When the mother heard of this she said: "God bless you, child! Don't mind Grannie; she is very well able to take care of herself." And so it was believed that Grannie was a fairy.
I have also heard of a little old man in a three-cornered hat, at first mistaken for a neighbour, but whose sudden disappearance proved him to be a fairy.
In the time of the press-gang a crowd was seen approaching some cottages. Great alarm ensued, and the young men fled; but it was soon discovered that these people did not come from a man-of-war—they were fairies.
A terrible story, showing how the fairies can punish their captives, was told me by an old woman at Armoy, in Co. Antrim, who vouched for it as being "candid truth." A man's wife was carried away by the fairies; he married again, but one night his first wife met him, told him where she was, and besought him to release her, saying that if he would do so she would leave that part of the country and not trouble him any more. She begged him, however, not to make the attempt unless he were confident he could carry it out, as if he failed she would die a terrible death. He promised to save her, and she told him to watch at midnight, when she would be riding past the house with the fairies; she would put her hand in at the window, and he must grasp it and hold tight. He did as she bade him, and although the fairies pulled hard, he had nearly saved her, when his second wife saw what was going on, and tore his hand away. The poor woman was dragged off, and across the fields he heard her piercing cries, and saw next morning the drops of blood where the fairies had murdered her.
Another woman was more fortunate; she was carried off by the fairies at Cushendall, but was able to inform her friends when she and the fairies would be going on a journey, and she told them that if they stroked her with the branch of a rowan-tree she would be free. They did as she desired. She returned to them, apparently having suffered no injury, and in the course of time she married.
This story was told me by a man ninety years of age, living in Glenshesk, in the north of Co. Antrim. He spoke of the fairies as being about two feet in height, said they were dressed in green, and had been seen in daylight making hats of rushes. In Donegal I was also told that the fairies wore high peaked hats made of plaited rushes; but there, as in most parts of Ulster, and indeed of Ireland, the fairies are said to wear red, not green. In Antrim the fairies, like their Scotch kinsfolk, dress in green, but even there are often said to have red or sandy hair.
The Pechts are spoken of as low, stout people, who built some of the "coves" in the forts. An old man, living in the townland of Drumcrow, Co. Antrim, showed me the entrance to one of these artificial caves, and gave me a vivid description of its builders. "The Pechts," he said, "were low-set, heavy-made people, broad in the feet—so broad," he added, with an expressive gesture, "that in rain they could lie down and shelter themselves under their feet." He spoke of them as clad in skins, while an old woman at Armoy said they were dressed in grey. I have seldom heard of the Pechts beyond the confines of Antrim, although an old man in Donegal spoke of them as short people with large, unwieldy feet.
The traditions regarding the Danes vary; sometimes they are spoken of as a tall race, sometimes as a short race. There is little doubt that the tall race were the medieval Danes, while in the short men we have probably a reminiscence of an earlier race.
A widespread belief exists throughout Ireland that the Danes made heather beer, and that the secret perished with them. According to an old woman at the foot of the Mourne Mountains, the Danes had the land in old times, but at last they were conquered, and there remained alive only a father and son. When pressed to disclose how the heather beer was made, the father said: "Kill my son, and I will tell you our secret"; but when the son was slain, he cried: "Kill me also, but our secret you shall never know!" I have the authority of Mr. MacRitchie for stating that a similar story is known in Scotland from the Shetlands to the Mull of Galloway, but there it is told of the Picts.
We all remember Louis Stevenson's ballad of heather ale—how the son was cast into the sea: