It is easy to assume that references to the explicit contract for the soul found in such descriptions of fairy encounters are the result of elite intervention. There are, however, close links to be found between the human soul and the fairies in the early modern period, particularly in relation to beliefs surrounding human travel with the fairies or entry into fairyland. Transition into the fairy world was believed to occur either “in body” (during which, to mortal eyes, the physical body either completely disappeared or was replaced with a fairy or fairy “stock”) or “in spirit.” [6] In the latter case, it was only the spiritual part of the human (which in Christian terms would be called the soul) which went into fairyland, leaving the material body behind, an event which generally occurred when the human was dreaming, sick, or in some kind of trance. In 1675, for example, the Synod of Aberdeen recorded that it had received “divers complaints and reports … by several brethren that some under pretence of trances or familiarities of spirits of going with these spirits commonly called the fairies” (McPherson 1929, 130). This spiritual as opposed to bodily interpretation of human entry into fairyland corresponds with early modern evidence, most frequently found in Scottish sources, connecting fairies and the dead. Many believed that some (or all) fairies were souls of the dead, albeit clothed in some type of astral form. After natural death human souls might find themselves in fairyland; alternatively, living humans taken into or visiting the fairy realm could find themselves unwilling or unable to leave, resulting in the death of the mortal body.