Caugherty, a farmer and fisherman, born in
Kirk Patrick fifty-eight years ago, who testified (in part) as
follows : —
Churn Worked by Fairies. — ' Close by Glen Cam (Winding
Glen), when I was a boy, our family often used to hear the
empty churn working in the churn-house, when no person
was near it, and they would say, " Oh, it 's the little fellows." '
A Remarkable Changeling Story. — * Forty to fifty years
ago, between St. John's and Foxdale, a boy, with whom
I often played, came to our house at nightfall to borrow
some candles, and while he was on his way home across the
hills he suddenly saw a little boy and a little woman coming
after him. If he ran, they ran, and all the time they gained
on him. Upon reaching home he was speechless, his hands
were altered (turned awry), and his feet also, and his finger-
nails had grown long in a minute. He remained that way
a week. My father went to the boy's mother and told her it
wasn't Robby at all that she saw ; and when my father was
for taking the tongs and burning the boy with a piece of
glowing turf [as a changeling test], the boy screamed awfully.
Then my father persuaded the mother to send a messenger
to a doctor in the north near Ramsey " doing charms ", to see
if she couldn't get Robby back. As the messenger was re-
turning, the mother stepped out of the house to relieve him,
and when she went into the house again her own Robby was
there. As soon as Robby came to himself all right, he said
a little woman and a little boy had followed him, and that
* In this mythological role, Manannan is apparently a sun god or else
the sun itself ; and the Manx coat of arms, which is connected with him,
being a sun symbol, suggests to us now ages long prior to history, when
the Isle of Man was a Sacred Isle dedicated to the cult of the Supreme God
of Light and Life, and when all who dwelt thereon were regarded as the
Children of the Sun.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN MAN 133
just as he got home he was conscious of being taken away
by them, but he didn't know where they came from nor
where they took him. He was unable to tell more than
this. Robby is ahve yet, so far as I know ; he is Robert
Christian, of Douglas.'
Evidence from a Member of the House of Keys
Mr. T. C. Kermode, of Peel, member of the House of Keys,
the Lower House of the Manx Parliament, very kindly
dictated for my use the following statement concerning
fairies which he himself has seen : —
Reality of Fairies. — * There is much belief here in the
island that there actually are fairies ; and I consider such
belief based on an actual fact in nature, because of my own
strange experience. About forty years ago, one October
night, I and another young man were going to a kind of
Manx harvest-home at Cronk-a-Voddy. On the Glen Helen
road, just at the Beary Farm, as we walked along talking,
my friend happened to look across the river (a small brook),
and said : "Oh look, there are the fairies. Did you ever
see them ? " I looked across the river and saw a circle of
supernatural light, which I have now come to regard as the
*' astral light " or the Hght of Nature, as it is called by
mystics, and in which spirits become visible. The spot
where the light appeared was a fiat space surrounded on
the sides away from the river by banks formed by low hills ;
and into this space and the circle of light, from the surround-
ing sides apparently, I saw come in twos and threes a great
crowd of little beings smaller than Tom Thumb and his
wife. All of them, who appeared like soldiers, were dressed
in red. They moved back and forth amid the circle of light,
as they formed into order like troops drilling. I advised
getting nearer to them, but my friend said, " No, I'm going
to the party." Then after we had looked at them a few
minutes my friend struck the roadside wall with a stick and
shouted, and we lost the vision and the light vanished.'
The Manx Fairy-Faith. — * I have much evidence from old
Manx people, who are entirely reliable and God-fearing, that
134 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
they have seen the fairies hunting with hounds and horses,
and on the sea in ships, and under other conditions, and that
they have heard their music. They consider the fairies
a complete nation or world in themselves, distinct from
our world, but having habits and instincts like ours.
Social organization among them is said to be similar to that
among men, and they have their soldiers and commanders.
Where the fairies actually exist the old people cannot tell,
but they certainly believe that they can be seen here on
earth/
Testimony from a Past Provincial Grand Master
Mr. J. H. Kelly, Past Provincial Grand Master of the Isle
of Man District of Oddfellows, a resident of Douglas, offers
the following account of a curious psychical experience of
his own, and attributes it to fairies : —
A Strange Experience with Fairies. — * Twelve to thirteen
years ago, on a clear moonlight night, about twelve o'clock,
I left Laxey ; and when about five miles from Douglas, at
Ballagawne School, I heard talking, and was suddenly con-
scious of being in the midst of an invisible throng. As this
strange feeling came over me, I saw coming up the road
four figures as real to look upon as human beings, and of
medium size, though I am certain they were not human.
When these four, who seemed to be connected with the
invisible throng, came out of the Garwick road into the
main road, I passed into a by-road leading down to a very
peaceful glen called Garwick Glen ; and I still had the same
feeling that invisible beings were with me, and this con-
tinued for a mile. There was no fear or emotion or excite-
ment, but perfect calm on my part. I followed the by-road ;
and when I began to mount a hill there was a sudden and
strange quietness, and a sense of isolation came over me,
as though the joy and peace of my life had departed with
the invisible throng. From different personal experiences
like this one, I am firmly of the opinion and belief that the
fairies exist. One cannot say that they are wholly physical
or wholly spiritual, but the impression left upon my mind
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 135
is that they are an absolutely real order of beings not
human.'
Invoking Little Manannan, son of Leirr, to give us safe
passage across his watery domain, we now go southward to
the nearest Brythonic country, the Land of Arthur, Wales.
V. IN WALES
Introduction by The Right Hon. Sir John Rhys, M.A.;
D.Litt., F.B.A., Hon. LL.D. of the University of Edinburgh ;
Professor of Celtic in the University of Oxford ; Principal
of Jesus College ; author of Celtic Folklore, Welsh and
Manx, &c.
The folk-lore of Wales in as far as it concerns the Fairies
consists of a very few typical tales, such as : —
(i) The Fairy Dance and the usual entrapping of a youth,
who dances with the Little People for a long time, while he
supposes it only a few minutes, and who if not rescued is
taken by them.
(2) There are other ways in which recruits may be led
into Fairyland and induced to marry fairy maidens, and
any one so led away is practically lost to his kith and kin,
for even if he be allowed to visit them, the visit is mostly
cut short in one way or another.
(3) A man catches a fairy woman and marries her. She
proves to be an excellent housewife, but usually she has had
put into the marriage-contract certain conditions which, if
broken, inevitably release her from the union, and when so
released she hurries away instantly, never to return, unless
it be now and then to visit her children. One of the con-
ditions, especially in North Wales, is that the husband
should never touch her with iron. But in the story of the
Lady of Llyn y Fan Each, in Carmarthenshire, the condi-
tion is that he must not strike the wife without a cause three
times, the striking being interpreted to include any slight
tapping, say, on the shoulder. This story is one of the most
remarkable on record in Wales, and it recalls the famous
tale of Undine, published in German many years ago by
136 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
De La Motte Fouque. It is not known where he found it,
or whether the people among whom it was current were
pure Germans or of Celtic extraction.
(4) The Fairies were fond of stealing nice healthy babies
and of leaving in their place their own sallow offspring.
The stories of how the right child might be recovered take
numerous forms ; and some of these stories suggest how
weak and sickly children became the objects of systematic
cruelty at the hands of even their own parents. The change-
ling was usually an old man, and many were the efforts
made to get him to betray his identity.
(5) There is a widespread story of the fairy husband
procuring for his wife the attendance of a human midwife.
The latter was given a certain ointment to apply to the baby's
eyes when she dressed it. She was not to touch either of her
own eyes with it, but owing to an unfailing accident she does,
and with the eye so touched she is enabled to see the fairies
in their proper shape and form. This has consequences : The
fairy husband pays the midwife well, and discharges her.
She goes to a fair or market one day and observes her old
master stealing goods from a stall, and makes herself known
to him. He asks her with which eye she sees him. She tells
him, and the eye to which he objects he instantly blinds.
(6) Many are the stories about the fairies coming into
houses at night to wash and dress their children after
everybody is gone to bed. A servant-maid who knows her
business leaves a vessel full of water for them, and takes
care that the house is neat and tidy, and she then probably
finds in the morning some fairy gift left her, whereas if
the house be untidy and the water dirty, they will pinch
her in her sleep, and leave her black and blue.
(7) The fairies were not strong in their household arrange-
ments, so it was not at all unusual for them to come to the
farm-houses to borrow what was wanting to them.
In the neighbourhood of Snowdon the fairies were believed
to live beneath the lakes, from which they sometimes came
forth, especially on misty days, and children used to be
warned not to stray away from their homes in that sort of
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 137
weather, lest they should be kidnapped by them. These
fairies were not Christians, and they were great thieves.
They were fond of bright colours. They were sharp of hear-
ing, and no word that reached the wind would escape them.
If a fairy's proper name was discovered, the fairy to whom
it belonged felt baffled.^
Some characteristics of the fairies seem to argue an
ancient race, while other characteristics betray their origin
in the workshop of the imagination ; but generally speak-
ing, the fairies are heterogeneous, consisting partly of the
divinities of glens and forests and mountains, and partly of
an early race of men more or less caricatured and equipped
by fable with impossible attributes.^
Jesus College, Oxford,
October 1910.
Our field of research in the Land of Arthur includes all
the coast counties save Cardiganshire, from Anglesey on the
north to Glamorganshire on the south. At the very begin-
ning of our investigation of the belief in the Tylwyth Teg,
* Sir John Rhys tells me that this Snowdon fairy-lore was contributed
by the late Lady Rhys, who as a girl lived in the neighbourhood of Snowdon
and heard very much from the old people there, most of whom believed
in the fairies ; and she herself then used to be warned, in the manner
mentioned, against being carried away into the under-lake Fairyland.
* Cf. Celtic Folklore, Welsh and Manx, pp. 683-4 n., where Sir John Rhys
says of his friend. Professor A. C. Haddon : — ' I find also that he, among
others, has anticipated me in my theory as to the origins of the fairies :
witness the following extract from the syllabus of a lecture delivered by
him at Cardiff in 1894 on Fairy Tales : — " What are the fairies ? — Legendary
origin of the fairies. It is evident from fairy literature that there is a
mixture of the possible and the impossible, of fact and fancy. Part of fairy-
dom refers to (i) spirits that never were embodied : other fairies are
(2) spirits of environment, nature or local spirits, and household or domestic
spirits ; (3) spirits of the organic world, spirits of plants, and spirits of
animals ; (4) spirits of men, or ghosts ; and (5) witches and wizards, or
men possessed with other spirits. All these, and possibly other elements,
enter into the fanciful aspects of Fairyland, but there is a large residuum of
real occurrences ; these point to a clash of races, and we may regard many
of these fairy sagas as stories told by men of the Iron Age of events which
happtaed to men of the Bronze Age in their conflicts with men of the
Neolithic Age, and possibly these, too, handed on traditions of the Paleo-
lithic Agej" '
138 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
or ' Fair Folk ' in the Isle of Anglesey or Mona, the ancient
stronghold of the Druids, we shall see clearly that the testi-
mony offered by thoroughly reliable and prominent native
witnesses is surprisingly uniform, and essentially animistic
in its nature ; and in passing southward to the end of Wales
we shall find the Welsh Fairy-Faith with this same uniformity
and exhibiting the same animistic background everywhere
we go.
Testimony of an Anglesey Bard
Mr. John Louis Jones, of Gaerwen, Anglesey, a native
bard who has taken prizes in various Eisteddfods, testifies
as follows : —
Tylwyth Teg's Visits. — * When I was a boy here on the
island, the Tylwyth Teg were described as a race of little
beings no larger than children six or seven years old, who
visited farm-houses at night after all the family were abed.
No matter how securely closed a house might be, the Tylwyth
Teg had no trouble to get in. I remember how the old folk
used to make the house comfortable and put fresh coals on
the fire, saying, ** Perhaps the Tylwyth Teg will come to-
night." Then the Tylwyth Teg, when they did come, would
look round the ropm and say, " What a clean beautiful place
this is ! " And all the while the old folk in bed were listen-
ing. Before departing from such a clean house the Tylwyth
Teg always left a valuable present for the family.*
Fairy Wife and Iron Taboo. — * A young man once caught
one of the Tylwyth Teg women, and she agreed to live with
him on condition that he should never touch her with iron.
One day she went to a field with him to catch a horse, but
in catching the horse he threw the bridle in such a way that
the bit touched the Tylwyth Teg woman, and all at once she
was gone. As this story indicates, the Tylwyth Teg could
make themselves invisible. I think they could be seen by
some people and not by other people. The old folk thought
them a kind of spirit race from a spirit world.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 139
Evidence from Central Anglesey
Owing to the very kindly assistance of Mr. E. H. Thomas,
of Llangefni, who introduced me to the oldest inhabitants
of his town, in their own homes and elsewhere, and then
acted as interpreter whenever Welsh alone was spoken,
I gleaned very clear evidence from that part of Central
Anglesey. Seven witnesses, two of whom were women,
ranging in age from seventy-two to eighty-nine years, were
thus interviewed, and each of them stated that in their
childhood the belief in the Tylwyth Teg as a non-human
race of good little people — by one witness compared to
singing angels — was general. Mr. John Jones, the oldest of
the seven, among much else, said in Welsh : — * I believe
personally that the Tylwyth Teg are still existing ; but people
can't see them. I have heard of two or three persons being
together and one only having been able to see the Tylwyth
Teg:
Testimony from Two Anglesey Centenarians
Perhaps nowhere else in Celtic lands could there be found
as witnesses two sisters equal in age to Miss Mary Owen and
Mrs. Betsy Thomas, in their hundred and third and hun-
dredth year respectively (in 1909) . They live a quiet life on
their mountain-side farm overlooking the sea, in the beauti-
ful country near Pentraeth, quite away from the rush and
noise of the great world of commercial activity ; and they
speak only the tongue which their prehistoric Kimric ances-
tors spoke before Roman, or Saxon, or Norman came to
Britain. Mr. W. Jones, of Plas Tinon, their neighbour, who
knows English and Welsh well, acted as interpreter. The
elder sister testified first : —
* Tylwyth Teg's ' Nature. — * There were many of the Tyl-
wyth Teg on the Llwydiarth Mountain above here, and
round the Llwydiarth Lake where they used to dance ; and
whenever the prices at the Llangefni market were to be
high they would chatter very much at night. They appeared
only after dark ; and all the good they ever did was singing
I4P THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
and dancing. Ann Jones, whom I knew very well, used
often to see the Tylwyth Teg dancing and singing, but if she
then went up to them they would disappear. She told me
they are an invisible people, and very small. Many others
besides Ann Jones have seen the Tylwyth Teg in these moun-
tains, and have heard their music and song. The ordinary
opinion was that the Tylwyth Teg are a race of spirits.
I believe in them as an invisible race of good little people.*
Fairy Midwife and Magic Oil. — * The Tylwyth Teg had
a kind of magic oil, and I remember this story about it : —
A farmer went to Llangefni to fetch a woman to nurse his
wife about to become a mother, and he found one of the
Tylwyth Teg, who came with him on the back of his horse.
Arrived at the farm-house, the fairy woman looked at the
wife, and giving the farmer some oil told him to wash the
baby in it as soon as it was born. Then the fairy woman
disappeared. The farmer followed the advice, and what
did he do in washing the baby but get some oil on one of
his own eyes. Suddenly he could see the Tylwyth Teg, for
the oil had given him the second-sight. Some time later the
farmer was in Llangefni again, and saw the same fairy woman
who had given him the oil. " How is your wife getting
on ? " she asked him. " She is getting on very well," he
replied. Then the fairy woman added, " Tell me with which
eye you see me best." "With this one," he said, pointing
to the eye he had rubbed with the oil. And the fairy woman
put her stick in that eye, and the farmer never saw with
it again.' ^
* This is the one tale I have found in North Wales about a midwife and
fairies — a type of tale common to West Ireland, Isle of Man, Cornwall,
and Brittany, but in a reverse version, the midwife there being (as she is
sometimes in Welsh versions) one of the human race called in by fairies.
If evidence of the oneness of the Celtic mind were needed we should find
it here (cf. pp. 50, 54, 127, 175, 182, 205). There are in this type of fairy-tale,
as the advocates of the Pygmy Theory may well hold, certain elements most
likely traceable to a folk-memory of some early race, or special class of
some early race, who knew the secrets of midwifery and the use of medicines
when such knowledge was considered magical. But in each example of
this midwife story there is the germ idea — ^no matter what other ideas
cluster round it — that fairies, like spirits, are only to be seen by an extra-
human vision, or, as psychical researchers might say, by clairvoyance.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 141
Seeing ' Tylwyth Teg *. — The younger sister's testimony
is as follows : — * I saw one of the Tylwyth Teg about sixty
years ago, near the Tynymyndd Farm, as I was passing by
at night. He was like a little man. When I approached
him he disappeared suddenly. I have heard about the
dancing and singing of the Tylwyth Teg, but never have
heard the music myself. The old people said the Tylwyth
Teg could appear and disappear when they liked ; and
I think as the old people did, that they are some sort of
spirits/
Testimony from an Anglesey Seeress
At Pentraeth, Mr. Gwilyn Jones said to me : — * It always
was and still is the opinion that the Tylwyth Teg are a race
of spirits. Some people think them small in size, but the
one my mother saw was ordinary human size.' At this,
I immediately asked Mr. Jones if his mother was still living,
and he replying that she was, gave me her address in Llan-
fair. So I went directly to interview Mr. Jones's mother,
Mrs. Catherine Jones, and this is the story about the one of
the Tylwyth Teg she saw : —
' Tylwyth Teg ' Apparition.—' I was coming home at
about half-past ten at night from Cemaes, on the path to
Simdda Wen, where I was in service, when there appeared
just before me a very pretty young lady of ordinary size.
