Bitter fruits- the faeries’ sweet tooths

Arthur Rackham, Goblin Market

In the Cornish story of the Faery Dwelling on Silena Moor, the faery house is stumbled upon by a farmer called Noy, who is a little bit drunk and very disorientated in the dark. Not only does he come across a building where he thought there was none; he also encounters his long-lost love, Grace, whom he thought had died but who actually has been enslaved by the pixies. He is given much information about faery life, but one thing he’s told by her is that “They have little sense or feeling. what appear like ruddy apples and other delicious fruit are only sloes, haws and blackberries.” Faery fruit are, it would appear, dry, sour and inedible. This indeed, is how Grace was captured: she was pixie-led across the moor, following the sound of lovely music, until she found herself in a strange orchard and there plucked a beautiful, ripe golden plum. However, this instantly “dissolved into bitter water in her mouth” and caused her to faint. When she awoke, she had been kidnapped and was in the faeries’ power.

It’s worth going off on a tangent for a moment and noting that the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, when studying Welsh in Denbigh in 1875, was told that the word for ‘fairy’ was cipenaper– which is merely the English word ‘kidnapper’ reshaped by Welsh phonology and given a false root in the verb cipio- to snatch. In fact, Hopkins’ teacher, a Miss Jones, also told him that she herself had often seen the faeries on the Holywell Road, very early in the morning in harvest time. They looked like four year old boys in long coats and odd caps, dancing together in circles in front of her on the highway. She ignored the temptation to join them and got safely to her destination.

Hopkins was, by the way, a fine poet of nature and of the supernatural- as in these lines from Starlight Night:

“Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!”

Back in Wales, the Reverend Edmund Jones, whose parish was further south along the border in Monmouthshire, wrote in the eighteenth century of almost identical dancing faeries whom local children had danced with. They weren’t taken, but a girl from Trevethin parish who danced with the tylwyth teg over a period of years lost their good favour when she finally stopped joining them. As a sign of their displeasure, they dislocated her leg. See too the faery accounts recorded around Clyro in mid-Wales by Francis Kilvert. The Denham Tracts too includes “the kidnappers” in its list of faery types. Luring us in with tasty looking fruit must be a good way of catching us, even if the promise of sweet juicy flesh is but a sham.

Many readers will recall Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti: the sisters, Laura and Lizzie, are tempted with fresh luscious fruits- “Sweet to tongue and sound to eye”- and Laura succumbs and “suck’d their fruit globes fair or red: Sweeter than honey from the rock.” As her sister feared, though, these fruits are “like honey to the throat/ But poison in the blood” and she has “gorged on bitterness without a name.”

The information that the fruits eaten by the Cornish little folk was bitter and sharp set me wondering. I have described before how fond the faeries are of human-made dairy products- of cream, fresh milk and of ‘junkets’- a dish of sweetened and flavoured milk curds (according to Gerald of Wales, back in the twelfth century). In Wales the tylwyth teg are said to like ‘flummery.’ This is a dish made with beaten eggs, milk, sugar and flavourings, called ewd i llaeth in Welsh. Some of the Carmarthenshire fair folk were once seen eating it out of egg shells, which they had (of course) stolen from a nearby farm.

Could it be that this faery addiction to our sweetened food products might be a reflection of their own deprivation of sweet things? Human kitchens can supply what their supplies and cuisine may be lacking. It’s an intriguing notion: for all the allure of Faery, for all their magic and endless feasting and drinking, might there be some advantages in the human world? Is that why another Welsh faery, the bwbach, loved good strong ale home-brewed ale? Maybe too, the tylwyth teg’s recorded aversion to tea was, in part a reaction against the fact that, left too long in the pot, it becomes too strong and too bitter- plus the fact that the temperance movement’s promotion of tea drinking started to displace a taste for beer in Methodist Wales…

Rackham, the goblin temptations…

Green Sleeves and other Scottish tales- some thoughts on faery magic

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, My Green Sleeves

The Scottish folk tale Green Sleeves, like the related Nicht Nought Nothing, is mainly concerned with the common theme of completing a series of impossible tasks in order to avoid a serious, if not fatal, consequence. In Nicht Nought Nothing the trials are imposed by a giant and the eponymous hero is helped by the giant’s daughter. In Green Sleeves it is a wicked wizard, one of whose daughters helps the hapless human faced with these apparently insurmountable demands. This story is not really a faery tale as such, although the wizard’s nickname shows that he is dressed in green, which may well indicate some sort of supernatural connection. The story also involves guessing his name to avoid a dreadful forfeit, an element we know well from accounts about other faeries with secret names, such as Trwtyn-Tratyn and others.

What particularly interests me about the story of Green Sleeves, though, is the way in which the prince is assisted in his tasks by the wizard’s daughter, Blue Wing (she’s a sort of swan maiden who can shape shift into bird form). She helps him complete every challenge using “a magic box containing thousands of faeries.” Just as Green Sleeves and Nicht Nought Nothing have echoes of the labours of Hercules, so too here is there a memory of Pandora’s box. Yet this one is full of benign sprites and the outcome will be true love requited and a couple living happily ever after (eventually).

Several observations can be made about these faeries. One is that, apparently, they are verging on the microscopic in size, meaning that (to grossly misquote John Lennon), now we know how many fays it takes to fill a magic box (sorry). Whilst British folklore (generally) accepts that the majority of faery folk are about the size of children aged about eleven or twelve (albeit with many exceptions to this rule), we very rarely hear of them being reduced to the size of midges. This might well make us suspect that the influence of Pandora’s myth is especially strong at this point.

