plied with this reasonable request, and prospered ever after.

They have a great fondness for getting their babes suckled by comely, healthy young women. A fine young woman of Nithsdale was one day spinning and rocking her first-born child. A pretty little lady in a green mantle, and bearing a beautiful babe, came into the cottage and said, "Gie my bonnie thing a suck." The young woman did so, and the lady left her babe and disappeared, saying, "Nurse kin' and ne'er want." The young woman nursed the two children, and was astonished to find every morning, when she awoke, rich clothes for the children, and food of most delicious flavour. Tradition says this food tasted like wheaten-bread, mixed with wine and honey.

When summer came, the Fairy-lady came to see her child. She was delighted to see how it had thriven, and, taking it in her arms, desired the nurse to follow her. They passed through some scroggy woods skirting the side of a beautiful green hill, which they ascended half way. A door opened on the sunny side-they went in, and the sod closed after them. The Fairy then dropped three drops of a precious liquid on her companion's left eyelid, and she beheld a

delicious country, whose fields were yellow with ripening corn, watered by looping burnies, and bordered by trees laden with fruit. She was presented with webs of the finest cloth, and with boxes of precious ointments. The Fairy then moistened her right eye with a green fluid, and bid her look. She looked, and saw several of her friends and acquaintances at work, reaping the corn and gathering the fruit. "This," said the Fairy, "is the punishment of evil deeds!" She then passed her hand over the woman's eye, and restored it to its natural power. Leading her to the porch at which she had entered, she dismissed her; but the woman had secured the wonderful salve. From this time she possessed the faculty of discerning the Fairy people as they went about invisibly; till one day, happening to meet the Fairy-lady, she attempted to shake hands with her. "What ee d'ye see me wi'?" whispered she. "IV' them baith," said the woman. The Fairy breathed on her eyes, and the salve lost its efficacy, and could never more endow her eyes with their preternatural power.

The Fairy Rade, or procession, was a matter of great importance. It took place on the coming in of summer, and the peasantry, by using the precaution of placing a branch of rowan over their door, might safely gaze on the cavalcade, as with

music sounding, bridles ringing, and voices mingling, it pursued its way from place to place. An old woman of Nithsdale gave the following description of one of these processions:

"In the night afore Roodmass I had trysted with a neebor lass a Scots mile frae hame to talk

anent buying braws i' the fair. We had nae sutten lang aneath the haw-buss till we heard the loud laugh of fowk riding, wi' the jingling o' bridles, and the clanking o' hoofs. We banged up, thinking they wad ride owre us. We kent nae but it was drunken fowk riding to the fair i' the forenight. We glowred roun' and roun', and sune saw it was the Fairie-fowks Rade. We cowred down till they passed by. A beam o' light was dancing owre them mair bonnie than moonshine : : they were a wee wee fowk wi' green scarfs on, but ane that rade foremost, and that ane was a good deal larger than the lave wi' bonnie lang hair, bun' about wi' a strap whilk glinted like stars. They rade on braw wee white naigs, wi' unco lang swooping tails, an' manes hung wi' whustles that the win' played on. This an' their tongue when they sang was like the soun' o' a far awa psalm. Marion an' me was in a brade lea fiel', where they came by us; a high hedge o’ haw-trees keepit them frae gaun through Johnnie Corrie's corn, but they lap a' owre it like spar

rows, and gallopt into a green know beyont it. We gaedi' the morning to look at the treddit corn; but the fient a hoof mark was there, nor a blade broken."

But the Fairies of Scotland were not, even according to Mr. Cromek, uniformly benevolent. Woman and child abstraction was by no means uncommon with them, and the substituíes they provided were, in general, but little attractive.

A fine child at Caerlaveroe, in Nithsdale, was observed on the second day after its birth, and before it was baptized, to have become quite illfavoured and deformed. Its yelling every night deprived the whole family of rest; it bit and tore its mother's breasts, and would lie still neither in the cradle nor the arms. The mother being one day obliged to go from

home, left it in charge

of the servant girl. The poor lass was sitting bemoaning herself" Were it nae for thy girning face, I would knock the big, winnow the corn, and grun the meal."-"Lowse the cradle-band," said the child, "and tent the neighbours, and I'll work yere work." Up he started the wind arose -the corn was chopped-the outlyers were foddered-the hand-mill moved around, as by instinct and the knocking-mill did its work with amazing rapidity. The lass and child then rested and diverted themselves, till, on the approach of the mistress, it was restored to the cradle, and

renewed its cries. The girl took the first opportunity of telling the adventure to her mistress. "What 'll we do with the wee diel ?" said she. "I'll work it a pirn," replied the lass. At midnight the chimney-top was covered up, and every chink and cranny stopped. The fire was blown till it was glowing hot, and the maid speedily undressed the child, and tossed him on the burning coals. He shrieked and yelled in the most dreadful manner, and in an instant the Fairies were heard moaning on every side, and rattling at the windows, door, and chimney. "In the name of God bring back the bairn," cried the lass. The window flew up, the real child was laid on the mother's lap, and the wee diel flew up the chimney laughing.

The Nis, Kobold, or Goblin, appears in Scotland under the name of Brownie. Brownie is a personage of small stature, wrinkled visage, covered with short curly brown hair, and wearing a brown mantle and hood. His residence is the hollow of an old tree, a ruined castle, or the abode of man. He is attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside, even for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and doing every thing done by his northern and English brethren. He is, to a certain degree, disinterested; like many great personages, he is shocked at any thing approaching to the name of a bribe or douceur, yet, like them, allows his scru