{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39782/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39782","id":"gutenberg_39782","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39782","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Changelings -- Juvenile fiction","Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction","Dwarfs -- Juvenile fiction","Elves -- Juvenile fiction","Fairies -- Juvenile fiction","Fantasy literature","Goblins -- Juvenile fiction","Kobolds -- Juvenile fiction","Mermaids -- Juvenile fiction","Mermen -- Juvenile fiction","Pixies -- Juvenile fiction","Puck (Legendary character) -- Juvenile fiction","Trolls -- Juvenile fiction","Will-o'-the-wisp -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"Produced by Chris Curnow, Emmy and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THE LITTLE \"NECK\" IN THE SWEDISH RIVER.]\n\n\n\n\nBROWNIES AND BOGLES\n\nBY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY\n\n    Author of\n    Songs at the Start\n    Goose-Quill Papers\n    The White Sail\n\n    _Fifty Illustrations by Edmund H Garrett_\n\n    BOSTON\n    D LOTHROP COMPANY\n    FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS\n\n\n\n\n    COPYRIGHT, 1888,\n    BY\n    D. LOTHROP COMPANY.\n\n    PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH, BOSTON.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  CHAPTER I.\n  WHAT FAIRIES WERE AND WHAT THEY DID      11\n\n  CHAPTER II.\n  FAIRY RULERS                             22\n\n  CHAPTER III.\n  THE BLACK ELVES                          33\n\n  CHAPTER IV.\n  THE LIGHT ELVES                          46\n\n  CHAPTER V.\n  DEAR BROWNIE                             63\n\n  CHAPTER VI.\n  OTHER HOUSE-HELPERS                      79\n\n  CHAPTER VII.\n  WATER-FOLK                               96\n\n  CHAPTER VIII.\n  MISCHIEF-MAKERS                         109\n\n  CHAPTER IX.\n  PUCK; AND POETS' FAIRIES                123\n\n  CHAPTER X.\n  CHANGELINGS                             133\n\n  CHAPTER XI.\n  FAIRYLAND                               146\n\n  CHAPTER XII.\n  THE PASSING OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE        159\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n  The little river-neck of Sweden                    _Frontis._\n  \"God speed you, gentlemen!\"                               16\n  The Neapolitan fairy                                      25\n  The elf-monarch who was made court-fool                   29\n  The Isle of Ruegen Dwarfs that give presents to children   31\n  The Dwarf that borrowed the silk gown                     35\n  The Black Dwarfs of Ruegen planning mischief               38\n  The Troll's children                                      40\n  A Coblynau                                                42\n  \"I can't stay any longer!\"                                45\n  An elle-maid of Denmark                                   48\n  Bertha, the White Lady                                    49\n  Some Greek fairies                                        51\n  An elf-traveller                                          58\n  Brownie's delight was to do domestic service              65\n  Brownie relishes his bowl of cream                        70\n  All that Pueck demanded                                    73\n  \"Wag-at-the-Wa'\"                                          75\n  An Irish Cluricaune                                       84\n  Japanese children and Brownies                            86\n  A little Fir-Darrig                                       87\n  The persistent Kobold of Koepenick                         93\n  Mer-folk                                                  98\n  The old Nix near Ghent                                   100\n  The work of the Nickel                                   101\n  Hob in Hobhole                                           106\n  The Irish Pooka was a horse too                          111\n  Will o'-the-Wisp                                         113\n  Pisky also chased the farmers' cows                      118\n  Red Comb was a tyrant                                    119\n  The Welsh Puck                                           126\n  A merry night-wanderer                                   127\n  \"By the moon we sport and play\"                          129\n  The elves whose little eyes glow                         132\n  There was an Irish changeling                            137\n  \"The acorn before the oak have I seen\"                   139\n  She heard a faint voice singing under a leaf             143\n  \"Ainsel\"                                                 144\n  Gitto Bach and the fairies                               148\n  Kaguyahime, the moon-maid                                149\n  The little hunchback                                     152\n  Taknakanx Kan                                            156\n  \"Al was this loud fulfilled of faeries\"                  161\n  Fairy stories                                            163\n  The capture of Skillywidden                              165\n  Good-bye                                                 171\n\n\n\n\nBROWNIES AND BOGLES.\n\n\n\n\n\"BROWNIES AND BOGLES.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nWHAT FAIRIES WERE AND WHAT THEY DID.\n\n\nA FAIRY is a humorous person sadly out of fashion at present, who has\nhad, nevertheless, in the actors' phrase, a long and prosperous run on\nthis planet. When we speak of fairies nowadays, we think only of small\nsprites who live in a kingdom of their own, with manners, laws, and\nprivileges very different from ours. But there was a time when \"fairy\"\nsuggested also the knights and ladies of romance, about whom fine\nspirited tales were told when the world was younger. Spenser's Faery\nQueen, for instance, deals with dream-people, beautiful and brave, as do\nthe old stories of Arthur and Roland; people who either never lived, or\nwho, having lived, were glorified and magnified by tradition out of all\nkinship with common men. Our fairies are fairies in the modern sense. We\nwill make it a rule, from the beginning, that they must be small, and we\nwill put out any who are above the regulation height. Such as the\ncharming famous Melusina, who wails upon her tower at the death of a\nLusignan, we may as well skip; for she is a tall young lady, with a\nserpent's tail, to boot, and thus, alas! half-monster; for if we should\naccept any like her in our plan, there is no reason why we should not\nget confused among mermaids and dryads, and perhaps end by scoring down\ngreat Juno herself as a fairy! Many a dwarf and goblin, whom we shall\nmeet anon, is as big as a child. Again, there are rumors in nearly every\ncountry of finding hundreds of them on a square inch of oak-leaf, or\nbeneath the thin shadow of a blade of grass. The fairies of popular\nbelief are little and somewhat shrivelled, and quite as apt to be\nmalignant as to be frolicsome and gentle. We shall find that they were\ndivided into several classes and families; but there is much analogy\nand vagueness among these divisions. By and by you may care to study\nthem for yourselves; at present, we shall be very high-handed with the\nscience of folk-lore, and pay no attention whatever to learned\ngentlemen, who quarrel so foolishly about these things that it is not\nhelpful, nor even funny, to listen to them. A widely-spread notion is\nthat when our crusading forefathers went to the Holy Land, they heard\nthe Paynim soldiers, whom they fought, speaking much of the Peri, the\nloveliest beings imaginable, who dwelt in the East. Now, the Arabian\nlanguage, which these swarthy warriors used, has no letter P, and\ntherefore they called their spirits Feri, as did the Crusaders after\nthem; and the word went back with them to Europe, and slipped into\ngeneral use.\n\n\"Elf\" and \"goblin,\" too, are interesting to trace. There was a great\nItalian feud, in the twelfth century, between the German Emperor and the\nPope, whose separate partisans were known as the Guelfs and the\nGhibellines. As time went on, and the memory of that long strife was\nstill fresh, a descendant of the Guelfs would put upon anybody he\ndisliked the odious name of Ghibelline; and the latter, generation after\ngeneration, would return the compliment ardently, in his own fashion.\nBoth terms, finally, came to be mere catch-words for abuse and reproach.\nAnd the fairies, falling into disfavor with some bold mortals, were\nangrily nicknamed \"elf\" and \"goblin\"; in which shape you will recognize\nthe last threadbare reminder of the once bitter and historic faction of\nGuelf and Ghibelline.\n\nIt is likely that the tribe were designated as fairies because they\nwere, for the most part, fair to see, and full of grace and charm,\nespecially among the Celtic branches; and people, at all times, had too\nmuch desire to keep their good-will, and too much shrinking from their\nrancor and spite, to give them any but the most flattering titles. They\nwere seldom addressed otherwise than \"the little folk,\" \"the kind folk,\"\n\"the gentry,\" \"the fair family,\" \"the blessings of their mothers,\" and\n\"the dear wives\"; just as, thousands of years back, the noblest and\ncleverest nation the world has ever seen, called the dreaded Three\n\"Eumenides,\" the gracious ones. It is a sure and fast maxim that\nwheedling human nature puts on its best manners when it is afraid. In\nGoldsmith's racy play, She Stoops to Conquer, old Mistress Hardcastle\nmeets what she takes to be a robber. She hates robbers, of course, and\nis scared half out of her five wits; but she implores mercy with a\ncowering politeness at which nobody can choose but laugh, of her \"good\nMr. Highwayman.\" Now, fairies, who knew how to be bountiful and tender,\nand who made slaves of themselves to serve men and women, as we shall\nsee, were easily offended, and wrought great mischief and revenge if\nthey were not treated handsomely; all of which kept people in the habit\nof courtesy toward them. A whirlwind of dust is a very annoying thing,\nand makes one splutter, and feel absurdly resentful; but in Ireland,\nexactly as in modern Greece, the peasantry thought that it betokened the\npresence of fairies going a journey; so they lifted their hats\ngallantly, and said: \"God speed you, gentlemen!\"\n\n[Illustration: \"GOD SPEED YOU, GENTLEMEN!\"]\n\nFairies had their followers and votaries from early times. Nothing in\nthe Bible hints that they were known among the heathens with whom the\nIsraelites warred; nothing in classic mythology has any approach to\nthem, except the beautiful wood and water-nymphs. Yet poet Homer, Pliny\nthe scientist, and Aristotle the philosopher, had some notion of them,\nand of their influence. In old China, whole mountains were peopled with\nthem, and the coriander-seeds grown in their gardens gave long life to\nthose who ate of them. The Persians had a hierarchy of elves, and were\nthe first to set aside Fairyland as their dwelling-place. Saxons, in\ntheir wild forests, believed in tiny dwarves or demons called Duergar.\nCeltic countries, Scotland, Brittany, Ireland, Wales, were always\ncrowded with them. In the \"uttermost mountains of India, under a merry\npart of heaven,\" or by the hoary Nile, according to other writers, were\nthe Pigmeos, one cubit high, full-grown at three years, and old at\nseven, who fought with cranes for a livelihood. And the Swiss alchemist,\nParacelsus (a most pompous and amusing old bigwig), wrote that in his\nday all Germany was filled with fairies two feet long, walking about in\nlittle coats!\n\nTheir favorite color, noticeably in Great Britain, was green; the\nmajority of them wore it, and grudged its adoption by a mortal. Sir\nWalter Scott tells us that it was a fatal hue to several families in his\ncountry, to the entire gallant race of Grahames in particular; for in\nbattle a Grahame was almost always shot through the green check of his\nplaid. French fairies went in white; the Nis of Jutland, and many other\nhouse-sprites, in red and gray, or red and brown; and the plump Welsh\ngoblins, whose holiday dress was also white, in the gayest and most\nvaried tints of all. In North Wales were \"the old elves of the blue\npetticoat\"; in Cardiganshire was the familiar green again, though it was\nnever seen save in the month of May; and in Pembrokeshire, a uniform of\njolly scarlet gowns and caps. The fairy gentlemen were quite as much\ngiven to finery as the ladies, and their general air was one of extreme\ncheerful dandyism. Only the mine and ground-fairies were attired in\nsombre colors. Indeed, their idea of clothes was delightfully liberal;\nan elf bespoke himself by what he chose to wear; and fashions ranged all\nthe way from the sprites of the Orkney Islands, who strutted about in\narmor, to the little Heinzelmaenchen of Cologne, who scorned to be\nburdened with so much as a hat!\n\nPeople accounted in strange ways for their origin. A legend, firmly held\nin Iceland, says that once upon a time Eve was washing a number of her\nchildren at a spring, and when the Lord appeared suddenly before her,\nshe hustled and hid away those who were not already clean and\npresentable; and that they being made forever invisible after, became\nthe ancestors of the \"little folk,\" who pervade the hills and caves and\nruins to this day. In Ireland and Scotland fairies were spoken of as a\nwandering remnant of the fallen angels. The Christian world over, they\nwere deemed either for a while, or perpetually, to be locked out from\nthe happiness of the blessed in the next world. The Bretons thought\ntheir Korrigans had been great Gallic princesses, who refused the new\nfaith, and clung to their pagan gods, and fell under a curse because of\ntheir stubbornness. The Small People of Cornwall, too, were imagined to\nbe the ancient inhabitants of that country, long before Christ was born,\nnot good enough for Heaven, and yet too good to be condemned altogether,\nwhose fate it is to stray about, growing smaller and smaller, until by\nand by they vanish from the face of the earth.\n\nTherefore the poor fairy-folk, with whom theology deals so rudely, were\nsupposed to be tired waiting, and anxious to know how they might fare\neverlastingly; and they waylaid many mortals, who, of course, really\ncould tell them nothing, to ask whether they might not get into Heaven,\nby chance, at the end. It was their chief cause of doubt and melancholy,\nand ran in their little minds from year to year. And since we shall\nrevert no more to the sad side of fairy-life, let us close with a most\nsweet story of something which happened in Sweden, centuries ago.\n\nTwo boys were gambolling by a river, when a Neck rose up to the air,\nsmiling, and twanging his harp. The elder child watched him, and cried\nmockingly: \"Neck! what is the good of your sitting there and playing?\nYou will never be saved!\" And the Neck's sensitive eyes filled with\ntears, and, dropping his harp, he sank forlornly to the bottom. But when\nthe brothers had gone home, and told their wise and saintly father, he\nsaid they had been thoughtlessly unkind; and he bade them hurry back to\nthe river, and comfort the little water-spirit. From afar off they saw\nhim again on the surface, weeping bitterly. And they called to him:\n\"Dear Neck! do not grieve; for our father says that your Redeemer liveth\nalso.\" Then he threw back his bright head, and, taking his harp, sang\nand played with exceeding gladness until sunset was long past, and the\nfirst star sent down its benediction from the sky.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nFAIRY RULERS.\n\n\nTHE forming of character among the fairy-folk was a very simple and\nsensible matter. You will imagine that the Pagan, Druid and Christian\nelves varied greatly. And they did; still their morals had nothing to do\nwith it, nor pride, nor patriotism, nor descent, nor education; nor\nwould all the philosophy you might crowd into a thimble have made one\nbee-big resident of Japan different from a man of his own size in Spain.\n\nThey saved themselves no end of trouble by setting up the local\nbarometer as their standard. The only Bible they knew was the weather,\nand they followed it stoutly. Whatever the climate was, whatever it had\nhelped to make the grown-up nation who lived under it, that, every time,\nwere the \"brownies and bogles.\" Where the land was rocky and grim, and\nsubject to wild storms and sudden darknesses, the fairies were grim and\nwild too, and full of wicked tricks. Where the landscape was level and\ngreen, and the crops grew peacefully, they were tame, as in central\nEngland, and inclined to be sentimental.\n\nAnd they copied the distinguishing traits of the race among whom they\ndwelt. A frugal Breton fairy spoke the Breton dialect; the Neapolitan\nhad a tooth for fruits and macaroni; the Chinese was ceremonious and\nstern; a true Provencal fee was as vain as a peacock, flirting a mirror\nbefore her, and an Irish elf, bless his little red feathered caubeen!\nwas never the man to run away from a fight.\n\nIf you look on the map, and see a section of coast-line like that of\nCornwall or Norway, a sunshiny, perilous, foamy place, make up your mind\nthat the fairies thereabouts were fellows worth knowing; that you would\nhave needed all your wit and pluck to get the better of them, and that\nthey would have made live, hearty playmates, too, while in good humor,\nfor any brave boy or girl.\n\nWe do not know nearly so much about the genuine fairies as we should\nlike. They must have been, at one time or another, in every European\ncountry. Most of the Oriental spirits were taller, and of another brood;\nthey figured either as demons, or as what we should now call angels. But\nin the Germanic colonies, from very old days, fairy-lore was finely\ndeveloped, and we count up tribe on tribe of necks, nixies, stromkarls\nand mermaids, who were water-sprites; of bergmaennchen (little men of the\nmountain), and lovely wild-women in hilly places; of trolls around the\nwoods and rocks; of elves in the air, and gnomes or duergars in caverns\nor mines. Yet from Portugal, and Russia, and Hungary, and from our own\nNorth American Indians, we learn so little that it is not worth\ncounting.