FAIRY LORE. , 21 



rare and unavoidable occasions, and then only in serious and 

 respectable terms. Hence it is that you always find old people 

 reluctant to impart such fairy lore as may be known to them, 

 though garrulous enough on all other subjects; and hence, also, 

 it happens that in oui old Sgeulachdan — the Arabian Nights 

 Entertainments of our Celtic forefathers — although you find giants, 

 and dwarfs, and misbegotten beings of every imaginable shape and 

 size ; animals, too, that can speak and reason and lend their super- 

 human aid to prince and peasant in extremity, as well as genii, 

 kelpies, and spirits of flood and fell, you rarely if ever meet with 

 one of the " good folks," or fairies proper, introduced upon the scene. 

 The people thoroughly telieved in them, believed that they had a 

 veritable existence, and although invisible to mortal ej"e, that they 

 might be at your elbow at any moment ; that they disliked being 

 spoken of at all as a rule, and that a disrespectful word about 

 them especially would inevitably be followed by some signal 

 punishment, or " mischance," as it was more cautiously termed in 

 the South — all this they believed, and therefore they held it wisest 

 to speak of fairies, good folks though they were, as seldom as 

 possible. The allusion to paying — 



" The fairies their due on the fairy knowe," 



has reference to the custom, common enough on the western main- 

 land and in some of the Hebrides some fifty years ago, and not 

 altogether unknown perhaps even at the present day, of each 

 maiden's pouring from her cumanbleoghain, or milking-pail, even- 

 ing and morning, on the fairy knowe a little of the new-drawn 

 milk from the cow, by way of propitiating the favour of the good 

 people, and as a tribute the wisest, it was deemed, and most 

 acceptable that could be rendered, and sooner or later sure to be 

 repaid a thousand-fold. The consequence was that these fairy 

 knolls were clothed with a richer and more beautiful verdure than 