I had no fear, and when I came up to her put out my
hand to touch her, but my hand and arm went right through
her form. I could not understand this, and so tried to
touch her repeatedly with the same result ; there was no
solid substance in the body, yet it remained beside me,
and was as beautiful a young lady as I ever saw. When
I reached the door of the house where I was to stop, she
was still with me. Then I said " Good night " to her. No
response being made, I asked, " Why do you not speak ? "
And at this she disappeared. Nothing happened afterwards,
and I always put this beautiful young lady down as one
of the Tylwyth Teg. There was much talk about my ex-
perience when I reported it, and the neighbours, like myself,
142 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
thought I had seen one of the Tylwyth Teg. I was about
twenty-four years old at the time of this incident.' ^
Testimony from a Professor of Welsh
Just before crossing the Menai Straits I had the good
fortune to meet, at his home in Llanfair, Mr. J. Morris
Jones, M.A. (Oxon.), Professor of Welsh in the University
College at Bangor, and he, speaking of the fairy-belief in
Anglesey as he remembers it from boyhood days, said : —
* Tylwyth Teg.' — * In most of the tales I heard repeated
when I was a boy, I am quite certain the implication was
that the Tylwyth Teg were a kind of spirit race having
human characteristics, who could at will suddenly appear
and suddenly disappear. They were generally supposed to
live underground, and to come forth on moonlight nights,
dressed in gaudy colours (chiefly in red), to dance in circles
in grassy fields. I cannot remember having heard changeling
stories here in the Island : I think the Tylwyth Teg were
generally looked upon as kind and good-natured, though
revengeful if not well treated. And they were believed to
have plenty of money at their command, which they could
bestow on people whom they liked.*
Evidence from North Carnarvonshire
Upon leaving Anglesey I undertook some investigation
of the Welsh fairy-belief in the country between Bangor
and Carnarvon. From the oldest Welsh people of Treborth
* After this remarkable story, Mrs. Jones told me about another very
rare psychical experience of her own, which is here recorded because it
illustrates the working of the psychological law of the association of ideas :
— ' My husband, Price Jones, was drowned some forty years ago, within
four miles of Arms Head, near Bangor, on Friday at midday ; and that
night at about one o'clock he appeared to me in our bedroom and laid his
head on my breast. I tried to ask him where he came from, but before
I could get my breath he was gone. I believed at the time that he was
out at sea perfectly safe and well. But next day, Saturday, at about
noon, a message came announcing his death. I was as fully awake as
one can be when I thus saw the spirit of my husband. He returned to me
a second time about six months later.' Had this happened in West Ireland,
it is almost certain that public opinion would have declared that Price
Jones had been taken by the ' gentry ' or ' good people '.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 143
I heard the same sort of folk-lore as we have recorded from
Anglesey, except that prominence was given to a flourishing
belief in Bwganod, goblins or bogies. But from Mr. T. T.
Davis Evans, of Port Dinorwic, I heard the following very
unusual story based on facts, as he recalled it first hand : —
Joneses Vision. — William Jones, who some sixty years
ago declared he had seen the Tylwyth Teg in the Aber-
glaslyn Pass near Beddgelert, was publicly questioned about
them in Bethel Chapel by Mr. Griffiths, the minister ; and he
explained before the congregation that the Lord had given
him a special vision which enabled him to see the Tylwyth
Teg, and that, therefore, he had seen them time after time
as little men playing along the river in the Pass. The
minister induced Jones to repeat the story many times,
because it seemed to please the congregation very much ;
and the folks present looked upon Jones's vision as a most
wonderful thing.*
Evidence from South Carnarvonshire
To Mr. E. D. Rowlands, head master of the schools
at Afonwen, I am indebted for a summary of the fairy-
belief in South Carnarvonshire : —
* Tylwyth Teg,' — ' According to the belief in South Car-
narvonshire, the Tylwyth Teg were a small, very pretty
people always dressed in white, and much given to dancing
and singing in rings where grass grew. As a rule, they
were visible only at night ; though in the day-time, if
a mother while hay-making was so unwise as to leave her
babe alone in the field, the Tylwyth Teg might take it and
leave in its place a hunchback, or some deformed object
like a child. At night, the Tylwyth Teg would entice
travellers to join their dance and then play all sorts of
tricks on them.' ^
Fo^iry Cows and Fairy Lake-Women. — * Some of the
* Here we find the Tylwyth Teg showing quite the same characteristics
as Welsh elves in general, as Cornish pixies, and as Breton corrigans, or
lutins ; that is, given to dancing at night, to stealing children, and to
deceiving travellers.
144 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Tylwyth Teg lived in caves ; others of them Hved in lake-
bottoms. There is a lake called Llyn y Morwynion, or
" Lake of the Maidens " , near Festiniog, where, as the
story goes, a farmer one morning found in his field a number
of very fine cows such as he had never seen before. Not
knowing where they came from, he kept them a long time,
when, as it happened, he committed some dishonest act
and, as a result, women of the Tylwyth Teg made their
appearance in the pasture and, calling the cows by name,
led the whole herd into the lake, and with them disappeared
beneath its waters. The old people never could explain
the nature of the Tylwyth Teg, but they always regarded
them as a very mysterious race, and, according to this
story of the cattle, as a supernatural race.*
Evidence from Merionethshire
Mr. Louis Foster Edwards, of Harlech, recalling the
memories of many years ago, offers the following evidence : —
Scythe-Blades and Fairies. — * In an old inn on the other
side of Harlech there was to be an entertainment, and, as
usual on such occasions, the dancing would not cease until
morning. I noticed, before the guests had all arrived, that
the landlady was putting scythe-blades edge upwards up
into the large chimney, and, wondering why it was, asked
her. She told me that the fairies might come before the
entertainment was over, and that if the blades were turned
edge upwards it would prevent the fairies from troubling
the party, for they would be unable to pass the blades
without being cut.'
' Tylwyth Teg ' and their World. — * There was an idea
that the Tylwyth Teg lived by plundering at night. It
was thought, too, that if anything went wrong with cows
or horses the Tylwyth Teg were to blame. As a race, the
Tylwyth Teg were described as having the power of invisi-
bility ; and it was believed they could disappear like a
spirit while one happened to be observing them. The
world in which they lived was a world quite unlike ours,
and mortals taken to it by them were changed in nature.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 145
The way a mortal might be taken by the Tylwyth Teg was
by being attracted into their dance. If they thus took
you away, it would be according to our time for twelve
months, though to you the time would seem no more than
a night/
Fairy Tribes in Montgomeryshire
From Mr. D. Davies-Williams, who outlined for me the
Montgomeryshire belief in the Tylwyth Teg as he has known
it intimately, I learned that this is essentially the same as
elsewhere in North and Central Wales. He summed up
the matter by saying : —
Belief in Tylwyth Teg. — ' It was the opinion that the
Tylwyth Teg were a real race of invisible or spiritual beings
living in an invisible world of their own. The belief in the
Tylwyth Teg was quite general fifty or sixty years ago, and
as sincere as any religious belief is now.'
Our next witness is the Rev. Josiah Jones, minister of
the Congregational Church of Machynlleth ; and, after a
lifetime's experience in Montgomeryshire, he gives this
testimony : —
A Deacons Vision. — * A deacon in my church, John
Evans, declared that he had seen the Tylwyth Teg dancing
in the day-time, within two miles from here, and he pointed
out the very spot where they appeared. This was some
twenty years ago. I think, however, that he saw only
certain reflections and shadows, because it was a hot and
brilliant day.'
Folk-Beliefs in General. — * As I recall the belief, the old
people considered the Tylwyth Teg as living beings half-
way between something material and spiritual, who were
rarely seen. When I was a boy there was very much
said, too, about corpse-candles and phantom funerals, and
especially about the Bwganod, plural of Bwgan, meaning
a sprite, ghost, hobgoblin, or spectre. The Bwganod were
supposed to appear at dusk, in various forms, animal and
human ; and grown-up people as well as children had great
fear of them.*
WENT2 L
146 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
A Minister's Opinion. — ' Ultimately there is a substance
of truth in the fairy-belief, but it is wrongly accounted for
in the folk-lore : I once asked Samuel Roberts, of Llan-
brynmair, who was quite a noted Welsh scholar, what he
thought of the Tylwyth Teg, of hobgoblins, spirits, and so
forth ; and he said that he believed such things existed, and
that God allowed them to appear in times of great igno-
rance to convince people of the existence of an invisible
world.'
In Cardiganshire ; and a Folk-lorist's Testimony
No one of our witnesses from Central Wales is more
intimately acquainted with the living folk-beliefs than
Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, of Llanilar, a village about six miles
from Aberystwyth ; for Mr. Davies has spent many years
in collecting folk-lore in Central and South Wales. He has
interviewed the oldest and most intelligent of the old people,
and while I write this he has in the press a work entitled
The Folk-Lore of Mid and West Wales. Mr. Davies very
kindly gave me the following outline of the most prominent
traits in the Welsh fairy-belief according to his own investi-
gations : —
* Tylwyth Teg \ — ' The Tylwyth Teg were considered a very
small people, fond of dancing, especially on moonlight nights.
They often came to houses after the family were abed ; and
if milk was left for them, they would leave money in return ;
but if not treated kindly they were revengeful. The change-
ling idea was common : the mother coming home would
find an ugly changeling in the cradle. Sometimes the mother
would consult the Dynion Hysbys, or " Wise Men " as to
how to get her babe back. As a rule, treating the fairy babe
roughly and then throwing it into a river would cause the
fairy who made the change to appear and restore the real
child in return for the changeling.'
* Tylwyth Teg ' Marriage Contracts. — * Occasionally a young
man would see the Tylwyth Teg dancing, and, being drawn
into the dance, would be taken by them and married to one
of their women. There is usually some condition in the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 147
marriage contract which becomes broken, and, as a result,
the fairy wife disappears — usually into a lake. The marriage
contract specifies either that the husband must never touch
his fairy wife with iron, or else never beat or strike her
three times. Sometimes when fairy wives thus disappear,
they take with them into the lake their fairy cattle and all
their household property.'
* Tylwyth Teg ' Habitations. — * The Tylwyth Teg were
generally looked upon as an immortal race. In Cardigan-
shire they lived underground ; in Carmarthenshire in lakes ;
and in Pembrokeshire along the sea-coast on enchanted
islands amid the Irish Sea. I have heard of sailors upon
seeing such islands trying to reach them ; but when ap-
proached, the islands always disappeared. From a certain
spot in Pembrokeshire, it is said that by standing on a turf
taken from the yard of St. David's Cathedral, one may see
the enchanted islands.' ^
* Tylwyth Teg ' as Spirits of Druids. — ' By many of the
old people the Tylwyth Teg were classed with spirits. They
were not looked upon as mortal at all. Many of the Welsh
looked upon the Tylwyth Teg or fairies as the spirits of
Druids dead before the time of Christ, who being too good
to be cast into Hell were allowed to wander freely about on
earth.'
Testimony from a Welshman Ninety-four Years Old
At Pontrhydfendigaid, a village about two miles from the
railway-station called Strata Florida, I had the good fortune
to meet Mr. John Jones, ninety-four years old, yet of strong
physique, and able to write his name without eye-glasses.
Both Mr. J. H. Davies, Registrar of the University College
of Aberystwyth, and Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, the eminent
folk-lorist of Llanilar, referred me to Mr. John Jones as
one of the most remarkable of living Welshmen who could
tell about the olden times from first-hand knowledge.
* This folk-belief partially sustains the view put forth in our chapter on
Environment, that St. David's during pagan times was already a sacred
spot and perhaps then the seat of a druidic oracle.
L2
148 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Mr. John Jones speaks very little English, and Mr. John
Rees, of the Council School, acted as our interpreter. This
is the testimony : —
Pygmy-sized ' Tylwyth Teg '. — * I was born and bred where
there was tradition that the Tylwyth Teg lived in holes
in the hills, and that none of these Tylwyth Teg was taller
than three to four feet. It was a common idea that many
of the Tylwyth Teg, forming in a ring, would dance and sing
out on the mountain-sides, or on the plain, and that if
children should meet with them at such a time they would
lose their way and never get out of the ring. If the Tylwyth
Teg fancied any particular child they would always keep
that child, taking off its clothes and putting them on one of
their own children, which was then left in its place. They
took only boys, never girls.'
Human-sized ' Tylwyth Teg *. — * A special sort of Tylwyth
Teg used to come out of lakes and dance, and their fine
looks enticed young men to follow them back into the lakes,
and there marry one of them. If the husband wished to^
leave the lake he had to go without his fairy wife. This sort
of Tylwyth Teg were as big as ordinary people ; and they
were often seen riding out of the lakes and back again on
horses.'
* Tylwyth Teg ' as Spirits of Prehistoric Race. — ' My grand-
father told me that he was once in a certain field and heard
singing in the air, and thought it spirits singing. Soon
afterwards he and his brother in digging dikes in that field
dug into a big hole, which they entered and followed to the
end. There they found a place full of human bones and
urns, and naturally decided on account of the singing that
the bones and urns were of the Tylwyth Teg.' ^
A Boy's Visit to the * Tylwyth Teg's ' King. — ' About
* Here we have an example of the Tylwyth Teg being identified with
a prehistoric race, quite in accordance with the argument of the Pygmy
Theory. We have, however, as the essential idea, that the Tylwyth Teg
heard singing were the spirits of this prehistoric race. Thus our conten-
tion that ancestral spirits play a leading part in the fairy-belief is sustained,
and the Pygmy Theory appears quite at its true relative value — as able
to explain one subordinate ethnological strand in the complex fabric of
the belief.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 149
eighty years ago, at Tynylone, my grandfather told me this
story : "A boy ten years old was often whipped and cruelly
treated by his schoolmaster because he could not say his
lessons very well. So one day he ran away from school and
went to a river-side, where some little folk came to him
and asked why he was crying. He told them the master had
punished him ; and on hearing this they said, * Oh ! if you
will stay with us it will not be necessary for you to go to
school. We will keep you as long as you like.* Then they
took him under the water and over the water into a cave
underground, which opened into a great palace where the
Tylwyth Teg were playing games with golden balls, in rings
like those in which they dance and sing. The boy had been
taken to the king's family, and he began to play with the
king's sons. After he had been there in the palace in the
full enjoyment of all its pleasures he wished very much to
return to his mother and show her the golden ball which the
Tylwyth Teg gave him. And so he took the ball in his pocket
and hurried through the cave the way he had come ; but at
the end of it and by the river two of the Tylwyth Teg met
him, and taking the ball away from him they pushed him
into the water, and through the water he found his way
home. He told his mother how he had been away for a
fortnight, as he thought, but she told him it had been for
two years. Though the boy often tried to find the way back
to the Tylwyth Teg he never could. Finally, he went back to
school, and became a most wonderful scholar and parson.'"^
In Merlin's Country ; and a Vicar's Testimony
The Rev. T. M. Morgan, vicar of Newchurch parish, two
miles from Carmarthen, has made a very careful study of
the folk-traditions in his own parish and in other regions
* This story is much like the one recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis about
a boy going to Fairyland and returning to his mother (see this study,
p. 324). The possibility that it may be an independent version of the folk-
tale told to Cambrensis which has continued to live on among the people
makes it highly interesting.
Afr. Jones gives further evidence on the re-birth doctrine in Wales
(pp. 388-9), and concerning Merlin and sacrifice to appease place-spirits
(pp. 436-7). '
150 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
of Carmarthenshire, and is able to offer us evidence of the
highest vcdue, as follows : — *
' Tylwyth Teg ' Power over Children. — * The Tylwyth Teg
were thought to be able to take children. " You mind, or
the Tylwyth Teg will take you away," parents would say to
keep their children in the house after dark. It was an
opinion, too, that the Tylwyth Teg could transform good
children into kings and queens, and bad children into
wicked spirits, after such children had been taken — perhaps
in death. The Tylwyth Teg were believed to live in some
invisible world to which children on dying might go to be
rewarded or punished, according to their behaviour on this
earth. Even in this life the Tylwyth Teg had power over
children for good or evil. The belief, as these ideas show,
was that the Tylwyth Teg were spirits.'
' Tylwyth Teg ' as Evil Spirits. — A few days after my
return to Oxford, the Rev. T. M. Morgan, through his son,
Mr. Basil I. Morgan, of Jesus College, placed in my hands
additional folk-lore evidence from his own parish, as follows :
— * After Mr. Wentz visited me on Thursday, September 30,
1909, I went to see Mr. Shem Morgan, the occupier of
Cwmcastellfach farm, an old man about seventy years old.
He told me that in his childhood days a great dread of the
fairies occupied the heart of every child. They were con-
sidered to be evil spirits who visited our world at night,
and dangerous to come in contact with ; there were no good
spirits among them. He related to me three narratives
touching the fairies ' : —
' Tylwyth Teg's ' Path. — The first narrative illustrates that
the Tylwyth Teg have paths (precisely like those reserved
for the Irish good people or for the Breton dead), and that
it is death to a mortal while walking in one of these paths
to meet the Tylwyth Teg.
* Tylwyth Teg ' Divination. — The second narrative I quote :
— * A farmer of this neighbourhood having lost his cattle,
* As a result of his researches, the Rev. T. M. Morgan has just published
a new work, entitled The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Newchurch
(Carmarthen, 19 10).
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 151
went to consult y dyn hysbys (a diviner), in Cardiganshire,
who was friendly with the fairies. Whenever the fairies
visited the diviner they foretold future events, secrets, and
the whereabouts of lost property. After the farmer reached
the diviner's house the diviner showed him the fairies, and
then when the diviner had consulted them he told the farmer
to go home as soon as he could and that he would find the
cattle in such and such a place. The farmer did as he was
directed, and found the cattle in the very place where the
dyn hysbys told him they would be.' And the third narrative
asserts that a man in the parish of Trelech who was fraudu-
lently excluded by means of a false will from inheriting the
estate of his deceased father, discovered the defrauder and
recovered the estate, solely through having followed the
advice given by the Tylwyth Teg, when (again as in the above
account) they were called up as spirits by a dyn hysbys,
a Mr. Harries, of Cwrt y Cadno, a place near Aberyst-
wyth.^
Testimony from a Justice of the Peace
Mr. David Williams, J. P., who is a member of the Cymmro-
dorion Society of Carmarthen, and who has sat on the
judicial bench for ten years, offers us the very valuable
evidence which follows : —
* Tylwyth Teg ' and their King and Queen. — * The general
idea, as I remember it, was that the Tylwyth Teg were only
visitors to this world, and had no terrestrial habitations.
They were as small in stature as dwarfs, and always appeared
in white. Often at night they danced in rings amid green
fields. Most of them were females, though they had a king ;
and, as their name suggests, they were very beautiful in
appearance. The king of the Tylwyth Teg was called Gwydion
* In these last two anecdotes, as in modern ' Spiritualism ', we observe
a popular practice of necromancy or the calling up of spirits, so-called
' materialization ' of spirits, and spirit communication through a human
' medium ', who is the dyn hysbys, as well as divination, the revealing of
things hidden and the foretelling of future events. This is direct evidence
that Welsh fairies or the Tylwyth Teg were formerly the same to Welshmen
as spirits are to Spiritualists now. We seem, therefore, to have proof of
our Psychological Theory (see chap. xi).
152 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
ab Don, Gwyd referring to a temperament in man's nature.
His residence was among the stars, and called Caer Gwydion.
His queen was Gwenhidw. I have heard my mother call
the small fleece-like clouds which appear in fine weather the
Sheep of Gwenhidw.' ^
' Tylwyth Teg' as Aerial Beings, — Mr. Williams's testimony
continues, and leads us directly to the Psychological or
Psychical Theory : — ' As aerial beings the Tylwyth Teg could
fly and move about in the air at will. They were a special
order of creation. I never heard that they grew old ; and
whether they multiplied or not I cannot tell. In character
they were almost always good.'
Ghosts and Apparitions. — Our conversation finally drifted
towards ghosts and apparitions, as usual, and to Druids. In
the chapter dealing with Re-birth (pp. 390-1) we shall record
what Mr. Williams said about Druids, and here what he said
about ghosts and apparitions : — * Sixty years ago there was
hardly an individual who did not believe in apparitions ;
and in olden times Welsh families would collect round the
fire at night and each in turn give a story about the Tylwyth
Teg and ghosts.*
Conferring Vision of a Phantom Funeral. — * There used to
be an old man at Newchurch named David Davis (who
lived about 1780-1840), of Abernant, noted for seeing
* Here we have a combination of many distinct elements and influences.
