{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75485/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75485","id":"gutenberg_75485","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75485","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Clairvoyance","Fairies","Parapsychology"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\n  This book was published in 1893 and is a careful reproduction of a\n  book printed in 1815 from a manuscript of 1691 by Rev. Robert Kirk.\n  An Introduction and Notes have been added by Andrew Lang for the\n  1893 publication.\n\n  In this etext:\n  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n  Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.\n\n  Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the Lang footnotes\n  have been placed at the end of the book in front of the two Catalog\n  pages.\n\n  Except for a very few changes noted at the end of the book, all\n  misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have\n  been left unchanged.\n\n\n\n\n          THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH OF ELVES FAUNS & FAIRIES\n\n               [Illustration: BIBLIOTHEQUE DE CARABAS]\n\n\n\n\n                       Biblioth\u00e8que de Carabas\n\n                              VOL. VIII\n\n\n\n\n       _Five hundred and fifty copies of this Edition have been\n            printed, five hundred of which are for sale._\n\n\n                       [_All rights reserved._]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: (Kilted shepherd looking at an apparition)]\n\n\n\n\n                      The Secret Commonwealth of\n\n                       Elves, Fauns, & Fairies\n\n            A Study in Folk-Lore & Psychical Research. The\n                Text by Robert Kirk, M.A., Minister of\n                  Aberfoyle, A.D. 1691. The Comment\n                         by Andrew Lang, M.A.\n                              A.D. 1893\n\n\n               [Illustration: (small decorative icon)]\n\n\n              _LONDON. M.D.CCCXCIII. PUBLISHED BY DAVID\n                         NUTT, IN THE STRAND_\n\n\n\n\n                             Dedication.\n\n                                 TO\n\n                       ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.\n\n\n      O Louis! you that like them maist,\n      Ye\u2019re far frae kelpie, wraith, and ghaist,\n      And fairy dames, no unco chaste,\n            And haunted cell.\n      Among a heathen clan ye\u2019re placed,\n            That kens na hell!\n\n      Ye hae nae heather, peat, nor birks,\n      Nae troot in a\u2019 your burnies lurks,\n      There are nae bonny U.P. kirks,\n            An awfu\u2019 place!\n      Nane kens the Covenant o\u2019 Works\n            Frae that of Grace!\n\n      But whiles, maybe, to them ye\u2019ll read\n      Blads o\u2019 the Covenanting creed,\n      And whiles their pagan wames ye\u2019ll feed\n            On halesome parritch;\n      And syne ye\u2019ll gar them learn a screed\n            O\u2019 the Shorter Carritch.\n\n      Yet thae uncovenanted shavers\n      Hae rowth, ye say, o\u2019 clash and clavers\n      O\u2019 gods and etins\u2014auld wives\u2019 havers,\n            But their delight;\n      The voice o\u2019 him that tells them quavers\n            Just wi\u2019 fair fright.\n\n      And ye might tell, ayont the faem,\n      Thae Hieland clashes o\u2019 oor hame.\n      To speak the truth, I tak\u2019 na shame\n            To half believe them;\n      And, stamped wi\u2019 TUSITALA\u2019s name,\n            They\u2019ll a\u2019 receive them.\n\n      And folk to come, ayont the sea,\n      May hear the yowl of the Banshie,\n      And frae the water-kelpie flee,\n            Ere a\u2019 things cease,\n      And island bairns may stolen be\n            By the Folk o\u2019 Peace.\n\n      Faith, they might steal _me_, wi\u2019 ma will,\n      And, ken\u2019d I ony Fairy hill,\n      I\u2019d lay me down there, snod and still,\n            Their land to win,\n      For, man, I\u2019ve maistly had my fill\n            O\u2019 this world\u2019s din.\n\n\n\n\n                         The Fairy Minister.\n\n                             IN MEMORY OF\n                        THE REV. ROBERT KIRK,\n             _WHO WENT TO HIS OWN HERD_, AND ENTERED INTO\n                   THE LAND OF THE PEOPLE OF PEACE,\n                     IN THE YEAR OF GRACE SIXTEEN\n                       HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO,\n                            AND OF HIS AGE\n                              FIFTY-TWO.\n\n\n      People of Peace! A peaceful man,\n        Well worthy of your love was he,\n      Who, while the roaring Garry ran\n        Red with the life-blood of Dundee,\n      While coats were turning, crowns were falling,\n        Wandered along his valley still,\n      And heard your mystic voices calling\n        From fairy knowe and haunted hill.\n      He heard, he saw, he knew too well\n        The secrets of your fairy clan;\n      You stole him from the haunted dell,\n        Who never more was seen of man.\n      Now far from heaven, and safe from hell,\n        Unknown of earth, he wanders free.\n      Would that he might return and tell\n        Of his mysterious company!\n      For we have tired the Folk of Peace;\n        No more they tax our corn and oil;\n      Their dances on the moorland cease,\n        The Brownie stints his wonted toil.\n      No more shall any shepherd meet\n        The ladies of the fairy clan,\n      Nor are their deathly kisses sweet\n        On lips of any earthly man.\n      And half I envy him who now,\n        Clothed in her Court\u2019s enchanted green,\n      By moonlit loch or mountain\u2019s brow\n        Is Chaplain to the Fairy Queen.\n                                         A. L.\n\n\n\n\nKIRK\u2019S\n\nSECRET COMMONWEALTH.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nI. THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND AUTHOR.\n\nThe bibliography of the following little tract is extremely obscure.\nThe title-page of the edition of 1815, which we reproduce, gives\nthe date as 1691. Sir Walter Scott says in his _Demonology and\nWitchcraft_ (1830, p. 163, note), \u201cIt was printed with the author\u2019s\nname in 1691, and reprinted, in 1815, for Longman & Co.\u201d But was\nthere really a printed edition of 1691? Scott says that he never met\nwith an example. Research in our great libraries has discovered none,\nand there is none save that of 1815 at Abbotsford. The reprint, of\none hundred copies, was made, as it states, from no printed text,\nbut from \u201ca manuscript copy preserved in the Advocates\u2019 Library.\u201d On\npage 45 of the edition of 1815, at the end of the comments on Lord\nTarbott\u2019s Letters, there is a \u201cNote by the Transcriber\u201d\u2014that is, the\nperson who wrote out the manuscript in the Advocates\u2019 Library: \u201cSee\nthe rest in a little manuscript belonging to Coline Kirk.\u201d Now Coline\nor Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet, was the son of the Rev. Mr.\nKirk, author of the tract. If the son had his father\u2019s book only in\nmanuscript, it seems very probable that it was not printed in 1691;\nthat the title-page is only the title-page of a manuscript. Till some\nprinted text of 1691 is discovered, we may doubt, then, whether the\nhundred copies published in 1815, and now somewhat rare, be not the\noriginal printed edition. The editor has a copy of 1815, but it is\nthe only one which he has met with for sale.\n\nThe Rev. Robert Kirk, the author of _The Secret Commonwealth_, was\na student of theology at St. Andrews: his Master\u2019s degree, however,\nhe took at Edinburgh. He was (and this is notable) the youngest and\n_seventh_ son of Mr. James Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, the place\nfamiliar to all readers of _Rob Roy_. As a seventh son, he was, no\ndoubt, specially gifted, and in _The Secret Commonwealth_ he lays\nsome stress on the mystic privileges of such birth. There may be\n\u201csome secret virtue in the womb of the parent, which increaseth\nuntil the seventh son be borne, and decreaseth by the same degree\nafterwards.\u201d It would not surprise us if Mr. Kirk, no less than the\nRev. Robert Blair of St. Andrews (1650-60), could heal scrofula by\nthe touch, like royal persons\u2014Charles III. in Italy, for example.\nAs is well known to all, the House of Brunswick has no such powers.\nHowever this may have been, Mr. Kirk was probably drawn, by his\nseventh sonship, to a more careful study of psychical phenomena\nthan most of his brethren bestowed. Little is known of his life.\nHe was minister originally of Balquidder, whence, in 1685, he was\ntransferred to Aberfoyle. This was no Covenanting district, and\nthere is no bigotry in Mr. Kirk\u2019s dissertation. He was employed on\nan \u201cIrish\u201d translation of the Bible, and he published a Psalter in\nGaelic (1684). He married, first, Isobel, daughter of Sir Colin\nCampbell of Mochester, who died in 1680, and, secondly, the daughter\nof Campbell of Fordy: this lady survived him. From his connection\nwith Campbells, we may misdoubt him for a Whig. By his first wife\nhe had a son, Colin Kirk, W.S.; by his second wife, a son who was\nminister of Dornoch. He died (if he did die, which is disputed) in\n1692, aged about fifty-one; his tomb was inscribed\u2014\n\n                         ROBERTUS KIRK, A.M.\n                        Lingu\u00e6 Hiberni\u00e6 Lumen.\n\nThe tomb, in Scott\u2019s time, was to be seen in the east end of the\nchurchyard of Aberfoyle; but the ashes of Mr. Kirk _are not there_.\nHis successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, in his _Sketches of Picturesque\nScenery_, informs us that, as Mr. Kirk was walking on a _dun-shi_,\nor fairy-hill, in his neighbourhood, he sunk down in a swoon, which\nwas taken for death. \u201cAfter the ceremony of a seeming funeral,\u201d\nwrites Scott (_op. cit._, p. 105), \u201cthe form of the Rev. Robert\nKirk appeared to a relation, and commanded him to go to Grahame of\nDuchray. \u2018Say to Duchray, who is my cousin as well as your own,\nthat I am not dead, but a captive in Fairyland; and only one chance\nremains for my liberation. When the posthumous child, of which my\nwife has been delivered since my disappearance, shall be brought to\nbaptism, I will appear in the room, when, if Duchray shall throw\nover my head the knife or dirk which he holds in his hand, I may be\nrestored to society; but if this is neglected, I am lost for ever.\u2019\u201d\nTrue to his tryst, Mr. Kirk did appear at the christening, and \u201cwas\nvisibly seen;\u201d but Duchray was so astonished that he did not throw\nhis dirk over the head of the appearance, and to society Mr. Kirk has\nnot yet been restored. This is extremely to be regretted, as he could\nnow add matter of much importance to his treatise. Neither history\nnor tradition has more to tell about Mr. Robert Kirk, who seems to\nhave been a man of good family, a student, and, as his book shows, an\ninnocent and learned person.\n\n\nII. THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH.\n\nThe tract, of which the reader now knows the history, is a little\nvolume of somewhat singular character. Written in 1691 by the Rev.\nRobert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, it is a kind of metaphysic of\nthe Fairy world. Having lived through the period of the sufferings\nof the Kirk, the author might have been expected either to neglect\nFairyland altogether, or to regard it as a mere appanage of Satan\u2019s\nkingdom\u2014a \u201cburning question\u201d indeed, for some of the witches who\nsuffered at Presbyterian hands were merely narrators of popular tales\nabout the state of the dead. That she trafficked with the dead,\nand from a ghost won a medical recipe for the cure of Archbishop\nAdamson of St. Andrews, was the charge against Alison Pearson. \u201cThe\nBischope keipit his castle lyk a tod in his holl, seik of a disease\nof grait fetiditie, and oftymes under the cure of women suspected of\nwitchcraft, namlie, wha confessit hir to haiff learnit medecin of ane\ncallit Mr. Wilyeam Simsone, that apeired divers tymes to hir efter\nhis dead, and gaiff hir a buik.... She was execut in Edinbruche for a\nwitch\u201d (James Melville\u2019s _Diary_, p. 137, 1583). The Archbishop, like\nother witches, had a familiar in the form of a hare, which once ran\nbefore him down the street. These were the beliefs of men of learning\nlike James, the nephew and companion of Andrew Melville. Even in our\nauthor\u2019s own time, Archbishop Sharp was accused of entertaining \u201cthe\nmuckle black Deil\u201d in his study at midnight, and of being \u201clevitated\u201d\nand dancing in the air. This last feat, creditable to a saint or a\nNeo-Platonist like Plotinus, was reckoned for sin to Archbishop\nSharp, as may be read in Wodrow\u2019s _Analecta_. Thus all Fairydom was\ncommonly looked on as under the same guilt as witchcraft. Yet Mr.\nKirk of Aberfoyle, living among Celtic people, treats the land of\nfaery as a mere fact in nature, a world with its own laws, which\nhe investigates without fear of the Accuser of the Brethren. We\nmay thus regard him, even more than Wodrow, as an early student\nin folk-lore and in psychical research\u2014topics which run into each\nother\u2014and he shows nothing of the usual persecuting disposition. Nor,\nagain, is Mr. Kirk like Glanvil and Henry More. He does not, save in\nhis title-page and in one brief passage, make superstitious creeds\nor psychical phenomena into arguments and proofs against modern\nSadducees. Firm in his belief, he treats his matter in a scientific\nspirit, as if he were dealing with generally recognised physical\nphenomena.\n\nOur study of Mr. Kirk\u2019s little tractate must have a double aspect.\nIt must be an essay partly on folk-lore, on popular beliefs, their\nrelation to similar beliefs in other parts of the world, and the\nresiduum of fact, preserved by tradition, which they may contain.\nOn the other hand, as mental phenomena are in question\u2014such things\nas premonitions, hallucinations, abnormal or unusual experiences\ngenerally\u2014a criticism of Mr. Kirk must verge on \u201cPsychical Research.\u201d\nThe Society organised for that difficult subject certainly takes a\nvast deal of trouble about all manner of odd reports and strange\nvisions. It \u201ctransfers\u201d thoughts of no value, at a great expense of\ntime and of serious hard work. But, as far as the writer has read\nthe Society\u2019s Proceedings, it \u201ctakes no keep,\u201d as Malory says, of\nthese affairs in their historical aspect. Whatever hallucination, or\nillusion, or imposture, or the \u201csubliminal self\u201d can do to-day, has\nalways been done among peoples in every degree of civilisation. An\nhistorical study of the topic, as contained in trials for witchcraft,\nin the reports of travellers and missionaries, in the works of the\nseventeenth-century Platonists, More, Glanvill, Sinclair, and others,\nand in the rare tracts such as _The Devil in Glen Luce_ and _The\nJust Devil of Woodstock_, not to mention Lavater, Wierus, Thyr\u00e6us,\nReginald Scott, and so on, is as necessary to the psychologist as\nto the folk-lorist.[1] If there be an element of fact in modern\nhypnotic experiments (a matter on which I have really no opinion),\nit is plain that old magic and witchcraft are not mere illusions,\nor not commonplace illusions. The subliminal self has his stroke in\nthese affairs. Assuredly the Psychologists should have an historical\ndepartment. The evidence which they would find is, of course,\nvitiated in many obvious ways, but the evidence contains much that\ncoincides with that of modern times, and the coincidence can hardly\nbe designed\u2014that is to say, the old Highland seers had no design of\nabetting modern inquiry. It may be, however, that their methods and\nideas have been traditionally handed down to modern \u201csensitives\u201d\nand \u201cmediums.\u201d At all events, here is an historical chapter, if it\nbe but a chapter in \u201cThe History of Human Error.\u201d These wide and\nmultifarious topics can only be touched on lightly in this essay; the\nauthor will be content if he directs the attention of students with\nmore leisure and a better library of _diablerie_ to the matter. But\nfirst we glance at _The Secret Commonwealth_ as folk-lorists.\n\n\nIII. \u201cTHE SUBTERRANEAN INHABITANTS.\u201d\n\nMr. Kirk\u2019s first chapter, \u201cOf the Subterranean Inhabitants,\u201d\nnaturally suggests the recent speculations of Mr. MacRitchie. The\ngist of Mr. MacRitchie\u2019s _Testimony of Tradition_ is that there once\nwas a race of earth-dwellers in this island; that their artificial\ncaves still exist; that this people survive in popular memory as \u201cthe\nlegendary Feens,\u201d and as the Pechts of popular tales, in which they\nare regarded as dwarfs. \u201cThe Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible\nstrang.\u201d Here, then, it might be thought that we have the origin of\nFairy beliefs. There really was, on this showing, a dwarf race, who\nactually did live in the \u201cfairy-hills,\u201d or howes, now commonly looked\non as sepulchral monuments.\n\nThere is much in Mr. MacRitchie\u2019s theory which does not commend\nitself to me. The modern legends of Pechts as builders of Glasgow\nCathedral, for example, do not appear to prove such a late survival\nof a race known as Picts, but are on a level with the old Greek\nbelief that the Cyclopes built Mycen\u00e6 (_Testimony of Tradition_, p.\n72). Granting, for the sake of discussion, that there were still\nPicts or Pechs in Galloway when Glasgow Cathedral was built (in the\ntwelfth century), these wild Galloway men, scourges of the English\nBorder, were the very last people to be employed as masons. The\ntruth is that the recent Scotch have entirely forgotten the ages\nof medi\u00e6val art. Accustomed to the ill-built barns of a robbed and\nstinted Kirk, they looked on the Cathedral as no work of ordinary\nhuman beings. It was a creation of the Pechts, as Mycen\u00e6 and Tiryns\nof the mighty walls were creations of the Cyclopes. By another\ncoincidence, the well-known story of the last Pecht, who refuses\nto divulge the secret of the heather ale, is told in the Volsunga\nSaga, and in the _Nibelungenlied_, of the Last Niflung. Again, the\nbreaking of a bar of iron, which he takes for a human arm, by the\nlast Pecht is a tale current of the Drakos in modern Greece (see\nChambers\u2019s _Popular Traditions of Scotland_ for the last Pecht). I\ncannot believe that the historical Picts were a set of half-naked,\ndwarfish savages, hairy men living underground. These are the topics\nof Sir Arthur Wardour and Monkbarns. Mr. W. F. Skene may be said to\nhave put the historic Picts in their proper place as the ancestors\nof the Highlanders. The Pecht of legend answers to the Drakos and the\nCyclopes: the beliefs about his habits may have been suggested by the\ntumuli, still more by the _brochs_: it seems less probable that they\nrepresent an historical memory. As to the Irish \u201cFeens,\u201d the topic\ncan only be discussed by Celtic scholars. But it does not follow,\nbecause the leader of the Feens seemed a dwarf among giants, that\ntherefore his people were a dwarfish race.[2] The story proves no\nmore than Gulliver\u2019s Travels.\n\nOnce more, we often read in the Sagas of a hero like Grettir, who\nopens a howe, has a conflict with a \u201cbarrow-wight,\u201d as Mr. Morris\ncalls the \u201chowe-dweller,\u201d and wins gold and weapons. But the dweller\nin the howe is often merely the able-bodied ghost of the Norseman, a\nknown and named character, who is buried there; he is not a Pecht.\nThus, as it seems to me, the Scotch and Celts possessed a theory of a\nlegendary people, as did the Greeks. Whether any actual traditions of\nan earlier, perhaps a Finnish race, was at the bottom of the legend,\nis an obscure question. But, having such a belief, the Scotch easily\ndiscovered homes for the fancied people in the sepulchral howes:\nthey \u201ccombined their information.\u201d The Fairies, again, are composite\ncreatures. As they came to births and christenings, and as Norse\nwise-wives (as in the Saga of Eric the Red) prophesied at festivals,\nMr. MacRitchie combines his own information. The Wise-wife is a\nFinn woman, and Finn and Fairy amalgamate. But the Egyptians, as in\nthe _Tale of Two Brothers_ (Maspero, _Contes Egyptiens_), had their\nHathors, who came and prophesied at births; the Greeks had their\nM\u0153r\u00e6, as in the story of Meleager and the burning brand. The Hathors\nand M\u0153r\u00e6 play, in ancient Egypt and in ancient Greece, the part of\nFairies at the christening, but surely they were not Finnish women!\nIn short, though a memory of some old race may have mingled in the\ncomposite Fairy belief, this is at most but an element in the whole,\nand the part played by ancestral spirits, naturally earth-dwellers,\nis probably more important. Bishop Callaway has pointed out, in\nthe preface to his _Zulu Tales_, that what the Highlanders say of\nthe Fairies the Zulus say of \u201cthe Ancestors.