[24] "When the mother's vigilance hinders the fairies from carrying her child away, or changing it, the touch of fairy hands and their unearthly breath make it wither away in every limb and lineament like a blighted ear of corn, saving the countenance, which unchangeably retains the sacred stamp of divinity. The way to cure a breath-blasted child is worthy of notice. The child is undressed and laid out in unbleached linen new from the loom. Water is brought from a blessed well, in the utmost silence, before sunrise, in a pitcher never before wet; in which the child is washed, and its clothes dipped by the fingers of a maiden. Its limbs, on the third morning's experiment, plump up, and all its former vigour returns."--_Allan Cunningham, in "Cromek's Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song."_ [25] The leaden figure of a man connected with a cascade, once a prominent feature of the gardens. [26] Simpson's _History of Sanquhar_. [27] The "Brownie" of Scotland corresponds with the "Robin Goodfellow" of England. "Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out of door he flings Ere the first cock his matin rings." --_Il Penseroso_ [28] A communion cup, belonging to M'Millan, the well-known ousted minister of Balmaghie, and founder of a variety of the species _Covenanter_. This cup was treasured by a zealous disciple in the parish of Kirkcowan, and long used as a test by which to ascertain the orthodoxy of suspected persons. If, on taking the precious relic into his hand, the person trembled, or gave other symptoms of agitation, he was denounced as having bowed the knee to Baal, and sacrificed at the altar of idolatry; and it required, through his future life, no common exertion in the good cause, to efface the stigma thus fixed upon him.--_Note to original edition._ [29] Several striking examples of wraith appearance may be found in Wilson's _Folk-lore of Uppermost Nithsdale_ (1904). [30] A wonderfully graphic account of a manifestation of "deid lichts" to a Dumfries lady occurs in the _Dumfries and Galloway Monthly Magazine_, 1822, p. 169. [31] The dog. [32] "Open lock, end strife, Come death and pass life." --"Meg Merrilees" in _Guy Mannering_. [33] There seems to have been some variation in this usage. On the Borders, for example, the door was usually left wide open. (See Preparatory Note to "Young Bengie," _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_.) [34] Bearing upon this last statement of Mr Dudgeon's, the writer has been told of a comparatively recent instance in the parish of Anwoth.