Note 23 — The Magic Pail

‘I told you the Long-Eared had been very cruel to the dear Wee Folk. He was terribly cruel to one poor Little Skillywidden23 in particular, and its mammie, to save it from further cruelty, had to hide it somewhere until he was caught in the Magic Pail. You see,’ as Joan lifted up her pain-twisted hands in amazement, ‘when he was taken prisoner by the Pail and brought into a good woman’s cottage he became powerless to do the dear Little People any more harm, and all the spells that he threw over them became weak as money-spiders’ threads.’