\n\nIf the good dear peasants who were acquainted with the fairies had made\nmore rhymes about them, and handed them down more attentively; if it had\noccurred to the knowing scholar-monks to keep diaries of elfin doings,\nas it would have done had they but known how soon their little friends\nwere to be extinct, like the glyptodon and the dodo, how wise should we\nnot be!\n\n[Illustration: THE NEAPOLITAN FAIRY.]\n\nBut again, though there were hosts of supernatural beings in the beliefs\nof every old land, we have no business with any but the wee ones. And as\nthese were settled most thickly in the Teutonic, Celtic and Cymric\ncountries, we will turn our curiosity thither, without farther\ngrumbling, and be glad to get so much authentic news of them as we may.\n\nFairies, as a whole, seem at bottom rather weak and disconsolate. For\nall of their magic and cunning, for all of their high station, and its\nfeasting and glory, they could not keep from seeking human sympathy.\nThey did, indeed, hurt men, resent intrusions, foretell the future, and\ncall down disease and storm, but they stood in awe of the weakest mortal\nbecause of his superior strength and size; they came to him to borrow\nfood and medicine, and even to ask the loan of his house for their\nrevels. They rendered themselves invisible, but he had always at his\nfeet the fern-seed, the talisman of four-leaved clover (or, as in\nScotland, the leaf of the ash or rowan-tree), with which he could defeat\ntheir design, and protect himself against the attacks of any witch, imp,\nor fairy whatsoever.\n\nTheir government was a happy-go-lucky affair. The various tribes of\nfairies had no common interests which would make them sigh for\npost-offices, or cables, or general synods. Each set of them got along,\nindependent of the rest. Once in a while a mine-man would live alone\nwith his wife, pegging away at his daily work, without any idea of\nhurrahing for his King or, more likely, his Queen; or even of hunting up\nhis own cousins in the next county.\n\nIf we had elves in the United States nowadays, they would no doubt be\nAmerican enough to elect a President and have him as honest, and steady,\nand sound-hearted as needs be. But dwelling as they did in feudal days,\nthey set up thrones and sceptres all over Fairydom.\n\nAccording to the poets, Mab and Oberon are the crowned rulers of the\nlittle people. In reality, they had no supreme head. Among many parties\nand factions, each small agreeing community had its own chief, the\ntallest of his race, who was no chief at all, mind you, to the fairy\nneighbors a mile east. The delicate yellow Chinese fairy-mother was Si\nWang Mu; and in the Netherlands, the elf-queen, who was also queen of\nthe witches, was called Wanne Thekla.\n\nWe snatch an item here and there of the royal histories. We find that\nthe sweet-natured Elberich in the Niebelungen is the same as Oberon. In\nGermany was a dwarf-king named Goldemar, who lived with a knight, shared\nhis bed, played at dice with him, gave him good advice, called him\nBrother-in-law very fondly, and comforted him with the music of his\nharp. But Goldemar, though the knight loved him and could touch and feel\nhim, was unseen. He was like a wreath of blue smoke, or a fragment of\nmoonlight, and you could run a sword through him, and never change his\nkind smile. His royal hands were lean, and soft, and cold as a frog's.\nAfter three years, perhaps when Brother-in-law was dead, or when he was\nmarried, and needed him no longer, the gentle dwarf-king disappeared.\n\nSinnels, Guebich, and Heiling were other dwarf-princes, probably rivals\nof Goldemar, and ready to have at him till their breath gave out. Their\nlittle majesties were quarrelsome as cock-sparrows. The elf-monarch\nLaurin was once conquered by Theodoric; and because he had been\ntreacherous in war (which was not \"fair\" at all, despite the proverb),\nhe got a very sad rebuff to his dignity, in being made fool or buffoon\nat the court of Bern.\n\n[Illustration: THE ELF-MONARCH WHO WAS MADE COURT-FOOL.]\n\nWe are told in the Mabinogion how the daughter of Llud Llaw Ereint was\n\"the most splendid maiden in the three islands of the mighty,\" and how\nfor her Gwyn ap Nudd, the Welsh fairy-king, battles every May-day from\ndawn until sunset. Gwyn once carried her off from Gwythyr, her true\nlord; and both lovers were so furious and cruel against each other that\nblessed King Arthur condemned them to wage bitter fight on each\nfirst-of-May till the world's end; and to whomsoever is victorious the\ngreatest number of times, the fair lady shall then be given. Let us\nhope the reward will not fall to thieving Gwyn.\n\nWe have said that we should do pretty much as we pleased in ranging the\nmyriad fairy-folk into ranks and species. If, as we prowl about, we see\na baby in the house of the Elfsmiths, who has a look of the Elfbrowns,\nwe will immediately kidnap him from his fond parents, and add him to the\nfamily he resembles. Now that might make wailing and confusion, and\nbring down vengeance on our heads, if there were any Queen Mab left to\nrap us to order; but as things go, we shall find it a very neat way of\nsmoothing difficulties.\n\n[Illustration: THE ISLE OF RUeGEN DWARVES THAT GIVE PRESENTS TO\nCHILDREN.]\n\nOf course there are certain pigwidgeons too accomplished, too slippery,\ntoo many things in one, to be ticketed and tied down like the rest; such\nversatile fellows as the Brown Dwarves of the Isle of Ruegen, for\ninstance. They lived in what were called the Vine-hills, and were not\nquite eighteen inches high. They wore little snuff-brown jackets and a\nbrown cap (which made them invisible, and allowed them to pass through\nthe smallest keyhole), with one wee silver bell at its peak, not to be\nlost for any money. But they did some roguish things; and children who\nfell into their hands had to serve them for fifty years! With caprice\nusual to their kin, they will, on other occasions, befriend and protect\nchildren, and give them presents; or plague untidy servants, like\nBrownie, or lead travellers astray by night into bogs and marshes, like\nthe Ellydan and the Fir-Darrig, and mischievous double-faced Robin\nGoodfellow himself.\n\nAn ancient tradition says that while the grass-blades are sprouting at\nthe root, the earth-elves water and nourish them; and the moment the\ngrowth pierces the soil, affectionate air-elves take it in charge.\nTherefore we borrow a hint from the grass; and after first going down\namong the swarthy fairies who burrow underground, we shall pass up to\ncompanionship with little beings so beautiful that wherever they flock\nthere is starlight and song.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE BLACK ELVES.\n\n\nACCORDING to the very old Scandinavian notion, land-fairies were of two\nsorts; the Light or Good Elves who dwelt in air, or out-of-doors on the\nearth, and the Black or Evil Elves who dwelt beneath it.\n\nWe will follow the Norse folk. If we were required to group human beings\nunder two headings, we should choose that same Good and Evil, because\nthe division occurs to one naturally, because it saves time, and because\neverybody comprehends it, and sees that it is based upon law; and so do\nwe deal with our wonder-friends, who have the strange moral sorcery\nbelonging to each of us their masters, to help or to harm.\n\nThe evil fairies, then, were the scowling underground tribes, who hid\nthemselves from the frank daylight, and the open reaches of the fields.\nYet just as the good fairies had many a sad failing to offset their\ngrace and charm, the grim, dark-skinned manikins had sudden impulses\ntowards honor and kindness. In fact, as we noted before, they were\nastonishingly like our fellow-creatures, of whom scarce any is entirely\nfaultless, or entirely warped and ruined.\n\nFor instance, the Hill-men, in Switzerland, were very generous-minded;\nthey drove home stray lambs at night, and put berry-bushes in the way of\npoor children. And the more modern Dwarves of Germany, frequenting the\nclefts of rocks, were silent, mild, and well-disposed, and apt to bring\npresents to those who took their fancy. Like others of the elf-kingdom,\nthey loved to borrow from mortals. Once a little bowing Dwarf came to a\nlady for the loan of her silk gown for a fairy-bride. (You can imagine\nthat, at the ceremony, the groom must have had a pretty hunt among the\nwilderness of finery to get at her ring-finger!) Of course the lady gave\nit; but worrying over its tardy return, she went to the Dwarves' hill\nand asked for it aloud. A messenger with a sorrowful countenance\nbrought it to her at once, spotted over and over with wax. But he told\nher that had she been less impatient every stain would have been a\ndiamond!\n\n[Illustration: THE DWARF THAT BORROWED THE SILK GOWN.]\n\nThe huge, terrible, ogre-like Hindoo Rakshas, the weird Divs and Jinns\nof Persia, and the ancient demon-dwarves of the south called Panis, may\nbe considered the foster-parents of our dwindled minims, as the glorious\nPeris on the other hand gave their name, and some of their qualities, to\na little European family of very different ancestry.\n\nThe Black Elves will serve as our general name for dwarves and\nmine-fairies. These are closely connected in all legends, live in the\nsame neighborhoods, and therefore claim a mention together. They have\nfour points in common: dark skin; short, bulky bodies; fickle and\nirritable natures; and occupations as miners, misers, or metalsmiths.\nAnd because of their exceeding industry, on the old maxim's authority,\nwhere all work and no play made Jack a dull boy, they are curiously\nheavy-headed and preposterous jacks; and, waiving their plain faces, not\nin any wise engaging. Yet perhaps, being largely German, they may be\nphilosophers, and so vastly superior to any little gabbling,\nsomersaulting ragamuffin over in Ireland.\n\nIn the Middle Ages, they were described as withered and leering, with\nsmall, sharp, snapping black eyes, bright as gems; with cracked voices,\nand matted hair, and horns peering from it! and as if that were not\nenough adornment, they had claws, which must have been filched from the\nghosts of mediaeval pussy-cats, on their fingers and toes.\n\nThe first Duergars belonging to the Gotho-German mythology, were\nmuscular and strong-legged; and when they stood erect, their arms\nreached to the ground. They were clever and expert handlers of metal,\nand made of gold, silver and iron, the finest armor in the world. They\nwrought for Odin his great spear, and for Thor his hammer, and for Frey\nthe wondrous ship _Skidbladnir_.\n\nLong ago, too, armor-making Elves, black as pitch, lived in\nSvart-Alfheim, in the bowels of the earth, and were able, by their\nglance or touch or breath, to cause sickness and death wheresoever they\nwished.\n\n[Illustration: THE BLACK DWARVES OF RUeGEN PLANNING MISCHIEF.]\n\nStill uglier were the Black Dwarves of the mysterious Isle of Ruegen; nor\nhad they any frolicsome or cordial ways which should bring up our\nopinion of them. Their pale eyes ran water, and every midnight they\nmewed and screeched horribly from their holes. In idle summer-hours they\nsat under the elder-trees, planning by twos and threes to wreak mischief\non mankind. They, as well, were once useful, if not beautiful; for in\nthe days when heroes wore a panoply of steel, the Black Dwarves wrought\nfair helmets and corselets of cobwebby mail which no lance could pierce,\nand swords flexible as silk which could unhorse the mightiest foe. The\nlittle blackamoors frequented mining districts, and dug for ore on\ntheir own account. They were said to be very rich, owning unnumbered\nchests stored underground. The most exciting tales about gnomes of all\nnations were founded on the efforts of daring mortals to get possession\nof their wealth.\n\nTo the mining division belong the dwarf-Trolls of Denmark and Sweden\n(for there were giant-Trolls as well), and the whimsical Spriggans of\nCornwall. The Trolls burrowed in mounds and hills, and were called also\nBjerg-folk or Hill-folk; they lived in societies or families, baking and\nbrewing, marrying and visiting, in the old humdrum way. They made\nfortunes, and hoarded up heaps of money. But they were often obliging\nand benevolent; it gave them pleasure to bestow gifts, to lend and\nborrow, and sometimes, alas! to steal. They played prettily on musical\ninstruments, and were very jolly. People used to see the stumpy little\nchildren of the genteel Troll who lived at Kund in Jutland, climbing up\nthe knoll which was the roof of their own house, and rolling down one\nafter the other with shouts of laughter. The Trolls were famous\ngymnasts, and very plump and round. Our word \"droll\" is left to us in\nmerry remembrance of them.\n\n[Illustration: THE TROLL'S CHILDREN.]\n\nThey were tractable creatures, as you may know from the tale of the\nfarmer, who, ploughing an angry Troll's land, agreed, for the sake of\npeace, to go halves in the crops sown upon it, so that one year the\nTroll should have what grew above ground, and the next year what grew\nunder. But the sly farmer planted radishes and carrots, and the Troll\ntook the tops; and the following season he planted corn; and his queer\npartner gathered up the roots and marched off in triumph. Indeed, it was\nso easy to outwit the simple Troll that a generous farmer would never\nhave played the game out, and we should have lost our little story. It\nwas mean to take advantage of the sweet fellow's trustfulness. There was\nan English schoolmaster once, a man wise, firm, and kind, and of vast\ninfluence, of whom one of his boys said to another: \"It's a shame to\ntell a lie to Arnold; he always believes it.\" That was a ray of real\nchivalry.\n\nThe Spriggans were fond of dwelling near walls and loose stones, with\nwhich it was unlucky to tamper, and where they slipped in and out with\nsuspicious eyes, guarding their buried treasure. If a house was robbed,\nor the cattle were carried away, or a hurricane swooped down on a\nCornish village, the neighbors attributed their trouble to the\nSpriggans; whereby you may believe they had fine reputations for\nmeddlesomeness. Their cousins, the Buccas, Bockles or Knockers, were\ngentlemen who went about thumping and rapping wherever there was a vein\nof ore for the weary workmen, cheating, occasionally, to break the\nmonotony.\n\n[Illustration: A COBLYNAU.]\n\nThe Welsh Coblynau followed the same profession, and pointed out the\ndesired places in mines and quarries. The Coblynau were copper-colored,\nand very homely, as were all the pigmies who lived away from the sun;\nthey were busybodies, half-a-yard high, who imitated the dress of their\nfriends the miners, and pegged away at the rocks, like them, with great\nnoise and gusto, accomplishing nothing. Their houses were far-removed\nfrom mortal vision, and unlike certain proper children, now obsolete,\nthe Coblynau themselves were generally heard, but not seen.\n\nTheir German relation was the Wichtlein (little wight) an extremely\nsmall fellow, whom the Bohemians named Hans-schmiedlein (little John\nSmith!) because he makes a noise like the stroke of an anvil.\n\nDwarves and mine-men went about, unfailingly, with a purseful of gold.\nBut if anyone snatched it from them, only stones and twine and a pair of\nscissors were to be found in it. The Leprechaun, or Cluricaune, whom we\nshall meet later as the fairy-cobbler, was an Irish celebrity who knew\nwhere pots of guineas were hidden, and who carried in his pocket a\nshilling often-spent and ever-renewed. He looked, in this banker-like\ncapacity, a clumsy small boy, dressed in various ways, sometimes in a\nlong coat and cocked hat, unlike the Danish Troll, who kept to homely\ngray, with the universal little red cap. Even the respectable Kobold,\nwho was, virtually, a house-spirit, caught the fever of fortune-hunting,\nand often threw up his domestic duties to seek the fascinating nuggets\nin the mines.\n\nThere is a funny anecdote of a Troll who, as was common with his race,\ncunningly concealed his prize under the shape of a coal. Now a peasant\non his way to church one bright Sunday morning saw him trying vainly to\nmove a couple of crossed straws which had blown upon his coal; for\nanything in the shape of a cross seemed to shrivel up an elf's power in\nthe most startling manner. So the little sprite turned, half-crying, and\nbegged the peasant to move the straws for him. But the man was too\nshrewd for that, and took up the coal, straws and all, and ran, despite\nthe poor Troll's screaming, and saw, on reaching home, that he had\ncaptured a lump of solid gold.\n\nAll Black Elves were particular about their neighborhoods, and a whole\ncolony would migrate at once if they took the least offence, or if the\nvillagers about got \"too knowing\" for them. (An American poet once wrote\na sonnet \"To Science,\" in which he berated her for having made him \"too\nknowing,\" and for having driven\n\n        --\"the Naiad from her flood\n    The elfin from the green grass\";\n\nand it was in consequence of his very knowingness, no doubt, that,\nbeauty-loving and marvel-loving as were his sensitive eyes, they never\nsaw so much as the vanishing shadow of a fairy.) A little dwarf-woman\ntold two young Bavarians that she intended to leave her favorite\ndwelling, because of the shocking cursing and swearing of the\ncountry-people! But they were not all so godly.\n\n[Illustration: \"I CAN'T STAY ANY LONGER!\"]\n\nEver since the great god Thor threw his hammer at the Trolls, they have\nhated noise as much as Mr. Thomas Carlyle, who, however, made Thor's own\nbluster in the world himself. They sought sequestered places that they\nmight not be disturbed. The Prussian mites near Dardesheim were\nfrightened away by the forge and the factory. Above all else,\nchurch-bells distressed them, and spoiled their tempers. A huckster once\npassed a Danish Troll, sitting disconsolately on a stone, and asked him\nwhat the matter might be. \"I hate to leave this country,\" blubbered the\nfat mourner, \"but I can't stay where there is such an eternal ringing\nand dinging!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE LIGHT ELVES.\n\n\nOver the beautiful Light Elves of the _Edda_, in old Scandinavia, ruled\nthe beloved sun-god Frey; and they lived in a summer land called\nAlfheim, and it was their office to sport in air or on the leaves of\ntrees, and to make the earth thrive.