The _Sidhe_, or spirit race, called also the _Feadh-Ree_ or fairies,
are supposed to have been once angels in heaven, who were cast out by
Divine command as a punishment for their inordinate pride.
Some fell to earth, and dwelt there, long before man was created, as
the first gods of the earth. Others fell into the sea, and they built
themselves beautiful fairy palaces of crystal and pearl underneath the
waves; but on moonlight nights they often come up on the land, riding
their white horses, and they hold revels with their fairy kindred of
the earth, who live in the clefts of the hills, and they dance together
on the greensward under the ancient trees, and drink nectar from the
cups of the flowers, which is the fairy wine.
Other fairies, however, are demoniacal, and given to evil and malicious
deeds; for when cast out of heaven they fell into hell, and there the
devil holds them under his rule, and sends them forth as he wills
upon missions of evil to tempt the souls of men downward by the false
glitter of sin and pleasure. These spirits dwell under the earth
and impart their knowledge only to certain evil persons chosen of
the devil, who gives them power to make incantations, and brew love
potions, and to work wicked spells, and they can assume different forms
by their knowledge and use of certain magical herbs.
The witch women who have been taught by them, and have thus become
tools of the Evil One, are the terror of the neighbourhood; for they
have all the power of the fairies and all the malice of the devil, who
reveals to them secrets of times and days, and secrets of herbs, and
secrets of evil spells; and by the power of magic they can effect all
their purposes, whether for good or ill.
The fairies of the earth are small and beautiful. They passionately
love music and dancing, and live luxuriously in their palaces under the
hills and in the deep mountain caves; and they can obtain all things
lovely for their fairy homes, merely by the strength of their magic
power. They can also assume all forms, and will never know death until
the last day comes, when their doom is to vanish away—to be annihilated
for ever. But they are very jealous of the human race who are so tall
and strong, and to whom has been promised immortality. And they are
often tempted by the beauty of a mortal woman and greatly desire to
have her as a wife.
The children of such marriages have a strange mystic nature, and
generally become famous in music and song. But they are passionate,
revengeful, and not easy to live with. Every one knows them to be of
the Sidhe or spirit race, by their beautiful eyes and their bold,
reckless temperament.
The fairy king and princes dress in green, with red caps bound on
the head with a golden fillet. The fairy queen and the great court
ladies are robed in glittering silver gauze, spangled with diamonds,
and their long golden hair sweeps the ground as they dance on the
greensward.
Their favourite camp and resting-place is under a hawthorn tree, and
a peasant would die sooner than cut down one of the ancient hawthorns
sacred to the fairies, and which generally stands in the centre of a
fairy ring. But the people never offer worship to these fairy beings,
for they look on the Sidhe as a race quite inferior to man. At the same
time they have an immense dread and fear of the mystic fairy power, and
never interfere with them nor offend them knowingly.
The Sidhe often strive to carry off the handsome children, who are then
reared in the beautiful fairy palaces under the earth, and wedded to
fairy mates when they grow up.
The people dread the idea of a fairy changeling being left in the
cradle in place of their own lovely child; and if a wizened little
thing is found there, it is sometimes taken out at night and laid in
an open grave till morning, when they hope to find their own child
restored, although more often nothing is found save the cold corpse of
the poor outcast.
Sometimes it is said the fairies carry off the mortal child for a
sacrifice, as they have to offer one every seven years to the devil
in return for the power he gives them. And beautiful young girls are
carried off, also, either for sacrifice or to be wedded to the fairy
king.
The fairies are pure and cleanly in their habits, and they like above
all things a pail of water to be set for them at night, in case they
may wish to bathe.
They also delight in good wines, and are careful to repay the donor in
blessings, for they are truly upright and honest. The great lords of
Ireland, in ancient times, used to leave a keg of the finest Spanish
wine frequently at night out on the window-sill for the fairies, and in
the morning it was all gone.
Fire is a great preventative against fairy magic, for fire is the
most sacred of all created things, and man alone has power over it.
No animal has ever yet attained the knowledge of how to draw out
the spirit of fire from the stone or the wood, where it has found a
dwelling-place. If a ring of fire is made round cattle or a child’s
cradle, or if fire is placed under the churn, the fairies have no power
to harm. And the spirit of the fire is certain to destroy all fairy
magic, if it exist.