Fairies
01/10/2012 21:27
Belief in elves and fairies, as well as in witches, wizards and the supernatural in general, remained strong in remote districts of the Lake Counties until into the twentieth century. There are many examples of the placename 'elf howe', which testify to the ancient belief that elves were dwellers in burial mounds, and hills.
Among these are Elf Howe in Kentmere, Elfa Hills in Hutton-in-the-Forest and Elf Hall near Millom. Folk stories about late travellers who looked through a door into the brightly lit interior of a grave mound where an elfin feast was in progress are common. The Rev. H. J. Bulkeley of Lanercost Priory wrote in 1885 of a man from Bewcastle who returning home late one night was dragged off his horse and would have been thrust through a door in a fairy hill if he had not had the page of a Bible in his pocket carried doubtless as a charm. Other charms which disarmed fairies were iron and steel, crosses and rosaries. To pass over running water or a crossroads also rendered them powerless. If you are interested to know more, take a look at Fairies.
Some of the sagas appear to identify elves and land spirits with grave mounds. These beings were closely connected with the god Freyr and were worshipped in Sweden in the early 11th century. Freyr's cult was associated with fertility and the sun and also with the dead. In Cumbria, as elsewhere, from early Norse times to at least the eighteenth century, elves were feared as possessors of tiny flint arrowheads with which they killed both men and cattle. These arrowheads were believed to have been owned originally by mermaids who gave them to the older fairies for use as breastpins; the fairies gave them to the elves, who then used them as weapons. Irish peasants adopted the fairy fashion of wearing the stones mounted as lockets or brooches to protect them from elfshots.
The belief in elf shooting is probably Scandinavian in origin and is illustrated in the Bandamanna Saga. An Icelandic Viking named Hermund was at feud with a certain Egil and set out to burn his enemy's house. On the open fell the twang of a bowstring was heard and a second later Hermund felt a pain under his arm. He became so ill that his men took him home and sent for a priest. Shortly after, Hermund died, muttering 'Two hundred in the gill', apparently referring to an army of elfin bowmen he had seen or imagined.
Many accounts of elfshot cattle occur in Scotland and Ireland and cures believed to counteract the results of the wound inflicted, vary with every district. In the north of England treatment included touching the ailing animal with another elf arrow and giving as medicine, water in which one had been washed. This explains Bishop Nicolson's reference in his diary for 27 June, 1712: 'By Cardornoc to Bowness (on Solway) where we saw several Elf Arrows, too pretious (for the cure of Cattle Elfshot) to be parted with.
From a letter by the Bishop to Sir William Dugdale in 1685 we must conclude that his 'too pretious to be parted with' was ironic, for he then wrote: 'The natural superstition of our borderers at this day are much better acquainted with and do more firmly believe their old legendary tales of fairies and witches than the articles of their creed. ' For more info, visit this URL.