The tale of a woman who was carried off by the fairies is known in practically every district. The woman disappears and, after a lapse of time, sometimes as long as two years, she is seen by her husband in the vicinity of a rath. When asked why she is there, she says the is under a spell and cannot leave her captors. There is, however, one chance of escape. She has discovered that the fairies are moving on a certain night, often the first night of the next full moon, and she will be travelling with them. She knows the route the host will take and asks her husband to wait at a given point and touch her horse with a twig of rowan, which will break the spell. The husband goes to the appointed place but, when he sees the host, he is terrified and drops the rowan. His wife is swept along with the fairies and, later in the night, screams are heard. Next morning blood stains are found in the field. The woman, of course, is never seen again and, it is assumed, that the fairies killed her. (Foster, Ulster 67)

Editor’s Note: Katharine Briggs reports this story and writes that it came from ‘Morayshire’ and ‘Miss Charlotte Macdonald’. The story revolves around the word Masell = myself.

There was a brave young man who undertook to spend the night in a mill to which the fairies were known to come. His companions, whose dare he had accepted, threw a dead duck down the chimney to frighten him. But he plucked the duck, lit a fire, and began to roast it, turning it with a stick. Presently a fairy, a little man, came up to him and said, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Masell.’

‘But what’s your name?’

‘Masell.’

And on and on he went, asking the same question, and getting the same answer, until the young man grew tired of it, and hit the fairy with the hot, greasy stick. The little fairy yelled with pain, and ran out, and the man heard the other fairies crowding round him, and saying:

‘Who did it, Saunock?’

‘Masell, masell.’

‘Ach,’ said the fairies, and away they went with him, leaving the young man to roast his duck in peace (Briggs B1 314).

Editor’s Note: This story comes from Western Cornwall and Evans-Wentz’s work c. 1909.

‘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 (182).

’Twas once on a time, ah long ago,

A youth he loved a maiden so:

She was fair as the day, and with golden liair,

Long, ah long ago.

 

But nobody knew from whence she came,

Or where she lived, or what was her name:

They only perceived her divinely fair,

Long, ah long ago.

 

The gossips declared she had ill-shapen feet,

She wore such long dresses they could not be neat.

Like a vision she came, and would disappear.

Long, ah long ago.

 

Her rich sunny locks were ‘too golden,’ they cried,

E’en the bloom on her cheeks was carefully eyed:

There was something uncanny about her ’twas clear.

Long, ah long ago.

 

’Twas on Sundays alone she ever was seen.

At Zennor Clmrch duly, at morn and at e’en:

Whene’er the bell tolled she was sure to be there,

Long, ah long ago.

 

Like an angel she looked, like a nightingale sang,

Through the church the sweet notes of her melody rang.

In exquisite cadence, — ’twas music most rare,

Long, ah long ago.

 

Now the son of the squire was handsome and tall,

And he long watched the maiden so noticed by all;

But to him she seemed truly like one from above,

Long, ah long ago.

 

He oft tried to follow, and find where she went,

But never succeeded, — she foiled his intent;

So he, mutely admiring, fell madly in love.

Long, ah long ago.

 

One Sunday it happened she signed to the lad

Ere leaving tlie cliurch, and it made his heart glad.

He followed, and still she but just kept in sight.

Long, ah long ago.

 

Then down to the cove she so quickly repaired,

Whilst he hurried after as quick as he dared,

Till he reached her at last by foaming waves white.

Long, ah long ago.

 

’Twas then that she turned, and smiling, said she,

‘Come be my dear love, and dwell ’neath the sea,

I’ve pleasures and riches in deep coral caves.’

Long, ah long ago.

 

‘I’m yours,’ cried the lad ‘for ever and aye —

I’ll follow wherever you point out the way:’

Then embraced by the Mermaid he plunged in the waves,

Long, ah long ago.

George B. Millet ‘The Zennor Mermaid’,

Sweet maiden, I pray thee,

One moment oh stay thee,

Canst tell me the way now to Paul Church Town?

I’m listless and dreary

Foot-sore and weary

And gladly to-night shall I lay me down:

From trade, streets, and building,

From shops, gas, and gilding,

I seek for seclusion in Paul Church Town.

 

Keep right up the hill, sir,

But walk with a will, sir,

Lest night should o’ertake you near Paul Church Town,

For such folks as you, sir.

May hap this to rue, sir.

Where pixies in plenty and small folks brown

May lead you astray, sir,

Deceive you till day, sir.

So beware of the pixies near Paul Church Town.

 

Sweet maid, I beseech thee.

Oh tell me, oh teach me

How best to shun pixies near Paul Church Town.

I’m fearful of danger

Unknown to a stranger,

I’ve doubts of lone places of such renown.

But if thou would’st guide me

I’d feel safe beside thee,

I’d love thee, I’d wed thee, at Paul Church Town.

 

You’re too fast by half, sir,

I’m not caught with chaff, sir.

Not thus is love made, sir, at Paul Church Town.

