Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

Occasionally these little people are not content with stealing babies, but would run off with men; as Nea, of the golden hair, did the Irish Fenian warrior. The busy Maakiset, who worked underground, were more worthy of offerings than the Kapeet, who caused eclipses by catching hold of the moon. It is discreet always to speak well of

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fairies, as they listen without being seen. Their females look after men, as their males look after women.

They have kings and queens. Oberon or Elberich was a king, and Titania a queen. The Irish say that Don, the Milesian leader, drowned in a storm raised by the Tuaths, became a King of the Fays. Inis Mananain, now Isle of Man, was so called from Mananan, an ancient chief transformed to a royal Sidhe. Mab, daughter of King Eochaidh Faidhleach, became Queen of the Fairies, being more than immortalized in Spenser's Fairy Queen. Another King of the Fairies was the Tuath Fionnbharr. The Welsh Fairy King was Gwyh ab Nudd.

As these spirits of air, earth, and water are numerous, it is a comfort to learn from the Talmud that, while the bad ones are exactly 7,405,926, the good ones number, in the rougher estimate, I,064,340,000,000,000.

.Black fairies are not conspicuous, unless in the mines. The Maories of New Zealand assure us that their merry little fays are not of their dark colour, but fair like Englishmen. They love the hills of Waikato. A chief, frightened of them, took off his ornaments, and gave them away. As soon as they finished their song, as he told the tale, they took the shadows of the Maori's earrings, and handed them about from one to the other.

As all know, the Fairies, or Peris, are suffering from some misconduct in happier climes. Christian tradition holds to their final redemption.

Irish fairies are thus mourned for by D. F. McCarthy:--

"Ah! the pleasant time hath vanished ere our wretched doubtings banished
All the graceful spirit people, children of the earth and sea--
Whom in days now dim and olden, when the world was fresh and golden,
Every mortal could behold in haunted rath and tower and tree--
They have vanished, they are banished. Ah I how sad the loss for thee."

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