1695 An Interesting Story About Fairies
From John Aubrey’s Miscellanies comes this account.
March 25, 1695.
HONOURED SIR,
I RECEIVED yours dated May 24th, 1694, in which you desire me to send you some instances and examples of Transportation by an Invisible Power. The true cause of my delaying so long, to reply to that letter, was not want of kindness; but of fit materials for such a reply.
As soon as I read your letter of May 24, I called to mind, a story
which I heard long ago, concerning one of the Lord Duffus, (in the shire of Murray) his predecessors of whom it is reported, that upon a time, when he was walking abroad in the fields near to his own house, he was suddenly carried away, and found the next day at Paris in the French King’s cellar, with a silver cup in his hand; that being brought into the King’s presence and questioned by him, who he was? and how he came thither? he told his name, his country, and the place of his residence, and that on such a day of the month (which proved to be the day immediately preceding) being in the fields, he heard the noise of a whirl-wind, and of voices crying “Horse and Hattock”, (this is the word which the fairies are said to use when they remove from any place) whereupon he cried “Horse and Hattock” also, and was immediately caught up, and transported through the air, by the fairies to that place, where after he had drank heartily he fell asleep, and before he awoke, the rest of the company were gone, and had left him in posture wherein he was found. It is said, the King gave him the cup which was found in his hand, and dismissed him.
This story (if it could be sufficiently attested) would be a noble
instance for your purpose, for which cause I was at some pains to enquire into the truth of it, and found the means to get the present Lord Duffus’s opinion thereof; which shortly is, that there has been, and is such a tradition, but that he thinks it fabulous; this account of it, his Lordship had from his father, who told him that he had it from his father, the present Lord’s grandfather; there is yet an old silver cup in his Lordship’s possession still, which is called the Fairy Cup; but has nothing engraven upon it, except the arms of the family.
The Duffus family is an ancient one in Scotland. A 1641 decision of the local church court reveals that “James Duffus and George Duffus and Charles Stevinson convict in Break of ye Sabbath for playing at ye golff, efternoone, in time of Sermon, and yr for ar ordayned evrie ane of them to pay havff a merk, and mak yr repentance ye next Sabbath”.