On the top of Minch Moor (Minchmuir) is a spring called the Cheese Well. Lewis Spence wrote of it in the 19th century and according to him, the well is thought to be in the charge of a fairy, to whom some offering must be made – a piece of cheese, or a pin.
An anonymous collection of legends published in 1889 also refers to the Cheese Well, and expands upon the characteristics of the fairies, calling them Daoine Sidhe.
They are, though not absolutely malevolent, believed to be a peevish, repining and envious race, who enjoy, in the subterranean recesses, a kind of shadowy splendour.
They live, the writer continues, in green hills, especially those of a conical shape, on which their moonlight dances leave circular marks, sometimes yellow and blasted, sometimes deep green. It was dangerous to sleep in these fairy rings, or even to step inside them after sunset, and it was sometimes accounted unlucky to pass such spots as these, or caverns, waterfalls, and springs considered as fairy haunts, without performing some kind of ceremony to avert the displeasure of the fairies; hence the cheese left at the Minch Moor well.