FAIRIES AND IRON.
In Mull, a person, encountered by a Bean shìth, was told by her that she was kept from doing him harm by the iron he had about him. The only iron he had was a ring round the point of his walking stick.
In the North of Ireland, an iron poker, laid across the cradle, kept away the Fairies till the child was baptized.
The writer remembers well that, when a school-boy, great confidence was put in a knife, of which he was the envied possessor, and in a nail, which another boy had, to protect us from a Fairy (sìthche), which was said to have made its appearance at a spot near which the road to school passed the Hawthorn Bush between the Black Nose and the Pass of the Dead (An Crògan Sgithich eadar an t-Sròn du ’s Bealach nam Marbh). This was in Appin, Argyllshire.
The efficacy of iron, in warding off Fairy attacks, has already been illustrated.