The Lhiannan-Shee was the fairy sweetheart of Manx belief: a spirit woman who attached herself to one man, visible only to him, and who would drain him of his wits and life if he gave himself to her.
Moore passes on a story from Port Erin about a man who had lived there not long before. People believed he had such a sweetheart. To look at, he was ordinary enough and went about his business, but every night his neighbours heard him in his barn, talking to someone and sometimes scolding her. If anyone made a noise outside, he fell silent.
J.F. Campbell, who told the story, took the sensible view that the man was mad and that his madness borrowed its form from the fairy lore around him.
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