fairies, I was told, if he had only taken care to put a pinch of salt in the fish's mouth before setting out, for the Manx fairies cannot stand salt or baptism. So children that have been baptized are, as in Wales, less liable to be kidnapped by these elves than those that have not. I scarcely need add that a twig of cuirn[1] or rowan is also as effective against fairies in Man as it is against them in Wales. Manx fairies seem to have been musical, like their kinsmen elsewhere; for I have heard of an Orrisdale man crossing the neighbouring mountains at night and hearing fairy music, which took his fancy so much that he listened, and tried to remember it. He had, however, to return, it is said, three times to the place before he could carry it away complete in his mind, which he succeeded in doing at last just as the day was breaking and the musicians disappearing. This air, I am told, is now known by the name of the Bollan Bane, or White Wort. I believe that there are certain Welsh airs similarly supposed to have been derived from the fairies.
So far I have pointed out hardly anything but similarities between Manx fairies and Welsh ones, and I find very little indicative of a difference. First, with regard to salt, I am unable to say anything in this direction, as I do not happen to know how Welsh fairies regard salt; it is not improbable that they eschew salt as well as baptism, especially as the Church of Rome has long associated salt with baptism. There is, however, one point at least of difference between the fairies of Man and of Wales: the latter are, so far as I can call to mind, never known to
- ↑ The Manx word for the rowan-tree, incorrectly called a mountain ash, is cuirn, which is in Irish caorihihaintn, Scotch Gaelic caorunn; but in Welsh books it is cerddin, singular cerddinen, and in the spoken language mostly cerdin, cerding, singular cerdingen. This variation seems to indicate that these words have been borrowed by the Welsh from a Goidelic source; but the berry is known in Wales by the native name of criafol, from which the wood is frequently called, especially in North Wales, coed criafol, singular coeden griafol.