\n\nBut they changed character as centuries passed; and they came to\nresemble the fairies of Great Britain in their extreme waywardness and\nfickleness. For though they were fair and benevolent most of the time,\nthey could be, when it so pleased them, ugly and hurtful; and what they\ncould be, they very often were; for fairies were not expected to keep a\nfirm rein on their moods and tempers.\n\nNorwegian peasants described some of their Huldrafolk as tiny bare boys,\nwith tall hats; and in Sweden, as well, they were slender and delicate.\nWhen a Swedish elf-maid or moon-maid wished to approach the inmates of a\nhouse, she rode on a sunbeam through the keyhole, or between the\nopenings in a shutter.\n\nThe German wild-women were like them, going about alone, and having fine\nhair flowing to their feet. They had some odd traits, one of which was\nsermonizing! and exhorting stray mortals who had done them a service, to\nlead a godly life.\n\nThe elle-maid in Denmark and in neighboring countries was always winsome\nand graceful, and carried an enchanted harp. She loved moonlight best,\nand was a charming dancer. But her evil element was in her very beauty,\nwith which she entrapped foolish young gentlemen, and waylaid them, and\ncarried them off who knows whither? She could be detected by the shape\nof her back, it being hollow, like a spoon; which was meant to show that\nthere was something wrong with her, and that she was not what she\nseemed, but fit only for the abhorrence of passers-by. The elle-man, her\nmate, was old and ill-favored, a disagreeable person; for if any one\ncame near him while he was bathing in the sun, he opened his mouth and\nbreathed pestilence upon them.\n\n[Illustration: AN ELLE-MAID, OF DENMARK.]\n\n[Illustration: BERTHA, THE WHITE LADY.]\n\nA common trait of the air-fairies was to assist at a birth and give the\ninfant, at their will, good and bad gifts. Dame Bertha, the White Lady\nof Germany, came to the birth of certain princely babes, and the\nKorrigans made it a general practice. Whenever they nursed or tended a\nnew-born mortal, bestowed presents on him and foretold his destiny, one\nof the little people was almost always perverse enough to bestow and\nforetell something unfortunate. You all know Grimm's beautiful tale of\nDornroeschen, which in English we call The Sleeping Beauty, where the\njealous thirteenth fairy predicts the poor young lady's spindle-wound.\nAround the famous Roche des Fees in the forest of Theil, are those who\nbelieve yet that the elves pass in and out at the chimneys, on errands\nto little children.\n\nThe modern Greek fairies haunted trees, danced rounds, bathed in cool\nwater, and carried off whomsoever they coveted. A person offending them\nin their own fields was smitten with disease.\n\nThe Chinese Shan Sao were a foot high, lived among the mountains, and\nwere afraid of nothing. They, too, were revengeful; for if they were\nattacked or annoyed by mortals, they \"caused them to sicken with\nalternate heat and cold.\" Bonfires were burnt to drive them away.\n\nThe innocent White Dwarves of the Isle of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea, made\nlace-work of silver, too fine for the eye to detect, all winter long;\nbut came idly out into the woods and fields with returning spring,\nleaping and singing, and wild with affectionate joy. They were not\nallowed to ramble about in their own shapes; therefore they changed\nthemselves to doves and butterflies, and winged their way to good\nmortals, whom they guarded from all harm.\n\n[Illustration: SOME GREEK FAIRIES.]\n\nThe Korrigans of Brittainy, mentioned a while ago, were peculiar in many\nways. They had beautiful singing voices and bright eyes, but they never\ndanced. They preferred to sit still at twilight, like mermaids, combing\ntheir long golden hair. The tallest of them was nearly two feet high,\nfair as a lily, and transparent as dew itself, yet able as the rest to\nseem dark, and humpy, and terrifying. He who passed the night with them,\nor joined in their sports, was sure to die shortly, since their very\nbreath or touch was fatal. And again, as in the case of Seigneur Nann,\nabout whom a touching Breton ballad was made, they doomed to death any\nwho refused to marry one of them within three days.\n\nOf the American Indian fairies we do not know much. In Mr. Schoolcraft's\nbooks of Indian legends there is a beautiful little Bone-dwarf, who may\nalmost be considered a fairy. In the land of the Sioux they tell the\npretty story of Antelope and Karkapaha, and how the wee warrior-folk,\nthronging on the hill, clad in deerskin, and armed with feathered arrow\nand spear, put the daring heart of a slain enemy into the breast of the\ntimid lover, Karkapaha, and made him worthy both to win and keep his\nlovely maiden, and to deserve homage for his bravery, from her tribe\nand his. Some of you will remember one thing against the Puk-Wudjies,\nwhich is an Algonquin name meaning \"little vanishing folk,\" to wit: that\nthey killed Hiawatha's friend, \"the very strong man Kwasind,\" as our\nLongfellow called him. He had excited their envy, and they flung on his\nhead, as he floated in his canoe, the only thing on earth that could\nkill him, the seed-vessel of the white pine.\n\nThe Scotch, Irish and English overground fairies were, as a general\nthing, very much alike. They had the power of becoming visible or\ninvisible, compressing or enlarging their size, and taking any shape\nthey pleased. When an Irish Shefro was disturbed or angry, and wanted to\nget a house or a person off her grounds, she put on the strangest\nappearances: she could crow, spit fire, slap a tail or a hoof about,\ngrin like a dragon, or give a frightful, weird, lion-like roar. Of\ncourse the object of her polite attentions thought it best to oblige\nher. If she and her companions were anxious to enter a house, they\nlifted the spryest of their number to the keyhole, and pushed him\nthrough. He carried a piece of string, which he fastened to the inside\nknob, and the other end to a chair or stool; and over this perilous\nbridge the whole giggling tribe marched in one by one. The Irish and\nScotch fays were more mischievous than the English, but have not fared\nso well, having had no memorable verses made about them. The little\nScots were sometimes dwarfish wild creatures, wrapped in their plaids,\nor, oftener, comely and yellow-haired; the ladies in green mantles,\ninlaid with wild-flowers; and dapper little gentlemen in green trousers,\nfastened with bobs of silk. They carried arrows, and went on tiny\nspirited horses, as did the Welsh fairies, \"the silver bosses of their\nbridles jingling in the night-breeze.\" An old account of Scotland says\nthat they were \"clothed in green, with dishevelled hair floating over\ntheir shoulders, and faces more blooming than the vermeil blush of a\nsummer morning.\"\n\nTheir Welsh cousins were many. A native poet once sang of them:\n\n          ----In every hollow,\n    A hundred wry-mouthed elves.\n\nThey were queer little beings, and had notions of what was decorous, for\nthey combed the goats' beards every Friday night, \"to make them decent\nfor Sunday!\" They were very quarrelsome; you could hear them snarling\nand jabbering like jays among themselves, so that in some parts of Wales\na proverb has arisen: \"They can no more agree than the fairies!\" The\ninhabitants believed that the midgets never had courage to go through\nthe gorse, or prickly furze, which is a common shrub in that country.\nOne sick old woman who was bothered by the Tylwyth Teg (\"the fair\nfamily\") souring her milk and spilling her tea, used to choke up her\nroom with the furze, and make such a hedge about the bed, that nothing\nlarger than a needle could be so much as pointed at her. In Breconshire\nthe Tylwyth Teg gave loaves to the peasantry, which, if they were not\neaten then and there in the dark, would turn in the morning into\ntoadstools! When Welsh fairies took it into their heads to bestow food\nand money, very lazy people were often supported in great style, without\na stroke of work. And the Tylwyth Teg loved to reward patience and\ngenerosity. They played the harp continuously, and, on grand occasions,\nthe bugle; but if a bagpipe was heard among them, that indicated a\nScotch visitor from over the border.\n\nKing James I. of England mentions in his _Daemonology_ a \"King and Queene\nof Phairie: sic a jolie courte and traine as they had!\" Nothing could\nhave exceeded the state and elegance of their ceremonious little lives.\nAccording to a sweet old play, they had houses made all of\nmother-of-pearl, an ivory tennis-court, a nutmeg parlor, a sapphire\ndairy-room, a ginger hall; chambers of agate, kitchens of crystal, the\njacks of gold, the spits of Spanish needles! They dressed in imported\ncobweb! with a four-leaved clover, lined with a dog-tooth violet, for\novercoat; and they ate (think of eating such a pretty thing!) delicious\nrainbow-tart, the trout-fly's gilded wing, and\n\n      ----the broke heart of a nightingale\n    O'ercome with music.\n\nBut we never heard that Chinese or Scandinavian elves could afford such\nluxury.\n\nTheir English dwellings were often in the bubble-castles of sunny\nbrooks; and the bright-jacketed hobgoblins took their pleasure sitting\nunder toadstools, or paddling about in egg-shell boats, playing\njew's-harps large as themselves. Beside the freehold of blossomy\nhillocks and dingles, they had dells of their own, and palaces, with\neverything lovely in them; and whatever they longed for was to be had\nfor the wishing. They had fair gardens in clefts of the Cornish rocks,\nwhere vari-colored flowers, only seen by moonlight, grew; in these\ngardens they loved to walk, tossing a posy to some mortal passing by;\nbut if he ever gave it away they were angry with him forever after. They\nliked to fish; and the crews put out to sea in funny uniforms of green,\nwith red caps. They travelled on a fern, a rush, a bit of weed, or even\nboldly bestrode the bee and the dragon-fly; and they went to the chase,\nas in the Isle of Man, on full-sized horses whenever they could get\nthem! and when it came to time of war, their armies laid-to like\nAlexander's own, with mushroom-shield and bearded grass-blades for\nmighty spears, and honeysuckle trumpets braying furiously! There are\ntraditions of battles so vehement and long that the cavalry trampled\ndown the dews of the mountain-side, and sent many a peerless fellow, at\nevery charge, to the fairy hospitals and cemeteries.\n\n[Illustration: AN ELF-TRAVELLER.]\n\nTheir chief and all but universal amusement, sacred to moonlight and\nmusic, was dancing hand-in-hand; and what was called a fairy-ring was\nthe swirl of grasses in a field taller and deeper green than the rest,\nwhich was supposed to mark their circling path. Inside these rings it\nwas considered very dangerous to sleep, especially after sundown. If\nyou put your foot within them, with a companion's foot upon your own,\nthe elfin tribe became visible to you, and you heard their tinkling\nlaughter; and if, again, you wished a charm to defy all their anger,\nfor they hated to be overlooked by mortal eyes, you had merely to turn\nyour coat inside out. But a house built where the wee folks had danced\nwas made prosperous.\n\nHear how deftly old John Lyly, nearly four hundred years ago, put the\ndancing in his lines:\n\n    Round about, round about, in a fine ring-a,\n    Thus we dance, thus we prance, and thus we sing-a!\n    Trip and go, to and fro, over this green-a;\n    All about, in and out, for our brave queen-a.\n\nFor the elves, as we know, were governed generally by a queen, who bore\na white wand, and stood in the centre while her gay retainers skipped\nabout her. Fairy-rings were common in every Irish parish. At Alnwick in\nNorthumberland County in England, was one celebrated from antiquity; and\nit was believed that evil would befall any who ran around it more than\nnine times. The children were constantly running it that often; but\nnothing could tempt the bravest of them all to go one step farther. In\nFrance, as in Wales, the fairies guarded the cromlechs with care, and\npreferred to hold revel near them.\n\nAt these merry festivals, in the pauses of action, meat and drink were\npassed around. A Danish ballad tells how Svend-Faelling drained a horn\npresented by elf-maids, which made him as strong as twelve men, and gave\nhim the appetite of twelve men, too; a natural but embarrassing\nconsequence. It used to be proclaimed that any one daring enough to rush\non a fairy feast, and snatch the drinking-glass, and get away with it,\nwould be lucky henceforward. The famous goblet, the Luck of Edenhall,\nwas seized after that fashion, by one of the Musgraves; whereat the\nlittle people disappeared, crying aloud:\n\n    If that glass do break or fall,\n    Farewell the Luck of Edenhall!\n\nOnce upon a time the Duke of Wharton dined at Edenhall, and came very\nnear ruining his host, and all his race; for the precious Luck slipped\nfrom his hand; but the clever butler at his elbow happily caught it in\nhis napkin, and averted the catastrophe: so the beautiful cup and the\nfavored family enjoy each other in security to this day.\n\nIn the Song of Sir Olaf, we are told how he fell in, while riding by\nnight, with the whirling elves; and how, after their every plea and\nthreat that he should stay from his to-be-wedded sweetheart at home, and\ndance, instead, with them, he hears the weird French refrain:\n\n    O the dance, the dance! How well the dance goes under the trees!\n\nAnd through their wicked magic, after all his steadfast resistance, with\nthe wild music and the dizzy measure whirling in his brain, there he\ndies.\n\nAll the gay, unsteady, fantastic motion broke up at the morning\ncock-crow, and instantly the little bacchantes vanished. And, strangest\nof all! the betraying flash of the dawn showed their peach-like color,\ntheir blonde, smooth hair, and bodily agility changed, like a Dead Sea\napple, and turned into ugliness and distortion! It was not the lovely\nvision of a minute back which hurried away on the early breeze, but a\ncrowd of leering, sullen-eyed bugaboos, laughing fiercely to think how\nthey had deceived a beholder.\n\nThese, then, were the Light Elves, not all lovable, or loyal, or gentle,\nas they were expected to be, but cruel to wayfarers like poor Sir Olaf,\nand treacherous and mocking; beautiful so long as they were good, and\nhideous when they had done a foul deed. It is hard to say wherein they\nwere better than the Underground Elves, who were, despite some kindly\ncharacteristics, professional doers of evil, and had not the choice or\nchance of being so happy and fortunate. But we record them as we find\nthem, not without the sobering thought that here, as at every point, the\nfairies are a running commentary on the puzzle of our own human life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nDEAR BROWNIE.\n\n\nBROWNIE, the willing drudge, the kind little housemate, was the most\npopular of all fairies; and it is he whom we now love and know best.\n\nHe was a sweet, unselfish fellow; but very wide awake as well, full of\nmischief, and spirited as a young eagle, when he was deprived of his\nrights. He belonged to a tribe of great influence and size, and each\ndivision of that tribe, inhabiting different countries, bore a different\nname. But the word Brownie, to English-speaking people, will serve as\nmeaning those fairies who attached themselves persistently to any spot\nor any family, and who labored in behalf of their chosen home.\n\nThe Brownie proper belonged to the Shetland and the Western Isles, to\nCornwall, and the Highlands and Borderlands of Scotland. He was an\nindoor gentleman, and varied in that from our friends the Black and\nLight Elves. He took up his dwelling in the house or the barn, sometimes\nin a special corner, or under the roof, or even in the cellar pantries,\nwhere he ate a great deal more than was good for him. In the beginning\nhe was supposed to have been covered with short curly brown hair, like a\nclipped water-spaniel, whence his name. But he changed greatly in\nappearance. Later accounts picture him with a homely, sunburnt little\nface, as if bronzed with long wind and weather; dark-coated, red-capped,\nand shod with noiseless slippers, which were as good as wings to his\nrestless feet. Along with him, in Scotch houses, and in English houses\nsupplanting him, often lived the Dobie or Dobbie who was not by any\nmeans so bright and active (\"O, ye stupid Dobie!\" runs a common phrase),\nand therefore not to be confounded with him.\n\n[Illustration: BROWNIE'S DELIGHT WAS TO DO DOMESTIC SERVICE.]\n\nBrownie's delight was to do domestic service; he churned, baked, brewed,\nmowed, threshed, swept, scrubbed, and dusted; he set things in order,\nsaved many a step to his mistress, and took it upon himself to manage\nthe maid-servants, and reform them, if necessary, by severe and original\nmeasures. Neatness and precision he dearly loved, and never forgot to\ndrop a penny over-night in the shoe of the person deserving well of him.\nBut lax offenders he pinched black and blue, and led them an exciting\nlife of it. His favorite revenge, among a hundred equally ingenious, was\ndragging the disorderly servant out of bed. A great poet announced in\nBrownie's name:\n\n    'Twixt sleep and wake\n    I do them take,\n    And on the key-cold floor them throw!\n    If out they cry\n    Then forth I fly,\n    And loudly laugh I: \"Ho, ho, ho!\"\n\nLike all gnomes truly virtuous, he could be the worst varlet, the most\nmeddlesome, troublesome, burdensome urchin to be imagined, when the whim\nwas upon him. At such times he gloried in undoing all his good deeds;\nand by way of emphasizing his former tidiness and industry, he tore\ncurtains, smashed dishes, overturned tables, and made havoc among the\nkitchen-pans. All this was done in a sort of holy wrath; for be it to\nBrownie's credit, that if he were treated with courtesy, and if the\nservants did their own duties honestly, he was never other than his\ngentle, well-behaved, hard-working little self.