they inhabit, beneath lakes and rivers, by floating past them, on the
surface of the water, in the shape of gold rings, or cups. The women,
thus seized, are employed as nurses, and, after seven years, are
permitted to revisit earth. Gervase mentions one woman, in particular,
who had been allured by observing a wooden dish, or cup, float by her,
while washing clothes in a river. Being seized as soon as she reached
the depths, she was conducted into one of these subterranean recesses,
which she described as very magnificent, and employed as nurse to one of
the brood of the hag who had allured her. During her residence in this
capacity, having accidentally touched one of her eyes with an ointment
of serpent's grease, she perceived, at her return to the world, that she
had acquired the faculty of seeing the _dracae_, when they intermingle
themselves with men. Of this power she was, however, deprived by the
touch of her ghostly mistress, whom she had one day incautiously
addressed. It is a curious fact, that this story, in almost all its
parts, is current in both the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, with
no other variation than the substitution of Fairies for _dracae_, and
the cavern of a hill for that of a river.[A] These water fiends are thus
characterized by Heywood, in the _Hierarchie_--

"Spirits, that have o'er water gouvernement,
Are to mankind alike malevolent;
They trouble seas, flouds, rivers, brookes, and wels,
Meres, lakes, and love to enhabit watry cells;
Hence noisome and pestiferous vapours raise;
Besides, they men encounter divers ways.
At wreckes some present are; another sort,
Ready to cramp their joints that swim for sport:
One kind of these, the Italians _fatae_ name,
_Fee_ the French, we _sybils_, and the same;