The Fairies of the West Highlands in some degree resembled the Scandinavian Dwarfs. They milked the deer; they lived underground, and worked at trades, especially metal-working and weaving. They had hammers and anvils, but had to steal wool and to borrow looms; and they had great hoards of treasure hidden in their dwelling places. Sometimes they helped the people whom they liked, but at other times they were spiteful and evil minded; and according to tradition all over the Highlands, they enticed men and women into their dwellings in the hills, and kept them there sometimes for years, always dancing without stopping. There are many stories of this kind; and there are also many about the fondness of the Fairies for carrying off human children, and leaving Imps of their own in their places--these Imps being generally old men disguised as children. Some of these tales are very curious, and are like others that are found amongst the folk-lore of Celtic peoples elsewhere. Here is the substance of one told in Islay:-- Years ago there lived in Crossbrig a smith named MacEachern, who had an only son, about fourteen; a strong, healthy, cheerful boy. All of a sudden he fell ill, took to his bed, and moped for days, getting thin, and odd-looking, and yellow, and wasting away fast, so that they thought he must die. Now a "wise" old man, who knew about Fairies, came to see the smith at work, and the poor man told him all about his trouble. The old man said, "It is not your son you have got; the boy has been carried off by the Dacorie Sith (the Fairies), and they have left a sibhreach (changeling) in his place." Then the old man told him what to do. "Take as many egg-shells as you can get, go with them into the room, spread them out before him, then draw water with them, carrying them two and two in your hands as if they were a great weight, and when they are full, range them round the fire." The smith did as he was told; and he had not been long at work before there came from the bed a great shout of laughter, and the supposed boy cried out, "I am eight hundred years old, and I never saw the like of _that_ before." Then the smith knew that it was not his own son. The wise man advised him again. "Your son," he said, "is in a green round hill where the Fairies live; get rid of this creature, and then go and look for him." So the smith lit a fire in front of the bed. "What is that for?" asked the supposed boy. "You will see presently," said the smith; and then he took him and threw him into the middle of it; and the sibhreach gave an awful yell, and flew up through the roof, where a hole was left to let the smoke out. Now the old man said that on a certain night the green round hill, where the Fairies kept the smith's boy, would be open. The father was to take a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, and go there. He would hear singing, and dancing, and much merriment, but he was to go boldly in. The Bible