The second point is that these faeries are under the control of Blue Wing and will perform an endless range of arduous tasks- very quickly. Here, we are on much more familiar ground. In the Scottish account of The Red Book of Menteith, a faery queen had banished some troublesome elves into the Red Book. The condition was that they would only be released when the laird of Menteith opened the volume. Eventually, this happened by mistake and instantly the released faeries appeared before him demanding work. To be freed of them, he had to set them various impossible tasks to complete. Scottish faery lore also tells of a spell book owned by the Wizard of Reay. This seems to have had powers very similar to those of the Red Book. The wizard’s young servant peeked inside the tome and was instantly surrounded by little men demanding that he give them work to do. Just as in the previous story he first asked them to make ropes of heather, which they quickly did; then he asked for ropes of sand. When this proved impossible, they deserted the wizard.

The confinement (or laying) of faeries within some sort of object would seem to be quite a well-known idea in Scotland. Certainly, the imposition of apparently impossible tasks is a common theme of Scottish stories. Other examples include several tales that pair the faeries’ spinning skills with a task imposed upon a human that can be both impossible and fatal if it’s not completed.  In many of these stories it’s a cruel human who sets the hopeless task and a fay who assists with it.  For instance, in the legend of Habetrot, a girl must prove her skill at the spinning wheel or face some unspecified punishment from her mother.  A faery woman named Habetrot (who’s been called the patron spirit of spinning) appears with a team of helpers and assists the daughter.

As I have described previously, construction, domestic chores and farming tasks (such as reaping) are especially those that faeries are charged to complete and which they can manage in an incredibly short period of time. The Irish writer Lord Dunsany, in his story ‘Carcassonne,’ wrote how that city had been built by elf-kings “on an evening in May by blowing their elfin horns.” Such is the power of elf magic, which can move and assemble materials with amazing speed and skill. Other Scottish stories tell of similar acts of transportation, as when supernatural beings construct entire buildings within the space of a single night: for example, the glaistig who built an impregnable fort (or a barn in some versions) or the hag, the Cailleach a’Chrathaich, who reroofed a home her companion faeries had damaged by making the roofing materials, wood and turf, fly back into place through the air.

Although I have often stressed how independent and distinctly un-helpful most faeries can be (brownies and hobs excepted), it will be clear that occasionally, some humans, through the use of superior magic powers, can constrain and control the faes to oblige them to apply their magic powers for the benefit of people- and to do so in record time.

The Tale of Foul-Weather

This story first appeared in volume two of the Old Cornwall journal for 1931-36. It’s version of Rumplestiltskin, Tom Tit Tot, Trwtyn tratyn, Sili-go-dwt and suchlike stories, but it’s hard to say it’s truly an original Cornish tale. You can find a Cornish translation on-line, titled Hager-Awel (Foul-Weather), but I suspect this account may have started life in English. Part of my family is Cornish and I can say with supreme confidence that there are no mountains in the county; the presence of a ‘gnome’ also suggests a relatively late transcription, as this ‘class’ of faery being is not one know to any folklore tradition, least of all the Cornish: as I’ve said before, the word was invented by Paracelsus along with the sylphs and undines and salamanders…

If the story started out in English, but is based on a Cornish original, I wonder of the goblin’s name might be a mangling of a Cornish original: example of placenames gone wrong are Costislost (cooz an looz, the grey wood) or Pennycomequick (from pen y cwm coet, the head of the wooded valley). It’s an odd name otherwise- although it may possibly imply control over the elements, which is certainly a faery trait and is definitely associated with the piskies and spriggans of the South West (they can conjure up fog to pixie-lead victims or storms to punish them for attempted theft of their hidden gold).

Anyway, the story is a very familiar one of a rash wish made before a faery and the fatal bargain that results and high price exacted; this is coupled with the odd carelessness of the faery which lets the human discover the magical and hidden name and therefore saves them.

Here’s the story:

“There was a king ruling in a far country who wanted to build a cathedral in his capital that should be the most wonderful church of his kingdom; but scarcely was it founded by him than he very clearly saw there would not be money enough in his coffers to finish it. As he was walking alone on a high mountain that rose behind his royal palace, and pondering how he might get more money without too much oppressing his poor subjects, there met him a little man of a very unusual appearance who said to him, “Why art thou so gone in thought [anxious]?”

“Why should I not be gone in thought,” the king replied, “since there is begun by me a great cathedral, and I shall have to leave it now unfinished, for lack of money enough in my coffers to buy the materials for it, or to pay the workmen who are building it?”

“Never make lamentation on that account. Thou needst not trouble, for I myself will finish building the church for thee, and a right fair one shall it be, that shall not have its peer in this realm, nor will I ask of thee one dime of money,” said the mannikin.

“What wilt thou take from me, then?” said the king.

“If thou canst guess, when the church shall be completed by me, what name I am called, I shall never ask anything more of thee,” said the dwarf; “but if thou shalt fail of that thing, thou must needs give me thine own heart!”

The king knew now what he had not known before- that the dwarf was some gnome of the mountain; but in spite of that he promised to him exactly as he asked, for as he thought, never should a church such as he would demand be finished in his lifetime, for every day he would be able to think on some new thing that might be added to it, and after losing his life there would never be tears in his eyes about losing his heart.