As among mortals, so among the Tylwyth Teg there is a king ; and this
conception may have arisen directly from anthropomorphic influences on
the ancient Brythonic religion, or it may have come directly from
druidic teachings. The locating of Gwydion ab Don, like a god,
in a heaven-world, rather than like his counterpart, Gwynn ah Ntidd, in
a hades-world, is probably due to a peculiar admixture of Druidism and
Christianity : at first, both gods were probably druidic or pagan, and the
same, but Gwynn ab Nudd became a demon or evil god under Christian
influences, while Gwydion ab Don seems to have curiously retained his
original good reputation in spite of Christianity (cf. p. 320). The name
Gwenhidw reminds us at once of Arthur's queen Gwenhwyvar or ' White
Apparition ' ; and the sheep of Gwenhidw can properly be explained
by the Naturalistic Theory. It seems, however, that analogy was
imaginatively suggested between the Queen Gwenhidw as resembling the
Welsh White Lady or a ghost-like being, and her sheep, the clouds, also of
a necessarily ghost-like character. All this is an admirable illustration
of the great complexity of the Fairy-Faith.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 153
phantom funerals. One appeared to him once when he was
with a friend. " Do you see it ? Do you see it ? " the old
man excitedly asked. " No/' said his friend. Then the
old man placed his foot on his friend's foot, and said, " Do
you see it now ? " And the friend replied that he did.' ^
Magic and Witchcraft. — Finally, we shall hear from Mr.
Williams about Welsh magic and witchcraft, which cannot
scientifically be divorced from the belief in fairies and
apparitions : — * There used to be much witchcraft in this
country ; and it was fully believed that some men, if ad-
vanced scholars, had the power to injure or to bewitch their
neighbours by magic. The more advanced the scholar the
better he could carry on his craft.* -> ^..^^^
Additional Evidence from Carmarthenshire
My friend, and fellow student at Jesus College, Mr.
Percival V. Davies, of Carmarthen, contributes, as supple-
mentary to what has been recorded above, the following
evidence, from his great-aunt, Mrs. Spurrell, also of Car-
marthen, a native Welshwoman who has seen a canwyll
gorff (corpse-candle) : —
Bendith y Mamau. — * In the Carmarthenshire country,
fairies (Tylwyth Teg) are often called Bendith y Mamau, the
•' Mothers* Blessing." '
How Ten Children Became Fairies. — * Our Lord, in the days
when He walked the earth, chanced one day to approach
a cottage in which lived a woman with twenty children.
Feeling ashamed of the size of her family, she hid half of
them from the sight of her divine visitor. On His departure
she sought for the hidden children in vain ; they had become
fairies and had disappeared.'
In Pembrokeshire ; at the Pentre Evan Cromlech
Our Pembrokeshire witness is a maiden Welshwoman,
sixty years old, who speaks no English, but a university
graduate, her nephew, will act as our interpreter. She was
* The parallel between this Welsh method of conferring vision and the
Breton method is very striking (cf. p. 215).
154 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
born and has lived all her life within sight of the famous
Pentre Evan Cromlech, in the home of her ancestors, which
is so ancient that after six centuries of its known existence
further record of it is lost. In spite of her sixty years, our
witness is as active as many a city woman of forty or forty-
five. Since her girlhood she has heard curious legends and
stories, and, with a more than ordinary interest in the lore
of her native country, has treasured them all in her clear
and well-trained memory. The first night, while this well-
stored memory of hers gave forth some of its treasures, we
sat in her own home, I and my friend, her nephew, on one
side in a chimney-seat, and she and her niece on the other
side in another, exposed to the cheerful glow and warmth
of the fire. When we had finished that first night it was two
o'clock, and there had been no interruption to the even flow
of marvels and pretty legends. A second night we spent
likewise. What follows now is the result, so far as we are
concerned with it : —
Fairies and Spirits. — * Spirits and fairies exist all round
us, invisible. Fairies have no solid bodily substance. Their
forms are of matter like ghostly bodies, and on this account
they cannot be caught. In the twilight they are often seen,
and on moonlight nights in summer. Only certain people
can see fairies, and such people hold communication with
them and have desdings with them, but it is difficult to get
them to talk about fairies. I think the spirits about us are
the fallen angels, for when old Doctor Harris died his books
on witchcraft had to be burned in order to free the place
where he lived from evil spirits. The fairies, too, are some-
times called the fallen angels. They will do good to those
who befriend them, and harm to others. I think there must
be an intermediate state between life on earth and heavenly
life, and it may be in this that spirits and fairies live. There
are two distinct types of spirits : one is good and the other
is bad. I have heard of people going to the fairies and
finding that years passed as days, but I do not believe in
changelings, though there are stories enough about them.
That there are fairies and other spirits like them, both good
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 155
and bad, I firmly believe. My mother used to tell about
seeing the " fair-folk " dancing in the fields near Cardigan ;
and other people have seen them round the cromlech up
there on the hill (the Pentre Evan Cromlech) . They appeared
as little children in clothes like soldiers' clothes, and with
red caps, according to some accounts.
Death-Candles Described. — ' I have seen more than one
death-candle. I saw one death-candle right here in this
room where we are sitting and talking.* I was told by the
nephew and niece of our present witness that this particular
death-candle took an untrodden course from the house
across the fields to the grave-yard, and that when the death
of one of the family occurred soon afterwards, their aunt
insisted that the corpse should be carried by exactly the
same route ; so the road was abandoned and the funeral
went through the ploughed fields. Here is the description
of the death-candle as the aunt gave it in response to our
request : — ' The death-candle appears like a patch of bright
light ; and no matter how dark the room or place is, every-
thing in it is as clear as day. The candle is not a flame, but
a luminous mass, lightish blue in colour, which dances as
though borne by an invisible agency, and sometimes it rolls
over and over. If you go up to the light it is nothing, for it
is a spirit. Near here a light as big as a pot was seen, and
rays shot out from it in all directions. The man you saw
here in the house to-day, one night as he was going along
the road near Nevern, saw the death-light of old Dr. Harris,
and says it was lightish green.'
Gors Goch Fairies. — Now we began to hear more about
fairies : — * One night there came a strange rapping at the
door of the ancient manor on the Gors Goch farm over in
Cardiganshire, and the father of the family asked what was
wanted. Thin, silvery voices said they wanted a warm
place in which to dress their children and to tidy them up.
The door opened then, and in came a dozen or more little
beings, who at once set themselves to hunting for a basin
and water, and to cleaning themselves. At daybreak they
departed, leaving a pretty gift in return for the kindness.
156 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
In this same house at another time, whether by the same
party of Httle beings or by another could not be told,
a healthy child of the family was changed because he was
unbaptized, and a frightful-looking child left in his place.
The mother finally died of grief, and the other children died
because of the loss of their mother, and the father was left
alone. Then some time after this, the same little folks who
came the first time returned to clean up, and when they de-
parted, in place of their former gifts of silver, left a gift of gold.
It was not long before the father became heir to a rich farm
in North Wales, and going to live on it became a magician,
for the little people, still befriending him, revealed themselves
in their true nature and taught him all their secrets.*
Levi Salmon's Control of Spirits. — * Levi Salmon, who
lived about thirty years ago, between here and Newport,
was a magician, and could call up good and bad spirits ; but
was afraid to call up the bad ones unless another person
was with him, for it was a dangerous and terrible ordeal.
After consulting certain books which he had, he would draw
a circle on the floor, and in a little while spirits like bulls
and serpents and other animals would appear in it, and all
sorts of spirits would speak. It was not safe to go near
them ; and to control them Levi held a whip in his hand.
He would never let them cross the circle. And when he
wanted them to go away he always had to throw something
to the chief spirit.'
The Haunted Manor and the Golden Image. — I offer now,
in my own language, the following remarkable story : —
The ancient manor-house on the Trewern Farm (less than
a mile from the Pentre Evan Cromlech) had been haunted
as long as anybody could remember. Strange noises were
often heard in it, dishes would dance about of their own
accord, and sometimes a lady dressed in silk appeared.
Many attempts were made to lay the ghosts, but none
succeeded. Finally things got so bad that nobody wanted
to live there. About eighty years ago the sole occupants of
the haunted house were Mr. and his two servants. At
the time, it was well known in the neighbourhood that all
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 157
at once Mr. became very wealthy, and his servants
seemed able to buy whatever they wanted. Everybody
wondered, but no one could tell where the money came from ;
for at first he was a poor man, and he couldn't have made
much off the farm. The secret only leaked out through one
of the servants after Mr. was dead. The servant
declared to certain friends that one of the ghosts, or, as he
thought, the Devil, appeared to Mr. and told him there
was an image of great value walled up in the room over the
main entrance to the manor. A search was made, and, sure
enough, a large image of solid gold was found in the very
place indicated, built into a recess in the wall. Mr.
bound the servants to secrecy, and began to turn the image
into money. He would cut off small pieces of the image,
one at a time, and take them to London and sell them. In
this way he sold the whole image, and nobody was the wiser.
After the image was found and disposed of, ghosts were no
longer seen in the house, nor were unusual noises heard in
it at night. The one thing which beyond all doubt is true
is that when Mr. died he left his son an estate worth
about £50,000 (an amount probably greatly in excess of
the true one) ; and people have always wondered ever since
where it came from, if not in part from the golden image.^
* This is the substance of the story as it was told to me by a gentleman
who lives within sight of the farm where the image is said to have been
found. And one day he took me to the house and showed me the room
and the place in the wall where the find was made. The old manor is one
of the solidest and most picturesque of its kind in Wales, and, in spite of
its extreme age, well preserved. He, being as a native Welshman of the
locality well acquainted with its archaeology, thinks it safe to place an
age of six to eight hundred years on the manor. What is interesting about
this matter of age arises from the query, Was the image one of the Virgin
or of some Christian saint, or was it a Druid idol ? Both opinions are
current in the neighbourhood, but there is a good deal in favour of the second.
The region, the little valley on whose side stands the Pentre Evan Crom-
lech, the finest in Britain, is believed to have been a favourite place with
the ancient Druids ; and in the oak groves which still exist there tradition
says there was once a flourishing pagan school for neophytes, and that the
cromlech instead of being a place for interments or for sacrifices was in
those days completely enclosed, forming like other cromlechs a darkened
chamber in which novices when initiated were placed for a certain number
of days — the interior being called the ' Womb or Court of Ceridwen '.
158 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Hundreds of parallel stories in which, instead of ghosts,
fairies and demons are said to have revealed hidden treasure
could be cited.
In the Gower Peninsula, Glamorganshire
Our investigations in Glamorganshire cover the most
interesting part, the peninsula of Gower, where there are
peculiar folk-lore conditions, due to its present population
being by ancestry English and Flemish as well as Cornish
and Welsh. Despite this race admixture, Brythonic beliefs
have generally survived in Gower even among the non-
Celts ; and because of the Cornish element there are pixies,
as shown by the following story related to me in Swansea
by Mr. , a well-known mining engineer : —
Pixies. — * At Newton, near the Mumbles (in Gower), an
old woman, some twenty years ago, assured me that she
had seen the pixies. Her father's grey mare was standing
in the trap before the house ready to take some produce
to the Swansea market, and when the time for departure
arrived the pixies had come, but no one save the old woman
could see them. She described them to me as like tiny men
dancing on the mare's back and climbing up along the mare's
mane. She thought the pixies some kind of spirits who
made their appearance in early morning ; and all mishaps
to cows she attributed to them.'
Testimony from an Archaeologist
The Rev. John David Davis, rector of Llanmadoc and
Cheriton parishes, and a member of the Cambrian Archaeo-
logical Society, has passed many years in studying the
antiquities and folk-lore of Gower, being the author of
various antiquarian works ; and he is without doubt the
oldest and best living authority to aid us. The Rector very
willingly offers this testimony : —
Pixies and * Verry Volk '. — * In this part of Gower, the name
Tylwyth Teg is never used to describe fairies ; Verry Volk
is used instead. Some sixty years ago, as I can remember,
there was belief in such fairies here in Gower, but now there
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES 159
is almost none. Belief in apparitions still exists to some
extent. One may also hear of a person being pixy-led ; the
pixies may cause a traveller to lose his way at night if he
crosses a field where they happen to be. To take your coat
off and turn it inside out wiU break the pixy spell.^ The
Verry Volk were always little people dressed in scarlet and
green ; and they generally showed themselves dancing on
moonlight nights. I never heard of their making change-
lings, though they had the power of doing good or evil acts,
and it was a very risky thing to offend them. By nature
they were benevolent.'
A * Verry Volk ' Feast. — * I heard the following story many
years ago : — The tenant on the Eynonsford Farm here in
Gower had a dream one night, and in it thought he heard
soft sweet music and the patter of dancing feet. Waking
up, he beheld his cow-shed, which opened off his bedroom,
filled with a multitude of little beings, about one foot high,
swarming all over his fat ox, and they were preparing to
slaughter the ox. He was so surprised that he could not
move. In a short time the Verry Volk had killed, dressed,
and eaten the animal. The feast being over, they collected
the hide and bones, except one very small leg-bone which
they could not find, placed them in position, then stretched
the hide over them ; and, as the farmer looked, the ox
appeared as sound and fat as ever, but when he let it out to
pasture in the morning he observed that it had a slight
lameness in the leg lacking the missing bone.' ^
^ The same remedy is prescribed in Brittany when mischievous lutins
or corrigans lead a traveller astray, in Ireland when the good people lead
a traveller astray ; and at RoUright, Oxfordshire, England, an old woman
told me that it is efficacious against being led astray through witchcraft.
Obviously the fairy and witch spell are alike.
* The same sort of a story as this is told in Lower Brittany, where the
corrigans or lutins slaughter a farmer's fat cow or ox and invite the farmer
to partake of the feast it provides. If he does so with good grace and
humour, he finds his cow or ox perfectly whole in the morning, but if he
refuses to join the feast or joins it unwillingly, in the morning he is likely
to find his cow or ox actually dead and eaten.
i6o THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Fairies Among Gower English Folk
The population of the Llanmadoc region of Gower are
generally English by ancestry and speech ; and not until
reaching Llanmorlais, beyond Llanridian, did I find anything
like an original Celtic and Welsh-speaking people, and these
may have come into that part within comparatively recent
times ; and yet, as the above place-names tend to prove, in
early days all these regions must have been Welsh. It may
be argued, however, that this English-speaking population
may be more Celtic than Saxon, even though emigrants
from England. In any case, we can see with interest how
this so-called English population now echo Brythonic beliefs
which they appear to have adopted in Gower, possibly
sympathetically through race kinship ; and the following
testimony offered by Miss Sarah Jenkins, postmistress of
Llanmadoc, will enable us to do so : —
Dancing with Fairies. — ' A man, whose Christian name was
William, was enticed by the fairy folk to enter their dance, as
he was on his way to the Swansea market in the early morning.
They kept him dancing some time, and then said to him before
they let him go, ** Will dance well ; the last going to market
and the first that shall sell." And though he arrived at
the market very late, he was the first to sell anything.'
Fairy Money. — ' An old woman, whom I knew, used to
find money left by the fairies every time they visited her
house. For a long time she observed their request, and told
no one about the money ; but at last she told, and so never
found money afterwards.
Nature of Fairies. — * The fairies (verry volk) were believed
to have plenty of music and dancing. Sometimes they
appeared dressed in bright red. They could appear and
disappear suddenly, and no one could tell how or where.'
Conclusion
Much more might easily be said about Welsh goblins,
about Welsh fairies who live in caves, or about Welsh fairy
women who come out of lakes and rivers, or who are the
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN WALES i6i
presiding spirits of sacred wells and fountains,^ but these
will have some consideration later, in Section III. For the
purposes of the present inquiry enough evidence has been
offered to show the fundamental character of Brythonic
fairy-folk as we have found them. And we can very appro-
priately close this inquiry by allowing our Welsh-speaking
witness from the Pentre Evan country, Pembrokeshire, to
tell us one of the prettiest and most interesting fairy-tales
in all Wales. The name of Taliessin appearing in it leads
us to suspect that it may be the remnant of an ancient
bardic tale which has been handed down orally for centuries.
It will serve to illustrate the marked difference between the
short conversational stories of the living Fairy-Faith and
the longer, more polished ones of the traditional Fairy-Faith;
and we shall see in it how a literary effect is gained at the
expense of the real character of the fairies themselves, for
it transforms them into mortals : —
Einion and Olwen. — * My mother told the story as she used
to sit by the fire in the twilight knitting stockings : — ** One
day when it was cloudy and misty, a shepherd boy going
to the mountains lost his way and walked about for hours.
At last he came to a hollow place surrounded by rushes
where he saw a number of round rings. He recognized the
place as one he had often heard of as dangerous for shep-
herds, because of the rings. He tried to get away from there,
but he could not. Then an old, merry, blue-eyed man
appeared. The boy, thinking to find his way home, followed
the old man, and the old man said to him, * Do not speak
a word till I tell you.' In a little while they came to a menhir
(long stone). The old man tapped it three times, and then
lifted it up. A narrow path with steps descending was
revealed, and from it emerged a bluish- white light. * Follow
me,* said the old man, * no harm will come to you.' The
boy did so, and it was not long before he saw a fine, wooded,
fertile country with a beautiful palace, and rivers and moun-
tains. He reached the palace and was enchanted by the
* See Sir John Rhys, Celtic Folk-Lore : Welsh and Manx (Oxford,
1 901), passim.
WENTZ I^
i62 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
singing of birds. Music of all sorts was in the palace, but
he saw no people. At meals dishes came and disappeared of
their own accord. He could hear voices all about him, but
saw no person except the old man — who said that now he
could speak. When he tried to speak he found that he could
not move his tongue. Soon an old lady with smiles came to
him leading three beautiful maidens, and when the maidens
saw the shepherd boy they smiled and spoke, but he could
not reply. Then one of the girls kissed him ; and all at once
he began to converse freely and most wittily. In the full
enjoyment of the marvellous country he lived with the
maidens in the palace a day and a year, not thinking it
more than a day, for there was no reckoning of time in that
land. When the day and the year were up, a longing to see
his old acquaintances came on him ; and thanking the old
man for his kindness, he asked if he could return home. The
old man said to him, * Wait a little while ' ; and so he waited.
The maiden who had kissed him was unwilling to have him
go ; but when he promised her to return, she sent him off
loaded with riches.
' " At home not one of his people or old friends knew him.
Everybody believed that he had been killed by another
shepherd. And this shepherd had been accused of the
murder and had fled to America.
* " On the first day of the new moon the boy remembered
his promise, and returned to the other country ; and there
was great rejoicing in the beautiful palace when he arrived.
Einion, for that was the boy's name, and Olwen, for that was
the girl's name, now wanted to marry ; but they had to go
about it quietly and half secretly, for the fair-folk dislike
ceremony and noise. When the marriage was over, Einion
wished to go back with Olwen to the upper world. So two
snow-white ponies were given them, and they were allowed
to depart.
