professes to have himself met with a woman of Arles, who was one day washing clothes on the banks of the Rhone, when a wooden bowl floated by her. In trying to catch it she got out of her depth, and was seized by a Drac. The Dracs were beings who haunted the waters of rivers, and dwelt in the deep pools, appearing often on the banks and in the towns in human form. The woman in question was carried down beneath the stream, and made nurse to her captor’s son. One day the Drac gave her an eel pasty to eat. Her fingers became greasy with the fat, and she happened to put them to one of her eyes. Forthwith she acquired a clear and distinct vision under the water. After some years she was allowed to return to her husband and family, and going early one morning to the market-place of Beaucaire, she met the Drac. Recognising him at once, she saluted him and asked after the health of his wife and child. “With which eye do you see me?” inquired the Drac. The woman pointed to the eye she had touched with the eel-fat; and thrusting his finger into it, the Drac vanished from sight.[1]
Here the only punishment suffered is the deprivation of the power of seeing fairies, or banishment from their society. This seems mild enough: much more was generally inflicted. The story first quoted relates what seems to be the ordinary form of vengeance for disregard of the prohibition to use the fairy eye-salve, namely, loss of sight in the offending eye. Spitting or striking is usually the means adopted by the elves to effect this end. Sometimes, however, the eye is torn from its socket. Whether there is much to choose between these different ways of undergoing the punishment is doubtful; but it should be noted that the last-mentioned mode is a favourite one in Brittany, and follows not so much on recognition as on denunciation by the virtuous mortal of the elf’s thieving propensities. “See what thieves these fairies are!” cried a woman who watched one of them putting her hand into the pocket of a country
- ↑ Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, Decisio III, c. 85.