Nobody was seen working by daylight at building the church except the gnome, but nevertheless it rose each night so rapidly, so rapidly, that it was almost finished before the month’s end- a wondrous fair and great cathedral hat had not its equal in all that land- for the dwarfs of the mountain came, every one, after it was dark night and worked in secret at it.

In dread now about the rash promise made by him to the gnome, the king went again to the mountain that was behind his palace, to be alone, if (in case) he might be able to think upon something else that could still be added to the church; but as he walked near to a deep cave in the ground, there he heard, as it seemed, the voice of a little child that was weeping bitterly, and his mother that sang to him to comfort him, as softly as a hungry raven, or near it:

Weep not ,weep not, my darling boy;

Hush altogether,

And then Foul-Weather,

Thy dad, will come

To-morrow home, 

Bringing a king’s heart, for thy joy,

To play withal, as a pretty toy,

Although these words were not entirely well sung, yet the king was greatly rejoiced to hear them, for by them he knew the gnome’s name! He hurried back from the mountain speedily, running down to the city, and there he saw that the gnome was going up to the highest pinnacle of the church, to place upon it the gilded weather-cock that would finish it.

When the king saw that, at that instant he cried very loudly to him, “Set it straight, Foul-Weather!” and directly the gnome of the mountain heard that his name was found out, he fell, crash! from the pinnacle on to the ground, and there broke into a thousand tiny little bits, just as if he had been made of thin glass! And if you go at any time to that city you may see the cathedral still, with its weather-cock awry just as he left it.”

Readers may remember that the faeries can be magical, mysterious and skilled builders and, too, that they are not necessarily immortal: accident or murder can kill them, despite our idea that they may be indestructible. The faeries as (it would seem) cannibals, feasting on human flesh, is a novel feature of the story, but not entirely novel. Usually it’s more monstrous beasts like the kelpie or each uisge that devour people, whereas the human-like faeries are content with enslavement of those they’re tricked. For all its curious features, then, the tale of Foul-Weather is an interesting amalgam of folklore features.

Wulvers and other hybrids

The wulver or wullver is a wolf-like humanoid being known in the folk tradition of the Shetland Islands. The folklorist Jessie Saxby, in her 1932 book on Shetland Traditional Lore, provides almost the sole report of it; she described it as:

“a creature like a man with a wolf’s head. He had short brown hair all over him. His home was a cave dug out of the side of a steep knowe, half-way up a hill. He didn’t molest folk if folk didn’t molest him. He was fond of catching and eating fish, and had a small rock in the deep water which is known to this day as the ‘Wulver’s Stane.’ There he would sit fishing sillaks and piltaks [saithe, or coalfish, aged up to twelve months or up to two years] for hour after hour. He was reported to have frequently left a few fish on the window-sill of some poor body.”

In his looks, there are some clear resonances with the wider British tradition of the black dog, or shuck, as well as the greater European concept of the werewolf. At the same time, though, the wulver seems to be quite happy to mind his own business- which is fishing, rather than scaring or menacing humans or, as is occasionally the case with the black dogs, acting as a kind of warning of death or disaster. The wulver has a link with the knolls in which the trow folk typically live, but the nature of this is not explained, as well as indications of some sort of transactional relationship to his human neighbours.

What we can observe. though, is that hybrid faery beasts that have animal bodies and human heads appear to be a feature of the folklore of the Celtic parts of the British Isles. On the Orkney islands, south of the Shetlands, there is the nuckelavee; this is a sea monster that’s part-horse and part-terrifying human. The nuckelavee has been described as having a huge head like a man’s but with a pig’s snout and a very wide maw, from which comes breath like steam. It has only one eye, which is as red as fire; its body is like a horse’s but with fins as well as legs. In the middle of the back there sprouts what seems to be a rider, except that he has no legs but rather grows directly from the horse. To add to all of this, the creature has no skin, just raw flesh with black blood visible flowing in yellow veins. Given the description, it need hardly be said that the nuckelavee is a dangerous and terrifying creature to encounter, in contrast to the relatively benign wulver.

On the Isle of Man, there are two comparable beings. The first is the fynoderee, a rough equivalent of the English hob or boggart that’s known to live on the land of about twelve farms on the island. They don’t tend to enter the farmhouses themselves, nor come near to them unless food is left out. They are rarely seen, because during the daytime they keep to the woods and glens. Manx folklorist Mona Douglas described the fynoderee as having “the body of a goat and the head and shoulders of a man; he may perhaps be called a sort of mythical goat.” At Grenaby on the island, the buggane called Jimmy Squarefoot has a pig’s head and face with two large tusks and has been known to charge at passers-by on the highway and even to carry off people to a cave. Another such ‘pig buggane’ menaces travellers on the highway at Lezayre. Once again, there is something of a split between the more ‘domesticated’ fynoderee and the wild and generally hostile buggane. Terrifying as we might naturally find a creature that’s part human and part beast, outward appearances apparently ought not to guide our judgment too much.

A visit to the hob’s house

Hob’s House looking south-east

I had a short break in the English Peak district for the recent late May holiday. The first day was spent visiting various megalithic sites in the vicinity, one of which was Hob Hurst’s House on Beeley Moor, high above Chatsworth. The ‘House’ is a Bronze Age burial chamber, unusual for being square in shape rather than the usual circle. It’s now pretty ruinous, a tumble of stones within a still clear ditch and bank, and enjoying impressive views across Derbyshire.

