Old Broad Street.
_Fairies._--An Irish servant of mine, a native of Galway, gave me the
following relations:--Her father was a blacksmith and for his many acts
of benevolence to benighted travellers became a great favourite with the
fairies, who paid him many visits. It was customary for the fairies to
visit his forge at night, after the family had retired to rest, and here
go to work in such right good earnest, as to complete, on all occasions,
the work which had been left overnight unfinished. The family were on
these occasions awoke from their slumber by the vigorous puffing of
bellows, and hammering on anvil, consequent upon these illustrious
habits of the fairies, and it was an invariable rule for the fairies to
replace all the tools they had used during the night; and, moreover, if
the smithy had been left in confusion the previous evening, the "good
people" always arranged it, swept the floor, and restored everything to
order before the morning. I never could glean from her any detailed
instances of the labour accomplished in this way, or indeed anything
which might aid in the formation of an estimate of the relative skill of
the fairies in manual labour; and I must confess that on these subjects
I never question too closely,--the reader will know why.
On one occasion, one of the family happening to be unwell, the father
went back to the smithy at midnight for some medicine which had been
left there on the shelf, and put the "good people" to flight, just as
they had begun their industrial orgies. To disturb the fairies is at any
time a perilous thing; and so it proved to him: for a fat pig died the
following day, little Tike had the measles, too, after, and no end of
misfortunes followed. In addition to this occult revenge, the inmates of
the house were kept awake for several nights by a noise similar to that
which would be produced by peas being pelted at the windows. The
statement was made with an earnestness of manner which betrayed a faith
without scruples.