Margaret Ann Courtney describes the fairies in this manner:
When unmolested, fairies bring good fortune to places they frequent; but they are spiteful if interfered with, and delight in vexing and thwarting people who meddle with them. It is well known 'that they can't abear those whom they can't abide.' Then there were the tales of persons spirited away to fairyland, to wait upon the small people's children and perform various little domestic offices, where the time has passed so pleasantly that they have forgotten all about their homes and relations, until by doing a forbidden thing they have incurred their master's anger. They were then punished by being thrown into a deep sleep, and on awakening found themselves on some moor close to their native villages. These unhappy creatures never, after their return, settled down into work, but roamed about aimlessly doing nothing, hoping and longing one day to be allowed to go back to the place from whence they had been banished. They had first put themselves into the fairie's power by eating or drinking something on the sly, when they had surprised them at on of their moonlight frolics; or by accepting a gift of fruit from the hands of one of these little beings.
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