There are no particular stories attached to this site, but hobs, as a faery family, are quite well represented in the area. Not far away, there is Hob’s House Cave in Monsal Dale, a little further north of which is Hob Thirst’s Cave in Deep Dale, near Buxton. The hobs, or hobgoblins, in question are evidently wild-living examples of the creatures who will come to assist with the heavy jobs on farms (as is the case as well with the better-known brownies and boggarts). Hobs are generally renowned for their size, their strength and their stamina- undertaking huge amounts of physical labour very quickly- which is very handy when you’re in their good books, obviously, but problematic when they decide to play pranks. One Lincolnshire hob is known for having mischievously put a farm wagon on the barn roof, a testament to his brawn, but a major inconvenience afterwards for the farmer.

Obtrusch Rook

Size and their strength are, in fact, exactly what we should anticipate from these beings. The names often associated with hobs- ‘hurst,’ ‘thrush,’ ‘thrust’ and ‘thirst’- all derive from the Anglo-Saxon word þyrs– thyrs (pronounced roughly as thürs)- which means ‘giant.’

Most directly comparable to Hob Hurst’s House is Obtrusch or Hobthrush Rook (also called Hobgoblin’s Rock) which is a round cairn in Farndale West, North Yorkshire. This is a rather larger and more intact monument, but in a very similar high, remote and exposed location. Other placenames from the north of England suggest the preferred habitations of other hobs- such as Thrush Hole, near Halifax in West Yorkshire, and Thrushgill, near Kirkby Thore in Westmorland (and, very probably, another Thrush Gill near Sedburgh). The hob of Runswick Bay on the North Yorkshire, who could cure whooping cough, lived in a cave, as did that of nearby Mulgrave Wood (also in the vicinity, there’s also a small hill in Glaisdale known as Hob Garth). Their hob’s preferences were, it would seem, for remote valleys and secluded caves where they could find shelter undisturbed by people during the daytime, and from they would issue at night to work on farms. I discussed other examples previously in my post on hobgoblins.

Hob’s House looking north

Bedroom Sprites- sleep & dreams

Wee Willie Winkie by Leslie Brooke

I’ve talked before about so-called ‘nursery sprites,’ those faeries whose primary purpose seems to be (or, at least, to have become) keeping children in order and away from harm. Parents have co-opted their fearsome natures to try to ensure that infants stay clear of rivers, ponds, pits and empty or derelict buildings.

Here, though, I’d like to discuss what might be seen as a subset of these beings. They are the faeries involved with sleep; unlike those bogies who keep children in their beds out of terror at what might lurk in the shadows or in the cupboard, these are more gentle, soothing beings. One of this family is Billy Winker, known in Lancashire and the North-West of England. He seems to be closely related to Wee Willie Winkie from over the border in Scotland. This character was first publicised widely by the Glasgow poet William Miller (1810-72). A skilled cabinet-maker, he started writing verse whilst still a youth. This was published in local newspapers and journals and prepared the way for him to publish ‘Willie Winkie’ and several other children’s’ poems between 1839 and 1843.

“Wee Willie Winkie
Rins through the toun,
Up stairs and doun stairs
In his nicht-gown,
Tirling at the window,
Crying at the lock,
“Are the weans in their bed,
For it’s now ten o’clock?”

If Willie finds a “waukrife [wakeful] laddie/ That winna fa’ asleep,” and who is keeping everyone else awake, Willie helps to comfort the exhausted parents and to help their efforts to soothe the child. The last name obviously denotes the spirit’s job (as we shall see); the ‘Willy/ Billy’ element may just be there for a harmonious effect, but there might possibly be a little more significance to it.

Illustration by Millicent Sowerby- a faery artist who, interestingly, has added wings to Willie

Billy Blind (who’s also known variously as Billy Blin, Billy Blynde or Belly Blin) is an English and Lowland Scottish household spirit, who’s related to the brownies or hobgoblins. He appears only in ballads, where he frequently gives wise advice to characters. Billy appears in several of the ballads collected together as the so-called ‘Child Ballads’:

• Gil Brenton– in which Billy Blind advises the hero that the latter’s bride (who is a virgin) is not the woman laying beside him. This false bride is, in fact, already pregnant;
• Willie’s Lady– Willie’s wife has been in labour but cannot deliver her baby because Willie’s mother, a witch, is using charms to prevent her. Billy Blind advises Willie to make a wax figure of a baby and invite his mother to the christening. In her rage, the mother demands to know how all her spells have been undone, listing them one by one and thereby enabling Willie to counteract them;
• Young Bekie– in which Billy advises Burd Isobel that Young Bekie is about to marry another bride and then helps her to travel magically so she can reach him in time; and,
• The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter– during which Billy reveals the true births of the marrying couple: they are far more noble than they knew.

Billy clearly has some sort of second sight, by which spells and deception are revealed to him. The name ‘Blind’ or ‘Blin,’ in both Scots and English, has the familiar sense of blind, sightless, but there are other, associated meanings such as ‘blink/ wink’- closing eyes for sleep (as in “forty winks”)- and ‘hidden’ or ‘secret.’ As for Billy, this can simply be a pet-form of William or, much more significantly, it can imply a person who’s a friend or companion.

I wonder, therefore, if the faery Billies are, by their names alone, to be understood as helpful and friendly individuals. Secondly, not only is sleep good for the sleeper and restful for everyone else in their household (as with those restless children)- it can be a portal to visions. As I discussed in my book Faery Mysteries, dreams can be a medium by which faeries communicate with mortals, providing them with information and counsel. It has to be said, as well, the dreams are a vehicle by which people are abducted and seduced too, so matters are not wholly benign, but sleep may, nonetheless, be a route to wealth and success. The faeries seem to be able magically to control sleep- their slumbers as well as ours- and to go further still by employing dreams as a way of contacting us across the dimensions.

