LL-L "Folklore" 2002.08.21 (08) [E/S]

Wed Aug 21 20:17:21 UTC 2002

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 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Folklore"

> From: "Steven Travers" <steven_travers at hotmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2002.08.20 (16) [E]
>
> I'm not sure but I think that the name Brownie comes from green being
> the faery colour and most faeries dressing so, but
> some kinds also dressing in brown, and this being one of them. There are
> a few different kinds of Brownies, and some
> other similar faeries. One has a ryme either to call or to praise it.
> I'll have a look and see if I can find it.

That's an interesting idea. Whuppity Stourie (that I mentioned
as being the Scots equivalent of Rumpelstiltskin) is certainly
a fairy and she dresses in green. On the other hand, Aiken Drum
is certainly a brownie and he's described as wearing only a "a
philabeg o the rashes green" (a kilt made from green rushes).
Of course you can't expect every storyteller to stick to convention!

In classifying Scottish mythology the first distinction you
have to make is between the lore of the Highlands, where
fairies are generally ethereal, and the lore of the Lowlands,
where they're generally physical. This "greenness" my not be
possible as a characteristic of a Highland fairy's dress
("cobwebbiness" might be!).

Here's a particularly interesting description of Lowland
fairies from "A Forgotten Heritage", that I quoted previously:

<quote>
We have it from Allan Cunningham, who carried out his researches
among the old folk of Nithsdale in the early nineteenth century,
that their bread tasted of honey and wine, but they also enjoyed
silverweed and the tops of young heather shoots.  He learned from
those who claimed to have seen them that the fairies were a
fair-haired race, small but well-proportioned, dressed in green
mantles inlaid with wild flowers, and equipped with bog-reed
arrows carried in quivers of adder skin and tipped with poison.

These were the trooping fairies, distinct from the domestic
groups.  The high occasions of their year came with the Fairy
Rade or Flitting.  In Aberfoyle this took place on the last
night of every quarter and was only visible to those with second
sight.  In Nithsdale the event was expected at Roodmas and warily
observed by the village folk from houses protected by rowan
branches.  A vivid account by one who forgot to be wary is worth
quoting for its language alone.  Allan Cunningham got it from an
old woman of Nithsdale, born about 172O:

"I' the nicht afore Roodsmass I had trysted wi a neeber lass to
talk anent buying braws i' the Fair.  We had nae sutten lang aneath
the hawbuss till we heard the laugh o fowk riding, wi the jingle
o bridles and the clank o hoofs.  We kent nae but it was fowk
riding to the Fair i' the fore-nicht, but we glowered roon' an' saw
it was the Fairy Fowk's Rade.  We cowered doon to watch.  A leam o
licht was dancin ower them mair bonny than moonshine: they were a'
wee, wee fowk, wi green scarves, but ane that rade foremaist.  That
ane was langer than the lave, wi bonny lang hair bun' aboot wi a
strap whilk glented like stars.  They rade on braw wee white naigs
wi unco lang swoopin tails and manes hung wi whustles that the
wun' played on.  They rade ower a high hedge o haw-trees into a
field o corn an gallop't into a green knowe beyont it.  We gaed
in the morning to look at the tredded corn, but the fient a hoof
mark was there nor a blade broken."
</quote>

It's not really true to say that the "green" fairies are bad in
Scottish folklore - they're dangerous, but it's not really their
fault. One of the big problems with fairies is when they change
a human child for an unfortunate creature of their own, or, like
Whuppity Stourie, demand a human child in return for a favour.
However, it's usually acknowledged that fairies have very different
laws and customs and it may be inappropriate to judge.

Another aspect of Lowland fairies is that they became extinct
circa 1790, as shown by the stories about the last days of the
fairies:

<quote>
ABOUT the year 1850 a Galloway roadman refused point-blank to
obey the County Council's order to widen the highway at a certain
point between Glenluce and Newton Stewart by cutting down an
ancient thorn reputed to be fairy property.  Authority was
tolerant, and the tree remained, standing well out on the road
and impeding traffic for another seventy years, a witness to the
fear of uncanny reprisals.

But Galloway was exceptional.  In less isolated parts of the
Lowlands the fairies' day was done by the late eighteenth century.
Brooding on their disappearance, an old woman came to the regretful
conclusion that "there was sae much preaching, and folk reading the
Bible that they got frichted", and no doubt this was one reason,
though the Reformation seems scarcely to have daunted them--witness
their attempt to infiltrate the Kirk Session of Borgue.  It was
with the agricultural revolution that the hour struck: their
dancing rings ploughed, their green hills sown with grain, their
existence not so much denied as ignored.

             Where the scythe cuts and the sock rives
             Hae duin wi fairies and bee bykes . . .

It was total defeat, and yet the fairies contrived to surrender
on their own terms, staging a ceremonial departure, widely
observed and pinned firmly to the margin of history by a date
which--apart from Galloway--is roughly the same throughout
Scotland.  Whatever took place, or was imagined, round about
the year 1790, descriptions of it recorded as far apart as
Nithsdale and Caithness are detailed, vivid and surprisingly
alike.  Invested with a curious atmosphere of mystery and
regret, it is known as the Fairies' Farewell.
</quote>

There are many stories about this, but here's one of my
favourites, told by Robert Oliver, a shepherd on Jed Water
who died about 1820:

I can tell ye about the vera last fairy that was seen hereaway.

When my faither was a young man he lived at Hyndlee an herdit
the Brocklaw.  Weel, it was the custom to milk the yowes in thae
days, an my faither was buchtin the Brocklaw yowes to twae
young, lish, clever hizzies ae nicht i' the gloamin.  Nae
little gabbin an daffin gaed on amang the threesome, I'se
warrant ye, till at last, just as it chanced to get darkish,
my faither chancit to luik alang the lea at the heid o the
bucht, an what did he see but a wee little creaturie a' clad
i' green, an wi lang hair, yellow as gowd, hingin round its
shoulders, comin straucht for him, whiles giein a whink o a
greet, an aye atween its haunds raisin a queer, unyirthly cry,
"Hae ye seen Hewie Milburn?  Oh! hae ye seen Hewie Milburn?"

Instead o answering the creature, my faither sprang ower the
bucht-flake to be near the lasses, saying "Bliss us a'-what's
that?"

"Ha, ha!  Patie lad," qo Bessie Elliot, a free-spoken
Liddesdale hempy; "there a wife com'd for ye the nicht,
Patie lad."

"A wife!" said my faither.  "May the Lord keep me frae sic a
wife as that!" and he confessed till his deein day he was in
sic a fear that the hairs o his heid stuid up like the birses
o a hurcheon.

The creature was nae bigger than a three-year-auld lassie,
but feat an ticht, lithe o limb as ony grown woman, an
its face was the doonricht perfection o beauty, only there
was something wild and unyirthly in its een that couldna be
lookit at, faur less describit: it didna molest them, but aye
taigl't on aboot the bucht, now and then repeatin its cry,
"Hae ye seen Hewie Milburn?"  Sae they cam to nae ither
conclusion than that it had tint its companion.

When my faither and the lasses left the bucht it followed
them hame to the Hyndlee kitchen, where they offered it
yowe brose, but it wadna tak onything till at last a
ne'er-do-weel callant made as if he wad grip it wi a
pair o reed-het tangs, an it appeared to be offendit,
an gaed awa doon the burnside, cryin its auld cry
eerier an waesomer than ever, and disappeared in a bush
o seggs.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org

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