\u201d In many ways, as\nwhen persons carried off to Fairyland meet relations or friends\nlately deceased, who warn them, as Persephone and Steenie Steenson\nwere warned, to eat no food in this place, Fairyland is clearly a\nmemory of the pre-Christian Hades. There are other elements in the\ncomplex mass of Fairy tradition, but Chaucer knew \u201cthe Fairy Queen\nProserpina,\u201d as Campion calls her, and it is plain that in very fact\n\u201cthe dread Persephone,\u201d the \u201cQueen over death and the dead,\u201d had\ndwindled into the lady who borrows Tamlane in the ballad. Indeed\nKirk mentions but does not approve of this explanation, \u201cthat those\nsubterranean people are departed souls.\u201d Now, as was said, the dead\nare dwellers under earth. The worshippers of Chthonian Demeter\n(Achaia) beat the earth with wands; so does the Zulu sorcerer when he\nappeals to the Ancestors. And a Macdonald in Moidart, being pressed\nfor his rent, beat the earth, and cried aloud to his dead chief,\n\u201cSimon, hear me; you were always good to me.\u201d[3]\n\n\nIV. FAIRYLAND AND HADES.\n\nThus, to my mind at least, the _Subterranean Inhabitants_ of Mr.\nKirk\u2019s book are not so much a traditional recollection of a real\ndwarfish race living underground (a hypothesis of Sir Walter\nScott\u2019s), as a lingering memory of the Chthonian beings, \u201cthe\nAncestors.\u201d A good case in point is that of Bessie Dunlop, of Dalry,\nin Ayrshire, tried on 8th November 1576 for witchcraft. She dealt in\nmedicine and white magic, and obtained her prescriptions from Thomas\nReid, slain at Pinkie fight (1547), who often appeared to her, and\ntried to lead her off to Fairyland. She, like Alison Pearson, was\n\u201cconvict and burnt\u201d (Scott\u2019s _Demonology_, p. 146, and Pitcairn\u2019s\n_Criminal Trials_). Both ladies knew the Fairy Queen, and Alison\nPearson beheld Maitland of Lethington, and Buccleugh, in Fairyland,\nas is recounted in a rhymed satire on Archbishop Adamson (Dalzell\u2019s\n_Scottish Poems_, p. 321). These are excellent proofs that Fairyland\nwas a kind of Hades, or home of the dead.\n\nMr. Kirk, who speaks of the _Sleagh Maith_ as confidently as if he\nwere discussing the habits of some remote race which he has visited,\ncredits them, as the Greek gods were credited, with the power of\nnourishing themselves on some fine essential part of human sacrifice,\nof human food, \u201csome fine spirituous Liquors, that peirce like pure\nAir and Oil, on the poyson or substance of Corns and Liquors.\u201d\nOthers, more gross, steal the actual grain, \u201cas do Crowes and Mice.\u201d\nThey are heard hammering in the howes: as Brownies they enter houses\nand cleanse the hearths. They are the Domovoys, as the Russians\ncall them. John Major, in his exposition of St. Matthew (1518,\nfol. xlviii.), gives perhaps the oldest account of Brownies, in a\nbelieving temper. Major styles them Fauni or _brobne_. They thrash\nas much grain in one night as twenty men could do. They throw stones\nabout among people sitting by the fire. Whether they can predict\nfuture events is doubtful (see Mr. Constable in Major\u2019s _Greater\nBritain_, p. xxx. Edinburgh, 1892). To us they seem not much remote\nfrom the Roman Lares\u2014spirits of the household, of the hearth. In\nall these creatures Mr. Kirk recognises \u201can abstruse People,\u201d who\nwere before our more substantial race, whose furrows are still to be\nseen on the hill-tops. They never were, to his mind, plain palpable\nfolk; they are only visible, in their quarterly flittings, to men\nof the second sight. That gift of vision includes not only power to\nsee distant or future events, but the viewless forms of air. To shun\nthe flittings, men visit church on the first Sunday of the quarter:\nthen they will be hallowed against elf-shots, \u201cthese Arrows that fly\nin the dark.\u201d As is well known, superstition explained the Neolithic\narrow-heads as Fairy weapons; it does not follow that a tradition of\na Neolithic people suggested the belief in Fairies. But we cannot\ndeny absolutely that some such memory of an earlier race, a shy and\nfugitive people who used weapons of stone, may conceivably play its\npart in the Fairy legend.\n\nThence Mr. Kirk glides into that singular theory of savage\nmetaphysics which somewhat resembles the Platonic doctrine of\nIdeas. All things, in Red Indian belief, have somewhere their ideal\ncounterpart or \u201cFather.\u201d Thus a donkey, when first seen, was regarded\nas \u201cthe Father\u201d or archetype \u201cof Rabbits.\u201d Now the second-sighted\nbehold the \u201cDouble-man,\u201d \u201cDoppel-ganger,\u201d \u201cAstral Body,\u201d \u201cWraith,\u201d or\nwhat you will, of a living person, and that is merely his counterpart\nin the abstruse world. The industry of the Psychical Society has\ncollected much material\u2014evidence, whatever its value, for the\nexistence of the Double-man. We may call it a hallucination, which\ndoes not greatly increase our knowledge. From personal experience,\nand the experience of friends, I am constrained to believe that we\nmay think we see a person who is not really present to the view\u2014who\nmay be in the next room, or downstairs, or a hundred miles off.\nThis experience has occurred to the sane, the unimaginative, the\nhealthy, the free from superstition, and in circumstances by no\nmeans mystic\u2014for example, when the person supposed to be seen was\nnot dying, nor distressed, nor in any but the most normal condition.\nIndeed, the cases when there was nothing abnormal in the state of the\nperson seen are far more numerous, in my personal knowledge, than\nthose in which the person seen was dying, or dead, or excited. The\nreverse appears to be the rule in the experience of the Psychical\nSociety. \u201cThe actual proportion of coincidental to non-coincidental\ncases, after all deduction for possible sources of error, was in\nfact such that the probability against the supposition of chance\ncoincidence became enormous, on the assumption of ordinary accuracy\non the part of informants\u201d (Professor Sidgwick, _Proc. S.P.R._, vol.\nviii. p. 607). Some 17,000 answers were collected. We must apparently\naccept these facts as not very abnormal nor very unusual, and\ndoubtless as capable of some subjective explanation. But when such\nthings occurred among imaginative and uneducated Highlanders, they\nbecame foundations and proofs of the doctrine of second sight\u2014proofs,\ntoo, of the primitive metaphysical doctrine of counterparts and\n_correspondances_. \u201cThey avouch that every Element and different\nstate of Being have Animals resembling these of another Element.\u201d By\npersons not knowing this, \u201cthe Roman invention of guardian Angels\nparticularly assigned\u201d has been promulgated. The guardian Angel of\nthe Roman superstition is merely the Double or Co-walker\u2014the type\n(in the viewless world) of the man in the apparent world. Thus are\nwraiths and ghosts explained by our Presbyterian psychologist and\nhis Highland flock. All things universally have their types, their\nreflex: a man\u2019s type, or reflex, or \u201cco-walker\u201d may be seen at a\ndistance from or near him during his life\u2014nay, may be seen after\nhis death. The gifted man of second sight can tell the substantial\nfigure from the airy counterpart. Sometimes the reflex anticipates\nthe action of the reality: \u201cwas often seen of old to enter a House,\nby which the people knew that the Person of that Likeness was to\nvisit them in a few days.\u201d It may have occurred to most of us to\nmeet a person in the street whom we took for an acquaintance. It\nis not he, but we meet the real man a few paces farther on. Thus a\ndistinguished officer, at home on leave, met a friend, as he tells\nme, in Piccadilly. The other passed without notice: the officer\nhesitated about following him, did not, and in some fifty yards met\nhis man. There is probably no more in this than resemblance and\ncoincidence, but this is the kind of thing which was worked by the\nHighlanders into their metaphysics.[4]\n\nThe end of the Co-walker is obscure. \u201cThis Copy, Echo, or living\nPicture goes att last to his own Herd.\u201d Thus Ghosts are short-lived,\nand, according to M. d\u2019Assier on the Manners of Posthumous Man\n(_L\u2019Homme Posthume_), seldom survive for more than a century. By\nan airy being of this kind the Highlanders explained the false or\nmorbid appetite. A \u201cjoint-eater\u201d inhabited the patient; \u201che feeds\ntwo when he eats.\u201d As a rule, the Fairies get their food as witches\ndo\u2014take \u201cthe Pith and Milk from their Neighbours\u2019 Cows unto their own\nchiese-hold, throw a Hair-tedder, at a great distance, by Airt Magic,\nonly drawing a spigot fastened in a Post, which will bring Milk as\nfarr as a Bull will be heard to roar.\u201d This is illustrated in the\ndrinking scene in _Faust_. This kind of charge is familiar in trials\nfor witchcraft.\n\nIn accordance with the whole metaphysics of the system of doubles,\nwhich are parasites on humanity, is the superstition of nurses stolen\nby Fairies, and of children kidnapped while changelings are left\nin their place. The latter accounts for sudden decline and loss of\nhealth by a child; he is not the original child, but a Fairy brat. To\nguard against this, bread (as human food hateful to Fairies\u2014so the\nKanekas carry a boiled yam about at night), or the Bible, or iron\nis placed in the bed of childbirth. \u201cIron scares spirits,\u201d as the\nscholiast says of the drawn sword of Odysseus in Hades. The Fairy\nbride, in Wales, vanishes on being touched with iron. This belief\nprobably came in when iron was a new, rare, and mysterious metal. The\nmortal nurses in Fairyland are pleasantly illustrated by the ballad\n\n      \u201cI heard a cow lowe,\n      A bonny, bonny cow lowe,\u201d\n\nin C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe\u2019s _Ballad Book_.[5] This part of the\nsuperstition is not easy to elucidate. Kirk repeats the well-known\ntales of the blinding of the mortal who saw too clearly \u201cby making\nuse of their Oyntments.\u201d Well-known examples occur in Gervase\nof Tilbury, and are cited in Scott\u2019s note on _Tamlane_ in the\n_Border Minstrelsy_. As Homer fables of the dead, their speech is\na kind of whistling like the cry of bats\u2014another indication of the\npre-Christian Hades.[6] They have feasts and burials; and Pashley,\nin his _Travels in Crete_, tells the well-known Border story of\na man who fired on a Fairy bridal, and heard a voice cry, \u201cYe\nhave slain the bonny bridegroom.\u201d It is, of course, to be noted\nthat the modern Greek superstition of the Nereids, who carry off\nmortal girls to dance with them till they pine away, answers to\nsome of our Fairy legends, while it will hardly be maintained that\nthe Nereids are a memory of pre-historic Finns. \u201cAntic corybantic\njollity\u201d is a note of Nereids, as well as of the _Sleagh Maith_. \u201cThe\nInconvenience of their _succubi_,\u201d the Fairy girls who make love to\nyoung men, is well known in the Breton ballad, _Le Sieur Nan_. The\nsame superstition is current among the Kanekas of New Caledonia. My\ncousin, Mr. Atkinson, was visited by a young Kaneka, who twice or\nthrice returned to take leave of him with much emotion. When Mr.\nAtkinson asked what was the matter, the lad said that he had just\nmet, as he thought, the girl of his heart in the forest. After a\nscene of dalliance she vanished, and he knew that she was a forest\nFairy, and that he must die in three days, which he did. This is\nthe \u201cinconvenience of their succubi,\u201d regretted by Mr. Kirk. Thus\nit appears that the mass of these opinions is not local, nor Celtic\nmerely, but of world-wide diffusion. Thus Sir Walter Scott observes\nof the Afghans and Highlanders, \u201cTheir superstitions are the same, or\nnearly so. The _Ghol\u00e9e Beabacan_ (demons of the desert) resemble the\n_Boddach_ of the Highlanders, \u2018who walked the heath at midnight and\nat noon\u2019\u201d (_Quarterly Review_, xiv. 289). Again, Mr. Kirk says that\n\u201cWere-wolves and Witches\u2019 true Bodies are (by the union of the spirit\nof Nature that runs thorow all, echoing and doubling the Blow towards\nanother) wounded at home, when the astrial or assumed Bodies are\nstricken elsewhere.\u201d Thus, if a witch-hare is shot, the witch\u2019s real\nbody is hurt in the same part; and Lafitau, in North America, found\nthat when a Huron shot a witch-bird, the real magician was stricken\nin the same place. The theory that the Fairies appear as \u201ca little\nrough Dog\u201d is illustrated by the Welsh Dogs of Hell. _Blackwood\u2019s\nMagazine_ for 1818 contains many examples of these Hell-dogs, which\nare often invested in a sheet of fire, as Rink says is the case among\nthe Eskimo. Take a modern instance. \u201cMr. F. A. Paley and friend,\nwalking home at night on a lonely road, see a large black dog rise\nfrom it, slowly walk to the side, and disappear. They search in vain.\nMr. Paley hears subsequently that this mysterious dog is the terror\nof the neighbourhood, but no such real dog is known.\u201d Date, summer\n1837 (_Journ. of S.P.R._, Feb. 1893, p. 31).\n\nThe dwellings of these airy shadows of mankind are, naturally,\n\u201cFairie Hills.\u201d There is such a hill, the Fairy Hill at Aberfoyle,\nwhere Mr. Kirk resided: Baillie Nicol Jarvie describes its legends\nin an admirable passage in _Rob Roy_. Mr. MacRitchie says, \u201cHow much\nof this \u2018howe\u2019 is artificial, or whether any of it is, remains to be\ndiscovered.\u201d It is much larger than most artificial tumuli. According\nto Mr. Kirk, the Highlanders \u201csuperstitiously believe the souls of\ntheir Predecessors to dwell\u201d in the fairy-hills. \u201cAnd for that end,\nsay they, a Mote or Mount was dedicate beside every Churchyard, to\nreceive the souls till their adjacent bodies arise, and so become\nas a Fairy hill.\u201d Here the Highland philosophers have conspicuously\nput the cart before the horse. The tumuli are much older than the\nchurches, which were no doubt built beside them because the place had\na sacred character. Two very good examples may be seen at Dalry, on\nthe Ken, in Galloway, and at Parton, on Loch Ken. The grassy howes\nare large and symmetrical, and the modern Presbyterian churches\noccupy old sites; at Parton there are ruins of the ancient Catholic\nchurch. Round the tumulus at Dalry, according to the local form of\nthe _M\u00e4rchen_ of Hesione, a great dragon used to coil in triple\nfolds, before it was killed by the blacksmith. Nobody, perhaps, can\nregard these tumuli, and many like them, as anything but sepulchral.\nOn the road between Balantrae, in Ayrshire, and Stranraer, there is\na beautiful tumulus above the sea, which at once recalls the barrow\nabove the main that Elpenor in the _Odyssey_, asked Odysseus to build\nfor him, \u201cthe memorial of a luckless man.\u201d In the _Argonautica_ of\nApollonius Rhodius, the ghost of a hero who fell at Troy appears to\nthe adventurers on a tumulus like this of the Ayrshire coast. In\nspeaking of these barrows Mr. Kirk tells how, during a famine about\n1676, two women had a vision of a treasure hid in a fairy-hill.\nThis they excavated, and discovered some coins \u201cof good money.\u201d\nThe great gold corslet of the British Museum is said to have been\nfound in Wales, where tradition spoke of a ghost in golden armour\nwhich haunted a hillock. The hillock was excavated, and the golden\ncorslet, like the Shakespearian bricks, is \u201calive to testify\u201d to the\ntruth of the story.\n\n\nV. FAIRIES AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH.\n\nThe Fairy belief, we have said, is a composite thing. On the\nmaterials given by tradition, such as the memory, perhaps, of a\npre-historic race, and by old religion, as in the thoughts about\nthe pre-Christian Hades, poetry and fancy have been at work.\nConsumption, lingering disease, unexplained disappearances, sudden\ndeaths, have been accounted for by the agency of the Fairies, or\nPeople of Peace. If the superstition included no more than this, we\nmight regard it as a natural result of imagination, dealing with\nfacts quite natural in the ordinary course of things. But there are\nelements in the belief which cannot be so easily dismissed. We must\nask whether the abnormal phenomena which have been so frequently\ndiscussed, fought over, forgotten, and revived, do not enter into\nthe general mass of folk-lore. They appear most notably in the two\nbranches of Browniedom\u2014of \u201cPixies,\u201d as they say in Devonshire, who\nhaunt the house, and in the alleged examples of the second sight.\nThe former topic is the more obscure, if not the more curious. Let us\nexamine the occurrences, then, which may have begotten the belief in\nBrownies, and in house-haunting Pixies or Fairies. These appearances\nmay be alleged, on one hand, to be actual facts in Nature, the\nworkings of some yet unexplained forces; or they may merely be the\nconsequences of some very old traditional method of imposture,\nvulgar in itself, but still historical. That form of imposture,\nagain, may be wrought either by conscious agents, or unconsciously\nand automatically by persons under the influence of somnambulism;\nor, finally, the phenomena may in various cases be due to any one of\nthese three agencies, all of which may possibly be _ver\u00e6 caus\u00e6_, as\nconscious imposture and trickery is certainly one _vera causa_.\n\nIn Mr. Kirk\u2019s book we meet \u201cthe invisible Wights which haunt Houses,\n... throw great Stones, Pieces of Earth and Wood at the Inhabitants,\u201d\nbut \u201churt them not at all.\u201d As we have said, Major (1518) calls\nthese wights \u201cFauni or Brobne\u201d\u2014that is, Brownies\u2014and says that they\nthrash as much grain in one night as twenty men could do, and throw\nstones about. The legend of their working was common in Scotland,\nand a correspondent says that in Devonshire the belief in Pixies who\nset the house in order exists among the grand-parents of the present\ngeneration. But the sportive is more common than the kindly aspect\nof Brownies. Through history we constantly find them causing objects\nto move without visible contact, and \u201cacting in sport, like Buffoons\nand Drolls.\u201d In his _Letters on Demonology_ (p. 377) Scott gives\ninstances where the buffoon or droll was detected, and confessed\nthat the rattlings of plates and movements of objects were caused\nby an apparatus of threads or horse-hair. He also quotes the famous\ndoings of \u201cThe Just Devil of Woodstock\u201d in 1649, which so perplexed\nand discomfited the Cromwellian Commissioners. He accounts for those\nannoyances by the confessions of Joe Collins of Oxford, \u201cFunny Joe,\u201d\nwhich he quotes from Hone\u2019s _Every-Day Book_, while Hone quotes\nfrom the _British Magazine_ of 1747. But the writer in the _British\nMagazine_ gives no references or authorities for the authenticity\nof Funny Joe\u2019s confessions, nor even for the existence of Joseph.\nScott could not find his original in the pamphlets of the British\nMuseum, and some of the statements attributed to Joe do not tally\nwith the official account, and other contemporary documents collected\nin Sir Walter\u2019s _Woodstock_. Joe pretends, for example, to have been\nsecretary to the Commission under the name of Giles Sharpe; but in\nthe other accounts the secretary is named Browne. A Royalist Brownie\nor Polter-geist lies under shrewd suspicion, but Joe\u2019s own existence\nis unproved, and his alleged evidence is of no value. However, no\nsane person can dream of doubting that many a Brownie has been as\nmuch in flesh and blood as the Brownie of Bodsbeck in Hogg\u2019s story.\n\nThere remain the less easily explicable tales of strange and humorous\ndisturbances, accompanied by loud sounds, rappings, the moving of\nobjects without visible contact, and so forth.[7] Perhaps we may best\nexamine these by taking modern instances, collected by the Psychical\nSociety, in the first place, and then comparing them with cases\nrecorded at distant times and in remote places. Some curious common\nfeatures will be observed, and the evidence has at least the value\nof undesigned coincidence. Glanvil, Telfair (minister of Rerrick),\nthe Wesleys, Dr. Adam Clarke, Increase Mather, were not modern\nstudents of psychical research. The modern Psychical Researchers,\nwe fear, are not students of old legendary lore, which they dismiss\non evidence not first-hand nor scientifically valid. Thus they do\nnot seem to be aware that they are describing, almost in identical\nterms, phenomena identical with those noted by Telfair, Mather,\nLavater, and the rest, and by those ancients attributed to devils.