from the Famous Fairies series by Lorna Steele
In Morgan Daimler’s latest book, A New Dictionary of Fairy- A 21st Century Exploration of Celtic and Related Western European Fairies, she remarks that “Fairy is a very feudal system… everything is tied together with debts and obligations and what’s owed to who.” (p.120) This set me thinking once again about fairy monarchy and how exactly their society is organised, something I’ve tackled before in several postings.
The human societies of the High Middle Ages were, indeed, feudal, in that land was granted in return for services within a rigidly hierarchical and monarchic social structure, from the king down to the lowliest knight. The system was pyramidal, with the ruler overseeing a multitude of tenants and subtenants across each realm.
How closely does Faery resemble this? We know of fairy kings and queens, obviously, and we know too of the importance of promises and obligations in fairy relationships. However- so far as we know- land, and rights over it, form no part of fairy social dynamics and the fairy hierarchy seems to be very flat- perhaps no more than two levels, comprising the monarch and subjects.
So far as we can tell, British fairy monarchs reigned over no highly structured nation nor over any court in which precedence or rank dominated. Fairy kings and queens were remarkably free of airs and graces. They undertook the most menial chores for themselves- so, for example, the elf king in the ballad Sir Cawline fights his own duels and does not rely on a champion. These kings and queens were not averse to entering sexual relationships with the humblest of humans, either. Margaret Alexander, from Livingston in Scotland, told her 1647 witchcraft trial that the fairy king had taken her as his partner and, even, “laye with her upone the brige” at Linton. Al fresco sex in the highway with a human commoner is about as far from regal as we can imagine.
Sometimes, intermediaries with the human world might be employed, as was the case with Thom Reid who communicated with Bessie Dunlop on behalf of the fairy queen, but any more elaborate organisation than this seems to have been absent. The only exception to this statement is the system of multiple ‘elphin courts’ that’s mentioned in some versions of the ballad of Tam Lin (Child versions D, K & G). In two, we read of three courts including a ‘head court’ that is dressed in green and accompanies the queen. In the third of these renderings, the ranking is more complex, as Tam explains to his human lover, Margret:
“Then the first an court that comes you till
Is published king and queen;
The next an court that comes you till,
It is maidens mony ane.
The next an court that comes you till
Is footmen, grooms and squires;
The next an court that comes you till
Is knights, and I’ll be there.”
In this scheme, we have a very distinct and strict social ordering. Usually, however, the most that we hear of is some servants, as in the ballad of Leesom Brand, in which the hero goes to the fairy court aged ten to act as a server at the king’s table. Of course, such domestic servants were once quite common in a range of households, and implied no great wealth or status.
Faery society is a very flattened pyramid, therefore, and its individual citizens have an almost compete autonomy- it seems. Perhaps the problem is that we lack any adequate word to transliterate the fairy term: Donald McIlmichael, tried at Inverary in 1674, said that he had seen an old man inside the fairy hill he visited who “seemed to have preference above the rest” and “seemed to be chief.” Perhaps there is seniority, priority and respect, but little more than that.
Nevertheless, regardless of the parties, interpersonal relationships in and with Faery are governed by reciprocity. Good deeds should always be repaid, and to the same degree or value. If a fairy loans you some flour, always give exactly the same quality and quantity back. Debts are remembered and will be exacted, even decades later. It will be obvious that you should never enter into any sort of deal with the fairies unless you are able and willing to fulfil your side. Default is not an option.
For more information on fairy governance, see chapter 11 of my book, Faery.
“To thee I plight my troth”- subjects of the Faerie Queene
We know that fairies will taken human lovers, especially the Fairy Queen, and we know too that they may prove possessive and vindictive partners (the leannan shee of the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Man is consistently portrayed this way). One aspect of these relationships that I have not, so far, explored is need, or desire, for the human partner to make a binding commitment to the fairy monarch who is their lover or teacher. Nonetheless, it is a consistent (if not common) aspect of many of these stories- and from an early date.
