_Breac shìth_, ‘Elfin pox,’ hives, are spots that appear on the skin in certain diseases, as hooping-cough, and indicate a highly malignant stage of the malady. They are not ascribed to the Fairies, but are called _sìth_, because they appear and again disappear as it were ‘silently,’ without obvious cause, and more mysteriously than other symptoms. Cows, said to have been found on the shores of Loscantire in Harris, Scorrybrec in Skye, and on the Island of Bernera, were called _cro sìth_, ‘fairy cows,’ simply because they were of no mortal breed, but of a kind believed to live under the sea on _meillich_, seaweed. Animals in the shape of cats, but in reality witches or demons, were called _cait shìth_, ‘Elfin cats,’ and the Water Horse, which has no connection whatever with the elves, is sometimes called _each sìth_, unearthly horse. The cuckoo is an _eun sìth_, a ‘Fairy bird,’ because, as is said, its winter dwelling is underground. A banner in the possession of the family of Macleod, of Macleod of Skye, is called ‘Macleod’s Fairy Banner’ (_Bratach shìth MhicLèoid_), on account of the supernatural powers ascribed to it. When unfurled, victory in war (_buaidh chogaidh_) attends it, and it relieves its followers from imminent danger.[2] Every pregnant woman who sees it is taken in premature labour (a misfortune which happened, it is said, to the English wife of a former chief in consequence of her irrepressible curiosity to see the banner), and every cow casts her calf (_cha bhi bean no bo nach tilg a laogh_). Others, however, say the name is owing to the magic banner having been got from an Elfin sweetheart. A light, seen among the Hebrides, a sort of St. Elmo’s light or Will-of-the-wisp, is called _teine sìth_, ‘Fairy light,’ though no one ever blamed the Fairies as the cause of it. In a semi-satirical song, of much merit for its spirit and ease of diction, composed in Tiree to the owner of a crazy skiff that had gone to the Ross of Mull for peats and staid too long, the bard, in a spirited description of the owner’s adventures and seamanship, says:— “Onward past Greenock, Like the deer of the cold high hills, Breasting the rugged ground With the hunter in pursuit; She _sailed with Fairy motion_,[3] Bounding smoothly in her pride, Cleaving the green waves, And passing to windward of the rest.”[4] This latitude in the use of the word has led some writers on the subject to confound with the Fairies beings having as little connection with them as with mankind. A similar laxness occurs in the use of the English word Fairy. It is made to include kelpies, mermaids, and other supernatural beings, having no connection with the true Fairy, or Elfin race. The following are the names by which the ‘Folk’ are known in Gaelic. It is observable that every one of the names, when applied to mortals, is contemptuous and disparaging.