The Dun Cow of MacBrandy’s Thicket

Crodh mara or faery sea cattle

This story is taken from Folk tales and fairy lore in Gaelic and English by James Macdougall and George Calder (1910– pages 280-283). It has several interesting features, which I’ll discuss after the tale has been told.

“Some time during the nineteenth century, a man of the clan MacKenzie was a tenant at Onich, in Nether Lochaber, in Argyllshire. He found that his cattle began to get out of their fold at night and to trespass in the corn field, where they did much damage. No one knew how the fold kept being broken down night after night’ one thing only was certain, and that was that neither the neighbours nor the cattle themselves were to blame.

At last MacKenzie suspected that the local faeries were involved and for that reason he sent word to his brother, the One-eyed Ferryman, to come and watch the fold with him one night, to see whether or not he was right in his conjecture. The brother was asked to help because he had the second sight.

The Ferryman arrived, and as soon as it was dark, they penned up the cows inside the fold and secured it as well as they could. Then they sat down nearby and waited to see what would happen. After a good part of the night had passed, they thought they heard the stakes being broken on the farther side of the fold. The One-eyed Ferryman got up immediately and headed in the direction from which the sound came. He had gone only a short distance when he saw a dun-polled cow throwing the stakes out of their place with her head and then going into the fold, where she got cow after cow up on their feet, and whence she drove them all through the gap she’d made into the corn field.

The Ferryman followed the dun-polled cow until she arrived at the Fairy Knoll of Derry MacBrandy. The knoll opened up before her, and she entered. The Ferryman hastened after her as far as the door, and to keep it open, drove his knife into one of the jambs. He was then able to see the inside of the Fairy
Knoll; it was lit up with a brilliant light, and on the middle of the floor was a large fire with an iron cauldron hanging over it; around the fire was a circle of big old grey-haired men resting on their
elbows.

The farmer now came to the door of the Fairy Knoll but saw nothing until he placed his foot on that of the One-eyed Ferryman. But as soon as he did that, the Fairy Knoll opened for him and he saw everything inside. This put him in such great fear that he begged the Ferryman to come away without delay. The Ferryman paid him no attention whatever. Instead, he called in a loud voice to the faeries, warning that if their dun-polled cow should ever again trouble Onich fold, he would take out everything inside the knoll and throw it out on Rudha na h-Oitire. Having said this he drew his knife out of the door jamb, and
straight away the door shut against him and his brother.

After that they returned home; and from that night the dun cow of Derry MacBrandy has never been seen
in an Onich fold.”

The one-eyed ferryman is an intriguing character, because it appears that his second sight is related to his disability. The text doesn’t spell this out, but the simple fact that his loss of an eye is mentioned suggests to me that it’s crucial. Now, we’ve seen before how second sight can be obtained- it can be acquired by accident from faery ointment, it can be a gift from the faeries, it can be transferred by touch (as happens in this story) or a person may be born with it. The power can be taken away as well, especially if the faeries think that it’s acquisition was ‘fraudulent’ or against their wishes. This generally happens in cases where a midwife or wet nurse has been charged to anoint a faery new-born with the special ointment and- despite specific injunctions to the contrary- she then touches her own eye with some of the salve. The punishment for this is nearly always blinding: whether by blowing in the eyes, a touch or some more violent injury. This being so, I can’t help wondering if the ferryman has been through such an experience and yet has retained the power in one eye- or even if he ‘bought’ the second sight at the expense of one of his eyes.

I need hardly say much about the cow, given my several postings on the subject of faery cattle. The dun-polled cow is either one of the crodh sith, or is a faery in disguise. I think we can assume that the faeries are using the beast to lure away the human herd into the corn so as to fatten them up, either because they are taking the cows’ milk or because their plan is to steal and slaughter one (or more) of the cattle.

As for the visit to the knoll, what we have here is a fairly typical description of a tulman or tolman, a small hillock inhabited by the sith folk. In Popular Tales of the West Highlands, J. F. Campbell tells the story of a woman who tries to tether some cattle on a mound during a storm. As she’s hammering in a metal peg, a faery woman looks out and complains “What business have you, troubling this tulman in which I make my dwelling?” The location is not at all unusual- nor, for that matter, is the involvement of an iron item. In the Campbell incident, the faery’s grievance is as much that a hole is being made in the roof during a downpour, and is interfering with her cooking pot hanging over the fire (and note that she seems to have her own iron cauldron- just like the faeries at Derry MacBrandy). In the account of the Ferryman, though, the steel knife itself is of powerful significance: once it’s stuck in the doorway, the faeries can’t move it and can’t close their door because of their known aversion to human iron. This is key in this particular confrontation, but it’ll be clear that faery iron, made and possessed by faeries, apparently doesn’t cause the same problems…

Finally, the sith folk described are “big old grey-haired men;” whatever our preconceptions about small faeries, beings who are often said to have the stature of children, these particular individuals sound like they’d be a match for the two human males if they wanted a fist fight. Even so, threats and a bit of counter-magic seem to be sufficient to prevail- then and thereafter. Lastly, just for clarity, the Ferryman says he’ll take all their belongings and chuck them out on Rudha na h-Oitire; this is a narrow point of land that juts out into Loch na Droma Buidhe, on the east side of An Fhaoiliun (on the south side of the mouth of Loch Sunart). The English meaning of the name is ‘Point of the Sand Bank.’ It’s not an especially significant location, other than the fact that it’s low lying and exposed- and not a good place to leave all your furnishings…

