193 Notes and Sketches. 



a'firm, if somewhat vague and inarticulate belief in 

 their own powers. As time went on, the business 

 tended to get less reputable and more directly rascally, 

 inasmuch as the progress of general enlightenment 

 both served to show the pretensions of its profes- 

 sors in a more contemptible light, and forced them 

 to resort to extended and often very palpable subter- 

 fuges in order to keep up their credit with those still 

 willing to be duped by them. And these, beyond 

 question, were a class wonderfully tenacious of exist- 

 ence. Belief in witchcraft generally, and in the 

 existence and can of the fairies, held wide sway 

 among the country population till the close of the 

 century ; and, indeed, for a good while after. The 

 merry little folks with their green coats were the 

 " gweed neibours," who seldom did serious harm, 

 except when they played the sort of " plisky " per- 

 formed in substituting an uncouth changeling for the 

 infant son of the Bethelnie cottar. They would do 

 many a good service when the humour was on them ; 

 and happy was he who, when some sturdy male fairy 

 took a bout at thrashing in his barn floor of an early 

 winter morning, could creep quietly up behind, and, 

 getting hold of the flail souple, " catch the speed!" 

 Such cantrips as an old wife converting herself into the 

 form of a hare, and hirpling about from "toon" to 

 " toon " at uncanny hours ; or in other guises " trailin' 

 the rape" to deprive a neighbour's cow of its milk-giving 

 powers, transferring them to some other cow, or inani- 

 mate object even, for her own behoof, were regarded as 

 serious contingencies, against which protection was 

 needed. And, of course, it could be had from a class 

 of operators who sprang into existence, partly from the 

 necessities of the case, and partly from their own tastes 

 and turn of mind. The more pleasing superstition, 

 which had respect to wonder-moving tales of Elfland 

 and its inhabitants, got gradually attenuated, and died 

 out with the wooden plough and the small oats ; the 



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