\n\nHe asked no wages; he had a New England scorn of \"tipping,\" when he had\nbeen especially obliging; and he could not be wheedled into accepting\neven so much as a word of praise. A farmer at Washington, in Sussex,\nEngland, who had often been surprised in the morning at the large heaps\nof corn threshed for him during the night, determined at last to sit up\nand watch what went on. Creeping to the barn-door, and peering through a\nchink, he saw two manikins working away with their fairy flails, and\nstopping an instant now and then, only to say to each other: \"See how I\nsweat! See how I sweat!\" the very thing which befell Milton's \"lubbar\nfiend\" in L'Allegro. The farmer, in his pleasure, cried: \"Well done, my\nlittle men!\" whereupon the startled sprites uttered a cry, and whirled\nand whisked out of sight, never to toil again in his barn.\n\nIt is said that not long ago, there was a whole tribe of tiny, naked\nKobolds (Brownie's German name) called Heinzelmaenchen, who bound\nthemselves for love to a tailor of Cologne, and did, moreover, all the\nwashing and scouring and kettle-cleaning for his wife. Whatever work\nthere was left for them to do was straightway done; but no man ever\nbeheld them. The tailor's prying spouse played many a ruse to get sight\nof them, to no avail. And they, knowing her curiosity and grieved at it,\nsuddenly marched, with music playing, out of the town forever. People\nheard their flutes and viols only, for none saw the little exiles\nthemselves, who got into a boat, and sailed \"westward, westward!\" like\nHiawatha, and the city's luck is thought to have gone with them.\n\nBut Brownie, who would take neither money, nor thanks, nor a glance of\nmortal eyes, and who departed in high dudgeon as soon as a reward was\noffered him, could be bribed very prettily, if it were done in a polite\nand secretive way. He was not too scrupulous to pocket whatever might be\ndropped on a stair, or a window-sill, where he was sure to pass several\ntimes in a day, and walk off, whistling, to keep his own counsel, and\nsay nothing about it. And for goodies, mysterious goodies left in queer\nplaces by chance, he had excellent tooth. Housewives, from the era of\nthe first Brownie, never failed slyly to gladden his favorite haunt with\nthe dish which he liked best, and which, so long as it was fresh and\nplentiful, he considered a satisfactory squaring-up of accounts. One of\nthese desired treats was knuckled cakes, made of meal warm from the\nmill, toasted over the embers, and spread with honey. To other tidbits,\nalso, he was partial; but, first and last, he relished his bowl of cream\nleft on the floor overnight. Cream he drank and expected the world over;\nand in Devon, and in the Isle of Man, he liked a basin of water for a\nbath.\n\n[Illustration: BROWNIE RELISHES HIS BOWL OF CREAM.]\n\nFine clothes were quite to his mind; he was very vain when he had them;\nand it was what Pet Marjorie called \"majestick pride,\" and no whim of\nanger or sensitiveness, which sent him hurrying off the moment his\nwardrobe was supplied by some grateful housekeeper, to eschew work\nforever after, and set himself up as a gentleman of leisure. Many funny\nstories are told of his behavior under an unexpected shower of dry\ngoods. Brownie, who in his humble station, was so steadfast and\nsensible, had his poor head completely turned by the vision of a new\nbright-colored jacket. The gentle little Piskies or Pixies of\nDevonshire, who are of the Brownie race, and very different from the\nmalicious Piskies in Cornwall, were likewise great dandies, and sure to\ndecamp as soon as ever they obtained a fresh cap or petticoat. Indeed,\nthey dropped violent hints on the subject. Think of a sprite-of-all-work,\nrecorded as being too proud to accept any regular payment even in fruit\nor grain, standing up brazenly before his mistress, his sly eyes fixed\non her, drawling out this absurd, whimpering rhyme (for Piskies scorned\nto talk prose!):\n\n    Little Pisky, fair and slim,\n    Without a rag to cover him!\n\nWith his lisp, and his funny snicker, and his winning impudence\ngenerally, don't you think he could have wheedled clothes out of a\nstone? Of course the lady humored him, and made him a costly, trimmed\nsuit; and the ungrateful small beggar made off with it post-haste,\nchanting to another tune:\n\n    Pisky fine, Pisky gay!\n    Pisky now will run away.\n\nThe moment the Brownie-folk could cut a respectable figure in\nfashionable garments, they turned their backs on an honest living, and\nskurried away to astonish the belles in Fairyland.\n\nVery much the same thing befell some German house-dwarves, who used to\nhelp a poor smith, and make his kettles and pans for him. They took\ntheir milk evening by evening, and went back gladly to their work, to\nthe smith's great profit and pleasure. When he had grown rich, his\nthankful wife made them pretty crimson coats and caps, and laid both\nwhere the wee creatures might stumble on them. But when they had put the\nuniforms on, they shrieked \"Paid off, paid off!\" and, quitting a task\nhalf-done, returned no more.\n\nThe Pisky was not alone in his bold request for his sordid little\nheart's desire. A certain Pueck lived thirty years in a monastery in\nMecklenburg, Germany, doing faithful drudgery from his youth up; and one\nof the monks wrote, in his ingenious Latin, that on going away, all he\nasked was \"_tunicam de diversis coloribus, et tintinnabulis plenam!_\"\nYou may put the goblin's vanity into English for yourselves. Brownie is\nknown as Shelley-coat in parts of Scotland, from a German term meaning\nbell, as he wears a bell, like the Ruegen Dwarves, on his parti-colored\ncoat.\n\n[Illustration: \"_Tunicam de diversis coloribus, et tintinnabulis\nplenam!_\" WAS ALL THAT PUeCK DEMANDED.]\n\nThe famous Cauld Lad of Hilton was considered a Brownie. If everything\nwas left well-arranged in the rooms, he amused himself by night with\npitching chairs and vases about; but if he found the place in confusion,\nhe kindly went to work and put it in exquisite order. But the Cauld Lad\nwas, more likely, by his own confession, a ghost, and no true fairy.\nRomances were told of him, and he had been heard to sing this canticle,\nwhich makes you wonder whether he had ever heard of the House that Jack\nBuilt:\n\n                  Wae's me, wae's me!\n    The acorn's not yet fallen from the tree\n    That's to grow the wood that's to make the cradle\n    That's to rock the bairn that's to grow to the man\n                  That's to lay me!\n\nIt was only ghosts who could be \"laid,\" and to \"lay\" him meant to give\nhim freedom and release, so that he need no longer go about in that\nbareboned and mournful state.\n\nBut the merriest grig of all the Brownies was called in Southern\nScotland, Wag-at-the-Wa'. He teased the kitchen-maids much by sitting\nunder their feet at the hearth, or on the iron crook which hung from the\nbeam in the chimney, and which, of old, was meant to accommodate pots\nand kettles. He loved children, and he loved jokes; his laugh was very\ndistinct and pleasant; but if he heard of anybody drinking anything\nstronger than home-brewed ale, he would cough virtuously, and frown\nupon the company. Now Wag-at-the-Wa' had the toothache all the time,\nand, considering his twinges, was it not good of him to be so cheerful?\nHe wore a great red-woollen coat and blue trousers, and sometimes a grey\ncloak over; and he shivered even then, with one side of his poor face\nbundled up, till his head seemed big as a cabbage. He looked impish and\nwrinkled, too, and had short bent legs. But his beautiful, clever tail\natoned for everything, and with it, he kept his seat on the swinging\ncrook.\n\n[Illustration: \"WAG-AT-THE-WA'.\"]\n\nScotch fairies called Powries and Dunters haunted lonely\nBorder-mansions, and behaved like peaceable subjects, beating flax from\nyear to year. The Dutch Kaboutermannekin worked in mills, as well as in\nhouses. He was gentle and kind, but \"touchy,\" as Brownie-people are.\nThough he dressed gayly in red, he was not pretty, but boasted a fine\ngreen tint on his face and hands. Little Killmoulis was a mill-haunting\nbrother of his, who loved to lie before the fireplace in the kiln. This\nprecious old employee was blest with a most enormous nose, and with no\nmouth at all! But he had a great appetite for pork, however he managed\nto gratify it.\n\nBolieta, a Swiss Kobold, distinguished himself by leading cows safely\nthrough the dangerous mountain-paths, and keeping them sleek and happy.\nHis branch of the family lived as often in the trunk of a near tree, as\nin the house itself.\n\nIn Denmark and Sweden was the Kirkegrim, the \"church lamb,\" who\nsometimes ran along the aisles and the choir after service-time, and to\nthe grave-digger betokened the death of a little child. But there was\nanother Kirkegrim, a proper church-Brownie, who kept the pews neat, and\nlooked after people who misbehaved during the sermon.\n\nAs queer as any of these was the Phynodderee, or the Hairy One, the Isle\nof Man house-helper. He was a wild little shaggy being, supposed to be\nan exile from fairy society, and condemned to wander about alone until\ndoomsday. He was kind and obliging, and drove the sheep home, or\ngathered in the hay, if he saw a storm coming.\n\nThe Klabautermann was a ship-Brownie, who sat under the capstan, and in\ntime of danger, warned the crew by running up and down the shrouds in\ngreat excitement. This eccentric Flying Dutchman had a fiery red head,\nand on it a steeple-like hat; his yellow breeches were tucked into heavy\nhorseman's boots.\n\nHuettchen was a German Brownie, who lived at court, but who dressed like\na little peasant, with a flapping felt hat over his eyes. The Alraun, a\nsort of house-imp shorn of all his engaging diligence, was very small,\nhis body being made of a root; he lived in a bottle. If he was thrown\naway, back he came, persistently as a rubber ball. But that instinct\nwas common to the Brownie race.\n\nThe Roman Penates, _Vinculi terrei_, which brave old Reginald Scott\ncalled \"domesticall gods,\" were Brownie's venerable and honorable\nancestors. We shall see presently what names their descendants bore in\nvarious countries. But the Russian Domovoi we shall not count among\nthem, because they were ghostly, like the poor Cauld Lad, and seem to\nhave been full-sized.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nOTHER HOUSE-HELPERS.\n\n\nIN modern Greece the Brownie was known as the Stoechia. He was called\nPara in Finland; Trasgo or Duende in Spain; Lutin, Gobelin, Follet, in\nFrance and Normandy; Niss-god-drange in Norway and Denmark; Tomte, in\nSweden; Niss in Jutland, Denmark and Friesland; Bwbach or Pwcca in\nWales; in Ireland, Fir-Darrig and, sometimes, Cluricaune; Kobold, in\nGermany; and in England, Brownie figured as Boggart, Puck, Hobgoblin,\nand Robin Goodfellow.\n\nOften the Stoechia, a wayward little black being, went about the house\nunder the shape of a lizard or small snake. He was harmless; his\npresence was an omen of prosperity; and great care was taken that no\ndisrespect was shown him.\n\nThe services of the Para, who was a well-meaning rascal, were rather\nsingular, and not at all indispensable. He had a way of following the\nneighbor's cows to pasture, and milking them himself, in a calf's\nfashion, until he had swallowed quart on quart, and was as full as a\nlittle hogshead. Then he went home, uncorked his thieving throat, and\nobligingly emptied every drop of his ill-gotten goods into his master's\nchurn! How his feelings must have been hurt if anybody criticized the\ncheese and butter!\n\nThe Spanish house-goblin was a statelier person, and wore an enormous\nplumed hat, and threw stones in a stolid and haughty manner at people he\ndisliked. But occasionally the Duende had the form of a little busy\nfriar, like the Monachiello at Naples.\n\nThe Lutin, or Gobelin, or Follet of French belief, was likewise a\nstone-thrower. He was fond of children, and of horses; taking it upon\nhimself to feed and caress his landlord's children when they were good,\nand to whip them when they were naughty; and he rode the willing horses,\nand combed them, and plaited their manes into knotty braids, for which,\nwe may fear, the stable-boy never thanked him. He knew, too, how to\nworry and tease; and certain French mothers threatened troublesome\nlittle folk with the \"Gobelin:\" \"_Le gobelin vous mangera!_\" which we\nmay translate into: \"The goblin will gobble you!\" or into the whimsical\nlines of an American poet:\n\n    The gobble uns'll git you,\n    Ef\n        You\n            Don't\n                  Watch\n                        Out!\n\nThe Norwegian Nis was like a strong-shouldered child, in a coat and\npeaky cap, who carried a pretty blue light at night. He enjoyed hopping\nor skating across the farmyard under the moon's ray. Dogs he would not\nallow in his house. If he was first promised a gray sheep for his own,\nhe would teach any one to play the violin. Like many another of the\nBrownie race, he was a dandy, and loved nothing better than fine\nclothes.\n\nTomte of Sweden lived in a tree near the house. He was as tall as a\nyear-old boy, with a knowing old face beneath his cap. In harvest-time\nhe tugged away at one straw, or one grain, until he laid it in his\nmaster's barn; for his strength was not much greater than an ant's. If\nthe farmer scorned his diligent little servant, and made fun of his tiny\nload, all luck departed from him, and the Tomte went away in anger. He\nliked tobacco, played merry pranks, and doubled up comically when he\nlaughed. But he had another laugh, scoffing and sarcastic, which he\nsometimes gave at the top of his voice.\n\nLike the Devon Piskies, the Niss-Puk required water left at his disposal\nover-night. The Nis of Jutland was the Puk of Friesland. He also liked\nhis porridge with butter. He lived under the roof, or in dark corners of\nthe stable and house. He was of the Tomte's size; he wore red stockings\non his stumpy little legs, and a pointed red cap, and a long gray or\ngreen coat. For soft, easy slippers he had a great longing; and if a\npair were left out for him, he was soon heard shuffling in them over the\nfloor. He had long arms, and a big head, and big bright eyes, so that\nthe people of Silt have a saying concerning an inquisitive or astonished\nperson: \"He stares like a Puk.\" Puk, too, played sorry tricks on the\nservants, and was indignant if he was ever deprived of his nightly bowl\nof groute.\n\nThe Bwbach of Wales churned the cream, and begged for his portion, like\na true Brownie; he was a hairy blackamoor with the best-natured grin in\nthe world. But he had an unpleasant habit of whisking mortals into the\nair, and doing flighty mischiefs generally.\n\n[Illustration: AN IRISH CLURICAUNE.]\n\nThe unique Irish Cluricaune, who had that name in Cork, was called\nLuricaune and Leprechaun in other parts of the country. He differed from\nthe Shefro in living alone, and in his queer appearance and habits. For\nthough he was a house-spirit and did house-work, his ambitions ran in an\nopposite direction, and in his every spare minute, when he was not\nsmoking or drinking, you might have seen him, a miniature old man, with\na cocked hat, and a leather apron, sitting on a low stool, humming a\nfairy-tune, and perpetually cobbling at a pair of shoes no bigger than\nacorns. The shoes were occasionally captured and shown. And as we have\nseen, Mr. Cluricaune was a fortune-hunter, and a very wide-awake,\nversatile goblin altogether. In his capacity of Brownie, he once wreaked\na hard revenge on a maid who served him shabbily. A Mr. Harris, a\nQuaker, had on his farm a Cluricaune named Little Wildbeam. Whenever the\nservants left the beer-barrel running through negligence, Little\nWildbeam wedged himself into the cock, and stopped the flow, at great\ninconvenience to his poor little body, until some one came to turn the\nknob. So the master bade the cook always put a good dinner down cellar\nfor Little Wildbeam. One Friday she had nothing but part of a herring,\nand some cold potatoes, which she left in place of the usual feast. That\nvery midnight the fat cook got pulled out of bed, and thrown down the\ncellar-stairs, bumping from side to side, so that it made her very sore\nindeed, and meanwhile the smirking Cluricaune stood at the head of the\nsteps, and sang at the luckless heap below:\n\n    Molly Jones, Molly Jones!\n    Potato-skin and herring-bones!\n    I'll knock your head against the stones,\n              Molly Jones!\n\nIn Japanese houses, even, Brownies were familiar comers and goers. They\nwere important and smooth-mannered pigmies, and serenely dealt out\nrewards and punishments as they saw fit. When they were engaged in\nbefriending commendable boys and girls, their features had, somehow, the\ningenious likeness of letters signifying \"good;\" and if they made it\ntheir business to plague and hinder naughty idlers, who, instead of\ndoing their errands promptly, stopped at the shops to buy goodies, their\nqueer little faces were screwed up to mean \"bad,\" as you see in\nJapanese artists' pictures.\n\n[Illustration: JAPANESE CHILDREN AND BROWNIES.]\n\nThe English names for the affable Brownie-folk bring to our minds the\nmost wayward, frolicsome elves of all fairydom. Boggart was the\nYorkshire sprite, and the Boggart commonly disliked children, and stole\ntheir food and playthings; wherein he differed from his kindly kindred.\nHobgoblin (Hop-goblin) was so called because he hopped on one leg.\nHobgoblin is the same as Rob or Bob-Goblin, a goblin whose full name\nseemed to be Robert. Robin Hood, the famous outlaw, dear to all of us,\nwas thought to have been christened after Robin Hood the fairy, because\nhe, too, was tricksy and sportive, wore a hood, and lived in the deep\nforest.\n\n[Illustration: A LITTLE FIR-DARRIG.]\n\nIn Ireland lived the mocking, whimsical little Fir-Darrig, Robin\nGoodfellow's own twin. He dressed in tight-fitting red; Fir-Darrig\nitself meant \"the red man.\" He had big humorous ears, and the softest\nand most flexible voice in the world, which could mimic any sound at\nwill. He sat by the fire, and smoked a pipe, big as himself, belonging\nto the man of the house. He loved cleanliness, brought good-luck to his\nabode, and, like a cat, generally preferred places to people.\n\nPuck and Robin Goodfellow were the names best known and cherished.