200 The Irish NaiuralisU vSeptember, 19 lo. 



FOLK LORE. 



BV EU/ABETH ANDREWS. 



I was told in Tory that fairies could make themselves large 

 or small, their hair might be red, white, or black, but they 

 wore black clothing. This is the only case where I have 

 heard of fairies being dressed in black. Red appears to be 

 their favourite colour, but sometimes they wear tartan, and in 

 the north-east of Antrim are often dressed in green. If in the 

 fairy tales we have a reminiscence of dwarf races, I should 

 think the diflference in apparel points to tribal differences. It 

 is very rarely that we find fairies associated with the spirits of 

 the departed, but an elderly woman in Tory said those who 

 were drowned became fairies, and also those who had exceeded 

 in whiskey. This woman took me to see the old cross, the 

 fragments of a second cross, the round tower, and the ruins 

 of a very small church with a rude stone altar. She also 

 pointed out to me a small cairn of stones, where prayers were 

 formerly offered to St. Bridget. There are stories also of 

 King Balor and his daughter, but these would be too long for 

 insertion here. I may refer the reader to the " Donegal 

 Highlands," by the Most Rev. Dr. MacDevitt. 



If Balor is the grim hero of Tory Island, on the mainland 

 one hears of Finn McCoul, and of a still larger giant, GoU. 



Fairies also abound. In the woods of Cratlin a young girl 

 told me that some, like the angels, guide people aright, others 

 lead them astray. Contrary to the common belief she held 

 that fairies would be saved at the last day. A woman in 

 Rosguill called the fairies " sheegees." A lad in tbe same 

 neighbourhood gave me a variant of a story I had heard at 

 Gueedore and Kincasslagh : — how a man rode with the fairies 

 when they carried ofif a young girl, but saved her from them 

 and brought her home to his mother, wiiere .she remained for 

 a year deaf and dumb, until a few drops from a fairy bottle 

 restored her speech. 



The same lad in speaking of the kitchen middens said the 

 Danes lived and had their houses on the water. Is this 

 possibly a tradition of early tiibes who like the lake dwellers 

 built their habitations on a wooden structure above the waters 

 of the sea ? 



Belfast. 