Medieval examples
In the fifteenth century ballad of Thomas of Erceldoune, the hero is approached by the fairy queen one sunny May day when he is out, walking alone in the countryside. He is instantly taken by her beauty and declares, impetuously, “Here my trouth I plight thee,/ Whedur thou wilt to heven or hell…” Initially, this display of subservience appears to have achieved its purpose, because an extended sex session follows. However, shagging the fairy queen isn’t to be undertaken lightly: once she’s recovered from his over-energetic attentions, the queen declares that he’s going with her to fairyland for the next twelve months. There are no ifs or buts about this: “For thy trowthe thou hast me tane,/ Ayene that may ye make no stryfe.” He’s made an oath and bound himself to her- and now he’s stuck with it.
Something similar is found in Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal. The knight is summoned into the presence of fairy lady Tryamour and once again a commitment is extracted from the human in the hope of getting inside her bodice (as well as becoming wealthy): she tells him “Yf thou wylt truly to me take,/ And alle wemen for me forsake,/ Ryche I wylle make thee…” This more than just a promise of true love from Sir Launfal. He has to pledge to keep their liaison secret, in return for which, as well as her body, he gets a purse full of gold that will never run out.
Scottish cases
These examples from romantic literature are supplemented forcefully by the recorded experiences of men and women suspected of witchcraft in early modern Scotland. It’s a regular, if not frequent, aspect of these cases that contact with the fairies involved some sort of binding commitment by the human. Firstly, in 1576 in Ayrshire Bessie Dunlop admitted that she had met a fairy man called Thom Reid who had asked her to ‘trow’ (trust in) him and give up Christianity, in return for which she would receive livestock and other material assets. She would not do this, but had offered to be true to him in every other way.
Marion Grant of Aberdeen was tried in 1597 for her contacts with a fairy man she called Christsonday. Twelve years previously he had come to her and asked her to call him lord and become his servant- to which Marion consented. Sexual intercourse followed, after which she would be visited by him monthly. She admitted that she worshipped him on her knees and that he had taught her healing powers in return. The next year in the same city Andro Man confessed to a relationship with the fairy queen that had lasted over three decades and had produced a number of children. One sign of his commitment to her had been to kiss her “airss” on Rood-day in harvest the year before.
Margaret Alexander of Livingston in 1647 confessed to a thirty year affair with the fairy king, at the start of which he had required her to renounce her baptism as a demonstration of her commitment to him. Lastly, in 1677 at Inverary, Donald McIlverie was tried for the “horrid crime of corresponding with the devil.” This wasn’t an exchange of letters, of course, but regular visits to a fairy hill where he danced and spoke with the folk living inside. They helped him find stolen goods, in return for which Donald had to agree to keep their involvement secret and, in addition, to tell them his name– which he avoided doing. He knew that this would have bound him irrevocably to them.
More recent examples
Binding promises to the fairies are by no means a thing of the past. They are still to be found in much more recent folklore accounts, although the terms of the commitments seem to have changed somewhat.
In a well-known Scottish story from the nineteenth century, a seal hunter living near John O’Groats is visited one night by a stranger on horse back who urgently wants to agree a sale of seal skins. The hunter readily agrees to go with the man to inspect the skins and climbs up on his horse, but it gallops off at great speed and plunges over a cliff into the sea. They sink down to an underwater realm where the hunter is confronted with a selkie man whom he had seriously injured with his knife earlier that same day. Only the man can heal the wound he has inflicted, which he does (having little option in the circumstances). He is released from the selkies’ cavern, but only after making a solemn oath not to hunt seals again.
In the Scottish story of Whuppity Stoorie a fairy woman cures a family’s sickly pig, but in return she demands their baby- unless they can discover her name. Very close to this is the English tale of Tom Tit Tot, who undertakes to carry out an impossible amount of flax spinning for a young woman, on condition that she will become his- unless she can guess his name.
In the older stories, the pledge to the fairy monarch took the form of a feudal oath of fealty- just as knights would give to their lords and those lords would give to their king. In more modern accounts, it seems that the fairies have moved with the times and the commitment they exact is more contractual in nature: there is an exchange between the parties, however disproportionate the payment demanded by the fairy.
Final Thoughts
When we read about love affairs with fairy partners, whether of short or long duration, we tend to imagine them in terms familiar to us: in other words, we conceive of an exchange of love and affection and an emotional bond between the parties. Such love matches definitely take place between humans and faes, although I suspect that many human males, at least, have an eye to the material advantages to be gained from these partnerships.
As often, though- and most especially in cases where your lover is a faery monarch- the arrangement ought to be viewed more as a transaction or business deal. To repeat what was said earlier, sex with the faery king or queen may not come for free; a binding commitment may be required and this may be couched in terms rather different to those of the marriage vows.
