crocks of milk and pecks of oaten cake for the entertainment of their
guest. Then while they slept the Phynnodderee feasted, yet he always
left the table exactly as he found it, eating the cake and drinking the
milk, but filling up the peck and the crock afresh. Nobody ever intruded
upon him, so nobody ever saw him, save the Manx Peeping Tom. I remember
hearing an old Manxman say that his curiosity overcame his reverence,
and he "leff the wife," stepped out of bed, crept to the head of the
stairs, and peeped over the banisters into the kitchen. There he saw
the Phynnodderee sitting in his own arm-chair, with a great company of
brother and sister fairies about him, baking bread on the griddle, and
chattering together like linnets in spring. But he could not understand
a word they were saying.

I have told you that the Manxman is not built by nature for a gallant.
He has one bad fairy, and she is the embodied spirit of a beautiful
woman. Manx folk-lore, like Manx carvals, Manx ballads, and Manx
proverbs, takes it for a bad sign of a woman's character that she has
personal beauty. If she is beautiful, ten to one she is a witch. That is
how it happens that there are so many witches in the Isle of Man.

The story goes that a beautiful wicked witch entrapped the men of the
island. They would follow her anywhere. So she led them into the sea,
and they were all drowned. Then the women of the island went forth to
punish her, and, to escape from them, she took the form of a wren and
flew away. That is how it comes about that the poor little wren is
hunted and killed on St. Stephen's Day. The Manx lads do it, though
surely it ought to be the Manx maidens. At midnight they sally forth in
great companies, armed with sticks and carrying torches. They beat the
hedges until they light on a wren's nest, and, having started the wren
and slaughtered it, they suspend the tiny mite to the middle of a long
pole, which is borne by two lads from shoulder to shoulder. They then
sing a rollicking native ditty, of which one version runs:--

We'll hunt the wren, says Robbin the Bobbin;
We'll hunt the wren, says Richard the Robbin;
We'll hunt the wren, says Jack of the Lan';
We'll hunt the wren, says every one.

But Robbin the Bobbin and Richard the Robbin are not the only creatures
who have disappeared into the sea. The fairies themselves have also gone
there. They inhabit Man no more. A Wesleyan preacher declared some yea