XI : WHO WERE THE FAIRIES ? * 



IN his Demonology and Witchcraft, a now almost 

 forgotten work of that far from forgotten 

 author Sir Walter Scott, allusion is made to 

 the strange history of a certain Robert Kirk, M.A., 

 Minister of Aberfoyle (in Scotland), in 1691. 

 Kirk was a minister, the son of a minister and the 

 father of a minister, in which facts he resembled 

 many of his Presbyterian brethren in former and 

 present days. For our present purpose it is much 

 more important to remember that he was a seventh 

 son and thus endowed, according to common 

 legend, with strange psychic powers and liable 

 to strange experiences not given to other men. 



Such, if his story be true, was certainly the fate 

 of the Rev. Robert Kirk, for although he is stated 

 to have died in 1692 and although Scott saw his 

 tombstone inscribed 



t ROBERTUS KIRK, A.M. 



Linguae Hibernise Lumen. 



in spite of these facts, according to common re- 

 port, Kirk never did die but was carried off into 



* The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies. Ed. A. 

 Lang. Nutt. 1893. 



Tysons Pigmies of the Ancients. Ed. B. C. A. Windle. Nutt. 

 1894. 



The Testimony of Tradition, MacRitchie. Kegan Paul. 1890. 



The Fairie Faith in Celtic Countries. Wentz. Frowde. 1911. 



t The laudatory sentence relates to his having made a trans- 

 lation of the Bible into Irish. 



