I will now proceed in Mr. Davies' words, heading each incident with the title given it in the collec
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore
- Reference
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore · selected passage 134
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
At last one day she found herself summoned to the fairy country on an errand as nurse to the wife of one of their princes, who lived in a palace magnificent to a degree that exceeds earthly language to express
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 onlyAt last one day she found herself summoned to the fairy country on an errand as nurse to the wife of one of their princes, who lived in a palace magnificent to a degree that exceeds earthly language to express. There were splendid ornaments, costly pearls, a golden pavement, partitions hung with silks of varying hue, and the garments of the people all changing white and blue. Indeed the old woman was puzzled to describe the splendours of the house, clothes and so on. There was installed the nurse, and her charge, the fairy infant, slept on a bed of down, with coverings of the finest lawn. Everything she wanted was complete and at hand. The nurse was amazed at such perfection, and astonished that a person like herself should have been summoned by such princely people. While tending the baby night and morning, she had to anoint him with a certain ointment. When this ointment was given her, she was told to be careful not to let it touch the eyes, as it was injurious and even destructive to the sight. At first her fear of the ointment caused her to be very careful in using it, but as time went by she grew forgetful.
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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