“The hair that hung upon her head,
The half was black, the half was grey,
And all the rich clothing was away
That he before saw in that stead;
Her eyes seemed out that were so grey,
And all her body like the lead.”
In Gaelic tales seven years is a common period of detention among the Fairies, the leannan sìth communicates to her lover the knowledge of future events, and in the end is looked upon by him with aversion. There is no mention, however, of Fairyland, or of an Elfin King or Queen, and but rarely of Fairies riding. True Thomas, who is as well known in Highland lore as he is in the Lowlands, is said to be still among the Fairies, and to attend every market on the look-out for suitable horses. When he has made up his complement he will appear again among men, and a great battle will be fought on the Clyde.
PROTECTION AGAINST FAIRIES.
The great protection against the Elfin race (and this is perhaps the most noticeable point in the whole superstition) is Iron, or preferably steel (Cruaidh). The metal in any form—a sword, a knife, a pair of scissors, a needle, a nail, a ring, a bar, a piece of reaping-hook, a gun-barrel, a fish-hook (and tales will be given illustrative of all these)—is all-powerful. On entering a Fairy dwelling, a piece of steel, a knife, needle, or fish-hook, stuck in the door, takes from the Elves the power of closing it till the intruder comes out again. A knife stuck in a deer carried home at night keeps them from laying their weight on the animal. A knife or nail in one’s pocket prevents his being ‘lifted’ at night. Nails in the front bench of the bed keep Elves from women ‘in the straw,’ and their babes. As additional safe-guards, the smoothing-iron should be put below the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. A nail in the carcase of a bull that fell over a rock was believed to preserve its flesh from them. Playing the Jew’s harp (tromb) kept the Elfin women at a distance from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. So also a shoemaker’s awl in the door-post of his bothy kept a Glaistig from entering.
Fire thrown into water in which the feet have been washed takes away the power of the water to admit the Fairies into the house at night; a burning peat put in sowens to hasten their fermenting (greasadh gortachadh) kept the substance in them till ready to boil. Martin (West Isl.) says fire was carried round lying-in women, and round about children before they were christened, to keep mother and infant from the power of evil spirits. When the Fairies were seen coming in at the door burning embers thrown towards them drove them away.