\nThere is no doubt that Shakespeare, from whom we have now our prevailing\nidea of Puck, got the idea of him, in his turn, from the popular\nsuperstitions of his day. But Puck's very identity was all but\nforgotten, and since Shakespeare was, therefore, his poetical creator,\nwe will forego mention of him here, and entitle Robin Goodfellow, the\nsame \"shrewd and meddling elf,\" under another nickname, the true Brownie\nof England.\n\nHe was both House-Helper and Mischief-Maker, \"the most active and\nextraordinary fellow of a fairy,\" says Ritson, \"that we anywhere meet\nwith.\" He was said to have had a supplementary brother called Robin\nBadfellow; but there was no need of that, because he was Robin Badfellow\nin himself, and united in his whimsical little character so many\nopposite qualities, that he may be considered the representative elf the\nworld over; for the old Saxon Hudkin, the Niss of Scandinavia, and\nKnecht Ruprecht, the Robin of Germany, are nothing but our masquerading\ngoblin-friend on continental soil. And in the red-capped smiling\nMikumwess among the Passamaquoddy Indians, there he is again!\n\nBy this name of Robin he was known earlier than the thirteenth century,\nand \"famosed in everie olde wives' chronicle for his mad merrie\nprankes,\" two hundred years later. His biography was put forth in a\nblack-letter tract in 1628, and in a yet better-known ballad which\nrecited his jests, and was in free circulation while Queen Bess was\nreigning. The forgotten annalist says very heartily, alluding to his\nstring of aliases:\n\n    But call him by what name you list;\n    I have studied on my pillow,\n    And think the name he best deserves\n    Is Robin, the Good Fellow!\n\nWe class him rightly as a Brownie, because he skimmed milk, knew all\nabout domestic life, and was the delight or terror of servants, as the\ncase might be. He was fond of making a noise and clatter on the stairs,\nof playing harps, ringing bells, and misleading passing travellers; and\ndespite his knavery, he came to be much beloved by his house-mates. Very\nlike him was the German Hempelman, who laughed a great deal. But the\nlaugh of Master Robin sometimes foreboded trouble and death to people,\nwhich Hempelman's never did.\n\nThe jolly German Kobold had a laugh which filled his throat, and could\nbe heard a mile away. Bu he was a gnome malignant enough if he was\nneglected or insulted. He very seldom made a mine-sprite of himself, but\nstayed at home, Brownie-like, and \"ran\" the house pretty much as he saw\nfit. To the Dwarves he was, however, closely related, and dressed after\ntheir fashion, except that sometimes he wore a coat of as many colors as\nthe rainbow, with tinkling bells fastened to it. He objected to any\nchopping or spinning done on a Thursday. Change of servants, while he\nheld his throne in the kitchen, affected him not in the least; for the\nmaid going away recommended her successor to treat him civilly, at her\nperil. A very remarkable Kobold was Hinzelmann, who called himself a\nChristian, and came to the old castle of Huedemuehlen in 1584; whose\nhistory, too long to add here, is given charmingly in Mr. Keightley's\nFairy Mythology.\n\nA certain bearded little Kobold lived with some fishermen in a hut, and\ntried a trick which was quite classic, and reminds one of the Greek\nstory of Procrustes, which all of you have met with, or will meet with,\nsome day. Says Mr. Benjamin Thorpe: \"His chief amusement, when the\nfishermen were lying asleep at night, was to lay them even. For this\npurpose he would first draw them up until their heads all lay in a\nstraight line, but then their legs would be out of the line! and he had\nto go to their feet and pull them up until the tips of their toes were\nall in a row. This game he would continue till broad daylight.\"\n\nNow all Brownies, Nissen, Kobolds and the rest, were very much of a\npiece, and when you know the virtues and faults of one of them, you know\nthe habits of the race. So that you can understand, despite the slight\nbut steady help given in household matters, that a person so variable\nand exacting and high-tempered as this curious little sprite might\nhappen sometimes to be a great bore, and might inspire his master or\nmistress with the sighing wish to be rid of him. It was a tradition in\nNormandy that to shake off the Lutin or Gobelin, it was merely necessary\nto scatter flax-seed where he was wont to pass; for he was too neat to\nlet it lie there, and yet tired so soon of picking it up, that he left\nit in disgust, and went away for good. And there was a sprite named\nFlerus who lived in a farm-house near Ostend, and worked so hard,\nsweeping and drawing water, and turning himself into a plough-horse that\nhe might replace the old horse who was sick, for no reward, either, save\na little fresh sugared milk--that soon his master was the wealthiest man\nin the neighborhood. But a giddy young servant-maid once offended him,\nat the day's end, by giving him garlic in his milk; and as soon as poor\nFlerus tasted it, he departed, very wrathful and hurt, from the\npremises, forever.\n\nThere were few such successful instances on record. Though Brownie was\nready, in every land under the sun, to leave home when he took the\nfancy, or when he was puffed up with gifts of lace and velvet, so that\nno mortal residence was gorgeous enough for him, yet he would take no\nhint, nor obey any command, when either pointed to a banishment.\n\n[Illustration: THE PERSISTENT KOBOLD OF KOePENICK.]\n\nNear Koepenick once, a man thought of buying a new house, and turning his\nback on a vexatious Kobold. The morning before he meant to change\nquarters, he saw his Kobold sitting by a pool, and asked him what he was\ndoing. \"I am doing my washing!\" said the sharp rogue, \"because we move\nto-morrow.\" And the man saw very well that as he could not avoid him, he\nhad better take the little nuisance along. The same thing happened in\nthe capital Polish anecdote of Iskrzycki (make your respects to his\nexcruciating name!) and over Northern Europe the sarcastic joke \"Yes,\nwe're flitting!\" prevails in folk-song and story.\n\nThere is many and many an example of families selling the old house, and\ngoing off in great glee with the furniture, thinking the elf-rascal\ncheated and left behind; and lo! there he was, perched on a rope, or\npeering from a hole in the cart itself, on his congratulated master.\n\nThe funniest hap of all befell an ungrateful farmer who fired his barn\nto burn the poor Kobold in it. As he was driving off, he turned to look\nat the blaze, and what should he see on the seat behind him but the same\nexcited Kobold, chattering, monkey-like, and shrieking sympathizingly:\n\"It was about time for us to get out of that, wasn't it?\"\n\nThe dark-skinned little house-sprites came to stay; and as for being\nsnubbed, they were quite above it. They were the sort of callers to\nwhom you could never show the door, with any dignity; for if you had\ndone so, the grinning goblin would have examined knob and panels with a\nsquinted eye, and gone back whistling to your easy-chair.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nWATER-FOLK.\n\n\nOF old, there were Oreads and Naiads to people the rivers and the sea,\nbut they were not fairies; and in after-years the beautiful, bright\nwater-life of Greece, with its shells and dolphins, its palaces, its\nsubaqueous music, and its happy-hearted maids and men, faded wholly out\nof memory. No one dominant race came to replace them. Merpeople, Tritons\nand Sirens we meet now and then, as did Hendrik Hudson's crew, and the\nMoruachs of Ireland, the Morverch (sea-daughters) of Brittainy; but\nthey, too, were grown, and half-human. They were beautiful and swift,\nand usually sat combing their long hair, with a mirror in one hand, and\ntheir glossy tails tapering from the waist. The Danish Mermaid was\ngold-haired, cunning and treacherous; the Havmand or Merman was\nhandsome, too, with black hair and beard, but kind and beneficent.\n\nThe Swedish pair offered presents to those on shore, or passing in\nboats, in hopes to sink them beneath the waves.\n\nEngland and Ireland had no water-sprites which answered to the Nix and\nthe Kelpie, only the Merrow, who was a Mermaid. She was a fair woman,\nwith white, webbed fingers. She carried upon her head a little\ndiving-cap, and when she came up to the rocks or the beach, she laid it\nby; but if it were stolen from her, she lost the power of returning to\nthe sea. So that if her cap were taken by a young man, she very often\ncould do nothing better than to marry him, and spend her time hunting\nfor it up and down over his house. And once she had found it, she forgot\nall else but her desire to go home to \"the kind sea-caves,\" and despite\nthe calling of her neighbors and husband and children, she flitted to\nthe shore, and plunged into the first oncoming billow, and walked the\nearth no longer.\n\n[Illustration: MER-FOLK.]\n\nTales of these spirit-brides who suddenly deserted the green earth for\ntheir dear native waters, are common in Arabian and European folk-lore.\nAnd this characteristic was noted also in the Sea-trows of the Shetland\nIslands, who divested themselves of a shining fish-skin, and could not\nfind the way to their ocean-beds if it were kept out of their reach. It\nwas the Danish sailor's belief that seals laid by their skins every\nninth night, and took maiden's forms wherewith to sport and sleep on the\nreefs. And for their capture as they were, warm, living and human, one\nhad only to snatch and hide away their talisman-skin.\n\nThe strange German Water-man wore a green hat, and when he opened his\nmouth, his teeth as well were green; he appeared to girls who passed his\nlake, and measured out ribbon, and flung it to them.\n\nBut we must search for smaller sprites than these.\n\nThe little water-fairies who devoted themselves to drawing under\nwhomsoever encroached on their pools and brooks, were called Nixies in\nGermany, Korrigans (for this was part of their office) in Brittainy;\nOndins about Magdebourg, and Roussalkis, the long-haired, smiling ones,\namong the Slavic people.\n\n[Illustration: THE LITTLE OLD NIX NEAR GHENT.]\n\nThe engaging Nixies were very minute and mischievous, and abounded in\nthe Shetland Isles and Cornwall, as did, moreover, the Kelpies, who were\nlike tiny horses, known even in China; sporting on the margin, and\nforeboding death by drowning, to any who beheld them; or tempting\npassers-by to mount, and plunging, with their victims, headlong into\nthe deep. The Nix-lady was recognized when she came on shore by the\nedges of her dress or apron being perpetually wet. The dark-eyed Nix-man\nwith his seaweed hair and his wide hat, was known by his slit ears and\nfeet, which he was very careful to conceal. Once in a while he was\nobserved to be half-fish. The naked Nixen were draped with moss and\nkelp; but when they were clothed, they seemed merely little men and\nwomen, save that the borders of their garments, dripping water, betrayed\nthem. They did their marketing ashore, wheresoever they were, and,\naccording to all accounts, with a sharp eye to economy. Like the\nland-elves, they loved to dance and sing. Nix did not favor divers,\nfishermen, and other intruders on his territory, and he did his best to\nharm them. He was altogether a fierce, grudging, covetous little\ncreature. His comelier wife was much better-natured, and befriended\nhuman beings to the utmost of her power.\n\n[Illustration: THE WORK OF THE NICKEL.]\n\nNear Ghent was a little old Nix who lived in the Scheldt; he cried and\nsighed much, and did mischief to no one. It grieved him when children\nran away from him, yet if they asked what troubled his conscience, he\nonly sighed heavily, and disappeared.\n\nThe modern Greeks believed in a black sprite haunting wells and springs,\nwho was fond of beckoning to strangers. If they came to him, he bestowed\ngifts upon them; if not, he never seemed angry, but turned patiently to\nwait for the next passer-by.\n\nThere was a curious sea-creature in Norway, who swam about as a thin\nlittle old man with no head. About the magical Isle of Ruegen lived the\nNickel. His favorite game was to astonish the fishers, by hauling their\nboats up among the trees.\n\nAt Arles and other towns near the Spanish border in France, were the\nDracs, who inhabited clear pools and streams, and floated along in the\nshape of gold rings and cups, so that women and children bathing should\ngrasp them, and be lured under.\n\nThe Indian water-manittos, the Nibanaba, were winning in appearance, and\nwicked in disposition. They, joining the Pukwudjinies, helped to kill\nKwasind.\n\nIn Wales were the Gwragedd Annwn, elves who loved the stillness of\nlonely mountain-lakes, and who seldom ventured into the upper world.\nThey had their own submerged towns and battlements; and from their\nlittle sunken city the fairy-bells sent out, ever and anon, muffled\nsilver voices. The Gwragedd Annwn were not fishy-finned, nor were they\never dwellers in the sea; for in Wales were no mermaid-traditions, nor\nany tales of those who beguiled mortals--\n\n    Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave.\n\nThe Neck and the Stroemkarl of Swedish rivers were two little chaps with\nhardly a hair's breadth of difference. Either appeared under various\nshapes; now as a green-hatted old man with a long beard, out of which he\nwrung water as he sat on the cliffs; now loitering of a summer night on\nthe surface, like a chip of wood or a leaf, he seemed a fair child,\nharping, with yellow ringlets falling from beneath a high red cap to his\nshoulders. Both fairies had a genius for music; and the Stroemkarl,\nespecially, had one most marvellous tune to which he put eleven\nvariations. Now, to ten of them any one might dance decorously, and with\nsafety; but at the eleventh, which was the enchanted one, all the world\nwent mad; and tables, belfries, benches, houses, windmills, trees,\nhorses, cripples, babies, ghosts, and whole towns full of sedate\ncitizens began capering on the banks about the invisible player, and\nkept it up in furious fashion until the last note died away.\n\nYou know that the wren was hunted in certain countries on a certain day.\nWell, here is one legend about her. There was a malicious fairy once in\nthe Isle of Man, very winsome to look at, who worked a sorry\nKelpie-trick, on the young men of the town, and inveigled them into the\nsea, where they perished. At last the inhabitants rose in vengeance, and\nsuspecting her of causing their loss and sorrow, gave her chase so hard\nand fast by land, that to save herself, she changed her shape into that\nof an innocent brown wren. And because she had been so treacherous, a\nspell was cast upon her, inasmuch as she was obliged every New Year's\nDay to fly about as that same bird, until she should be killed by a\nhuman hand. And from sunrise to sunset, therefore, on the first bleak\nday of January, all the men and boys of the island fired at the poor\nwrens, and stoned them, and entrapped them, in the hope of reaching the\none guilty fairy among them. And as they could never be sure that they\nhad captured the right one, they kept on year by year, chasing and\npersecuting the whole flock. But every dead wren's feather they\npreserved carefully, and believed that it hindered them from drowning\nand shipwreck for that twelvemonth; and they took the feathers with them\non voyages great and small, in order that the bad fairy's magic may\nnever be able to prevail, as it had prevailed of yore with their unhappy\nbrothers.\n\nThe presence of the sea-fairies had a terror in it, and against their\narts only the strongest and most watchful could hope to be victorious.\nTheir sport was to desolate peaceful homes, and bring destruction on\ngallant ships. They, dwelling in streams and in the ocean, the world\nover, were like the waters they loved: gracious and noble in aspect, and\nmeaning danger and death to the unwary. We fear that, like the\nearth-fairies, they were heartless quite.\n\n[Illustration: HOB IN HOBHOLE]\n\nBut it may be that the gentle Nixies had only a blind longing for human\nsociety, and would not willingly have wrought harm to the creatures of\nanother element. We are more willing to urge excuses for their\nwrong-doing than for the like fault in our frowzly under-ground folk;\nfor ugliness seems, somehow, not so shocking when allied with evil as\ndoes beauty, which was destined for all men's delight and uplifting. As\nthe air-elves had their Fairyland whither mortal children wandered, and\nwhence they returned after an unmeasured lapse of time, still children,\nto the ivy-grown ruins of their homes, so the water-elves had a reward\nfor those they snatched from earth; and legends assure us the\nwave-rocked prisoners a hundred fathoms down, never grew old, but kept\nthe flush of their last morning rosy ever on their brows.\n\nAmong a little community full of guile, there is great comfort in\nspotting one honest, kind water-boy, who, not content with being\nharmless, as were the Flemish and Grecian Nixies, put himself to work to\ndo good, and charm away some of the worries and ills that burdened the\nupper world. His name was Hob, and he lived in Hobhole, which was a cave\nscooped out by the beating tides in old Northumbria.\n\nThe lean pockets of the neighboring doctors were partly attributed to\nthis benignant little person; for he set up an opposition, and his\nspecialty was the cure of whooping-cough. Many a Scotch mother took her\nlad or lass to the spray-covered mouth of the wise goblin's cave, and\nsang in a low voice:\n\n            Hobhole Hob!\n    Ma bairn's gotten t' kink-cough:\n    Tak't off! tak't off!\n\nAnd so he did, sitting there with his toes in the sea. For Hobhole Hob's\nsmall sake, we can afford to part friends with the whole naughty race of\nwater-folk.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nMISCHIEF-MAKERS.\n\n\nTHE fairy-fellows who made a regular business of mischief-making seemed\nto have two favorite ways of setting to work. They either saddled\nthemselves with little boys and spilled them, sooner or later, into the\nwater, or else they danced along holding a twinkling light, and led any\none so foolish as to follow them a pretty march into chasms and\nquagmires. Their jokes were grim and hurtful, and not merely funny, like\nBrownie's; for Brownie usually gave his victims (except in Molly Jones's\ncase) nothing much worse than a pinch. So people came to have great awe\nand horror of the heartless goblins who waylaid travellers, and left\nthem broken-limbed or dead.