Stolen by the Fairies

From ‘The Western Island’ by Robin Flower, Clarendon Press, 1944

A tale of Tomàs O Crithin from the Great Blasket

It is not so long ago (said he), that a woman of my mother’s kin, the O’Sheas, was taken, and when I was young I knew people who had seen her.  She was a beautiful girl, and she hadn’t been married a year when she fell sick, and she said that she was going to die, and that if she must die she would rather be in the home in which she had spent her life than in a strange house where she had been less than a year.  So she went back to her mother’s house, and very soon she died and was buried. She hadn’t been buried more than a year when her husband married again, and he had two children by his second wife.  But one day there came a letter with a seal on it.

It was from a farmer that lived in the neighborhood of Fermoy.  He said that now for some months, when the family would go to bed at night in his farm, if any food were left out they would find it gone in the morning. And at last he said to himself that he would find out what it was that came at night and took the food.  So he sat up in the corner of the kitchen one night, and in the middle of the night the door opened and a woman came in, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen with his eyes, and she came up the kitchen and lifted the bowl of milk they had left out, and drank of it.  He came between her and the door, and she turned to him and said that this was what she had wanted. So he asked her who she was, and she said that she came from the liss at the corner of his farm, where the fairies kept her prisoner. They had carried her off from a place in Ventry parish, and left a changeling in her place, and the changeling had died and been buried in her stead.

She said that the farmer must write to her people and say that she was in the liss with the fairies, and that she had eaten none of the food of the fairies, for if once she ate of their food she must remain with them for ever till she died… and when he wrote to her people he must ask her mother if she remembered one night when her daughter lay sick, and the mother was sitting by the fire, and thinking so, she had forgotten everything else, and the edge of her skirt had caught fire. …If she remembered that night, it would be a token for her, for on that night her daughter had been carried off, and the fire in her mother’s skirt was the last thing she remembered of her life on earth.  And when she said this she went out through the door, and the farmer saw her no more.

So the next day he wrote the letter as she had told him.  But her people did nothing, for they feared that if they brought her back, there would be trouble because of the new wife and her two children.  And she came again and again to the farmer, and he wrote  seven letters with seals, and the neighbours all said it was a shame to them to leave her with the fairies in the liss; and the husband said it was a great wrong to leave his wife in the liss, and whatever trouble it would bring, they should go and fetch her out of the liss.  So they set out, her own people and her husband, and when they had gone as far as Dingle, they said they would go and ask the advice of the priest.

So they went to the priest that was there at that time, and they told him the story from beginning to end.  And when he heard the story, he said that it was a hard case, and against the law of the church. And the husband said that, when they had brought the woman out of the liss, he would not bring her back with him to make scandal in the  countryside, but would send her to America, and would live with his second wife and her children.  But the priest said that even if man’s wife were in America, she was still his wife, and it was against the law of the Pope that a man should have two wives; and, though it was a hard thing, they must leave her in the liss with the fairies, for it was a less evil that she should eat the fairy bread and be always with the fairies than that God’s law should be broken and a man have two wives living in this world.

They found nothing to say against the priest, and they went back home sorrowing.  And when the woman heard this from the farmer she went back to the fairies to the liss, and ate their bread and remained with them.




Picture credit:
Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things - by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903)

Folklore Snippets: The Silver Cup

The Silver Cup from Dagberg Daas

From Scandinavian Folklore, ed William Craigie, 1896

Here’s a version of an old tale I used in ‘Troll Fell’, although for my version the cup was golden, and my troll girl was rather more attractive. ( I love the practical but horrific way the 'berg-woman' deals with her long, drooping breasts.) A ‘berg-man’ is a mound dweller, hill-man, elf or troll.

In Dagberg Daas there formerly lived a berg-man with his family.  It happened once that a man who came riding past there took it into his head to ask the berg-woman for a little to drink.  She went to get some for him, but her husband bade her take it out of the poisoned barrel.  The traveller heard all this, however, and when the berg-woman handed him the cup with the drink, he threw the contents over his shoulder and rode off with the cup in his hand, as fast as his horse could gallop. The berg-woman threw her breasts over her shoulders, and ran after him as hard as she could. (The man rode off over some ploughed land where she had difficulty in following him, as she had to keep to the line of the furrows.)  When he reached the spot where Karup Stream crosses the road from Viborg to Holtebro, she was so near him that she snapped a hook (hage) off the horse’s shoe, and therefore the place has been called Hagebro ever since.  She could not cross the running water, and so the man was saved.  It was seen afterwards that some drops of the liquor had fallen on the horse’s loins and taken off both hide and hair.

