^38 Fairy Beliefs in Galloway. 



devoted, was a sacred tree, and fairies danced beneath it. In 

 Antrim, at Ardclinis, there are strong- prejudices against 

 removing old thorn trees, and one man declared solemnly he 

 had seen hundreds of the " wee folk " dancing round their 

 trees, who told him he should suffer for meddling with them. 

 In numerous places in Ireland the misfortunes of a family are 

 traced to the cutting down of trees. In Scotland this idea 

 finds a place, and a branch even falling from an oak (the 

 Edgewell tree) near Dalhousie Castle portended mortality to 

 the family.! 



But to return to the curative powers of the thorn tree, I 

 should like to call attention to another remedy for warts in 

 Wales, which was once occupied by the Goidelic race, who 

 had already amalgamated with the Aborigines, and were only 

 partly driven out when the Brythonic Celts arrived, and 

 whose superstitious beliefs still survive in a great many parts. 

 To get rid of warts, on your way to the sacred well look for 

 wool which sheep have lost. When you have found enough 

 wool, you should prick each wart with a pin, and then rub 

 the wart well with the wool, then bend the pin and throw it 

 into the well. Then place the wool on the first whitethorn 

 you can find, and as the wind scattered the wool the warts 

 would disappear. The communication of this story was made 

 by a competitor for a prize on the folk-lore of North Wales 

 in 1887, and he said near his home there was a sacred well, 

 and he, with three or four other boys, went from school one 

 day to the well to charm their warts away, for he had twenty- 

 three on one of his hands, so that he always tried to hide it, 

 as it was the belief that if one counted one's warts they would 

 double their number. He forgets what became of the other 

 boys' warts, but his own disappeared soon afterwards, and 

 his grandfather used to maintain that it was owing to the 

 remedy he had used. We must not forget to mention that 

 the crooked pins which had pricked the warts and thrown 

 into the well nobody would touch, lest he might get from 

 them the warts supposed to attach to them. In 1892 Mr 

 Davies made notes respecting a well called Finnon coed Moch 



t Arc.hteoloijical Review, Vol. III., p 230. 