For further information, see my posting on the hierarchical structure of Faery and see chapter seven of my recent book Faery which deals with ‘Faery Society.’
The Good and the Wicked Wichts
In the Miller’s Tale, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the author has carpenter Robyn pronounce this blessing over the student, Nicholas:
“I crouche thee from elves and fro wightes.”
Therwith the nyght-spel seyde he anon-rightes
On foure halves of the hous aboute,
And on the tresshfold of the dore withoute:
“Jhesu Crist and seinte Benedight,
Blesse this hous from every wikked wight,
For nyghtes verye, the white pater-noster!”
Robyn recites a standard formula, seemingly, blessing and protecting the house against both elves and ‘wights.’
What’s a Wight?
What is this strange term that is used as sort of equivalent to elves? A wight (wicht in Scots) can either be a human or some supernatural being, typically of the fairy family. Used to describe people like us, it will be encountered in such phrases as “living wight,” “earthly wight” or “mortal wight.” However, the word can also be found in such phrases as “uneardlie [unearthly] wights” (trial of Stephen Maltman, Gargunnock, 1628).
When applied to supernaturals, the term can encompass ghosts as well as a range of other spirits. For example, Robert of Gloucester (1260-1300) in his chronicle of English history described “As a maner gostes, wiȝtes as it be.”
The main significance, however, is fairies, as is clear from Richard Baxter’s The Certainty of the World of Spirits, published in 1625:
“We are not fully certain whether those Aerial Regions have not a third sort of wights that are neither Angels (Good or Fallen) nor souls of Men, and whether these called Fairies and Goblins are not such.”
What, more than the fact that we are discussing fairies, does the word tell us? Firstly, we might remark that ‘wightling’ means a puppet, so that there may be some sense of a tiny being implied. It does not appear, however, that the word in itself has any sense of either good or bad. Both types of fairy can be called ‘wights.’
Good Fairies
Scottish witch suspect Bessie Dunlop, who was tried in 1576, had an intermediary, a deceased man called Thom Reid, who put her in touch with the fairies. One time he introduced her to a group of a dozen men and women whom he told her were “gude wychtis that wynnit [lived] in the Court of Elfame.” Another time he showed her a group of mounted men that were “gude wichtis that wer rydand [riding] in Middil-ȝerd [Middle Earth].” The Reverend Robert Kirk, in the Secret Commonwealth, referred to the fairies as “subterranean wights” and “invisible wights,” beings who caused a nuisance with their pranks but who were not malicious. (Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, c.12 & ‘Succinct Accompt’ c.8)
This situation is summarised in a traditional Scottish rhyme:
“Gin ye ca’ me imp or elf
I rede ye look weel to yourself;
Gin ye call me fairy
I’ll work ye muckle tarrie;
Gind guid neibour ye ca’ me
Then guid neibour I will be;
But gin ye ca’ me seelie wicht
I’ll be your freend baith day and nicht.” (see my Fairy Ballads)
What’s fascinating about this is the distinction that’s made between “elf or imp,” which are bad, and a “seelie wicht,” a ‘good wight.’ These positive definitions are crowned by a reference in Gavin Douglas’ Aeneid to “hevinly wightis.” When Bartie Paterson of Dalkeith (tried as a witch in 1607) advised a patient to back up the ointment made of green herbs he’d been given with a prayer to Jesus and all “leving wychtis above and under earth,” we have to presume that Bartie believed those wights to be good and, for that matter, godly, beings.
Bad Fairies
Frustratingly, this neat dichotomy is illusory, because ‘wicht’ can imply a malign fairy just as much as a good one. Wicked wights are as likely to be members of the ‘unseelie court’ as to be benign. Emphasising how slippery and imprecise the usage can be, we have this remark from the trial of Margaret Sandiesoun on Orkney in April 1635 for witchcraft and sorcery. She was reported to have refused to try to cure a sickly child because “he was takin away be the guid wichtis in the cradle.” The baby has been abducted- so calling the fairies ‘good’ is clearly force of habit, and a nervous deference, and bears no accurate relationship to their actual behaviour.
