Scores of fairies mate with mortal men, and men, as a rule, do not care for dwarf-wives. Among Celts, at least, the fay, whatever her original stature, in later times had certainly achieved the height of mortal womanhood.
In Upper Brittany, where French is the language in general use, the usual French ideas concerning fairies prevail. They are called _fees_ or _fetes_ (Latin _fata_), and sometimes _fions_, which reminds us of the _fions_ of Scottish and Irish folk-lore.[28] There are old people still alive who claim to have seen the fairies, and who describe them variously, but the general belief seems to be that they disappeared from the land several generations ago. One old man described them as having teeth as long as one"s hand, and as wearing garments of sea-weed or leaves. They were human in aspect, said another ancient whom Sebillot questioned; their clothes were seamless, and it was impossible to say by merely looking at them whether they were male or female. Their garments were of the most brilliant colours imaginable, but if one approached them too closely these gaudy hues disappeared.
They wore a kind of bonnet shaped like a crown, which appeared to be part of their person.
The people of the coast say that the fairies are an accursed race who are condemned to walk the earth for a certain s.p.a.ce. Some even think them rebellious angels who have been sent to earth for a time to expiate their offences against heaven. For the most part they inhabit the dolmens and the grottos and caverns on the coast.[29]
On the sh.o.r.es of the Channel are numerous grottos or caverns which the Bretons call _houles_, and these are supposed to harbour a distinct cla.s.s of fairy. Some of these caverns are from twenty to thirty feet high, and so extensive that it is unwise to explore them too far.
Others seem only large enough to hold a single person, but if one enters he will find himself in a s.p.a.cious natural chamber. The inhabitants of these depths, like all their kind, prefer to sally forth by night rather than by day. In the day-time they are not seen because they smear themselves with a magic ointment which renders them invisible; but at night they are visible to everybody.
_The Lost Daughter_
There was once upon a time a labourer of Saint-Cast named Marc Bourdais, but, according to the usage of the country, he had a nickname and was called Maraud. One day he was returning home when he heard the sound of a horn beneath his feet, and asked a companion who chanced to be with him if he had heard it also.
"Of course I did," replied the fellow; "it is a fairy horn."
"Umph," said Maraud. "Ask the fairies, then, to bring us a slice of bread."
His companion knelt down and shouted out the request, but nothing happened and they resumed their way.
They had not gone far, however, when they beheld a slice of beautiful white bread lying on a snowy napkin by the roadside. Maraud picked it up and found that it was well b.u.t.tered and as toothsome as a cake, and when they had divided and eaten it they felt their hunger completely satisfied. But he who has fed well is often thirsty, so Maraud, lowering his head, and speaking to the little folk beneath, cried: "Hullo, there! Bring us something to drink, if you please."
He had hardly spoken when they beheld a pot of cider and a gla.s.s reposing on the ground in front of them. Maraud filled the gla.s.s, and, raising it to his lips, quaffed of the fairy cider. It was clear and of a rich colour, and he declared that it was by far the best that he had ever tasted. His friend drank likewise, and when they returned to the village that night they had a good story to tell of how they had eaten and drunk at the expense of the fairies. But their friends and neighbours shook their heads and regarded them sadly.
"Alas! poor fellows," they said, "if you have eaten fairy food and drunk fairy liquor you are as good as dead men."
Nothing happened to them within the next few days, however, and it was with light hearts that one morning they returned to work in the neighbourhood of the spot where they had met with such a strange adventure. When they arrived at the place they smelt the odour of cakes which had been baked with black corn, and a fierce hunger at once took possession of them.
"Ha!" said Maraud, "the fairies are baking to-day. Suppose we ask them for a cake or two." "No, no!" replied his friend. "Ask them if you wish, but I will have none of them."
"Pah!" cried Maraud, "what are you afraid of?" And he cried: "Below there! Bring me a cake, will you?"
Two fine cakes at once appeared. Maraud seized upon one, but when he had cut it he perceived that it was made of hairs, and he threw it down in disgust.
"You wicked old sorcerer!" he cried. "Do you mean to mock me?"
But as he spoke the cakes disappeared.
Now there lived in the village a widow with seven children, and a hard task she had to find bread for them all. She heard tell of Maraud"s adventure with the fairies, and pondered on the chance of receiving a like hospitality from them, that the seven little mouths she had to provide for might be filled. So she made up her mind to go to a fairy grotto she knew of and ask for bread. "Surely," she thought, "what the good people give to others who do not require it they will give to me, whose need is so great." When she had come to the entrance of the grotto she knocked on the side of it as one knocks on a door, and there at once appeared a little old dame with a great bunch of keys hanging at her side. She appeared to be covered with limpets, and mould and moss clung to her as to a rock. To the widow she seemed at least a thousand years old.