'Troll Fell' by David Wyatt

In 'Troll Fell', Ralf tells the tale thus:

I was halfway over Troll Fell, tired and wet and weary, when I saw a bright light glowing from the top of the crag, and heard snatches of music gusting on the wind.  I turned the pony off the road and kicked him into a trot up the hillside.  I was in one of our own fields, the high one called the Stonemeadow.  At the top of the slope I could hardly believe my eyes.  The whole rocky summit of the hill had been lifted up, like a great stone lid!  It was resting on four stout red pillars.  The space underneath was shining with golden light and there were scores, maybe hundreds of trolls, skipping and dancing.

But the pony shied.  I'd been so busy staring, I hadn't noticed this troll girl creeping up on me till she popped up right by the pony's shoulder.  She held out a beautiful golden cup filled to the brim with something steaming hot - spiced ale I thought it was, and I took it gratefully from her, cold and wet as I was.

Just before I gulped it down I noticed the look on her face.  There was a gleam in her slanting eyes, a wicked sparkle!  And her ears, her hairy, pointed ears, twitched forward.  I saw she was up to no good!

So I lifted the cup, pretending to sip.  Then I jerked the whole drink out over my shoulder.  It splashed out smoking, some on to the ground and some on to the pony's tail, where it singed off half his hair!  There's an awful yell from the troll girl, and the next thing the pony and I are off down the hill, galloping for our lives.  I've still got the golden cup on one hand - and half the trolls of Troll Fell are tearing after us!

I had one chance.  At the tall stone called the Finger, I turned off the road on to the big ploughed field above the mill.  The pony could go quicker over the soft ground, you see, but the trolls found it heavy going across the furrows. I got to the mill stream ahead off them, jumped off and dragged the pony through the water.  I was safe!  The trolls couldn't follow me over the brook.  They were spitting like cats and hissing like kettles.  They threw stones and clods at me, but it was nearly dawn and off they scuttled back up the hillside.  And I heard - no, I felt, through the soles of my feet, a sort of far-off grating shudder as the top of Troll Fell sank into its place again...

[Troll Fell, HarperCollins, 2004]


Picture credit: 'Troll Fell': unpublished illustration by David Wyatt. Copyright David Wyatt 2004

Folklore Snippets: The Fairy Rade

Sir Joseph Noel Paton: 'The Fairy Rade: Carrying Off A Changeling - Midsummer's Eve

In honour of my recent stay in the beautiful Scottish border country (it rained every day, but we had a lot of fun anyway), here's an eye-witness account, from an unnamed 'old woman of Nithsdale’,  of a Fairy Ride or cavalcade of the fairies, also known as the Seelie Hunt.

It’s taken from Thomas Keightley’s Fairy Mythology which was first published in 1828 - my second edition copy dates from 1850 – and, as is often the way of folk accounts, is strangely convincing.  (A Scots mile (now obsolete) was about 220 yards longer than an English mile.)

“In the night afore Roodmass I had trysted with a neebor lass a Scots mile frae hame to talk anent buying braws i’ the fair.  We had nae sutten lang aneath the haw-buss till we heard the loud laugh of fowk riding, wi’ the jingling o’ bridles, and the clankin’ o’ hoofs.  We banged up, thinking they wad ride owre us.  We kent nae but it was drunken fowk ridin’ to the fair i’ the forenight.  We glow’red roun’ and roun’ and sune saw it was the Fairie-fowks Rade.  We cowred down till they passed by.  A beam o’ light was dancin’ owre them mair bonnie than moonshine: they were a wee wee fowk wi’ green scarfs on, but ane that rade foremost, and that ane was a good deal larger than the lave wi’ bonnie lang hair, bun about wi’ a strap whilk glinted like stars.  They rade on braw wee white naigs, wi’ unco lang swooping tails, an’ manes hung wi’ whustles that the win’ played on.  This an’ their tongue when they sang was like the soun’ of a far-away psalm.   Marion and me was in a brade lea fiel’, where they came by us; a high hedge o’ haw-trees keepit them frae gaun through Johnnie Corrie’s corn, but they lap owre it like sparrows, and gallopt into a green know beyont it.  We gaed i’ the morning to look at the treddit corn; but the fient a hoofmark was there, nor a blade broken.”