\n\nVery often quarrelsome, disobedient or vicious folk fell into the snare\nof a Kelpie, or a Will-o'-the-Wisp; for the little whipper-snappers had\na fine eye for poetical justice, and dealt out punishments with the\nnicest discrimination. We never hear that they troubled good, steady\nmortals; but only that sometimes they beguiled them, for sheer love,\ninto Fairyland.\n\nWe know that all \"ouphes and elves\" could change their shapes at will;\ntherefore when we spy fairy-horses, fairy-lambs, and such quadrupeds, we\nguess at once that they are only roguish small gentlemen masquerading.\nNever for the innocent fun of it, either; but alas! to bring silly\npersons to grief.\n\nIn Hampshire, in England, was a spirit known as Coltpixy, which, itself\nshaped like a miniature neighing horse, beguiled other horses into bogs\nand morasses. The Irish Pooka or Phooka was a horse too, and a famous\nrascal. He lived on land, and was something like the Welsh Gwyll: a\ntiny, black, wicked-faced wild colt, with chains dangling about him.\nAgain, he frisked around in the shape of a goat or a bat. Spenser has\nhim:\n\n    \"Ne let the Pouke, ne other evill spright, . . .\n     Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,\n     Fray us with things that be not.\"\n\n\"Fray,\" as you are likely to guess, means to frighten or to scare.\n\n[Illustration: THE IRISH POOKA WAS A HORSE TOO.]\n\nKelpies, who were Scotch, haunted fords and ferries, especially in\nstorms; allured bystanders into the water, or swelled the river so that\nit broke the roads, and overwhelmed travellers.\n\nVery like them were the Brag, the little Shoopil-tree of the Shetland\nIslands, and the Nick, who was the Icelandic Nykkur-horse; gamesome\ndeceivers all, who enticed children and others to bestride them, and who\nwere treacherous as a quicksand, every time. And there were many more of\nthe Kelpie kingdom, of whom we can hunt up no clews.\n\nA man who saw a Kelpie gave himself up for lost; for he was sure, by\nhook or crook, to meet his death by drowning. Kelpie, familiar so far\naway as China, never stayed in the next-door countries, Ireland or\nEngland, long enough to be recognized. They knew nothing of him by\nsight, nor of the Nix his cousin, nor of anything resembling them. In\nIreland lived the merrow; but she was only an amiable mermaid.\n\n[Illustration: WILL-O'-THE-WISP.]\n\nThe Japanese had a water-dragon called Kappa, \"whose office it was to\nswallow bad boys who went to swim in disobedience to their parents'\ncommands, and at improper times and places.\" In the River Tees was a\ngreen-haired lady named Peg Powler, and in some streams in Lancashire\none christened Jenny Greenteeth; two hungry goblins whose only\ndelight was to drown and devour unlucky travellers. But we know already\nthat the water-sprites were more than likely so to behave.\n\nIn Provence there is a tale told of seven little boys who went out at\nnight against their grandmother's wishes. A little dark pony came\nprancing up to them, and the youngest clambered on his sleek back, and\nafter him, the whole seven, one after the other, which was quite a\nwonderful weight for the wee creature; but his back meanwhile kept\ngrowing longer and larger to accommodate them. As they galloped along,\nthe children called such of their playmates as were out of doors, to\njoin them, the obliging nag stretching and stretching until thirty pairs\nof young legs dangled at his sides! when he made straight for the sea,\nand plunged in, and drowned them all.\n\nThe Piskies, or Pigseys, of Cornwall, were naughty and unsociable. Their\ngreat trick was to entice people into marshes, by making themselves look\nlike a light held in a man's hand, or a light in a friendly cottage\nwindow. Pisky also rode the farmers' colts hard, and chased the\nfarmers' cows. For all his diabolics, you had to excuse him in part,\nwhen you heard his hearty fearless laugh; it was so merry and sweet. \"To\nlaugh like a Pisky,\" passed into a proverb. The Barguest of Yorkshire,\nlike the Osschaert of the Netherlands, was an open-air bugaboo whose\npresence always portended disaster. Sometimes he appeared as a horse or\ndog, merely to play the old trick with a false light, and to vanish,\nlaughing.\n\nThe Tueckebold was a very malicious chap, carrying a candle, who lived in\nHanover; his blood-relation in Scandinavia was the Lyktgubhe. Over in\nFlanders and Brabant was one Kludde, a fellow whisking here and there as\na half-starved little mare, or a cat, or a frog, or a bat; but who was\nalways accompanied by two dancing blue flames, and who could overtake\nany one as swiftly as a snake. The Ellydan (dan is a Welsh word meaning\nfire, and also a lure or a snare: a luring elf-fire) was a rogue with\nwings, wide ears, a tall cap and two huge torches, who precisely\nresembled the English Will-o'-the-Wisp, the Scandinavian Lyktgubhe and\nthe Breton Sand Yan y Tad. Our American negroes make him out\nJack-muh-Lantern: a vast, hairy, goggle-eyed, big-mouthed ogre, leaping\nlike a giant grasshopper, and forcing his victims into a swamp, where\nthey died. The gentlemen of this tribe preferred to walk abroad at\nnight, like any other torchlight procession. Their little bodies were\ninvisible, and the traveller who hurried towards the pleasant lamp\nahead, never knew that he was being tricked by a grinning fairy, until\nhe stumbled on the brink of a precipice, or found himself knee-deep in a\nbog. Then the brazen little guide shouted outright with glee, put out\nhis mysterious flame, and somersaulted off, leaving the poor tourist to\nhelp himself. The only way to escape his arts was to turn your coat\ninside out.\n\nYou may guess that the ungodly wights had plenty of fun in them, by this\nanecdote: A great many Scotch Jack-o'-Lanterns, as they are often\ncalled, were once bothering the horse belonging to a clergyman, who with\nhis servant, was returning home late at night. The horse reared and\nwhinnied, and the clergyman was alarmed, for a thousand impish fires\nwere waltzing before the wheels. Like a good man, he began to pray\naloud, to no avail. But the servant just roared: \"Wull ye be aff noo, in\nthe deil's name!\" and sure enough, in a wink, there was not a goblin\nwithin gunshot.\n\n[Illustration: PISKY ALSO CHASED THE FARMERS' COWS.]\n\nThere were some freakish fairies in old England, whose names were\nPuckerel, Hob Howland, Bygorn, Bogleboe, Rawhead or Bloodybones; the\nlast two were certainly scarers of nurseries.\n\nThe Boggart was a little spectre who haunted farms and houses, like\nBrownie or Nis; but he was usually a sorry busybody, tearing the\nbed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through the keyholes,\nsnatching his bread-and-butter from the baby, playing pranks upon the\nservants, and doing all manner of mischief.\n\n[Illustration: RED COMB WAS A TYRANT.]\n\nThe Dunnie, in Northumberland, was fond of annoying farmers. When night\ncame, he gave them and himself a rest, and hung his long legs over the\ncrags, whistling and banging his idle heels. Red Comb or Bloody Cap was\na tyrant who lived in every Border castle, dungeon and tower. He was\nshort and thickset long-toothed and skinny-fingered, with big red eyes,\ngrisly flowing hair, and iron boots; a pikestaff in his left hand, and a\nred cap on his ugly head.\n\nThe village of Hedley, near Ebchester, in England, was haunted by a\nchurlish imp known far and wide as the Hedley Gow. He took the form of a\ncow, and amused himself at milking-time with kicking over the pails,\nscaring the maids, and calling the cats, of whom he was fond, to lick up\nthe cream. Then he slipped the ropes and vanished, with a great laugh.\nIn Northern Germany we find the Hedley Gow's next-of-kin, and there,\ntoo, were little underground beings who accompanied maids and men to the\nmilking, and drank up what was spilt; but if nothing happened to be\nspilt in measuring out the quarts, they got angry, overturned the pails,\nand ran away. These jackanapes were a foot and a half high, and dressed\nin black, with red caps.\n\nMany ominous fairies, such as the Banshee, portended misfortune and\ndeath. The Banshee had a high shrill voice, and long hair. Once in a\nwhile she seemed to be as tall as an ordinary woman, very thin, with\nhead uncovered, and a floating white cloak, wringing her hands and\nwailing. She attached herself only to certain ancient Irish families,\nand cried under their windows when one of their race was sick, and\ndoomed to die. But she scorned families who had a dash of Saxon and\nNorman ancestry, and would have nothing to do with them.\n\nEvery single fairy that ever was known to the annals of this world was,\nat times, a mischief-maker. He could no more keep out of mischief than a\ntrout out of water. What lives the dandiprats led our poor\ngreat-great-great-great grand-sires! As a very clever living writer put\nit:\n\n      \"A man could not ride out without risking an encounter\n      with a Puck or a Will-o'-the Wisp. He could not\n      approach a stream in safety unless he closed his ears\n      to the sirens' songs, and his eyes to the fair form of\n      the mermaid. In the hillside were the dwarfs, in the\n      forest Queen Mab and her court. Brownie ruled over him\n      in his house, and Robin Goodfellow in his walks and\n      wanderings. From the moment a Christian came into the\n      world until his departure therefrom, he was at the\n      mercy of the fairy-folk, and his devices to elude them\n      were many. Unhappy was the mother who neglected to lay\n      a pair of scissors or of tongs, a knife or her\n      husband's breeches, in the cradle of her new-born\n      infant; for if she forgot, then was she sure to\n      receive a changeling in its place. Great was the loss\n      of the child to whose baptism the fairies were not\n      invited, or the bride to whose wedding the Nix, or\n      water-spirit, was not bidden. If the inhabitants of\n      Thale did not throw a black cock annually into the\n      Bode, one of them was claimed as his lawful victim by\n      the Nickelmann dwelling in that stream. The Russian\n      peasant who failed to present the Rusalka or\n      water-sprite he met at Whitsuntide, with a\n      handkerchief, or a piece torn from his or her\n      clothing, was doomed to death.\"\n\nOne had to be ever on the lookout to escape the sharp little immortals,\nwhose very kindness to men and women was a species of coquetry, and who\nnever spared their friends' feelings at the expense of their own saucy\ndelight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nPUCK; AND POETS' FAIRIES.\n\n\nPUCK, as we said, is Shakespeare's fairy. There is some probability that\nhe found in Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glens of\nClydach, in Breconshire, the original scenes of his fanciful _Midsummer\nNight's Dream_. This glen used to be crammed with goblins. There, and in\nmany like-named Welsh places, Puck's pranks were well-remembered by old\ninhabitants. This Welsh Puck was a queer little figure, long and\ngrotesque, and looked something like a chicken half out of his shell; at\nleast, so a peasant drew him, from memory, with a bit of coal. Pwcca, or\nPooka, in Wales, was but another name for Ellydan; and his favorite joke\nwas also to travel along before a wayfarer, with a lantern held over his\nhead, leading miles and miles, until he got to the brink of a\nprecipice. Then the little wretch sprang over the chasm, shouted with\nwicked glee, blew out his lantern, and left the startled traveller to\nreach home as best he could. Old Reginald Scott must have had this sort\nof a Puck in mind when he put Kitt-with-the-Candlestick, whose identity\ntroubled the critics much, in his catalogue of \"bugbears.\"\n\nThe very old word Pouke meant the devil, horns, tail, and all; from that\nword, as it grew more human and serviceable, came the Pixy of\nDevonshire, the Irish Phooka, the Scottish Bogle, and the Boggart in\nYorkshire; and even one nursery-tale title of Bugaboo. Oddest of all,\nthe name Pug, which we give now to an amusing race of small dogs, is an\nevery-day reminder of poor lost Puck, and of the queer changes which,\nthrough a century or two, may befall a word. Puck was considered\ncourt-jester, a mild, comic, playful creature:\n\n                A little random elf\n    Born in the sport of Nature, like a weed,\n    For simple sweet enjoyment of myself,\n    But for no other purpose, worth or need;\n    And yet withal of a most happy breed.\n\nBut he kept to the last his character of practical joker, and his\nalliance with his grim little cousins, the Lyktgubhe and the Kludde.\nGlorious old Michael Drayton made a verse of his naughty tricks, which\nyou shall hear:\n\n      This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,\n    Still walking like a ragged colt,\n    And oft out of a bush doth bolt\n    On purpose to deceive us;\n    And leading us, makes us to stray\n    Long winter nights out of the way:\n    And when we stick in mire and clay,\n    He doth with laughter leave us.\n\nShakespeare, who calls him a \"merry wanderer of the night,\" and allows\nhim to fly \"swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow,\" was the first to\nmake Puck into a house spirit. The poets were especially attentive to\nthe offices of these house-spirits.\n\nAccording to them, Mab and Puck do everything in-doors which we think\ncharacteristic of a Brownie. William Browne, born in Tavistock, in the\ncounty of Devon, where the Pixies lived, prettily puts it how the\nfairy-queen did--\n\n                    ----command her elves\n    To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves;\n    And further, if by maiden's oversight,\n    Within doors water was not brought at night,\n    Or if they spread no table, set no bread,\n    They should have nips from toe unto the head!\n    And for the maid who had performed each thing\n    She in the water-pail bade leave a ring.\n\n[Illustration: THE WELSH PUCK.]\n\nHerrick confirms what we have just heard:\n\n      If ye will with Mab find grace,\n    Set each platter in its place;\n    Rake the fire up, and get\n    Water in ere the sun be set;\n    Wash your pails, and cleanse your dairies;\n    Sluts are loathsome to the fairies!\n    Sweep your house: who doth not so,\n    Mab will pinch her by the toe.\n\nJohn Lyly, in his very beautiful _Mayde's Metamorphosis_ has this\ncharming fairy song, which takes us out to the grass, and the soft night\nair, and the softer starshine:\n\n    By the moon we sport and play;\n    With the night begins our day;\n    As we dance, the dew doth fall.\n    Trip it, little urchins all!\n    Lightly as the little bee,\n    Two by two, and three by three,\n    And about go we, and about go we.\n\n[Illustration: A MERRY NIGHT-WANDERER.]\n\nWhat a picture of the wee tribe at their revels! Here is another, from\nBen Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_:\n\n      Span-long elves that dance about a pool,\n    With each a little changeling in her arms.\n\nIn what is thought to be Lyly's play, just mentioned, Mopso, Joculo, and\nPrisio have something in the way of a pun for each fairy they address:\n\n    _Mop._: I pray you, what might I call you?\n\n    _1st Fairy_: My name is Penny.\n\n    _Mop._: I am sorry I cannot purse you!\n\n    _Pris._: I pray you, sir, what might I call you?\n\n    _2nd Fairy_: My name is Cricket.\n\n(Mr. Keightley says that the Crickets were a family of great note in\nFairyland: many poets celebrated them.)\n\n    _Pris._: I would I were a chimney for your sake!\n\n    _Joc._: I pray you, you pretty little fellow, what's your\n    name?\n\n    _3rd Fairy_: My name is Little Little Prick.\n\n    _Joc._: Little Little Prick! O you are a dangerous fairy,\n    and fright all the little wenches in the country out of their\n    beds. I care not whose hand I were in, so I were out of\n    yours.\n\nDrayton, again, gives us a list of tinkling elfin-ladies' names, which\nare pleasant to hear as the drip of an icicle:\n\n      Hop and Mop and Drop so clear,\n    Pip and Trip and Skip that were\n    To Mab their sovereign ever dear,\n    Her special maids-of-honor:\n\n    Pib and Tib and Pinck and Pin,\n    Tick and Quick, and Jil and Jin,\n    Tit and Nit, and Wap and Win,\n    The train that wait upon her!\n\n[Illustration: \"BY THE MOON WE SPORT AND PLAY.\"]\n\nYoung Randolph has an equally delightful account in the pastoral drama\nof _Amyntas_, of his wee folk orchard-robbing; whose chorused Latin\nLeigh Hunt thus translates, roguishly enough:\n\n      We the fairies blithe and antic,\n    Of dimensions not gigantic,\n    Tho' the moonshine mostly keep us,\n    Oft in orchard frisk and peep us.\n\n    Stolen sweets are always sweeter;\n    Stolen kisses much completer;\n    Stolen looks are nice in chapels;\n    Stolen, stolen, be our apples!\n\n    When to bed the world is bobbing,\n    Then's the time for orchard-robbing:\n    Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling,\n    Were it not for stealing, stealing!\n\nYou will notice that Shakespeare places his Gothic goblins in the woods\nabout Athens, a place where real fairies never set their rose-leaf feet,\nbut where once sported yet lovelier Dryads and Naiads. These dainty\nBritish Greeks are very small indeed: Titania orders them to make war on\nthe rear-mice, and make coats of their leathern wings. Mercutio's Queen\nMab is scarce bigger than a snowflake. Prospero, in _The Tempest_,\ncommands, besides his \"delicate Ariel,\" all\n\n    --elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves.\n\nThe make-believe fairies in _The Merry Wives_ know how to pinch\noffenders black and blue. The shepherd, in the _Winter's Tale_, takes\nthe baby Perdita for a changeling. So that all the Shakespeare people\nseem wise in goblin-lore.