\nThe modern recorders are not consciously copying from old accounts;\nthe coincidences therefore have their value, as proving that certain\nphenomena have occurred and recurred. Now those phenomena may be due\nto conscious or to hysterical imposture, but they have been frequent\nand common enough to keep alive, and probably to originate, a part\nof the Fairy belief\u2014that part which is concerned with Brownies and\nhouse-haunting Pixies, or Domovoys. These, again, correspond to the\ntricky beings described by Mr. Leland in his _Etruscan Remains_ as\nsurvivals of old Roman and Etruscan popular religions, while we find\nsimilar occurrences in the Empire of the Incas not long after the\nSpanish conquest of Peru.[8]\n\nBeginning, then, with what is nearest to us in time, we take Mr. F.\nW. H. Myers\u2019s essays \u201cOn the Alleged Movement of Objects without\nContact, occurring not in the Presence of a Paid Medium.\u201d[9] The\nalleged phenomena are, of course, as common as blackberries in the\npresence of paid mediums, but are to the last degree untrustworthy.\nEven when there is no paid medium present, the mere contagious\nexcitement which is said to be developed at _s\u00e9ances_ makes all\nthat is thought to occur there a story to be taken with plenty of\nsalt.[10] One of Mr. Myers\u2019s examples was the result of _s\u00e9ances_,\nbut it had features of great importance for the argument. It will\nbe found in _Proc. S. P. R._, vol. xix. p. 189, July 1891. The\nperformers are Mr. C., Mrs. C., and Mr. H. Mr. C. and Mrs. C. are\nspoken of as good witnesses, known to Mr. Myers and Professor\nBarrett. Mr. H.\u2019s health has suffered so much that he cannot be\nexamined, and Mr. H. is the person who interests us here, for\nreasons which will be given later. All three were \u201cunbelievers\u201d in\nthese matters. On the second evening \u201clights floated about the room,\u201d\nwhich was lit, apparently, by a full moon. \u201cF.\u201d (who is also \u201cH.\u201d)\nfelt cold hands touching, and \u201chands\u201d recur in the old pre-scientific\naccounts. The three mages were holding hands tightly at the time. Now\nMr. H. had hitherto been in excellent health, but after his chair\nwas dragged from under him, and he was \u201cthrown down on the ground,\u201d\nhe went into \u201ca trance.\u201d His watch and ring (on the finger of a hand\nheld by Mrs. C.) were carried to a remote part of the room. H. leaves\nthe circle and sits at the window. Another figure walks through the\nroom. H. returns, is \u201cthrown down,\u201d his coat is dragged off, and his\nboots are discovered on a distant sofa. He asks for \u201csomething from\nhome,\u201d goes into a trance, a photograph locked up by him at home is\nfound on the table. His wife, in town, \u201cbeing quite ignorant of our\nhaving had _s\u00e9ances_, told us that, at that very hour, a fearful\ncrash occurred in his bedroom. The photograph vanished, and returned\nlast night, when H. was in a trance.\u201d He is \u201cthrown down\u201d again.\nHe has \u201calternate fits of unconsciousness and raving delirium.\u201d The\nhome of Mr. and Mrs. C. (not the house where they sat) is vexed by\n\u201cfigures,\u201d noises, knockings; \u201cwe were sprinkled with water in the\nnight,\u201d haunted by sounds of drums and horns, and so forth. Before a\n\u201cmanifestation,\u201d \u201cwe all felt a sudden chill, like either a wave of\nintensely cold air passing, or a rapid decrease of temperature.\u201d[11]\n\nThis is a disgusting story if Mr. H.\u2019s health was ruined by his\npresence at the performances. The point, however, is that he did\nbehave in epileptic fashion while these events were in progress.\nIt is natural to suppose that, in his \u201ctrances,\u201d he may have been\ncapable, unconsciously, of feats physically and morally impossible to\nhim in his normal condition. This explanation would not cover all the\nalleged occurrences, but would account for many of them.\n\nWe now take an ancient instance, similar disturbances at Newberry,\nin New England, in 1679, similarly accompanied by the presence of\nan epileptic patient.[12] The house of William Morse was \u201cstrangely\ndisquieted by a d\u00e6mon.\u201d The inmates were Morse, his wife, and their\ngrandson, a boy whose age is not given. The trouble began on December\n3, with a sound of heavy objects falling on the roof. On December 8,\nlarge stones and bricks \u201cwere thrown in at the west end of the house\n... the bedstead was lifted up from the floor, and the bed-staff\nflung out of the window, and a cat was hurled at the wife. A long\nstaff danced up and down in the chimney. The man\u2019s wife put the staff\nin the fire, but she could not hold it there, inasmuch as it would\nforcibly fly out; yet after much ado, with joynt strength, they made\nit to burn.... A chair flew about, and at last lighted on the table,\nwhere victuals stood ready to eat, and was likely to spoil all, only\nby a nimble catching they saved some of their meat.... A chest was\nremoved from place to place, no hand touching it. Two keys would\nfly about, making a loud noise by knocking against each other.... As\nthey lay in bed with their little boy between them, a great stone\nfrom the floor of the loft was thrown upon the man\u2019s stomach, and he\nturning it down upon the floor, it was once more thrown upon him.\u201d\nOn January 23, 1680, \u201chis ink-horn was taken away from him while he\nwas writing\u201d (he was keeping a diary of these events), \u201cand when by\nall his seeking he could not find it, at last he saw it drop out of\nthe air, down by the fire.... February 2, while he and his boy were\neating of cheese, the pieces which he cut were wrested from them....\nBut as for the boy, he was a great sufferer in these afflictions, for\non the 18th of December he, sitting by his grandfather, was hurried\ninto great motions. The man made him stand between his legs, but the\nchair danced up and down, and was like to have cast both man and boy\ninto the fire, and the child was tossed about in such a manner as\nthat they feared his brains would have been beaten out.\u201d\n\nAll these contortions of the boy were apparently what M. Charcot\ncalls _clownisms_.[13] When taken to a doctor\u2019s house the boy \u201cwas\nfree of disturbances,\u201d which returned with his return home. He barked\nlike a dog, clucked like a hen, talked nonsense about \u201cPowel,\u201d who\npinched and bullied him. While he was in bed with the old people, \u201ca\npot with its contents was thrown upon them.\u201d They were clutched by\nhands, like Mr. and Mrs. C. Once a voice was heard singing, \u201cRevenge,\nrevenge is sweet.\u201d Finally a mate of a ship came, declared that the\ngrandmother was not rightly suspected as a witch, and offered, if\nhe were left alone with the boy, to cure him. \u201cThe mate came next\nday betimes, and the boy was with him till night; since which time\nhis house, Morse saith, has not been molested with evil spirits.\u201d\nProbably the mate used a rope\u2019s end: the boy was more speedily cured\nthan Mr. H.\n\nThe phenomena are those of droll or buffooning wights, as Mr. Kirk\nsays, and no man can doubt that the boy was at the bottom of the\nwhole affair. But whether he was capable, when well and conscious, of\nsuch diversions, is another question. Children like him produced the\nfamous witch-mania in New England.\n\nWe have here, undeniably, a well-recorded case, analogous to that of\nMr. H. In a modern case of bell-ringing, heavy thumps, and movement\nof objects, the agent was \u201ca young girl who had never been out to\nservice before,\u201d and who passed the night in a state of wildly\nagitated somnambulism, repeating the whole of the Service for the\nday.[14] Mather gives several other examples, in which motives for\ntrickery are manifest, while we hear nothing of an epileptic or\nhysterical patient.\n\nIn the majority of instances, ancient or modern, children are the\nagents. Thus we have \u201cPhysical Phenomena obtained in a Family\nCircle,\u201d that of Mr. and Mrs. Davis, with their children, at Rio\nJaneiro.[15] The time was 1888. Curiosity had been caused by \u201cthe\nnotorious Henry Slade.\u201d There were \u201ctouches and grasps of hands.\u201d\nA table \u201cran after me\u201d (Professor Alexander) \u201cand attempted to hem\nme in,\u201d when only C., a little girl, was in the room. \u201cAs far as\nI could see, she did not even touch the table.\u201d The chair of Amy\n(aged thirteen months) was moved about, like that of Master Morse\ntwo hundred years earlier. A table jumped into the laps of the\npublic. There were raps and thumps, which \u201cseemed to shake the whole\nbuilding.\u201d Lights floated about. A slate, covered with flour, was\nplaced on C.\u2019s lap; her hands lay on the table. Marks of fingers came\non the flour, and, in answer to request, the mark of \u201ca naked baby\nfoot.\u201d The children present were wearing laced boots, and we are\nnot told that little Amy was under the table. Bluish lights and the\nphantasm of a dog were seen.\n\nAll this answers to an ancient example\u2014the disturbances in Mr.\nWesley\u2019s house at Epworth, December 1715 to January 1716.[16] The\nhouse was a new one, rebuilt in 1709. We have Mr. Samuel Wesley\u2019s\nJournal, with many contemporary letters from members of the family,\nand later reminiscences. There were many lively girls in the house,\nand two servants\u2014a maid and a man, recently engaged. The disturbances\nbegan with groanings; then came knockings, which flitted about the\nhouse. Mr. Wesley heard nothing till December 21. The knocks replied\nto those made by the family, but they never could imitate the sounds.\nMrs. Wesley and Emily saw an object \u201clike a badger\u201d run from under\na bed and vanish. The mastiff was much alarmed by the sounds. Mr.\nWesley was \u201cthrice pushed by invisible power.\u201d The bogie was a\nJacobite, as was Mrs. Wesley: Mr. Wesley was for King George. The\nknocks were violent when that usurper was prayed for. They did not\ntry praying for King James. Robin, the servant, saw a hand-mill work\nviolently. \u201cNaught vexed me but that it was empty. I thought, had it\nbut been full of malt, he might have ground his heart out for me.\u201d\nBut this was a jocose, not an industrious devil. Robin called it\n\u201cold Jeffries,\u201d after a gentleman lately dead; the family called it\n\u201cJeffrey,\u201d unless one name is a mere misspelling. It \u201cseemed to sweep\nafter\u201d Nancy Wesley, when she swept the chambers. \u201cShe thought he\nmight have done it for her, and saved her the trouble.\u201d Mrs. Wesley\nconcealed the matter from her husband, \u201clest he should fancy it was\nagainst his own death\u201d (Letter of January 12, 1716-17). This belief\nin noises foretelling death is very common; compare Scott\u2019s nocturnal\ndisturbances at Abbotsford when Bullock, his agent in building it,\nwas dying in London. The racket occurred on April 28 and 29, 1818,\nand Scott examined the scene \u201cwith Beardie\u2019s broadsword under my\narm.\u201d[17] Bullock died in Tenterden Street, in London, whether on\nApril 28 or 29 is not easily to be ascertained. \u201cThe noise resembled\nhalf a dozen men putting up boards and furniture, and nothing can\nbe more certain than that there was nobody on the premises at the\ntime.\u201d[18] The noises used to follow Hetty Wesley, and thump under\nher feet, as under those of C. in Professor Alexander\u2019s narrative.\nMr. Wesley\u2019s plate \u201cdanced before him on the table a pretty while,\nwithout anybody\u2019s stirring the table.\u201d[19] The disturbances quieted\ndown in January, but recurred on March 31. Similar phenomena had\noccurred \u201clong before\u201d in the family.[20] \u201cThe sound very often\nseemed in the air, in the middle of a room, nor could they ever make\nany such themselves by any contrivance.\u201d[21] On February 16, 1740,\ntwenty-three years later, Emily writes to Jack about \u201cthat _wonderful\nthing_ called by us _Jeffrey_.... That something calls on me against\nany extraordinary new affliction.\u201d\n\nPriestley styles this affair \u201cthe best-authenticated that is anywhere\nextant.\u201d He supposes it to have been \u201ca trick of the servants, for\nmere amusement.\u201d The _modus operandi_ is difficult to explain. We\nhear nothing of bad health or hysterics in the household.[22] For\nour purpose it is enough that a few incidents of this kind, however\nproduced, might originate and keep alive the belief in Brownies, and\n\n              \u201cThat shrewd and knavish sprite\n      Called Robin Goodfellow,\u201d\n\nwho\n\n      \u201cFrights the maidens of the villagery,\n      Skims milk, and sometimes labours in the quern.\u201d\n\nBy a curious coincidence, we can show a case in which phenomena of\nthe kind usually reported as occurring at _s\u00e9ances_, and in examples\nlike that of William Morse, were actually accepted as manifestations\nof the _Sleagh Maith_, or Fairies. In his account of the disturbances\nin the Wesley family, Dr. Clarke, the author, averred that he had\nhimself witnessed similar events. It thus became necessary to consult\nhis _Life_ (London, 1833). \u201cIn the history of my own life,\u201d says\nDr. Clarke, \u201cI have related this matter in sufficient detail.\u201d[23]\nUnluckily, in his _Life_ (pp. 76, 77) he gives scarce any details.\nPrevious to sudden deaths in a family called Church, the phenomena of\nfalling plates, heavy tread, and other noises occurred. Mr. Clarke\n\u201csat up one whole night in the kitchen, and most distinctly heard\nthe above noises.\u201d He was a born mystic, and even in childhood a\nreader of Cornelius Agrippa, and, later, of the alchemists. But he\nrecords the instance of a woman, who solemnly declared to Mrs. Clarke\nthat a number of the _gentle people_ (_Sleagh Maith_) \u201coccasionally\nfrequented her house; that they often conversed with her, one of\nthem putting its hands on her eyes during the time, which hands she\nrepresented, from the sensation she had, to be about the size of\nthose of a child of four or five years of age.\u201d The family were \u201cworn\ndown\u201d with these visits, and from the mention of touches of hands it\nis pretty plain that we have to do with the kind of sprite who paws\npeople at _s\u00e9ances_. But these sprites are recognised (the scene is\nthe North of Ireland) as \u201cgentle people,\u201d Folk of Peace. The amusing\nthing is, that Mr. Clarke, while he believes in Mr. Wesley\u2019s Jeffrey,\nand in the supernatural origin of a noise in a kitchen, laughs at\nsimilar phenomena when assigned to Fairies. It is a mere difference\nof terminology.\n\nAnother old example may be given. It is Alexander Telfair\u2019s \u201cTrue\nRelation\u201d of disturbances at Ringcroft, in the parish of Rerrick.[24]\nThe story is attested by the signatures of Ewart, minister of Kells,\nin Galloway; Monteith, minister of Borg; Murdoch, minister of\nCrosmichael, on Loch Ken; Spalding, minister at Parton, also by Loch\nKen; Falconer, minister at Keltown; Mr. M\u2018Lellan of Colline, Lennox\nof Milhouse, and a number of farmers. These were all neighbours,\nand all attested what they saw and heard. Robert Chambers says,\n\u201cThere never, perhaps, was any mystic history better attested. Few\nnarrations of the kind have included occurrences and appearances\nwhich it was more difficult to reconcile with the theory of trick or\nimposture.\u201d Mr. Telfair himself had been chaplain, in 1687, to Sir\nThomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn. He was then an Episcopalian.\n\nAndrew Mackie was a stone-mason at Rerrick. On March 7 (1695?), and\nfor long after, stones began to fly about in his house by night and\nday. \u201cThe stones which hit any person had not half their natural\nweight.\u201d Mackie complained to Telfair, his minister, who entered\nthe house and prayed: nothing odd occurred. As he stood outside, he\n\u201csaw two little stones drop down on the croft;\u201d then he was asked\nto return, and was pelted inside the cottage. This was March 11.\nFor a week there was no more trouble, then the disturbances began\nagain. Mr. Telfair was sent for, and was pelted, beaten with a staff,\nand heard loud knockings. \u201cThat night, as I was at prayer, leaning\non a bedside, I felt something lifting up my arm. I, casting my\neyes thither, perceived a little white hand and arm from the elbow\ndown, but presently it evanished.\u201d \u201cThere was never anything seen\nexcept that hand I saw,\u201d and an apparition of a boy in grey clothes.\nSometimes the stoning went on in the open air.[25] There were plenty\nof touchings, grippings, and scratchings. \u201cThe door-bar\u201d (a long,\nheavy piece of squared wood) \u201cwould go thorow the house as if a\nperson were carrying it in their hand, yet nothing seen doing it.\u201d\nHere we compare, in _Proc. S. P. R._, February 1892, the story of a\ncarpenter\u2019s shop at Swanland, in Yorkshire, where pieces of wood were\n\u201clevitated\u201d into abnormal flight. No imposture was discovered, nor\nwas the presence of any one person necessary.\n\nThe ministers of Kells and Crosmichael were pelted with stones of\neight pounds weight. On April 6, fire-balls floated through the\ncottage. When five ministers were present, \u201cit made all the house\nshake, brake a hole through the thatch, and poured in great stones.\u201d\n\u201cIt handled the legs of some as with a man\u2019s hand;\u201d it hoisted Mr.\nTelfair, Lennox of Millhouse, and others off the ground! A sieve\nflew through the house; Mackie caught it; a force gripped it, and\npulled the interior part out of the rim. A day of humiliation was\nsolemnly kept in the parish, which only excited the emulation\nof the disturbing agent; \u201cit continued in a most fearful manner\nwithout intermission.\u201d Voices were heard, which talked nonsense of a\nsemi-scriptural kind; finally the thing died out early in May. By\nthe way, on April 28, \u201cit pulled down the end of the house, all the\nstone-work thereof.\u201d\n\nThis is a very odd case, as no suspicion is thrown on the children.\nThe attestations of several witnesses are given, not only at the\nclose, but for almost every separate incident. The vision of the\nwhite hand is agreeable.\n\n_The Devil of Glen Luce_, in Galloway, was published by Sinclair in\nhis _Hydrostaticks_, of all places, in 1672, and again in _Satan\u2019s\nInvisible World_, and by Glanvil in _Sadducismus Triumphatus_. In\nthis affair a boy called Thomas, a son of the unlucky householder,\nwas clearly the agent. The phenomena were stone-throwing, beating\nwith sticks, levitation of a plate, and a great deal of voices,\nprobably uttered by the aforesaid Thomas. The Synod ordered a day of\nhumiliation (1655-56).\n\nThe affair of the Drummer of Tedworth (1661) is, or ought to be, too\nwell known for quotation. The troubles began after Mr. Mompesson\nseized the drum of a vagrant musician. In the presence of a\nclergyman, chairs walked about the room of themselves, \u201ca bed-staff\nwas thrown at the minister, but so favourably that a lock of wool\ncould not have fallen more softly.\u201d The children, as usual, were\nespecially haunted. A jingling of money was common, as it also was\nat Epworth. Lights wandered about the house, \u201cblue and glimmering.\u201d\nThe noise was persistent in the woodwork of the children\u2019s beds,\nwhile their hands were outside. The knocks answered knocks made by\nvisitors. There were divers other marvels. The Drummer was suspected,\nbut, consciously or not, the children were probably the agents. They\nseem to have been in their usual health.[26] In Galashiels (date not\ngiven), loud knocks on the floor accompanied a hystero-epileptic\ngirl wherever she sat. In bed, \u201cher body was so lifted up that many\nstrong men were not able to keep it down.\u201d The minister, who could\nmake nothing of her, was Mr. Wilkie; the girl was Margaret Wilson\n(Sinclair, p. 200).\n\nThis little parcel of strange stories may suffice to show that part\nof the Fairy belief is based on such incidents as still occur, or are\nreported to occur, just in the old fashion. It is for psychologists\nand physicians to ascertain how far, if at all, the incidents are\nproduced by hysterical, or epileptic, or somnambulistic patients.\nCommon forthright trickery is usually detected in paid mediums. But\nthe trickery simulates real events, or continues an old traditional\nform of imposture. The moral that parents should not allow their\nchildren to be present at _s\u00e9ances_ hardly needs enforcing. Some of\nthem may escape unharmed, but frightful injuries may be inflicted on\nhealth and on character.[27]\n\n\nVI. SECOND SIGHT AND \u201cTELEPATHY.\u201d\n\nWe have already hinted that events of an ordinary kind\u2014illusions,\ncases of mistaken identity, or hallucination\u2014are probably the\nground-work in part of the Highland belief in second sight. Of\ncourse, if a certain proportion of hallucinations were or could be\ntaken for \u201cveridical,\u201d attention would be given to these alone: the\nothers would be neglected. The Psychical Society has collected and\nexamined hundreds of these cases in modern life.