Fairies in all lands have a constitutional distaste for being recognized, but those of Brittany appear to visit their vengeance upon the members with which they are actually beheld. “See what thieves the fairies are!” cried a woman, on beholding one abstract apples from a countrywoman’s pocket. The predatory elf at once turned round and tore out the eye that had marked his act.
A Cornish woman who chanced to find herself the guardian of an elf-child was given certain water with which to wash its face. The liquid had the property of illuminating the infant’s face with a supernatural brightness, and the woman ventured to try it upon herself, and in doing so splashed a little into one eye. This gave her the fairy sight. One day in the market-place she saw a fairy man stealing, and gave the alarm, when the enraged sprite cried:
“Water for elf, not water for self.
You’ve lost your eye, your child, and yourself.”
She was immediately stricken blind in the right eye, her fairy foster-child vanished, and she and her husband sank into poverty and want.
Another Breton tale recounts how a mortal woman was given a polished stone in the form of an egg wherewith to rub a fairy child’s eyes. She applied it to her own right eye, and became possessed of magic sight so far as elves were concerned. Still another case, alluded to in the Revue Celtique,[30] arose through ‘the sacred bond’ formed between a fairy man and a mortal woman where both stood as godparents to a child. The association 83 enabled the woman to see magically. The fairy maiden Rockflower bestows a similar gift on her lover in a Breton tale from Saint-Cast, and speaks of “clearing his eyes like her own.”[31]
Changelings
The Breton fairies, like others of their race, are fond of kidnapping mortal children and leaving in their places wizened elves who cause the greatest trouble to the distressed parents. The usual method of ridding a family of such a changeling is to surprise it in some manner so that it will betray its true character. Thus, on suspicion resting upon a certain Breton infant who showed every sign of changeling nature, milk was boiled on the fire in egg-shells, whereupon the impish youngster cried: “I shall soon be a hundred years old, but I never saw so many shells boiling! I was born in Pif and Paf, in the country where cats are made, but I never saw anything like it!” Thus self-revealed, the elf was expelled from the house. In most Northern tales where the changeling betrays itself it at once takes flight and a train of elves appears, bringing back the true infant. Again, if the wizened occupant of the cradle can be made to laugh that is accepted as proof of its fairy nature. “Something ridiculous,” says Simrock, “must be done to cause him to laugh, for laughter brings deliverance.”[32] The same stratagem appears to be used as the cure in English and Scots changeling tales.
The King of the Fishes
The Breton fays were prone, too, to take the shape of 84 animals, birds, and even of fish. As we have seen, the sea-fairies of Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer were in the habit of taking the shape of fish for the purpose of annoying fishermen and damaging their gear. Another Breton tale from Saint-Cast illustrates their penchant for the fish shape. A fisherman of that town one day was lucky enough to catch the King of the Fishes disguised as a small golden fish. The fish begged hard to be released, and promised, if he were set free, to sacrifice as many of his subjects as would daily fill the fisherman’s nets. On this understanding the finny monarch was given his liberty, and fulfilled his promise to the letter. Moreover, when the fisherman’s boat was capsized in a gale the Fish King appeared, and, holding a flask to the drowning man’s lips, made him drink a magic fluid which ensured his ability to exist under water. He conveyed the fisherman to his capital, a place of dazzling splendour, paved with gold and gems. The rude caster of nets instantly filled his pockets with the spoil of this marvellous causeway. Though probably rather disturbed by the incident, the Fish King, with true royal politeness, informed him that whenever he desired to return the way was open to him. The fisherman expressed his sorrow at having to leave such a delightful environment, but added that unless he returned to earth his wife and family would regard him as lost. The Fish King called a large tunny-fish, and as Arion mounted the dolphin in the old Argolian tale, so the fisherman approached the tunny, which