Fairy Beliefs in Galloway. 237 



girl a woman calling- at the Orchard farm for the loan of a 

 gimlet to bore a hole in this same tree, and she had a wooden 

 pin ready made to drive into the hole which she was going to 

 bore in the thorn, after she had probed the hole in her tooth 

 (this woman had long been troubled with toothache), and, of 

 course, the fairies were expected to work the cure. One 

 other fairy tale, which I have a shady recollection of myself. 

 I had had warts on my hands about fifty years ago, and my 

 mother rubbed my warts over with a black snail (the snail 

 had to be found without looking for it) ; the warts were then 

 rubbed with it, and the snail was then hung up on a fairy- 

 thorn that used to stand on Dunragit Moor, and as the snail 

 wasted away the warts were expected to decay also ; and as 

 far as I can remember, my warts all disappeared except one. 

 Of course, I had great belief in the fairies in those days, and 

 even in our more enlightened times I am in the opinion that 

 faith in a particular doctor or remedy is half the cure of our 

 present-day troubles." 



Before passing on to more stories of the fairies in 

 Galloway I should like to point out an almost similar custom 

 many years ago in Northumberland. It was this : — " Take 

 a large snail, rub the wart well with it, then throw the snail 

 against a thorn hedge till it is impaled — then let it die."* 

 We must remember that in far-away times the same race as 

 that occupying the whole of Galloway and the Highlands, as 

 well as Ireland, had numerous settlements in what is now 

 Northumberland, which abounds in fairy-lore. The cele- 

 brated fairies of Fawdon Hill, Northumberland, described by 

 James Service in his poems in 1842, had their " Queen 

 Mab's " residence there — the diminutive, delicate featured 

 creatures of fair complexion decked in pea-green costumes, 

 legends of whom existed in his days, and where 



"The little green hunter winds his horn, 

 And dew-drops start from the snow-spangled thorn, 

 For within each cup of its blossom lay 

 Nestled from daylight a minnikin fay." 



In Ireland the blackthorn, to which the Irishman is still 

 * Henderson's Fulk-lurc uf the Nurthcin Counties. 



