Belief in Fairy FishermenAuthor(s): C. I. PatonSource: Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Mar., 1938), p. 50Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1257691 .

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50 Collectanea

" thunderbolt," used all over the world in one form or another as protection against lightning. This specimen was deposited in the Cambridge Museum of Ethnology. A second specimen was sent to Henry Balfour, F.R.S., for inclusion in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford, since no thunderbolt had hitherto reached the Museum from any site in England.

Note.-The wide dispersal of the practice of placing these so- called " thunderbolts" somewhere in the walls, roofs or under the hearthstones of houses suggests that it may have been widely prevalent in England, and the Hon. Secretary would be grateful to hear of any examples, beyond the above, known to readers.

BELIEF IN FAIRY FISHERMEN

SOME fishermen off the Niarbyl, a south-west point of the Isle of Man, on a moonlight night, saw mollags 1 floating on the sea. There was no boat near, and they thought that some other boat's nets had drifted away. They put out the yawl and went to " prove " 2 the supposed nets, but on taking hold of a mollag it darted off at a great speed, and if the holder of the mollag had not released his grip, the yawl would have been pulled under the water. They thought that the mollags were fairy-fishermen's property, and left them alone.

This was told to me by Philip Knight, gardener, Andreas, Isle of Man. He had been told it by one of the men in the yawl many years ago. (I heard it in July, 1936.)

That some fish, unknown to the fishermen at that time, had been entangled in the net seems probable. I was telling the tale to my nephew this year, and suggested that though basking sharks were not known in the Island, they had been found to the North of Ireland. Next morning I had a Manx newspaper with an account of a basking shark having been seen near the Niarbyl! A curious coincidence.

C. I. PATON

1 Mollags =dogskin buoys which float the herring-nets. 2To " prove " is to draw up some of the net to see if it has taken any

herrings.

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