We meet the seelie and unseelie court again in a lecture given by William Hay in 1564 in which he warned that:
“there are certain women who do say that they have dealings with Diana the queen of fairies. There are others who say that the fairies are demons, and deny having any dealings with them, and say that they hold meetings with a countless multitude of simple women whom they call in our tongue ‘celly vichtys’ [seelie wichts].”
For example, in 1661 a midwife from Dalkeith in Midlothian admitted that, when women were in childbed, she would place a knife under the mattress, sprinkle the bed with salt and then pray for God to “let never a worse wight waken thee…” A woman called Margaret Dickson of Pencaitland in 1643 treated a changeling child who had been taken by “evill wichts.” Edinburgh woman Jonet Boyman in 1572 explained to a family that their child had died because the “sillyie wichts” had found it unsained [unblessed] one day and had blasted it. Lastly, Gargunnock folk healer Stephen Maltman appeared before a church court in 1626 and admitted that he had told a woman how to prevent ‘earthly and unearthly wights’ stealing the milk from her cows.
The dual meaning of the term is underlined by the Reverend Kirk, who also wrote in his book about “fearful wights” and “furious hardie wights,” from whom people might protect themselves with iron. Writing around the same time as Kirk, George Sinclair in Satan’s Invisible World Discovered made reference to prayers for protection from an “ill wight.” (Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, chapters 15, 12 & 4)
Lastly, underlining all these negative associations, in 1836 Robert Allan in Evening Hours bravely declared: “O, what care I for warlock wights,/ Or bogles in the glen at e’en.”
Fairies and stolen goods
Fairies dancing near their hill, the door of which stands open
Readers will, by now I’m sure, be very familiar with the idea that fairies are inveterate thieves of human property. In this post, I’ll challenge those preconceptions to some degree, and look at cases where they help us to retrieve items that we have lost or have been stolen.
The information we have on this is fairly limited and, unfortunately, all of it comes from the context of criminal trials, in which the defendant faced an allegation of witchcraft or something similar.
Fairy Knowledge
Most of the cases date from the sixteenth century. The first concerns a woman from London, known to us only as “Mrs Croxton”, who lived in St Giles parish in the city in 1549. All we know about her is that she offered to help find lost items, and this without the use of any charms or other magical techniques; instead, “she only speaketh with the fayrayes.”
About a decade and a half later a man called John Walsh was examined on suspicion of witchcraft in Dorset. He had visited the fairies at their hills, either at noon or midnight, and acquired a range of information from them. They told him who had been bewitched and they could also help him locate stolen goods. With the fairies’ aid he had recovered several stolen horses, he claimed, and denied doing harm to anyone.
Scottish witches, with the devil and fairies under a knowe.
Witches’ Wisdom
The next example dates from 1576. Bessie Dunlop, of Irvine in Scotland, was arrested after she had offered to help a man retrieve a stolen cloak. Before this, she had been very active, it appears, identifying the whereabouts of stolen property and naming the culprits. Her clientele ranged across the social spectrum including Lady Blair and Lady Thirdpart. Bessie derived her abilities from a fairy man called Tom Reid, who had first approached her when she was alone in a field one day in 1572. In consultation with Tom, Bessie was able to discover what had happened to the stolen goods and was also able to diagnose and offer cures for a range of illnesses. Despite the good she appeared to have done within her community, Bessie was convicted of witchcraft and was strangled and then burned on November 8th 1576.
A century later (November 1677) a vagrant man called Donald McIlmichall was put on trial at the Tollbooth in Inveraray. Initially the charge against him had been the theft of a cow, but it turned out on examination that he claimed to have visited the fairies under their hill on frequent occasions, joining their dances or providing the music for them. This was all supposed to be kept secret. When he told a friend of his visits, he had been stricken in the cheek by way of punishment.
Donald asked the fairies about the whereabouts of two horses stolen at Leismore and they were able to advise him. They also voluntarily gave him information about a number of other stolen items, whose owners he duly informed. Nonetheless, for the “horrid cryme of corresponding with the devil and consulting with him anent stolen goods and getting information for their discovery,” Donald was hanged and his goods forfeit.
These stories make for depressing reading, but much Scottish fairy information derives from witch trials, few of which ended happily for the victims. What can we drive from these other than a sense of the human tragedy and cruelty involved?
Summary & further reading
Firstly, it seems fairly clear that the stolen goods involved weren’t stolen by the fays: the culprits were humans whose offences were exposed by supernatural means. The fairies did plenty of stealing (food, mainly) but they don’t seem to have been betraying themselves here.
