Читать книгу Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. Collected Entirely from Oral Sources онлайн

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The accusation of taking milk is unjust. It is brought against the elves only in books, and never in the popular creed. The Fairies take cows, sheep, goats, horses, and it may be the substance or benefit (toradh) of butter and cheese, but not milk.

Many devices were employed to thwart Fairy inroads. A burning ember (eibhleag) was put into ‘sowens’ (cabhruich), one of the weakest and most unsubstantial articles of human food and very liable to Fairy attack. It was left there till the dish was ready for boiling, i.e. about three days after. A sieve should not be allowed out of the house after dark, and no meal unless it be sprinkled with salt. Otherwise, the Fairies may, by means of them, take the substance out of the whole farm produce. For the same reason a hole should be put with the finger in the little cake (bonnach beag ’s toll ann), made with the remnant of the meal after a baking, and when given to children, as it usually is, a piece should be broken off it. A nail driven into a cow, killed by falling over a precipice, was supposed by the more superstitious to keep the elves away.