The great protection against the Elfin race (and this is perhaps the most noticeable point in the whole superstition) is _Iron_, or preferably steel (_Cruaidh_). The metal in any form—a sword, a knife, a pair of scissors, a needle, a nail, a ring, a bar, a piece of reaping-hook, a gun-barrel, a fish-hook (and tales will be given illustrative of all these)—is all-powerful. On entering a Fairy dwelling, a piece of steel, a knife, needle, or fish-hook, stuck in the door, takes from the Elves the power of closing it till the intruder comes out again. A knife stuck in a deer carried home at night keeps them from laying their weight on the animal. A knife or nail in one’s pocket prevents his being ‘lifted’ at night. Nails in the front bench of the bed keep Elves from women ‘in the straw,’ and their babes. As additional safe-guards, the smoothing-iron should be put below the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. A nail in the carcase of a bull that fell over a rock was believed to preserve its flesh from them. Playing the Jew’s harp (_tromb_) kept the Elfin women at a distance from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. So also a shoemaker’s awl in the door-post of his bothy kept a Glaistig from entering. _Fire_ thrown into water in which the feet have been washed takes away the power of the water to admit the Fairies into the house at night; a burning peat put in sowens to hasten their fermenting (_greasadh gortachadh_) kept the substance in them till ready to boil. Martin (_West Isl._) says fire was carried round lying-in women, and round about children before they were christened, to keep mother and infant from the power of evil spirits. When the Fairies were seen coming in at the door burning embers thrown towards them drove them away. Another safe-guard is _oatmeal_. When it is sprinkled on one’s clothes or carried in the pocket no Fairy will venture near, and it was usual with people going on journeys after nightfall to adopt the precaution of taking some with them. In Mull and Tiree the pockets of boys going any distance after nightfall were filled with oatmeal by their anxious mothers, and old men are remembered who sprinkled themselves with it when going on a night journey. In Skye, oatmeal was not looked upon as proper Fairy food, and it was said if a person wanted to see the Fairies he should not take oatmeal with him; if he did he would not be able to see them. When ‘the folk’ take a loan of meal they do not appear to have any objections to oatmeal. The meal returned, however, was always barleymeal.