Fairy Beliefs in Galloway. 233 



of the superstition surrounding the blackthorn bushes, called 

 by the natives in many parts of Galloway " Fairy-thorns " or 

 " Fairy-trees." In Claish Glen, Portlog-an, a neighbour- 

 hood strongly tinged with fairy and witch beliefs, he says 

 " no one will cut these blackthorn bushes, and some will not 

 even touch them." It is the same thing at Whithorn, where 

 the people believe that the trees are a protection against 

 witches, and they will not allow them to be cut down, and so 

 on throughout Galloway. What can have been the origin 

 of this belief in the power of the blackthorn? How can we 

 trace the mysterious veneration paid to it? It would appear 

 that all over the world special trees are regarded as sacred 

 and inhabited by a spirit, and to cut down any of them would 

 not only involve the offending of the tree-spirits, but in many 

 parts of the world certain tribes believe the tree actually 

 bleeds, while others think that the souls of the dead pass 

 into the tree, and Mr Frazer tells us that in South Australia 

 " the Dieyerie tribe regard as very sacred certain trees which 

 are supposed to be their fathers transformed ; hence they will 

 not cut the trees down, and protest against settlers doing so." 

 When we come nearer home we are told by Sir John Rhys 

 that until quite lately, in England and Scotland, people 

 refused to cut down some trees (elder and others) for fear of 

 offending the tree-mother, and if forced to do so first sought 

 forgiveness of the elf or tree-spirit — other phases are met 

 with in Scottish and Irish superstitions. We must remember 

 that in Ireland we have a race which from the remotest times 

 peopled it, corresponding almost exactly with the Pictish race 

 in Galloway and the Highlands, and that in consequence their 

 beliefs and superstitions are very similar, with perhaps even 

 more of the latter persisting to the present time than in 

 Galloway. 



The black and white thorn trees have been said to be the 

 representatives of the Mimosa-Catechu, the sacred thorn of 

 India, which was sprung from the lightning, and therefore 

 endowed with miraculous powers and rendered immune in 

 storms. The divining or wishing rods of the Germans are 

 said to have been made from both the black and the white 

 thorn, and the Greeks used the wood of the blackthorn for 



