ON THE ETHNOGRArmCAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 491 



nii,'lit. This act of kindness kept them on good terms with the household 

 and from interfering with the cows. 



659. Dairy.— On Halloweven the fairies rode on cats at the Holme 

 Glen, Dairy. On that night considerate housekeepers shut up their cats, 

 to prevent them from being laid hold of by the fairies. 



660. Kirkcou-an.—A man had a cow and a goat which he pastured in 

 his little field. In this field was a knoll, and it was the abode of some 

 fairies. They took to riding on the goat round and round the knoll. The 

 man was at last under the necessity of selling the goat, so fond had the 

 fairies become of riding the animal. He bought another and placed it on 

 the field in the thought that it would be free from the attention of the 

 fairies. Some time after his wife asked to go and see how the new goat 

 was faring. He saw the fairies riding ' time aboot ' round the knoll on 

 the goat's back. (Thirty two years ago.) 



661. Dairy. — About seventy-five years ago there lived a woman at 

 the Brough, in the parish of Kells, in an old house about a mile from New 

 Galloway. In front of the house door there was a slab over the drain 

 that carried off the house dirty water. One day a fairy woman, dressed 

 in green, appeared to her and asked her to throw her slops not on the 

 slab but a little further off. She made a promise to her that if she did 

 so, she would never come to want. The woman did so. Some time after 

 she fell ill. Every morning a quantity of new pins was found on a small 

 table that stood beside the patient's bed. The pins were sold, and the price 

 of them was sufficient for the support of the woman. Dr. Trottar of 

 Dairy came into possession of one of them. From that time forth money 

 matters prospered with him. 



662. Kirkmaiden.—My informant told me that he has heard of the 

 site of a byre being shifted, because it had been built over fairy dwellings, 

 and thus the water of the byre dropped down into it, and caused annoyance 

 to its inmates. 



663. When the new house at Greenan was being founded, a woman 

 appeared and asked the masons and others taking a hand in the work to 

 change the site. She told them that the house on that site would be 

 rio-ht over her dwelling, and in consequence much annoyance and incon- 

 venience would be caused to her and her household. 



664. My informant's father used to say that he has heard the fairies 

 singing in Glenlee. 



Witchcraft. 



665. Kirkpatrick- Durham. — An old woman used to say to my in- 

 formant, when a boy, that the witches were all abroad on Halloweven, 

 and that they would seize him if he went out of the house after dark. 



G66. JRerrick.— Mrs. G of Dundrennaii Cottage, Rerrick, had a 



garden and sold the potatoes reared in it. Mrs, W who was looked 



on as ' uncanny,' wanted from her some of a particular kind as seed. She 

 went to the cottage to buy them. When she entered, the female servant 



was ' kirnin.' She asked Mrs. G to sell her a stone of this particular 



kind of potatoes. She was told she could not have them, as they were all 

 sold. She appeared not to believe this, and as she was leaving the house 

 she looked back at the ' kirn.' No butter was got from that churnful. 



667. Crossmichael. — A witch that commonly went by the name pf 

 Nanny lived in Crossmichael parish. One day a neighbour's cow fell ill 

 and fell down. Nanny was known to have a grudge against the owner, 



