574 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



The fairies were fond of stealing the butter from the churn, 

 while the good woman of the house was toiling away with the 

 churn-staff", and no butter came for all her pains. One cure for 

 this was to nail a horse-shoe on the bottom of the churn. 

 Sometimes the mischief came from some greedy neighbour who 

 practised witchcraft to rob her neighbour. A horse-shoe was 

 always looked upon as a good thing to keep away fairies, and so 

 we often see one hung over the door of a house or nailed upon 

 the stable-lintel : this latter was to prevent fairies or witches 

 taking the horses out, and riding them over hill and dale the 

 livelong night, bringing them back before the dawn all trem- 

 bling and exhausted. A horse-shoe was also nailed inside a 

 fishing-boat or to the mast of a vessel, because fairies worked 

 mischief to fishermen and hindered them in their toilsome 

 work. Fairies were supposed to lurk in fishing-boats when 

 they were drawn up on the beach during the night, and there- 

 fore a little fire of sticks was lighted in the bottom of the boat 

 in the morning to drive out these unseen but mischievous little 

 pests. Anything of iron, if red with rust all the better, or any- 

 thing of a red colour, such as a bunch of rowan-berries, was a 

 good thing to keep fairies away ; a cross of rowan-tree twigs 

 was also used. 



It was thought the fairies did not like to be called by this 

 name, so, as they might be listening about, perched perhaps 

 like fowls on the rafters of the kitchen roof, they were always 

 spoken of as " the good people," " the little people," or " the 

 gentry." The places they frequented were let alone, so as 

 not to anger them, especially ancient forts or raths, or high 

 earthern mounds, of which so many are found in Ireland; while 

 old thorn-trees, usually called "fairy thorns" or "gentle bushes," 

 were never injured or meddled with, because the fairies met 

 and danced in these places on moonlight nights. If any person 

 was so rash as to harm or meddle with these favourite meeting 

 places, some harm overtook him or his family or his cattle in a 

 short time, and his neighbours considered he was rightly served, 

 and that he had brought his trouble upon himself by his own 