\n\nThe Society may find out, experimentally, whether second sight can\nbe acquired in the manner described by Mr. Kirk\u2014whether by the\nhair tether, or by merely putting the foot under that of a seer.\nThus contact is used in thought reading, as, in second sight, the\nseer by contact communicates his hallucination. Second sight itself\nis now called telepathy, which, however, does not essentially\nadvance our knowledge of the subject. It is either very common, or\npeople who choose to claim the possession of it are very common.\nIn our society it is mere matter for idle tales; in the Highlands\nthe second sight was a belief and a system. Mr. Pepys and Dr.\nJohnson investigated the matter, and Dr. Johnson came away open to\nconviction, but unconvinced. The Psychical Society is now examining\nsecond sight in the Highlands. It is interesting to learn that the\nPresbyterian seers justified their visions out of the Bible, which\nalso justified the burning of these gifted men on occasion. Mr.\nKirk is tolerant enough to ascribe their visions to a \u201cbounty of\nProvidence.\u201d This may have passed, north of the Highland line, but in\nFife and the south the seers would speedily have been accommodated\nwith a stake and tar-barrel. The writings of Wodrow and Mr. Robert\nBlair of St. Andrews (1650-60) prove that if a savoury preacher\nwrought marvels, he was inspired, but if an amateur did the very same\nthings,\u2014prophesied, healed diseases, and so forth,\u2014he, or she, was\nlikely to be haled before the Presbytery, and possibly dragged to\nthe stake. In the Highlands these invidious distinctions were less\nforcibly drawn. Mr. Kirk treats the whole question in his curiously\ncold scientific way. If these things occur, they are in the realm of\nNature, and are results of causes which may be variously conjectured.\nThey may be providential, or a sport of evolution, derived from \u201ca\ncomplexionall Quality of the first acquirer,\u201d which often becomes\nhereditary in his lineage.\n\nLord Tarbott\u2019s letter to an inquirer, Robert Boyle, is added by Mr.\nKirk to his little treatise, with his own annotations. His belief\nthat the Fairy sights could only be seen while the eyes are kept\nsteady without twinkling, is attested by a well-known anecdote. On\nthe afternoon of Culloden, a little girl, staying with Lord Lovat at\nGortuleg, was reading in a window-seat. Chancing to look out, she\nsaw a company of headlong riders hastening to the castle. Believing\nthem to be the _Sleagh Maith_, she tried hard to keep her eyes from\ntwinkling, that she might not lose the vision. But these, alas! were\nno Fairies, they were Prince Charles and his men flying from the\nvictorious English. The tale proves that the belief long survived the\nday of the minister of Aberfoyle. Lord Tarbott mentions, also, the\nvision of the shroud on the breast of a man about to die, which seems\nto be alluded to in the prophecy of Theoclymenus in the _Odyssey_.\nLord Tarbott\u2019s tales are of the familiar kind, there are dozens\nof such in _Theophilus Insulanus_. Mr. Kirk\u2019s notes are chiefly\nremarkable for his citation of Walter Grahame\u2019s \u201cevil eye,\u201d which\nkilled what he praised,\u2014a world-wide superstition, too common to need\nsupporting by foreign and classical examples.\n\nUnluckily, at this point Mr. Kirk abandons what we may call his\nscientific attitude. He has accounted for his \u201csupernatural\u201d affairs\nas not supernatural at all, but phenomena in Nature, and subject,\nlike other phenomena, to laws. But now it occurs to him to explain\nthe conduct of his _Sleagh Maith_ as the result of missionary zeal on\ntheir part: \u201cthey endeavour to convince us of a Deity;\u201d though, on\nthe face of his argument, a Co-walker no more proves a Deity than\ndoes an ordinary \u201cwalker.\u201d He may have been reading \u201cthe learned\nDr. Mor\u201d (More the Platonist), and may have altered his ideas. His\naccount of a girl who learned, or rather composed, a long poem by\naid of \u201cour nimble and courteous spirits,\u201d affords an early example\nof what is called \u201can inspirational medium.\u201d It is unlucky that Mr.\nKirk did not publish this work, of which he had a copy. The ordinary\n\u201cspiritual\u201d poetry may be written, as Dr. Johnson said of _Ossian_,\n\u201cby any one who would abandon his mind to it.\u201d When Mr. Kirk\nmaintains that Neolithic arrow-heads could not have been executed \u201cby\nall the Airt of man,\u201d he relapses from his usual odd common-sense. He\nalso believes in men who are magically shot-proof, like Claverhouse,\nwho had to be shot by a silver bullet; like Archbishop Sharp, on\nwhom his pious assassins erroneously held that their bullets took\nno effect; and like certain soldiers mentioned by Dugald Dalgetty\nof Drumthwacket. This absurd belief was very generally held by\nthe Covenanters. Where his local superstitions and those of his\ngeneration are not concerned, Mr. Kirk recovers his clearness of\nintellect. In Purgatory he finds only the pre-Christian Hades, \u201cour\nSecret Republick,\u201d with an ecclesiastical colouring\u2014\u201cadditional\nFictions of Monks\u2019 doting and crazied Heads.\u201d Mr. Kirk did not\nperceive the danger involved in his own argument. If a Highland\nsecond-sighted man answers to a Hebrew prophet in his visions and\ntrances, a Hebrew prophet is in danger of being no more considered\nthan a Highland second-sighted man. However, it is to Mr. Kirk\u2019s\npraise that he shows no persecuting disposition as far as witches are\nconcerned (though he has seen them pricked), and that he argues very\nfairly from his premisses, and within his limits.[28] He recognises\nthe unity of spiritual phenomena and of popular beliefs, whether it\nsprings from a common well-head of delusion in our nature, or whether\nit really has a source in the observation of peculiar and rather rare\nphenomena.\n\nTo the Edinburgh edition of 1815 (probably the only one) the editor\nadded the work of Theophilus Insulanus on Second Sight. This is\nnot rare nor expensive, and we do not reproduce it. One case of\n\u201ctelepathy\u201d may be quoted from Theophilus.\n\n\u201cDonald Beaton, residenter in Hammir, related that, in his passage\nfrom Glasgow to the Isle of Sky, he stopped at Tippermory, a known\nharbour in the Isle of Mull.\u201d Here some one gave him a loin of\nvenison. Donald, whose wife\u2019s mother was a seer, to try her powers,\nwished that piece of venison in her hands. \u201cThe same night the seer,\nwho lived with her daughter, his wife, apprehended she saw him enter\nthe house with a shapeless lump in his hands\u2014she knew not what, but\nit resembled flesh, which gave herself and her daughter great joy, as\nthey had despaired of him by his long absence.\u201d This is \u201ctelepathy,\u201d\nif telepathy there be.\n\nAnother picturesque tale shows how, on the night before the Rout\nof Moy, Patrick M\u2018Caskill met the famed M\u2018Rimmon (_sic_), M\u2018Leod\u2019s\npiper, in the town of Inverness, and saw him contract into the\nsize of a boy of five or six, and expand again into his athletic\nproportions. M\u2018Rimmon was killed in the Rout of Moy\u2014an attempt\nto surprise and seize Prince Charles. Before leaving Skye he had\nprophesied\u2014\n\n      \u201cM\u2018Leod shall come back,\n      But M\u2018Rimmon shall never.\u201d\n\nThe editor is acquainted with a splendid case of second sight in\nKensington. The seer was an accomplished English gentleman, and\nmentioned his vision at the moment to a witness who remembers and\ncorroborates the statement. Thus the Hebrides and Highlands have no\nmonopoly of second sight.\n\nThe researches of M. Charcot, M. Richet, and other psychologists do\nnot at present help us much in the matter of veridical second sight.\nIt is not a hallucination \u201csuggested\u201d to a hypnotised subject, but\nan impression produced by a remote person or event on a subject who\nhas not been hypnotised at all. For example, Dr. Adam Clarke, in his\n_Life_ (vol. ii. p. 16) tells us of Mr. Tracy Clarke, who, being in\nthe Isle of Man with his son, dreamed that he had visited his wife in\nLiverpool. He told his son that Mrs. Clarke was looking very well,\nbut, contrary to her habit, was sleeping in the best bedroom. On the\nday when Mr. Clarke said this, Mrs. Clarke, who had been sleeping in\nher best bedroom, told the little son who lay in her room that she\nhad heard his father ride up to the house, stable his horse, open\nthe door, come upstairs, and walk round her bed, but that she could\nnot see him. This is a case at least of second hearing, and has no\nhypnotic explanation.\n\nWe end in the candid spirit of Dr. Johnson, as far as the\nPolter-Geist and second sight are concerned\u2014willing to be convinced,\nbut far indeed from conviction. As to the Fairy belief, we conceive\nit to be a complex matter, from which tradition, with its memory of\nearth-dwellers, is not wholly absent, while more is due to a survival\nof the pre-Christian Hades, and to the belief in local spirits\u2014the\nVuis of Melanesia, the Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, the\nLares of Rome, the fateful M\u0153r\u00e6 and Hathors\u2014old imaginings of a world\nnot yet \u201cdispeopled of its dreams.\u201d[29]\n\n[Illustration: Puss-in-Boots smells a rat.]\n\n\n\n\n                              AN ESSAY\n\n                                 OF\n\n  The Nature and Actions of the Subterranean (and, for the most\n  Part,) Invisible People, heretofoir going under the name of\n  ELVES, FAUNES, and FAIRIES, or the lyke, among the Low-Country\n  Scots, as they are described by those who have the SECOND SIGHT;\n  and now, to occasion further Inquiry, collected and compared,\n  by a Circumspect Inquirer residing among the Scottish-Irish in\n  Scotland.\n\n\n\n\n                        Secret Commonwealth,\n\n                                 OR,\n\n            A Treatise displayeing the Chiefe Curiosities\n               as they are in Use among diverse of the\n                   People of Scotland to this Day;\n                        SINGULARITIES for the\n                        most Part peculiar to\n                             that Nation.\n\n         A Subject not heretofore discoursed of by any of our\n              Writters; and yet ventured on in an Essay\n                 to suppress the impudent and growing\n                     Atheisme of this Age, and to\n                     satisfie the desire of some\n                           choice Freinds.\n\n\n  _Then a Spirit passed before my Face, the Hair of my Flesh stood\n  up; it stood still, but I could not discerne the Forme thereof;\n  ane Image was before mine Eyes._\u2014Job, 4. 15, 16.\n\n  _This is a_ REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, _which say to the Siers, sie not;\n  and to the Prophets, prophesie not unto us right Things, bot\n  speak unto us smoothe Things._\u2014Isaiah, 30. 9, 10.\n\n  _And the Man whose Eyes were open hath said._\u2014Numbers, 24. 15.\n\n  _For now we sie thorough a Glass darkly, but then Face to\n  Face._\u20141 Corinth. 13. 12.\n\n  _It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we shall be lyke\n  God, and sie him as he is._\u20141 John, 3. 2.\n\n  \u039c\u03b7 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03c9\u03b4\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03c9\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u1f51\u03b4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd\n  \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd;\u2014Job, 26. 5 (Septuag.).\n\n\nBy MR ROBERT KIRK, Minister at Aberfoill.\n\n1691.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nOF THE SUBTERRANEAN INHABITANTS.\n\n\nThese _Siths_, or FAIRIES, they call _Sleagh Maith_, or the Good\nPeople, it would seem, to prevent the Dint of their ill Attempts,\n(for the Irish use to bless all they fear Harme of;) and are said to\nbe of a midle Nature betuixt Man and Angel, as were D\u00e6mons thought\nto be of old; of intelligent studious Spirits, and light changable\nBodies, (lyke those called Astral,) somewhat of the Nature of a\ncondensed Cloud, and best seen in Twilight. Thes Bodies be so plyable\nthorough the Subtilty of the Spirits that agitate them, that they\ncan make them appear or disappear att Pleasure. Some have Bodies or\nVehicles so spungious, thin, and defecat, that they are fed by only\nsucking into some fine spirituous Liquors, that peirce lyke pure\nAir and Oyl: others feid more gross on the Foyson or substance of\nCorns and Liquors, or Corne it selfe that grows on the Surface of\nthe Earth, which these Fairies steall away, partly invisible, partly\npreying on the Grain, as do Crowes and Mice; wherefore in this same\nAge, they are some times heard to bake Bread, strike Hammers, and\ndo such lyke Services within the little Hillocks they most haunt:\nsome whereof of old, before the Gospell dispelled Paganism, and in\nsome barbarous Places as yet, enter Houses after all are at rest,\nand set the Kitchens in order, cleansing all the Vessels. Such Drags\ngoe under the name of Brownies. When we have plenty, they have\nScarcity at their Homes; and on the contrarie (for they are empowred\nto catch as much Prey everywhere as they please,) there Robberies\nnotwithstanding oft tymes occassion great Rickes of Corne not to\nbleed so weill, (as they call it,) or prove so copious by verie farr\nas wes expected by the Owner.\n\nTHERE Bodies of congealled Air are some tymes caried aloft, other\nwhiles grovell in different Schapes, and enter into any Cranie or\nClift of the Earth where Air enters, to their ordinary Dwellings;\nthe Earth being full of Cavities and Cells, and there being no Place\nnor Creature but is supposed to have other Animals (greater or\nlesser) living in or upon it as Inhabitants; and no such thing as a\npure Wilderness in the whole Universe.\n\n2. WE then (the more terrestriall kind have now so numerously planted\nall Countreys,) do labour for that abstruse People, as weill as for\nourselves. Albeit, when severall Countreys were unhabitated by us,\nthese had their easy Tillage above Ground, as we now. The Print of\nthose Furrous do yet remaine to be seen on the Shoulders of very high\nHills, which was done when the champayn Ground was Wood and Forrest.\n\nTHEY remove to other Lodgings at the Beginning of each Quarter of\nthe Year, so traversing till Doomsday, being imputent and [impotent\nof?] staying in one Place, and finding some Ease by so purning\n[Journeying] and changing Habitations. Their cham\u00e6lion-lyke Bodies\nswim in the Air near the Earth with Bag and Bagadge; and at such\nrevolution of Time, SEERS, or Men of the SECOND SIGHT, (F\u00e6males\nbeing seldome so qualified) have very terrifying Encounters with\nthem, even on High Ways; who therefoir uswally shune to travell\nabroad at these four Seasons of the Year, and thereby have made it\na Custome to this Day among the Scottish-Irish to keep Church duely\nevry first Sunday of the Quarter to sene or hallow themselves, their\nCorns and Cattell, from the Shots and Stealth of these wandring\nTribes; and many of these superstitious People will not be seen in\nChurch againe till the nixt Quarter begin, as if no Duty were to be\nlearned or done by them, but all the Use of Worship and Sermons were\nto save them from these Arrows that fly in the Dark.[30]\n\nTHEY are distributed in Tribes and Orders, and have Children, Nurses,\nMariages, Deaths, and Burialls, in appearance, even as we, (unless\nthey so do for a Mock-show, or to prognosticate some such Things\namong us.)\n\n3. THEY are clearly seen by these Men of the SECOND SIGHT to eat\nat Funeralls [and] Banquets; hence many of the Scottish-Irish will\nnot teast Meat at these Meittings, lest they have Communion with,\nor be poysoned by, them. So are they seen to carrie the Beer or\nCoffin with the Corps among the midle-earth Men to the Grave. Some\nMen of that exalted Sight (whither by Art or Nature) have told me\nthey have seen at these Meittings a Doubleman, or the Shape of some\nMan in two places; that is, a superterranean and a subterranean\nInhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all Points, whom\nhe notwithstanding could easily distinguish one from another, by\nsome secret Tockens and Operations, and so go speak to the Man his\nNeighbour and Familiar, passing by the Apparition or Resemblance of\nhim. They avouch that every Element and different State of Being\nhave Animals resembling these of another Element; as there be Fishes\nsometimes at Sea resembling Monks of late Order in all their Hoods\nand Dresses; so as the Roman invention of good and bad D\u00e6mons, and\nguardian Angells particularly assigned, is called by them an ignorant\nMistake, sprung only from this Originall. They call this Reflex-man a\nCo-walker, every way like the Man, as a Twin-brother and Companion,\nhaunting him as his shadow, as is oft seen and known among Men\n(resembling the Originall,) both before and after the Originall is\ndead; and wes also often seen of old to enter a Hous, by which the\nPeople knew that the Person of that Liknes wes to Visite them within\na few days. This Copy, Echo, or living Picture, goes att last to his\nown Herd. It accompanied that Person so long and frequently for Ends\nbest known to it selfe, whither to guard him from the secret Assaults\nof some of its own Folks, or only as ane sportfull Ape to counterfeit\nall his Actions. However, the Stories of old WITCHES prove beyond\ncontradiction, that all Sorts of People, Spirits which assume light\naery Bodies, or crazed Bodies co-acted by forrein Spirits, seem to\nhave some Pleasure, (at least to asswage from Pain or Melancholy,)\nby frisking and capering like Satyrs, or whistling and screeching\n(like unlukie Birds) in their unhallowed Synagogues and Sabboths.\nIf invited and earnestly required, these Companions make themselves\nknowne and familiar to Men; other wise, being in a different State\nand Element, they nather can nor will easily converse with them. They\navouch that a Heluo, or Great-eater, hath a voracious Elve to be his\nattender, called a Joint-eater or Just-halver, feeding on the Pith or\nQuintessence of what the Man eats; and that therefoir he continues\nLean like a Hawke or Heron, notwith standing his devouring Appetite:\nyet it would seem that they convey that substance elsewhere, for\nthese Subterraneans eat but little in their Dwellings; there Food\nbeing exactly clean, and served up by Pleasant Children, lyke\ninchanted Puppets. What Food they extract from us is conveyed to\ntheir Homes by secret Paths, as sume skilfull Women do the Pith and\nMilk from their Neighbours Cows into their own Chiese-hold thorow\na Hair-tedder, at a great Distance, by Airt Magic, or by drawing a\nspickot fastened to a Post, which will bring milk as farr of as a\nBull will be heard to roar.[31] The Chiese made of the remaineing\nMilk of a Cow thus strain\u2019d will swim in Water like a Cork. The\nMethod they take to recover their Milk is a bitter chyding of the\nsuspected Inchanters, charging them by a counter Charme to give them\nback their own, in God, or their Master\u2019s Name. But a little of the\nMother\u2019s Dung stroakit on the Calves Mouth before it suck any, does\nprevent this theft.\n\n4. THEIR Houses are called large and fair, and (unless att some\nodd occasions) unperceaveable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland, and\nother inchanted Islands, having fir Lights, continual Lamps, and\nFires, often seen without Fuel to sustain them. Women are yet alive\nwho tell they were taken away when in Child-bed to nurse Fairie\nChildren, a lingering voracious Image of their (them?) being left\nin their place, (like their Reflexion in a Mirrour,) which (as if\nit were some insatiable Spirit in ane assumed Bodie) made first\nsemblance to devour the Meats that it cunningly carried by, and\nthen left the Carcase as if it expired and departed thence by a\nnaturall and common Death. The Child, and Fire, with Food and other\nNecessaries, are set before the Nurse how soon she enters; but she\nnather perceaves any Passage out, nor sees what those People doe\nin other Rooms of the Lodging. When the Child is wained, the Nurse\ndies, or is conveyed back, or gets it to her choice to stay there.\nBut if any Superterraneans be so subtile, as to practice Slights for\nprocuring a Privacy to any of their Misteries, (such as making use\nof their Oyntments, which as Gyges\u2019s Ring makes them invisible, or\nnimble, or casts them in a Trance, or alters their Shape, or makes\nThings appear at a vast Distance, &c.) they smite them without Paine,\nas with a Puff of Wind, and bereave them of both the naturall and\nacquired Sights in the twinkling of ane Eye, (both these Sights,\nwhere once they come, being in the same Organ and inseparable,) or\nthey strick them Dumb. The Tramontains to this Day put Bread, the\nBible, or a piece of Iron, in Womens Beds when travelling, to save\nthem from being thus stollen; and they commonly report, that all\nuncouth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly so much as\nby cold Iron. They delyver the Reason to be that Hell lying betwixt\nthe chill Tempests, and the Fire Brands of scalding Metals, and Iron\nof the North, (hence the Loadstone causes a tendency to that Point,)\nby ane Antipathy thereto, these odious far-scenting Creatures shrug\nand fright at all that comes thence relating to so abhorred a Place,\nwhence their Torment is eather begun, or feared to come hereafter.