Another apparition of a similar kind may be found on the pamphlet which was published A. D. 1696, under the patronage of Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Glocester, relative to Ann Jefferies, “who was fed for six months by a small sort of airy people, called fairies.” There is every reason to suppose, that this female was either affected with hysteria, or with that highly excited state of nervous irritability, which, as I have shewn, gives rise to ecstatic illusions. The account of her first fit is the only one which relates to the present subject. In the year 1695, says her historian, “she then being nineteen years of age, and one day knitting in an arbour in the garden, there came over the hedges to her (as she affirmed) six persons of small stature, all clothed in green, and which she called _fairies_: upon which she was so frightened, that she fell into a kind of convulsive fit: but when we found her in this condition, we brought her into the house, and put her to bed, and took great care of her. As soon as she was recovered out of the fit, she cries out, ‘they are just gone out of the window; they are just gone out of the window. Do you not see them?’ And thus, in the height of her sickness, she would often cry out, and that with eagerness; which expressions we attributed to her distemper, supposing her light-headed.” This narrative of the girl seemed highly interesting to her superstitious neighbours, and she was induced to relate far more wonderful stories, upon which not the least dependance can be placed, as the sympathy she excited eventually induced her to become a rank impostor[62]. But besides fairies, or elves, which formed the subject of many spectral illusions, a domestic spirit deserves to be mentioned, who was once held in no small degree of reverence. In most northern countries of Europe there were few families that were without a shrewd and knavish sprite, who, in return for the attention or neglect which he experienced, was known to ——“sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm!”