Before finally dismissing the Fairies we would just refer our readers to a very curious book amongst the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 231) in the British Museum. It was written by John Aubrey, in the year 1686, and is entitled “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme.” The title, however, is no guide whatever to the character of the book, which seems to be merely a note-book for the writing down, without any apparent system or order, of any curious matters that came before him. Scattered throughout these notes are various references to the Fairies; and though they naturally, to a certain extent, repeat what we have already written, they are perhaps sufficiently interesting to quote, as they were the popular notions current at the time. We can only give them in the disjointed way in which we find them, as they are mixed up with all kinds of other matter.
“Not far from Sr Bennet Hoskyns there was a labouring man that rose up early every day to goe to worke; who for a good while many dayes together found a ninepence in the way that he went. His wife wondering how he came by so much money was afraid he gott it not honestlye; at last he told her, and afterwards he never found any more.”
“They were wont to please the Fairies, that they might doe them no shrewd turnes, by sweeping clean the Hearth and setting by it a dish of fair water half sad breade, whereon was sett a messe of milke sopt with white bread. And on the morrow they would find a groat of which if they did speak of it they never had any again. Mrs H. of Hereford had as many groates or 3ds this way as made a little silver cup or bowle of (I thinke) 3lbs value, wh her daughter preserves still.”
“In the vestry at Frensham, on the N. side of the chancel, is an extraordinary great kettle or caldron, which the inhabitants say, by tradition, was brought hither by the fairies, time out of mind, from Borough hill, about a mile from hence. To this place, if any one went to borrow a yoke of oxen, money, &c., he might have it for a year or longer, so he kept his word to return it. There is a cave, where some have fancied to hear musick. On this Borough hill is a great stone lying along, of the length of about six feet: they went to this stone and knocked at it, and declared what they would borrow and when they would pay, and a voice would answer when they should come, and that they should find what they desired to borrow at that stone. This caldron, with the trivet, was borrowed here after the manner aforesaid, but not returned according to promise, and though the caldron was afterwards carried to the stone it could not be received, and ever since that time no borrowing there. The people saw a great fire one night not long since, the next day they went to see if any heath was burnt there, but found nothing.”
“Some were led away by the Fairies, as was a third riding upon Hackpen with corn led a dance to ye Devises. So was a shepherd of Mr Brown of Winterburn-Basset, but never any afterwards enjoy themselves. He sayd that ye ground opened, and he was brought into strange places underground, where they used musicall Instruments, Viols and Lutes, such (he sayd) as Mr Thomas did play on.”
“Virgil speakes somewhere (I think in ye Georgiques) of Voyces heard louder than a Man’s. Mr Lancelot Morehouse did averre to me that he did once heare such a loud laugh on the other side of a hedge, and was sure that no Human voice could afford such a laugh.”
“In Germany old women tell stories received from their Ancestors that a Water-monster, called the Nickard, doth enter by night the chamber, and stealeth when they are all sleeping the new-born child, and supposeth another in its place, which child growing up is like a monster and commonly dumb. The remedy whereof that the Mother may get her own child again—the mother taketh the Suppositium and whipps it so long with the rod till the sayd Monster, the Nickard, bringes the Mother’s own child again, and takes to him the Suppositium, which they call Wexel balg.”
In another curious old book on our shelves, the “Philosophical Grammar” of Benjamin Martin, published in 1753, we find another allusion to the belief in Fairies. The book is written in the question and answer style once so popular, and after a long dissertation on the Animal Kingdom, we come at last to the question, “Pray before we leave this survey of the Animal Creation let me ask your opinion of Griffins, the Phœnix, Dragons, Satyrs, Syrens, Unicorns, Mermaids and Fairies. Do you think there really are any such things in Nature?” The answer is so far to the point, and so interesting in itself as showing the state of mind on the whole subject, that we give it in all its fulness.
“The Phœnix is mentioned by Pliny, and other Antients, more credulous than skilful; but has long since been rejected as a vulgar Error. The Griffin and Harpy have had a Place given them in Modern Histories of Nature, but not without great Reproach and Ridicule to the Authors. Satyrs, Syrens, and Fairies, are all Poetical Fictions. The Scripture makes mention of the Dragon and the Unicorn, and most Naturalists have affirmed that there have been such Creatures, and given Descriptions of them; but the Sight of these Creatures or credible Relations of them, having been so very rare, has occasioned many to believe there never were any such Animals in Nature; at least it has made the History of them very doubtful. As to Mer-men and Mer-maids, there certainly are such Creatures in the Sea as have some distant Resemblance of some Parts of the Human Shape, Mien, and Members; but not so perfectly like them, ’tis very probable, as has been represented. In all such ambiguous Pieces of History ’tis better not to be positive, and sometimes to suspend our Belief, rather than credulously embrace every current Report, or vulgar Assertion which may perhaps expose us to Ridicule.
It makes but little for the Credit of the Histories of Dragons, Unicorns, Mer-maids, &c., that their names are not to be found in the Transactions of our celebrated Royal Society, who, ’tis well known, derive their Intelligence at the best Hand from almost all Parts of the World. At least, I can find no mention of any such Creatures in the seven Volumes of Abridgments by Lowthorp, Eames, and Jones.