From mortal lips an earthly accent fell,
And Rymour's tongue confess'd the numbing spell:
In iron sleep the minstrel lies forlorn,
Who breathed a sound before he blew the horn."[321:A]
No spell, however, could bind the Fairies themselves to their own domain; an eternal restlessness seems to have been their doom; "they remove," says Kirk, in a passage singularly curious, "to other Lodgings at the Beginning of each Quarter of the Year, so traversing till Doomsday, being imputent and (impotent of?) staying in one Place, and finding some Ease by so purning (journeying) and changing Habitations. Their chamœlion-lyke Bodies swim in the Air near the Earth with Bag and Bagadge; and at such revolution of Time, Seers, or Men of the Second Sight, (Fœmales being seldome so qualified) have very terrifying Encounters with them, even on High Ways; who therefoir uswally shune to travell abroad at these four Seasons of the Year, and thereby have made it a Custome to this day among the Scottish-Irish to keep Church duely evry first Sunday of the Quarter to sene or hallow themselves, their Corns and Cattell, from the Shots and Stealth of these wandering Tribes; and many of these superstitious People will not be seen in Church againe till the nixt Quarter begin, as if no Duty were to be learned or done by them, but all the use of Worship and Sermons were to save them from these Arrows that fly in the dark."[322:A]
Beside these quarterly migrations, an annual procession of the Fairy Court was supposed to take place on Hallowe'en, to which we have alluded in a former part of this work (vol. i. p. 342.), when describing the superstitions peculiar to certain periods of the year. A similar ceremony, though not upon so large a scale, was also believed, among the peasantry of Nithsdale, to occur at [322:B]Roodsmass;
but the most common appearance of the Fairy in Scotland, as elsewhere, was conceived to be by moon-light, dancing in a circle, and leaving behind either a scorched, or a deep green, ringlet; nor was the period of noon-day scarcely deemed less dangerous than the noon of night; for, during both, the Fairies were imagined to exert a baneful power; in sleep, producing the oppression termed the Night-mare[323:A], and, even at mid-day, weaving their pernicious spells, and subjecting to their power all who were tempted to repose on the rock, bank, hillock, or near the tree which they frequented.
Persons thus unfortunately situated, who had ventured within the fairy-circle after sunset, who had slept at noon upon a fairy-hill, or who, in an evil hour, had been devoted to the infernal powers, by the curses of a parent, were liable to be borne away to Elf-land for a period of seven years:—
"Woe to the upland swain, who, wandering far,
The circle treads, beneath the evening star!