I’ve a husband already

Who’s loving and steady —

He’s coming I see, sir, the hill-side down.

So quicken your pace, sir.

You can’t miss the place, sir.

But beware of the pixies near Paul Church Town.

George B. Millet ‘Paul Church Town’.

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 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 (Evans-Wentz, 1911, 175).

Editor’s Note: This poem is not just valuable for preserving early modern lore, it was also endlessly quoted in nineteenth-century folklore collections and became a point of reference for work on fairies.

Or if the earlier season lead
To the tann’d Haycock in the Mead,
Som times with secure delight
The up-land Hamlets will invite,
When the merry Bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the Chequer’d shade;
And young and old com forth to play
On a Sunshine Holyday,
Till the live-long day-light fail,
Then to the Spicy Nut-brown Ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How Faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht, and pull’d she sed,
And he by Friars Lanthorn led
Tells how the drudging Goblin swet
To ern his Cream-bowle duly set,
When in one night, ere glimps of morn,
His shadowy Flale hath thresh’d the Corn
That ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the Lubbar Fend.
And stretch’d out all the Chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And Crop-full out of dores he flings,
Ere the first Cock his Mattin rings.

Editor’s Note: Netherwitton (as it is spelt today) is in Northumberland.

Many years ago, ‘ere George the Third was king’, a girl who lived near Nether Witton, returning home from milking, with her pail on her head, saw many fairies gambolling in the fields, but which were invisible to her companions, though pointed out to them by her. On reaching home, and telling what she had seen, the circumstance of her power of vision being greater than that of her companions was canvassed in the family, and the cause at length discovered in her weise [pad on head] which was found to be of four-leaved clover: persons having about them a bunch, or even a single blade, of four leaved clover being supposed to possess the power of seeing fairies, even though elves should wish to be invisible; of percieving in their proper character evil spirits which assumed the form of men; and of detecting the arts of those who practised magic, necromancy, or witchcraft (Chatto 106).

Editor’s Note: Picktree is a small green area to the south of Washington in the North-East. The source is Ritson a native of the bishopric of Durham. The tale may date to the eighteenth century.

The Barguest used also to appear in the shape of a mastiff-dog and other animals, and terrify people with his skrikes (shrieks). There was a Barguest named the Picktree Brag, whose usual form was that of a little galloway, “in which shape a farmer, still or lately living thereabouts, reported that it had come to him one night as he was going home; that he got upon it and rode very quietly till it came to a great pond, to which it ran and threw him in, and went laughing away.’ (24)

Editor’s Note: This story is quote from Keightley but first appeared (in this form) in Literary Review 1825.

A farmer in Hampshire was sorely distressed by the unsettling of his barn. However straightly over-night he laid his sheaves on the threshing-floor for the application of the morning’s flail, when morning came, all was topsy-turvy, higgledy-piggledy, though the door remained locked, and there was no sign whatever of irregular entry. Resolved to find out who played him these mischievous pranks, Hodge couched himself one night deeply among the sheaves, and watched for the enemy. At length midnight arrived, the barn was illuminated as if by moonbeams of wonderful brightness, and through the key-hole came thousands of elves, the most diminutive that could be imagined. They immediately began their gambols among the straw, which was soon in a most admired disorder. Hodge wondered, but interfered not; but at last the supernatural thieves began to busy themselves in a way still less to his taste, for each elf set about conveying the crop away, a straw at a time, with astonishing activity and perseverance. The key-hole was still their port of egress and regress, and it resembled the aperture of a bee-hive, on a sunny day in June. The farmer was rather annoyed at seeing his grain vanish in this fashion, when one of the fairies said to another in the tiniest voice that ever was heard ‘weat, your weat?’ Hodge could contain himself no longer. He leaped out crying, ‘The devil sweat ye. Let me get among ye!’ when they all flew away so frightened that they never disturbed the barn any more (Keightley 305-306).

This version appears in Sternberg for Northamptonshire (134-135):

A worthy farmer, engaged in threshing, was sorely puzzled at the marvellous celerity with which his sheaves vanished: much faster, indeed, than accorded with the slow strokes of his flail. Extra bolts were placed on the doors, and a man stationed in the yard to watch; still, however, the evil was unremedied, and each morning, though it found the fastenings untouclied, brought with it a fresh gap in the mow. With the view of discovering the aggressors, Hodge determined upon a personal survey; and late one night ensconced himself behind the sheaves for that purpose. Midnight soon came, and with it two tiny elves, who effected their entrance through the pike-hole, and forthwith commenced working away at the sheaves, pulling out the straws, and making them into minute bundles, pre-paratory to carrying them off. As may be readily imagined, this was little to Hodge’s taste; but though astonished and alarmed, he interfered not. At length, apparently overcome by their exertions, they desisted from their work. ‘I twit; do you twit?’ said one to the other (quasi, I sweat; do you sweat?). The devil unable any longer to conceal his indignation: ‘I’ll twit ye if ye bent off!’ At which the spirits instantly vanished, and never afterwards annoyed him with their visits.