232 Fairy Beliefs in Galloway. 



of the history of races, of whose life, manners and customs 

 we have up till now been in almost complete ignorance. So 

 that, as Sir John Rhys says, " folk-lore cannot justly be 

 called trivial, seeing that it has to do with the history of the 

 race — in a wider sense, I may say, with the history of the 

 human mind, and the record of its development, and it is a 

 mark of an uncultured people not to care or know about the 

 history of the race." We must not forget the reality theii 

 superstitions were to those who believed in them, and the 

 late eminent folk-lorist, Alfred Nutt, tells us " that to the 

 peasant fairydom is part of the necessary machinery by which 

 the scheme of things, as known to him, is ordered and 

 governed ; he may wish for less uncanny deities, but he could 

 not conceive the world without them ; their absence is no 

 cause of rejoicing, rather of anxiety as due to his own neglect 

 of the observances which they expect, and which are the 

 price of their favour. " 



Earlier writers even than Shakespeare insist on the rustic 

 element of the fairy creed, which was the oldest remains of 

 Celtic mythology common to the Aryan-speaking people of 

 Europe — its origin is not certain, but the Aryans may have 

 taken over and developed the ruder faith of the soil-tilling 

 races they conquered, and upon whom they imposed their 

 speech. 



If in Galloway what is left of fairy beliefs can be gathered 

 up and preserved, a link in the chain of history may be 

 rivetted, and I heartily wish that someone in every village 

 would try to collect at least one story each year, so that we 

 might annually have a substantial addition to the folk-lore 

 of the old province. 



An old distich gives the following warning : — 



" Who bringeth hawthorne into ye hall 

 Evil to him shall aye befall." 



This belief is prevalent in many parts of Wigtownshire, and 

 lately a friend told me of it in Glenluce. It is also widespread 

 in the southern counties of England. In the late Rev. Walter 

 Gregor's preliminary Report on Folk-lore of Scotland to the 

 British Association in 1897, he speaks, among other subjects. 



