Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/226

 218 believe the truth concerning himself till he found his wife sitting by the door with a yearling child in her arms. So quickly does time pass in the company of the "good people."

iv.—.

The Highlanders distinguish between the water and the land or "dressed fairies." In Wales the fairies of the mines are called "knockers": they are about one foot and a half in height; but the "Bergmann" "Berggeist," gnome, and kobold, with their subterranean treasures, grotesque proportions, and great strength, are "powers of darkness," not acknowledged or classified in Sutherland. I have given one story which shows that the fairies are supposed to be "spirits in prison." It is not the only legend of the kind. In a Ross-shire narrative a beautiful lady is represented as appearing to an old man who sat reading the Bible. She sought to know if for such as her the Holy Scriptures held out any hope of salvation. The old man spoke kindly to her, but said that in those pages there was no mention of salvation for any but the sinful sons of Adam. She flung her arms over her head, screamed, and plunged into the sea. Fairies will not steal a baptized child, and "Bless you" said to an unbaptized one acts as a charm against their power.

A woman when out shearing laid her baby down under a hedge, and went back from time to time to look at it. She was going once to give it suck, when it began to yell and cry in such a frightful way that she was quite alarmed. "Lay it down and leave it, as you value your child," said a man reaping near her. Half an hour later she came back, and, finding the child apparently in its right mind again, she gave it the breast. The man smiled, and told her that he had seen her own infant carried off by the "good people," and a fairy changeling left in its place. When the "folk" saw that their screaming little imp was not noticed, and would get nothing, they thought it best to take it back at once, and replace the little boy.—(Betsey Ross, Altass.)

As fairies are represented as having abundance of food, riches, power, and merriment at their command, it cannot be temporal