Fairy Beliefs in Gallowav. 2i3 



I should like to tell a fairy story about a thorn tree at 

 Glenluce. The events connected with it happened within the 

 remembrance of a middle-aged man, a native of the place. 

 An old Irishman was ordered by his master to cut a thorn 

 tree in one of his parks, and the man, not liking the job, 

 pretended he was ill rather than cut it. So the master got 

 another man to do it, although the old Irishman warned him 

 not to cut down the thorn, as it was a fairy-thorn and he 

 would be sure to die. The next day the man who cut down 

 the tree took to his bed, and the old Irishman was not sorry 

 to see that his warning had come true, for he had told the 

 man that his entrails would be hung round the thorn, as that 

 was what happened in Ireland to anyone who meddled with 

 fairy-thorns. In two or three days the sick man died, and 

 the old Irishman said to a man I knew : — " I told you, John, 

 what would happen ; the man is dead now. The master 

 would not get me to cut his thorn." He would not go to the 

 funeral of his friend, nor carry the thorn tree to the dyke- 

 side, lest anything should happen to him, and told his master 

 he was not at all surprised at what befell his friend. He told 

 people that the fairies were very quiet folk, and did a lot of 

 work for people at night. 



The old story, of unknown date, of the youth who in 

 order to win a wager rode in the dead of night from the Castle 

 (once the mansion-house of the present Monreith estate) to 

 Kirkmaiden Church to bring back the Bible shows what a 

 terrible fate befell him as a punishment for his act of sacri- 

 lege. On the road back the horse ran against a thorn tree 

 near, and the rider was thrown against it and was disem- 

 bowelled, and his entrails wound round and round the tree. 

 This tree was still pointed out fifty years ago — an old and 

 decaying stump — by the name of " Man- Wrap." 



There is one other phase of fairy belief not yet alluded 

 to, that of changelings, which still lingers in out-of-the-way 

 places ; and in the Kirkmaiden district one or two stories have 

 been related to me. A young married woman living in the 

 parish of Inch, whose husband works on a farm there, told me 

 that her mother, a native of Portlogan, assured her that her 

 wean was changed in the cradle by the fairies, and a fretful. 



