clear skies and on summer days. He then gives instances related to him by a man and a woman of credit, each of whom while riding found an arrow-head in their clothes in this unexpected way. Mr. F. C. Lukis, F.S.A.,[1] draws a distinction between the elf-shot or elf-arrow and the elf-dart, the latter being of larger dimensions and leaf-shaped. He gives an engraving of one which has been mounted in a silver frame and worn as a charm. The cut is here reproduced, as Fig. 271. The initials at the back are probably those of the owner, who mounted the amulet in silver, and of his wife. It was worn by an old Scottish lady for half a century. Others thus mounted were exhibited in the Museum of the Archæological Institute at Edinburgh in 1856.[2]
Fig. 271.—Elf-Shot.
Another arrow-head, also thus mounted, is engraved by Douglas,[3] but in this instance it was found in Ireland, where "the peasants call them elf-arrows, and frequently set them in silver, and wear them on their necks as amulets against the aithadh or elf-shot. Others are engraved in the Philosophical Transactions[4] and in Gough's "Camden's Britannia."[5] Sir W. Wilde[6] informs us that in the North of Ireland, when cattle are sick and the cattle doctor or fairy doctor is sent for, he often says that the beast has been elf-shot, or stricken by fairy or elfin darts, and by some legerdemain contrives to find in its skin one or more poisoned weapons, which, with some coins, are then placed in the water which is given the animal to drink, and a cure is said to be effected. The Rev. Dr. Buick,[7] in an article on Irish flint arrow-heads, has given some particulars as to their use in curing cattle that are bewitched, and the Folklore Society[8] has published some details as to the beliefs still existing with regard to fairy darts. The same view of disease being caused by weapons shot by fairies at cattle, and
- ↑ Reliquary, vol. viii. p. 207.
- ↑ "Cat.," pp. 8 and 127.
- ↑ "Nænia," pl. xxxiii. 6, p. 154. See Vallancey, "Coll. de Reb. Hibern.," N. xiii. pl. xi.
- ↑ Pt. iv. pl. iv. fig. 11.
- ↑ Vol. iv. p. 232, pl. xviii.
- ↑ "Cat. Mus. R. I. A.," p. 19. See also Arch. Assoc. Journ., vol. xxi. p. 323, and xxii. p. 316.
- ↑ Journ. R. S. A. of Irel., 5th S., vol. v. p. 61.
- ↑ Folklore Record, vol. iv. p. 112. Journ., vol. ii. p. 260. See also "Folklore of the Northern Counties," p. 185.
