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Fairy
Tales from the
land of Fairies
HORSE AND HATTOCK
The power of the fairies was not confined to unchristened children
alone; it was supposed frequently to be extended to full-grown people,
especially such as in an unlucky hour were devoted to the devil by the
execrations of parents and of masters; or those who were found asleep
under a rock, or on a green hill, belonging to the fairies, after
sunset, or, finally, to those who unwarily joined their
orgies. A
tradition existed, during the seventeenth century, concerning an
ancestor of the noble family of Duffers, who, “walking abroad
in
the fields near to his own house, was suddenly carried away, and found
the next day at Paris, in the French king’s cellar, with a
silver
cup in his hand. Being brought into the king’s
presence,
and questioned by him who he was, and how he came thither, he told his
name, his country, and the place of his residence, and that on such a
day of the month, which proved to be the day immediately preceding,
being in the fields, he heard a noise of a whirlwind, and of voices
crying ‘Horse and hattock!’ (this is the word which
p.
152the fairies are said to use when they remove from any place),
whereupon he cried ‘Horse and hattock!’ also, and
was
immediately caught up and transported through the air by the fairies to
that place, where, after he had drunk heartily, he fell asleep, and
before he woke the rest of the company were gone, and had left him in
the posture wherein he was found. It is said the king gave
him a
cup which was found in his hand, and dismissed
him.” The
narrator affirms “that the cup was still preserved, and known
by
the name of the fairy cup.” He adds that Mr.
Steward, tutor
to the then Lord Duffers, had informed him that, “when a boy
at
the school of Forres, he and his school-fellows were once upon a time
whipping their tops in the churchyard, before the door of the church,
when, though the day was calm, they heard a noise of a wind, and at
some distance saw the small dust begin to rise and turn round, which
motion continued advancing till it came to the place where they were,
whereupon they began to bless themselves; but one of their number
being, it seems, a little more bold and confident than his companion,
said, ‘Horse and hattock with my top!’ and
immediately they
all saw the top lifted up from the ground, but could not see which way
it was carried, by reason of a cloud of dust which was raised at the
same time. They sought for the top all about the place where
it
was taken up, but in vain; and it was found afterwards in p. 153the
churchyard, on the other side of the church.” This
legend
is contained in a letter from a learned gentleman in Scotland to Mr.
Aubrey, dated 15th March 1695, published in Aubrey’s
Miscellanies.
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