The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

FAERIES : THEIR
PROPENSITIES AND ACTIVITIES
them for a definite space of time, during her retention in
faeryland, if she desired her freedom. This advice she
took. Thus, when the assigned period had elapsed, she was
restored to the society of mortals. The tradition continues
that, when afterwards she came to examine the food offered
her by the Men of Peace, she found it to. consist " only of
the refuse of the earth."
From all accounts, the faerie? dwellin,2^ in the Hi.s^hlands
were not so brazen as their kinsfolk inhabitin,^ the Shetland
Isles, since the latter appear to have had no qualms about
carrying- off young children, even after they had been
baptised, meanwhile seeing to it that in their place they
substituted something in the nature of a cabbage stalk or
two, which they altered into the appearance of the abducted
infant. The bereft mother in such circumstances was
obliged to bestow upon the substitute the same care and
attention as that which she would have bestowed upon her
own child. It was firmly believed in the Shetlands that, if
she acted otherwise towards the substitute, the Men of
Peace would deprive her finally of her child.
Said a Shetland mother to a neighbour, who was
condoling with her because of the wasted appearance of the
infant on her knee : " This is not my bairn. May the devil
rest where my bairn is now !
"
The following folk-tales, selected from many that have
come my way in recent years, are illustrative of faery life
and habit
Released from Faeryland.
Not so long ago, a woman and her infant son, living at
Rahoy, in the Morven district of Argyll, were translated
mysteriously to Ben ladain, a hill in the neighbourhood
reputed to have been the domicile of faeries. As the
woman herself afterwards explained, they were taken to
the Black Door, that being the name then given to the
faeries' main entrance to the interior of the hill. Within
the hill they encountered a vast throng of people of all ages,
among whom was a young lad who approached the woman
and bade her not to refuse such food as the faeries might
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