On Fairies and pod casts

Owing to a friend of mine, I have been listening to a couple of pod casts on Celtic mythology. As I myself am writing, more in contemporary Ireland, I'm always interested in the folklore of the country, which I already knew was rich.

As a pagan myself, I'm not ignorant of the celebrations of Beltane and Samhain. This was the main topic being spoke of in this pod cast. For the entirity of the pod cast, http://celticmythpodshow.com/Shownotes/episodeSP01.php It's an hour long. Usually, they only go for about half an hour.

But these are points that I found of interest myself:

Children who die in April are abducted and taken away by fairies who watch to wait for children they can thusly take away. They are held back by primroses, picked before sunrise, on the threshold. Evil spirits can't touch these or iron.

Fairies are in best humor on May eve. It is then they carry of young people to join in their revels. Of women who danced really well, it used to be said, 'She danced to fairy music on the hill'.

Fire and salt, butter and milk are not given away on May day. They are sacred, and the former two used for wards against evil spirits. The witches, however, will take great pride in stealing the milk, and if they do so, then the luck and the prosperity of the milk with belong to the fairies until the next May eve. Mountain ash is the best safeguard against witches and evil work.

It's dangerous to sleep out in the open in the month of May, for that is when the fairies are most prominent. It is then that they take the most beautiful of women to be their brides and nurses for fairies babes, while the men are taken to be as husbands.

In one story, a man appeared dead, but was instead taken to the fairy land from our world. They knew this because when they left food out for him, it was always gone by the morning. So they sent someone after him, who said that he could get the man out in nine days. When the townspeople waited for the man to be born back into life from fairy land, instead of coming back, he spoke from fairy land to say 'I am happy with my fairy bride, leave me be where I am.' And his parents and the people were content with that.