I.

The extreme piety of his daily walk and conversation may have been held as an explanation why the Prophet Jones saw so few goblins himself, and consequently why most of his stories of the fairies are related as coming from other people. The value of a general habit of piety, as a means of being rid of fairies, has already been mentioned. The more worldly exorcisms, such as the production of a black-handled knife, or the turning one's coat wrongside out, are passed over by the Prophet as trivial; but by the student of comparative folk-lore, they are not deemed unimportant. The last-mentioned exorcism, by the way, is current among the Southern negroes of the United States. The more spiritual exorcisms are not less interesting than the others, however. First among these is ranked the pronunciation of God's name; but the crowing of a cock is respectfully mentioned, in connection with the story of our Saviour. Jones gives many accounts which terminate in the manner of the following: Rees John Rosser, born at Hendy, in the parish of Llanhiddel, 'a very religious young man,' went one morning very early to feed the oxen in a barn called Ysgubor y Llan, and having fed them lay himself upon the hay to rest. While he lay there he heard the sound of music approaching, and presently a large company of fairies came into the barn. They wore striped clothes, some in gayer colours than the others, but all very gay; and they all danced to the music. He lay there as quiet as he could, thinking they would not see him, but he was espied by one of them, a woman, who brought a striped cushion with four tassels, one at each corner of it, and put it under his head. After some time the cock crew at the house of Blaen y Cwm, hard by, upon which they appeared as if they were surprised and displeased; the cushion was hastily whisked from under his head, and the fairies vanished. 'The spirits of darkness do not like the crowing of the cock, because it gives notice of the approach of day, for they love darkness rather than light.... And it hath been several times observed that these fairies cannot endure to hear the name of God.' A modern Welsh preacher (but one whose opinions contrast most decidedly with those of Jones) observes: 'The cock is wonderfully well versed in the circumstances of the children of Adam; his shrill voice at dawn of day is sufficient intimation to every spirit, coblyn, wraith, elf, bwci, and apparition to flee into their illusive country for their lives, before the light of day will show them to be an empty nothingness, and bring them to shame and reproach.'[55] Shakspeare introduces this superstition in Hamlet:

_Ber._ It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

_Hor._ And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons.[56]

But the opinion that spirits fly away at cock-crow is of extreme antiquity. It is mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius (fourth century) as a tradition of common belief.[57] As for the effect of the name of God as an exorcism, we still encounter this superstition, a living thing in our own day, and in every land where modern 'spiritualism' finds believers. The mischief produced at 'spiritual seances' by 'bad spirits' is well-known to those who have paid any attention to this subject. The late Mr. FitzHugh Ludlow once related to me, with dramatic fervour, the result of his attempts to exorcise a bad spirit which was in possession of a female 'medium,' by trying to make her pronounce the name of Christ. She stumbled and stammered over this test in a most embarrassing way, and finally emerged from her trance with the holy name unspoken; the bad spirit had fled. This was in New York, in 1867. Like many others who assert their unbelief in spiritualism, Mr. Ludlow was intensely impressed by this phenomenon.

Students of comparative folk-lore class all such manifestations under a common head, whether related of fairies or spirit mediums. They trace their origin to the same source whence come the notions of propitiating the fairies by euphemistic names. The use of such names as Jehovah, the Almighty, the Supreme Being, etc., for the terrible and avenging God of the Jewish theology, being originally an endeavour to avoid pronouncing the name of God, it is easy to see the connection with the exorcising power of that name upon all evil spirits, such as fairies are usually held to be. Here also, it is thought, is presented the ultimate source of that horror of profane language which prevails among the Puritanic peoples of England and America. The name of the devil is similarly provided with euphemisms, some of which--such as the Old Boy--are not of a sort to offend that personage's ears; and until recently the word devil was deemed almost as offensive as the word God, when profanely used.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Rev. Robert Ellis, in 'Manion Hynafiaethol.' (Treherbert, 1873.)

[56] 'Hamlet,' Act I., Sc. 1.

[57] Brand, 'Popular Antiquities,' ii., 31.