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Page 7
_Illustrations of "Northern Antiquities."_
By the beginning of this century these ideas of the _personel_ of
supernatural agencies had become slightly modified in this country at
least, giants and dragons having given way to fairies, brownies, elves,
witches, etc. The Rev. Mr. Kirk, of Aberfeldy, published a work
descriptive of these supernatural beings. He says they are a kind of
astral spirits between angels and humanity, being like men and women in
appearance, and similar in many of their habits; some of them, however,
are double. They marry and have children, for which they keep nurses;
have deaths and burials amongst them, and they can make themselves
visible or invisible at pleasure. They live in subterranean habitations,
and in an invisible condition attend very constantly on men. They are
very fond of human children and pretty women, both of which they will
steal if not protected by some superior influence. Women in childbed
stand in danger of being taken, but if a piece of cold iron be kept in
the bed in which they lie, the spirits won't come near. Children are in
greater danger of being stolen before baptism than after. They
sometimes, to supply their own needs, spirit away the milk from cows,
but more frequently they transfer the milk to the cows of some person
who stands high in their favour. This they do by making themselves
invisible, and silently milking and removing the milk in invisible
vessels. When people offend them they shoot flint-tipped arrows, and by
this means kill either the persons who have offended them or their
cattle. They cause these arrows to strike the most vital part, but the
stroke does not visibly break the skin, only a _blae_ mark is the result
visible on the body after death. These flint arrow-heads are
occasionally found, and the possession of one of these will protect the
possessor against the power of these astral beings, and at the same time
enable him or her to cure disease in cattle and women. These flints were
often sewed into the dresses of children to protect them from the
Evil-eye. There were many other means of protection against the power of
these beings, which we shall have occasion to refer to again. There is
one method, however, which may be mentioned now. If, when a calf is
born, its mouth be smeared with a balsam of dung, before it is allowed
to suck, the fairies cannot milk that cow. Those taken to fairyland lose
the power of calculating the lapse of time, although they are not
unconscious of what is going on around them. Those spirited away to
fairyland may be recovered by their friends or relatives, by performing
certain formula, or--and this was often the method resorted to--by
out-witting the fairies, getting possession of their stolen friends, and
then doing or saying something which fairies cannot bear, upon which
they are forced to depart, leaving the recovered party behind them.
The following information concerning the government, &c., of fairyland,
is taken from Aytoun:--The queen of fairyland was a kind of feudatory
sovereign under Satan, to whom she was obliged to pay _kave_, or tithe
in kind; and, as her own fairy subjects strongly objected to transfer
their allegiance, the quota was usually made up in children who had been
stolen before the rite of baptism had been administered to them. This
belief was at one time universal throughout all Scotland, and was still
prevalent at the beginning of this century. Charms were quite commonly
employed to defend houses from the inroads of the fairies before the
infants were baptised; but even baptism did not always protect the baby
from being stolen. During the period of infancy, the mother required to
be ever watchful; but the risks were especially great before baptism. It
is difficult to define exactly the power which the queen of elfland had,
for besides carrying off Thomas the Rhymer, she was supposed to have
carried off no less a personage than James IV. from the field of
Flodden, and to have detained him in her enchanted country. There was
also a king of elfland. From the accounts extracted from or volunteered
by witches, &c., preserved to us in justiciary and presbyterial records,
he appears to have been a peaceable, luxurious, indolent personage, who
entrusted the whole business of his kingdom, including the recruiting
department, to his wife. We get a glimpse of both their majesties in the
confessions of Isabella Gowdie, in Aulderne, a parish in Nairnshire, who
was indicted for witchcraft in 1662. She said--"I was in Downie Hills,
and got meat there from the queen of the fairies, more than I could eat.
The queen is brawly clothed in white linen, and in white and brown
cloth; and the king is a braw man, well-favoured, and broad-faced. There
were plenty of elf bulls rowting and skoyling up and down, and
affrighted me." Mr. Kirk says "that in fairyland they have also books of
various kinds--history, travels, novels, and plays--but no sermons, no
Bible, nor any book of a religious kind." Every reader of Hogg's
_Queen's Wake_ knows the beautiful legend of the abduction of "Bonny
Kilmeny"; but in Dr. Jamieson's _Illustrations of Northern Antiquities_
we have found amongst these heroic and romantic ballads another legend
more fully descriptive of fairyland. In this legend, a young lady is
carried away to fairyland, and recovered, by her brother:--
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