Throughout the greater part of the Highlands of Scotland the Fairies have become things of the past. A common belief is that they existed once, though they are not now seen. There are others to whom the elves have still a real existence, and who are careful to take precautions against them. The changes, which the Highlands are undergoing, have made the traces of the belief fainter in some districts than in others, and in some there remains but a confused jumbling of all the superstitions. It would be difficult to find a person who knows the whole Fairy creed, but the tales of one district are never contradictory of those of another. They are rather to be taken as supplemental of each other, and it is by comparison and such supplementing that the following statement has been drawn out. It is thought that it will not be found at variance with any genuine Highland Fairy Tale.
The Fairies, according to the Scoto-Celtic belief, are a race of beings, the counterparts of mankind in person, occupations, and pleasures, but unsubstantial and unreal, ordinarily invisible, noiseless in their motions, and having their dwellings underground, in hills and green mounds of rock or earth. They are addicted to visiting the haunts of men, sometimes to give assistance, but more frequently to take away the benefit of their goods and labours, and sometimes even their persons. They may be present in any company, though mortals do not see them. Their interference is never productive of good in the end, and may prove destructive. Men cannot therefore be sufficiently on their guard against them.
NAMES GIVEN TO FAIRIES.
The names by which these dwellers underground are known are mostly derivative from the word sìth (pronounced shee). As a substantive (in which sense it is ordinarily used) sìth means ‘peace,’ and, as an adjective, is applied solely to objects of the supernatural world, particularly to the Fairies and whatever belongs to them. Sound is a natural adjunct of the motions of men, and its entire absence is unearthly, unnatural, not human. The name sìth without doubt refers to the ‘peace’ or silence of Fairy motion, as contrasted with the stir and noise accompanying the movements and actions of men. The German ‘still folk’ is a name of corresponding import. The Fairies come and go with noiseless steps, and their thefts or abductions are done silently and unawares to men. The wayfarer resting beside a stream, on raising his eyes, sees the Fairy woman, unheard in her approach, standing on the opposite bank. Men know the Fairies have visited their houses only by the mysterious disappearance of the substance of their goods, or the sudden and unaccountable death of any of the inmates or of the cattle. Sometimes the elves are seen entering the house, gliding silently round the room, and going out again as noiselessly as they entered. When driven away they do not go off with tramp and noise, and sounds of walking such as men make, or melt into thin air, as spirits do, but fly away noiselessly like birds or hunted deer. They seem to glide or float along rather than to walk. Hence the name sìthche and its synonyms are often applied contemptuously to a person who sneaks about or makes his approach without warning. Sometimes indeed the elves make a rustling noise like that of a gust of wind, or a silk gown, or a sword drawn sharply through the air, and their coming and going has been even indicated by frightful and unearthly shrieks, a pattering as of a flock of sheep, or the louder trampling of a troop of horses. Generally, however, their presence is indicated at most by the cloud of dust raised by the eddy wind, or by some other curious natural phenomenon, by the illumination of their dwellings, the sound of their musical instruments, songs, or speech.
For the same reason sìth is applied not merely to what is Fairy, but to whatever is Fairy-like, unearthly, not of this world. Of this laxer use of the term the following may be given as illustrations:
Breac shìth, ‘Elfin pox,’ hives, are spots that appear on the skin in certain diseases, as hooping-cough, and indicate a highly malignant stage of the malady. They are not ascribed to the Fairies, but are called sìth, because they appear and again disappear as it were ‘silently,’ without obvious cause, and more mysteriously than other symptoms. Cows, said to have been found on the shores of Loscantire in Harris, Scorrybrec in Skye, and on the Island of Bernera, were called cro sìth, ‘fairy cows,’ simply because they were of no mortal breed, but of a kind believed to live under the sea on meillich, seaweed. Animals in the shape of cats, but in reality witches or demons, were called cait shìth, ‘Elfin cats,’ and the Water Horse, which has no connection whatever with the elves, is sometimes called each sìth, unearthly horse. The cuckoo is an eun sìth, a ‘Fairy bird,’ because, as is said, its winter dwelling is underground.
A banner in the possession of the family of Macleod, of Macleod of Skye, is called ‘Macleod’s Fairy Banner’ (Bratach shìth MhicLèoid), on account of the supernatural powers ascribed to it. When unfurled, victory in war (buaidh chogaidh) attends it, and it relieves its followers from imminent danger.[2] Every pregnant woman who sees it is taken in premature labour (a misfortune which happened, it is said, to the English wife of a former chief in consequence of her irrepressible curiosity to see the banner), and every cow casts her calf (cha bhi bean no bo nach tilg a laogh). Others, however, say the name is owing to the magic banner having been got from an Elfin sweetheart.
A light, seen among the Hebrides, a sort of St. Elmo’s light or Will-of-the-wisp, is called teine sìth, ‘Fairy light,’ though no one ever blamed the Fairies as the cause of it. In a semi-satirical song, of much merit for its spirit and ease of diction, composed in Tiree to the owner of a crazy skiff that had gone to the Ross of Mull for peats and staid too long, the bard, in a spirited description of the owner’s adventures and seamanship, says:—
“Onward past Greenock,