e been going by on the road. If the potatoes
were blighted, she had looked over the hedge at them. There was a charm
doctor in Kirk Andreas, named Teare-Ballawhane. He was before my time,
but I recall many stories of him. When a cow was sick of the witching of
the woman of the Curragh, the farmer fled over to Kirk Andreas for the
charm of the charm-doctor. From the moment Teare-Ballawhane began to
boil his herbs the cow recovered. If the cow died after all, there was
some fault in the farmer. I remember a child, a girl, who twenty years
ago had a birth-mark on her face--a broad red stain like a hand on her
cheek. Not long since, I saw her as a young woman, and the stain was
either gone entirely or hidden by her florid complexion. When I asked
what had been done for her, I heard that a good woman had charmed her.
"Aw, yes," said the girl's mother, "a few good words do no harm anyway."
Not long ago I met an old fellow in Onchan village who believed in the
Nightman, an evil spirit who haunts the mountains at night predicting
tempests and the doom of ships, the _dooinney-oie_ of the Manx, akin to
the _banshee_ of the Irish. "Aw, man," said he, "it was up Snaefell way,
and I was coming from Kirk Michael over, and it was black dark, and I
heard the Nightman after me, shoutin' and wailin' morthal, _how-la-a,
how-a-a_. But I didn't do nothin', no, and he came up to me lek a besom,
and went past me same as a flood, _who-o-o!_ And I lerr him! Aw, yes,
man, yes!"

I remember many a story of fairies, some recited half in humour,
others in grim earnest. One old body told me that on the night of her
wedding-day, coming home from the Curragh, whither she had stolen away
in pursuit of a belated calf, she was chased in the moonlight by a
troop of fairies. They held on to her gown, and climbed on her back, and
perched on her shoulders, and clung to her hair. There were "hundreds
and tons" of them; they were about as tall as a wooden broth-ladle, and
all wore cocked-hats and velvet jackets.

A good fairy long inhabited the Isle of Man. He was called in Manx the
Phynnodderee. It would appear that he had two brothers of like
features with himself, one in Scotland called the Brownie, the other in
Scandinavia called the Swart-alfar.

I have often heard how on a bad night the Manx folk would go off to bed
early so that the Phynnodderee might come in out of the cold. Before
going upstairs they built up the fire, and set the kitchen table with