When ‘the folk’ leave home in companies, they travel in eddies of wind. In this climate these eddies are among the most curious of natural phenomena. On calm summer days they go past, whirling about straws and dust, and as not another breath of air is moving at the time their cause is sufficiently puzzling. In Gaelic the eddy is known as ‘the people’s puff of wind’ (_oiteag sluaigh_), and its motion ‘travelling on tall grass stems’ (_falbh air chuiseagan treòrach_). By throwing one’s left (or _toisgeul_) shoe at it, the Fairies are made to drop whatever they may be taking away—men, women, children, or animals. The same result is attained by throwing one’s bonnet, saying, ‘this is yours, that’s mine’ (_Is leatsa so, is leamsa sin_), or a naked knife, or earth from a mole-hill. In these eddies, people going on a journey at night have been ‘lifted,’ and spent the night careering through the skies. On returning to the earth, though they came to the house last left, they were too stupefied to recognize either the house or its inmates. Others, through Fairy despite, have wandered about all night on foot, failing to reach their intended destination though quite near it, and perhaps in the morning finding themselves on the top of a distant hill, or in some inaccessible place to which they could never have made their way alone. Even in daylight some were carried in the Elfin eddy from one island to another, in great terror lest they should fall into the sea. RAIN AND SUNSHINE, WIND AND RAIN. When there is rain with sunshine, the ‘little people,’ according to a popular rhyme, are at their meat, “Rain and sun, Little people at their meat.” When wind and rain come from opposite directions (which may for an instant be possible in a sudden shift of wind), by throwing some horse-dung against the wind, the Fairies are brought down in a shower! FAIRY ARROWS, ETC. Natural objects of a curious appearance, or bearing a fanciful resemblance to articles used by men, are also associated with the Fairies. The reedmace plant is called ‘the distaff of the Fairy women’ (_cuigeal nam ban shìth_), the foxglove the ‘thimble of the Fairy old women’ (_miaran nan cailleacha sìth_), though more commonly ‘the thimble of dead old women’ (_m. nan cailleacha marbh_). A substance, found on the shores of the Hebrides, like a stone, red (_ruadh_), and half dark (_lith dhorcha_), holed, is called ‘Elf’s blood’ (_fuil siochaire_).[9]