"And touching the bairn, it's weel kenn'd she was born on Hallowe'en, and they that are born on Hallowe'en whiles see mair than ither folk." There is no hint of dark relations, but rather of a clear-sightedness which lays bare truths, even those concealed in men's breasts. Mary Avenel sees the spirit of her father after he has been dead for years. The White Lady of Avenel is her peculiar guardian. The Scottish Border, where Mary lived, is the seat of many superstitions and other worldly beliefs. The fairies of Scotland are more terrible than those of Ireland, as the dells and streams and woods are of greater grandeur, and the character of the people more serious. It is unlucky to name the fairies, here as elsewhere, except by such placating titles as "Good Neighbors" or "Men of Peace." Rowan, elm, and holly are a protection against them. "I have tied red thread round the bairns' throats, and given ilk ane of them a riding-wand of rowan-tree, forbye sewing up a slip of witch-elm into their doublets; and I wish to know of your reverence if there be onything mair that a lone woman can do in the matter of ghosts and fairies?--be here! that I should have named their unlucky names twice ower!" SCOTT: _Monastery._ "The sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits." These spirits of the air have not human feelings or motives. They are conscienceless. In this respect Peter Pan is an immortal fairy as well as an immortal child. While like a child he resents injustice in horrified silence, like a fairy he acts with no sense of responsibility. When he saves Wendy's brother from falling as they fly, "You felt it was his cleverness that interested him, and not the saving of human life." BARRIE: _Peter and Wendy._ The world in which Peter lived was so near the Kensington Gardens that he could see them through the bridge as he sat on the shore of the Neverland. Yet for a long time he could not get to them. Peter is a fairy piper who steals away the souls of children. "No man alive has seen me, But women hear me play, Sometimes at door or window, Fiddling the souls away-- The child's soul and the colleen's Out of the covering clay." HOPPER: _Fairy Fiddler._ On Hallowe'en all traditional spirits are abroad. The Scotch invented the idea of a "Samhanach," a goblin who comes out just at "Samhain." It is he who in Ireland steals children. The fairies pass at crossroads, "But the night is Hallowe'en, lady, The morn is Hallowday; Then win me, win me, and ye will, For weel I wot ye may. "Just at the mirk and midnight hour The fairy folk will ride. And they that wad their true-love win, At Miles Cross they maun bide." _Ballad of Tam Lin._