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ePaper created 2014-04-08, 18:05:31 | version 1.29.01
52 account part. They are considered as indispensable acquisitions in their cowhouses, as being charms and infallible preventatives against witchcraft or enchantment and against the loss of cow’s milk, it being deprived of the butte by the fairies and against the cow’s being elfshot. The usual cure for cattle when elfshot is giving them a drink of water in which salt, an elfshot and one or more (an odd number) of pieces of silver are thrown. An elfstone is frequently hung over a cowhouse door and during the illness of the animal, about her head or is suspended from her horn. The other common superstitions of the county of Antrim are well known and prevalent here, nor is there one of these to be found in any other district of the north which is not in full force in the parish of Islandmagee.’ Belfast Newsletter, 9 August 1852, elf-shot. On Monday last, three young women named Sarah Reynolds, Margaret Megaghran and another, were brought before Captain Erskine, J.P., Cavan, for assaulting and abusing each other. It seems that a day or two previous, Sarah Reynolds, who has a child whom she imagines to be fairy-struck, communicated her misgivings on that point to her two companions, when the three immediately agreed to start off in search of a wizard or fairy- man living some miles distant who would supply them with a magic thread to remedy the mischief done by the evil-minded fairies. On their way, they made rather free with the “mountain dew” and before arriving at the fairy-man’s they quarrelled and battered each other with great gusto. The upshot of the expedition was the three “chums” returned to Cavan minus some blood but plus a goodly quantity of alcohol. How Captain Erskine settled the matter between the belligerents we have not heard – Anglo-Celt. O/S Memoires, Parishes of County Antrim VI, vol. 19, Parish of Duneane, J. Bleakly, March 1837. (pp. 115-6) ‘Daniel Mellon, who resided in the townland of Artlone some short time ago, built his house near the Danish fort. On Thursday, 2md March this year, 1837, he died of paralysis at the age of 54 years. His superstitious neighbours affirm that he was shot by the fairies. From Moses Mays.’