They reached the upper world safely ; and, being
possessed of unlimited wealth, lived most handsomely on
a great estate which came into their possession. A son was
born to them, and he was called Taliessin. People soon
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 163
began to ask for Olwen's pedigree, and as none was given
it was taken for granted that she was one of the fair-folk,
* Yes, indeed,' said Einion, * there is no doubt that she is
one of the fair-folk, there is no doubt that she is one of the
very fair-folk, for she has two sisters as pretty as she is, and
if you saw them all together you would admit that the name
is a suitable one.' And this is the origin of the term fair-
folk (Tylwyth Teg)." '
From Wales we go to the nearest Brythonic country,
Cornwall, to study the fairy-folk there.
VI. IN CORNWALL
Introduction by Henry Jenner, Member of the Gorsedd
of the Bards of Brittany ; Fellow and Local Secretary for
Cornwall of the Society of Antiquaries ; author of A Hand-
book of the Cornish Language, &c.
In Cornwall the legends of giants, of saints, or of Arthur
and his knights, the observances and superstitions connected
with the prehistoric stone monuments, holy wells, mines,
and the like, the stories of submerged or buried cities, and
the fragments of what would seem to be pre-Christian faiths,
have no doubt occasional points of contact with Cornish
fairy legends, but they do not help to explain the fairies
very much. Yet certain it is that not only in Cornwall and
other Celtic lands, but throughout most of the world, a belief
in fairies exists or has existed, and so widespread a belief
must have a reason for it, though not necessarily a good one.
That which with unconscious humour men generally call
* education ' has in these days caused those lower classes, to
whom the deposit of this faith was entrusted, to be ashamed
of it, and to despise and endeavour to forget it. And so now
in Cornwall, as elsewhere at that earlier outbreak of Philis-
tinism, the Reformation,
From haunted spring and grassy ring
Troop goblin, elf and fairy.
And the kelpie must flit from the black bog-pit.
And the brownie must not tarry.
M 2
i64 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
But, in spite of Protestantism, school-boards, and educa-
tion committees, * pisky-pows ' are still placed on the ridge-
tiles of West Cornish cottages, to propitiate the piskies and
give them a dancing-place, lest they should turn the milk
sour, and St. Just and Morvah folk are still ' pisky-led ' on
the Gump (an On Gumpas, the Level Down, between Chun
Castle and Carn Kenidjack), and more rarely St. Columb
and Roche folk on Goss Moor. It will not do to say that it
is only another form of * whisky-led '. That is an evidently
modern explanation, invented since the substitution of
strange Scottish and Irish drinks for the good * Nantes ' and
wholesome * Plymouth ' of old time, and it does not fit in
with the phenomena. It was only last winter, in a cottage
not a hundred yards from where I am writing, that milk
was set at night for piskies, who had been knocking on walls
and generally making nuisances of themselves. Apparently
the piskies only drank the * astral ' part of the milk (whatever
that may be) and then the neighbouring cats drank what was
left, and it disagreed with them. I cannot vouch for the
truth of the part about the piskies and the ' astral ' milk —
I give it as it was told to me by the occupant of the cottage,
who was not unacquainted with * occult ' terminology — but
I do know that the milk was consumed, and that the cats,
one of which was my own, were with one accord unwell all
over the place. But for the present purpose it does not
matter whether these things really happened or not. The
point is that people thought they happened.
Robert Hunt, in his Popular Romances of the West of
England, divided the fairies of Cornish folk-lore into five
classes : (i) the Small People ; (2) the Spriggans ; (3) the
Piskies ; (4) the Buccas, Bockles, or Knockers ; (5) the
Brownies. This is an incorrect classification. ' The Pohel
Vean or Small People, the Spriggans, and the Piskies are not
really distinguishable from one another. Bucca, who pro-
perly is but one, is a deity not a fairy, and it is said that at
Newlyn, the great seat of his worship, offerings of fish are
still left on the beach for him. His name is the Welsh pwca,
which is probably * Puck \ though Shakespeare's Puck was
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 165
just a pisky, and it may be connected with the general
Slavonic word Bog, God ; so that if, as some say, buccaboo is
really meant for Bucca-du, Black Bucca, this may be an
equivalent of Czernobog, the Black God, who was the Ahriman
of Slavonic dualism, and Bucca-widn (White Bucca), which
is rarer, though the expression does come into a St. Levan
story, may be the corresponding Bielobog. Bockle, which
personally I have never heard used, suggests the Scottish
bogle, and both may be diminutives of bucca, bog, bogie, or
bug, the last in the sense in which one English version
translates the timor nocturnus of Psalm xc. 5, not in that of
cimex lectularius. But bockle and brownie are probably both
foreign importations borrowed from books, though a * brownie'
CO nomine has been reported from Sennen within the last
twenty years.
The Knockers or Knackers are mine-spirits, quite uncon-
nected with Bucca or bogles. The story, as I have always
heard it, is that they are the spirits of Jews who were sent
by the Romans to work in the tin mines, some say for being
concerned in the Crucifixion of our Lord, which sounds
improbable. They are benevolent spirits, and warn miners
of danger.
But the only true Cornish fairy is the Pisky, of the race
which is the Pobel Vean or Little People, and the Spriggan
is only one of his aspects. The Pisky would seem to be the
* Brownie ' of the Lowland Scot, the Duine Sith of the High-
lander, and, if we may judge from an interesting note in
Scott's The Pirate, the * Peght ' of the Orkneys. If Daoine
Sith really means ' The Folk of the Mounds ' (barrows),
not * The People of Peace ', it is possible that there is some-
thing in the theory that Brownie, Duine Sith, and * Peght ',
which is Pict, are only in their origin ways of expressing
the little dark-complexioned aboriginal folk who were sup-
posed to inhabit the barrows, cromlechs, and alle'es couvertes,
and whose cunning, their only effective weapon against the
mere strength of the Aryan invader, earned them a reputa-
tion for magical powers. Now Pisky or Pisgy is really Pixy.
Though as a patriotic Cornishman I ought not to admit it,
i66 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
I cannot deny, especially as it suits my argument better,
that the Devon form is the correct one. But after all there
has been always a strong Cornish element in Devon, even
since the time when Athelstan drove the Britons out of
Exeter and set the Tamar for their boundary, and I think
the original word is really Cornish. The transposition of
consonants, especially when s is one of them, is not uncommon
in modern Cornish English. Hosged for hogshead, and haps
for hasp are well-known instances. If we take the root of
Pixy, Pix, and divide the double letter x into its component
parts, we get Piks or Pics, and if we remember that a final
s or <2: in Cornish almost always represents a ^ or t^ of Welsh
and Breton (cf. tas for tad, nans for nant, bos for bod), we
may not unreasonably, though without absolute certainty,
conjecture that Pixy is Piety in a Cornish form.^
Without begging any question concerning the origin,
ethnology, or homogeneity of those who are called * Picts *
in history, from the times of Ammianus Marcellinus and
Claudian until Kenneth MacAlpine united the Pictish king-
dom with the Scottish, we can nevertheless accept the fact
> that the name * Pict ' has been popularly applied to some
pre-Celtic race or races, to whom certain ancient structures,
such as * vitrified forts ' and * Picts* houses ' have been
attributed. In Cornwall there are instances of prehistoric
structures being called * Piskies' Halls ' (there is an alle'e
couverte so called at Bosahan in Constantine) , and * Piskies'
Crows ' (Crow or Craw, Breton Krao, is a shed or hovel ;
* pegs* craw ' is still used for * pig-sty ') ; and there are three
genuine examples of what would in Scotland be called
* Picts* Houses * just outside St. Ives in the direction of
Zennor, though only modern antiquaries have applied that
name to them. In the district in which they are, the fringe
of coast from St. Ives round by Zennor, Morvah, Pendeen,
and St. Just nearly to Sennen, are found to this day a strange
* The New English Dictionary, s.v. Pixy, gives rather vaguely a Swedish
dialect word, pysg, a small fairy. It also mentions pix as a Devon impreca- ■»
tion, ' a pix take him.' I suspect the last is only an umlaut form of a
common Shakespearean imprecation. If not, it is interesting, and reminds
one of the fate of Margery Dawe, ' Piskies came and carr'd her away.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 167
and separate people of Mongol type, like the Bigaudens of
Pont I'Abbe and Penmarc'h in the Breton Cornouailles, one
of those * fragments of forgotten peoples ' of the ' sunset
bound of Lyonesse ' of whom Tennyson tells. They are
a little * stuggy ' dark folk, and until comparatively modern
times were recognized as different from their Celtic neigh-
bours, and were commonly believed to be largely wizards
and witches. One of Mr. Wentz's informants seems to
attribute to Zennor a particularly virulent brand of pisky,
and Zennor is the most primitive part of that district.
Possibly the more completely unmixed ancestors of this race
were * more so ' than the present representatives ; but, be
this as it may, if Pixy is really Piety, it would seem that,
like the inhabitants of the extreme north of the British Isles,
the south-western Britons eventually applied the fairly
general popular name of the mysterious, half dreaded, half
despised aboriginal to a race of preternatural beings in
whose existence they believed, and, with the name, trans-
ferred some of the qualities, attributes, and legends, thus
producing a mixed mental conception, now known as ' pisky '
or * pixy '.
There seems to have been always and everywhere (or
nearly so) a belief in a race, neither divine nor human, but
very like to human beings, who existed on a * plane ' different
from that of humans, though occupying the same space.
This has been called the * astral ' or the * fourth-dimensional '
plane. Why * astral ' ? why * fourth-dimensional ' ? why
* plane ' ? are questions the answers to which do not matter,
and I do not attempt to defend the terms, but you must call
it something. This is the belief to which Scott refers in the
introduction to The Monastery, as the * beautiful but almost
forgotten theory of astral spirits or creatures of the elements,
surpassing human beings in knowledge and power, but
inferior to them as being subject, after a certain space of
years, to a death which is to them annihilation '. The sub-
divisions and elaborations of the subject by Paracelsus, the
RosiCrucians, and the modern theosophists are no doubt
amplifications of that popular belief, which, though rather
i68 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
undefined, resembles the theory of these mystics in its mairu
outhnes, and was probably what suggested it to them.
These beings are held to be normally imperceptible to
human senses, but conditions may arise in which the ' astral '
plane ' of the elementals and that part of the ' physical
plane ' in which, if one may so express it, some human
being happens to be, may be in such a relation to one another
that these and other spirits may be seen and heard. Some
such condition is perhaps described in the story of Balaam
the soothsayer, in that incident when * the Lord opened the
eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain
was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha ',
and possibly also in the mysterious ' sound of a going in
the tops of the mulberry trees ' which David heard ; but no
doubt in these cases it was angels and not elementals. It
may also be allowable to suggest, without irreverence, that
the Gospel stories of the Transfiguration and Ascension are
connected with the same idea, though the latter is expressed
in the form of the geocentric theory of the universe.
The Cornish pisky stories are largely made up of instances
of contact between the two * planes ', sometimes accidental,
sometimes deliberately induced by incantations or magic
eye-salve, yet with these stories are often mingled incidents
that are not preternatural at all. How, when, and why this
belief arose, I do not pretend even to conjecture ; but there
it is, and though of course the holders of it do not talk about
' planes ', that is very much the notion which they appear
to have.
I do not think that the piskies were ever definitely held
to be the spirits of the dead, and while a certain confusion
has arisen, as some of Mr. Wentz's informants show, I think
it belongs to the confused eschatology of modern Protestants.
To a pre-Reformation Cornishman, or indeed to any other
Catholic, the idea was unthinkable. ' Justorum animae in
manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum malitiae :
visi sunt oculis insipientium mori : illi autem sunt in pace,'
and the transmigration of the souls of the faithful departed
into another order of beings, not disembodied because never
en. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 169
embodied, was to them impossible. Such a notion is on
a par with the quaint but very usual hope of the modern
' Evangelical ' Christian, so beautifully expressed in one of
Hans Andersen's stories, that his departed friends are pro-
moted to be * angels '. There may be, perhaps, an idea, as
there certainly is in the Breton Death-Faith, that the spirits
of the faithful dead are all round us, and are not rapt away
into a distant Paradise or Purgatory. This may be of pre-
Christian origin, but does not contradict any article of the
Christian faith. The warnings, apparitions, and hauntings,
the ' calling of the dead ' at sea, and other details of Cornish
Death-Legends, seem to point to a conception of a * plane *
of the dead, similar to but not necessarily identical with that
of the elementals. Under some quite undefined conditions
contact may occur with the ' physical plane ', whence the
alleged incidents ; but this Cornish Death-Faith, though
sometimes, as commonly in Brittany, presenting similar
phenomena, has in itself nothing to do with piskies, and as
for the unfaithful departed, their destination was also well
understood, and it was not Fairyland. There are possible
connecting links in the not very common idea that piskies
are the souls of unbaptized children, and in the more
common notion that the Pobel Vean are, not the disembodied
spirits, but the living souls and bodies of the old Pagans,
who, refusing Christianity, are miraculously preserved alive,
but are condemned to decrease in size until they vanish
altogether. Some authorities hold that it is the race and
not the individual which dwindles from generation to
generation.
This last idea, as well as the name * pixy ', gives some
probability to the conclusion that, as applied to Cornwall,
Mr. MacRitchie's theory represents a part of the truth, and
that on to an already existing belief in elementals have been
grafted exaggerated traditions of a dark pre-Celtic people.
These were not necessarily pygmies, but smaller than Celts,
and may have survived for a long time in forests and hill
countries, sometimes friendly to the taller race, whence come
the stories of piskies working for farmers, sometimes hostile,
170 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
which may account for the legends of changelings and other
mischievous tricks. This is how it appears to one who knows
his Cornwall in all its aspects fairly well, but does not profess
to be an expert in folk-lore.
BospowES, Hayle, Cornwall,
July 1 910.
Our investigation of the Fairy-Faith in Cornwall covers
the region between Falmouth and the Land's End, which is
now the most Celtic ; and the Tintagel country on the north
coast. It is generally believed that ancient Cornish legends,
like the Cornish language, are things of the past only, but
I am now no longer of that opinion. Undoubtedly Cornwall
is the most anglicized of all Celtic lands we are studying,
and its folk-lore is therefore far from being as virile as the
Irish folk-lore ; nevertheless, through its people, racially
mixed though they are, there still flows the blood and the
inspiration of a prehistoric native ancestry, and among
the oldest Cornish men and women of many an isolated
village, or farm, there yet remains some belief in fairies and
pixies. Moreover, throughout all of Old Cornwall there is
a very living faith in the Legend of the Dead ; and that this
Cornish Legend of the Dead, with its peculiar Brythonic
character, should be parallel as it is to the Breton Legend
of the Dead, has heretofore, so far as I am aware, not been
pointed out. I am giving, however, only a very few of the
Cornish death-legends collected, because in essence most of
them are alike.
A Cornish Historian's Testimony
I was privileged to make my first call in rural Cornwall
at the pretty country home of Miss Susan E. Gay, of Crill,
about three miles from Falmouth ; and Miss Gay, who has
written a well-known history of Falmouth [Old Falmouth,
London, 1903), very willingly accorded me an interview on
the subject of my inquiry, and finally dictated for my use
the following matter : —
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 171
Pixies as 'Astral Plane * Beings. — ' The pixies and fairies
are little beings in the human form existing on the ' astral
plane ', who may be in the process of evolution ; and, as
such, I believe people have seen them. The * astral plane '
is not known to us now because our psychic faculty of per-
ception has faded out by non-use, and this condition has
been brought about by an almost exclusive development of
the physical brain ; but it is likely that the psychic faculty
will develop again in its turn.'
Psychical Interpretation of Folk-Lore. — * It is my point of
view that there is a basis of truth in the folk-lore. With its
remnants of occult learning, magic, charms, and the like,
folk-lore seems to be the remains of forgotten psychical facts,
rather than history, as it is often called.'
Peasant Evidence from the Crill Country
Miss Gay kindly gave me the names of certain peasants
in the Crill region, and from one of them, Mrs. Harriett
Christopher, I gleaned the following material : —
A Pisky Changeling. — * A woman who lived near Breage
Church had a fine girl baby, and she thought the piskies
came and took it and put a withered child in its place. The
withered child lived to be twenty years old, and was no
larger when it died than when the piskies brought it. It was
fretful and peevish and frightfully shrivelled. The parents
believed that the piskies often used to come and look over
a certain wall by the house to see the child. And I heard
my grandmother say that the family once put the child
out of doors at night to see if the piskies would take it
back again.'
Nature of Piskies. — * The piskies are said to be very small.
You could never see them by day. I used to hear my grand-
mother, who has been dead fifty years, say that the piskies
used to hold a fair in the fields near Breage, and that people
saw them there dancing. I also remember her saying that
it was customary to set out food for the piskies at night.
My grandmother's great belief was in piskies and in spirits ;
and she considered piskies spirits. She used to tell so many
172 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
stories about spirits [of the dead] coming back and such
things that I would be afraid to go to bed/
Evidence from Constantine
Our witnesses from the ancient and picturesque village of
Constantine are John Wilmet, seventy-eight years old, and
his good wife, two most excellent and well-preserved types
of the passing generation of true Cornish stock. John began
by teUing me the following tale about an alle'e couverte —
a tale which in one version or another is apt to be told of
most Cornish megaliths : —
A Pisky-House. — ' William Murphy, who married my
sister, once went to the pisky-house at Bosahan with a sur-
veyor, and the two of them heard such unearthly noises in
it that they came running home in great excitement, saying
they had heard the piskies.*
The Pisky Thrasher. — ' On a farm near here, a pisky used
to come at night to thrash the farmer's corn. The farmer
in payment once put down a new suit for him. When the
pisky came and saw it, he put it on, and said : —
Pisky fine and pisky gay,
Pisky now will fly away.
And they say he never returned.*
Nature of Piskies. — ' I always understood the piskies to be
little people. A great deal was said about ghosts in this
place. Whether or not piskies are the same as ghosts I cannot
tell, but I fancy the old folks thought they were.*
Exorcism. — * A farmer who lived two miles from here,
near the Gweek River, called Parson Jago to his house to
have him quiet the ghosts or spirits regularly haunting it,
for Parson Jago could always put such things to rest. The
clergyman went to the farmer's house, and with his whip
formed a circle on the floor and then commanded the spirit,
which made its appearance on the table, to come down into
the circle. While on the table the spirit had been visible to
all the family, but as soon as it got into the ring it dis-
appeared ; and the house was never haunted afterwards.*
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 173
At St. Michael's Mount, Marazion
Our next place for an investigation of the surviving
Cornish Fairy-Faith is Marazion, the very ancient British
town opposite the isle called St. Michael's Mount. (From
Const ant ine I walked through the country to this point,
talking with as many old people as possible, but none of
them knew very much about ancient Cornish beliefs.) It
is believed, though the matter is very doubtful, that Mara-
zion was the chief mart for the tin trade of Celtic Britain,
and that the Mount — sacred to the Sun and to the Pagan
Mysteries long before Caesar crossed the Channel from Gaul —
sheltered the brilliantly-coloured sailing-ships of the Phoeni-
cians.^ In such a romantic town, where Oriental merchants
and Celtic pilgrims probably once mingled together, one
might expect some survival of olden beliefs and customs.
