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Faeries have always interfere in the life of mortals and it is probably their reason of being among us. A lot of “evil” fairies have been held responsible for the bad weather and the resulting poor crops, diseases, disparitions and all the things that men could not explain. Less harmful are the “tricks”, the special jokes that they enjoy making us. As many traditional fairy-tales show, the Fairies preferably harass those who deserve it. They rob the purse of the niggards, punish the wife-beating husband and give headache to the lazy worker. Lack of generosity, rudeness and selfishness are all unpopular with fairies.
As a secret people, they tend to punish any attempts at spying or infringements of fairy privacy, often to the utmost of their power. People who spied on the fairy revels or boasted of fairy favours were generally punished, sometimes with blights and illnesses, and those who stole fairy treasures did so in danger of their lives. In short, the faults chiefly condemned by them are undue curiosity, meanness, sluttishness, illtemper and bad manners.
Theft
Fairies have been used to borrowing from their human neighbours since a long time ago. This is particularly frequent in Scotland where they have a strong reputation for taking things without the knowledge or consent of the owners. They borrow grain and occasionally implements. They borrow the use of mills and of human fires. They borrow milk and butter and even whiskey. In the friendly intercourse of fairy borrowing, they sometimes beg for a suck of milk from a human breast for a fairy baby, or a loan of human skill to mend a broken tool such as a broken ped. They even had to hire human warriors to protect them against the hords of monsters. Some argue that the first fairies were the remnants of a conquered people gone into hiding and yet creeping nervously around their conquerors for what pickings they could find. In some of the stories, such as the medieval tale of Malekin, the explanation might be that it was a human changeling who wished to return to the world again and so refrained from fairy food, but the instance are too frequent to allow of that as the sole explanation.
On the other hand, Fairies have kindly lent to man many time in the history. When a loan is returned to them, they accept only the fair equivalent of what they have lent, neither less nor more. If more is offered they take offence, and never give an opportunity for the same insult again.
In their strange fashion of stealing, there are some strong differences with the behavior of the dishonest people.
The Fairies do not take their booty away bodily; they only take what is called in Gaelic its toradh, i.e. its substance, virtue, fruit, or benefit. The outward appearance is left, but the reality is gone. Thus, when a cow is elf-taken, it appears to its owner only as suddenly smitten by some strange disease. In reality the cow is gone, and only its semblance remains, a simulacrum that yield no edible milk. Similarly when the toradh of land is taken, there remains the appearance of a crop, but a crop without benefit to man or beast, the ears are unfilled, the grain is without weight, the fodder without nourishment.
A still more important point of difference is, that the Fairies only take away what men deserve to lose. When mortals make a secret or grumble over what they have, the Fairies get the benefit, and the owner become a poor man, in the midst of his wealth. Particularly articles of food, the possession of which men denied with oaths became Fairy property.
Kidnapping
Most frequently it was women and their babes that the Fairies abducted. On every occasion of a birth, therefore, the utmost anxiety prevailed to guard the mother and child from their attacks. It is said that the Fairy women are unable to suckle their own children, and hence their desire to secure a human wet-nurse. “Howdies”, as they are called, taken in the way of their profession to the Fairy dwelling, found on coming out that the time they had stayed was incredibly longer or shorter than they imagined, and none of them was ever the better ultimately of her adventure.
The first care was not to leave a woman alone during her confinement. A house full of women gathered and watched for three days, in some places for eight. Various additional precautions against the Fairies were taken in various localities. A row of iron nails were driven into the front board of the bed; the smoothing iron or reaping hook was placed under it and in the window; an old shoe was put in the fire; the door posts were sprinkled with urine, a liquid extremely offensive to the Fairies. The presence of the Bible and the recitation of many prayers were considered a form of exorcism similar to vampires, werewolves and demons. The name of the Deity solemnly pronounced over the child in baptism was an additional protection.