\n\n5. THEIR Apparell and Speech is like that of the People and Countrey\nunder which they live: so are they seen to wear Plaids and variegated\nGarments in the Highlands of Scotland, and Suanochs therefore in\nIreland. They speak but litle, and that by way of whistling, clear,\nnot rough. The verie Divels conjured in any Countrey, do answer in\nthe Language of the Place; yet sometimes the Subterraneans speak\nmore distinctly than at other times. Ther Women are said to Spine\nvery fine, to Dy, to Tossue, and Embroyder: but whither it is as\nmanuall Operation of substantiall refined Stuffs, with apt and solid\nInstruments, or only curious Cob-webs, impalpable Rainbows, and a\nfantastic Imitation of the Actions of more terrestricall Mortalls,\nsince it transcended all the Senses of the Seere to discerne\nwhither, I leave to conjecture as I found it.\n\n6. THERE Men travell much abroad, either presaging or aping the\ndismall and tragicall Actions of some amongst us; and have also many\ndisastorous Doings of their own, as Convocations, Fighting, Gashes,\nWounds, and Burialls, both in the Earth and Air. They live much\nlonger than wee; yet die at last, or [at] least vanish from that\nState. \u2019Tis ane of their Tenets, that nothing perisheth, but (as the\nSun and Year) every Thing goes in a Circle, lesser or greater, and\nis renewed and refreshed in its Revolutions; as \u2019tis another, that\nevery Bodie in the Creation moves, (which is a sort of Life;) and\nthat nothing moves, but [h]as another Animal moving on it; and so on,\nto the utmost minutest Corpuscle that\u2019s capable to be a Receptacle of\nLife.\n\n7. THEY are said to have aristocraticall Rulers and Laws, but no\ndiscernible Religion, Love, or Devotion towards God, the blessed\nMaker of all: they disappear whenever they hear his Name invocked,\nor the Name of JESUS, (at which all do bow willinglie, or by\nconstraint, that dwell above or beneath within the Earth, Philip.\n2. 10;) nor can they act ought at that Time after hearing of that\nsacred Name. The TABHAISVER, or Seer, that corresponds with this\nkind of Familiars, can bring them with a Spel to appear to himselfe\nor others when he pleases, as readily as Endor Witch to those of her\nKind. He tells, they are ever readiest to go on hurtfull Errands,\nbut seldome will be the Messengers of great Good to Men. He is not\nterrified with their Sight when he calls them, but seeing them in a\nsurpryze (as often he does) frights him extreamly. And glaid would\nhe be quite of such, for the hideous Spectacles seen among them;\nas the torturing of some Wight, earnest ghostly stairing Looks,\nSkirmishes, and the like. They do not all the Harme which appearingly\nthey have Power to do; nor are they perceaved to be in great Pain,\nsave that they are usewally silent and sullen. They are said to have\nmany pleasant toyish Books; but the operation of these Peices only\nappears in some Paroxisms of antic corybantic Jolity, as if ravisht\nand prompted by a new Spirit entering into them at that Instant,\nlighter and mirrier than their own. Other Books they have of involved\nabstruse Sense, much like the Rosurcian [Rosycrucian] Style. They\nhave nothing of the Bible, save collected Parcells for Charms and\ncounter Charms; not to defend themselves withall, but to operate on\nother Animals, for they are a People invulnerable by our Weapons;\nand albeit Were-wolves and Witches true Bodies are (by the union\nof the Spirit of Nature that runs thorow all, echoing and doubling\nthe Blow towards another) wounded at Home, when the astrial assumed\nBodies are stricken elsewhere; as the Strings of a Second Harp, tune\nto ane unison, Sounds, though only ane be struck; yet these People\nhave not a second, or so gross a Bodie at all, to be so pierced; but\nas Air, which when divyded units againe; or if they feel Pain by\na Blow, they are better Physicians than wee, and quickly cure it.\nThey are not subject to sore Sicknesses, but dwindle and decay at a\ncertain Period, all about ane Age. Some say their continual Sadness\nis because of their pendulous State, (like those Men, Luc. 13. 2.\n6.) as uncertain what at the last Revolution will become of them,\nwhen they are lock\u2019t up into ane unchangeable Condition; and if they\nhave any frolic Fitts of Mirth, \u2019tis as the constrained grinning of a\nMort-head, or rather as acted on a Stage, and moved by another, ther\n[than?] cordially comeing of themselves. But other Men of the Second\nSight, being illiterate, and unwary in their Observations, learn\nfrom those; one averring those subterranean People to be departed\nSouls, attending awhile in this inferior State, and clothed with\nBodies procured throwgh their Almsdeeds in this Lyfe; fluid, active,\n\u00e6theriall Vehicles to hold them, that they may not scatter, or\nwander, and be lost in the Totum, or their first Nothing; but if any\nwere so impious as to have given no Alms, they say when the Souls of\nsuch do depairt, they sleep in an unactive State till they resume the\nterrestriall Bodies again: others, that what the Low-countrey Scotts\ncalls a Wreath, and the Irish TAIBHSHE[32] or Death\u2019s Messenger,\n(appearing sometimes as a little rough Dog, and if crossed and\nconjured in Time, will be pacified by the Death of any other\nCreature instead of the sick Man,) is only exuvious Fumes of the Man\napproaching Death, exhal\u2019d and congeal\u2019d into a various Likness,[33]\n(as Ships and Armies are sometimes shapt in the Air,) and called\nastral Bodies, agitated as Wild-fire with Wind, and are neather Souls\nor counterfeiting Spirits; yet not a few avouch (as is said,) that\nsurelie these are a numerous People by them selves, having their\nown Polities. Which Diversities of Judgments may occasion severall\nInconsonancies in this Rehearsall, after the narrowest Scrutiny made\nabout it.\n\n8. THEIR Weapons are most what solid earthly Bodies, nothing of\nIron, but much of Stone, like to yellow soft Flint Spa, shaped like\na barbed Arrow-head, but flung like a Dairt, with great Force. These\nArmes (cut by Airt and Tools it seems beyond humane) have something\nof the Nature of Thunderbolt subtilty, and mortally wounding the\nvital Parts without breaking the Skin; of which Wounds I have\nobserved in Beasts, and felt them with my Hands. They are not as\ninfallible Benjamites, hitting at a Hair\u2019s-breadth; nor are they\nwholly unvanquishable, at least in Appearance.\n\nTHE MEN of that SECOND SIGHT do not discover strange Things when\nasked, but at Fits and Raptures, as if inspyred with some Genius at\nthat Instant, which before did lurk in or about them. Thus I have\nfrequently spoke to one of them, who in his Transport told he cut\nthe Bodie of one of those People in two with his Iron Weapon, and so\nescaped this Onset, yet he saw nothing left behind of that appearing\ndivyded; at other Times he out wrested [wrestled?] some of them. His\nNeibours often perceaved this Man to disappear at a certane Place,\nand about one Hour after to become visible, and discover him selfe\nnear a Bow-shot from the first Place. It was in that Place where he\nbecame invisible, said he, that the Subterraneans did encounter and\ncombate with him. Those who are unseened or unsanctified (called Fey)\nare said to be pierced or wounded with those People\u2019s Weapons, which\nmakes them do somewhat verie unlike their former Practice, causing\na sudden Alteration, yet the Cause thereof unperceavable at present;\nnor have they Power (either they cannot make use of their natural\nPowers, or ask\u2019t not the heavenly Aid,) to escape the Blow impendent.\nA Man of the Second Sight perceaved a Person standing by him (sound\nto others view) wholly gored in Blood, and he (amazed-like) bid him\ninstantly flee. The whole Man laught at his Airt and Warning, since\nthere was no appearance of Danger. He had scarce contracted his Lips\nfrom Laughter, when unexpectedly his Enemy leapt in at his Side,\nand stab\u2019d him with their Weapons. They also pierce Cows or other\nAnimals, usewally said to be Elf-shot, whose purest Substance (if\nthey die) these Subterraneans take to live on, viz. the aereal and\n\u00e6therial Parts, the most spirituous Matter for prolonging of Life,\nsuch as Aquavit\u00e6 (moderately taken) is among Liquors, leaving the\nterrestrial behind. The Cure of such Hurts is, only for a Man to find\nout the Hole with his Finger; as if the Spirits flowing from a Man\u2019s\nwarme Hand were Antidote sufficient against their poyson\u2019d Dairts.\n\n9. AS Birds and Beasts, whose Bodies are much used to the Change of\nthe frie and open Air, forsee Storms; so those invisible People are\nmore sagacious to understand by the Books of Nature Things to come,\nthan wee, who are pestered with the grosser Dregs of all elementary\nMixtures, and have our purer Spirits choaked by them. The Deer scents\nout a Man and Powder (tho a late Invention) at a great Distance; a\nhungry Hunter, Bread; and the Raven, a Carrion: Ther Brains, being\nlong clarified by the high and subtil Air, will observe a very\nsmall Change in a Trice. Thus a Man of the Second Sight, perceaving\nthe Operations of these forecasting invisible People among us,\n(indulged thorow a stupendious Providence to give Warnings of some\nremarkable Events, either in the Air, Earth, or Waters,) told he saw\na Winding-shroud creeping on a walking healthful Persons Legs till it\ncome to the Knee; and afterwards it came up to the Midle, then to the\nShoulders, and at last over the Head, which was visible to no other\nPersone. And by observing the Spaces of Time betwixt the severall\nStages, he easily guessed how long the Man was to live who wore the\nShroud; for when it approached his Head, he told that such a Person\nwas ripe for the Grave.\n\n10. THERE be many Places called Fairie-hills, which the Mountain\nPeople think impious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking\nEarth or Wood from them; superstitiously beleiving the Souls of their\nPredicessors to dwell there.[34] And for that End (say they) a Mote\nor Mount was dedicate beside every Church-yard, to receive the Souls\ntill their adjacent Bodies arise, and so become as a Fairie-hill;\nthey useing Bodies of Air when called Abroad. They also affirme those\nCreatures that move invisibly in a House, and cast hug great Stones,\nbut do no much Hurt, because counter-wrought by some more courteous\nand charitable Spirits that are everywhere ready to defend Men, (Dan.\n10. 13.) to be Souls that have not attained their Rest, thorough a\nvehement Desire of revealling a Murther or notable Injurie done or\nreceaved, or a Treasure that was forgot in their Liftyme on Earth,\nwhich when disclos\u2019d to a Conjurer alone, the Ghost quite removes.\n\nIN the nixt Country to that of my former Residence, about the Year\n1676, when there was some Scarcity of Graine, a marvelous Illapse and\nVision strongly struck the Imagination of two Women in one Night,\nliving at a good Distance from one another, about a Treasure hid\nin a Hill, called SITHBHRUAICH, or Fayrie-hill. The Appearance of\na Treasure was first represented to the Fancy, and then an audible\nVoyce named the Place where it was to their awaking Senses. Whereupon\nboth arose, and meitting accidentallie at the Place, discovered their\nDesigne; and joyntly digging, found a Vessell as large as a Scottish\nPeck, full of small Pieces of good Money, of ancient Coyn; which\nhalving betuixt them, they sold in Dish-fulls for Dish-fulls of Meall\nto the Countrey People. Very many of undoubted Credit saw, and had\nof the Coyn to this Day. But whither it was a good or bad Angell,\none of the subterranean People, or the restless Soul of him who hid\nit, that discovered it, and to what End it was done, I leave to the\nExamination of others.\n\n11. THESE Subterraneans have Controversies, Doubts, Disputs, Feuds,\nand Siding of Parties; there being some Ignorance in all Creatures,\nand the vastest created Intelligences not compassing all Things.\nAs to Vice and Sin, whatever their own Laws be, sure, according to\nours, and Equity, natural, civil, and reveal\u2019d, they transgress and\ncommit Acts of Injustice, and Sin, by what is above said, as to\ntheir stealling of Nurses to their Children, and that other sort\nof Plaginism in catching our Children away, (may seem to heir some\nEstate in those invisible Dominions,) which never returne. For the\nInconvenience of their Succubi, who tryst with Men, it is abominable;\nbut for Swearing and Intemperance, they are not observed so subject\nto those Irregularities, as to Envy, Spite, Hypocracie, Lieing, and\nDissimulation.\n\n12. AS our Religion oblidges us not to make a peremptory and curious\nSearch into these Obstrusenesses, so that the Histories of all Ages\ngive as many plain Examples of extraordinary Occurrances as make\na modest Inquiry not contemptable. How much is written of Pigme\u2019s,\nFairies, Nymphs, Syrens, Apparitions, which tho not the tenth Part\ntrue, yet could not spring of nothing! Even English Authors relate\n(of) Barry Island, in Glamorganshire, that laying your Ear into\na Clift of the Rocks, blowing of Bellows, stricking of Hammers,\nclashing of Armour, fyling of Iron, will be heard distinctly ever\nsince Merlin inchaunted those subterranean Wights to a solid manuall\nforging of Arm\u2019s to Aurelius Ambrosius and his Brittans, till he\nreturned; which Merlin being killed in a Battell, and not coming to\nloose the Knot, these active Vulcans are there ty\u2019d to a perpetuall\nLabour. But to dip no deeper into this Well, I will nixt give some\nAccount how the Seer my Informer comes to have this secret Way of\nCorrespondence beyond other Mortalls.\n\nTHERE be odd Solemnities at investing a Man with the Priviledges\nof the whole Mistery of this Second Sight. He must run a Tedder\nof Hair (which bound a Corps to the Bier) in a Helix [?] about\nhis Midle, from End to End; then bow his Head downwards, as did\nElijah, 1 Kings, 18, 42. and look back thorough his Legs untill he\nsie a Funerall advance till the People cross two Marches; or look\nthus back thorough a Hole where was a Knot of Fir. But if the Wind\nchange Points while the Hair Tedder is ty\u2019d about him, he is in\nPeril of his Lyfe. The usewall Method for a curious Person to get a\ntransient Sight of this otherwise invisible Crew of Subterraneans,\n(if impotently and over rashly sought,) is to put his [left Foot\nunder the Wizard\u2019s right] Foot, and the Seer\u2019s Hand is put on the\nInquirer\u2019s Head, who is to look over the Wizard\u2019s right Shoulder,\n(which hes ane ill Appearance, as if by this Ceremony ane implicit\nSurrender were made of all betwixt the Wizard\u2019s Foot and his Hand,\nere the Person can be admitted a privado to the Airt;) then will he\nsee a Multitude of Wight\u2019s, like furious hardie Men, flocking to him\nhaistily from all Quarters, as thick as Atoms in the Air; which are\nno Nonentities or Phantasms, Creatures proceiding from ane affrighted\nApprehensione, confused or crazed Sense, but Realities, appearing to\na stable Man in his awaking Sense, and enduring a rationall Tryall of\ntheir Being. Thes thorow Fear strick him breathless and speechless.\nThe Wizard, defending the Lawfullness of his Skill, forbids such\nHorror, and comforts his Novice by telling of Zacharias, as being\nstruck speechless at seeing Apparitions, Luke, 1. 20. Then he further\nmaintains his Airt, by vouching Elisha to have had the same, and\ndisclos\u2019d it thus unto his Servant in 2 Kings, 6. 17. when he blinded\nthe Syrians; and Peter in Act, 5. 9. forseing the Death of Saphira,\nby perceaving as it were her Winding-sheet about her before hand;\nand Paul, in 2nd Corinth. 12. 4. who got such a Vision and Sight as\nshould not, nor could be told. Elisha also in his Chamber saw Gehazi\nhis Servant, at a great Distance, taking a reward from Naaman, 2d\nKings, 5. 26. Hence were the Prophets frequently called SEERS, or\nMen of a 2d or more exhalted Sight than others. He acts for his\nPurpose also Math. 4. 8. where the Devil undertakes to give even\nJesus a Sight of all Nations, and the finest Things in the World,\nat one Glance, tho in their naturall Situations and Stations at a\nvast Distance from other. And \u2019tis said expresly he did let sie them;\nnot in a Map it seems, nor by a phantastick magicall jugling of the\nSight, which he could not impose upon so discovering a Person. It\nwould appear then to have been a Sight of real solid Substances, and\nThings of worth, which he intended as a Bait for his Purpose. Whence\nit might seem, (compairing this Relation of Math. 4. 8. with the\nformer,) that the extraordinary or Second Sight can be given by the\nMinistery of bad as weill as good Spirits to those that will embrace\nit. And the Instance of Balaam and the Pytheniss make it nothing the\nless probable. Thus also the Seer trains his Scholler, by telling of\nthe Gradations of Nature, ordered by a wise Provydence; that as the\nSight of Bats and Owls transcend that of Shrews and Moles, so the\nvisive Faculties of Men are clearer than those of Owls; as Eagles,\nLynxs, and Cats are brighter than Mens. And again, that Men of the\nSecond Sight (being designed to give warnings against secret Engyns)\nsurpass the ordinary Vision of other Men, which is a native Habit in\nsome, descended from their Ancestors, and acquired as ane artificiall\nImprovement of their natural Sight in others; resembling in their own\nKynd the usuall artificiall Helps of optic Glasses, (as Prospectives,\nTelescopes, and Microscopes,) without which ascititious Aids those\nMen here treated of do perceive Things that, for their Smallness, or\nSubtility, and Secrecy, are invisible to others, tho dayly conversant\nwith them; they having such a Beam continuallie about them as that\nof the Sun, which when it shines clear only, lets common Eyes see\nthe Atomes, in the Air, that without those Rayes they could not\ndiscern; for some have this Second Sight transmitted from Father to\nSone thorow the whole Family, without their own Consent or others\nteaching, proceeding only from a Bounty of Providence it seems, or\nby Compact, or by a complexionall Quality of the first Acquirer. As\nit may seem alike strange (yet nothing vicious) in such as Master\nGreat-rake,[35] the Irish Stroaker, Seventh-sons, and others that\ncure the King\u2019s Evill, and chase away Deseases and Pains, with only\nstroaking of the affected Pairt; which (if it be not the Reliques\nof miraculous Operations, or some secret Virtue in the Womb, of the\nParent, which increaseth until Seventh-sons be borne, and decreaseth\nby the same Degrees afterwards,) proceids only from the sanitive\nBalsome of their healthfull Constitutions; Virtue going out from them\nby spirituous Effluxes unto the Patient, and their vigorous healthy\nSpirits affecting the sick as usewally the unhealthy Fumes of the\nsick infect the sound and whole.\n\n13. THE Minor Sort of Seers prognosticat many future Events, only\nfor a Month\u2019s Space, from the Shoulder-bone of a Sheep on which a\nKnife never came, (for as before is said, and the Nazarits of old\nhad something of it) Iron hinders all the Opperations of those that\ntravell in the Intrigues of these hidden Dominions. By looking into\nthe Bone, they will tell if Whoredom be committed in the Owner\u2019s\nHouse; what Money the Master of the Sheep had; if any will die out\nof that House for that Moneth; and if any Cattell there will take a\nTrake, as if Planet-struck. Then will they prescribe a Preservative\nand Prevention.\n\n14. A WOMAN (it seems ane Exception from the generall Rule,)\nsingularlie wise in these Matters of Foirsight, living in Colasnach,\nane Isle of the Hebrides, (in the Time of the Marquess of Montrose\nhis Wars with the States in Scotland,) being notorious among many;\nand so examined by some that violently seazed that Isle, if she saw\nthem coming or not? She said, she saw them coming many Hours before\nthey came in View of the Isle. But earnestly looking, she some times\ntook them for Enemyes, sometime for Friends; and morover they look\u2019t\nas if they went from the Isle, not as Men approaching it, which made\nher not put the Inhabitants on their Guard. The Matter was, that the\nBarge wherein the Enemie sailed, was a little befoir taken from the\nInhabitants of that same Isle, and the Men had their Backs towards\nthe Isle, when they were plying the oares towards it. Thus this old\nScout and Delphian Oracle was at least deceived, and did deceave.