Piskies. — To Mr. Thomas G. Jago, of Marazion, with
a memory extending backwards more than seventy years,
he being eighty years old, I am indebted for this statement
about the pisky creed in that locality : — * I imagine that one
hundred and fifty years ago the belief in piskies and spirits
was general. In my boyhood days, piskies were often called
" the mites " (little people) : they were regarded as little
spirits. The word piskies is the old Cornish brogue for
pixies. In certain grass fields, mushrooms growing in a
circle might be seen of a morning, and the old folks point-
ing to the mushrooms would say to the children, " Oh, the
piskies have been dancing there last night." *
Two more of the oldest natives of Marazion, among others
with whom I talked, are William Rowe, eighty-two years
old, and his married sister seventy-eight years old. About
the piskies Mr. Rowe said this : — * People would go out at
night and lose their way and then declare that they had
been pisky-led. I think they meant by this that they fell
under some spiritual influence — that some spirit led them
astray. The piskies were said to be small, and they were
^ ' Some say that the Phoenicians never came to Cornwall at all, and that
their Ictis was Vectis (the Isle of Wight) or even Thanet.' — Henry Jenner.
174 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
thought of as spirits.' ^ Mr. Rowe's sister added : — ' If we
as children did anything wrong, the old folks would say
to us, ** The piskies will carry you away if you do that
again." '
Witch-Doctors . — I heard the following witch-story from
a lawyer, a native of the district, who lives in the country
just beyond Marazion : — * Jimmy Thomas, of Wendron
parish, who died within the last twenty-five years, was
the last witch-doctor I know about in West Cornwall. He
was supposed to have great power over evil spirits. His
immediate predecessor was a woman, called the " Witch of
Wendron ", and she did a big business. My father once
visited her in company with a friend whose father had lost
some horses. This was about seventy to eighty years ago.
The witch when consulted on this occasion turned her back
to my father's companion, and began talking to herself in
Cornish. Then she gave him some herbs. His father used
the herbs, and no more horses died : the herbs were sup-
posed to have driven all evil spirits out of the stable.'
In Penzance : An Architect's Testimony
Penzance from earliest times has undoubtedly been, as it
is now, the capital of the Land's End district, the Sacred
Land of Britain. And in Penzance I had the good fortune
to meet those among its leading citizens who still cherish
and keep alive the poetry and the mystic lore of Old Corn-
wall ; and to no one of them am I more indebted than to
Mr. Henry Maddern, F.LA.S. Mr. Maddern tells me that
he was initiated into the mysteries of the Cornish folk-lore
of this region when a boy in Newlyn, where he was born, by
his old nurse Betty Grancan, a native Zennor woman, of
stock probably the most primitive and pure in the British
Islands. At his home in Penzance, Mr. Maddern dictated
to me the very valuable evidence which follows : —
Two Kinds of Pixies. — * In this region there are two kinds
of pixies, one purely a land-dwelling pixy and the other
a pixy which dwells on the sea-strand between high and low
* 'This is, I think, the usual Cornish belief.' — Henry Jenner.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 175
water mark.^ The land-dwelling pixy was usually thought
to be full of mischievous fun, but it did no harm. There was
a very prevalent belief, when I was a boy, that this sea-
strand pixy, called Bucca,^ had to be propitiated by a cast
(three) of fish, to ensure the fishermen having a good shot
(catch) of fish. The land pixy was supposed to be able to
render its devotees invisible, if they only anointed their eyes
with a certain green salve made of secret herbs gathered
from Kerris-moor.^ In the invisible condition thus induced,
people were able to join the pixy revels, during which,
according to the old tradition, time slipped away very, very
rapidly, though people returned from the pixies no older
than when they went with them.*
The Nurse and the Ointment. — * I used to hear about a
Zennor girl who came to Newlyn as nurse to the child of
a gentleman living at Zimmerman-Cot. The gentleman
warned her never to touch a box of ointment which he
guarded in a special room, nor even to enter that room ; but
one day in his absence she entered the room and took some
of the ointment. Suspecting the qualities of the ointment,
she put it on her eyes with the wish that she might see where
her master was. She immediately found herself in the
higher part of the orchard amongst the pixies, where they
were having much junketing (festivity and dancing) ; and
there saw the gentleman whose child she had nursed. For
a time she managed to evade him, but before the junketing
was at an end he discovered her and requested her to go
* ' About Forth Curnow and the Logan Rock there are little spots of
earth in the face of the granite cliffs where sea-daisies (thrift) and other
wild flowers grow. These are referred to the sea pisky, and are known as
''piskies' gardens." ' — Henry Jenner.
* I was told by another Cornishman that, in a spirit of municipal rivalry
and fun, the Penzance people like to taunt the people of Newlyn (now
almost a suburb of Penzance) by calling them Buccas, and that the
Newlyn townsmen very much resent being so designated. Thus what no
doubt was originally an ancient cult to some local sea-divinity called
Bucca, has survived as folk-humour. (See Mr. Jenner's Introduction,
p. 164.)
* ' Another version, which is more usual, is that the pisky anointed the
person's eyes and so rendered itself visible.' — Henry Jenner.
176 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
home ; and then, to her intense astonishment, she learned
that she had been away twenty years, though she was
unchanged. The gentleman scolded her for having touched
the ointment, paid her wages in full, and sent her back to
her people. She always had the one regret, that she had
not gone into the forbidden room at first.'
The Tolcarne Troll. — ' The fairy of the Newlyn Tolcarne ^
was in some ways like the Puck of the English Midlands.
But this fairy, or troll, was supposed to date back to the
time of the Phoenicians. He was described as a little old
pleasant-faced man dressed in a tight-fitting leathern jerkin,
with a hood on his head, who lived invisible in the rock.
Whenever he chose to do so he could make himself visible.
When I was a boy it was said that he spent his time voyaging
from here to Tyre on the galleys which carried the tin ; and,
also, that he assisted in the building of Solomon's Temple.
Sometimes he was called " the Wandering One ", or " Odin
the Wanderer ". My old nurse, Betty Grancan, used to say
that you could call up the troll at the Tolcarne if while
there you held in your hand three dried leaves, one of the
ash, one of the oak, and one of the thorn, and pronounced
an incantation or charm. Betty would never tell me the
words of the charm, because she said I was too much of
a sceptic. The words of such a Cornish charm had to pass
from one believer to another, through a woman to a man,
and from a man to a woman, and thus alternately.' ^
Nature of Pixies. — ' Pixies were often supposed to be the
souls of the prehistoric dwellers of this country. As such,
pixies were supposed to be getting smaller and smaller, until
finally they are to vanish entirely. The country pixies
inhabiting the highlands from above Newlyn on to St. Just
were considered a wicked sort. Their great ambition was to
* This is a natural outcropping of greenstone on a commanding hill just
above the vicarage in Newlyn, and concerning it many weird legends
survive. In pre-Christian times it was probably one of the Cornish sacred
spots for the celebration of ancient rites — probably in honour of the Sun —
and for divination.
* For more about the Tolcarne Troll see chapter on Celtic Re-birth
p. 391.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 177
change their own offspring for human children ; and the
true child could only be got back by laying a four-leaf clover
on the changeling. A winickey child — one which was weak,
frail, and peevish — was of the nature of a changeling. Miner
pixies, called " knockers ", would accept a portion of a
miner's croust (lunch) on good faith, and by knocking lead
him to a rich mother-lode, or warn him by knocking if there
was danger ahead or a cavern full of water ; but if the
miner begrudged them the croust, he would be left to his
own resources to find the lode, and, moreover, the " knockers"
would do all they could to lead him away from a good lode.
These mine pixies, too, were supposed to be spirits, some-
times spirits of the miners of ancient times.' ^
Fairies and Pixies. — * In general appearance the fairies
were much the same as pixies. They were small men and
women, much smaller than dwarfs. The men were swarthy
in complexion, and the women had a clear complexion of
a peach-like bloom. None ever appeared to be more than
five-and-twenty to thirty years old. I have heard my nurse
say that she could see scores of them whenever she picked
a four-leaf clover and put it in the wisp of straw which she
carried on her head as a cushion for the bucket of milk. Her
theory was that the richness of the milk was what attracted
them. Pixies, like fairies, very much enjoyed milk, and people
of miserly nature used to put salt around a cow to keep the
pixies away ; and then the pixies would lead such mean
people astray the very first opportunity that came. Accord-
ing to some country-people, the pixies have been seen in the
day-time, but usually they are only seen at night.'
A Cornish Editor's Opinion
Mr. Herbert Thomas, editor of four Cornish papers, The
Cornishman, The Cornish Telegraph, Post, and Evening
^ Mr. John B. Cornish, solicitor, of Penzance, told me that when he
once suggested to an old miner who fully believed in the ' knockers ', that
the noises they were supposed to make were due to material causes, the
old miner became quite annoyed, and said, ' Well, I guess I have ears to
hear.'
WENTZ N
178 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
Times, and a true Celt himself, has been deeply interested
in the folk-lore of Cornwall, and has made excellent use of
it in his poetry and other literary productions ; so that his
personal opinions, which follow, as to the probable origin of
the fctiry-belief, are for our study a very important con-
tribution : —
Animistic Origin of Belief in 'Pixies. — * I should say that
the modern belief in pixies, or in fairies, arose from a very
ancient Celtic or pre-Celtic belief in spirits. Just as among
some savage tribes there is belief in gods and totems, here
there was belief in little spirits good and bad, who were able
to help or to hinder man. Belief in the supernatural, in my
opinion, is the root of it all.*
A Cornish Folk-lorist's Testimony
In Penzance I had the privilege of also meeting Miss M. A.
Courtney, the well-known folk-lorist, who quite agrees with
me in believing that there is in Cornwall a widespread
Legend of the Dead ; and she cited a few special instances
in illustration, as follows : —
Cornish Legend of the Dead. — * Here amongst the fisher-
men and sailors there is a belief that the dead in the sea will
be heard calling if a drowning is about to occur. I know of
a woman who went to a clergyman to have him exorcize her
of the spirit of her dead sister, which she said appeared in
the form of a bee. And I have heard of miners believing
that white moths are spirits.' ^
Evidence from Newlyn
In Newlyn, Mrs. Jane Tregurtha gave the following
important testimony : —
The ' Little Folk '. — * The old people thoroughly believed
in the little folk, and that they gambolled all over the moors
on moonlight nights. Some pixies would rain down bless-
ings and others curses ; and to remove the curses people
* For the Cornish folk-lore already published by Miss M. A. Courtney,
the reader is referred to her work, Cornish Feasts and Folk-Lore (Penzance,
1890).
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 179
would go to the wells blessed by the saints. Whenever any-
thing went wrong in the kitchen at night the pixies were
blamed. After the 31st of October [or after Halloween] the
blackberries are not fit to eat, for the pixies have then been
over them ' (cf. the parallel Irish belief, p. 38).
Fairy Guardian of the Men-an-Tol} — * At the Men-an-Tol
there is supposed to be a guardian fairy or pixy who can
make miraculous cures. And my mother knew of an actual
case in which a changeling was put through the stone in
order to get the real child back. It seems that evil pixies
changed children, and that the pixy at the Men-an-Tol being
good, could, in opposition, undo their work.'
Exorcism. — ' A spirit was put to rest on the Green here in
Newlyn. The parson prayed and fasted, and then com-
manded the spirit to teeme (dip dry) the sea with a limpet
shell containing no bottom ; and the spirit is supposed to
be still busy at this task.'
Piskies as Apparitions. — When I talked with her in her
neat cottage at Newlyn, Miss Mary Ann Chirgwin (who was
born on St. Michael's Mount in 1825) told me this : — * The
old people used to say the piskies were apparitions of the
dead come back in the form of little people, but I can't
remember anything more than this about them.'
An Artist's Testimony
One of the members of the Newlyn Art School was able
to offer a few of his own impressions concerning the pixies
of Devonshire, where he has frequently made sketches of
pixies from descriptions given to him by peasants : —
Devonshire Pixies. — * Throughout all the west of Devon-
shire, anywhere near the moorlands, the country people are
* A curious holed stone standing between two low menhirs on the moors
beyond the Lanyon Dolmen, near Madron ; but in Borlase's time (cf. his
Antiquities of Cornwall, ed. 1769, p. 177) the three stones were not as now
in a direct line. The Men-an-Tol has aroused much speculation among
archaeologists as to its probable use or meaning. No doubt it was astro-
nomical and religious in its significance ; and it may have been a calendar
stone with which ancient priests took sun observations (cf. Sir Norman
Lockyer, Stonehenge and Other Stone Monuments) ; or it may have been
otherwise related to a sun cult, or to some pagan initiatory rites.
N 2
i8o THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
much given to belief in pixies and ghosts. I think they
expect to see them about the twiHght hour ; though I have
not found anybody who has actually seen a pixy — the belief
now is largely based on hearsay.'
Testimony from the Historian of Mousehole
To Mr. Richard Harry, the historian of Mousehole, I am
indebted for these remarks about the nature and present
state of the belief in pixies as he observes it in that region : —
The Pixy Belief. — ' The piskies, thought of as little people
who appear on moonlight nights, are still somewhat believed
in here. If interfered with too much they are said to exhibit
almost fiendish powers. In a certain sense they are con-
sidered spiritual, but in another sense they are much materia-
lized in the conceptions of the people. Generally speaking,
the belief in them has almost died out within the last fifty
years.'
A Seaman's Testimony
' Uncle Billy Pender,* as our present witness is familiarly
called, is one of the oldest natives of Mousehole, being
eighty-five years old ; and most of his life has been passed
on the ocean, as a fisherman, seaman, and pilot. After
having told me the usual things about piskies, fairies, spirits,
ghosts, and the devil. Uncle Billy Pender was very soon
talking about the dead : —
Cornish Legend of the Dead. — * I was up in bed, and I sup-
pose asleep, and I dreamt that the boy James came to my
bedside and woke me up by saying, " How many lights
does Death put up ? " And in the dream there appeared
such light as I never saw in my life ; and when I woke up
another light like it was in the room. Within three months
afterwards we buried two grand-daughters out of this house.
This was four years ago.' When this strange tale was
finished. Uncle Billy Pender's daughter, who had been
listening, added : — * For three mornings, one after another,
there was a robin at our cellar door before the deaths, and
my husband said he didn't like that.'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL i8i
Then Uncle Billy told this weird Breton-like tale : —
' " Granny " told about a boat named Blucher, going from
Newlyn to Bristol with six thousand mackerel, which put in
at Arbor Cove, close to Padstow, on account of bad weather.
The boat dragged her anchors and was lost. " Granny "
afterwards declared that he saw the crew going up over
the Newlyn Slip ; and the whole of Newlyn and Mousehole
believed him/
Testimony by Two Land's End Farmers
In the Sennen country, within a mile of the end of Britain,
I talked with two farmers who knew something about piskies.
The first one, Charles Hutchen, of Trevescan, told me this
legend : —
A St. Just Pisky. — ' Near St. Just, on Christmas Day,
a pisky carried away in his cloak a boy, but the boy got
home. Then the pisky took him a second time, and again
the boy got home. Each time the boy was away for only an
hour ' (probably in a dream or trance state) .
Seeing the Pisky-Dance. — Frank Ellis, seventy-eight years
old, of the same village of Trevescan, then gave the following
evidence : — * Up on Sea- View Green there are two rings
where the piskies used to dance and play music on a moon-
light night. I've heard that they would come there from
the moors. Little people they are called. If you keep quiet
when they are dancing you'll see them, but if you make
any noise they'll disappear.' Frank Ellis's wife, who is
a very aged woman, was in the house listening to the con-
versation, and added at this point : — * My grandmother,
Nancy Maddem, was down on Sea- View Green by moonlight
and saw the piskies dancing, and passed near them. She
said they were like little children, and had red cloaks.'
Testimony from a Sennen Cove Fisherman
John Gilbert Guy, seventy-eight years old, a retired
fisherman of Sennen Cove, offers very valuable testimony,
as follows : —
* Small People '. — * Many say they have seen the small
i82 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
people here by the hundreds. In Ireland they call the
small people the fairies. My mother believes there were such
things, and so did the old folks in these parts. My grand-
mother used to put down a good furze fire for them on stormy
nights, because, as she said, " They are a sort of people
wandering about the world with no home or habitation,
and ought to be given a little comfort." The most fear of
them was that they might come at night and change a baby
for one that was no good. My mother said that Joan
Nicholas believed the fairies had changed her baby, because
it was very small and cross-tempered. Up on the hill you'll
see a round ring with grass greener than anywhere else, and
that is where the small people used to dance.'
Danger of Seeing the ' Little People \ — ' I heard that a
woman set out water to wash her baby in, and that before
she had used the water the small people came and washed
their babies in it. She didn't know about this, and so in
washing her baby got some of the water in her eyes, and then
all at once she could see crowds of little people about her.
One of them came to her and asked if she was able to see
their crowd, and when she said " Yes/' the little people
wanted to take her eyes out, and she had to clear away from
them as fast as she could.'
Testimony from a Cornish Miner
William Shepherd, a retired miner of Pendeen, near
St. Just, where he has passed all his life, offers us from
his own experiences under the earth the evidence which
follows : —
Mine Piskies. — * There are mine-piskies which are not the
" knockers ". I've heard old men in the mines say that
they have seen them, and they call them the small people.
It appears that they don't like company, for they are always
seen singly. The " knockers " are spirits, too, as one might
say. They are said to bring bad luck, while the small people
may bring good luck,'
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN CORNWALL 183
Testimony from King Arthur's Country
Leaving the Land's End district and South Cornwall, we
now pass northward to King Arthur's country. Our chief
researches there are to be made outside the beaten track of
tourists as far as possible, in the country between Camelford
and Tintagel. At Delabole, the centre of this district, we
find our first witness, Henry Spragg, a retired slate-quarry-
man, seventy years old. Mr, Spragg has had excellent
opportunities of hearing any folk-lore that might have been
living during his lifetime ; and what he offers first is about
King Arthur : —
King Arthur. — ' We always thought of King Arthur as
a great warrior. And many a time I've heard old people
say that he used to appear in this country in the form of
a nath.' ^ This was all that could be told of King Arthur ;
and the conversation finally was directed toward piskies, with
the following results : —
Piskies. — * A man named Bottrell, who lived near St.
Teath, was pisky-led at West Down, and when he turned
his pockets inside out he heard the piskies going away
laughing.2 Often my grandmother used to say when I got
home after dark, " You had better mind, or the piskies will
carry you away." And I can remember hearing the old
people say that the piskies are the spirits of dead-born
children.' From pixies the conversation drifted to the
spirit-hounds * often heard at night near certain haunted
downs in St. Teath parish', and then, finally, to ordinary
Cornish legends about the dead.