Changelings
When they succeeded in their felonious attempts, the faeries left instead of the mother, and bearing her semblance, a stock of wood and in place of the infant an old mannikin of their own race called a changeling. In European folklore, a changeling is an imbecilic or deformed offspring of dwarves, elves, or faeries surruptitiously substituted by them for a human child. The belief in changelings seems to have arisen from the idea children are susceptible to demonic possession. Some believed faeries preyed only upon unbaptized infants. In legend, the abducted human offspring are either used to strengthen faerie stock or are given to Satan.
The changeling can be easily identified by several traits due to his faerie condition : ·
He always cry and complain
He does not grow as other children
He drinks a lot of water and is hungry all the time
He can play the pipes with and dance with surpassing skill
He looks like an ill-conditioned and helpless brat
He is very precoce and makes unguarded remark as to its own age.
To get rid of him, one had to resort to the most extreme means. The return of the original child "may be effected by making the changeling laugh or by torturing it; this latter belief was responsible for numerous cases of actual child abuse".
The changeling was converted into the stock of a tree by saying a powerful rhyme over him, or by sticking him with a knife. He could be driven away by running at him with a red-hot ploughshare; by getting between him and the bed and threatening him with a drawn sword; by leaving him out on the hillside, and paying no attention to his shrieking and screaming; by putting him sitting on a gridiron, or in a creel, with a fire below; by sprinkling him well out of the maistir tub; or by dropping him into the river.
A mother had her child taken from the cradle by elves. In its place they laid a changeling with a thick head and staring eyes who would do nothing but eat and drink. In distress she went to a neighbor and asked for advice. The neighbor told her to carry the changeling into the kitchen, set it on the hearth, make a fire, and boil water in two eggshells. That should make the changeling laugh, and if he laughs it will be all over with him. The woman did everything just as her neighbor said. When she placed the eggshells filled with water over the fire, the blockhead said:
And he began laughing about it. When he laughed, a band of little elves suddenly appeared. They brought the rightful child, set it on the hearth, and took the changeling away.
According to the popular belief of changeling, malformed and retarded children were likely not human at all, but rather the offspring of some demonic being, offspring that could be neglected, abused, and even put to death with no moral compunctions. It was then easier for the unfortunate families to get rid of the abnormal child that represents a burden in those hard times.
Deformities
Many of the deformities in children are attributed to the Fairies. When a child is incautiously left alone by its mother, for however a short time, the Fairies may come and give its little legs such a twist as will leave it hopelessly lame ever after. To give them their due, however, they sometimes took care of children whom they found forgotten, and even of grow up people sleeping incautiously in dangerous places.
Fairy Arrows
The Fairy arrow known also as Fairy flint, elf-bolts, thunderbolt or thunder-arrow consists of a triangular piece of flint, bearing the appearance of an arrow head. It probably originally formed part of the rude armoury of the savages of the stone period. Popular imagination, struck by its curious form, and ignorant of tis origin, ascribed it to the Fairies. Another belief is that a thunderbolt is created when lightning strikes the earth. It was said to be frequently shot at the hunter, to whom the Elves have a special aversion, because he kills the hinds, on the milk of which they live. They could not throw it themselves, but compelled some mortal who was being carried about in their company to throw it for them. If the person aimed at was a friend, the thrower managed to miss his aim, and the Fairy arrow proved innocuous. It was found lying beside the object of Fairy wrath, and was kept as a valuable preservation in future against similar dangers, and for rubbing to wounds The man or beast struck by it became paralyzed, and to all appearance died shortly after. In reality they were taken away by the elves, and only their appearance remained. Its point being blunt was an indication that it had done harm.
The Fairy spade (caibe sith) is a smooth, slippery, black stone, in shape `like the soal of a shoe'. It was put in water, given to sick people and cattle.
A substance, found on the shores of the Hebrides, like a stone, red and half dark holed, is called `Elf's blood'.
Toadstones, a fossilized sea-urchin, are also called "cross-stones" or "star-stones," the latter name coming from the belief that they fall from heaven or from the stars. Cross-stones are placed in the milk room to protect the milk from "getting something." However, if the milk has already been bewitched, then the stones are placed in a milk sieve. It also considered to be a proven protective agent against lightning.
