The gifts of the fairy-folk are, however, illusive and unreal. Among the numerous legends: ‘And thousands such the village keeps alive; Beings that people superstitious earth; That e’er in rural manners will survive,/ As long as wild rusticity has birth,’ we [in Northamptonshire] have, in common with the Irish and Germans, the one in which the fairy money is represented as changing into paper. A more ludicrous instance is the following; puerile, no doubt, but still valuable as a connecting link in the curious mythic chain: A woodman went to the forest to fell some timber: just as he was applying the axe to the trunk of a huge old oak, out jumped a fairy, who beseeched him with the most supplicating gestures to spare the tree. Moved more by fright and astonishment than anything else, the man consented, and as a reward for his forbearance was promised the fulfilment of his three next wishes. Whether from natural forgetfulness, or fairy illusion, we know not, but certain it is, that long before evening all remembrance of his visitor had passed from his noddle. At night, when he and his dame were dozing before a blazing fire, the old fellow waxed hungry, and audibly wished for a link of hog’s pudding. No sooner had the words escaped his lips than a rustling was heard in the chimney, and down came a bunch of the wished-for delicacies, depositing themselves at the feet of the astounded woodman, who, thus reminded of his morning visitor, began to communicate the particulars to his wife. ‘Thou bist a fool, Jan,’ said she, incensed at her husband’s carelessness in neglecting to make the best of his good luck; ‘I wish era wer atte noase!’ whereupon, the legend goes on to state, they immediately attached: themselves to the member in question, and stuck so tight that the woodman, finding no amount of force would remove these unsightly appendapos from his proboscis, was obliged, reluctantly, to wish them off thus making the third wish, and at once ending his brilliant expectations. Sternberg, 135-136