Loch na Droma Buidhe

Pokey-Hokey- and other goblins

Puck, from Midsummer Night’s Dream, illustrated by Arthur Rackham

In her 1913 book, Rustic Speech and Folklore, Mrs Elizabeth Wright listed amongst the frightening supernatural figures of Britain the Pokey-Hokey of East Anglia. This obscure being is enumerated alongside the mumpoker, tankerabogus, knocky-boh ,Tom Dockin and a host of other ‘bugbears’ whom I’ve talked about before. He sits, alphabetically, right next to the Punky of West Yorkshire. Mrs Wright regards them all as “nursery sprites,” meant to scare infants into obedience: “Pictures such as this, when presented to the vivid imagination of children, doubtless gain rather than lose in lurid colouring and terrifying shape, and one shudders to think of the effect they must produce on impressionable minds…” she observes (page 198).

In her Dictionary of Fairies, Katharine Briggs mentioned the Pokey-Hokey too, and quotes a “colloquial phrase” (presumably from the eastern counties) which may relate to the same goblin, as she terms him: “There’s been some hokey-pokey about this.”

Now, the phrase “hokey-pokey” is generally thought to derive from a parody of the Latin words used in the Eucharist (“Hoc est corpus”- ‘this is the body’ [of Christ]), but this rests merely on a conjecture of John Tillotson (1630-94), who was the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury between 1691 and 1694 (see his Sermon (1742) vol. II, xxvi, 237). The phrase was apparently used by jugglers and conjurers in the early seventeenth century: “Hocus Pocus… so was called because, that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currently without discovery” (T. Ady, Candle in Dark, 1655, 29). From 1624 at the latest, the words had been transferred to the speaker and so became a nickname for jugglers and confidence tricksters at fairs and such like. It therefore denoted both the person, his or her patter- “Hocas, pocas, here you shall have me, and there you shall have me” (Thomas Randolph, Jealous Lovers, 1632, Act 1, scene 10, line 15)- and the trick itself- “The Art of Leger De Main or Jugling, otherwise called Hocus Pocus” (R. Holme, Academy of Armory ,1688, iii. 447/1). Reverting to the inhabitants of Faerie, we might propose that ‘hocus-pocus’ is a spell or charm as well as the goblin who pronounces it – or, even, against whom you use it.

This all seems pretty clear, then, except that the element “poke” appears elsewhere, as in the Isle of Wight’s Mumpoker or East Anglia’s Tom Poker. The latter name is explained by the OED as being derived from two elements: the ‘tom’ of tomcat and a ‘poker’, as in a stick or rod for poking fires, prodding and such like. I doubt this etymology very strongly. As I’ve previously discussed, the name Tom, when used in this context, is much more likely to denote a goblin or the devil himself (‘Old Tom’), whilst the poker is most probably related to our best known hobgoblin, Puck or Pook, as well, for that matter, as the aforementioned West Yorkshire Punky. This seems especially likely when you learn that the earliest English meanings of ‘punk’ are prostitute (1590s), which seems far less appropriate.

If these guesses are correct, Katharine Brigg’s suggestion seems much more feasible, and we are talking about a goblin relative of Puck. Admittedly, this leaves the ‘hokey’ bit of Pokey-Hokey‘s name unresolved. It might just be for rhyming effect, especially since our modern uses of similar words- as in the dance hokey-cokey and overacting/ melodrama (hokum and hokey)- only appear very much more recently, from the early twentieth century onwards, and seem to have no earlier roots. On this point, recall too the hinkypunk will o’ the wisp from Somerset, and the Hikey-sprites, related beings that are also from the East Anglia. ‘Hink’ can mean faltering or hesitation (as in the flickering flame of the will o’ the wisp); ‘hikey,’ though, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the verb ‘to hike’ but may be a corruption of ‘hink.’ Then again, the names that may be as much for ‘musical’ effect as anything, to help make them memorable for the children that grown-ups wanted to warn and scare…

Mumpoker, as depicted by Jessica Hilton

Faery cups- thefts & punishments

The Luck of Edenhall

Faery drinking vessels feature prominently in British folklore. Acquired accidentally- or deliberately- from the faeries, they may be the vector of healing powers, as I have described in a post on trow cures. These vessels are typically of little value in themselves, being made of wood, bone, or ceramic, and they are taken because of their properties. Some though, are made of precious metals and are stolen for their cash worth; some are valuable both in monetary and practical terms. It’s these that I’m interested in here.

A butler boy called Luran, who served at Mingary Castle, on the Sound of Mull, entered a local faery mound and saw the faeries drinking from a “shining” magical cup which would fill with whatever liquid the holder asked for it to contain. The boy joined the celebration and, when the cup was passed to him, he asked for it to be filled with water, which he then used to douse the candles. In the sudden darkness, the boy made his escape with the cup in his hand; he was pursued, but an unknown voice told him to make for the shore. He then ran along below the highwater mark until he got to the castle, which he was able to enter using a secret stairway that led down to the beach. Luran reached safety with this magical cup by making use of a magical advantage, the fact that the sith folk, for reasons that are not entirely clear, cannot pass below the line of the hightide. Perhaps this aversion or impediment is related to the fact that water flows over the shore it twice daily (just as they cannot cross flowing fresh water); perhaps it is a result of the nature of briny water, for faeries notoriously can’t abide salt. Yet it doesn’t make full sense, because- as I’ve described- faery cattle just as often graze beneath the waves as on land.

