Daoine Shie - Page 2

of the elves. There is upon the
top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peeblesshire, a spring called the Cheese
Well, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw
into it a piece of cheese as an offering to the fairies, to whom it was
consecrated.

Like the _feld elfen_ of the Saxons, the usual dress of the fairies is
green; though, on the moors, they have been sometimes observed in heath-
brown, or in weeds dyed with the stone-raw or lichen. They often ride in
invisible procession, when their presence is discovered by the shrill
ringing of their bridles. On these occasions they sometimes borrow
mortal steeds, and when such are found at morning, panting and fatigued
in their stalls, with their manes and tails dishevelled and entangled,
the grooms, I presume, often find this a convenient excuse for their
situation, as the common belief of the elves quaffing the choicest
liquors in the cellars of the rich might occasionally cloak the
delinquencies of an unfaithful butler.

The fairies, besides their equestrian processions, are addicted, it would
seem, to the pleasures of the chase. A young sailor, travelling by night
from Douglas, in the Isle of Man, to visit his sister residing in Kirk
Merlugh, heard a noise of horses, the holloa of a huntsman, and the sound
of a horn. Immediately afterwards, thirteen horsemen, dressed in green,
and gallantly mounted, swept past him. Jack was so much delighted with
the sport that he followed them, and enjoyed the sound of the horn for
some miles, and it was not till he arrived at his sister's house that he
learned the danger which he had incurred. I must not omit to mention
that these little personages are expert jockeys, and scorn to ride the
little Manx ponies, though apparently well suited to their size. The
exercise, therefore, falls heavily upon the English and Irish horses
brought into the Isle of Man. Mr. Waldron was assured by a gentleman of
Ballafletcher that he had lost three or four capital hunters by these
nocturnal excursions. From the same author we learn that the fairies
sometimes take more legitimate modes of procuring horses. A person of
the utmost integrity informed him that, having occasion to sell a horse,
he was accosted among the mountains by a little gentleman plainly
dressed, who priced his horse, cheapened him, and, after some chaffering,
finally purchased him. No sooner had the buyer mounted and paid the
price than he sank through the earth, horse and man, to the astonishment
and terror of the seller, who, experienced, however, no inconvenience
from dealing with so extraordinary a purchaser.