The _Fairy Flax_ of Aran we have frequently spoken of in the preceding pages, and that flax may be spun from year's end to year's end, and little realized thereby, unless, indeed, "the good people," as the fairies are called,[27] take the spinner under their protection. Now, there was once a man in humble circumstances, who had an only daughter, the most beautiful creature that ever was seen. She spent much of her time spinning, but to no purpose. At length a hideous dwarf, lame and blind of an eye, came to her one day as she was spinning, and presented her with a distaff full of flax, upon which, he said, there was enough for her whole life, if she lived a hundred years, provided she did not spin it quite off. On she went spinning, but never spinning to the end, and her loom produced the choicest of stuffs, for which she received prices almost fabulous! Day by day her wealth increased, and after a time she felt assured that the produce of her labour had now secured so sure a market that it made little difference whether she spun the fairy flax right off or not; so, to try what would be the effect, in her curiosity she spun it to the end. In a moment the wheel stopped, and she had ever after to repent the curiosity that stripped her of immense wealth. [Sidenote: SATURDAY'S SPINNING--HEMP.] The spinning-wheel in Aran, the old crones say, should never spin on Saturday. Whence this keeping holy the Saturday I know not; but it does look as if they who kept the Saturday holy, were of Israelitish descent--were, perhaps, of the lost tribes carried into Nineveh at the time of the Captivity by Salamanassar, 730 B.C.![28] Now, there were two old women indefatigable spinners, whose wheels never stood still, though they were by the wise men warned not to spin on Saturdays. At length one of them died, and on the Saturday night following she appeared to the other, who was as usual busy at the wheel, and showed her her burning hand, saying-- "See what in hell at last I've won, Because on Saturdays I've spun." _Hemp._--I don't remember seeing hemp growing in Aran to any great extent. Sowing the seed of hemp on All Hallows' Eve in some parts of the country, and on St. John's Night in others, is described in the following lines from Gay's "Pastorals":-- "At eve last midsummer no sleep I sought, But to the field a bag of hemp seed brought: I scattered round the seed on every side, And three times in a trembling accent cried, 'This hemp seed with my virgin hand I sow, Who shall my true love be the crop shall mow.' I straight looked back, and, if my eyes speak truth, With his keen scythe behind me came the youth. 'With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground, And turn me thrice around, around, around!" [Sidenote: HAZEL--DIVINING-RODS.]