We’ll have to leave this puzzle unresolved, but there’s plenty more to say about faery cups. Humans’ avaricious nature means that we have a long history of trying to steal these items from our faery neighbours. The oldest of these is William of Newburgh’s twelfth century account of a theft from Willy Howe in East Yorkshire. A man saw the faery hill open and light streaming out; he joined the feasting inside, was invited in and offered a drink of wine in a goblet. Cannily, the man didn’t risk consuming faery produce; instead he poured out the liquid and made off with the cup on his fast horse. This item “of unknown material, of unusual colour and of extraordinary form,” eventually was presented to King Henry I (1100-1135). The same king also features in a related story, this time told by Gervase of Tilbury. Near Gloucester, there was a mound where any huntsman could request a drink and a faery would appear bearing a cup. One hunter, instead of quenching his thirst, stole the cup and presented it to the Earl of Gloucester. Matters didn’t turn out as he’d probably anticipated, for he was executed as a thief and (again) the cup ended up with the king.

A third, undated, English story, from Edenhall near Penrith, recounts a theft by a butler from a faery gathering in the grounds of the hall. This vessel, the ‘Luck of Edenhall,’ came with a faery curse, though: if it was ever broken, the good fortune of Edenhall would end. Being made of glass, it has been very carefully treasured ever since. As it happens, the centuries of cherishing the cup came to nought in that the hall was demolished in 1934 because maintaining it had become too costly, and in 1958 the Luck passed to the Victoria and Albert Museum, were it can still be seen today (head of page).

These last examples are all English, but the majority, like the Mingary case from Argyllshire, are Highland Scottish. In The Peat Fire Flame, Alexander Macgregor tells of a man called Ewen on Raasay who stumbled upon a celebration in a faery knoll and, just as in East Yorkshire, managed to steal, rather than drink from, the marvellous cup offered to him. This time he escaped by dint of being a very good runner- faster even than the faeries’ dogs, which were set upon him (another version names the thief as Hugh MacLeod).

John Gregorson Campbell, who recorded the Mingary story, also recorded another from the same area and concerning another Luran- this time Luran Black who was farmer from Corryvulin on the coast of Ardnamurchan, at the northern end of the Sound of Mull. Luran found that his cows were dying, one by one, and suspected that the local sith folk of the knoll called the Culver were stealing them under the guise of death. He watched one night and, sure enough, a party of faeries came out of the hill and took one of his cows. Luran allayed their suspicions by helping to butcher it and, in gratitude, was invited in for a drink. As before, he seized a vessel and made a run for it and, as we’ve heard, was advised by a mysterious voice to run between high and low water. Luran escaped and appeared to have paid himself back for his stolen cattle. However, sometime later, he was travelling to Inverary Castle in a boat with the cup. During the passage over the water, both he and the vessel vanished completely. As for the helpful voice, it’s generally assumed by folklorists that this must have been another human who had been kidnapped or captured by the faeries (perhaps by drinking their wine).

The Reverend R. C. MacLeod tells an almost identical tale of a farmer called Lurran from Luskintire on Harris. He escapes pursuit because he has several advantages: he’s a quick runner, he crosses over a stream, and because he seeks shelter in his mother’s cottage. She is a witch and cast spells over the house which made it impossible for the fairies to enter. For some time Lurran never left the house unless his mother had put a spell on him, but one day he forgot, and went out with no magical protection. The fairies quickly found and killed him, and so avenged themselves for the theft of their cup. I have recorded before an extremely similar story from Dun Osdale on Skye, in which a faery cup is stolen and the mother protects her son with charms against faery vengeance- but she fails to guard him against human thieves, so that he’s murdered by a man stealing the goblet.

Another man called Luran, this time from South Uist, seems to have had a lucky escape.  He entered a fairy knoll, sticking his knife in the threshold of the door so that it could not close forever behind him, and then stole a golden cup.  As he fled the fairies called out “If porridge was Luran’s food, he would catch the deer.”  Imprudently, perhaps, he took this as advice that it would make him even swifter and started to eat porridge as recommended.  In fact, he put on weight and, when he rashly decided to make a return visit to the knoll, he was unable to outpace the fairies and was caught.  Surprisingly, his captors settled for recovering their stolen cup and then let him go. 

The Dunvegan cup and faery flag

Luran is a common name in Highland stories of faery and mermaid encounters, just as faery cups are regularly stolen. The ‘Fairy Cup of Dunvegan,’ is an oak chalice mounted with silver owned by the Macleods of Dunvegan Castle on Skye. It came originally from Harris, stolen by a man from a faery knoll using a combination of trickery (he repeatedly called out a faery form of greeting that stopped them in their tracks and bought him time to widen the gap between them) coupled with the faery aversion to certain substances: when the man got home, he threw the chamber pot over his pursuers. Quite reasonably, the faeries hate urine and left him alone after that.

Lastly, we have two very similar accounts from the Isle of Man. A man once stole a silver cup from a ferrishyn feast at Cronk Mooar.  The faery owners were, predictably, outraged and pursued him.  He escaped by wading along the river there; the fairies called on him to walk on the stones, but he stayed in the water, and got away.  A variant of this story involves the man being pursued as far as a cow shed; there he was able to sprinkle the cows’ urine (mooin ollee) at the doorway and around the walls as a defence against the fairies until dawn.  When daylight came, they retreated to their hills and he was able to make his way home unmolested.

