Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/133

 Fairies. 1 2 1 nothing but ill-luck for ever after on herself and family. When unmolested, fairies bring good fortune to places they frequent ; but they are spiteful if interfered with, and delight in vexing and thwarting people who meddle with them. It is well known "that they can't abear those whom they can't abide." Then there were the tales of persons spirited away to fairyland, to wait upon the small people's children and perform various little domestic offices, where the time has passed so pleasantly that they have forgotten all about their homes and relations, until by doing a forbidden thing they have incurred their master's anger. They were then punished by being thrown into a deep sleep, and on awakening found themselves on some moor close to their native villages. These unhappy creatures never, after their return, settled down to work, but roamed about aimlessly doing nothing, hoping and longing one day to be allowed to go back to the place from whence they had been banished. They had first put themselves into the fairies' power by eating or drinking something on the sly, when they had surprised them at one of their moonlight frolics ; or by accepting a gift of fruit from the hands of one of these little beings. There are also two or three legends of curious women, who by underhand dealings have got hold of a mysterious box of green ointment belonging to the fairies, which, rubbed on the eyes, gave them the power of seeing them by daylight, when they look old, withered, and grey, and hate to be spied upon by mortals. These women are always interrupted when they have put the ointment on one eye before they have time to anoint both, and by an inadvertent speech they invariably betray their ill-gotten knowledge. They cannot resist making an exclamation when they see a fairy pilfering or up to some mischievous trick. Neither can they keep the secret of the side on which they see, and they are quickly made to pay the penalty of their misdeeds by a well-directed blow from the elf s fist, which deprives them of the sight of that eye for ever. All these old wives' tales are fully related by Mr. Bottrell in his three series of Traditions, Qfc, of West Cornwall. Fairies haunt the ancient monuments of this county, and are supposed to be the beings who bring ill-luck on the destroyers of ' R