Our next witnesses from Delabole are John Male, eighty-
* I asked what a nath is, and Mr. Spragg explained : — * A nath is a bird
with a beak like that of a parrot, and with black and grey feathers. The
naths live on sea-islands in holes like rabbits, and before they start to
fly they first run.' The nath, as Mr. Henry Jenner informs me, is the same
as the puffin {Fratercula arctica), called also in Cornwall a ' sea parrot '.
* Sometimes it is necessary to turn your coat inside out. A Zennor man
said that to do the same thing with your socks or stockings is as good.
In Ireland this strange psychological state of going astray comes from
walking over a fairy domain, over a confusing-sod, or getting into a fairy
pass.
i84 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
two years old, one of the very oldest men in King Arthur's
country, and his wife ; and all of Mr. Male's ancestors as
far back as he can trace them have lived in the same parish.
Piskies in General. — Mr. Male remarked : — * I have heard
a good deal about the piskies, but I can't remember any of
the old women's tales. I have heard, too, of people saying
that they had seen the piskies. It was thought that when
the piskies have misled you they show themselves jumping
about in front of you ; they are a race of little people who
live out in the fields.' Mrs. Male had now joined us at the
open fire, and added : — * Piskies always come at night, and
in marshy ground there are round places called pisky beds
where they play. When I was little, my mother and grand-
mother would be sitting round the fire of an evening telling
fireside stories, and I can remember hearing about a pisky
of this part who stole a new coat, and how the family heard
him talking to himself about it, and then finally say : —
Pisky fine and pisky gay,
Pisky 's got a bright new coat,
Pisky now will run away.
And I can just remember one bit of another story : A pisky
looked into a house and said : —
All alone, fair maid ?
No, here am I with a dog and cat,
And apples to eat and nuts to crack.'
Tintagel Folk-Beliefs. — A retired rural policeman of the
Tintagel country, where he was born and reared, and now
keeper of the Passmore Edwards Art Gallery at Newlyn,
offered this testimony from Tintagel : — * In Tintagel I used
to sit round the fire at night and hear old women tell so
much about piskies and ghosts that I was then afraid to go
out of doors after darkness had fallen. They religiously
believed in such things, and when I expressed my doubts
I was driven away as a rude boy. They thought if you went
to a certain place at a certain hour of the night that you
could there see the piskies as little spirits. It was held that
the piskies could lead you astray and play tricks on you.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 185
but that they never did you any serious injury.* Of the
Arthurian folk-legend at Tintagel he said : — * The spirit of
King Arthur is supposed to be in the Cornish chough —
a beautiful black bird with red legs and red beak/
We now leave Great Britain and cross the English Channel
to Little Britain, the third of the Brythonic countries.
VII. IN BRITTANY
Introduction by Anatole Le Braz, Professor of French
Literature, University of Rennes, Brittany ; author of
La Legende de la Mort, Au Pays des Pardons, &c.
MoN CHER Monsieur Wentz,
II me souvient que, lors de votre soutenance de these
devant la Faculte des Lettres de TUniversite de Rennes, un
de mes collegues, mon ami, le professeur Dottin, vous
demanda :
* Vous croyez, dites-vous, a Texistence des fees ? En avez-
vous vu ? '
Vous repondites, avec autant de phlegme que de sin-
cerite :
* Non. J*ai tout fait pour en voir, et je n'en ai jamais vu.
Mais il y a beaucoup de choses que vous n'avez pas vues,
monsieur le professeur, et dont vous ne songeriez cependant
pas a nier I'existence. Ainsi fais-je a I'egard des fees/
Je suis comme vous, mon cher monsieur Wentz : je n'ai
My dear Mr. Wentz,
I recollect that, at the time of your examination on your thesis before
the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rennes, one of my colleagues,
my friend Professor Dottin, put to you this question : —
' You believe, you assert, in the existence of fairies ? Have you seen
any ? '
You answered, with equal coolness and candour :
' No. I have made every efifort to do so, and I have never seen any.
But there are many things which you, sir, have not seen, and of which,
nevertheless, you would not think of denying the existence. That is my
attitude toward fairies.'
I am like you, my deair Mr. Wentz : I have never seen fairies. It is true
i86 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
jamais vu de fees. J'ai bien une amie tres ch^re que nous
avons baptisee de ce nom, mais, malgre tous ses beaux dons
magiques, elle n'est qu'une humble mortelle. En revanche,
j'ai vecu, tout enfant, parmi des personnes qui avaient avec
les fees veritables un commerce quasi journaher.
C'etait dans une petite bourgade de Basse-Bretagne,
peuplee de paysans a moitie marins, et de marins a moitie
paysans. II y avait, non loin du village, une ancienne
gentilhommiere que ses proprietaires avaient depuis long-
temps abandonnee pour on ne savait au juste quel motif.
On continuait de I'appeler le * chateau ' de Lanascol, quoi-
qu'elle ne fut plus guere qu'une ruine. II est vrai que les
avenues par lesquelles on y accedait avaient conserve leur
aspect seigneurial, avec leurs quadruples rangees de vieux
h^tres dont les vastes frondaisons se miraient dans de
magnifiques etangs. Les gens d'alentour se risquaient peu,
le soir, dans ces avenues. EUes passaient pour etre, a partir
du coucher du soleil, le lieu de promenade favori d'une
* dame ' que Ton designait sous le nom de Groach Lanascol,
— la ' Fee de Lanascol '.
Beaucoup disaient I'avoir rencontree, et la depeignaient
sous les couleurs, du reste, les plus di verses. Ceux-ci fai-
saient d'elle une vieille femme, marchant toute courbee, les
that I have a very dear lady friend whom we have christened by that
name [fairy], but, in spite of all her fair supernatural gifts, she is only
a humble mortal. On the other hand, I lived, when a mere child, among
people who had almost daily intercourse with real fairies.
That was in a little township in Lower Brittany, inhabited by peasants
who were half sailors, and by sailors who were half peasants. There was,
not far from the village, an ancient manor-house long abandoned by its
owners, for what reason was not known exactly. It continued to be called
the ' Chateau ' of Lanascol, though it was hardly more than a ruin. It is
true that the avenues by which one approached it had retained their
feudal aspect, with their fourfold rows of ancient beeches whose huge
masses of foliage were reflected in splendid pools. The people of the
neighbourhood seldom ventured into these avenues in the evening.
They were supposed to be, from sunset onwards, the favourite walking-
ground of a ' lady ' who went by the name of Groac'h Lanascol, the ' Fairy
of Lanascol '.
Many claimed to have met her, and described her in colours which
were, however, the most varied. Some represented her as an old woman
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 187
deux mains appuyees sur un tron9on de bequille avec lequel,
de temps en temps, elle remuait, a I'automne, les feuilles
mortes. Les feuilles mortes qu'elle retournait ainsi devenaient
soudain brillantes comme de Tor et s'entrechoquaient avec
un bruit clair de metal. Selon d'autres, c'etait une jeune
princesse, merveilleusement paree, sur les pas de qui s'em-
pressaient d'et ranges petits hommes noirs et silencieux»
Elle s'avangait d'une majestueuse allure de reine. Parfois
elle s'arretait devant un arbre, et I'arbre aussitot s'inclinait
comme pour recevoir ses ordres. Ou bien, elle jetait un
regard sur I'eau d'un etang, et I'etang frissonnait jusqu'en
ses profondeurs, comme agite d'un mouvement de crainte
sous la puissance de son regard.
On racontait sur elle cette curieuse histoire : —
Les proprietaires de Lanascol ayant voulu se defaire d'un
domaine qu'ils n'habitaient plus, le manoir et les terres qui
en dependaient furent mis en adjudication chez un not aire
de Plouaret. Au jour fixe pour les encheres nombre d'ache-
teurs accoururent. Les prix etaient deja montes tres haut,
et le domaine allait ^tre adjuge, quand, a un dernier appel
du crieur, une voix feminine, tres douce et tres imperieuse
tout ensemble, s'eleva et dit :
' Mille francs de plus ! '
who walked all bent, her two hands leaning on a stump of a crutch with
which, in autumn, from time to time she stirred the dead leaves. The
dead leaves which she thus stirred became suddenly shining like gold, and
clinked against one another with the clear sound of metal. According to
others, it was a young princess, marvellously adorned, after whom there
hurried curious little black silent men. She advanced with a majestic
and queenly bearing. Sometimes she stopped in front of a tree, and
the tree at once bent down as if to receive her commands. Or again, she
would cast a look on the water of a pool, and the pool trembled to its very
depths, as though stirred by an access of fear beneath the potency of her look.
The following strange story was told about her : —
The owners of Lanascol having desired to get rid of an estate which
they no longer occupied, the manor and lands attached to it were put up
to auction by a notary of Plouaret. On the day fixed for the bidding a
number of purchasers presented themselves. The price had already reached
a large sum, and the estate was on the point of being knocked down,
when, on a last appeal from the auctioneer, a female voice, very gentle
and at the same time very imperious, was raised and said :
* A thousand francs more ! '
i88 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
II y eut grande rumeur dans la salle. Tout le monde
chercha des yeux la personne qui avait lance cette sur-
enchere, et qui ne pouvait ^tre qu'une femme. Mais il ne
se trouva pas une seule femme dans I'assistance. Le notaire
demanda :
* Qui a parle ? '
De nouveau, la m^me voix se fit entendre.
* Groac'h Lanascol ! ' repondit-elle.
Ce fut une debandade generale. Depuis lors, il ne s'etait
jamais presente d'acquereur, et voila pourquoi, repetait-on
couramment, Lanascol etait tou jours a vendre.
Si je vous ai entretenu a plaisir de la Fee de Lanascol, mon
cher monsieur Wentz, c'est qu'elle est la premiere qui ait
fait impression sur moi, dans mon enfance. Combien
d'autres n'en ai-je pas connu, par la suite, a travers les
recits de mes compatriotes des greves, des champs ou des
bois ! La Bretagne est restee un royaume de feerie. On n'y
pent voyager I'espace d'une lieue sans cotoyer la demeure
de quelque fee male ou femelle. Ces jours derniers, comme
j'accomplissais un pelerinage d'automne a I'hallucinante
for^t de Paimpont, toute hantee encore des grands souvenirs
de la legende celtique, je croisai, sous les opulents ombrages
A great commotion arose in the hall. Every one's eyes sought for the
person who had made this advance, and who could only be a woman.
But there was not a single woman among those present. The notary asked :
' Who spoke ? '
Again the same voice made itself heard.
' The Fairy of Lanascol ! ' it replied.
A general break-up followed. From that time forward no purchaser
has ever appeared, and, as the current report ran, that was the reason why
Lanascol continued to be for sale.
I have designedly quoted to you the story of the Fairy of Lanascol, my
dear Mr. Wentz, because she was the first to make an impression on me
in my childhood. How many others have I come to know later on in the
course of narratives from those who lived with me on the sandy beaches,
in the fields or the woods ! Brittany has always been a kingdom of Faerie.
One cannot there travel even a league without brushing past the dwelling
of some male or female fairy. Quite lately, in the course of an autumn
pilgrimage to the hallucinatory forest of Paimpont (or Broceliande), still
haunted throughout by the great memories of Celtic legend, I encountered
beneath the thick foliage of the Pas-du-Houx, a woman gathering faggots.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 189
du Pas-du-Houx, une ramasseuse de bois mort, avec qui je
ne manquai pas, vous pensez bien, de lier conversation. Un
des premiers noms que je pronon9ai fut naturellement celui
de Viviane.
' Viviane ! * se recria la vieille pauvresse. * Ah ! benie
soit-elle, la bonne Dame 1 car elle est aussi bonne que
belle... Sans sa protection, mon homme, qui travaille dans
les coupes, serait tombe, comme un loup, sous les fusils des
gardes...' Et elle se mit a me conter comme quoi son mari,
un tantinet braconnier comme tons les bucherons de ces
parages, s'etant porte, une nuit, a Taffut du chevreuil, dans
les environs de la Butte-aux-Plaintes, avait ete surpris en
flagrant delit par une tour nee de gardes. II voulut fuir : les
gardes tirerent. Une balle I'atteignit a la cuisse : il tomba,
et il s'appretait a se faire tuer sur place, plutot que de se
rendre, lorsque, entre ses agresseurs et lui, s'interposa
subitement une espece de brouillard tres dense qui voila
tout, — le sol, les arbres, les gardes et le blesse lui-m^me. Et
il entendit une voix sortie du brouillard, une voix legere
comme un bruit de feuilles, murmurer a son oreille : * Sauve-
toi, mon fils : Tesprit de Viviane veillera sur toi jusqu'a ce
que tu aies rampe hors de la for^t.'
with whom I did not fail, as you may well imagine, to enter into
conversation. One of the first names I uttered was naturally that of
Vivian.
' Vivian ! ' cried out the poor old woman. ' Ah ! a blessing on her,
the good Lady ! for she is as good as she is beautiful. . . . Without her
protection my good man, who works at woodcutting, would have fallen,
like a wolf, beneath the keepers' guns. . . .' And she began to narrate
to me ' as how ' her husband, something of a poacher like all the wood-
cutters of these districts, had one night gone to watch for a roebuck in
the neighbourhood of the Butte-aux-Plaintes, and had been caught red-
handed by a party of keepers. He sought to fly : the keepers fired.
A bullet hit him in the thigh : he fell, and was making ready to let himself
be killed on the spot, rather than surrender, when there suddenly inter-
posed between him and his assailants a kind of very thick mist which
covered everything — the ground, the trees, the keepers, and the wounded
man himself. And he heard a voice coming out of the mist, a voice gentle
like the rustling of leaves, and murmuring in his ear : ' Save thyself, my
son : the spirit of Vivian will watch over thee till thou hast crawled out
of the forest.'
190 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, l
* Telles furent les propres paroles de la fee,' conclut la
ramasseuse de bois mort.
Et, devotement, elle se signa, car la religieuse Bretagne —
vous le savez — venere les fees a I'egal des saintes.
J 'ignore s'il faut rattacher les lutins au monde des fees,
mais, ce qui est sur, c'est que cette charmante et malicieuse
engeance a toujours puUule dans notre pays. Je me suis
laisse dire qu'autrefois chaque maison avait le sien. C'etait
quelque chose comme le petit dieu penate. Tantot visible,
tantot invisible, il presidait a tous les actes de la vie do-
mestique. Mieux encore : il y participait, et de la fa^on la
plus efficace. A I'interieur du logis, il aidait les servantes,
soufflait le feu dans I'atre, surveillait la cuisson de la nour-
riture pour les hommes ou pour les b^tes, apaisait les cris
de I'enfant couche dans le bas de I'armoire, empechait les
vers de se mettre dans les pieces de lard suspendues aux
solives. II avait pareillement dans son lot le gouvernement
des etables et des ecuries : grace a lui, les vaches donnaient
un lait abondant en beurre, et les chevaux avaient la croupe
ronde, le poil luisant. II etait, en un mot, le bon genie de
la famille, mais c'6tait a la condition que chacun eut pour
lui les egards auxquels il avait droit. Si peu qu'on lui
* Such were the actual words of the fairy,' concluded the faggot-gatherer.
And she crossed herself devoutly, for pious Brittany, as you know, reveres
fairies as much as saints.
I do not know if lutins (mischievous spirits) should be included in the
fairy world, but what is certain is that this charming and roguish tribe
has always abounded in our country. I have been told that formerly
every house had its own. It (the lutin) was something like the little
Roman household god. Now visible, now invisible, it presided over all
the acts of domestic life. Nay more ; it shared in them, and in the most
effective manner. Inside the house it helped the servants, blew up the
fire on the hearth, supervised the cooking of the food for men or beasts,
quieted the crying of the babe lying in the bottom of the cupboard, and
prevented worms from settling in the pieces of bacon hanging from the
beams. Similarly there fell within its sphere the management of the
byres and stables : thanks to it the cows gave milk abounding in butter,
and the horses had round croups and shining coats. It was, in a word,
the good genius of the house, but conditionally on every one paying to
it the respect to which it had the right. If neglected, ever so little,
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 191
manquat, sa bonte se changeait en malice et il n'etait point
de mauvais tours dont il ne fut capable envers les gens qui
I'avaient offense, comme de renverser le contenu des mar-
mites sur le foyer, d'embrouiller la laine autour des que-
nouilles, de rendre infumable le tabac des pipes, d'emmeler
inextricablement les crins des chevaux, de dessecher le pis
des vaches ou de faire peler le dos des brebis. Aussi s'effor-
9ait-on de ne le point mecontenter. On respectait soigneuse-
ment toutes ses habitudes, toutes ses manies. C'est ainsi
que, chez mes parents, notre vieille bonne Filie n'enlevait
jamais le trepied du feu sans avoir la precaution de I'asperger
d'eau pour le refroidir, avant de le ranger au coin de
I'atre. Si vous lui demandiez pourquoi ce rite, elle vous
repondait :
* Pour que le lutin ne s'y brule pas, si, tout a Theure,
il s'asseyait dessus.*
II appartient encore, je suppose, a la categoric des
hommes-fees, ce Bugul-Noz, ce mysterieux ' Berger de la
nuit ' dont les Bretons des campagnes voient se dresser, au
crepuscule, la haute et troublante silhouette, si, d'aventure,
il leur arrive de rentrer tard du labour. On n'a jamais pu me
renseigner exactement sur le genre de troupeau qu'il faisait
paitre, ni sur ce que presageait sa rencontre. Le plus sou vent,
its kindness changed into spite, and there was no unkind trick of which
it was not capable towards people who had offended it, such as upsetting
the contents of the pots on the hearth, entangling wool round distaffs,
making tobacco unsmokeable, mixing a horse's mane in inextricable con-
fusion, drying up the udders of cows, or stripping the backs of sheep. There-
fore care was taken not to annoy it. Careful attention was paid to all its
habits and humours. Thus, in my parents' house, our old maid Filie never
lifted the trivet from the fire without taking the precaution of sprinkling
it with water to cool it, before putting it away at the corner of the hearth.
If you asked her the reason for this ceremony, she would reply to you :
' To prevent the lutin burning himself there, if, presently, he sat on it.'
Further, I suppose there should be included in the class of male fairies
that Bugul-Noz, that mysterious Night Shepherd, whose tall and alarming
outline the rural Bretons see rising in the twilight, if, by chance, they
happen to return late from field-work. I have never been able to obtain
exact information about the kind of herd which he fed, nor about what
was foreboded by the meeting with him. Most often such a meeting is
192 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
on la redoute. Mais, comme Tobservait avec raison une de
mes conteuses, Lise Bellec, s'il est preferable d'eviter le
Bugul-Noz, il ne s'ensuit pas, pour cela, que ce soit un
mechant Esprit. D'apres elle, il remplirait plutot une
fonction salutaire, en signifiant aux humains, par sa venue,
que la nuit n'est pas faite pour s'attarder aux champs ou
sur les chemins, mais pour s'enfermer derriere les portes
closes et pour dormir. Ce berger des ombres serait done,
somme toute, une maniere de bon pasteur. C'est pour
assurer notre repos et notre securite, c'est pour nous sous-
traire aux exces du travail et aux embuches de la nuit
qu'il nous force, brebis imprudentes, a regagner prompte-
ment le bercail.
