The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-07-14
WASHINGTON, D. c., THURSDAY JULY A. 1859

Il
was almost persisted with cold, but it Law still
ana they went to sleep again. In the morning
1t was gone. They inquired if any one had out
their little brother into bed to them, and were
answered in the negative. They were forced
to the conclusion that the fairies were carving
on child, and found it necessary to put it
somewhere to get it warmed before they reach
| ed their own comfortable habitation
| man and his wife were going to neigh
bors house, after dark. They rode on single
horse, and the man carried their child They
passed stream with steep banks. When he
reached the house, his wife was gone. They
did not find her till the next morning When
found, she could give no account of herself, ex-
cept that, going up the bank, she was appre-
| hensive OF falling off She remembered moth
ing after that. There happened to an iron key
IN her pocket, which revealed the secret It
was all bent and twisted. The fairies had tried
to carry her off, to nurse the children which
they had taken elsewhere. The iron about her
person had prevented it. $3.50
| nay own grandfather came near seeing a
| fairy one starlight night. IL stood up quite
still in the middle of field, las he passed along
the road Unfortunately, however, when he
| gathered courage to approach it, it turned ont
to be a benweed, with a little tow spread over
1t, either by accident or design. l have some
times thought that the fairy music which some
heard might have proceeded from the outlaw
tories holding their orgies in old ruins, or
among the mountains; nor is it improbable
that they might sometimes have abducted
women and children.
| The elves were mischevous creatures, and
as ugly in form as disposition. They haunted
brakes and old thorn bushes The least Of
fence provoked them, and they always wreaked
| their vengeance on the cattle. La the spring
OF the year, especially after hard winter it
| was nothing unusual for cattle to be elfshot,
and often little balls of hair would be found in
| the barnyard, which had missed their aim
| Before my grandfather's door grew an old
thornbush. 1t was in the way, and he went
to cut it down. My great grandmother was
alarmed, and warned her son of the danger,
| but he removed it. That very spring, strange
| as it was, he lost fine big. black cow He
| never attributed it to the cutting of the tree !;
but she and many others were as confident that
the spirits killed the animal, as that he had
cut down the bush
Like all other malignant people. the elves
were unhappy. They resided in noisome dwell
ings under ground. If little buttermilk hap,
pened to be spilled, yon would hear some old
woman say, In Multiplying tone, ''Ah many
burning heart is waiting for that" MANY
would never dare to use a cows milk till thew
had poured out a little of it, mixed with salt,
at the root of thornbush, l once heard of
an old woman who was doing by her wheel,
one day, when little man, about foot high,
with hunched back, a withered face, and a
| squeaking voice, came in at the door, and told
her to pour no more dirty water into that sink
hole near the door, for it all came down their
chimney.
1t was principally to counteract the elves,
that charmers were patronized. Some of these
used certain medical herbs along with their
charms, others practiced incarnation alone.
Some had notion that charms we're effeetual
through the Intervention of the good-natured
| fairy others maintained that charms operated
directly against the elf and the fairy had moth,
ing to do with it. The common notion was, in
deed, that the fairies were good-natured beings,
but that they troubled themselves very little
pTompted By aa ~ haF pub unless
as little good. 1t is little remarkable, that
the superstition of the aboriginal Americana
partook Of the same character. Although they
believed that the good spirit was superior in
power and knowledge to the evil, yet they were
more careful to pacify the latter than propii
tate the former, because they imagined the
evil spirit was ever active, but the good, more
indolent. Whether this arises from the de-
PRAYED taste of fallen man, which leads him to
pay more respect to the evil principle than to
the good, or from the native pride which in
clines us to ascrlbe our good success to our
own virtue, and our misfortunes to some supe-
ror power, it is hard to say, but the fact is re-
markable. 1t might indeed be traced to an
other cause. Perhaps the universal experience
of man in halfcivilized state finds active and
efficient rulers tyrannical and selfish and the
only mild and gontle ones, some easy good ma
| tured princes, too ndoent to Cypress. Now,
the heather always take the character of their
deities from their rulers
We never had the industrious brownie in
| Ireland. The mischievOus elf, the beautiful
fay, were the same in Scotland as in Ireland :;
but the brownie never found its way across the
North Channel. This shows that the ancient
superstition had been greatly modified since
the time of the Druids, for then the Scotch and
Irish were the same race, and Of course had
the same mythology. 1t affords hint, too, of
| the difference in the modern history of the two
| countries The mountains of both countries
| were filled with outlaws, about the same time.
| In Scotland they gave rise to the name of whig,
! in Ireland to the name Of tory. From the for
mer, according to Hogg, in his tale of the
| Brownie of BOdsbeck originated the idea that
brownies could do so much work. To the
doings of the latter might perhaps be traced
many of the prevalent ideas about elves and
fairies
| Perhaps the aristocratical banshee should
not be passed in silence. | call it aristocratica
because it never deigned to lament beside Il
poor mans door. Its boding cry presaged the
death of some Of the old Celtic nobility. 1t
paid more attention to blood than to wealth,
for it never attended An upstart family. | have
seen one man, and but one, who ever heard its
cry. lie was descended from the noble O'Neills
of county Tyrone. His name was Mathew
Neill, for his father, having fOrsaken the Roman
Catholic faith had dropped the o. His family
must have been respectable indeed, to have re-
tanned the regard of the banshee after such
double sacrilege. He was sleeping with his
brother, as handsome and likely young man
as was to be found in the north of Ireland
when he was awakened by sharp cry at the
front door. 1t then came round to the bed
room window, and repeated the sound. 1t com
menced in low moan, swelling into bitter
wall like the ulaloo, and then died away as
it began. That winter his brother died, as his
mother had predicted the moment he told her
of the voice.
PERILs AND Losses OF FlsHERMEN.-The
Gloucester (Mass.) Telegraph presents list of
one hundred and ten vessels, chiefly schooners,
which have been lost from the port of Glouces-
ter within the last thirty years. Of that num-
Der, ffty-nine were stranded, seven run down,
two capsized, three foundered, one burnt, and
thirty EIGHT were never heard from. Thirty-six
of them were lost in the Bay of st. Lawrence,
mackerelling, twenty on Georges Bank,
twenty-three we're trading, twelve were macker-