" common to all peoples in early stages of development, a
confident feeling of security inspired by the minute observances of
ceremonial practices. We also note a distinct tendency to discriminate
between spirits, some of which are invariably friendly, some merely
picturesque, and perhaps fearsome, and others constantly harbouring a
desire to work evil upon mankind. Associated with belief in the efficacy
of propitiatory offerings and "ceremonies of riddance," is the ethical
suggestion that good wishes and good deeds influence spirits to perform
acts of kindly intent.

Of fairies the Highlanders spoke, as they are still prone to do in these
districts where belief in them is not yet extinct, with no small degree
of regard and affection. It may be that "the good folk" and the
"peace-people" (_sitchean_) were so called that good intention might be
compelled by the conjuring influence of a name, as well as to avoid
giving offence by uttering real names, as if it were desired to exercise
a magical influence by their use. Be that as it may, it is evident from
Highland folk-tales that the fairies were oftener the friends than the
foes of mankind. When men and women were lured to their dwellings they
rarely suffered injury; indeed, the fairies appeared to have taken
pleasure in their company. To such as they favoured they imparted the
secrets of their skill in the arts of piping, of sword-making, etc. At
sowing time or harvest they were at the service of human friends. On the
needy they took pity. They never failed in a promise; they never forgot
an act of kindness, which they invariably rewarded seven-fold. Against
those who wronged them they took speedy vengeance. It would appear that
on these humanised spirits of his conception the Highlander left, as one
would expect him to do, the impress of his own character--his shrewdness
and high sense of honour, his love of music and gaiety, his warmth of
heart and love of comrades, and his indelible hatred of tyranny and
wrong.

The Highland "wee folk" are not so diminutive as the fairies of
England--at least that type of fairy, beloved of the poet, which hovers
bee-like over flowers and feeds on honey-dew. Power they had to shrink
in stature and to render themselves invisible, but they are invariably
"little people," from three to four feet high. It may be that the Gael's
conception of humanised spirits may not have been uninfluenced by the
traditions of that earlier diminutive race