“The emerald fields were of dazzling glow,
And the flowers of everlasting blow.”
Fairies were popularly believed to inhabit certain round grassy eminences, where they celebrated their nocturnal festivities by the light of the moon. It was believed that if, on Hallowe’en, any person should go round one of these hillocks nine times, contrary to the course of the sun, a door would open, by which he would be admitted into the realms of fairyland. Many, it has been said, of mortal race have been entertained in their secret recesses, there to have been received into the most splendid apartments, and regaled with the most sumptuous banquets and delicious wines. Their females surpassed the daughters of men in beauty, and fairy life was one eternal round of festivity and dancing. Unhappy was the mortal, however, who dared to join in the joys, or ventured to partake of their dainties, as, by this indulgence, he forfeited for ever the society of men, and was bound down irrevocably to the conditions of a Shi ich, or “man of peace.”
There is a Highland tradition to the effect that a woman, in days of yore, was conveyed into the secret recesses of the Daoine Shi, or men of peace. There she was recognised by one who had formerly been an ordinary mortal, but who had, by some fatality, became associated with the fairies. This acquaintance, still retaining some portion of human benevolence, warned her of her danger, and counselled her, as she valued her liberty, to abstain from eating and drinking with them for a certain space of time. She complied with the counsel of her friend; and when the period assigned was elapsed, she found herself again upon earth, restored to the society of mortals. It is added, that when she examined the viands which had been presented to her, and which had appeared so tempting to the eye, they were found, now that the enchantment was removed, to consist only of the refuse of the earth.
“It is the common opinion,” says Sir Walter Scott, “that persons falling under the power of the fairies, were only allowed to revisit the haunts of men after seven years had expired. At the end of seven years more, they again disappeared, after which they were seldom seen among mortals. The accounts they gave of their situation differ in some particulars. Sometimes they were represented as leading a life of constant restlessness, and wandering by moonlight. According to others, they inhabited a pleasant region, where, however, their situation was rendered horrible by the sacrifice of one or more individuals to the devil every seventh year. This circumstance is mentioned in Alison Pearson’s indictment, and in the ‘Tale of the Young Tamlane,’ where it is termed ‘The paying the kane to hell’; or, according to some recitations, ‘the teind,’ or tenth. This is the popular reason assigned for the desire of the fairies to abstract young children as substitutes for themselves in this dreadful tribute. Concerning the mode of winning or recovering persons abstracted by the fairies, tradition differs; but the popular opinion supposes that the recovery must be effected within a year and a day, to be held legal in the Fairy Court. This feat, which was reckoned an enterprise of equal difficulty and danger, could only be accomplished at Hallowe’en at the great annual procession of the Fairy Court.” Burns refers to this fairy pageant in the opening lines of his “Hallowe’en,” thus—
“Upon that night, when fairies light,
On Cassilis Downan’s dance,
Or ower the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance.”
It was at Miles Cross, on Hallowe’en, that fair Janet succeeded in the rescue of her lover, “The Young Tamlane”:—