Читать книгу Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. Collected Entirely from Oral Sources онлайн
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Sireach, plur. sirich, also sibhrich, is a provincial term; an siriche du, ‘the black elf,’ i.e. the veriest elf.
Sithbheire (pronounced sheevere), a masculine noun, is mostly applied to changelings, or the elf substituted for children and animals taken by the Fairies. Applied to men it is very contemptuous.
Siochaire is still more so. Few expressions of scorn are more commonly applied to men than siochaire grannda, “ugly slink.”
Duine sìth (plur. daoine sìth), ‘a man of peace, a noiselessly moving person, a fairy, an elf’; fem. Bean shìth (gen. mna sìth, plur. mnathan sìth, gen. plur. with the article nam ban shìth), ‘a woman of peace, an Elle woman,’ are names that include the whole Fairy race. Bean shìth has become naturalized in English under the form Banshi. The term was introduced from Ireland, but there appears no reason to suppose the Irish belief different from that of the Scottish Highlands. Any seeming difference has arisen since the introduction of the Banshi to the literary world, and from the too free exercise of imagination by book-writers on an imperfectly understood tradition.