Sans doute est-ce un role tutelaire a peu pres semblable
qui, dans la croyance populaire, est devolu a un autre
homme-fee, plus specialement affecte au rivage de la mer,
comme Tindique son nom de Yann-An-Od. II n'y a pas,
sur tout le littoral maritime de la Bretagne ou, comme on
dit, dans tout Varmor, une seule region oil Texistence de ce
* Jean des Greves ' ne soit tenue pour un fait certain, dument
constate, indeniable. On lui pr^te des formes variables et
des aspects differents. C'est tantot un geant, tantot un
nain. II porte tantot un * suroit ' de toile huilee, tantot
un large chapeau de feutre noir. Parfois, il s'appuie sur une
^jdreaded. Yet, as one of my female informants, Lise Bellec, reasonably
pointed out, if it is preferable to avoid the Bugul-Noz it does not from that
follow that he is a harmful spirit. According to her, he would rather fulfil
a beneficial office, in warning human beings, by his coming, that night is not
made for lingering in the fields or on the roads, but for shutting oneself in
behind closed doors and going to sleep. This shepherd of the shades would
then be, take it altogether, a kind of good shepherd. It is to ensure our
rest and safety, to withdraw us from excesses of toil and the snares of night,
that he compels us, thoughtless sheep, to return quickly to the fold.
No doubt it is an almost similar protecting office which, in popular
belief, has fallen to another male fairy, more particularly attached to the
seashore, as his name, Yann-A n-Od, indicates. There is not, along all the
coast of Brittany or, as it is called, in all the A rmor, a single district where
the existence of this ' John of the Dunes ' is not looked on as a real fact,
fully proved and undeniable. Changing forms and different aspects are
attributed to him. Sometimes he is a giant, sometimes a dwarf. Some-
times he wears a seaman's hat of oiled cloth, sometimes a broad black
felt hat. At times he leans on an oar and recalls the enigmatic personage,
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 193
rame et fait penser au personnage enigmatique, arme du
meme attribut, qu'Ulysse doit suivre, dans VOdyssee. Mais,
toujours, c'est un heros marin dont la mission est de par-
courir les plages, en poussant par intervalles de longs cris
stridents, propres a effrayer les p^cheurs qui se seraient
laisse surprendre dehors par les tenebres de la nuit. II ne
fait de mal qu'a ceux qui recalcitrent ; encore ne les frappe-
t-il que dans leur interet, pour les contraindre a se mettre
a I'abri. II est, avant tout, un * avertisseur '. Ses cris ne
rappellent pas seulement au logis les gens attardes sur les
greves ; ils signalent aussi le dangereux voisinage de la cote
aux marins qui sont en mer et, par la, suppleent a rinsuffisance
du mugissement des sirenes ou de la lumiere des phares.
Remarquons, a ce propos, qu'on releve un trait analogue
dans la legende des vieux saints armoricains, pour la plupart
emigres d'lrlande. Un de leurs exercices coutumiers con-
sistait a deambuler de nuit le long des cotes ou ils avaient
etabli leurs oratoires, en agitant des clochettes de fer battu
dont les tintements etaient destines, comme les cris de
Yann-An-Od, a prevenir les navigateurs que la terre etait
proche.
Je suis persuade que le culte des saints, qui est la pre-
miere et la plus fervente des devotions bretonnes, conserve
bien des traits d'une religion plus ancienne ou la croyance
possessed of the same attribute, whom Ulysses has to follow, in the Odyssey.
But he is always a marine hero whose office it is to traverse the shores,
uttering at intervals long piercing cries, calculated to frighten away
fishermen who may have allowed themselves to be surprised outside
by the darkness of night. He only hurts those who resist ; and even then
would only strike them in their own interest, to force them to seek shelter.
He is, before all, one who warns. His cries not only call back home people
out late on the sands; they also inform sailors at sea of the dangerous
proximity of the shore, and, thereby, make up for the insufficiency of the
hooting of sirens or of the light of lighthouses.
We may remark, in this connexion, that a parallel feature is observed
in the legend of the old Armorican saints, who were mostly emigrants from
Ireland. One of their usual exercises consisted in parading throughout
the night the coasts where they had set up their oratories, shaking little
bells of wrought iron, the ringing of which, like the cries of Yann-An-Od,
was intended to warn voyagers that land was near.
I am persuaded that the worship of saints, which is the first and most
fervent of Breton religious observances, preserves many of the features
WENTZ Q
194 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
aux fees jouait le principal role. Et il en va de meme, j'en
suis convaincu, pources mythes funer aires que j'ai recueillis
sous le titre de La Legende de la Mort chez les Bretons airmo-
ricains. A vrai dire, dans la conception bretonne, les morts
ne sont pas morts ; ils vivent d'une vie mysterieuse en
marge de la vie reelle, mais leur monde reste, en definitive,
tout mele au notre et, sitot que la nuit tombe, sitot que les
vivants proprement dits s'abandonnent a la mort momen-
tanee du sommeil, les soi-disant morts redeviennent les
habitants de la terre qu'ils n'ont jamais quittee. lis repren-
nent leur place a leur foyer d' autrefois, ils vaquent a leurs
anciens travaux, ils s'interessent au logis, aux champs, a la
barque ; ils se comportent, en un mot, comme ce peuple des
hommes et des femmes-fees qui formait jadis une espece
d'humanite plus fine et plus delicate au milieu de la veritable
humanite.
J'aurais encore, mon cher monsieur Wentz, bien d'autres
types a evoquer, dans cet intermonde de la feerie bretonne
qui, chez mes compatriotes, ne se confond ni avec ce monde-
ci, ni avec I'autre, mais participe a la fois de tons les deux,
par un singulier melange de naturel et de surnaturel. Je
n*ai voulu, en ces lignes rapides, que montrer la richesse de
la matiere a laquelle vous avez, avec tant de conscience et
of a more ancient religion in which a belief in fairies held the chief place.
The same, I feel sure, applies to those death-myths which I have collected
under the name of the Legend of the Dead among the Armorican Bretons.
In truth, in the Breton mind, the dead are not dead ; they live a mysterious
life on the edge of real life, but their world remains fully mingled with ours,
and as soon as night falls, as soon as the living, properly so called, give
themselves up to the temporary sleep of death, the so-called dead again
become the inhabitants of the earth which they have never left. They
resume their place at their former hearth, devote themselves to their old
work, take an interest in the home, the fields, the boat ; they behave, in
a word, like the race of male and female fairies which once formed a more
refined and delicate species of humanity in the midst of ordinary humanity.
I might, my dear Mr. Wentz, evoke many other types from this inter-
mediate world of Breton Faerie, which, in my countrymen's mind, is not
identical with this world nor with the other, but shares at once in both,
through a curious mixture of the natural and supernatural. I have only in-
tended in these hasty lines to show the wealth of material to which you have
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 195
de ferveur, applique votre effort. Et maintenant, que les
fees vous soient douces, mon cher ami ! EUes ne seront que
justes en favorisant de toute leur tendresse le jeune et bril-
lant ecrivain qui vient de restaurer leur culte en renovant
leur gloire.
Rennes,
• ce i*'^ novembre 1910.
Breton Fairies or F^es
In Lower Brittany, which is the genuinely Celtic part of
Armorica, instead of finding a widespread folk-belief in fairies
of the kind existing in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, we find
a widespread folk-belief in the existence of the dead, and to a
less extent in that of the corrigan tribes. For our Psychological
Theory this is very significant. It seems to indicate that
among the Bretons — who are one of the most conservative
Celtic peoples — the Fairy-Faith finds its chief expression in
a belief that men live after death in an invisible world, just
as in Ireland the dead and fairies live in Fairyland. This
opinion was first suggested to me by Professor Anatole Le
Braz, author of La Legende de la Mort, and by Professor
Georges Dottin, both of the University of Rennes. But
before evidence to sustain and to illustrate this opinion is
offered, it will be well to consider the less important Breton
fees or beings like them, and then corrigans and nains (dwarfs).
The ' Grac'hed Coz\ — F. M. Luzel, who collected so many
of the popular stories in Brittany, found that what few
fees or fairies there are almost always appear in folk-lore
as little old women, or as the Breton story-teller usually
calls them, Grac'hed coz. I have selected and abridged
with so much conscientiousness and ardour devoted your efforts. And now
may the fairies be propitious to you, my dear friend ! They will do nothing
but justice in favouring with all their goodwill the young and brilliant writer
who has but now revived their cult by renewing their glory.
Rennes,
November i, 1910.
O 2
196 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
the following legendary tale from his works to illustrate the
nature of these Breton fairy-folk : —
In ancient times, as we read in La Princesse Blondine,
a rich nobleman had three sons ; the oldest was called Cado,
the second, Meliau, and the youngest, Yvon. One day, as
they were together in a forest with their bows and arrows,
they met a little old woman whom they had never seen before,
and she was carrying on her head a jar of water. * Are you
able, lads,' Cado asked his two brothers, * to break with an
arrow the jar of the little old woman without touching her ? '
* We do not wish to try it,' they said, fearing to injure the
good woman. ' All right, I'll do it then, watch me.' And
Cado took his bow and let fly an arrow. The arrow went
straight to its mark and split the jar without touching the
little old woman ; but the water wet her to the skin, and, in
anger, she said to the skilful archer : * You have failed, Cado,
and I will be revenged on you for this. From now until you
have found the Princess Blondine all the members of your
body will tremble as leaves on a tree tremble when the north
wind blows.' And instantly Cado was seized by a trembling
malady in all his body. The three brothers returned home
and told their father what had happened ; and the father,
turning to Cado, said : ' Alas, my unfortunate son, you have
failed. It is now necessary for you to travel until you find
the Princess Blondine, as the fee said, for that little old
woman was a fee, and no doctor in the world can cure the
malady she has put upon you.' ^
' Fees ' of Lower Brittany. — Throughout the Morbihan and
Finistere, I found that stories about fees are much less com-
mon than about corrigans, and in some localities extremely
rare ; but the ones I have been fortunate enough to collect
are much the same in character as those gathered in the
Cotes-du-Nord by Luzel, and elsewhere by other collectors.
Those I here record were told to me at Carnac during the
summer of 1909 ; the first one by M. Yvonne Daniel,
* Cf. F. M. Luzel, Contes populaires de Basse-Bretagne (Paris, 1887),
i. 177-97 ; following the account of Ann Drann, a servant at Coat-Fual,
Plouguernevel (C6tes-du-Nord), November 1855.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 197
a native of the lie de Croix (off the coast north-west of
Carnac) ; and the others by M. Goulven Le Scour .^
* The Httle lie de Croix was especially famous for its old
fees ; and the following legend is still believed by its oldest
inhabitants : — " An aged man who had suffered long from
leprosy was certain to die within a short time, when a woman
bent double with age entered his house. She asked from
what malady he suffered, and on being informed began to
say prayers. Then she breathed upon the sores of the
leper, and almost suddenly disappeared : the fee had cured
him." '
* It is certain that about fifty years ago the people in
Finis tere still believed in fees. It was thought that the fees
were spirits who came to predict some unexpected event in
the family. They came especially to console orphans who
had very unkind step-mothers. In their youth, Tanguy du
Chatel and his sister Eudes were protected by a fee against
the misfortune which pursued them ; the history of Brittany
says so. In Leon it is said that the fees served to guide
unfortunate people, consoling them with the promise of
a happy and victorious future. In the Cornouailles, on the
contrary, it is said that the fees were very evilly disposed,
that they were demons.
* My grandmother, Marie Le Bras, had related to me that
one evening an old fee arrived in my village, Kerouledic
(Finistere), and asked for hospitality. It was about the year
1830. The fee was received ; and before going to bed she
predicted that the little daughter whom the mother was
dressing in night-clothes would be found dead in the cradle
the next day. This prediction was only laughed at ; but in
the morning the little one was dead in her cradle, her eyes
raised toward Heaven. The/<?'^, who had slept in the stable,
was gone.'
* My Breton friend, M. Goulven Le Scour, was born November 20,
185 1, at Kerouledic in Plouneventer, Finistere. He is an antiquarian,
a poet, and, as we shall see, a folk-lorist of no mean ability. In 1902, at
the Congres d'Auray of Breton poets and singers, he won two prizes for
poetry, and, in 1901, a prize at the Congres de Quimperle or Concours de
Recueils poetiques.
198 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect>,i
In these last three accounts, by M. Le Scour, we observe
three quite different ideas concerning the Breton fairies or
fees : in Finistere and in Leon the fees are regarded as good
protecting spirits, almost like ancestral spirits, which origin-
ally they may have been ; in the Cornouailles they are evil
spirits ; while in the third account, about the old fee — and
in the legend of the leper cured by a fee — the fees are ration-
alized, as in Luzel's tale quoted above, into sorceresses or
Grac'hed Coz.
Children Changed by ' Fees '. — M. Goulven Le Scour, at
my request, wrote down in French the following account of
actual changelings in Finistere : — ' I remember very well
that there was a woman of the village of Kergoff, in Ploune-
venter, who was called ,^ the mother of a family. When
she had her first child, a very strong and very pretty boy,
she noticed one morning that he had been changed during
the night ; there was no longer the fine baby she had put
to bed in the evening ; there was, instead, an infant hideous
to look at, greatly deformed, hunchbacked, and crooked,
and of a black colour. The poor woman knew that a fee
had entered the house during the night and had changed
her child.
* This changed infant still lives, and to-day he is about
seventy years old. He has all the possible vices ; and he
has tried many times to kill his mother. He is a veritable
demon ; he often predicts the future, and has a habit of
running abroad during the night. They call him the " Little
Corrigan ", and everybody flees from him. Being poor and
infirm now, he has been obliged to beg, and people give him
alms because they have great fear of him. His nick-name
is Olier.
* This woman had a second, then a third child, both of
whom were seen by everybody to have been born with no
infirmity ; and, in turn, each of these two was stolen by
z.fee and replaced by a httle hunchback. The second child
was a most beautiful daughter. She was taken during the
* This story concerns persons still living, and, at M. Le Scour's sugges-
tion, I have omitted their names.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 199
night and replaced by a little girl babe, so deformed that it
resembled a ball. If her brother Olier was bad, she was even
worse ; she was the terror of the village, and they called
her Anniac. The third child met the same luck, but was not
so bad as the first and second.
* The poor mother, greatly worried at seeing what had
happened, related her troubles to another woman. This
woman said to her, " If you have another child, place with
it in the cradle a little sprig of box-wood which has been
blessed (by a priest), and the fee will no longer have the
power of stealing your children." And when a fourth child
was born to the unfortunate woman it was not stolen, for
she placed in the cradle a sprig of box-wood which had been
blessed on Palm Sunday (Dimanche des Ramcaux)}
* The first three children I knew very well, and they were
certainly hunchbacked : it is pretended in the country that
the fees who come at night to make changelings always
leave in exchange hunchbacked infants. It is equally pre-
tended that a mother who has had her child so changed need
do nothing more than leave the little hunchback out of
doors crying during entire hours, and that the fee hearing it
will come and put the true child in its place. Unfortunately,
Yvonna did not know what she should have done in
order to have her own children again.'
Transformation Power of ' Fees '. — At Kerallan, near
Carnac, this is what Madame Louise Le Rouzic said about
the transformation power of fees : — ' It is said that the fees
of the region when insulted sometimes changed men into
beasts or into stones.' "^
Other Breton Fairies. — Besides the various types of fees
already described, we find in Luzel's collected stories a few
^ By a Carnac family I was afterwards given a sprig of such blessed
box- wood, and was assured that its exorcizing power is still recognized by
all old Breton families, most of whom seem to possess branches of it.
* This idea seems related to the one in the popular Morbihan legend of
how St. Comely, the patron saint of the country and the saint who presides
over the Alignements and domestic horned animals, changed into upright
stones the pagan forces opposing liim when he arrived near Carnac ; and
these stones are now the famous Alignements of Carnac.
200 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
other types of fairy-like beings : in Les Compagnons (The
Companions),^ the fee is a magpie in a forest near Rennes —
just as in other Celtic lands, fairies likewise often appear as
birds (see our study, pp. 302 ff .) ; in La Princesse de Vfyoile
Brillante (The Princess of the Brilliant Star),^ a princess
under the form of a duck plays the part of a fairy (cf. how
fairy women took the form of water-fowls in the tale entitled
the Sick Bed of Cuchulainn (see our study, p. 345) ; in Pipi
Menou et les Femmes Volantes (Pipi Menou and the Flying
Women) ,^ there are fairy women as swan-maidens ; and
then there are yet to be mentioned Les Morgans de Vile
d'Ouessant (The Morgans of the Isle of Ushant), who live
under the sea in rare palaces where mortals whom they love
and marry are able to exist with them. In some legends of
the Morgans, like one recorded by Luzel, the men and women
of this water-fairy race, or the Morgans and Morganezed,
seem like anthropomorphosed survivals of ancient sea-
divinities, such, for example, as the sea-god called Shony,
to whom the people of Lewis, Western Hebrides, still pour
libations that he may send in sea-weed, and the sea-god to
whom anciently the people of lona poured libations. ^
The * Morgan \ — To M. J. Cuillandre (Glanmor), Presi-
dent of the Federation des ^tudiants Bretons, I am indebted
for the following weird legend of the Morgan, as it is told
among the Breton fisher-folk on the tie Molene, Finistere : —
' Following a legend which I have collected on the tie Molene,
the Morgan is a fairy eternally young, a virgin seductress
whose passion, never satisfied, drives her to despair. Her
place of abode is beneath the sea ; there she possesses mar-
vellous palaces where gold and diamonds glimmer. Accom-
panied by other fairies, of whom she is in some respects the
queen, she rises to the surface of the waters in the splendour
of her unveiled beauty. By day she slumbers amid the cool-
ness of grottoes, and woe to him who troubles her sleep.
By night she lets herself be lulled by the waves in the neigh-
bourhood of the rocks. The sea-foam crystallizes at her
* Luzel, op. cit., iii. 226-311 ; i. 128-218 ; ii. 349-54.