\n\nYou see that we have looked for the literature of our pretty friends\nonly among the old poets, and only English poets at that; but the\nforeign fairies are no less charming. Chaucer and Spenser loved the\nbrood especially. Robert Herrick knew all about\n\n    --the elves also,\n    Whose little eyes glow;\n\nSidney smiled on them once or twice, and great Milton could spare them a\nline out of his majestic verse. But the high-tide of their praise was\nebbing already when Dryden and Pope were writing. Lesser poets than any\nof these, Parnell and Tickell, wrote fairy tales, but they lack the\nrelish of the honeyed rhymes Drayton, Lyly, and supreme Shakespeare,\ngive us. Keats was drawn to them, though he has left us but sweet and\nbrief proof of it; and Thomas Hood, of all gentle modern poets, has\ndone most for the \"small foresters and gay.\" In prose the fairies are\n\"famoused\" east and west; for which they may sing their loudest canticle\nto the good Brothers Grimm, in Fairyland. The arts have been their\nhandmaids; and some of this world's most lovable spirits have delighted\nto do them merry honor: Mendelssohn in his quicksilver orchestral music,\nand dear Richard Doyle in the quaintest drawings that ever fell,\nlaughing, from a pencil-point.\n\n[Illustration: THE ELVES WHOSE LITTLE EYES GLOW.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nCHANGELINGS.\n\n\nKIDNAPPING was a favorite pastime with our small friends, and a great\nmany reasons concurred to make it a necessary and thriving trade. We are\ntold that both the Tylwyth Teg and the Korrigans had a fear that their\nfrail race was dying out, and sought to steal hearty young children, and\nleave the wee, bright, sickly \"changeling,\" or ex-changeling, in its\nplace. That sounds like a quibble; for we know that fairies were free\nfrom the shadow of death, and could not possibly dread any lessening of\ntheir numbers from the old, old cause. Yet we saw that the air-elves\nheld pitched battles, and murdered one another like gallant soldiers,\nfrom the world's beginning; and again comes a straggling little proof to\nmake us suspect that they had not quite the immortality they boasted.\nHowever, we pass it by, sure at least that the philosopher who first\nobserved the merry goblins to be at bottom wavering and disconsolate,\nrecognized an instance of it in this pathetic eagerness to adopt babies\nnot their own. Fairy-folk were believed, in general, to have power over\nnone but unbaptized children.\n\nA tradition older and wider than the Tylwyth Teg's runs that a yearly\ntribute was due from Fairyland to the prince of the infernal regions, as\npoor King AEgeus had once to pay Minos of Crete with the seven fair boys\nand girls; and that, for the sake of sparing their own dear ones, the\nlittle beings, in their fantastic dress, flew east and west on an\nanxious hunt for human children, who might be captured and delivered\nover to bondage instead. And they crept cautiously to many a cradle, and\nhaving secured the sleeping innocent, \"plucked the nodding nurse by the\nnose,\" as Ben Jonson said, and vanished with a scream of triumphant\nlaughter. Welsh fairies have been caught in the very act of the theft,\nand a pretty fight they made, every time, to keep their booty; but the\nstrength of a man or a woman, was, of course, too much for them to\nresist long.\n\nNow, whenever a mother, who, you may count upon it, thought her own\nurchin most beautiful of all under the moon, found him growing cross and\nhomely, in despite of herself, she suddenly awoke to this view of the\ncase: that the dwindled babe was her babe no longer, but a miserable\nyoung gosling from Fairyland slipped into its place. A miserable young\nforeign gosling it was from that hour, though it had her own\ngrandfather's special kind of a nose on its unmistakable face.\n\nThe discovery always made a great sensation; people came from the\nsurrounding villages to wonder at the lean, gaping, knowing-eyed small\nstranger in the crib, and to propose all sorts of charms which should\nrid the house of his presence, and restore the rightful heir again. They\nwere not especially polite to the poor changeling. In Denmark, and in\nIreland as well, they dandled him on a hot shovel! If he were really a\nchangeling, the fairies, rather than see him singed, were sure to\nappear in a violent fluster and whisk him away, and at the same minute\nto drop its former owner plump into the cradle. And if it were not a\nchangeling, how did those queer by-gone mammas know when to stop the\nbroiling and baking?\n\nMr. George Waldron, who in 1726 wrote an entertaining _Description of\nthe Isle of Man_, recorded it that he once went to see a baby supposed\nto be a changeling; that it seemed to be four or five years old, but\nsmaller than an infant of six months, pale, and silky-haired, and (what\nwas unusual) with the fairest face under heaven; that it was not able to\nwalk nor to move a joint, seldom smiled, ate scarcely anything, and\nnever spoke nor cried; but that if you called it a fairy-elf, it fixed\nits gaze on you as if it would look you through. If it were left alone,\nit was overheard laughing and frolicking, and when it was taken up\nafter, limp as cloth, its hair was found prettily combed, and there were\nsigns that it had been washed and dressed by its unseen playfellows.\n\nThe main point to put the family mind at rest on the matter, was to\nmake the changeling \"own up,\" force him to do something which no tender\nmortal in socks and bibs ever was able to do, such as dance, prophesy,\nor manage a musical instrument. There was an Irish changeling, the\nyoungest of five sons, who, being teased, snatched a bagpipe from a\nvisitor, and played upon it in the most accomplished and melting manner,\nsitting up in his wooden chair, his big goggle-eyes fixed on the\ncompany. And when he knew he was found out, he sprang, bagpipe and all,\ninto the river; which leads one to suspect that he was a sort of stray\nStroemkarl.\n\n[Illustration: THERE WAS AN IRISH CHANGELING.]\n\nThe Welsh fairies had good taste, and admired wholesome and handsome\nchildren. They stole such often, and left for substitute the\nplentyn-newid (the change-child) who at first was exactly like the\nabsent nursling, but soon grew ugly, shrivelled, biting, wailing,\ncunning and ill-tempered. In the hope of proving whether it were a\nfairy-waif or not, people put the little creature to such hard tests,\nthat sometimes it nearly died of acquaintance with a rod, or an oven, or\na well.\n\n[Illustration: \"THE ACORN BEFORE THE OAK HAVE I SEEN.\"]\n\nIf the bereaved parent did some very astonishing thing in plain view of\nthe wonder-chick, that would generally entrap it into betraying its\nsecrets. A French changeling was once moved unawares to sing out that it\nwas nine hundred years old, at least! In Wales, and also in Brittainy\n(which are sister-countries of one race) the following story is current:\nA mother whose infant had been spirited away, and who was much perplexed\nover what she took to be a changeling, was advised to cook a meal for\nten farm-servants in one egg-shell. When the queer little creature,\nburning with curiosity, asked her from his high-chair what she was\nabout, she could hardly answer, so excited was she to hear him speak. At\nthat he cried louder: \"A meal for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell?\nThe acorn before the oak have I seen, and the wilderness before the\nlawn, but never did I behold anything like that!\" and so gave damaging\nevidence of his age and his unlucky wisdom. And the woman replied: \"You\nhave seen altogether too much, my son, and you shall have a beating!\"\nAnd thereupon she began to thrash him, until he screeched, and a fairy\nappeared hurriedly to rescue him, and in the crib lay the round, rosy,\nreal child, who had been missing a long while.\n\nNow the \"gentry\" of modern Greece had an eye also to clever children;\nbut they almost always brought them back, laden with gifts, lovelier in\nperson than when they were taken from home. And if they appointed a\nchangeling in the meantime (which they were not very apt to do) it never\nshowed its elfin nature until it was quite grown up! unlike the uncanny\ngoblins who were all too ready from the first to give autobiographies on\nthe slightest hint.\n\nThe Drows of the Orkney Islands fancied larger game. They used to stalk\nin among church congregations and carry off pious deacons and\ndeaconesses! So wrote one Lucas Jacobson Debes, in 1670.\n\nIn a pretty Scotch tale, a sly fairy threatened to steal the \"lad\nbairn,\" unless the mother could tell the fairy's right name. The latter\nwas a complete stranger, and the woman was sore worried; and went to\nwalk in the woods to ease her anxious and aching heart, and to think\nover some means of outwitting the enemy of her boy. And presently she\nheard a faint voice singing under a leaf:\n\n      Little kens the gude dame at hame\n    That Whuppity Stoorie is ma name!\n\nWhen the smart lady in green came to take the beautiful \"lad bairn,\" the\nmother quietly called her \"Whuppity Stoorie!\" and off she hurried with a\ncry of fear; like the Austrian dwarf Kruzimuegeli, the \"dear Ekke\nNekkepem\" of Friesland, and many another who tried to play the same\ntrick, and who were always themselves the means of telling mortals the\nvery names they would conceal.\n\n[Illustration: SHE HEARD A FAINT VOICE SINGING UNDER A LEAF.]\n\nFairy-folk young and old were coquettish enough about their names, and\ngreatly preferred they should not be spoken outright. This habit got\nthem into many a scrape. The anecdote of \"Who hurt you? Myself!\" was\ntold in Spain, Finland, Brittainy, Japan, and a dozen other kingdoms,\nand seems to be as old as the Odyssey. Do you remember where Ulysses\ntells the Cyclop that his name is Outis, which means Nobody? and how,\nafter the eye of the wicked Polyphemus has been put out, the comrades\nof the big blinded fellow ask him who did the deed, and he growls back,\nvery sensibly: \"Nobody!\" Consider what follows a typical modern version\nof the same trick.\n\n[Illustration: \"AINSEL.\"]\n\nA young Scotch child, whom we will call Alan, sits by the fire, when a\npretty creature the size of a doll, waltzes down the chimney to the\nhearth, and begins to frolic. When asked its name it says shrewdly:\n\"Ainsel\"; which to the boy sounds like what it really is, \"Ownself,\" and\nmakes him, when it is his turn to be questioned, as saucy and reticent\nas he supposes his elfin playfellow to be. So Alan tells the sprite that\nhis name is \"_My_ Ainsel,\" and gets the better of it. For bye-and-bye\nthey wax very frisky and friendly, and right in the middle of their\nsport, when little Alan pokes the fire, and gets a spark by chance on\nAinsel's foot, and when he roars with pain, and the old fairy-mother\nappears instantly, crying angrily: \"Who has hurt thee? Who has hurt\nthee?\" the elf blurts, of course, \"My Ainsel!\" and she kicks him\nunceremoniously up chimney, and bids him stop whimpering, since the burn\nwas of his own silly doing! Alan, meanwhile, climbs upstairs to bed,\nrejoicing to escape the vengeance of the fairy-mother, and chuckling in\nhis sleeve at the funny turn things have taken.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nFAIRYLAND.\n\n    \"And never would I tire, Janet,\n    In Fairyland to dwell.\"\n\n\nSO runs the song. Who would weary of so sweet a place? At least, we\nthink of it as a sweet place; but like this own world of ours, it was\nwhatever a man's eyes made it: good and gracious to the good, troublous\nto the evil. According to an old belief, a mean or angry, or untruthful\nperson, always exposed himself, by the very violence of his wrong-doing,\nto become an inmate of Fairyland; and for such a one, it could not have\nbeen all sunshine. A foot set upon the fairy-ring was enough to cause a\nmortal to be whisked off, pounded, pinched, bewildered, and left far\nfrom home. It was a strange experience, and it is recorded that it\nbefell many a lad and maid to be loosed from earth, and cloistered for\nuncounted years, to return, like our Catskill hero, Rip Van Winkle,\nafter what he supposes to be a little time, and to find that generations\nhad passed away. For those absent took no thought of time's passing, and\non reaching earth again, would begin where their lips had dropped a\nsentence half-spoken, a hundred years before. Tales of such truants are\ncommon the world over.\n\nGitto Bach (little Griffith) was a Welsh farmer's boy, who looked after\nsheep on the mountain-top. When he came home at evenfall he often showed\nhis brothers and sisters bits of paper stamped like money. Now when it\nwas given to him, it was real money; but the fairy-gifts would not bear\nhandling, and turned useless and limp as soon as Gitto showed them. One\nday he did not return. After two years his mother found him one morning\nat the door, smiling, and with a bundle under his arm. She asked him,\nwith many tears, where he had been so long, while they had mourned for\nhim as dead. \"It is only yesterday I went away!\" said Gitto. \"See the\npretty clothes the mountain-children gave me, for dancing with them to\nthe music of their harps.\" And he opened his bundle, and showed a\nbeautiful dress: but his mother saw it was only paper, after all, like\nthe fairy money.\n\n[Illustration: GITTO BACH AND THE FAIRIES.]\n\n[Illustration: KAGUYAHIME, THE MOON-MAID.]\n\nOur pretty friends enjoyed beguiling mortals into their shining\nunderworld, with song, and caresses, and winning promises. Once the\nmortal entered, he met with warm welcomes from all, and the most\nexquisite meat and drink were set before him. Now, if he had but the\ncourage to refuse it, he soon found himself back on earth, whence he was\nstolen. But if he yielded to temptation, and his tongue tasted fairy\nfood, he could never behold his native hills again for years and years.\nAnd when, after that exquisite imprisonment, he should be torn from his\ndelights and set back at his father's door, he should find his memory\nalmost forgotten, and others sitting with a claim in his empty seat. And\nhe should not remember how long he had been missing, but grow silent and\ndepressed, and sit for hours, with dreamy eyes, on lonely slopes and\nwildwood bridges, not desiring fellowship of any soul alive; but with a\nheartache always for his little lost playfellows, and for that bright\ncountry far away, until he died.\n\nOften the creature who has once stood in the courts of Fairyland, is\nplaced under vow, when released, and allowed to visit the earth, to come\nback at call, and abide there always. For the spell of that place is so\nstrong, no heart can escape it, nor wish to escape it. Thus ends the old\nromance of Thomas the Rhymer: that, at the end of seven years, he was\nfreed from Fairyland, made wise beyond all men; but he was sworn to\nreturn whenever the summons should reach him. And once as he was making\nmerry with his chosen comrades, a hart and a hind moved slowly along the\nvillage street; and he knew the sign, laid down his glass, and smiled\nfarewell; and followed them straightway into the strange wood, never to\nbe seen more by mortal eyes.\n\nA wonderful and beautiful Japanese story, too, the ancient Taketori\nMonogatari, written in the first half of the tenth century, tells us how\na grey-haired bamboo-gatherer found in a bamboo-blade a radiant\nelf-baby, and kindly took it home to his wife; and because of their\ngreat and ready generosity to the waif, the gods made them thrive in\npurse and health; and how, when the little one had been with them three\nmonths, Kaguyahime, for that was she, grew suddenly to a tall and fair\ngirl, and so remained unchanging, for twenty years, while five gallant\nJapanese lords were doing her strange commands, and running risks the\nworld over. Then, though the emperor, also, was her suitor, and though\nshe was unspeakably fond of her old foster-parents, and grieved to go\nfrom them, she, being a moon-maid, went back in her chariot one glorious\nnight to her shining home, whence she had been banished for some old\nfault, and whither the love and longing and homage of all the land\npursued her.\n\nMany sweet wild Welsh and Cornish legends deal with shepherds and yeomen\nwho set foot on a fairy mound by chance, or who, in some other fashion,\nwere transplanted to the realm of the dancing, feasting elves. But they\nhave a pathetic ending, since no wanderer ever strayed back with all his\nold wits sound and sharp. He seemed as one who walked in sleep, and had\nno care or recognition for the faces that once he held dear. And if he\nwere roused too rudely from his long reverie, he died of the shock.\n\n[Illustration: THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK.]\n\nA merrier tale, and one which is very wise and pretty as well, is\ncurrent in many literatures. The Irish version runs somewhat in this\nfashion, and the Spanish and Breton versions are extraordinarily like\nit. A little hunchback resting at nightfall in an enchanted\nneighborhood, heard the fairies, from their borderlands near by, singing\nover and over the names of the days of the week. \"And Sunday, and\nMonday, and Tuesday!\" they chorus: \"and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday.\"\nThe boy thinks it rather hard that they do not know enough to finish\ntheir musical chant with the names of the remaining days; so, when they\npause a little, very softly, and tunefully, he adds: \"And Wednesday\"!\nThe wee folk are delighted, and make their chant longer by one strophe;\nand they crowd out in their finery from the mound, bearing the stranger\nfar down into its depths where there are the glorious open halls of\nFairyland: kissing and praising their friend, and bringing him the\ndaintiest fruit lips ever tasted; and to reward him lastingly, their\nsoft little hands lift the cruel hump from his back, and he runs dancing\nhome, at a year's end, to acquaint the village with his happy fortune.\nNow another deformed lad, his neighbor, is racked with jealousy at the\nsight of his former friend made straight and fair; and he rushes to the\nfairy-mound, and sits, scowling, waiting to hear them begin the magic\nsong. Presently rise the silver voices: \"And Sunday, and Monday, and\nTuesday, and Wednesday, and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and\nWednesday\": whereat the audience breaks in rudely, right in the middle\nof a cadence: \"And Friday.