Fairies are mythic creatures with magic powers who, it is said, live on this earth amongst humans; although they are rarely seen. Fairies have appeared for generations in literatures from around the world, but seem to be featured most often in the folklore and fairy tales of Celtic countries such as Scotland.
Sir Walter Scott was an avid collector of Scottish fairy tales and ballads. In his work Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, he had this to say about fairies.
The Fairies of Scotland are represented as a diminutive race of beings, of a mixed, or rather dubious nature, capricious in their dispositions, and mischievous in their resentment. They inhabit the interior of green hills, chiefly those of a conical form, in Gaelic termed Sighan, on which they lead their dances by moonlight; impressing upon the surface the marks of circles, which sometimes appear yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep green hue; and within which it is dangerous to sleep, or to be found after sunset...
The Brook of Beaumont, for example, which passes, in its course, by numerous linns and caverns, is notorious for being haunted by the Fairies, and the perforated and rounded stones which are formed by trituration in its channel are termed, by the vulgar, fairy cups and dishes. It is sometimes accounted unlucky to pass such places, without performing some ceremony to avert the displeasure of the elves. There is, upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peeblesshire, a spring called the Cheese Well, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese, as an offering to the Fairies, to whom it--was consecrated.
The usual dress of the Fairies is green; though. on the moors they have been sometimes observed in heath-brown, or in weeds dyed with the stoneraw, or lichen. They often ride in invisible procession, when their presence is discovered by the shrill ringing of their bridles. On these occasions they sometimes borrow mortal steeds; and when such are found at morning, panting and fatigued in their stalls, with their manes and tails dishevelled and entangled, the grooms, I presume, often find this a convenient excuse for their situation; as the common belief of the elves quaffing the choicest liquors in the cellars of the rich might occasionally cloak the delinquencies of an unfaithful butler.
Sir Walter Scott. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
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