riefly related where and
how he had received the coin. 'Say you so,' said Evans, 'I thought as
much, for when I looked into the till, shortly after you left the shop,
to my great surprise it was changed into a heap of musty horse dung.'"

FAIRIES WORKING FOR MEN.

It was once thought that kind Fairies took compassion on good folk, who
were unable to accomplish in due time their undertakings, and finished in
the night these works for them; and it was always observed that the Fairy
workman excelled as a tradesman the mortal whom he assisted. Many an
industrious shoemaker, it is said, has ere this found in the morning that
the Fairies had finished in the night the pair of shoes which he had only
commenced the evening before. Farmers too, who had in part ploughed a
field, have in the morning been surprised to find it finished. These
kind offices, it was firmly believed, were accomplished by Fairy friends.

Milton in _L'Allegro_ alludes to this belief in the following lines:--

Tells how the drudging Goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end.

MILTON, _L'Allegro_, lines 105-9.

In Scotland the sprite, or Fairy, called Browny, haunted family abodes,
and did all manner of work in the night for those who treated him kindly.
In England, Robin Goodfellow was supposed to perform like functions.
Thus sings Robin:--

Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleepe, and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill
Their malt up still;
I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.
If any 'wake.
And would me take,
I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

_Percy's Reliques_, vol. iii., p. 169.

Welsh Fairies are not described as ordinarily inclined to lessen men's
labours by themselves undertaking them; but there are a few tales current
of their having assisted worthy persons in their manual works. Professor
Rhys records one of these stories in _Y Cymmrodor_, vol. iv. 210. He
writes thus:--

"One day Guto, the Farmer of Corwrion, complained to his wife that he was
in need of men to mow his hay, and she answered, 'Why fret about it? look
yonder! there you have a field full of them at it, and stripped to their
shirt sleeves.'