Lizanne Henderson - Scottish Fairy Belief

SCOTTISH FAIRY BELIEF

Scottish Fairy Belief

A History

Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan

This eBook was published in Great Britain in 2022 by John Donald,

an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by John Donald

Copyright Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan, 2001

eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 433 7

The right of Lizanne Henderson and Edward J. Cowan to be identified as the authors of this book has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Strathmartine Trust towards the publication of this book

Contents

Plates

Tables

Figures

Acknowledgements

Although they conjure images of ethereal, and, in the minds of some, small creatures, the fairies of Scotland represent rather a colossal subject which tends to grow on acquaintance. We are conscious that we could have spent much more time in search of them and that, as in the best fairy tales, all has not been quite resolved at the end.

Part of the research for this book was carried out at the Folklore Department of Memorial University, St. Johns, Newfoundland. L.H. owes many thanks to her supervisors, the late David Buchan, and Martin Lovelace, for their encouragement and many helpful comments. She is also indebted to Louise Yeoman, Miceal Ross, and Joyce Miller. E.J.C. has been exploring fairy belief as a reflection of folk mentalit for longer than he cares to admit. He is grateful to students at the universities of Guelph and Glasgow for their invaluable participation in the quest. Theo van Heijnsbergen, Cathair Dochartaigh and Douglas Gifford all most generously gave advice on literary matters. Needless to say, the authors alone are responsible for the errors that undoubtedly remain.

The friendly assistance of the staff at the National Archives of Scotland, the University of Guelph Librarys Scottish Collection, Stirling Archive and of Special Collections at Glasgow University Library has been greatly appreciated. We also thank John and Val Tuckwell for their faith and interest in this project.

Lizanne Henderson

Ted Cowan

Glasgow, 2001

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION:

Beware the Lychnobious People

who in the sixteenth century lacked familiarity with angels and demons? Who did not carry inside himself a strange, phantasmagorical universe haunted by strange species?

Lucien Febvre

The world is full of spirits. As thick as atomes in the air, wrote Robert Kirk in 1691, they populate every nook and cranny. They are no nonentities or phantasms, creatures, proceeding from ane affrighted apprehensione confused or crazed sense, but realities. Not all tales of pygmies, fairies, nymphs, sirens, or apparitions can be true, but so many are the stories, and so universally told, that surely they could not spring of nothing? The Reverend Kirk believed the fairies to be one of several orders of spirits inhabiting the world. To him, and the many others who shared his views, the fairies were just another species awaiting scientific analysis like the many animals, birds and insects that were being discovered as the worlds horizons widened.

This book seeks to investigate the nature of Scottish fairy belief from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries and aims to reach some conclusions about the role of fairies as a cultural phenomenon. Despite J. R. R Tolkiens cautionary observation that farie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable though not imperceptible, we attempt to describe as well as perceive. Most of the tropes and metaphors associated with the fairy experience are by no means unique to Scotland, but are found throughout the length and breadth of Europe with analogues much further afield. The pantomime question annually roared at laughing children, Do you believe in fairies? would have baffled people in pre-industrial societies; everybody did, for the contrary was unthinkable. The only dispute concerned what fairies represented, questions of whether the guid neighbours were manifestations of divine providence or the legions of hell. As late as the 1840s sober ministers compiling their parish reports for the New Statistical Account were quite capable of suggesting that just as the capercaillie or the pine marten had not been seen in their districts for seventy years, neither had the fairies. Consideration of the latter affords an opportunity, too seldom available or seized in historical investigation, to explore the