Fairies are said to have had a strong predilection for babes. In the island of Lewis the utmost watchfulness was observed not many years since in guarding the babe till after baptism. In the event of the person watching having occasion to leave the room in which the child was, it was the custom to lay the tongs in the doorway, or, more generally, across the cradle. The tongs, placed in either of those places, was considered a sufficient guard until the individual’s return. The consequences of neglect in observing these customs are exemplified in the following stories. The Fairies never abducted a child without leaving one in its stead-so much to their credit. But the substitute thus left was extremely meagre and emaciated, having a cadaverous appearance, and the tone of its voice more like that of an old person than that of a child. The belief regarding the substitute was that it was a worn-out, decrepit fairy, whom age or disease had rendered an unfit member of the Fairy community, metamorphosed into a baby. Anon ‘Fairy Tales’, The Celtic Review 5 (1908), 155-171 at 159

The Sussex people in this neighbourhood can teil you many stories of smugglers, and not a few of fairies — who, by the by, they will persist in calling ‘Pharisees!’ This is probably a confusion of terms. But it comes in perpetually. ‘The Pharisees dance of a night’they say, and ‘the little people know the secrets.’ Elizabeth Hope, English homes and villages, Kent and Sussex (1909), 143

Ticehurst, like the other hurst in this district, indicates the ancient presence of deep forest, much of which still remains. Its glades and thickets were once the haunts of the fairy Tya, who, like his Saxon brethren, Nip, and Trip, and Job, has left his name to many an English green wood. The whole coimtry is broken into the most picturesque hill and dale. A handbook for travellers in Kent and Sussex (1858), 230.

Cliffe Hill may be climbed at its southern extremity, and the town may be regained through the Coombe one of the lions of Lewes, which opens at the farther end. This is one of those deep hollows occurring throughout the chalk districts, which the sun only touches for a short time even at the season of ‘St. Bamaby bright,’ and whose steep sides are not to be descended without much care and caution. The green winding level at the bottom, looking from above like a procession path for the hill fairies, will bring the visitor back to the town. A handbook for travellers in Kent and Sussex (1858), 272.

ED: This passage does not seem to be describing a fairy path, but it does presuppose belief in fairies on the Downs.

Folkestone seems to have been built on 70″— a site which at least adds to the picturesque qualities of the town, the oldest part of which stands in a narrow valley, formed by the termination of the great chalk and sandstone ranges. The name (no doubt Fulke’s town) has been variously interpreted Folks-stane (the people’s rock) — the rock of the small people {fairies), thinks Baxter — or Flos-stane, a ‘flaw in the rock,’ which, says Lambarde, ‘beginneth here.’ A handbook for travellers in Kent and Sussex (1858), 139.

A marked feature of the chalk hills is the number of ‘fairy rings,’ sometimes called ‘hagtracks,’ and frequently occurring of very unusual size. The fairies themselves, although no longer taking much interest in the things of ‘middle earth,’ may still be occasionally heard of in the more ‘elenge’ (lonely) places of the Downs. They are locally known, however, as ‘Pharisees,’by which name it is supposed they are frequently mentioned in the Bible — a sufficient proof of their actual existence. ‘We’ll sing and dance like Pharisees’, is a line which occurs in an old harvest-supper song, indicating that, however, broad phylacteries may have been assumed by the ‘good neighbours’ of Sussex, their general habits continue much the same as those of their brethren elsewhere. Among the many flowers to be met with on the Downs are several species of orchis, and three of the gentians (campestris, amarella, and pneumonanthe), lovely enough, with their bright blue stars, to adorn the couch of Titania herself. Besides the fairy rings, barrews of all dates — Celtic, Roman, and Saxon — are found scattered over the Downs. A handbook for travellers in Kent and Sussex (1858), xxxii.

FAIRY-SPARKS [fai-r’i-sparks] sb. pi. Phosphoric light, sometimes seen on clothes at night, and in former times attributed to the fairies. Otherwise called shell-fire. W.D. Parish and W.F. Shaw A dictionary of the Kentish dialect and provincialisms in use in the County of Kent (1888), 52

FAIRISIES [farr’iseez] sb. pi. Fairies. This reduplicated plural of fairy fairyses gives rise to endless mistakes between the fairies of the story-books and the Pharisees of the Bible. W.D. Parish and W.F. Shaw A dictionary of the Kentish dialect and provincialisms in use in the County of Kent (1888), 52

And here perchance by the way it may be no great digression, to enquire into the nature and efficient cause of those Rings we find in the grass, which they commonly call Fairy circles. Whether they are caused by Lightening? Or are indeed the Rendezvouzes of Witches, or the dancing places of those little pygmy Spirits they call Elves of Fairys? And the rather, because I. a Question (perhaps by reason of the difficulty) scarce yet attempted, and 2. because I met with the largest of their kind (that perchance was ever heard of) in this County: one of them shewed me in the grounds betweed Handsworth Church and the Heath being near forty yards Diameter; and I was told of another by that ingenious Gent. (one of the most cordial encouragers of this work) the Worshipful Sir Henry Gough Knight, that thwere one in his grounds near Pury-Hall but few years since (now indeed plowed up) of a much larger size, he believed near fifty, whereas there are some of the not about two yards Diamater, which perhaps may be near the two extremes of the Magnitude. Robert Plot 9-10

Not that there are Creatures of a third kind distinct from Men and Spirits of so small a stature, as Paracelsus fancied, which he was pleased to stile non-Adamical Men; but that the Devils as they are best pleased with the sacrifices of young Children (which are frequently offered by Midwife-Witches in some Countries, their fat being the chief ingredient wherewith they make the Oyntment indispensably necessary for their transportation to their Field-Conventicles) so it seems they delight themselves chiefly in the assumtion of teh shapes of Children of both Sexes, as we are credibly informed by sober Authors, such as Georgius Agricola, Wierus, and others; who affairm them so frequent, especially in the German, Hungarian and Helvetian (Mr Bushell seems also to hint the same in our Welsh Silver) Mines, tht they have given them divers names in their respective places, as in Germany those in the shapes of Men, they call Cobalos, and those in the shapes of Women, Trullas, and Sibyllas albas; so in Italy they call them Folletos and Empedusas, and in other places Screlingeros, Gutelos, Bergmanlin, etc. Robert Plot 12-13 (17 century)