"What do you desire, my good woman?" she asked.
"Alas! madame," said the widow, "might I have a little bread for my seven children? Give me some, I beseech you, and I will remember you in my prayers."
"I am not the mistress here," replied the old woman. "I am only the porteress, and it is at least a hundred years since I have been out.
But return to-morrow and I will promise to speak for you."
Next day at the same time the widow returned to the cave, and found the old porteress waiting for her.
"I have spoken for you," said she, "and here is a loaf of bread for you, and those who send it wish to speak to you."
"Bring me to them," said the widow, "that I may thank them."
"Not to-day," replied the porteress. "Return to-morrow at the same hour and I will do so."
The widow returned to the village and told her neighbours of her success. Every one came to see the fairy loaf, and many begged a piece.
Next day the poor woman returned to the grotto in the hope that she would once more benefit from the little folks" bounty. The porteress was there as usual.
"Well, my good woman," said she, "did you find my bread to your taste?
Here is the lady who has befriended you," and she indicated a beautiful lady, who came smilingly from the darkness of the cavern.
"Ah, madame," said the widow, "I thank you with all my heart for your charity."
"The loaf will last a long time," said the fairy, "and you will find that you and your family will not readily finish it."
"Alas!" said the widow, "last night all my neighbours insisted on having a piece, so that it is now entirely eaten."
"Well," replied the fay, "I will give you another loaf. So long as you or your children partake of it it will not grow smaller and will always remain fresh, but if you should give the least morsel to a stranger the loaf will disappear. But as I have helped you, so must you help me. I have four cows, and I wish to send them out to pasture. Promise me that one of your daughters will guard them for me."
The widow promised, and next morning sent one of her daughters out to look for the cows, which were to be pastured in a field where there was but little herbage. A neighbour saw her there, and asked what she was doing in that deserted place.
"Oh, I am watching the fairy cows," replied she. The woman looked at her and smiled, for there were no cows there and she thought the girl had become half-witted.
With the evening the fairy of the grotto came herself to fetch the cows, and she said to the little cowherd:
"How would you like to be G.o.dmother to my child?"
"It would be a pleasure, madame," replied the girl.
"Well, say nothing to any one, not even to your mother," replied the fairy, "for if you do I shall never bring you anything more to eat."
A few days afterward a fairy came to tell the girl to prepare to come to the cavern on the morrow, as on that day the infant was to be named. Next day, according to the fairy"s instructions, she presented herself at the mouth of the grotto, and in due course was made G.o.dmother to the little fairy. For two days she remained there, and when she left her G.o.dchild was already grown up. She had, as a matter of fact, unconsciously remained with the "good people" for ten years, and her mother had long mourned her as dead. Meanwhile the fairies had requested the poor widow to send another of her daughters to watch their cows.
When at last the absent one returned to the village she went straight home, and her mother on beholding her gave a great cry. The girl could not understand her agitation, believing as she did that she had been absent for two days only.
"Two days!" echoed the mother. "You have been away ten years! Look how you have grown!"
After she had overcome her surprise the girl resumed her household duties as if nothing particular had happened, and knitted a pair of stockings for her G.o.dchild. When they were finished she carried them to the fairy grotto, where, as she thought, she spent the afternoon.
But in reality she had been away from home this time for five years.
As she was leaving, her G.o.dchild gave her a purse, saying: "This purse is full of gold. Whenever you take a piece out another one will come in its place, but if any one else uses it it will lose all its virtue."
When the girl returned to the village at last it was to find her mother dead, her brothers gone abroad, and her sisters married, so that she was the only one left at home. As she was pretty and a good housewife she did not want for lovers, and in due time she chose one for a husband. She did not tell her spouse about the purse she had had from the fairies, and if she wanted to give him a piece of gold she withdrew it from the magic purse in secret. She never went back to the fairy cavern, as she had no mind to return from it and find her husband an old man.
_The Fisherman and the Fairies_
A fisherman of Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer, walking home to his cottage from his boat one evening along the wet sands, came, unawares, upon a number of fairies in a _houle_. They were talking and laughing gaily, and the fisherman observed that while they made merry they rubbed their bodies with a kind of ointment or pomade. All at once, to the old salt"s surprise, they turned into ordinary women. Concealing himself behind a rock, the fisherman watched them until the now completely transformed immortals quitted their haunt and waddled away in the guise of old market-women.