NOTES TO FAIRY SUPERSTITIONS.

A.

So, also, in the Danish and German legends, the person who beheld the elves through a knot-hole became immediately blind. See Mr. Croker's excellent translation of Grimm, On the Nature of the Elves. Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, part iii. p. 116.

In "the trickes of the women fayries," described in the curious black-letter tract, published at London in 1628, under the title of Robin Goodfellow; his Mad Prankes and Merry Jests, reprinted in Mr. Halliwell's Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of a Midsummer Night's Dream, occurs the following :-"To walke nightly, as the men fayries we use not; but now and then we go together, and at good huswives fire we warme and dresse our fayry children. If wee find cleane water and cleane towels, wee leave them money, either in their basons or in their shooes; but if wee find no clean water in their houses we wash our children in their pottage, milke, or beere, or what-ere we find."

"Some

The Craven "dobbies" resemble the Northamptonshire fairies in the custom of visiting the cottage hearth. of the dobbies are contented to stay in outhouses with the cattle, but others will only dwell among human beings. The latter are thought to be fond of heat, but when the hearth cools it is said they frisk and racket about the house, greatly disturbing the inmates.”—Willan's Collection of West Riding Words, Archæologia, vol. xvii.

B.

An Hampshire legend very similar is given in No. 430 of the Literary Gazette. The Northamptonshire tale limits the depredators to two, but the more Southern legend substitutes a whole fairy community.

The love of milk was an attribute of all the fairy-folk. Hobbes, in the amusing parallel which he draws between the Papacy and the "Kingdome of Fairies," gives the passage, never before, we believe, quoted, on this curious subject :"The ecclesiastiques take the cream of the land by donations of ignorant men, that stand in awe of them, and by tythes : so, also, it is in the fable of the fairies, that they enter into the dairies, and feast upon the cream, which they skim from the milk." One of Puck's favourite pranks was to—

"Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,

And bootless make the breathless housewife churn."

So, also, Randolf, who has made great use of these tiny beings in his dramas :

"I know no haunts, I have but to the dairy,

To skim the milk-bowls, like a lickorish fairy."

C.

This legend is highly curious, as exhibiting the connexion of elves with trees. The elf evidently resided in the oak, and naturally pleaded for the safety of his dwelling.

Grimm gives many instances of this connexion. Certain trees were consecrated to their resort in Denmark. Elberich is represented as lying under a lime tree; and among the ancient Prussians the elder was sacred to him, a superstition also still obtaining in Denmark. Vide Thiele's Folke-sagn, vol. i. p. 132 It was also the custom in Germany to pay particular respect to this tree on the first of May, or about Midsummer, when the elves, if light, are said to go in procession. Destroying the trees particularly raises the ire of the Scandinavian elves. A farmer felling trees, and squaring timber in the forest, vexed the mountain spirit, which asked,in a lamentable tone, "Who is making so much noise here?" "A Christian," replied his fellow," has come here, and hews down the wood of our favourite haunts, and does us much injury." In Norway, too, certain high trees are forbidden, on their account, to be cut down.

Our elves were noted for their craft and cunning. The Devonshire legend of the "Fox and the three Pixies," which appeared some time since in the Folk-lore columns of the Athenæum, is well known in the Southern parts of Northamptonshire. In one of our versions of it a giant takes the place of the fox, who is tricked by the elf in the same manner.

The unreal and illusive nature of fairy gifts is also one of the characteristics of the Welsh elves. "It is related in Breconshire that fairies were accustomed to be seen by those who had the courage to look in the meadows, and often, when in sportive mood,' would present to the peasantry what appeared loaves of bread, but when examined in the morning were found to be toad-stools."Howell's Cambrian Superstitions, Tipton, 1831, p. 146. In an Highland legend given by Stewart (Popular Superstitions of Scotland, p. 130), the elves substitute an unreal animal for the veritable cow, which has been abstracted by them.

D.

A similar tradition attaches itself to the origin of many other buildings throughout Great Britain. Mr. Chambers, in his Popular Rhymes, records many instances of its occurrence in Scotland; and in England we may point out the church of Bughton, in Sussex; Ambrosden Church, in Buckinghamshire; and that of Rochdale, in Yorkshire. Similar legends are also related of the churches of Great Brington and Oxendon, in this county, both of which, it is said, were originally intended to have been built on sites some distance from the present edifices.

Baker assigns a more matter-of-fact origin for the appellation "Nine Churches." "Stowe," he says, "received its adjunct of 'Nine Churches' because there was nine advowsons appendant to the manor."

The form of the hog was one of Puck's numerous disguises: thus in the Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 1 :—

'Sometimes a horse I'll be, sometimes a hound,

A hog, a headless bear, sometimes a fire."

So, also, in Robin Goodfellow; his Mad Prankes and Merry Jests, reprinted by the Percy Society :

"Thou has the power to change thy shape,

To horse, to hog, to dog, to ape."

E.

The first part of this tale runs almost word for word with the Danish legend given by Thiele, “How a Farmer tricks a Troll;" and the Story of Rabelais, “ How a Junior Devil was fooled by a Husbandman of Pope Figland” (Works, ed. 1807, vol. iii. p. 291), but the incident of the mowing is wanting in both. The curious proverb at page 138, which at once introduces us to the principal personages of Northamptonshire mythology, will remind the reader of the German one recorded by Grimm," To laugh like a Kobold;" or the Norfolk one, preserved by Forby, "To laugh like Robin Goodfellow," spoken of a hearty horse laugh.

F.

The Northamptonshire legend runs thus :-Two brothers are reduced by the badness of the times to seek shelter in a hut built in the midst of a forest, where they subsist upon the juicy haunches of the king's deer. It appears that the same scarcity which drove the hunters to the woods affected also, in a similar way, the fairy denizens of the neighbouring wastes. One day, whilst the eldest brother remains behind to cook the meat, there enters a little Redman, with the modest request," Plaze gie me a few broth." Up the ladder rushes the hunter to find the hatchet, intending to inflict summary vengeance upon the intruder; but in the mean time the little Redman seizes the pot from the fire, and makes off. The exasperated cook pursues, but soon loses the cunning fiend among the intricacies of the forest. After a similar

adventure, befalling the other brother on the following day, it becomes the turn of the much-despised youngest to prepare the meal for the absent brethren. Profiting by the mishaps of his comrades, and well knowing that a caught Redman, like the Cluricaune, proved a treasure to his captor, he lies in wait for his visitor behind the door; and no sooner has the unsuspecting spirit entered, and given utterance to his usual phrase, "Plaze gie me a few broth," than he finds himself a prisoner. After many fruitless endeavours to escape, he conducts his captor to his residence-an old well, in a retired part of the forest; and there ransoms himself with such store of gold, that his vanquisher, to quote my narrator, "is made a mon on for life."

It is almost unnecessary to point out the affinity of this sprite with the Scottish Redcap, and the Irish Fir Darrig, of which latter his designation is a literal translation.

The following reached the compiler while the foregoing sheets were passing through the press :

PEACOCK'S FEATHER.-Having a peacock's feather in the house is considered a bad omen,—many considering that sickness is surely the result.

HIRING A SERVANT.-If the money given as earnest is handed to the servant on the stairs, it is believed that she will not remain to fulfil her engagement. In such a case it will be thought advisable to recall her, and by some excuse obtain the money back again, and afterwards present it to her in a more suitable place.

WISHING-BONE.-The person to whose share falls the merry-thought of a fowl (in Northamptonshire called a wishing-bone), should immediately wish, and if within the bounds of possibility it will come to pass.