Long before the fatal encounter, and before he had entered on the evil courses which led to his ruin, Sir Godfrey, young and curly, sat at a window in the Tower of Myrtoun watching the operations of a gang of workmen forming a new sewer from his house to the White Loch below it. Suddenly he was startled by the apparition close beside him of a very little old man whose hair and beard were snowy white, whose strangely-cut costume was green, and who seemed in a state of furious wrath. Sir Godfrey received him, notwithstanding, with the greatest urbanity, and begged to be told in what way he could serve him.
The answer was a startling one: “M‘Culloch,” said the visitor, “I am the King of the Brownies![21] My palace has been for ages in the mound on which your Tower stands, and you are driving your common sewer right through my chalmer of dais.”
Sir Godfrey, confounded, threw up the window and ordered the workmen to stop at once, professing his perfect readiness to make the drain in any such direction as might least incommode his Majesty, if he would graciously indicate the same. His courtesy was accepted, and Sir Godfrey received a promise in return from the now mollified potentate that he, the said King, would stand by and help him in the time of his greatest need.
It was long after this that the Knight of Myrtoun disposed of his enemy in the summary way we have already mentioned, and for which he was condemned to die. The procession had started for the place of execution; a crowd was collected to see the awful sight, when the spectators were surprised by seeing a very little man with white hair and beard, dressed, too, in an antique suit of green, and mounted on a white horse. He issued from the castle rock, crossed the loch without a moment’s hesitation, and rode straight up to the cart on which Sir Godfrey, accompanied by the executioner and a minister, was standing. They plainly saw Sir Godfrey get on the horse behind the little man, who was no other than the King of the Brownies (and thus fulfilled his promise by arriving in his hour of need): the two recrossed the loch, and, mounting the castle rock, they disappeared. When the astonished crowd again turned their eyes to the cart a figure was still there, and wondrous like Sir Godfrey; it was, therefore, generally believed that he had met a felon’s doom, and most people thought no more about it. A few only knew better, but these cared little to speak about the matter. At rare intervals, however, one of the initiated would impart the story to a friend, and tell how a head had rolled upon the ground, leaving a bleeding trunk upon the scaffold; then adding in a confidential whisper, “It was no’ him ava; it was just a kin’ o’ glamour.”[(51)]
The presence of fairies was not unknown in the Whithorn district, and a realistic account of the last appearance of the fairies there has been preserved in Droll Recollections of Whithorn, by James F. Cannon:—
“A farmer’s wife on the Glasserton estate was engaged in washing at a stream near her house, when a trig little creature of her own sex, and perfectly human in shape and general semblance, suddenly arrested her attention. The mistress stared with amazement at the mite of a body that stood by her side, and the astonishment of the former was not lessened when, with an appealing look on her tiny features, the elf solicited the favour of ‘a wee sowp o’ milk for an unweel wean.’ They then entered freely into conversation, and walked together to the byre, where the Fairy was duly supplied with what she had asked for. She was very profuse with her thanks, and foretold that her donor would never be without a pinch of snuff (of all things) while she should require it. It was not a very hazardous prediction, nor did it give promise of great remuneration for the obligation conferred; but there was a note of gratitude in it which was thoroughly appreciated by her to whom it was spoken. I believe, however, there was an additional hint dropped that the milk pails of the elf’s patroness would always be well filled, and her husband’s field crops abundant.”[(52)]
A poetical version of the above tradition has been elaborated by Mr Cannon, and appears in the Bards of Galloway, under the title of “The Langhill Fairy.”[22]
“Riddling in the reek” was the common country-side expression for a rough-and-ready method of treating a fairy changeling so that it might be restored to its proper human constitution. A realistic account of such an ordeal is preserved in Galloway Gossip (Wigtownshire). It sets forth how a child, whose parents lived in Sorbie village, behaved in such a fretful, passionate, and vixenish way that the parents were at last forced to the unwelcome conclusion that it was not their child at all, but a changeling. Much distressed they sought the advice of a wise woman living at Kirkinner, who plainly enough substantiated the suspicion. Beseeching her help, the sybil pointed out the great risk they all ran with interference with things uncanny, but on their consenting to place themselves entirely in her hands and implicitly obey her in every detail, she promised to make the attempt to restore their child on the following Aul’ Hallowe’en Nicht.
“Riddling in the Reek.”