* lb., ii. 269 ; cf. our.study, p. 93.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 201
touch into precious stones, of whiteness as dazzHng as that
of her body. By moonHght she moans as she combs her fair
hair with a comb of fine gold, and she sings in a harmonious
voice a plaintive melody whose charm is irresistible. The
sailor who listens to it feels himself drawn toward her, without
power to break the charm which drags him onward to his
destruction ; the bark is broken upon the reefs : the man is
in the sea, and the Morgan utters a cry of joy. But the arms
of the fairy clasp only a corpse ; for at her touch men die,
and it is this which causes the despair of the amorous and
inviolate Morgan. She being pagan, it suffices to have been
touched by her in order to suffer the saddest fate which can
be reserved to a Christian. The unfortunate one whom she
had clasped is condemned to wander for ever in the trough
of the waters, his eyes wide open, the mark of baptism effaced
from his forehead. Never will his poor remains know the
sweetness of reposing in holy ground, never will he have
a tomb where his kindred might come to pray and to weep/
Origin of the * Morgan \ — The following legendary origin
is attributed to the Morgan by M. Goulven Le Scour, our
Carnac witness : — * Following the old people and the Breton
legends, the Morgan {Mart Morgan in Breton) was Dahut,
the daughter of King Gradlon, who was ruler of the city of
Is. Legend records that when Dahut had entered at night
the bedchamber of her father and had cut from around his
neck the cord which held the key of the sea-dike flood-gates,
and had given this key to the Black Prince, under whose evil
love she had fallen, and who, according to belief, was no
other than the Devil, St. Guenole soon afterwards began to
cry aloud, " Great King, arise ! The flood-gates are open,
and the sea is no longer restrained ! " ^ Suddenly the old
King Gradlon arose, and, leaping on his horse, was fleeing
from the city with St. Guenole, when he encountered his
* According to the annotations to a legend recorded by Villemarque,
in his Barzaz Breiz, pp. 39-44, and entitled the Submersion de la Ville d'ISy
St. Guenole was traditionally the founder of the first monastery raised in
Armorica ; and Dahut the princess stole the key from her sleeping father
in order fittingly to crown a banquet and midnight debaucheries which
were being held in honour of her lover, the Black Prince.
202 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
own daughter amid the waves. She piteously begged aid of
her father, and he took her up behind him on the horse ;
but St. Guenole, seeing that the waters were gaining on
them, said to the king, " Throw into the sea the demon you
have behind you, and we shall be saved ! " Thereupon
Gradlon flung his daughter into the abyss, and he and
St. Guenole were saved. Since that time, the fishermen
declare that they have seen, in times of rough sea and clear
moonlight, Dahut, daughter of King Gradlon, sitting on the
rocks combing her fair hair and singing, in the place where
her father flung her. And to-day there is recognized under
the Breton name Marie Morgan, the daughter who sings
amid the sea.'
Breton Fairyland Legends. — In a legend concerning Mona
and the king of the Morgans, much like the Christabel story
of English poets, we have a picture of a fairyland not under
ground, but under sea ; and this legend of Mona and her
Morgan lover is one of the most beautiful of all the fairy-
tales of Brittany.^ Another one of Luzel's legends, concern-
ing a maiden who married a dead man, shows us Fairyland
as a world of the dead. It is a very strange legend, and one
directly bearing on the Psychological Theory ; for this dead
man, who is a dead priest, has a palace in a realm of enchant-
ment, and to enter his country one must have a white fairy-
wand with which to strike * in the form of a cross ' two blows
upon the rock concealing the entrance.^ M. Paul Sebillot
records from Upper Brittany a tradition that beneath the
sea-waves there one can see a subterranean world contain-
ing fields and villages and beautiful castles ; and it is so
pleasant a world that mortals going there find years no
longer than days.^
Fairies of Upper Brittany.^ — Principally in Upper Brittany,
M. Sebillot found rich folk-lore concerning fees, though
* Luzel, op. cit., ii. 257-68 ; i. 3-13.
' P. Sebillot, Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne (Paris,
1882), i. 100.
• General references : Sebillot, ib. ; and his Folk-Lore de France (Paris,
1905).
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 203
somie of his material is drawn from peasants and fishermen
who are not so purely Celtic as those in Lower Brittany ;
and he very concisely summarizes the various names there
given to the fairy-folk as follows : — ' They are generally
called Fees (Fairies), sometimes Fetes (Fates), a name
nearer than fees to the Latin Fata ; Fete (fem.) and Fete
(mas.) are both used, and from Fete is probably derived
Faito or Faitaud, which is the name borne by the fathers,
the husbands, or the children of the fees (Saint-Cast) . Near
Saint-Briac (Ille-et-Vilaine) they are sometimes called Fioits ;
this term, which is applied to both sexes, seems also to
designate the mischievous lutins (sprites) . Round the Mene,
in the cantons of Collinee and of Moncontour, they are called
M argot la Fee, or ma Commere (my Godmother) M argot, or even
the Bonne Fenime (Good Woman) Mar got. On the coast they
are often enough called by the name of Bonnes Dames (Good
Ladies), or of nos Bonnes Meres les Fees (our Good Mothers the
Fairies) ; usually they are spoken of with a certain respect/ ^
As the same authority suggests, probably the most charac-
teristic Fees in Upper Brittany are the Fees des Routes
(Fairies of the Billows) ; and traditions say that they lived
in natural caverns or grottoes in the sea-cliffs. They form
a distinct class of sea-fairies unknown elsewhere in France
or Eur ope. 2 M. Sebillot regards them as sea-divinities
greatly rationalized. Associated with them are the fions,
a race of dwarfs having swords no bigger than pins.^ A
pretty legend about magic buckwheat cakes, which in
different forms is widespread throughout all Brittany, is
told of these little cave-dwelling fairies : —
Like the larger fees the fions kept cattle ; and one day
a black cow belonging to the fions of Pont-aux-Hommes-
Nees ate the buckwheat in the field of a woman of that
neighbourhood. The woman went to ih.^ fions to complain,
and in reply to her a voice said : * Hold your tongue ; you
will be paid for your buckwheat ! ' Thereupon the fions
gave the woman a cupful of buckwheat, and promised her
^ Sebillot, Traditions et superstitions de la Hattle-Brctagne, i. 73-4.
' lb., i. 102, 103-4.
204 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
that it would never diminish so long as none should be given
away. That year buckwheat was very scarce, but no matter
how many buckwheat cakes the woman and her family ate
there was never diminution in the amount of the fairy
buckwheat. At last, however, the unfortunate hour came.
A rag-gatherer arrived and asked for food. Thoughtlessly
the woman gave him one of her buckwheat cakes, and
suddenly, as though by magic, all the rest of the buckwheat
disappeared for ever.
Along the Ranee the inhabitants tell about fees who appear
during storms. These storm-fairies are dressed in the colours
of the rainbow, and pass along following a most beautiful /<?'(p
who is mounted in a boat made from a nautilus of the southern
seas. And the boat is drawn by two sea-crabs. In no other
place in Brittany are similar fees said to exist.^ In Upper
Brittany, as in Lower Brittany, the fees generally had their
abodes in tumuli, in dolmens, in forests, in waste lands where
there are great rocks, or about menhirs ; and many other
kinds of spirits lived in the sea and troubled sailors and
fisher-folk. Like all fairy-folk of Celtic countries, those of
Upper Brittany were given to stealing children. Thus at
Dinard not long ago there was a woman more than thirty
years old who was no bigger than a girl of ten, and it was
said she was a fairy changeling.^ In Lower Brittany the
taking of children was often attributed to dwarfs rather than
to fees, though the method of making the changeling speak
is the same as in Upper Brittany, namely, to place in such
a manner before an open fire a number of eggshells filled with
water that they appear to the changeling — who is placed
where he can well observe all the proceedings — like so many
small pots of cooking food ; whereupon, being greatly aston-
ished at the unusual sight, he forgets himself and speaks
for the first time, thus betraying his demon nature.
The following midwife story, as told by J. M. Comault, of
Gouray, in 1881, is quite a parallel to the one we have
recorded (on p. 54) as coming from Grange, Ireland : —
* Sebillot, Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne, i. 83.
" lb., i. 90-1.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 205
A midwife who delivered a Margot la fee carelessly allowed
some of the fairy ointment to get on one of her own eyes.
The eye at once became clairvoyant, so that she beheld the
fees in their true nature. And, quite like a midwife in a
similar story about i\iefees des hotiles, this midwife happened
to see a fee in the act of stealing, and spoke to her. There-
upon the fee asked the midwife with which eye she beheld
her, and when the midwife indicated which one it was, the
fee pulled it out.^
Generally, like their relatives in insular Celtdom, the
fairies of Upper Brittany could assume various forms, and
could even transform the human body ; and they were
given to playing tricks on mortals, and always to taking
revenge on them if ill-treated. In most w^ays they were like
other races of fairies, Celtic and non-Celtic, though very
much anthropomorphosed in their nature by the peasant
and mariner.
As a rule, the fees of Upper Brittany are described in
legend as young and very beautiful. Some, however, appear
to be centuries old, with teeth as long as a human hand, and
with backs covered with seaweeds, and mussels, or other
marine growths, as an indication of their great age.^ At
Saint-Cast they are said to be dressed (like the corrigans at
Carnac, see p. 208) in toile, a kind of heavy linen cloth.^
On the sea-coast of Upper Brittany the popular opinion is
that the fees are a fallen race condemned to an earthly exile
for a certain period. In the region of the Mene, canton of
Collinee, the old folk say that, after the angels revolted,
those left in paradise were divided into two parts : those
who fought on the side of God and those who remained
neutral. These last, already half -fallen, were sent to the
earth for a time, and became the fees.^
The general belief in the interior of Brittany is that the
fees once existed, but that they disappeared as their country
was changed by modern conditions. In the region of the
Mene and of Erce (lUe-et-Vilaine) it is said that for more
than a century there have been no fees ; and on the sea-coast^
* Cf. ib., i. 109. • Cf. ib., i. 74-5, &c.
2o6 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
where it is still firmly believed that the fees used to live in
the billows or amid certain grottoes in the cliffs against
which the billows broke, the opinion is that they disappeared
at the beginning of the last century. The oldest Bretons
say that their parents or grandparents often spoke about
having seen fees, but very rarely do they say that they
themselves have seen fees. M. Sebillot found only two who
had One was an old needle- woman of Saint-Cast, who had
such fear of fees that if she was on her way to do some
sewing in the country, and it was night, she always took
a long circuitous route to avoid passing near a field known
as the Convent des Fees. The other was Marie Chehu,
a woman eighty-eight years old.^
The Corrigan Race^
It is the corrigan race, however, which, more than fees or
fairies, forms a large part of the invisible inhabitants of
Brittany ; and this race of corrigans and nains (dwarfs)
may be made to include many kinds of lutins, or as they are
often called by the peasant, follets or esprits f diets (playful
elves). Though the peasants both in Upper and in Lower
Brittany may have no strong faith in fees, most of them say
that corrigans, or nains, and mischievous house-haunting
spirits still exist. But in a few localities, as M. Sebillot
discovered, there is an opinion that the lutins departed with
the fees, and with them will return in this century, because
during each century with an odd number like 1900, the fairy
tribes of all kinds are said to be visible or to reappear among
men, and to become invisible or to disappear during each
century with an even number like 1800. So this is the visible
century.
Corrigans and follets only show themselves at night, or in
the twilight. No one knows where they pass the day-time.
* Cf. Sebillot, Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne,i, 74-^, Sec.
* In Lower Brittany the corrigan tribes collectively are commonly called
Corriket, masculine plural of Corrik, diminutive of Corr, meaning ' Dwarf ' ;
or Corriganed, feminine plural of Corrigan, meaning ' Little Dwarf '.
Many other forms are in use. (Cf. R. F. Le Men, Trad, et supers, de la
Basse-Bretagne, in Rev. Celt., i. 226-7.)
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 207
Some lutins or follets, after the manner of Scotch kelpies,
hve solitary lives in lakes or ponds (whereas corrigans are
socially united in groups or families), and amuse themselves
by playing tricks on travellers passing by after dark. Sou-
vestre records a story showing how the lutins can assume
any animal form, but that their natural form is that of
a little man dressed in green ; and that the corrigans have
declared war on them for being too friendly to men.^ From
what follows about lutins, by M. Goulven Le Scour, they
show affinity with Pucks and such shape-shifting hobgoblins
as are found in Wales : — ' The lutins were little dwarfs who
generally appeared at cross-roads to attack belated travellers.
And it is related in Breton legends that these lutins some-
times transformed themselves into black horses or into
goats ; and whoever then had the misfortune to encounter
them sometimes found his life in danger, and was always
seized with great terror.' But generally, what the Breton
peasant tells about corrigans he is apt to tell at another time
about lutins. And both tribes of beings, so far as they can
be distinguished, are the same as the elfish peoples — pixies
in Cornwall, Robin Good- fellows in England, goblins in Wales,
or brownies in Scotland. Both corrigans and lutins are
supposed to guard hidden treasure ; some trouble horses at
night ; some, like their English cousins, may help in the
house-work after all the family are asleep ; some cause
nightmare ; some carry a torch like a Welsh death-candle ;
some trouble men and women like obsessing spirits ; and
nearly all of them are mischievous. In an article in the
Revue des Traditions Populaires (v. loi), M. Sebillot has
classified more than fifty names given to lutins and corrigans
in Lower Brittany, according to the form under which these
spirits appear, their peculiar traits, dwelling-places, and the
country they inhabit.
Like the fairies in Britain and Ireland, the corrigans and
the Cornish pixies find their favourite amusement in the
circular dance. When the moon is clear and bright they
gather for their frolic near menhirs, and dolmens, and
* Cf. Foyer breton, i. 199.
/
2o8 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
tumuli, and at cross-roads, or even in the open country ;
and they never miss an opportunity of enticing a mortal
passing by to join them. If he happens to be a good-natured
man and enters their sport heartily, they treat him quite as
a companion, and may even do him some good turn ; but if
he is not agreeable they will make him dance until he falls
down exhausted, and should he commit some act thoroughly
displeasing to them he will meet their certain revenge. Accord-
ing to a story reported from Lorient (Morbihan) ^ it is taboo
for the corrigans to make a complete enumeration of the
days of the week : —
The * Corrigan ' Taboo. — ' At night, the corrigans dance,
singing, " Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday " ;
they are prohibited from completing the enumeration of the
days of the week. A corrigan having had the misfortune to
permit himself to be tempted to add " Saturday ", immedi-
ately became hunchbacked. His comrades, stupefied and
distressed, attempted in vain to knock in his hump with
blows of their fists.'
* Corrigans ' at Carnac. — How the tradition of the dancing
corrigans and their weekday song still lives, appears from
the following accounts which I found at and near Carnac,
the first account having been given during January 1909
by Madame Marie Ezanno, of Carnac, then sixty-six years
old : — ' The corrigans are little dwarfs who formerly, by
moonlight, used to dance in a circle on the prairies. They
sang a song the couplet of which was not understood, but
only the refrain, translated in Breton : " Di Lun (Monday),
Di Merh (Tuesday), Di Merhier (Wednesday).**
* They whistled in order to assemble. Where they danced
mushrooms grew ; and it was necessary to maintain silence
so as not to interrupt them in their dance. They were often
very brutal towards a man who fell under their power, and
if they had a grudge against him they would make him
submit to the greatest tortures. The peasants believed
strongly in the corrigans, because they thus saw them and
heard them. The corrigans dressed in very coarse white
* By ' E. R.', in MHusine (Paris), i. 1 14.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 209
linen cloth. They were mischievous spirits [esprits follels),
who lived under dolmens.'
One morning, M. Lemort and myself called upon Madame
Louise Le Rouzic in her neat home at Kerallan, a little
group of thatched cottages about a mile from Carnac.
As we entered, Madame Le Rouzic herself was sitting on
a long wooden bench by the window knitting, and her
daughter was watching the savoury-smelling dinner as it
boiled in great iron pots hanging from chains over a brilliant
fire on the hearth. Large gleaming brass basins were ranged
on a shelf above the broad open chimney-place wherein the
fire burned, and massive bedsteads carved after the Breton
style stood on the stone floor. When many things had been
talked about, our conversation turned to corrigans, and then
the good woman of the house told us these tales : —
* Corrigans ' at Church. — * In former times a young girl
having taken the keys of the church (presumably at Carnac)
and having entered it, found the corrigans about to dance ;
and the corrigans were singing, " Lundi, Mardi " (Monday,
Tuesday). On seeing the young girl, they stopped, sur-
rounded her, and invited her to dance with them. She
accepted, and, in singing, added to their song " Mercredi "
(Wednesday). In amazement, the corrigans cried joyfully,
" She has added something to our song ; what shall we give
her as recompense ? " And they gave her a bracelet. A
friend of hers meeting her, asked where the fine bracelet
came from ; and the young girl told what had happened.
The second girl hurried to the church, and found the corri-
gans still dancing the rond. She joined their dance, and, in
singing, added " Jeudi " (Thursday) to their song ; but that
broke the cadence ; and the corrigans in fury, instead of
recompensing her wished to punish her. " What shall we
do to her ? " one of them cried. " Let the day be as night
to her ! " the others replied. And by day, wherever she
went, she saw only the night.'
The ' Corrigans' ' Sabbath. — * Where my grandfather lived,'
continued Madame Le Rouzic, ' there was a young girl who
went to the sabbath of the corrigans ; and when she returned
WENTZ p
210 THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH sect, i
and was asked where she had been, said, " I have travelled
over water, wood, and hedges." And she related all she had
seen and heard. Then one night, afterwards, the corrigans
came into the house, beat her, and dragged her from bed.
Upon hearing the uproar, my grandfather arose and found
the girl lying fiat on the stone floor. ** Never question me
again,'* she said to him, " or they will kill me." ' ^
' Corrigans ' as Fairies. — Some Breton legends give corri-
gans the chief characteristics of fairies in Celtic Britain and
Ireland ; and Villemarque in his Barzaz Breiz (pp. 25-30)
makes the Breton word corrigan synonymous with fee or
fairy, thus : — ' Le Seigneur Nann et la Fee (Aofrou Nann hag
ar Corrigan).* In this legend the corrigan seems clearly
enough to be a water-fairy : ' The Korrigan was seated at
the edge of her fountain, and she was combing her long fair
hair.* But unlike most water-fairies, the Fee lives in a grotto,
which, according to Villemarque, is one of those ancient
monuments called in Breton dolmen, or ti ar corrigan ; in
French, Table de pierres, or Grotte aux Fees — ^like the famous
one near Rennes. The fountain where the Fee was seated
seems to be one of those sacred fountains, which, as Ville-
marque says, are often found near a Grotte aux Fees, and
called Fontaine de la Fee, or in Breton, Feunteun ar corrigan.
' In another of Villemarque's legends, UEnfant Suppose^
after the egg-shell test has been used and the little corrigan-
changeling is replaced by the real child, the latter, as though all
the while it had been in an unconscious trance-state — which
^ This account about corrigans, more rational than any preceding it,
may possibly refer to a dream or trance-like state of mind on the part of
the young girl ; and if it does, we can then compare the presence of a mortal
at this corrigan sabbath, or even at the ordinary witches' sabbath, to the
presence of a mortal in Fairyland. And according to popular Breton belief,
as reliable peasants assure me, during dreams, trance, or ecstasy, the soul
is supposed to depart from the body and actually see spirits of all kinds
in another world, and to be then under their influence. While many details
in the more conventional corrigan stories appear to reflect a folk-memory
of religious dances and songs, and racial, social, and traditional usages of
the ancient Bretons, the animistic background of them could conceivably
have originated from psychical experiences such as this girl is supposed to
have had.
CH. II TAKING OF EVIDENCE IN BRITTANY 211
has a curious bearing on our Psychological Theory — stretches
forth its arms and awakening exclaims, ' Ah ! mother, what
a long time I have been asleep.' ^ And in Les Nains we see the
little Duz or dwarfs inhabiting a cave and guarding treasures.^
In his introdu 
