Whitsuntide
Whitsuntide is a very fatal and unlucky time. Especially beware of water
then, for there is an evil spirit in it, and no one should venture to bathe, nor
to sail in a boat for fear of being drowned; nor to go a journey where water
has to be crossed. And everything in the house must be sprinkled with holy
water at Whitsuntide to keep away the fairies, who at that season are very
active and malicious, and bewitch the cattle, and carry off the young
children, and come up from the sea to hold strange midnight revels, when
they kill with their fairy darts the unhappy mortal who crosses their path
and pries at their mysteries.
Whitsuntide Legend Of The Fairy Horses
There was a widow woman with one son, who had a nice farm of her
own close to a lake, and she took great pains in the cultivation of the land,
and her corn was the best in the whole country. But when nearly ripe, and
just fit for cutting, she found to her dismay that every night it was trampled
down and cruelly damaged; yet no one could tell by what means it was
done.
So she set her son to watch. And at midnight he heard a great noise and
a rushing of waves on the beach, and up out of the lake came a great troop
of horses, who began to graze the corn and trample it down madly with
their hoofs.
When he told all this to his mother she bade him watch the next night
also, but to take several of the men with him furnished with bridles, and
when the horses rose from the lake they were to fling the bridles over as
many as they could catch.
Now at midnight there was the same noise heard again, and the rush of
the waves, and in an instant all the field was filled with the fairy horses,
grazing the corn and trampling it down. The men pursued them, but only
succeeded in capturing one, and he was the noblest of the lot. The rest all
plunged back into the lake. However, the men brought home the captured
horse to the widow, and he was put in the stable and grew big and strong,
and never another horse came up out of the lake, nor was the corn touched
after that night of his capture. But when a year had passed by the widow
said it was a shame to keep so fine a horse idle, and she bade the young
man, her son, take him out to the hunt that was held that day by all the
great gentry of the country, for it was Whitsuntide.
And, in truth, the horse carried him splendidly at the hunt, and every
one admired both the fine young rider and his steed. But as he was
returning home, when they came within sight of the lake from which the
fairy steed had risen, he began to plunge violently, and finally threw his