In conclusion, it’s hardly a surprise to learn that stealing faery cups is a dangerous (and sometimes fatal) enterprise. The thief needs physical prowess (either his own or a horse’s), as well as luck, daring and, very often, a knowledge of the various charms that can be deployed against faeries. More strangely, though, these stories of valuable faery cups are not really about the cups. The gold and silver vessels provide a reason for the adventures, but the real interest is in the way that a mortal can outwit and escape faery pursuers. The message for listeners is (to some degree), don’t steal from the faeries, but it’s more a lesson in what substances or strategies will defeat them. As for the cups, if they’re not retrieved by the faeries, they’re forgotten by the storytellers or, in spite of the effort invested in acquiring them, they’re given away surprisingly easily.

Faery healing & health- the human role

St Mary’s Well, Inchberry

As I have described in previous posts– as well as in my book on the Faery Lifecycle- the faeries are renowned for their healing abilities. This is the case because they have been known to teach a few fortunate mortals their skills, which primarily involve an expertise in the curative powers of common herbs– although some ritual elements in the healing process may also be required. With a typically human-centred focus, there is a widespread tendency for us to simply accept the fact that we have been the lucky recipients of this medical knowledge, as if the faeries acquired it for no other reason than to benefit humans. This egocentric attitude undervalues the years of study and experiment that must have been required for this expertise to be developed. What’s more, by taking these skills for granted, baselessly assuming they were learned for us, we overlook the clear implication: that faeries fall ill and need to be cured.

The conventional image of faery-kind is very static: we assume that their culture does not develop and we consider that they themselves are unchanging. A long time ago I wrote a post which pointed to the plain evidence that faeries can be killed; they are not immortal and invulnerable. The folklore record clearly indicates instead that, whilst being very long lived, they will- ultimately- pass away. In the late seventeenth century the Reverend Robert Kirk expressed this with his usual style in the Secret Commonwealth: “They are not subject to sore Sicknesses, but dwindle and decay at a certain Period, all about ane Age.” This was repeated by him several times in various ways: “They live much longer than wee; yet die at last, or [at] least vanish from that State” or (exactly like humans) they “have Children, Nurses, Mariages, Deaths, and Burialls…” A century previously, Reginald Scot had already confirmed the same thing- the faeries were “subject to a beginning and an end, and to a degree of continuance.”

Implicitly, I’ve pointed this out already: in my posting earlier this year on trow cures, I described a trow child with jaundice. The cure used by the trows for their own patient was effective for humans, too. What emerges from this is the simple fact that we are partners in experience: faeries and humans are born, live and die; we are susceptible to the same injuries, illnesses and accidents. This joint susceptibility to suffering and mortality means, in fact, that medical help can flow both ways between us.

Consider, for instance, the case of an old woman from Somerset who was recognised within her community for her healing skills and medicinal knowledge. News of this must have spread, for on one occasion she was called away to attend a pixie’s wife when her own peoples’ remedies had been exhausted and it seemed that nothing more could be done for her. The woman looked after the pixie morning and evening for a long period until she was completely recovered, after which she was very well paid for her dedication to duty. Humans can cure faeries, just as much as the reverse is the case. So, at St Mary’s Well, Inchberry (near Elgin), a healer called Dame Aliset once used water from the well to cure a sickly faery child. She asked for no payment, but the grateful faeries blessed the water source, giving it the power to restore lost youth.

Dunnan Fort

Apparently, it’s not just our medicinal skills which may be important, but also our willingness to help another in need. At Dunnan Fort on the Rhins of Galloway, a man was approached by a faery woman and her sick child, asking him to fetch her some water from a nearby spring. Refusing to assist- out of fear- he ran away, but was cursed and died within a a few days.

Compare this incident to that of a young man on the Shetland island of Fetlar. Returning home one evening on a red coloured mare and leading her grey foal on a rope, he passed Stackaberg, a rocky outcrop with an ancient cairn on top which was reputed to be a home of the trows. As he passed by, a voice called out: “Dee at rides da red and rins da grey, tell Tona Tivla at Fona Fivla has faa’n ida fire an brunt her!” (Thee that rides the red [pony] and leads the grey, tell TT that FF has fallen in the fire and burnt herself.”

Stackaberg- the highest point on Fetlar

Rather alarmed, the man hurried home. His wife met him outside their house, remarking that he was as white as a sheet. He explained what had happened and- as soon as he repeated the message he’d heard-there came a shriek and a clatter from the byre, and a little trow woman ran out exclaiming “Less and doull! Dat’s my bairn dat’s faa’n ida fire at Stackaberg!” (Loss and sorrow, that’s my child that’s fallen in the fire…). She rushed away, leaving the stunned husband and wife to go into the byre, fearing that the trow had been harming their cow. The beast, though, was quite content- but lying beside her there was an unusual, small copper pan of milk. From then on, whenever the farmer or his wife went to the byre to milk their cow, they found it had already been done, and the little copper pan was sitting there filled and waiting for them. What’s more, although the pan was not large, it always seemed to have enough milk for whatever they needed, and they never ran out. The couple were thereafter always favoured with luck and prosperity in everything they did- their reward for passing on the urgent message about the injured child (even if it was done unwittingly).

The faeries are widely termed our ‘Good Neighbours’ and, as we may see, neighbourly acts performed by both sides can result in mutual health and happiness.