weird baying in a wood, joined in the cry; but on the following morning
he found hanging at his stable door a quarter of a green Moss-woman as
his share of the game. As a spell against the Wild Huntsman, the
Moss-women sit in the middle of those trees upon which the woodcutter
has placed a cross, indicating that they are to be hewn, thereby making
sure of their safety. Then, again, there is the old legend which tells
how Brandan met a man on the sea,[12] who was, "a thumb long, and
floated on a leaf, holding a little bowl in his right hand and a pointer
in his left; the pointer he kept dipping into the sea and letting water
drop from it into the bowl; when the bowl was full, he emptied it out
and began filling it again, his doom consisting in measuring the sea
until the judgment-day." This floating on the leaf is suggestive of
ancient Indian myths, and reminds us of Brahma sitting on a lotus and
floating across the sea. Vishnu, when, after Brahma's death, the waters
have covered all the worlds, sits in the shape of a tiny infant on a
leaf of the fig tree, and floats on the sea of milk sucking the toe of
his right foot.[13]

Another tribe of water-fairies are the nixes, who frequently assume the
appearance of beautiful maidens. On fine sunny days they sit on the
banks of rivers or lakes, or on the branches of trees, combing and
arranging their golden locks:

"Know you the Nixes, gay and fair?
Their eyes are black, and green their hair,
They lurk in sedgy shores."

A fairy or water-sprite that resides in the neighbourhood of the Orkneys
is popularly known as Tangie, so-called from _tang,_, the seaweed with
which he is covered. Occasionally he makes his appearance as a little