One winter evening the wife of a Highlander was sitting in her cottage, when a knock was heard at the door. On its being opened, in stepped a man, unknown to her, and begged her to accompany him to a female that was ill, without telling who the patient was, where she lived, or what her ailment was. She very naturally hesitated to grant the request. The stranger’s earnestness and the promise of a reward overcame her hesitation; and, with some misgivings, she put herself under his guidance. She was led by a way wholly unknown to her, and at last reached what looked, so far as the darkness permitted her to see, like a cave. She entered, but all at once she found herself in a brightly lighted hall. She was led through splendid passages into a still more splendid bedroom, in which lay a lady in travail. After the child was born, she was asked what her fee was to be. Divining from all the attending circum-stances that she was in fairy land, she refused to take any fee. She did not go, however, without a guerdon. No woman in the same case as the fairy lady should die under her hands, or under the hands of such of her descendants as followed the obstetric profession. To the present day the skill remains in the race, as told me by one who is sprung from it. Gregor, Walter ‘Stories of Fairies from Scotland’ The Folk-Lore Journal 1 (1883), 25-27 at 25