There is another version of the preceding, called
The Fairies and the Midwife.
Late one night an old woman was called up by a man with whom she was unacquainted, and requested to follow as quickly as possible, as his wife was in labour and required her immediate assistance. She obeyed, and was led by her guide into a miserable hovel, where everything appeared wretched, the few articles of furniture falling to pieces, and the household vessels of the coarsest ware, and scarcely one whole. Shortly after her arrival, her patient was safely delivered of a child. When she was about to make use of some water which stood in a pail, to wash the child with, and had already dipped her hand into it, she was earnestly requested not to meddle with that water, but to use some which stood in a jug close by. She chanced, however, to lift her hand, still wet, to her face, and a drop of the water got into one of her eyes. Immediately she saw everything under a different aspect; the house appeared rich and magnificently furnished, and the broken earthenware turned into vessels of gold and silver.
She was, however, too prudent to express her surprise, and, when her services were no longer required, left the place.
Some time afterwards she met the man in town and accosted him. “What,” said he, “You see me! How is this?” Taken unawares, she mentioned what she had done in the cottage, and which of her eyes was endowed with the faculty of beholding him: he immediately spat in it, and destroyed her sight for ever.[102]
[102] From Miss E. Chepmell.
See Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake. Note M:—Many of the German popular tales collected by the Brothers Grimm turn on the circumstance of a midwife being called to assist an Undine, or Fairy.
See also Keightley’s Fairy Mythology, Vol. 2, p. 182. Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, IX. 259.
Mrs. Bray’s Traditions of Devonshire.
Editor’s Notes.—In Traditions et Superstitions de La Haute Bretagne, by Sebillot, almost the same story is told, Tome 1., p. 109. See also Tome 2., p. 89. “Un jour, une sage-femme alla accoucher une fée; elle oublia de se laver la main, et se toucha un œil; ainsi depuis ce temps elle reconnaissait les déguisements des fées. Un jour que le mari de la fée était à voler du grain, elle le vit et cria ‘au voleur.’ Il lui demanda de quel œil elle le voyait, et aussitôt qu’il le sut, il le lui arracha.”