THE BAD BOY

This is a strange tale from Netherwitton in Northumberland, England, which is less than a mile away from Devil’s Causeway. There lived a couple who were deeply unhappy because they had never had a child. One day two strangers appeared at the door of their cottage, a man and woman as handsome as though they were royalty, though poorly dressed, and they had with them a little boy. They asked if they might leave the boy with them, saying they had very far to travel. The childless couple quickly agreed, and before this mysterious pair left they said the young boy’s eyes must be anointed every night, but they must never use the ointment themselves. For a long time they lived very happily together, but the cottager was ultimately unable to suppress his curiosity and one night he used the ointment on his eyes himself.
Nothing happened. Nothing for many days, at least, until the day of the fair at Longhorsley, when the cottager noticed in the distance the strangers stealing from a stall. He pointed them out to his wife who couldn’t see them, so he went to confront them, and it was then he discovered their true identity: they were the King and Queen of ‘the Bad Fairies’. The King of the Bad Fairies blew on the cottager’s eye and he lost his sight: he never saw the two fairies again, and the boy that had been left in his and his wife’s care vanished that very day.