Their conjuring formulae are: "You are mine, I am thine." "Be there, where you have come from!" "Fog before me, smoke behind me." "Hop, hop! let me be, where I wish to be." "Hop, hop! they shall not know where I have come from, nor where I am going to! Let me be, where my thoughts are!" They can teach their magic formulae to their heroes.
As to their occupations. Of serious ones, our tales only mention embroidery. Their more favourite pastimes seem to be: bathing, banquets, singing, frivolous dances, and love adventures. After their nocturnal dances, flowers spring up where their feet have touched the ground. If anybody approaches them while they are dancing, they, in their unbounded merriment, drag him also into the dance.
On one occasion they enticed a shepherd into Borza-vára Cave, and kept him there for three days, amusing him with singing, dancing, playing music, and cajoling; finally they invited him to a game of cards and dismissed him with a big hatful of gold. From the castle-hill of Makkfalva the merry song of the fairies can be heard now every night as they dance round the castle-walls to the strains of music. They are reserved in their love; but, having made their choice, they are faithful, and their passion has no bounds. The daughter of Doghead is an instance of this; she reveals to her hero her father's charms, in order to ensure his victory in his struggle for life and death. The young and pretty mistress of Kisvártetö Castle, near Zsögöd, in the county of Csík, stood on a rock-ledge, waiting for the return of her husband from the war, till she faded away in her grief. The impression of her foot can still be seen in the rock. The fairy daughter of the giant who inhabited the castle near Bereczk fell in love with a hero who played the flute, disguised as a shepherd, at the foot of the rock; but her haughty father smashed the shepherd with a huge piece of rock, which is still to be seen in the bed of the brook. His daughter thereupon escaped from the father's castle, and built a castle (Leányvár = Maiden's Castle) near Ojtoz for herself, where she spent the rest of her days mourning for her lover, until grief killed her. Another such a pretty tale is associated with Firtos Castle. The fairy who lived here was in love with a knight; and, notwithstanding that her father forbade the intercourse, they secretly met in the garden every night. One beautiful moonlight night she was standing on the brink of the rock, when, as she extended her arm to assist her lover up the steep slope, the knight's horse slipped, and they were precipitated arm in arm into the depth below, and thus perished, united for ever in death. The horse caught on a projecting piece of rock, and petrified. "Firtos's horse" is still to be seen. Dame Rapson's daughter, Irma, a fairy, also fell a victim to prohibited love, and fell from a lofty peak where her mother's castle stood, with her lover, Zelemir, into the depth below, where Dame Rapson found them, and died of a broken heart. They all three were buried under the rock below, which tradition names "Zelemir's Tower."
At the south angle of the Firtos there is a group of rocks which is called "Fairy Helena's Carriage," in which the fairies who lived in the castle used to drive out on moonlight nights. But one night they were so much engrossed in their enjoyments that they returned home late; and lo! the cock crew, and the carriage turned into stone.
The fairies live in castles on lofty mountain peaks. They build their castles themselves, or inherit them from giants. Sometimes they are at a great distance, as e.g. [Fairy Elizabeth's] Castle in the town of Johara, in the "Land of Black Sorrow."
Kozma enumerates the names of about 23 castles which belonged to fairies and which still exist. The castle of Kadacs formerly belonged to giants, upon whose extinction the fairies moved into it. Dame Rapson's castle near Paraja was built of materials which were carried up on the almost perpendicular side of the rock, to a height which makes one's head swim, by a magic cat and cock. The road leading to the castle was constructed by the Devil for a "mountain of gold," and a "valley of silver." Dame Rapson owed the Devil his wages for several years, although he kept on reminding her of it, till at last the cunning fairy presented him with a gold coin between the tips of her upheld fingers, and a silver coin in her palm, explaining to him that the gold coin is the mountain and the silver coin the valley.[74] The Devil, seeing that he was outwitted, got into a fearful rage and destroyed the road, the traces of which are still shown as far as the Görgény (snow-clad) mountains, and is still called "Dame Rapson's Road." The tale about building the road for a mountain of gold and valley of silver is also mentioned in connection with the Várhegy, near Köszvényes-Remete, but in this case it is Fairy Helen's daughter who cheats the devil. There is such a dam also at the foot of the Sóhegy, near Paraja, extending as far as Mikhàza, and this bank too is called "Dame Rapson's Road," and also "Devil's Dyke." A dam, similar to the "Cock's Ridge," near Rika, extends in the neighbourhood of Gagy and Körispatak in the direction of Firtos, and is called "Pretty Women's Road," or "Fairies' Road." Another high dam with a deep moat at its southern side, and also called the "Fairies' Road," is to be seen between Enlaka and Firtos. Under the Szépmezö (Beautiful Meadow) in Háromszék, the golden bridge of the fairies lies buried. On the outskirts of Tordátfalva there is a peak called "Ebédlö-Mál" (ebédlö = dining-place) on which the fairies coming from Firtos to Kadacsvára used to assemble to dinner.
In some localities caves are pointed out as the haunts of fairies such as the caves in the side of the rock named Budvár. We have already mentioned the cave Borza-vára near the castle of Dame Rapson; another haunt of fairies is the cave near Almás, and the cold wind known as the "Nemere" is said to blow when the fairy in Almás cave feels cold. On one occasion the plague was raging in this neighbourhood; the people ascribed it to the cold blast emanating from the cave, so they hung shirts before the mouth of the cave, and the plague ceased. (Mentioned by L. Köváry.)
The fairies have beautiful flower-gardens in the castle grounds, and in the centre of the garden there is generally a golden summer-house which swivels round on a pivot. On moonlight nights they returned to water their flower-beds long after they had disappeared from the neighbourhood. The peonies (Whitsun-roses) that bloom among the ruins of Dame Rapson's Castle are even nowadays known among the people as Dame Rapson's roses.
The fairies live an organised social life. Several of their queens are known, as e.g. Dame Rapson and Fairy Helen. The latter was the most popular among them. The queens had court-dames, who were also fairies, and who lived near their queen's castle, as e.g. the court-dames of Dame Rapson lived in Borza-vára Cave. They also live a family life—their husbands being giants or heroes, their children fairy-girls. Those of them, however, who waste their love on ordinary mortals all die an ignoble death.