door the flower vanished, and the door was never more opened. "The Luck of Edenhall," still in existence, is supposed to be a trophy brought back from a similar visit.
Remarks.—Mr. Hartland suggests that these legends, and the relics connected with them, are in some way connected with the heathen rites prevalent in these islands before the introduction of Christianity, which may have lingered on into historic times. The absence of sunlight in this account of the House of the Fairies, as in "Childe Rowland" (on which see note in English Fairy Tales), may be regarded as a point in favour of Mr. MacRitchie's theories as to the identification of the fairies with the mound-dwellers. The object of the expectoration was to prevent Elidore's seeing his way back. Thus the fairies prevent the indiscretions of the human midwives they employ.
XLII. THE LEECHING OF KAYN'S LEG.
Source.—MacInnes, Folk-Tales from Argyleshire, vii., combined with Campbell of Tiree's version.
Parallels.—The earliest version, from an Egerton MS. of the fifteenth century, has been printed by Mr. S. H. O'Grady in his Silva Gadelica, No. 20, with an English version, pp. 332-42. Mr. Campbell of Tiree has given a short Gaelic version in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 78-100. Campbell of Islay collected the fullest version of this celebrated story, which is to be found among his manuscript remains now in Edinburgh. Mr. Nutt has given his English abstract in Folk-lore, i. 373-7, in its original form. The story must have contained twenty-four tales or episodes of stories, nineteen of which are preserved in J. F. Campbell's version. For parallels to the various incidents, see Mr. Nutt's notes on MacInnes, pp. 470-3. The tale is referred to in MacNicol, Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, 1779.
Remarks.—Nothing could give a more vivid idea of what might be called the organisation of the art of story-telling among the Celts than this elaborate tale. Mr. Nutt is inclined to trace it, even in its present form, back to the twelfth or thirteenth century. It occurs in an MS. of the fifteenth century in an obviously unoriginal form which shows that the story-teller did not appreciate the significance of many features in the folk-tale he was retelling, and yet it was orally collected by the great Campbell in 1871, in a version which runs to 142 folio pages.