Secondly, this knowledge of secret acts has to be derived from the fairies’ powers of second sight. We know already that the fays can see into the future; it asks a lot less to imagine that they might be aware of what is happening currently, or has happened, in a human community around them. This readiness to tell tales about people seems to be related to the fairies tendency to prefer some individuals over others, with gifts of money and skills. The people who could assist others in their village or town, recovering for them lost property, would have gained prestige and, doubtless, rewards. Indirectly, then, the fairies were bestowing wealth and fortune on those they favoured.
Fairy cures and potions
I have previously paid some attention to fairy healing, but I’ve recently gathered together a range of evidence on the types of cures and medicines that people have got from the fairies and it made sense to sort and arrange these to give a you a full idea of the sorts of methods and ingredients used.
There are a number of key elements or procedures regularly found in the cures, which are as follows.
Herbs
As a primarily rural people, it is far from surprising that the fays tend to use commonly found plants to make their potions. Frequently we’re only told that ‘herbs’ were used, made into drinks and salves, but sometimes we are given more detail than just reading that they were “divers green herbs” which doesn’t help much at all. Suspected witch, Isobel Stirling, used rowan in her cures; Elspeth Reoch used yarrow to cure nosebleeds; Bessie Dunlop was given something like the root of a beet by her fairy adviser and was told to cook it and make it into a salve or dry it and powder it. Katherine Cragie was tried on Orkney in 1643 for both curing and inflicting illnesses; she treated those stricken by the trows with an application of foxglove leaves (the plant was called ‘Trowis Glove’ on Orkney at this time; it is not a practice to be imitated given the toxicity of the plant). Nonetheless, Jonnet Miller of Kirkcudbright, tried in May 1658, also treated a dumb man with foxglove leaves in water from a south running stream. Isobel Haldane of Perth was tried in 1623 for making charms, a skill she claimed to have been taught by the fairies. She attempted to drive out a ‘shargie bairn’ (a changeling) using a drink made from ‘sochsterrie’ leaves (possibly star-grass); the infant died (which may or may not have been a successful cure). Lastly, in 1716, Farquhar Ferguson of Arran was tried before a church court for practising charms: one of his medicinal drinks was made from agrimony.
A range of illnesses would be treated with herbs. For such maladies as “ane evill blast of wind” or being “elf-grippit” (having a fairy attack or seizure) Bessie Dunlop had a variety of cures. She would mix assorted herbs together to feed to sick cattle; illnesses in people might be cured by ointments or by powders (which were presumably ingested); during her examination in court she added that if the patient “sweated out” the treatment, they would not recover. Just like Bessie, Jonet Morrisone from the isle of Bute healed a little girl who’d been ‘blasted with the faryes’ using herbs. Rather like Bessie, too, she told the court at her trial in 1662 that treatment in time should guarantee recovery, but if she was consulted too late, the patient might still “shirpe” (shrivel or wither) away.
Alesoun Peirsoun treated the Bishop of St Andrews for trembling fever, palpitations, weakness in the joints and the flux with a herbal ointment which she rubbed into his cheeks, neck, breast, stomach and side. Alesoun had spent seven years visiting the faery court in Elfame and had seen the ‘good neighbours’ making their salves in pans over fires, using herbs they had picked before sunrise.
Herbs seemed to do more than cure illness in livestock and people, though. Janet Weir of Edinburgh told her trial in April 1670 that her fairy helper, a woman who would intercede on Janet’s behalf with the fairy queen, also gave her a piece of tree or herb root which allowed her to “doe what she should desyre.”
Edward Frederick Brewtnall, A visit to the witch
Food
The herbal remedies just discussed as often hard to separate from those involving food stuffs, some everyday ingredients, others rather more expensive and harder to come by. For instance, Alesoun Peirsoun also treated the Bishop with a medicinal broth made from ewe’s milk, wood-ruff and other herbs, claret and the liquor of boiled hen, which he had to drink over two successive days- a quart at a time. Bessie Dunlop made a similar preparation. She was approached for help by a young gentlewoman who suffered from ‘cold blood’ and fainting fits, for which she prescribed a potion made from ginger, cloves, aniseed and liquorice mixed in strong ale and taken with sugar in the mornings before eating. Margaret Dicksone of Pencaitland used eggs and meal to drive out a changeling- perhaps more of a charm than a cure, just as was the case with the aforementioned Elspeth Reoch. She acquired the second sight by means of boiling an egg on three successive Sundays and using the ‘sweat’ that formed on the egg to wash her hands and then rub on her eyes.
