oman give herself to
a fairy-lover? I have given a careful account of a case of each sort
in answer. Young King gained his wife by capture; Lady Emily Rich
followed her lover at a look.

But this does not really touch the point, which is, rather, how was
Lady Emily Rich brought or put into such a relation with Quidnunc
that she could receive a look from him? How was King put into such a
relation with Mabilla that he could take her away from her own people?
There must have been an incarnation, you would say; and I should agree
with you. Now in Andrew King's case there was belief to go upon, the
belief common to all the Cheviot side, handed down to it from untold
generations and never lost; coupled with that, there was an intense
and probably long-standing desire in the young man himself to realise
and substantiate his belief. He had brooded over it, his fancy had
gone to work upon it; he loved his Mabilla before ever he saw her; his
love, it was, which evoked her. And I take it as proved--at any rate
it is proved to my own satisfaction--that faith coupled with desire
has power--the power of suggestion it is called--over Spirit as it
certainly has over Matter. If I say, then, that Andrew King evoked
Mabilla By-the-Wood, called her out of her own world into his, I
assert two things: the first, that she was really at one time in her
own world, the second, that she was afterward really in his. The
second my own senses can vouch for. That she was fetched back by the
King of the Wood and recaptured by Andrew are minor points. Grant the
first taking and there is no difficulty about them.

Mr. Lawson gives cases from Greece which point to certain ritual
performances on the part of the lover; the snatching, for instance, of
a handkerchief from the beloved, of which the preservation is
tantamount to the permanence of the subsequent union. He has a curious
case, too, of a peasant who married a nymph and gave her a child but
could not make her speak to him. He consulted a wise woman who advised
him to threaten her with the fire for the baby if she would not talk.
He did it and the charm worked. The Nymph spoke fiercely to him, "You
dog, leave my child alone," she said, and seized it from him, and with
it disappeared. That is parallel to my case where love made Mabilla
speak. It was love for her husband, to be sure; but she had then no
children.

Mr. Wentz gets no evidence of fairy-wives from Ireland, but a great
number out of Wa