\nBeing asked who gave her such Sights and Warnings, she said, that\nas soon as she set three Crosses of Straw upon the Palm of her Hand,\na great ugly Beast sprang out of the Earth neer her, and flew in the\nAir. If what she enquired had Success according to her Wish, the\nBeast would descend calmly, and lick up the Crosses. If it would not\nsucceid, the Beast would furiously thrust her and the Crosses over on\nthe Ground, and so vanish to his Place.\n\n15. AMONG other Instances of undoubted Verity, proving in these the\nBeing of such aerial People, or Species of Creatures not vulgarly\nknown, I add the subsequent Relations, some whereof I have from my\nAcquaintance with the Actors and Patients, and the Rest from the\nEye-witnesses to the Matter of Fact. The first whereof shall be of\nthe Woman taken out of her Child-bed, and having a lingring Image\nof her substituted Bodie in her Roome, which Resemblance decay\u2019d,\ndy\u2019d, and was bur\u2019d. But the Person stollen returning to her Husband\nafter two Years Space, he being convinced by many undenyable Tokens\nthat she was his former Wyfe, admitted her Home, and had diverse\nChildren by her. Among other Reports she gave her Husband, this was\none: That she perceived litle what they did in the spacious House\nshe lodg\u2019d in, untill she anointed one of her Eyes with a certain\nUnction that was by her; which they perceaving to have acqainted\nher with their Actions, they fain\u2019d her blind of that Eye with a\nPuff of their Breath. She found the Place full of Light, without any\nFountain or Lamp from whence it did spring. This Person lived in the\nCountrey nixt to that of my last Residence, and might furnish Matter\nof Dispute amongst Casuists, whither if her Husband had been mary\u2019d\nin the Interim of her two Years Absence, he was oblidged to divorse\nfrom the second Spouse at the Return of the first. There is ane Airt,\nappearingly without Superstition, for recovering of such as are\nstolen, but think it superfluous to insert it.\n\nI SAW a Woman of fourtie Years of Age, and examined her (having\nanother Clergie Man in my Companie) about a Report that past of her\nlong fasting [_her Name is not intyre_.][36] It was told by them of\nthe House, as well as her selfe, that she tooke verie little or no\nFood for severall Years past; that she tarried in the Fields over\nNight, saw and conversed with a People she knew not, having wandered\nin seeking of her Sheep, and sleep\u2019t upon a Hillock, and finding her\nself transported to another Place before Day. The Woman had a Child\nsince that Time, and is still prettie melanchollyous and silent,\nhardly ever seen to laugh. Her natural Heat and radical Moisture seem\nto be equally balanced, lyke ane unextinguished Lamp, and going in a\nCircle, not unlike to the faint Lyfe of Bees, and some Sort of Birds,\nthat sleep all the Winter over, and revive in the Spring.\n\nIT is usuall in all magicall Airts to have the Candidates\nprepossessit with a Believe of their Tutor\u2019s Skill, and Ability to\nperform their Feats, and act their jugling Pranks and Legerdemain;\nbut a Person called Stewart, possessed with a prejudice at that was\nspoken of the 2d Sight, and living near to my House, was soe put\nto it by a Seer, before many Witnesses, that he lost his Speech and\nPower of his Legs, and breathing excessively, as if expyring, because\nof the many fearfull Wights that appeared to him. The Companie were\nforced to carrie him into the House.\n\nIT is notoriously known what in Killin, within Perthshire, fell\ntragically out with a Yeoman that liv\u2019d hard by, who coming into a\nCompanie within ane Ale-house, where a Seer sat at Table, that at\nthe Sight of the Intrant Neighbour, the Seer starting, rose to go\nout of the Hous; and being asked the Reason of his hast, told that\nthe intrant Man should die within two Days; at which News the named\nIntrant stabb\u2019d the Seer, and was himself executed two Days after for\nthe Fact.\n\nA MINISTER, verie intelligent, but misbelieving all such Sights as\nwere not ordinar, chanceing to be in a narrow Lane with a Seer, who\nperceaving a Wight of a known Visage furioslie to encounter them,\nthe Seer desired the Minister to turn out of the Way; who scorning\nhis Reason, and holding him selfe in the Path with them, when the\nSeer was going hastily out of the Way, they were both violently cast\na side to a good Distance, and the Fall made them lame for all their\nLyfe. A little after the Minister was carried Home, one came to tol\nthe Bell for the Death of the Man whose Representation met them in\nthe narrow Path some Halfe ane Hour before.\n\nANOTHER Example is: A Seer in Kintyre, in Scotland, sitting at Table\nwith diverse others, suddenly did cast his Head aside. The Companie\nasking him why he did it, he answered, that such a Friend of his, by\nName, then in Ireland, threatened immediately to cast a Dish-full of\nButter in his Face. The Men wrote down the Day and Hour, and sent to\nthe Gentleman to know the Truth; which Deed the Gentleman declared he\ndid at that verie Time, for he knew that his Friend was a Seer, and\nwould make sport with it. The Men that were present, and examined the\nMatter exactly, told me this Story; and with all, that a Seer would\nwith all his Opticks perceive no other Object so readily as this, at\nsuch a Distance.\n\n\n\n\n                          A SUCCINT ACCOMPT\n                                  OF\n                     MY LORD TARBOTT\u2019S RELATIONS,\n                          IN A LETTER TO THE\n                  HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE, ESQUIRE,\n                                OF THE\n                      PREDICTIONS MADE BY SEERS,\n               Whereof himself was Ear and Eye-witness.\n\n  [I thought fit to adjoyne [it] hereunto, that I might not\n  be thought singular in this Disquisition; that the Mater of\n  Fact might be undenyably made out; and that I might, with all\n  Submission, give Annotations, with Animadversions, on his\n  supposed Causes of that Phenomenon, with my Reasons of Dissent\n  from his Judgement.]\n\n\nSIR,\n\nI HEARD very much, but beleived very little, of the Second Sight;\nyet its being assumed by severall of great Veracity, I was induced\nto make Inquirie after it in the Year 1652, being then confin\u2019d to\nabide in the North of Scotland by the English Usurpers. The more\ngenerall Accounts of it were, that many Highlanders, yet far more\nIslanders, were qualified with this Second Sight; that Men, Women,\nand Children, indistinctly, were subject to it, and Children, where\nParents were not. Some times People came to age, who had it not when\nyoung, nor could any tell by what Means produced. It is a Trouble to\nmost of them who are subject to it, and they would be rid of it any\nRate if they could. The Sight is of no long Duration, only continuing\nso long as they can keep their Eyes steady without twinkling. The\nhardy therefore fix their look, that they may see the longer; but\nthe timorous see only Glances, their Eyes always twinkles at the\nfirst Sight of the Object. That which generally is seen by them, are\nthe Species of living Creatures, and of inanimate Things, which was\nin Motion, such as Ships, and Habits upon Persons. They, never sie\nthe Species of any Person who is already dead. What they foirsie\nfails not to exist in the Mode, and in that Place where it appears\nto them. They cannot well know what Space of Time shall interveen\nbetween the Apparition and the real Existance: But some of the\nhardiest and longest Experience have some Rules for Conjectures; as,\nif they sie a Man with a shrowding Sheet in the Apparition, they will\nconjecture at the Nearness or Remoteness of his Death by the more\nor less of his Bodie that is covered by it. They will ordinarily\nsie their absent Friends, tho at a great Distance, some tymes no\nless than from America to Scotland, sitting, standing, or walking\nin some certain Place; and then they conclude with a Assurance that\nthey will sie them so and there. If a Man be in love with a Woman,\nthey will ordinarily sie the Species of that Man standing by her,\nand so likewise if a Woman be in love; and they conjecture at their\nEnjoyments (of each other) by the Species touching (of) the Person,\nor appearing at a Distance from her (if they enjoy not one another.)\nIf they sie the Species of any Person who is sick to die, they sie\nthem covered over with the shrowding Sheet.\n\nTHESE Generalls I had verified to me by such of them as did sie,\nand were esteemed honest and sober by all the Neighbourhood; for I\ninquired after such for my Information. And because there were more\nof these Seers in the Isles of Lewis, Harris, and Uist, than in any\nother Place, I did entreat Sir James M\u2018Donald (who is now dead) Sir\nNormand M\u2018Loud, and Mr. Daniel Morison, a verie honest Person, (who\nare still alive,) to make Inquirie in this uncouth Sight, and to\nacquaint me therewith; which they did, and all found ane Agriement in\nthese Generalls, and informed me of many Instances confirming what\nthey said. But though Men of Discretion and Honour, being but at\n2d Hand, I will choose rather to put myself than my Friends on the\nHazard of being laughed at for incredible Relations.\n\nI WAS once travelling in the Highlands, and a good Number of Servants\nwith me, as is usuall there; and one of them going a little before\nme, entering into a House where I was to stay all Night, and going\nhaistily to the Door, he suddenly stept back with a Screech, and did\nfall by a Stone, which hit his Foot. I asked what the Matter was, for\nhe seemed to be very much frighted. He told me very seriously that I\nshould not lodge in that House, because shortly a dead Coffin would\nbe carried out of it, for many were carrying of it when he was heard\ncry. I neglecting his Words, and staying there, he said to other of\nhis Servants, he was sorry for it, and that surely what he saw would\nshortly come to pass. Tho no sick Person was then there, yet the\nLandlord, a healthy Highlander, died of ane appoplectick Fit before I\nleft the House.\n\nIn the year 1653, Alexander Monro (afterward Lieut. Coll. to the\nEarl of Dunbarton\u2019s Regiment,) and I were walking in a Place called\nUllabill, in Lochbroom, on a little Plain, at the Foot of a rugged\nHill. There was a Servant working with a Spade in the Walk before\nus; his Back was to us, and his Face to the Hill. Before we came\nto him, he let the Spade fall, and looked toward the Hill. He took\nNotice of us as wee passed neer by him, which made me look at him;\nand perceiving him to stair a little strangely, I conjectured him to\nbe a Seer. I called at him, at which he started and smiled. What are\nyou doing? said I. He answered, I have seen a very strange Thing; ane\nArmy of Englishmen, leeding of Horses, coming doun that Hill; and a\nNumber of them are come down to the Plain, and eating the Barley,\nwhich is growing in the Field neer to the Hill. This was on the 4th\nMay, (for I notted the Day,) and it was four or fyve Days before the\nBarley was sown in the Field he spoke of. Alexander Monro asked him\nhow he knew they were Englishmen? He said, because they were leeding\nof Horses, and had on Hats and Bootts, which he knew no Scot Man\nwould have there. We took little Notice of the whole Storie, as other\nthan a foolish Vision; but wished that ane English Partie were there,\nwe being then at Warr with them, and the Place almost unaccessable\nfor Horsemen. But in the Beginning of August therafter, the Earle of\nMidleton (then Lieut. for the King in the Highlands) having occasion\nto march a Party of his toward the South Highlands, he sent his Foot\nthorow a Place called Inverlawell; and the Fore-partie which was\nfirst down the Hill, did fall off eating the Barley which was on the\nlitle Plain under it. And Monro calling to mynd what the Seer told\nus, in May preceiding, he wrote of it, and sent ane Express to me to\nLochslin, in Ross, (where I then was) with it.\n\nI HAD Occasion once to be in Companie where a Young Lady was, (excuse\nmy not naming of Persons,) and I was told there was a notable Seer\nin the Companie. I called him to speak with me, as I did ordinarly\nwhen I found any of them; and after he had answered me to several\nQuestions, I asked if he knew any Person to be in love with that\nLady. He said he did, but he knew not the Person; for during the two\nDayes he had been in her Company, he perceaved one standing neer her,\nand his Head leaning on her Shoulder; which he said did fore-tell\nthat the Man should marrie her, and die before her, according to his\nObservation. This was in the Year 1655. I desired him to describe the\nPerson, which he did; so that I could conjecture, by the Description,\nof such a one, who was of that Ladyes Acquaintance, tho there were\nno thought of their Marriage till two Years thereafter. And having\nOccasion, in the Year 1657, to find this Seer, who was ane Islander,\nin Company with the other Person whom I conjectured to have been\ndescribed by him, I called him aside, and asked if that was the\nPerson he saw beside the Lady near two Years then past. He said it\nwas he indeed, for he had seen that Lady just then standing by him\nHand in Hand. This was some few Months before their Marriage, and\nthat Man is since dead, and the Lady still alive.\n\nI SHALL trouble you but with one more, which I thought most\nremarkable of any that occurred to me. In January 1652, the above\nmentioned Lieut. Coll. Alex. Monro and I happened to be in the House\nof one Wm. M\u2018Cleud of Ferrinlea, in the County of Ross. He, the\nLandlord, and I were sitting in three Chairs neir the Fire, and in\nthe Corner of the great Chimney there were two Islanders, who were\nthat verie Night come to the Hous, and were related to the Landlord.\nWhile the one of them was talking with Monro, I perceaved the other\nto look oddly toward me. From this Look, and his being ane Islander,\nI conjectured him a Seer, and asked him, at what he stair\u2019d? He\nanswered, by desiring me to rise from that Chair, for it was ane\nunluckie one. I asked him why. He answered, because there was a dead\nMan in the Chair nixt to me. Well, said I, if it be in the nixt\nChair, I may keep mine own. But what is the Likness of the Man? He\nsaid he was a tall Man, with a long Grey Coat, booted, and one of\nhis Legs hanging over the Arme of the Chair, and his head hanging\ndead to the other Side, and his Arme backward, as if it were brocken.\nThere were some English Troops then quartered near that Place, and\nthere being at that Time a great Frost after a Thaw, the Country was\ncovered all over with Yce. Four or Fyve of the English ryding by\nthis House some two Hours after the Vision, while we were sitting by\nthe Fire, we heard a great Noise, which prov\u2019d to be those Troopers,\nwith the Help of other Servants, carrying in one of their Number, who\nhad got a very mischeivous Fall, and had his Arme broke; and falling\nfrequently in swooning Fits, they brought him into the Hall, and set\nhim in the verie Chair, and in the verie Posture that the Seer had\nprophesied. But the Man did not die, though he recovered with great\nDifficulty.\n\nAMONG the Accounts given me by Sir Normand M\u2018clud, there was one\nworth of special Notice, which was thus. There [was] a Gentleman in\nthe Isle of Harris, who was always seen by the Seers with ane Arrow\nin his Thigh. Such in the Isle who thought those prognostications\ninfalliable, did not doubt but he would be shot in the Thigh before\nhe died. Sir Normand told me that he heard it the Subject of their\nDiscourse for many Years. At last he died without any such Accident.\nSir Normand was at his Buriall, at St Clement\u2019s Church in the Harris.\nAt the same Time, the Corps of another Gentleman was brought to be\nburied in the same verie Church. The Friends on either Side came to\ndebate who should first enter the Church, and in a Trice from Words\nthey came to Blows. One of the Number (who was arm\u2019d with Bow and\nArrows) let one fly among them. (Now everie Familie in that Isle have\ntheir Buriall-place in the Church in Stone Chests, and the Bodies\nare carried in open Biers to the Buriall-place.) Sir Normand having\nappeased the Tumult, one of the Arrows was found shot in the dead\nMan\u2019s Thigh. To this Sir Normand was a Witness.\n\nIN the Account which Mr Daniel Morison, Parson in the Lewis, gave\nme, there was one, tho it be hetergeneous from the subject, yet it\nmay [be] worth your Notice. It was of a young Woman in his Parish,\nwho was mightily frightned by seeing her own Image still before her,\nalwayes when she came to the open Air; the Back of the Image being\nalwayes to her, so that it was not a reflection as in a Mirrour, but\nthe Species of such a Body as her own, and in a very like Habit,\nwhich appeared to herself continually before her. The Parson keept\nher a long whyle with him, but had no Remedy of her Evill, which\ntroubled her exceidingly. I was told afterwards, that when she was\nfour or fyve Years elder she saw it not.\n\nTHESE are Matters of Fact, which I assure yow they are truely\nrelated. But these, and all others that occurred to me, by\nInformation or otherwise, could never lead me into a remote\nConjecture of the Cause of so extraordinary a Ph\u00e6nomenon. Whither it\nbe a Quality in the Eyes of some People into these Pairts, concurring\nwith a Quality in the Air also; whither such Species be every where,\ntho not seen by the Want of Eyes so qualified, or from whatever other\nCause, I must leave to the Inquiry of clearer Judgements than mine.\nBut a Hint may be taken from this image which appeared still to this\nWoman abovementioned, and from another mentioned by Aristotle, in\nthe 4th of his Metaphysicks (if I remember right, for it is long\nsince I read it;) as also from the common Opinion that young Infants\n(unsullied with many Objects) do sie Appearitions, which were not\nseen by those of elder Years; as like wise from this, that severalls\ndid sie the Second Sight when in the Highlands or Isles, yet when\ntransported to live in other Countreys, especially in America, they\nquite lose this Qualitie, as was told me by a Gentleman who knew some\nof them in Barbadoes, who did see no Vision there, altho he knew them\nto be Seers when they lived in the Isles of Scotland.\n\n                      Thus far my Lord Tarbett.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMY LORD, after narrow Inquisition, hath delivered many true and\nremarkable observes on this Subject; yet to encourage a further\nScrutiny, I crave leave to say,\n\nTHAT 1. But a few Women are endued with this Sight in respect of Men,\nand their Predictions not so certane.\n\n2. This Sight is not criminal, since a Man can come by it unawares,\nand without his Consent; but it is certaine he sie more fatall and\nfearfull Things than he do gladsome.\n\n3. THE Seers avouch, that severalls who go to the _Siths_, (or\nPeople at Rest, and, in respect of us, in Peace,) before the natural\nPeriod of their Lyfe expyre, do frequently appear to them.\n\n4. A VEHEMENT Desyre to attain this Airt is very helpfull to the\nInquyrer; and the Species of ane Absent Friend, which appears to the\nSeers, as clearly as if he had sent his lively Picture to present it\nselfe before him, is no phantastick Shaddow of a sick Apprehension,\nbut a reality, and a Messinger, coming for unknown Reasons, not from\nthe originall Similitude of it selfe, but from a more swift and\npragmantick People, which recreat them selves in offering secret\nIntelligence to Men, tho generally they are unacquainted with that\nKind of Correspondence, as if they had lived in a different element\nfrom them.\n\n5. THO my Collections were written long before I saw My Lord of\nTarbett\u2019s, yet I am glad that his descriptions and mine correspond\nso nearly. The Maid my Lord mentions, who saw her Image still before\nher, suteth with the CO-WALKER named in my Account; which tho some,\nat first Thought, might conjecture to be by the Refraction of a Cloud\nor Mist, as in the Parelij, (the whole Air and every Drop of Water\nbeing a Mirrour to returne the Species of Things, were our visive\nFaculty sharpe enough to apprehend them,) or a naturall Reflexion,\nfrom the same Reasons that an Echo can be redoubled by Airt; yet it\nwere more fasable to impute this Second Sight to a Quality infused\ninto the Eye by ane Unction: for Witchies have a sleepie Oyntment,\nthat, when applyed, troubles their Fantasies, advancing it to have\nunusuall Figures and Shapes represented to it, as if it were a Fit\nof Fanaticism, Hypocondriack Melancholly, or Possession of some\ninsinuating Spirit, raising the Soul beyond its common Strain, if the\npalpable Instances and Realities seen, and innocently objected to the\nSenses did not disprove it, make the Matter a palpable Verity, and no\nDeception; yet since this Sight can be bestowed without Oyntment, or\ndangerous Compact, the Qualification is not of so bad an Originall.\nTherefore,\n\n6. BY my Lord\u2019s good Leave, I presume to say, that this Sight can\nbe no Quality of the Air nor of the Eyes; becaus, 1. such as live in\nthe same Air, and sie all other Things as farr off and as clearly,\nyet have not the SECOND SIGHT. 