The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies

By a curious coincidence, we can show a case in which phenomena of the type usually reported to occur in spiritualist séances—and in examples like that of William Morse—were actually accepted as manifestations of the Sleagh Maith original: "Sleagh Maith" — Irish Gaelic for "The Good People," a euphemism for fairies or Fairies. In his account of the disturbances in the Wesley family, the author Dr. Clarke stated that he himself had witnessed similar events. Therefore, it became necessary to consult his Life (London, 1833). "In the history of my own life," says Dr. Clarke, "I have related this matter in sufficient detail." Unfortunately, in his Life (pages 76, 77) he hardly gives any details. Before sudden deaths occurred in a family named Church, phenomena took place involving falling plates, heavy footsteps, and other noises. Mr. Clarke "sat up all night in the kitchen and heard the aforementioned noises with total clarity." He was a born mystic and even in his childhood was a reader of Cornelius Agrippa A 16th-century German polymath known for his writings on the occult and "natural magic." and, later, of the alchemists.

But he records the case of a woman who solemnly declared to Mrs. Clarke that several people of the family (the Sleagh Maith) "occasionally frequented her house; that they often conversed with her, and that one of them would place his hands over her eyes during that time; hands which, according to the sensation she had, were the size of those of a child of four or five years old." The family was "exhausted" by these visits, and by the mention of the touching of hands, it is quite clear that we are dealing with the type of sprite original: "duendecillo" — a small goblin or imp that touches people in spiritualist séances.

But these sprites are recognized (the scene is in the north of Ireland) as "gentle people," People of Peace. The amusing thing is that Mr. Clarke, although he believes in Mr. Wesley's "Jeffrey" The name given to the poltergeist that famously haunted the Wesley family home at Epworth in 1716. and in the supernatural origin of a noise in a kitchen, laughs at similar phenomena when they are attributed to Fairies. It is a mere difference in terminology.

Another old example can be cited: Alexander Telfair's "True Relation" of the disturbances occurring in Ringcroft, in the parish of Rerrick. The story is attested by the signatures of Ewart, minister of Kells, in Galloway; Monteith, minister of Borg; Murdoch, minister of Crosmichael, in Loch Ken; Spalding, minister in Parton, also in Loch Ken; Falconer, minister in Keltown; Mr. M'Lellan of Colline, Lennox of Milhouse, and several farmers. All of them were neighbors and all gave testimony to what they saw and heard. Robert Chambers says: "Perhaps there has never been a better-attested mystical story. Few narratives of this type have included events and apparitions that were more difficult to reconcile with the theory of trickery or imposture." Mr. Telfair himself had been chaplain, in 1687, to Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn. He was an Episcopalian at the time.

Andrew Mackie was a stonemason in Rerrick. On March 7 (1695?), and for a long time afterward, stones began to fly in his house, day and night.

"The stones that hit any person did not have even half of their natural weight." Mackie complained to Telfair, his minister, who entered the house and prayed: nothing strange happened. While he was outside, "he saw two small stones fall on the estate"; then they asked him to return, and he was stoned inside the cottage. This was on March 11. For a week there were no more problems, then the disturbances began again. They sent for Mr. Telfair, who was stoned and beaten with a stick and heard loud bangs. "That night, while I was praying, leaning on a bed, I felt something lift my arm. I looked there and saw a small white hand and an arm from the elbow down, but it soon disappeared." "Nothing else was ever seen but that hand," and an apparition of a child in gray clothes. Sometimes the stoning took place in the open air. Compare similar phenomena in Obeah A system of spiritual healing and justice-making practices developed among enslaved West Africans in the West Indies. and in the Peruvian example.

There was much touching, grabbing, and scratching. "The door bar" (a long, heavy piece of square wood) "moved through the house as if a person—

Edinburgh: Mossman, 1696. There is a London reprint, of which I have a copy. The pamphlet was reissued in Mr. Stevenson's edition of Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, 1685–1871, Appendix, p. xix.

—was carrying it in their hand, but no one was seen doing it." Here we compare, in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, February 1892, the story of a carpenter's shop in Swanland, Yorkshire, where pieces of wood were "levitated" in an abnormal flight. No imposture was discovered, nor was the presence of any person necessarily seen.