The vicar of Warlingham in Surrey in the early seventeenth century recorded a range of cures that had apparently been taught to him “by the fayries.” Some of them involved the shedding and use of blood (quite common in magical remedies), others used food and herbs together. For example:
- To cure boils, blotches and carbuncles, take the ripe berries of ivy growing on a north facing wall, dry them, powder them and then give as much as will cover a groat coin in a glass of wine. The patient should be rubbed til they sweat and then put to bed in fresh sheets and clothes. They will be well by morning;
- To make a tooth fall out- mix wheat meal with spurge and put the paste in the hollow of the tooth. Given that spurge sap is acidic, this would certainly have had some sort of effect; and,
- For those who are forespoken or bewitched- take three sprigs of rosemary, two comfrey leaves, half a handful of succory, half a handful of thyme and three sprigs of herb grace. Seethe these in a quart of water taken from a stream and then strain. Flavour with nutmeg, ginger, mace and sugar and drink warm, followed by five almonds.
Water
I’ve discussed before how water can have magical properties. For example, from Shetland there come several accounts of trows using ‘kapps’ (wooden bowls) to pour water over patients during healing ceremonies. The implement and the liquid were both important apparently (Saxby, Shetland traditional lore, p.151).
This is very often seen in the fairy-taught healing procedures. Margaret Alexander from Livingstone used well water combined with charms to cure sick people. Likewise, Isobel Haldane, who lived in Perthshire, took water from wells and burns and in it washed the shirts of her patients. A woman called Jonet Boyman from Edinburgh would also diagnose sickness using a patient’s shirt, taking it to a well on Arthur’s Seat just outside the city. Jonet had first acquired her healing skills by going to the well and raising a whirlwind, from which emerged a fairy man who taught her.
Earlier I mentioned Jonnet Miller, from Kirkcudbright, and it’s worth repeating here that one of her remedies (at least) required water taken from a stream that ran southwards. Stein Maltman of Stirling told his 1628 trial that he made several different uses of water in his cures. He boiled elf-shot in water from a south flowing stream and either had a patient drink it or bathe in it; in another case he had a man bathe himself in such a stream having first diagnosed his illness by reciting charms over one of the man’s shirts. Margaret Dicksone, mentioned just now, also treated a suspected changeling child by washing it- and its shirt- in a south-flowing stream.
Rituals and other items
Our last category involves a mixture of odd materials that were considered to have medicinal effect. Catharine Caray from Orkney diagnosed and cured the sick using thread, charms and stones to cure physical and spiritual illnesses. For example, the thread might be tied on with an invocation of the holy trinity and the words “’bone to bone, synnew to synnew, and flesche to flesche, and bluid to bluid.” Threads, often red in colour, were regularly used to protect cattle and children from fairy attacks. Bessie Dunlop, for example, was given a green silk thread by her fairy helper, Thom Reid, with which she assisted women in childbirth.
Suspected witch Andro Man was tried at Aberdeen in 1598. He used several methods to cure animals: he hit them with birds but he also employed salt and black wool. A sick man was cured by passing him nine times through a length of yarn, and then transferring the illness from that to a cat. He would invoke St John and use other holy words in Latin borrowed from Catholic liturgy; he stopped oxen from running away using ‘lax water’ (possibly water from a salmon stream or in which salmon had been cooked). Lastly, he protected fields of corn by placing four stones at each corner.
Treatment by passing patients through hanks of yarn was also practised by Isobel Haldane, by Janet Trall from near Perth- who then cut up the yarn into nine parts and buried it in three different places- and by Thomas Geace of Fife, who burned the yarn afterwards. I assume that this has some relation to the use of girdles in diagnosing sickness.
Stein Maltman, mentioned in the last section, had learned his healing skills from the “fairie folk,” whom he often saw, and they supplied him with a repertoire of cures. He rubbed some patients with elf-shot; over others he waved a drawn sword, on the basis that the naked iron would scare the malignant fairies away; finally he advised some of those who consulted him to return to the spots where they felt they had picked up their infections, there to pray for healing.
