Flint arrow-heads were for ages looked upon as elf-stones, and are to-day worn as charms against unseen evils. They also possess healing power in certain diseases. So, too, do the belemnites—a fossilized portion of an extinct cuttle-fish. These, in the hand of a skilled person, work wonders in the case of sore eyes and ringworm. Unfortunately, though belemnites are common enough, the skilled hands are rare, and so their virtue in thousands of instances lies dormant. These belemnites are supposed to fall from the clouds during a thunderstorm; the same is said of rounded pieces of quartz or flints, one and all being called thunder-bolts, or ’thunner-steeans.’
When a boy, I was an ardent archaeologist. I remember on one occasion having been told that chipped flints were to be found in a field near Blois Hall[28]. Hurrying thither the first whole holiday, I was fortunate enough on that occasion to find a flint arrow-head—the only one I ever did find. This I showed to an old fellow who was hedging; without hesitation he pronounced it to be an elf-stone, declaring that the elves were evil spirits, who in days past used to throw them at the kie—I had up to that time always been told they were shot at cattle—but my informant stuck to throwing. I well remember that he also said the elves got them out of whirlpools, where they were originally made by the water spirits, but he could not say what the water spirits used them for, though he knew of several instances in which both cattle and horses had been injured by the elves throwing their elf-stones at them. He further informed me that when the elves got them from the whirlpools, they had much longer shanks than was on the one I had found: this was so that better aim might be taken with them. ‘But,’ said he, ‘tha’re nivver fund wi’ lang shanks on, acoz t’ fairies awlus brak ’em off, seea ez t’ elves wadn’t be yabble ti potch ’em at t’ beasts neea mair;’ and he had been told that fairies often wore them as ornaments. Sore eyes could be cured by the touch from an elf-stone, if a fairy had ever worn it, and they were also a potent love-charm if worn so that they rested near the heart.
Speaking of fairies, I know an old lady who still fully believes in their existence. She assures me they have most beautiful houses at a great depth below the surface. It seems no one ever finds them, because the little folk possess the magical power of transporting them to a distance in an instant, should there be the least likelihood of their being disturbed; owing to this, ‘Nobody nivver cums across ’em when well-sinking, mining, or owt o’ that soart.’
The old body told me the following story:—
In the days when tailors went out to work, she remembered one who came to work for her aunt being lost for a long time in a big field, and unable to find his way out, and all because he had said, ‘If ever he saw a fairy he would catch her, and take her home, and put her in a bottle and keep her there.’ So it happened, when he left the house to go home, and just when he entered the long pasture, he dropped his scissors, and for long he could not find them, and when he did place his hand on them, his sleeve-board was snatched from him. He heard it drop quite close to him, but when he stooped to pick it up, a pork pie which the farmer’s wife had given him mysteriously disappeared; how, he did not know. However, a little way off, he saw a most beautiful damsel carrying a light; he implored her to come to his aid, and as the damsel and the light would not come to him, like Mahomet he went after them. This proved a most bootless errand, for the damsel and light led him on and on, hither and thither, now shining quite close at hand, then disappearing, and at last vanishing altogether, leaving the tailor utterly lost; and for long the poor fellow wandered about, until his cries for help were fortunately heard, ‘bud nut afoor he’d bed aboon tweea hours on ’t.’
That he had been under a fairy charm, and that she (the fairy) had been making sport of him, was evident to all. Never again did that man say he would bottle a fairy—at least, I imagine so. When a sleeve-board, a pair of scissors, and a pork pie are snatched from you, and you see a beautiful damsel carrying a light of some kind, which she snuffs out every time she is going to be caught, only to light up again some yards ahead, and then finally disappear altogether—well! even a tailor can draw his own conclusions after a game of that kind.
The other day I met an old lady in the train—a Mrs. Peary, of Sand Hill Farm, near Picton. Although the old lady told me she was turned seventy-three, she was as active as a woman of forty, and boasted she could do the work of two lasses yet. I soon discovered she possessed a fund of both witch and other lore. Next day I paid a visit to Sand Hill, and had a couple of hours’ chat, or rather, I asked a few leading questions, and then made notes as quickly as I could.
For many years she lived in Bilsdale, her native place. Now, the dale in question is only a few miles distant from the borders of Cleveland, and yet she had never heard of many of the customs so common to that division of the North Riding. ‘Mell suppers,’ she told me, were kept up in Bilsdale in all their pristine glory so lately as twenty years ago—guisers, mell doll, and everything. She did not know the word ‘spurrings,’ meaning putting the banns in. The common expression in her part was, and still is, ‘So-and-so ’ev tumm’l’d ower t’ bauk an’ brokken ther legs.’ I fail to see the application.
Again, though it was the custom for the bridesmaids to undress the bride, and see her comfortably into bed, she never remembered a case of stocking throwing, though she had heard of it, or of any attempt to keep the bridegroom amongst the revellers all night. Running for the bride’s garter was common in her mother’s time, but mostly a ribbon in her own. She had never heard of the custom of letting a child go up before it went down, or that it was unlucky to mention what name the child should be christened before its birth.
I mention these facts because it bears out a previous statement, that it is inadvisable to draw conclusions as to the non-existence of customs or superstitions on evidence of a purely local character.