The fairies entered largely into the lives and into the folk-lore of the Highland people, and the following examples of things named after the fairies indicate the manner in which the fairies dominated the minds of the people of Gaeldom:--_teine sith_, 'fairy fire' (_ignis fatuus_); _breaca sith_, 'fairy marks,' livid spots appearing on the faces of the dead or dying; _marcachd shith_, 'fairy riding,' paralysis of the spine in animals, alleged to be brought on by the fairy mouse riding across the backs of animals while they are lying down; _piob shith_, 'fairy pipe' or 'elfin pipe', generally found in ancient underground houses; _miaran na mna sithe_, 'the thimble of the fairy woman,' the fox-glove; _lion na mna sithe_, 'lint of the fairy woman,' fairy flax, said to be beneficial in certain illnesses; and _curachan na mna sithe_, 'coracle of the fairy woman,' the shell of the blue valilla. In place-names _sith_, 'fairy,' is common. Glenshee, in Perthshire, is said to have been full of fairies, but the screech of the steam-whistle frightened them underground. There is scarcely a district of the Highlands without its fairy knoll, generally the greenest hillock in the place. 'The black chanter of Clan Chattan' is said to have been given to a famous Macpherson piper by a fairy woman who loved him; and the Mackays have a flag said to have been given to a Mackay by a fairy sweetheart. The well-known fairy flag of Dunvegan is said to have been given to a Macleod of Macleod by a fairy woman; and the Macrimmons of Bororaig, pipers to the Macleods of Macleod, had a chanter called '_Sionnsair airgid na mna sithe_', 'the silver chanter of the fairy woman.' A family in North Uist is known as _Dubh-sith_, 'Black fairy,' from a tradition that the family had been familiar with the fairies in their secret flights and nightly migrations. Donald Macalastair, seventy-nine years of age, crofter, Druim-a-ghinnir, Arran, told me, in the year 1895, the following story in Gaelic:--'The fairies were dwelling in the knoll, and they had a near neighbour who used to visit them in their home. The man used to observe the ways of the fairies and to do as they did. The fairies took a journey upon them to go to Ireland, and the man took upon him to go with them. Every single fairy of them caught a ragwort and went astride it, and they were pell-mell, every knee of them across the Irish Ocean in an instant, and across the Irish Ocean was the man after them, astride a ragwort like one of themselves. A little wee tiny fairy shouted and asked were they all ready, and all the others replied that they were, and the little fairy called out:-- My king at my head, Going across in my haste, On the crests of the waves, To Ireland.