FAiries

Near Bandon, in the County Cork, lived a man who in his youth was a noted jumper,
and on one occasion leaped across a ditch twenty-two feet in width and alighted
in such a manner as to severely injure his foot. A running sore appeared
on his ankle and pieces of bone came out. His mother procured from a
fairy woman a "bottle of herbs," which was rubbed upon the foot and
resulted in a cure. The bottle was paid for with a basket of eggs, each
one of which was marked with a black cross made with the burned end
of a stick, probably of furze. The woman explained that he had been
kicked by the fairies, who were passing that way when he jumped into
their midst. This woman went every night with the fairies, who summoned
her with a peculiar whistle, which was heard by other persons as
well as herself. She was once called away from a wake in this manner,
but no one had the courage to follow her. The story is given as told by
the man who made the leap, an old soldier who has spent the last thirty
years fighting Indians and border outlaws on the frontier, and is now laid
up for repairs at the soldiers' home near Washington. When a boy he
often watched all day at the entrance to a fairy fort to catch a glimpse of
the fairy shoemaker, but he says he no longer believes in such things.

vestigial sadness