Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/35

Rh were carefully and anxiously inspected for the stones. If the stone that represented a member was not found, that member would be removed by death before the next Hallow-fire was kindled. The great-grandmother of the old woman (about 75 years of age) who told me this, was in the habit of performing this ceremony. One year she did it as usual, and on searching the ashes next morning, she found one of the stones was gone. She came home in sorrow, and said again and again without any one paying much attention to her, “Annie’s steenie’s awa.” Before next Hallow-fire was burnt, Annie had worn “awa to the land o’ the leal.”

Fairy Help.—The fairies were in the habit of giving a helping hand to their favourites. A farmer had a noted thresher of his grain crop. Before the invention of threshing mills, and for long after, even till thirty years ago, it was the usual way for the men of the farm to get out of bed by three or four o’clock in the morning, thresh with the flail enough to serve for the day, and be ready by the stated hour to begin the day’s labour.

This noted thresher had got into the favour of the fairies, and he had but to call and they were at his service when he went to the barn to do his threshing in the morning. His master began to suspect there was something more than mortal power at the bottom of his servant’s success as a thresher. He resolved to find out; and one morning he secreted himself in the barn before the hour of threshing came, so as to have a full view of what would go on at the threshing floor. The thresher appeared at the usual time, trimmed his lamp, placed the sheaves on the floor (usually two), and laid hold on the flail. Before beginning, he looked round, and said: “Come awa, ma reed-caippies.” In an instant the sheaves began to tumble from "“he moo” into the threshing-floor, and the fairies were hard at work, and soon finished the day’s threshing. The master waited till the whole was quiet, and the thresher had left the barn. He said nothing to him of what he had seen, but he parted with him on the first favourable opportunity.