Fairy spells
Faeries and witches share the secrets of spells and incantations that can bring good fortune but also havoc. They can also be thwarted through the use of spells. Several seventeenth-century magical manuscripts contain spells to obtain power over fairies. Some were to call them up, some to dismiss them from places were treasure was to be found, and some to gain their help and advice.
An excellent way to gett a Fayrie, but for my selfe I call margarett Barrance but this will obtaine any one that is not allready bound. First gett a broad square christall or Venus glasse in length and breadth 3 inches, then lay that glasse or christall in the bloud of a white henne 3 wednesdayes or 3 fridayes: then take it out and wash it with holy aqua and fumigate it: then take 3 hazle stickes or wands of an yeare groth, pill them fayre and white, and make soe longe as you write the spiritts name, or fayries name, which you call 3 times, on every sticke being made flatt one side, then bury them under some hill whereas you suppose fayries haunt, the wednesday before you call her, and the friday followinge take them uppe and call hir at 8 or 3 or 10 of the clocke which be good plannets and howres for that turne: but when you call, be in cleane Life and turne thy face towards the east, and when you have her bind her to that stone or Glasse. An Ungt. to annoynt under the Eyelids and upon the Eyelidds evninge and morninge, but especially when you call, or finde your sight not perfect. (That is, an ointment to give sight of the fairies) pt. (precipitate?) sallet oyle and put it into a Viall glasse but first wash it with rose water, and marygold flower water, the flowers be gathered towards the east, wash it til the oyle come white, then put it into the glasse, ut supra. and thou put thereto the budds of holyhocke, the flowers of mary gold; the flowers or toppes of wild time the budds of younge hazle, and the time must be gatherred neare the side of a hill where fayries use to go oft, and the grasse of a fayrie throne, there, all these putt into the oyle, into the glasse, and sett it to dissolve 3 dayes in the sonne, and thou keep it for thy use; ut supra.
The Bodleian Library (MS. Ashmole 1406):
Fairy ointment
Usually, the salve, sometimes an oil and sometimes an oinment, is used by the Fairies to help their own children or the human children that were abducted to get a sense of the glamour of Fairyland and see things as they really are. It also penetrates the spells which cause invisibility .
There are also numerous tales about the Midwife to the Fairies that were punished for having use the ointment for their own benefice.
The first version of the tale is told in the 13th century writings of Gervase of Tilbury in the account of the Dracae of Brittany. The cycle of events is almost the same in other stories : the fetching of a human midwife at night to an unknown house, the ointment given her to anoint the eyes of the newborn child and the strange enlightenment that follows her casual use of it on one of her own eyes; and as it followed, as in all the later stories, by the innocent betrayal of her forbidden vision and the blinding of the seeing eye. In another story, Cherry of Zennor, a country girl seeking service is engaged by a Fairy Widower as nursemaid to his little boy, and one of her duties is to anoint the eyes of her charge every morning. Her master is amorous and friendly and she is very happy with him, until curiosity about the strange things that happen in her new home leads her to use the ointment on her own eyes, when she sees all sorts of things going on around her, her master as amorous with the midget fairies at the bottom of the spring as he ever was with her. Jealousy leads her to betray herself, and her master regretfully dismisses her though he does not injure her sight. It is clear from the story that the fairy master's first wife was a mortal, which suggests that the ointment was needed only for hybrid fairies, for whole fairies by their own nature could see through the glamour. In 'How Joan Lost the Sight of her Eye'’, Joan was merely paying a friendly call on Betty Trenance, reputed to be a witch but actually a fairy. Peeping through the latch-hole before she knocked, she saw Betty anointing her children's eyes with a green ointment, which she hit carefully away before answering the door. Joan, however, contrived to get hold of the ointment, and touched her eye with it with the usual result. When she betrayed her fairy sight to Betty's husband, he not only blinded her right eye but tricked her into a ride on a devilish horse who nearly carried her into Toldava fowling pool in the company of the Devil and all his rout.
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