Cast. The crones of retired villages have not yet yielded their belief in fairy influence.
Among the low Irish it is believed that (as the nympholepts of old who had looked upon Pan, sealed an early doom), the paralytic is fairy-struck; and superstition has inspired them with a belief in the influence of the evil eye or glamourie, especially in the vicinity of Blackwater.
I remember, when our wanderings among the Wicklow mountains led us through the dark glen of the Dargle, the implicit faith of the Irish women in the charm of amulets and talismans. Like the fabled glance of the basilisk, the evil eye is bestowed on some unhappy beings from their very birth; nay, the spell infests the cabin in which they herd. To avert this fatal influence from the children, a charm is suspended around their necks, which when blessed by the priest is called a “gospel.”
When a happy or evil star shines at a birth, it is the eye of a cherub or a demon, smiling or frowning on the destiny of the babe; and when happiness or misery predominates in a life, it is a minister of good or ill that blesses or inflicts. There is one beautiful scrap of this mythology—the thrill of holy joy which the Irish mother feels when her infant smiles in its sleep; for she knows it is a holy angel whispering in its ear.
In our own island they are often celebrated as the very pinks of hospitality.
In Cornish history, we read how Anne Jeffries was fed for six months by the small green people. And in yonder forest of Dean, (as writeth Gervase, the Imperial Chancellor, in his “Otia Imperialia,”) “In a grovy lawn there is a little mount, rising in a point to the height of a man, on which knights and other hunters are used to ascend, when fatigued with heat and thirst, to seek some relief for their wants. The nature of the place and of the business is, however, such, that whoever ascends the mount must leave his companions and go quite alone. When alone, he was to say, as if speaking to some other person, ‘I thirst,’ and immediately there would appear a cup-bearer in an elegant dress, with a cheerful countenance, bearing in his outstretched hand a large horn, adorned with gold and gems, as was the custom among the most ancient English. In the cup, nectar of an unknown but most delicious flavour was presented; and when it was drunk, all heat and weariness fled from the glowing body, so that one would be thought ready to undertake toil, instead of having toiled. Moreover, when the nectar was taken, the servant presented a towel to the drinker to wipe his mouth with, and then, having performed his office, he waited neither for recompense for his services, nor for questions, nor inquiry.”
This frequent and daily action had, for a very long period, of old times taken place among the ancient people, till one day a knight of that city, when out hunting, went thither, and having called for drink, and gotten the horn, did not, as was the custom, and as in good manners he should have done, return it to the cup-bearer, but kept it for his own use. But the illustrious Earl of Gloucester, when he learned the truth of the matter, condemned the robber to death, and presented the horn to the most excellent king, Henry the Elder; lest he should be thought to have approved of such wickedness, if he had added the rapine of another to the store of his private property.
But the fairies might rue their kindness, if you frowned so darkly on them, Astrophel. They would fear the influence of your spells, for there is blight and mildew in that glance. At the banquet of the fairies, if the eye of the seer but look on them, the romance is instantly at an end: the nymphs of beauty are changed into withered carles and crones, and the splendour of Elfin-land is turned to dust and ashes.
Ida. As a set-off against the virtues of your fairies, Castaly, you forget there was a propensity to mischief. They were rather fond, like the Daoine Shi, of stealing unchristened babes, and of chopping and changing these innocents, thence called changelings. On this fable your own Shakspere has wrought the quarrel of Oberon and Titania: —
“A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king;