\" Then the gentle elves were wrathful, and\nswarmed out upon him, snarling and striking at him in scorn; and before\nhe escaped them, they had fastened on his crooked back beside his own,\nthe very hump that had belonged to the first comer! In the anecdote, as\nit is given in Picardy, the justice-dealing goblins are described as\nvery small and comely, clad in violet-colored velvet, and wearing hats\nladen with peacock plumes. In the Japanese rendering, a wen takes the\nplace of the hump.\n\nFairyland is the home of every goblin, bright or fierce, that ever we\nheard of; the home, too, of the ogres and dragons, and enchanted\nprincesses, and demons, and Jack-the-giant-killers of all time. The\nBrownies belonged there, and went thither in their worldly finery, when\nservice was over; the gnomes and snarling mine-sprites, the sweet\ndancing elves, the fairies who stole children, or romped under the\nriver's current, or plagued honest farmers, or tiptoed it with a torch\ndown a lonesome road--every one there had his country and his fireside.\n\n[Illustration: TAKNAKANX KAN.]\n\nIn that merry company were many who have escaped us, and who sit in a\nblossomy corner by themselves, the oddest of the odd: like the Japanese\nTengus, who have little wings and feathers, like birds, until they grew\nup; mouths very seldom opened, and most amazing big noses, with which,\non earth, they were wont to fence, to whitewash, to write poetry, and to\nring bells! There, too, were the dark-skinned Indian wonder-babies:\nWeeng, whom Mr. Longfellow celebrates as Nepahwin, the Indian god of\nsleep, with his numerous train of little fairy men armed with clubs; who\nat nightfall sought out mortals, and with innumerable light blows upon\ntheir foreheads, compelled them to slumber. The great boaster, Iagoo,\nwhom Hiawatha knew, once declared that he had seen King Weeng himself,\nresting against a tree, with many waving and music-making wings on his\nback. Indian, likewise, was the spirit named Canotidan, who dwelt in\nmany a hollow tree; and the lively fellow, Taknakanx Kan, who sported\n\"in the nodding flowers; who flew with the birds, frisked with the\nsquirrels, and skipped with the grasshopper; who was merry with the gay\nrunning brooks, and shouted with the waterfall; who moved with the\nsailing cloud, and came forth with the dawn.\" He never slept, and never\nhad time to sleep, being the god of perpetual motion. Near him, perhaps,\nsee-sawed a couple of long-eyed Chinese San Sao, or the glossy-haired\nFees of Southern France pelted one another with dew-drops. There also,\nthe African Yumboes had their magnificent tents spread: those strange\nlittle thieving Banshee-Brownies, wrapped in white cotton pangs, who\nleaned back in their seats after a gorgeous repast, and beheld an army\nof hands appear and carry off the golden dishes! There abided, as the\nvenerated elder of the rest, the long-bearded Pygmies whom Homer,\nAristotle and good Herodotus had not scorned to celebrate, whom Sir John\nMandeville avowed to be \"right fair and gentle, after their quantities,\nboth the men and the women.... And he that liveth eight year, men hold\nhim right passing old ... and of the men of our stature have they as\ngreat scorn and wonder as we would have among us of giants!\"\n\nOf these and thousands more marvellous is Fairyland full; full of things\nstartling and splendid and grewsome and visionary:\n\n                      ----full of noises,\n    Sounds and sweet airs that give delight, and hurt not.\n\nAny picture of it is tame, any worded description dull and heavy, to you\nwho discover it daily at first hand, and who know its faces and voices,\nwhich fade too quickly from the brain. All fine adventures spring\nthence: all loveliest color, odor and companionship are in that\nstirring, sparkling world. Can you not help us back there for an hour?\nWho knows the path? Who can draw a map, and set up a sign-post? Who can\nbar the gate, when we are safe inside, and keep us forever and ever in\nour forsaken \"dear sweet land of Once-upon-a-Time\"?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE PASSING OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE.\n\n\nTHERE was once a very childish child who laid her fairy-book on its face\nacross her knee, and sat all the morning watching the cups of the\nhoneysuckle, grieved that not one solitary elf was left to swing on its\nsun-touched edges, and laugh back at her, with unforgetful eyes.\n\nWe are sorry for her, and sorry with her. The Little People, alas! have\ngone away; would that they might return! No man knows why nor when they\nleft us; nor whither they turned their faces. The exodus was made softly\nand slowly, till the whole bright tribe had stolen imperceptibly into\nexile. Mills, steam-engines and prowling disbelievers joined to banish\nthem; their poetic and dreamy drama is over, their magic lamp out, and\ntheir jocund music hushed and forbidden. Or perhaps they of themselves\nwent lingeringly and sorrowfully afar, because the world had grown too\nrough for them.\n\nGeoffrey Chaucer, in the fourteenth century, wrote in his sweet,\ntranquil fashion:\n\n      In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour . . .\n    Al was this lond fulfilled of faerie . . . . .\n    I speke of mony hundrid yeer ago;\n    But now can no man see non elves mo:\n\nwhich you may understand as an announcement somewhat ahead of time. For\nmany, many \"elves mo\" were on record after the good poet's lyre was\nhushed, and \"thick as motes in the sunbeam\" centuries after their\nreported flight. There have been sound-headed folk in every age, of whom\nChaucer was one, who jested over the poor fairies and their arts, and\nspoke of them only for gentle satire's sake. But though Chaucer was sure\nthe goblins had perished, his neighbors saw manifold lively specimens of\nthe race, without stirring out of the parish. Up to two hundred years\nago prayers were said in the churches against bad fairies!\n\n[Illustration: \"AL WAS THIS LOND FULFILLED OF FAERIE.\"]\n\nSir Walter Scott related that the last Brownie was the Brownie of\nBodsbeck, who lived there long, and vanished, as is the wont of his\nclan, when the mistress of the house laid milk and a piece of money in\nhis haunts. He was loath to go, and moaned all night: \"Farewell to\nBonnie Bodsbeck!\" till his departure at break of day. A girl from\nNorfolk, England, questioned by Mr. Thomas Keightley, admitted that she\nhad often seen the _Frairies_, dressed in white, coming up from their\nlittle cities underground! Mr. John Brand saw a man who said he had seen\none that had seen fairies! And Mr. Robert Hunt, author of the _Drolls\nand Traditions of Old Cornwall_, wrote that forty years ago every rock\nand field in that country was peopled with them! and that \"a gentleman\nwell-known in the literary world of London very recently saw in\nDevonshire a troop of fairies! It was a breezy summer afternoon, and\nthese beautiful little creatures were floating on circling zephyrs up\nthe side of a sunlit hill, fantastically playing,\n\n    'Where oxlips and the nodding violet grow.'\n\nSo here are three trustworthy gentlemen, makers of books on this special\nsubject, and none of them very long dead, to offset Master Geoffrey\nChaucer, and to bring the \"lond fulfilled of faerie\" closer than he\ndreamed. About the year 1865, a correspondent told Mr. Hunt the\nfollowing queer little story:\n\n[Illustration: FAIRY STORIES.]\n\n\"I heard last week of three fairies having been seen in Zennor very\nrecently. A man who lived at the foot of Trendreen Hill in the valley of\nTreridge, I think, was cutting furze on the hill. Near the middle of\nthe day he saw one of the small people, not more than a foot long,\nstretched at full length and fast asleep, on a bank of heath, surrounded\nby high brakes of furze. The man took off his furze-cuff and slipped the\nlittle man into it without his waking up, went down to the house, and\ntook the little fellow out of the cuff on the hearthstone, when he\nawoke, and seemed quite pleased and at home, beginning to play with the\nchildren, who were well pleased also with the small body, and called him\nBobby Griglans. The old people were very careful not to let Bob out of\nthe house, nor be seen by the neighbors, as he had promised to show the\nman where crocks of gold were buried on the hill. A few days after he\nwas brought, all the neighbors came with their horses, according to\ncustom, to bring home the winter's reek of furze, which had to be\nbrought down the hill in trusses on the backs of the horses. That Bob\nmight be safe and out of sight, he and the children were shut up in the\nbarn. Whilst the furze-carriers were in to dinner, the prisoners\ncontrived to get out to have a run round the furze-reek, when they saw a\nlittle man and woman not much larger than Bob, searching into every hole\nand corner among the trusses that were dropped round the unfinished\nreek. The little woman was wringing her hands and crying 'O my dear and\ntender Skillywidden! wherever canst thou be gone to? Shall I ever cast\neyes on thee again?' 'Go 'e back!' says Bob to the children; 'my father\nand mother are come here too.' He then cried out: 'Here I am, mammy!' By\nthe time the words were out of his mouth, the little man and woman, with\ntheir precious Skillywidden, were nowhere to be seen, and there has\nbeen no sight nor sign of them since. The children got a sound thrashing\nfor letting Skillywidden escape.\"\n\n[Illustration: THE CAPTURE OF SKILLYWIDDEN.]\n\nSuch is the latest evidence we can find of the whereabouts of our\ngoblins.\n\nWe may, however, consider ourselves their contemporaries, since among\nthe peasantry of many countries over-seas, the belief is not yet\nextinct. But it is pretty clear to us, modern and American as we are\n(safer in so thinking than anybody was anywhere before!) that the\n\"restless people,\" as the Scotch called them, are at rest, and clean\nquit of this world; and perhaps satisfied, at last, of their chance of\nsalvation, along with fortunate Christians.\n\nSuch a great system as this of fairy-lore, propped on such show of\nearnestness, grew up, not of a sudden like a mushroom after a July\nrain, but gradually and securely, like a coral-reef. And the\ndream-building was not nonsense at all, but a way of putting what was\nevident and marvellous into a familiar guise. If certain strange things,\nwhich are called phenomena, happened--things like the coming of pebbles\nfrom clouds, music from sand, sparkling light from decay, or disease and\ndeath from the mere handling of a velvety leaf--then our forefathers,\ninstead of gazing straight into the eyes of the fact, as we are taught\nto do, looked askance, and made a fantastic rigmarole concerning the\npebbles, or the music, and passed it down as religion and law.\n\nThe simple-minded citizens of old referred any trifling occurrence,\npleasant or unpleasant, to the fairies. The demons and deities,\naccording to their notion of fitness, governed in vaster matters; and\nthe new, potent sprites took shape in the popular brain as the\ncontrollers of petty affairs. If a shepherd found one of his flock sick,\nit had been elf-shot; if a girl's wits went wool-gathering, it was a\nsign she had been in fairyland; if a cooing baby turned peevish and\nthin, it was a changeling! Wherever you now see a mist, a cobweb, a\nmoving shadow on the grass; wherever you hear a cricket-chirp, or the\nplash of a waterfall, or the cry of the bird on the wing, there of yore\nwere the fairy-folk in their beauty. They stood in the mind to represent\nthe lesser secrets of Nature, to account for some wonder heard and seen.\nIt was many a century before nations stopped romancing about the brave\nthings on land and sea, and began to speculate, to observe more keenly,\nto hunt out reasons, and to lift the haze of their own fancy from heroic\nfacts and deeds.\n\nThink a moment of the Danish moon-man, who breathed pestilence, and the\nmoon-woman, whose harp was so charming. Well, the moon-man meant nothing\nelse than the marsh, slimy and dangerous, which yielded a malarial odor;\nand the wee woman with her harp represented the musical night-wind,\nwhich played over the marsh rushes and reeds. Was it not so, too, with\nthe larger myths of Greece? For the story of Proserpine, carried away by\nthe god of the under world, and after a weary while, given back for\nhalf-a-year to her fond mother Ceres, tells really of the seed-corn\nwhich is cast into her dark soil, and long hidden; but reappears in\nglory, and stays overground for months, basking in the sun. And so on\nwith many a fable, which we read, unguessing of the thought and purpose\nbeneath. Though it was erring, we can hardly thank too much that joyous\nand reverent old paganism which fancied it saw divinity in each move of\nNature, kept a natural piety towards everything that lived, and made a\nthousand sweet memoranda, to remind us forever of the wonder and charm\nof our earth. All mythology, and the part the fairies play in it, stands\nfor what is true.\n\n                    ----\"Still\n    Doth the old instinct bring back the old names\":\n\nand again and again, when we cite some beautiful fiction of Merman and\nKobold, of White Dwarf or Pooka, we but repeat, whether aware of it or\nnot, how the dews come down at morning, or the storm-wind breaks the\nstrong trees, or how a comet, trailing light, bursts headlong across the\nwide sky.\n\nTo comprehend fairy-stories, to get under the surface of them, we would\nhave to go over them all at great length, and with exhaustless patience.\nAnd as in digging for the tendrils of a delicate, berry-laden vine, we\nhave to search, sometimes, deep and wide into the woodland loam, among\ngnarly roots of shrubs and giant pines, so in tracing the sources of the\nsimplest tale which makes us glad or sad, we fall across a network of\nponderous ancient lore; of custom, prejudice, and lost day-dreams, from\nwhich this vine, also, is hard to be severed.\n\nThe spirit of these neat little goblin-chronicles was right and sincere;\nbut the matter of them was often sadly astray. Of course, sometimes,\nuseless, misleading details gathered to obscure the first idea, and to\noverrun it with a tangle of error; and not only were fine stories\nspoiled, but many were started which were funny, or silly, or grim\nmerely, without serving any use beyond that.\n\nBut so powerful is Truth, when there was actually a grain of it at the\ncentre, that even those versions which were exaggerated and distorted,\nplayed into the hands of what we call Folk-lore, and laid their golden\nkey at the feet of Science. You will discover that, besides pointing out\nthe workings of the natural world, the fairy-tales rested often on the\nworkings of our own minds and consciences. The Brownie was a little\nschoolmaster set up to teach love of order, and the need of perfect\ncourtesy; the Nix betokened anything sweet and beguiling, which yet was\nhurtful, and to which it was, and is, a gallant heart's duty not to\nyield. And thus, from beginning to end, the elves at whom we laugh, help\nus toward larger knowledge, and a more chivalrous code of behavior. How\nshall we say, then, that there never was a fairy?\n\n[Illustration: GOOD-BYE]\n\nA miner, hearing the drip of subterranean water, took it to be a Duergar\nor a Bucca, swinging his tiny hammer over the shining ore. His notion of\nthe Bucca, askew as it was, was one at bottom with our knowledge of the\ndark brooklet. You, the young heirs of mighty Science, can often\noutstrip the slow-gathered wisdom of dead philosophers. But do not\ndespise that fine old imagination, which felt its way almost to the\nlight. A sixteenth-century boy, who was all excitement once over the\npranks of Robin Goodfellow, knew many precious things which our very\ngreat nineteenth-century acuteness has made us lose!\n\nGood-bye, then, to the army of vanishing \"gentry,\" and to their\nsteadfast friends, and to you, children dear! who are the guardians of\ntheir wild unwritten records. Shall you not miss them when next the moon\nis high on the blossomy hillocks, and the thistledown, ready-saddled,\nplunges to be off and away? Merry fellows they were, and shrewd and\njust; and we were very fond of them; and now they are gone. And their\ngoing, like a mounting harmony, note by note, which ends in one noble\nchord, with a hush after it, leads us to a serious parting word. Keep\nthe fairies in kindly memory; do not lose your interest in them. They\nand their history have an enchanting value, which need never be outgrown\nnor set aside; and to the gravest mind they bring much which is\nbeautiful, humane and suggestive.\n\nWe have found that believers in the Little People were not so wrong,\nafter all; and that the eye claiming to have seen a fairy saw, verily, a\nsight quite as astonishing. Let us think as gently of other myths to\nwhich men have given zeal, awe and admiration, of every faith hereafter\nwhich seems to us odd and mistaken. For many things which are not true\nin the exact sense, are yet dear to Truth; and follow her as a baby's\ntripping tongue lisps the language of its mother, not very successfully,\nbut still with loyalty, and with a meaning which attentive ears can\nalways catch.\n\nSurely, our ancestors loved the \"span-long elves\" who wrought them no\ngreat harm, and who gave them help and cheer. We will praise them, too.\nWho knows but some little goblin's thorny finger directed many an\ninnocent human heart to march, albeit waveringly, towards the ample\nlight of God?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nObvious punctuation errors repaired.\n\nPage vii, \"Puck\" changed to \"Pueck\" (All that Pueck demanded)\n\nPage vii, \"wa\" changed to \"Wa\" (Wag-at-the-Wa')\n\nPage viii, \"Kopenick\" changed to \"Koepenick\" (Kobold of Koepenick)\n\nPage viii, \"changling\" changed to \"changeling\" (was an Irish changeling)\n\nPage viii, \"Taknakaux\" changed to \"Taknakanx\" (Taknakanx Kan)\n\nPage 27, \"airy\" changed to \"fairy\" (to the fairy neighbors)\n\nPage 30, illustration caption, \"RUGEN\" changed to \"RUeGEN\" (THE ISLE OF\nRUeGEN)\n\nPage 37, illustration caption, \"RUGEN\" changed to \"RUeGEN\" (DWARVES OF\nRUeGEN)\n\nPage 38, repeated word \"and\" removed from text. Original read (by twos\nand and threes)\n\nPage 93, illustration caption, \"KOPENICK\" changed to \"KOePENICK\" (KOBOLD\nOF KOePENICK)\n\nPage 169, \"scources\" changed to \"sources\" (the sources of the simplest)","title":"Brownies and Bogles","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":24569}