3 1 4 Collectanea.
On Inisbofin and Inishark tales are told of fairy blight, and (like in Munster) when an eddy of wind and dust reaches you, you should take off your hat and say, "Good morning" or " Good evening," for fairies are in the sidedn or fairy blast. There is no concealment as to the meaning of the act, though the young people are shy, fearing ridicule. Lady Ferguson gives cases (one, I think, from these islands) but she does not give clearly the localities of her stories or their periods, most important for their value. A pretty little girl was busy in a turnip field when a blast swept by and chilled her. She began to pine away, and her people made her worse by ill-treating her to expel the fairy possession, regarding her as a changeling. At last a " wise woman " was consulted, and bade her family dip her in a boghole every day for a fortnight in the name of the Trinity and of the Saints. The cure was completely successful.^ A more tragic story is told (somewhere in Mayo), where a " wasting man " used to be locked up at home while his family were at the Mass. Someone said he had escaped and had been seen "bowing in a field" in their absence, so they, abusing and threatening to burn him, forced him to go out into the field, where he lay down and was soon after found to be dead. 2
Lieut. Henri found on Inisbofin (before 1838) a belief in Inishbofin that the hills were full of fairies, who could be heard " romping and carousing inside." They carried off children, robbed dairies of milk and butter, and they could be killed by a stab with a black-handled knife. One, more wily and dangerous than the rest, caused a shower of herrings to fall in order to tempt a man to eat fairy food.* Had the man yielded he should have lived with his deceiver till the day of judgment.
One man, who fortunately for himself was wearing a scapular and carrying a black-hafted knife, was passing a rath (early ring mound), when an obtrusive fairy came out with a " fiagger " (leaf of yellow iris) and hit him on the face ; the man struck
' Ancient Cures, etc., Lady Wilde, p. 155. "^Ancient Legends, etc., Lady Wilde, p. 72.
^ Erris and 'I'yrawley, p. 397. The Dind Senchas tells of a wonderful shower of fish near Clew Bay.