Here's my tamer English version:

In the night before Roodmas [the Feast of the Cross, May 3^rd] I had met up with a neighbour lass, a Scots mile from home, to talk about buying pretty things at the fair. We hadn’t been sitting long under the hawthorn bushes when we heard the loud laugh of folk riding, with jingling bridles and clattering hoofs.  We jumped up, thinking they would ride over us.  We assumed it was drunken folk riding to the fair in the early evening. We stared round and about and soon saw it was the Fairy-folks Ride.  We cowered down as they passed by.  A beam of light was dancing over them, prettier than moonshine: they were tiny little folk with green scarves on, all but the one who rode in front, who was a good deal bigger than the rest, with lovely long hair bound about with a ribbon that glinted like stars. They rode on fine little white horses, with uncommonly long sweeping tails, and manes hung with whistles which the wind played on.  This, and their voices when they sang, was like the sound of a far-away psalm. Marion and I were in a broad pasture field, where they came by us; a high hedge of hawthorn trees prevented them from going through Johnnie Corrie’s cornfield, but they leaped over it like sparrows and galloped into a green hill beyond it.  We went next morning to look at the trodden-down corn, but devil a hoofmark  [ie: not a single hoofmark] was to be seen, nor a blade broken. 

Richard Dadd: Bacchanalian scene

Folklore Snippets: Fairy Hills

Robert Kirk, born about 1644, was the seventh son of a Scottish minister and became a minister himself, well known for translating the psalms into Gaelic and evangelising in the Highlands. He was extremely interested in the supernatural folklore of the areas, which like many of his time he felt were supporting evidence for the supernatural elements of Christianity, and is probably the only folklorist whose own death produced a legend!

He is said to have collapsed and died whilst walking on a fairy hill in his parish of Aberfoyle, and to have appeared after his death to one of his relatives to say that he was not dead but a prisoner in Fairyland. He gave instructions that he would appear again at the christening of his posthumous child, and asked his cousin to save him by throwing a knife over him and thus breaking the spell. Kirk duly reappeared when the company was at table, but his cousin was so astonished he forgot to act, and Kirk vanished, never to be seen again.

Here is the fairy hill in question...

Doon Hill, Aberfoyle - from the churchyard where Kirk is buried.  Photo http://faeryfolklorist.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/robert-kirk-part-2-aberfoyle-church.html

Here’s an extract from his book,  The Secret Common-Wealth, 1691
(Pub. by The Folklore Society 1976)

There be manie places called Fayrie hills, which the mountain-people think impious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking earth or wood from them; superstitiously beleiving the souls of their predecessors to dwell yr. 

And for that end (say they) a Mote or Mount was dedicate beside everie Church-yeard, to receave the souls, till their adjacent Bodies arise, and so become as a Fayrie-hill. They using bodies of air when called abroad. They also affirm those Creatures that move invisibly in a house, and cast huge stones, but do not much hurt, (because counter-wrought by some more courteous and charitable spirits that are everywhere readie to defend men Dan 10, 13) to be Souls that have not atteaneed their Rest, thorough a vehement desyre of revealing a Murther, or notable injury don or received, or a Treasure that was forgot in their Lyftime on Earth, which when disclos’d to a Conjuror … the Ghost quite removes. 

In the nixt Countrey to my former Residence about the year 1676, when there was some scarcity of grain, a marvellous illapse and vision struck the imaginatione of two Women in one night, living at a good distance from one other, about a Treasure hid in a hill called Sith bhruaich or Fairie-hill. The appearance of a Treasure was first represented to the Fancy and than an audible voice named the place where it was, to their waking senses. Whereupon they both arose and meeting accidentally at the place, discovered their design, and jointly digging, found a Vessel as large as a Scottis-peck full of small peecs of good money, of ancient coyn; which halving betwisxt them, they sold in dish-fulls for dish-fulls of meal to the Countrey people, varie many of undoubted credit saw, and had of the coyn to this day: but whither it was a good or bad Angell, one of the Subterranean people, or the restless soul of him who hid it, that discovered it, I leave to the examination of others.