Pan is an immortal fairy
as well as an immortal child. While like a child he resents
injustice in horrified silence, like a fairy he acts with no sense
of responsibility. When he saves Wendy's brother from falling as
they fly,

"You felt it was his cleverness that interested him, and not the
saving of human life."

BARRIE: _Peter and Wendy._

The world in which Peter lived was so near the Kensington Gardens
that he could see them through the bridge as he sat on the shore of
the Neverland. Yet for a long time he could not get to them.

Peter is a fairy piper who steals away the souls of children.

"No man alive has seen me,
But women hear me play,
Sometimes at door or window,
Fiddling the souls away--
The child's soul and the colleen's
Out of the covering clay."

HOPPER: _Fairy Fiddler._

On Hallowe'en all traditional spirits are abroad. The Scotch
invented the idea of a "Samhanach," a goblin who comes out just at
"Samhain." It is he who in Ireland steals children. The fairies
pass at crossroads,

"But the night is Hallowe'en, lady,
The morn is Hallowday;
Then win me, win me, and ye will,
For weel I wot ye may.

"Just at the mirk and midnight hour
The fairy folk will ride.
And they that wad their true-love win,
At Miles Cross they maun bide."

_Ballad of Tam Lin._

and in the Highlands whoever took a three-legged stool to where
three crossroads met, and sat upon it at midnight, would hear the
names of those who were to die in a year. He might bring with him
articles of dress, and as each name was pronounced throw one
garment to the fairies. They would be so pleased by this gift that
they would repeal the sentence of death.

Even people who seemed to be like their neighbors every day could
for this night fly away and join the other beings in their revels.

"This is the nicht o' Hallowe'en
When a' the witchie may be seen;
Some o' them black, some o' them green,
Some o' them like a turkey bean."

A witches' party was conducted in this way. The wretched women who
had sold their souls to the Devil, left a stick in bed which by
evil means was made to have their likeness, and, anointed with the
fat of murdered babies flew off up the chimney on a broomstick with
cats attendant. Burns tells the story of a company of witches