2. A SEER can give another Person\nthis Sight transiently, by putting his Hand and Foot in the Posture\nhe requires of him. 3. The unsullied Eyes of Infants can naturally\nperceave no new unaccustomed Objects, but what appear to other Men,\nunless exalted and clarified some Way, as Ballaam\u2019s Ass for a Time;\ntho in a Witches Eye the Beholder cannot sie his own Image reflected,\nas in the Eyes of other People; so that Defect of Objects, as well\nas Diversities of the Subject, may appear differently on severall\nTempers and Ages. 4. Tho also some are of so venemous a Constitution,\nby being radicated in Envy and Malice, that they pierce and kill\n(like a Cockatrice) whatever Creature they first set their Eye on\nin the Morning; so was it with Walter Grahame, some Time living in\nthe Paroch wherein now I am, who killed his own Cow after commending\nits Fatness, and shot a Hair with his Eyes, having praised its\nswiftness, (such was the Infection of ane evill Eye;) albeit this was\nunusuall, yet he saw no Object but what was obvious to other Men as\nwell as to himselfe. 5. If the being transported to live in another\nCountrey did obscure the Second Sight, nather the Parson nor the Maid\nneeded be much troubled for her Reflex-selfe; a little Peregrination,\nand going from her wonted Home, would have salved her Fear. Wherefore,\n\n7. SINCE the Things seen by the Seers are real Entities, the Presages\nand Predictions found true, but a few endued with this Sight, and\nthose not of bad Lyves, or addicted to Malifices, the true Solution\nof the Ph\u00e6nomenon seems rather to be, the courteous Endeavours of\nour fellow Creatures in the Invisible World to convince us, (in\nOpposition to Sadduce\u2019s, Socinians, and Atheists,) of a Deity; of\nSpirits; of a possible and harmless Method of Correspondence betwixt\nMen and them, even in this Lyfe; of their Operation for our Caution\nand Warning; of the Orders and Degrees of Angells, whereof one\nOrder, with Bodies of Air condensed and curiously shap\u2019t, may be\nnixt to Man, superior to him in Understanding, yet unconfirmed; and\nof their Region, Habitation, and Influences on Man, greater than\nthat of Starrs on inanimat Bodies; a Knowledge (be-like) reserved\nfor these last atheistick Ages, wherein the Profanity of Mens Lives\nhath debauched and blinded their Understanding, as to MOSES, JESUS,\nand the Prophets, (unless they get Convictions from Things formerly\nknown,) as from the Regions of the Dead: nor doth the ceasing of\nthe Visions, upon the Seers Transmigration into forrein Kingdoms,\nmake his Lordship\u2019s Conjecture of the Quality of the Air and Eye a\nwhite the more probable; but, on the Contrary, it confirms greatly\nmy Account of ane Invisible People, guardian over and care-full of\nMen, who have their different Offices and Abilities in distinct\nCounterey\u2019s, as appears in Dan. 10. 13. viz. about Israels, Grecia\u2019s,\nand Persia\u2019s assistant Princes, whereof who so prevaileth giveth\nDominion and Ascendant to his Pupills and Vassalls over the opposite\nArmies and Countreys; so that every Countrey and Kingdom having\ntheir topical Spirits, or Powers assisting and governing them,\nthe SCOTTISH SEER banished to America, being a Stranger there, as\nwell to the invisible as to the visible Inhabitants, and wanting\na Fimiliarity of his former Correspondents, he could not have the\nFavour and Warnings, by the severall Visions and Predictions which\nwere wont to be granted him by these Acquantances and Fayourites in\nhis own Countrey. For if what he wont to sie were Realities, (as I\nhave made appear,) \u2019twere too great ane Honour for Scotland to have\nsuch seldom-seen Watchers and predominant Powers over it alone,\nacting in it so expressly, and all other Nations wholly destitute of\nthe lyke; tho, without all peradventure, all other People wanted the\nright Key of their Cabinet, and the exact Method of Correspondence\nwith them, except the sagacious active Scots, as many of them have\nretained it of a long Time, and by Surpryses and Raptures do often\nfoirtell what in Kyndness is really represented to them at severall\nOccasions. To which Purpose the learned lynx-ey\u2019d Mr. Baxter, on Rev.\n12. 7. writting of the Fight betwixt Michaell and the Dragon, gives a\nverie pertinent Note, viz. That he knows not but ere any great Action\n(especiall tragicall) is don on Earth, that first the Battell and\nVictory is acted and atchieved in the Air betwixt the good and evill\nSpirits: Thus he. It seems these were the mens Guardians; and the\nlyke Battells are oft tymes perceav\u2019d in a Loaft in the Nycht-time;\nthe Event of which myght easily be represented by some one of the\nNumber to a Correspondent on Earth, as frequently the Report of\ngreat Actions have been more swiftly caried to other Countreys than\nall the Airt of us Mortals could possibly dispatch it. St. Austine,\non Mark, 9. 4. giveth no small Intimation of this Truth, averring\nthat Elias appeared with Jesus on the Mount in his proper Bodie, but\nMoses in ane aereall Bodie, assumed like the Angels who appeared, and\nhad Ability to eat with Abraham, tho no Necessity on the Account of\ntheir Bodies. As lyke wise the late Doctrine of the Pre-existence\nof Souls, living into aereall Vehicles, gives a singular Hint of\nthe Possibility of the Thing, if not a direct Prooff of the whole\nAssertion; which yet moreover may be illuminated by diverse other\nInstances of the lyke Nature, and as wonderfull, besides what is\nabove said. As,\n\n8. THE invisible Wights which haunt Houses seem rather to be some\nof our subterranean Inhabitants, (which appear often to Men of the\nSecond Sight,) than evill Spirits or Devills; because, tho they\nthrow great Stones, Pieces of Earth and Wood, at the Inhabitants,\nthey hurt them not at all, as if they acted not malitiously, like\nDevills at all, but in Sport, lyke Buffoons and Drolls. All Ages have\naffoorded some obscure Testimonies of it, as Pythagoras his Doctrine\nof Transmigration; Socrates\u2019s D\u00e6mon that gave him [Warning] of future\nDangers; Platoe\u2019s classing them into various vehiculated Specieses\nof Spirits; Dionisius Areopagita\u2019s marshalling nyne Orders of\nSpirits, superiour and subordinate; the Poets their borrowing of the\nPhilosophers, and adding their own Fancies of Fountain, River, and\nSea Nymphs, Wood, Hill, and Montain Inhabitants, and that every Place\nand Thing, in Cities and Countreys, had speciall invisible regular\nGods and Governours. Cardan speaks of his Father his seeing the\nSpecies of his Friend, in a moon-shyn Night, riding fiercely by his\nWindow on a white Horse, the verie Night his Friend dy\u2019d at a Vast\nDistance from him; by which he understood that some Alteration would\nsuddenly ensue. Cornelius Aggrippa, and the learned Dr. Mor, have\nseverall Passages tending that Way. The Noctambulo\u2019s themselves would\nappear to have some forrein joquing Spirit possessing and supporting\nthem, when they walk on deep Waters and Topes of Houses without\nDanger, when asleep and in the dark; for it was no way probable that\ntheir Apprehension, and strong Imagination setting the Animal Spirits\na work to move the Body, could preserve it from sinking in the\nDeepth, or falling down head-long, when asleep, any more than when\nawake, the Body being then as ponderous as before; and it is hard\nto attribute it to a Spirit flatelie evill and Enemy to Man, because\nthe Noctambulo returns to his own Place safe. And the most furious\nTribe of the D\u00e6mons are not permitted by Providence to attacke Men so\nfrequently either by Night or by Day: For in our Highlands, as there\nmay be many fair Ladies of this aereal Order, which do often tryst\nwith lascivious young Men, in the quality of Succubi, or lightsome\nParamours and Strumpets, called _Leannain Sith_, or familiar\nSpirits (in Dewter. 18. 11.); so do many of our Hyghlanders, as if\na strangling by the Night MARE, pressed with a fearfull Dream, or\nrather possessed by one of our aereall Neighbours, rise up fierce in\nthe Night, and apprehending the neerest Weapons, do push and thrust\nat all Persons in the same Room with them, sometymes wounding their\nown Comerades to dead. The lyke whereof fell sadly out within a few\nMiles of me at the writting hereof. I add but one Instance more, of\na very young Maid, who lived neir to my last Residence, that in one\nNight learned a large Peice of Poesy, by the frequent Repetition\nof it, from one of our nimble and courteous Spirits, whereof a Part\nwas pious, the rest superstitious, (for I have a Copy of it,) and no\nother Person was ever heard to repeat it before, nor was the Maid\ncapable to compose it of herself.\n\n9. He demonstrated and made evident to Sense this extraordinary\nVision of our Tramontain Seers, and what is seen by them, by what is\nsaid above, many haveing seen this same Spectres and Apparitions at\nonce, haveing their visive Faculties entire; for _non est disputandum\nde gustu_. Itt now remaines to shew that it is not unsutable to\nReason nor the Holy Scriptures.\n\nFIRST, That it is not repugnant to Reason, doeth appear from this,\nthat it is no less strange for Immortal Sparks and Souls to come\nand be immersed into gross terrestrial elementary Bodies, and be\nso propagated, so nourished, so fed, soe cloathed as they are,\nand breathe in such ane Air and World prepared for them, then for\nHollanders or Hollow-cavern Inhabitants to live and traffick among\nus, in another State of Being, without our Knowledge. For Raymond de\nSubinde, in his 3d Booke, Chap. 12. argues quaintly, that all Sorts\nof Living Creatures have a happie rational Politie of there own, with\ngreat Contentment; which Government and mutual Converse of theirs\nthey all pride and pluim themselves, because it is as unknown to Man,\nas Man is to them. Much more, that the Sone of the HIGHEST SPIRIT\nshould assume a Bodie like ours, convinces all the World that no\nother Thing that is possible needs be much wondered at.\n\n2. The Manucodiata, or Bird of Paradise, living in the highest\nRegion of the Air; common Birds in the second Region; Flies and\nInsects in the lowest; Men and Beasts on the Earth\u2019s Surface;\nWorms, Otters, Badgers, in Waters; lyke wise Hell is inhabited at\nthe Centre, and Heaven in the Circumference: can we then think\nthe middle Cavities of the Earth emptie? I have seen in Weems, (a\nPlace in the Countie of Fyfe, in Scotland,) divers Caves cut out\nas vast Temples under Ground; the lyke is a Countie of England;\nin Malta is a Cave, wherein Stons of a curious Cut are thrown in\ngreat Numbers every Day; so I have had barbed Arrow-heads of yellow\nFlint, that could not be cut so small and neat, of so brittle a\nSubstance, by all the Airt of Man. It would seem therefoir that\nthese mention\u2019d Works were done by certaine Spirits of pure Organs,\nand not by Devills, whose continual Torments could not allow them\nso much Leasure. Besides these, I have found fyve Curiosities in\nScotland, not much observ\u2019d to be elsewhere. 1. The Brounies, who\nin some Families are Drudges, clean the Houses and Dishes after all\ngo to Bed, taking with him his Portion of Food and removing befor\nDay-break. 2. The Mason Word, which tho some make a Misterie of it,\nI will not conceal a little of what I know. It is lyke a Rabbinical\nTradition, in way of Comment on Jachin and Boaz, the two Pillars\nerected in Solomon\u2019s Temple, (1 Kings, 7. 21.) with ane Addition\nof some secret Signe delyvered from Hand to Hand, by which they\nknow and become familiar one with another. 3. This Second Sight,\nso largely treated of before. 4. Charmes, and curing by them very\nmany Diseases, sometimes by transferring the Sicknes to another.\n5. A being Proof of Lead, Iron, and Silver, or a Brieve making Men\ninvulnerable. Divers of our Scottish Commanders and Souldiers have\nbeen seen with blue Markes only, after they were shot with leaden\nBalls; which seems to be an Italian Trick, for they seem to be a\nPeople too currious and magically inclyned, Finally Iris-men, our\nNorthern-Scotish, and our Athole Men are so much addicted to and\ndelighted with Harps and Musick, as if, like King Saul, they were\npossessed with a forrein Spirit, only with this Difference, that\nMusick did put Saul\u2019s Pley-fellow a sleep, but roused and awaked\nour Men, vanquishing their own Spirits at Pleasure, as if they were\nimpotent of its Powers, and unable to command it; for wee have seen\nsome poor Beggers of them, chattering their Teeth for Cold, that how\nsoon they saw the Fire, and heard the Harp, leapt thorow the House\nlike Goats and Satyrs. As there paralell Stories in all Countries and\nAges reported of these our obscure People, (which are no Dotages,)\nso is it no more of Necessitie to us fully to know their Beings and\nManner of Life, then to understand distinctly the Politie of the nyne\nOrders of Angels; or with what Oyl the Lamp of the Sun is maintained\nso long and regularlie; or why the Moon is called a great Luminary\nin Scripture, while it only appears to be so; or if the Moon be\ntruly inhabited, because Telescopes discover Seas and Mountains in\nit, as well as flaming Furnishes in the Sun; or why the Discovery of\nAmerica was look\u2019t on as a Fairie Tale, and the Reporters hooted at\nas Inventors of ridiculous Utopias, or the first probable Asserters\npunished as Inventures of new Gods and Worlds; or why in England the\nKing cures the Struma by stroaking, and the Seventh Son in Scotland;\nwhither his temperat Complexion conveys a Balsome, and sucks out\nthe corrupting Principles by a frequent warme sanative Contact, or\nwhither the Parents of the Seventh Child put furth a more eminent\nVirtue to his Production than to all the Rest, as being the certain\nMeridian and hight to which their Vigour ascends, and from that furth\nhave a graduall declyning into a feebleness of the Bodie and its\nProduction. And then, 1. Why is not the 7th Son infected himselfe\nby that Contagion he extracts from another? 2. How can continual\nstroaking with a cold Hand have foe strong a natural Operation, as\nto exhale all the Infections warming corroding Vapours. 3. Why may\nnot a 7th Daughter have the same Vertue? So that it appears, albeit,\na happie natural Constitution concurre, yet something in it above\nNature. Therefore every Age hath left some secret for its Discoverie;\nwho knows but this Entercourse betwixt the two Kinds of rationall\nInhabitants of the same Earth may be not only beleived shortly,\nbut as friely entertain\u2019d, and as well known, as now the Airt of\nNavigation, Printing, Limning, riding on Saddles with Stirrups,\nand the Discoveries of Microscopes, which were sometimes a great a\nWonder, and as hard to be beleived.\n\n10. THO I will not be so curious nor so peremptorie as he who will\nprove the Posibility of the Philosopher\u2019s Stone from Scripture,\nJob, 28. 1. 2. Job, 22. 24. 25.; or the Pluralitie of Worlds, from\nJohn, 14. 2. and Hebrews ij. 3.; nor the Circulation of Blood from\nEccles. 12. and 6.; nor the Tanismanical Airt, from the Blind and\nLame mentioned in 2d of Samuel, 5. 6. yet I humblie propose these\nPassages which may give some Light to our Subject at least, and show\nthat this Polity and Rank of People is not a Thing impossible, nor\nthe modest and innocent Scrutiny of them impertinent or unsafe. The\nLegion or Brigad of Spirits (mentioned Mark, 5. 10.) besought our\nSaviour not to send them away out of the Countrey; which shows they\nwere D\u00c6MONES LOCI, Topical Spirits, and peculiar Superintendents and\nSupervisors assign\u2019d to that Province. And the Power over the Nations\ngranted (Rev. 2. 26.) to the Conquerors of Vice and Infidelitie,\nSound somewhat to that Purpose. Tobit had a D\u00e6mon attending Marriage,\nChap. 6. Verse, 15; and in Matth. 4. and 5. ane evill Spirit came in\na Visible Shape to tempt our Saviour, who himselfe denyed not the\nsensible appearing of Ghosts to our Sight, but said, their Bodies\nwere not composed of Flesh and Bones, as ours, Luke, 24. 39. And in\nPhilip. 2. 10. our verie Subterraneans are expressly said to bow to\nthe Name of JESUS. Elisha, not intellectually only, but sensibly, saw\nGehazi when out of the Reach of ane ordinary View. It wants not good\nEvidents that there are more managed by God\u2019s Spirits, good, evill,\nand intermediate Spirits, among Men in this World, then we are aware\nof; the good Spirits ingesting fair and heroick Apprehensions and\nImages of Vertue and the divyne Life, thereby animating us to act for\na higher Happines, according to our Improvement; and relinquishing\nus as strangely upon our Neglect, or our embraceing the deceatfull\nsyrene-like Pictures and Representations of Pleasures and Gain,\npresented to our Imaginations by evill and sportfull Angells, to\nallure to ane unthinking, ungenerous, and sensual Lyfe; non of them\nhaving power to compell us to any Misdemeanour without our flat\nConsent. Moreover, this Life of ours being called a Warfair, and\nGod\u2019s saying that at last there will be no Peace to the Wicked, our\nbussie and silent Companions also being called _Siths_, or _People\nat Rest and Quiet_, in respect of us; and withall many Ghosts\nappearing to Men that want this _Second Sight_, in the very Shapes,\nand speaking the same Language, they did when incorporate and alive\nwith us; a Matter that is of ane old imprescriptible Tradition, (_our\nHighlanders_ making still a Distinction betwixt _Sluagh Saoghalta_\nand _Sluagh Sith_, averring that the Souls goe to the _Sith_ when\ndislodged;) many real Treasures and Murders being discovered by Souls\nthat pass from among our selves, or by the Kindness of these our\nairie Neighbours, non of which Spirits can be altogither inorganical.\nNo less than the Conseits about Purgatory, or a State of Rescue; the\n_Limbus Patrum et Infantum_, Inventions, [which] tho misapplyed, yet\nare not Chim\u00e6ras, and altogither groundless. For _ab origine_, it is\nnothing but blansh and faint Discoveries of this SECRET REPUBLICK\nof ours here treated on, and additional Fictions of Monks doting\nand crazied Heads, our Creed saying that our Saviour descended \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2\n\u1f85\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5, to the invisible Place and People. And many Divines supposing\nthat the Deity appear\u2019d in a visible Shape seen by Adam in the Cooll\nof the Day, and speaking to him with ane audible voice. And Jesus,\nprobably by the Ministery of invisible Attendants, conveying more\nmeat of the same Kind to the fyve Thowsand that wes fed by him with\na very few Loaves and Fishes, (for a new Creation it was not.) The\nZijmjiim and Ochim, in Isa. 13. 21. 22. Thes Satyres, and doolfull\nunknown Creatures of Islands and Deserts, seem to have a plain\nProspect that Way. Finally, the eternal Happiness enjoyed in the 3d\nHeavens, being more mysterious than most of Men take it to be. It is\nnot a sense whollie adduced to Scripture to say, that this SIGHT, and\nthe due Objects of it, hath some Vestige in holy Write, but rather\n\u2019tis modestly deduced from it.\n\n11. It only now remains to ansear the obvious Objections against the\nReality and Lawfullness of this Speculation.\n\nQUESTION 1. How do you salve the Second Sight from Compact and\nWitchcraft?\n\nANSWER. Tho this Correspondence with the Intermediate Unconfirm\u2019d\nPeople (betwixt Man and Angell) be not ordinary to all of us who are\nSuperterraneans, yet this SIGHT falling some Persons by Accident, and\nits being connatural to others from their Birth, the Derivation of it\ncannot always be wicked. A too great Curiositie, indeed, to acquyre\nany unnecessary Airt, may be blameworthy; but diverse of the SECRET\nCOMMONWEALTH may, by Permission, discover themselves as innocently to\nus, who are in another State, as some of us Men do to Fishes, which\nare in another Element, when we plunge and dive into the Bottom of\nthe Seas, their native Region; and in Process of Time we may come to\nconverse as familiarly with these nimble and agile Clans (but with\ngreater Pleasure and Profit,) as we do now with the Chino\u2019s Antipodes.\n\nQUESTION 2. Are they subject to Vice, Lusts? Passion, and Injustice,\nas we who live on the Surface of the Earth?\n\nANSWER. The Seers tell us that these wandering Aereal People have\nnot such an Impetus and fatall Tendency to any Vice as Men, as not\nbeing drenched into so gross and dregy Bodies as we, but yet are\nin ane imperfect State, and some of them making better Essays for\nheroick Actions than others; having the same Measures of Vertue\nand Vice as wee, and still expecting advancement to a higher and\nmore splendid State of Lyfe. One of them is stronger than many\nMen, yet do not incline to hurt Mankind, except by Commission for\na gross Misdemeanour, as the destroying Angell of \u00c6gypt, and the\nAssyrians, Exod. 12. 29. 2 Kings, 10. 