32 REPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1896 



THE FAIRIES AND THE MILLER. 



The account j2:iven in the Wilkie MSS., in the possession 

 of Dr Hardy, is as follows: — ''Oae evening the miller of 

 Halidean Mill was drying a melder of oats, belonging to a 

 neighbouring farmer. Tired with the fatigues of the day, he 

 threw himself down upon some straw in the kiln-barn, near the 

 bauks on which the corn was laid out to dry, and fell into a 

 profound sleep. He was awakened by a confused noise, as if 

 the killogie was full of people, all speaking together. This 

 made him pull aside the straw from the bauks of the kiln, and 

 on looking down he observed a number of feet and legs paddling 

 among the isles (embers or ashes), as if they were enjoying the 

 warmth of the recent fire, which was hardly extinguished. 

 As he listened he heard distinctly the words, ' What think ye 

 o' my iitties ? ' to which another voice replied, ' What think ye 

 o' mine? ' Laying hold of his beer-mell — a mallet for breaking 

 the hulls o' barley — he threw it down among them, which made 

 all the ashes fly among their legs, and at the same instant he 

 called out, 'And what think ye o' my meikle mell among a' thae 

 fitties o' thine ? ' With a great uproar the surprised assemblage 

 called out, yelling as if they were burnt, and then a hoarse 

 laugh followed, and these words in an unearthly tone — 



' Mount and flee for Rhymer's Tower, 



Ha ! ha ! he ! 

 The pawky miller has beguiled ns. 

 Or we wad hae stoun his luck, 

 For this seen (seven) years to come, 

 And meikle water wad hae run 

 When the miller sleepit.' " 



Mr Henderson, who gives an extract from the Wilkie MSS. 

 in his Northern FoUc Lore, has mistaken the name of the place, 

 designating it Holdean Mill, and calls the bauks of the kiln 

 banks ['bauks, the lofting of a house' — Jamieson.~\ That these 

 uncanny visitants were fairies will appear from the nearly 

 parallel version of the Fairies of Eothley Mill, told in Hodgson's 

 History of Northumberland. "The old mill of Eothley, in the 

 parish of Hartburn, Northumberland, with its black water- 

 wheel and heathery roof, far from habitation, and shut up in a 

 glen, narrow and thick with wood, was the haunt of a family of 

 fairies. Old Queen Mab and her train, with the help of the 

 pailler's picks, formed out of the rocks the numerous circular 



