Fairy Eggs

p. 428

FAIRY EGGS.

Of these curious beans I have now a large collection. Seven different kinds are thrown up on the Scotch coasts, of which four are roughly shewn in the woodcut. The largest and commonest sort is very like a bean which grows on the Andaman Islands. It is curious if worthless nuts thrown up by the sea in Scotland grow near India. In 1825 these nuts were mentioned in letters from the Irish Highlands. The Irish then laid them under their pillows to keep away the fairies, and it was supposed that they drifted from "South America." A Highland woman has twice refused to part with a gray one, which she "had from her mother," and which is "good against fire." I have seen one which was left to a girl by her nurse, and bad been silver mounted. A minister told me that they were blessed by the priests and worn by Roman Catholics only, but I think this was a mistake. Protestants keep them, I know.--See Introduction, Vol. i.

There is no reason to believe that the stories now current in the Highlands are nearly exhausted by this collection; whole districts are as yet untried, and whole classes of stories, such as popular history and robber stories, have scarcely been touched; and yet new stories come in regularly. MacLean, Urquhart, Carmichael, Dewar, and others, have many more written down, but not copied fairly out. 791 is the number now reached, and the manuscripts would fill a wheelbarrow. Three more volumes would hardly contain the collection: all taken down from the mouths of the people within the last three years; and yet it is commonly said that there are "no current popular traditions." One half of the world seems to know very little about the other; but here ends the list of what came out of

FAIRY EGGS.