Midwife in Northumberland

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A midwife in Northumberland was one night summoned by a man to go out and perform her office to a sufferer ‘in the straw,’ to which she consented. Mounted on horseback behind him, she was carried with incredible rapidity over an immense space to a cottage, where the woman was soon after delivered of a healthy child. An attendant brought to the midwife ointment in a box, with which she was to anoint the child all over, but she was to beware of putting any of it on her own eyes. Involuntarily, while executing her task, she happened to draw her fingers across her eyes to remove some obstruction of sight, and immediately her eyes were opened and she saw that she was not in a cottage at all, but in the midst of a wild waste, where all the fairy population was assembled round her. She had the presence of mind not to betray any alarm, and having done all that was required, she was conveyed back to her dwelling with the same dispatch with which she had been taken from it. Subsequently, being at a market, she observed among the crowd the man and woman with whom she had formed this singular acquaintance, as well as other agents invisible to man, passing from stall to stall and purloining bits of butter and other edibles. She addressed them and asked them their reasons for these proceedings. ” Which eye do you see us with ? ” asked they. ‘With both,’ said she; and they blow into them and both were blinded. Of this and the previous story there are many variations. Denham 138-139

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