The fairies often wrought injury amongst
cattle. Every animal that died suddenly was killed by the dart of the
fairies, or, in the language of the people, was 'shot-a-dead.' Flint
arrows and spear-heads went by the name of 'faery dairts....' When an
animal died suddenly the canny woman of the district was sent for to
search for the 'faery dairt,' and in due course she found one, to the
great satisfaction of the owner of the dead animal."[753]
[Mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break
the spell.]
But how, we must still ask, can burning an animal alive break the spell
that has been cast upon its fellows by a witch or a warlock? Some light
is thrown on the question by the following account of measures which
rustic wiseacres in Suffolk are said to have adopted as a remedy for
witchcraft. "A woman I knew forty-three years had been employed by my
predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her
acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all
but meeting. She did not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she
knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had.
Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks,
which were a part of her charge, failed to lay eggs.... She at once took
it for granted that the ducks had been bewitched. This misbelief
involved very shocking consequences, for it necessitated the idea that
so diabolical an act could only be combated by diabolical cruelty.
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