44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



milk, the milk ceasing to churn, &c. ; or the person himself may turn ill and 

 die. A common form of interference, of which this punishment is the con- 

 sequence, is to build on one of their passes or paths, or one of their mounds, 

 or to drive a road through a fairy mound, &c. 



There are various safeguards by which children and property may be 

 protected from the fairies. One of the most universal of these is the sign of 

 the Cross, made for example in Ireland on a cow after it is milked, or with 

 lighted straw over the cradle of an infant ; again a live coal is put under the 

 churn, iron tongs laid across the cradle ; and in one case a needle which had 

 been used by accident (pins having run out), protected the third child of 

 a couple whose two previous children had been taken by the fairies. In 

 Scotland no child is regarded as safe until it is baptised ; before this time 

 measures of some kind must be taken, e.<j , there is given to parent and child 

 the milk of a cow which has eaten a certain plant (Pinguicula).* 



Certain things must also be observed by men to keep the fairies in good 

 humour and prevent them from spoiling the house or property of the 

 humans. Thus, when milk is spilt it is to be left till the fairies come to take 

 it ; the scrapings of the knife which has been used for preparing the butter 

 after churning are theirs ; and in general any food which falls accidentally 

 from the fingers must be left where it lies ; when a new house is taken it 

 must be furnished and food prepared and left, and the people themselves 

 must not enter the house until this food has been consumed and the place 

 once more tidied up by the fairies. There are three days which are univers- 

 ally connected with the fairies, and which mark the height of their power. 

 These are May day, either the present first of May, or the 12th of May, which 

 is the old May day; St. John's Night at midsummer; and Halloween, the 

 eve of the first of November. Thus, in Cornwall, after Halloween, blackberries 

 are not fit to eat, it is said, because the pixies have been over them ; on the 

 same day in Lewis libations of ale used to be made to Shony, a fairy being, 

 who it seems was a sea-god ; on that eve all fairy bowers are said to be 

 open, and battles take place between the fairy clans. 



A common feature in all the fairy tales is the taboo. It is, for example, 

 made the condition of a treasure being found, of which the fairy has indicated 

 the existence, that the finder shall not look back, or shall not make the 



Tiiiyi'ii-ttla (Initter-wort) is used for cnrdling milk in some parts of Scotland. 



