The fairies entered largely into the lives and into the folk-lore of the Highland people, and the following…
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
- Reference
- The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries · selected passage 136
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English with translated testimony
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The fairies entered largely into the lives and into the folk-lore of the Highland people, and the following examples of things named after the fairies indicate the manner in which the fairies dominated the minds of the people of Gaeldom:--teine sith, 'fairy fire' (ignis fatuus); breaca sith, 'fairy marks,' livid spots …
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe fairies entered largely into the lives and into the folk-lore of the Highland people, and the following examples of things named after the fairies indicate the manner in which the fairies dominated the minds of the people of Gaeldom:--_teine sith_, 'fairy fire' (_ignis fatuus_); _breaca sith_, 'fairy marks,' livid spots appearing on the faces of the dead or dying; _marcachd shith_, 'fairy riding,' paralysis of the spine in animals, alleged to be brought on by the fairy mouse riding across the backs of animals while they are lying down; _piob shith_, 'fairy pipe' or 'elfin pipe', generally found in ancient underground houses; _miaran na mna sithe_, 'the thimble of the fairy woman,' the fox-glove; _lion na mna sithe_, 'lint of the fairy woman,' fairy flax, said to be beneficial in certain illnesses; and _curachan na mna sithe_, 'coracle of the fairy woman,' the shell of the blue valilla. In place-names _sith_, 'fairy,' is common. Glenshee, in Perthshire, is said to have been full of fairies, but the screech of the steam-whistle frightened them underground. There is scarcely a district of the Highlands without its fairy knoll, generally the greenest hillock in the place.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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