uld not
follow them. Seeing herself outwitted, she implored the youth to give
her back the horn, promising him in reward the strength of twelve men.
On this assurance he returned the horn to her, and got what she had
promised him. But the exchange was not very profitable; for with the
strength of twelve men he had unfortunately acquired the appetite of
twelve. Here it may well be thought that the supernatural gift only took
its appropriate abatement. In a story from the north of Scotland the cup
was stolen for the purpose of undoing a certain spell, and was
honourably returned when the purpose was accomplished. Uistean, we are
told, was a great slayer of Fuathan, supernatural beings apparently akin
to fairies. He shot one day into a wreath of mist, and a beautiful woman
fell down at his side. He took her home; and she remained in his house
for a year, speechless. On a day at the end of the year he was benighted
in the mountains, and seeing a light in a hill, he drew nigh, and found
the fairies feasting. He entered the hill, and heard the butler, as he
was handing the drink round, say: "It is a year from this night's night
that we lost the daughter of the Earl of Antrim. She has the power of
the draught on her that she does not speak a word till she gets a drink
from the cup that is in my hand." When the butler reached Uistean, he
handed him the cup. The latter, on getting it in his hand, ran off,
pursued by the fairies until the cock crew. When he got home, he gave
the lady in his house to drink out of the cup; and immediately her
speech returned. She then told him she was the Earl of Antrim's
daughter, stolen by the fairies from child-bed. Uistean took back the
cup to the hill whence he had brought it, and then restored the lady to
her father safe and sound, the fairy woman who had been left in her
place vanishing meantime in a flame of fire.[111]

There are also legends in which a hat conferring invisibility, or a
glove, figures; but the stolen article is usually, as in most of the
instances cited above, a cup or a drinking-horn. Many such articles are
still preserved in various parts of Northern Europe. Of these the most
celebrated are the Luck of Edenhall and the Oldenburg horn. But before
discussing these I must refer to some other stories, the material
evidence of which is no longer extant. Gervase of Tilbury relates that
in a forest of Gloucestershire there is a glade in the midst whereof
stands a hillock rising