35. They haunt most where is\nmost Barbaritie; and therefoir our ignorant Ancestors, to prevent the\nInsults of that strange People, used as rude and course a Remedie;\nsuch as Exorcisms, Donations, and Vows: But how soon ever the true\nPiety prevailed in any Place, it did not put the Inhabitants beyond\nthe Reach and Awthoritie of these subtile inferiour Co-inhabitants\nand Colleagues of ours: The FATHER OF ALL SPIRITS, and the Person\nhimselfe, having the only Command of his Soul and Actions, a\nconcurrance they may have to what is virtuously done; for upon\ncommitting of a foul Deed, one will find a Demure upon his Soul, as\nif his cheerfull Collegue had deserted him.\n\nQUESTION 3. Do these airie Tribes procreate? If so, how are they\nnourished, and at what period of Time do they die?\n\nANSWER. Supposing all Spirits to be created at once in the Beginning,\nSouls to pre-exist and to circle about into several States of\nProbationship; to make them either totally unexcusable, or perfectly\nhappie against the last Day, solves all the Difficulties. But in\nvery Deed, and speaking suteable to the Nature of Things, there is\nno more Absurditie for a Spirit to inform ane Infant in Bodie of\nAirs, than a Bodie composed of dull and drusie Earth; the best of\nSpirits have alwayes delyghted more to appear into aereal, than\ninto terrestrial Bodyes. They feed most what on Quintessences, and\naetheriall Essences. The Pith and Spirits only of Women\u2019s Milk feed\ntheir Children, being artificially conveyed, (as Air and Oyl sink\ninto our Bodies,) to make them vigorous and fresh. And this shorter\nWay of conveying a pure Aliment, (without the usuall Digestions,)\nby transfusing it, and transpyring thorow the Pores into the Veins,\nArteries, and Vessells that supplie the Bodie, is nothing more\nabsurd, than ane Infant\u2019s being fed by the Navel before it is borne,\nor than a Plant, which groweth by attracting a livelie Juice from the\nEarth thorow many small Roots and Tendons, whose courser Pairts be\nadapted and made connatural to the Whole, doth quickly coalesce by\nthe ambient Cold; and so are condens\u2019d and bak\u2019d up into a confirm\u2019d\nWood in the one, and solid Bodie of the Flesh and Bone in the other.\nA Notion which, if intertained and approv\u2019d, may shew that the late\nInvention of soaking and transfusing (not Blood, but) athereal\nvirtuall Spirits, may be usefull both for Nourishment and Health,\nwhereof is a Vestige in the damnable Practise of evill Angells, their\nsucking of Blood and Spirits out of Witches Bodys (till they drew\nthem into a deform\u2019d and dry Leanness,) to feid their own Vehicles\nwithall, leaving what we call the Witches Mark behind; a Spot that I\nhave seen, as a small Mole, horny, and brown-coloured; throw which\nMark, when a large Brass Pin was thrust (both in Buttock, Nose, and\nRooff of the Mouth,) till it bowed and become crooked, the Witches,\nboth Men and Women, nather felt a Pain, nor did bleed, nor knew the\nprecise Time when this was adoing to them, (there Eyes only being\ncovered.) Now the Air being a Body as well as Earth, no Reason can be\ngiven why there may not be Particles of more vivific Spirit form\u2019d\nof it for Procreation, then is possible to be of Earth, which takes\nmore Time and Pains to rarify and ripen it, ere it can come to have\na prolific Virtue. And if our Aping Darlings did not thus procreate,\nthere whole Number would be exhausted after a considerable Space of\nTime. For tho they are of more refyned Bodies and Intellectualls than\nwee, and of far less heavy and corruptive Humours, (which cause a\nDissolution,) yet many of their Lives being dissonant to right Reason\nand their own Laws, and their Vehicles not being wholly frie of Lust\nand Passion, especially of the more spirituall and hautie Sins they\npass (after a long healthy Lyfe) into one Orb and Receptacle fitted\nfor their Degree, till they come under the general Cognizance of the\nlast Day.\n\nQUESTION 4. Doth the acquiring of this Second Sight make any Change\non the Acquirers Body, Mind, or Actions?\n\nANSWER. All uncouth SIGHTS enfeebles the SEER. Daniel, tho familiar\nwith divyne Visions, yet fell frequently doun without Strength,\nwhen dazzled with a Power which had the Ascendant of, and passed\non him beyond his Comprehension, Chap. 10. 8. 17. So our SEER is\nput in a Rapture, Transport, and sort of Death, as divested of his\nBody and all its Senses, when he is first made participant of this\ncurious Peice of Knowledge: But it maketh no Wramp or Strain in the\nUnderstanding of any; only to the Fancy\u2019s of clownish or illiterate\nMen, it creates some Affrightments and Disturbances, because of the\nStrongness of the Showes, and their Unacquaintedness with them. And\nas for their Lyfe, the Persons endued with this Rarity are, for\nthe most Part, candid, honest, and sociable People. If any of them\nbe subject to Immoralities, this obstruse Skill is not to be blamed\nfor it; for unless themselves be the Tempters, the Colonies of the\nInvisible Plantations, with which they intercommune, do provoke them\nby no Villainy or Malifice, nather at their first Acquaintance nor\nafter a long Familiarity.\n\nQUESTION 5. Doth not Sathan interpose in such Cases by many subtile\nunthought Insinuations, as to him who let the Fly, or Familiar, go\nout of the Box, and yet found the Fly of his own putting in, as\nserviceable as the other would have been?\n\nANSWER. The Goodness of the Lyfe, and Designs of the ancient Prophets\nand Seers, was one of the best Prooffs of their Mission.[37]\n\n\n\n\nNOTE.\n\n\nIn trying to collect evidence as to the Rerrick \u201cevil spirit\u201d from\nKirk-Session Records, I have been most kindly assisted by the Rev.\nMr. M\u2018Conachie, Minister of Rerrick. Mr. M\u2018Conachie finds that only\ntwo parishes in the Stewartry, Kells and Girthon, have records\ncontaining the years 1695, 1696. The records of Rerrick do not go so\nfar back. We are therefore left to the pamphlet of 1696, by Telfair,\nwhich is an unusually business-like statement, the names of attesting\nwitnesses being added in the marginal notes. For phenomena singularly\nsimilar to those of Rerrick, _Obeah_, by Mr. H. J. Bell, may be\nconsulted. (_Obeah_, Sampson Low & Co., London, 1889, p. 93.)\n\n\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n_Note_ (_a_), p. xvi.\u2014\u201cThe Psychical Society.\u201d\n\n  The Psychical Society, as far as the writer is aware has not\n  examined officially the old accounts of the phenomena which it\n  investigates at present. The Catalogue of the Society\u2019s Library,\n  however, proves that it does not lack the materials.\n\n\n_Note_ (_b_), p. xxx.\u2014\u201cTheir speech is a kind of whistling.\u201d\n\n  That the voice of spirits is a kind of whistling, twittering,\n  or chirping, is a very widely diffused and ancient belief. The\n  ghosts in Homer twitter like bats; in New Caledonia an English\n  settler found that he could scare the natives from a piece of\n  ground by whistling there at night. Mr. Samuel Wesley says, \u201cI\n  followed the noise into almost every room in the house, both by\n  day and by night, with lights and without, and have sat alone for\n  some time, and, when I heard the noise, spoke to it to tell me\n  what it was, but never heard any articulate voice, and only once\n  or twice two or three feeble squeaks, a little louder than the\n  chirping of a bird, and not like the noise of rats, which I have\n  often heard\u201d (_Memoirs of the Wesley Family_, p. 164). Professor\n  Alexander mentions the \u201cpecular whistling sound\u201d at some\n  manifestations in Rio Janeiro as \u201crather frequent\u201d (_Proc. S. P.\n  R._, xix. 180). Here children were the mediums; how did they get\n  the idea of the traditional whistle? See also the following note.\n\n\n_Note_ (_c_), p. xl.\u2014\u201cNot long after the Spanish conquest of Peru.\u201d\n\n  The phenomena alluded to here are said to have occurred in\n  1549. The evidence is a mere report by Cieza de Leon, who does\n  not pretend to have been an eye-witness. But, as Mr. Clements\n  Markham, Cieza\u2019s editor, remarks, the phenomena are analogous to\n  those of spiritualism. At the very least, we find a belief in\n  this kind of manifestation at a remote date, and in an outlandish\n  place. Cieza says:[38]\n\n  \u201cWhen the Adelantado Belalcazar was governor of the province of\n  Popyan, and when Gomez Hernandez was his lieutenant in the town\n  of Auzerma, there was a chief in a village called Pirsa, almost\n  four leagues from the town, whose brother, a good-looking youth\n  named Tamaraqunga, inspired by God, wished to go to the town of\n  the Christians to receive baptism. But the devils did not wish\n  that he should attain his desire, fearing to lose what seemed\n  secure, so they frightened this Tamaraqunga in such sort that\n  he was unable to do anything. God permitting it, the devils\n  stationed themselves in a place where the chief alone could see\n  them, in the shape of birds called _auras_. Finding himself so\n  persecuted by the devils, he sent in great haste to a Christian\n  living near, who came at once, and hearing what he wanted, signed\n  him with the sign of the cross. But the devils then frightened\n  him more than ever, appearing in hideous forms, which only were\n  visible to him. _The Christian only saw stones falling from the\n  air and heard whistling._ A brother of one Juan Pacheco, citizen\n  of the same town, then holding office in the place of Gomez\n  Hernandez, who had gone to Caramanta, came from Auzerma with\n  another man to visit the Indian chief. They say that Tamaraqunga\n  was much frightened and ill-treated by the devils, who carried\n  him through the air from one place to another in presence of the\n  Christians, he complaining and the devils whistling and shouting.\n  Sometimes when the chief was sitting with a glass of liquor\n  before him, the Christians saw the glass raised up in the air and\n  put down empty, and a short time afterwards the wine was again\n  poured into the cup from the air.\u201d Compare what Ibn Batuta, the\n  old Arab traveller, saw at the court of the King of Delhi. The\n  matter is discussed in Colonel Yule\u2019s _Marco Polo_.\n\n  This may suffice as a specimen of the manifestations. They\n  continued while the chief was on his way to church; he was lifted\n  into the air, and the Christians had to hold him down. In church\n  the ghostly whistling was heard, and stones fell around, while\n  the chief said that he saw devils standing upside down, and\n  himself was thrown into that unusual posture. The combination of\n  convulsive movements with the other phenomena is that which we\n  have already remarked in the cases of \u201cMr. H.\u201d and the grandson\n  of William Morse. Cieza de Leon says that the chief was not\n  troubled after his baptism. The illusions of the newly-converted,\n  so like those of the early Christian hermits, are described by\n  Callaway in his _Zulu Tales_.\n\n\n_Note_ (_d_), p. l.\n\n  Priestley\u2019s explanation of the Epworth disturbances is imposture\n  by the servants, by way of a practical joke. Coleridge, on the\n  other hand, says that \u201call these stories, and I could produce\n  fifty cases at least equally well authenticated, and, as far\n  as the veracity of the narrators, and the single fact of their\n  having seen and heard such and such sights or sounds, above all\n  rational scepticism, are as much like one another as the symptoms\n  of the same disease in different patients.\u201d\n\n  It is a pity that Coleridge did not produce his fifty\n  well-authenticated examples. The similarity of the narratives\n  everywhere, all the world over, is exactly what makes them\n  interesting. Coleridge goes on: \u201cThis indeed I take to be the\n  true and only solution\u2014a contagious nervous disease, the acme,\n  or intensest form of which is catalepsy\u201d (Southey\u2019s _Wesley_,\n  vol. i. p. 14, Coleridge\u2019s note). If there be such a contagious\n  nervous disease, it is a very remarkable malady, and well worth\n  examining. The Wesleys were not alarmed; they bantered the\n  spirit; they wished they could set him to work; and beyond the\n  trembling of the children when Jeffrey was knocking during their\n  sleep, there is no sign of morbid conditions. A neighbouring\n  clergyman, who was asked to pass a night in the house, saw and\n  heard just what the others heard and saw.[39] The hypothesis of a\n  contagious nervous disease, in which every witness exhibits the\n  same symptoms of illusion in all parts of the world, is a theory\n  which needs a good deal of verification. Where material traces\n  of the disturbances remain, it is absurd to speak of contagious\n  hallucinations. We must fall back on the hypothesis of trickery,\n  or must say with Southey, \u201cSuch things may be preternatural,\n  yet not miraculous; they may not be in the ordinary course of\n  nature, yet imply no alteration of its laws.\u201d Any theory is more\n  plausible than the idea that Mr. Wesley and Mr. Hoole were in a\n  state bordering on catalepsy. Believers in hypnotism may think\n  it possible that this, that, and the other persons, if they\n  submitted themselves to hypnotic influences, might have the same\n  hallucinations suggested to them. But there is no evidence, in\n  the Epworth case nor in the Rerrick case, of any such matter.\n  \u201cSo far as we yet know, sensory hallucination of several\n  persons together, _who are not in a hypnotic state_, is a rare\n  phenomenon, and therefore not a probable explanation\u201d (_Proc. S.\n  P. R._, iv. 62). There is some evidence that epileptic patients\n  suffer from the same illusions\u2014for example, the presence of a\n  woman in a red cloak; and in _delirium tremens_ the \u201chorrors\u201d are\n  usually similar. But that all the persons who enter a given house\n  should be impressed by the same material illusions, as of chairs\n  and tables, and even beds (like Nancy Wesley\u2019s) flying about, is\n  a theory more incredible than the hypothesis either of trickery\n  or of abnormal occurrences. When the disturbances always cease on\n  the arrival of a competent witness, then it is not hard to say\n  which theory we ought to choose. For imposture see next note.\n\n\n_Note_ (_e_), p. lvii.\u2014\u201cChildren at _s\u00e9ances_.\u201d\n\n  The phenomena discussed are most frequently connected with\n  children, who may be regarded either as mediums or impostors,\n  conscious or unconscious. In _Proc. S. P. R._, iv. 25-42,\n  Professor Barrett gives the case of a little girl whom he\n  knew. She had raps wherever she went, even when alone with the\n  Professor, who made her stand with her hands against the wall,\n  at the greatest stretch of her arms, \u201cwith the muscles of the\n  legs and arms all in tension.\u201d \u201cA brisk pattering of raps\u201d\n  followed Professor Barrett\u2019s request. But he also mentions\n  a boy \u201cof juvenile piety,\u201d who \u201cfor twelve months deceived\n  his father, a distinguished surgeon, and all his family, by\n  pretended spiritualistic manifestations, which appeared at first\n  sight inexplicable, until the cunning trickery of the lad was\n  discovered.\u201d The only difference between these cases is that an\n  \u201coutsider\u201d discovered trickery in one instance and not in the\n  other. This is a very ticklish kind of certainty, and it is plain\n  that children can do a great deal in the way of mere imposture.\n  The state of any young Wesley who might have been caught out\n  is unenviable. Verily Mr. Wesley would not have spared for his\n  crying.\n\n\n_Note_ (_f_), p. lxii.\u2014\u201cThe pricking of witches.\u201d\n\n  It is pretty certain that some of there unlucky old women were\n  pricked \u201cin an\u00e6sthetic areas.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_Note_ (_a_), p. 8.\u2014\u201cThese Arrows that fly in the Dark.\u201d\n\n  The arrows are the ancient flint arrow-heads, which Mr. Kirk\n  later asserts to be too delicate for human artificers. On this\n  matter Isabel Gowdie, the witch, confessed, \u201cAs for Elf arrows,\n  the Divell sharpes them with his ain hand, and deliveris them to\n  Elf boys, wha whyttlis and dightis them with a sharp thing lyk a\n  paking needle; bot whan I was in Elfland, I saw them whyttling\n  and dighting them.\u201d Isabel described the manner in which witches\n  use this artillery: \u201cWe spang them from the naillis of our\n  thoombs,\u201d and with these she and her friends shot and slew many\n  men and women. The confessions of Isabel Gowdie are in the third\n  volume of Pitcairn\u2019s _Scottish Criminal Trials_. They contain\n  little or nothing of the \u201cpsychical;\u201d all is mere folk-lore,\n  fairy tales, and charms derived from the old Catholic liturgy.\n  The poor woman, having begun to fable, fabled with manifest\n  enjoyment and considerable power. It seems from her account that\n  each \u201cCovin,\u201d or assembly of witches, had a maiden in it, and\n  \u201cwithout our maiden we could do no great thing.\u201d On the other\n  hand, an extraordinary case of an epileptic boy, who was hurled\n  about, and beheld distant occurrences in trance, may be read in\n  Chambers\u2019s _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, iii. 449. Candles used\n  to go out when this boy, a third son of Lord Torpichen, was in\n  the room. The date (1720) and the place (Mid-Lothian) prevented\n  any one from being burned for bewitching him. A fast was\n  proclaimed. The boy recovered, and did good service in the navy.\n  He is said to have been \u201clevitated\u201d frequently.\n\n\n_Note_ (_b_), p. 11.\u2014\u201cMilk thorow a hair-tedder.\u201d\n\n  Isabel Gowdie confessed to stealing milk from the cow by magic.\n  \u201cWe plait the rope the wrong way, in the Devil\u2019s name, and we\n  draw the tether between the cow\u2019s hind feet, and out betwixt her\n  forward feet, in the Devil\u2019s name, and thereby take with us the\n  cow\u2019s milk.\u201d\n\n  Mr. Kirk, it will be observed, does not connect the Fairy kingdom\n  with that of Satan, as some of his contemporaries were inclined\n  to do.\n\n\n  _Note_ (_c_), p. 19.\u2014\u201cThe Wreath (wraith) ... is only exuvious\n  fumes of the Man, ... exhaled and congealed into a various\n  likeness.\u201d\n\n  What is this theory of \u201cMen illiterate and unwary in their\n  Observations,\u201d but Von Hartmann\u2019s doctrine of \u201cthe nerve force\n  which issues from the body of the medium, and then proceeds\n  to set up fresh centres of force in all neighbouring objects\n  ... while it still remains under the control of the medium\u2019s\n  unconscious will\u201d? See Mr. Walter Leaf on Hartmann\u2019s _Der\n  Geisterhypothese des Spiritismus_, _Proc. S. P. R._, xix. 293.\n  It is amusing to find a learned German coinciding in scientific\n  theory with \u201cignorant and unwary\u201d Highland seers. Both regard the\n  phantasms as manifestations of \u201cnerve-force,\u201d \u201cexuvious fumes,\u201d\n  and as \u201cneither souls nor counterfeiting spirits.\u201d\n\n\n_Note_ (_d_), p. 23.\u2014\u201cFairy hills.\u201d\n\n  The hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition of an\n  ancient race dwelling in subterranean homes, is older than Mr.\n  McRitchie or Sir Walter Scott. In his _Scottish Scenery_ (1803),\n  Dr. Cririe suggests that the germ of the Fairy myth is the\n  existence of dispossessed aboriginals dwelling in subterranean\n  houses, in some places called Picts\u2019 houses, covered with\n  artificial mounds. The lights seen near the mounds are lights\n  actually carried by the mound-dwellers. Dr. Cririe works out\n  in some detail \u201cthis marvellously absurd supposition,\u201d as the\n  _Quarterly Review_ calls it (vol. lix., p. 280).\n\n\n_Note_ (_e_), p. 30.\u2014\u201cMaster Great-rake, the Irish Stroaker.\u201d\n\n  Glanvill, in _Essays on Several Important Subjects_ (1675),\n  prints a letter from an Irish Bishop on Greatrex, the \u201cstroker.\u201d\n  He cured diseases \u201cby a sanative contagion.\u201d According to\n  the Bishop, Greatrex had an impression that he could do\n  \u201cfaith-healing,\u201d and found that he could, but whether by virtue\n  of some special power or by \u201cthe people\u2019s fancy,\u201d he knew not.\n  He frequently failed, and his patients had relapses. See his own\n  _Account of Strange Cures: in a Letter to Robert Boyle_. London,\n  1666.\n\n\n\n\nPOSTSCRIPT.\n\n\nIt has been said that no trace can be found of a printed _Secret\nCommonwealth_ before 1815. The present editor is inclined to believe\nthat in 1699 the work was still in manuscript. In a letter of Lord\nReay\u2019s to Mr. Samuel Pepys (Oct. 24, 1699), he says, \u201cI have got a\nmanuscript since I last came to Scotland, whose author, though a\nparson, after giving a very full account of the Second Sight, defends\nthere being no sin in it.... With the first opportunity I shall send\nyou a copy of his books.\u201d This description answers very well to Mr.\nKirk\u2019s treatise, and to no other contemporary work with which I\nam acquainted, unless it be _A Discourse of the Second Sight_, by\nthe Rev. Mr. John Frazer, minister of Tiree and Coll. There were,\ndoubtless, other parsons busy with these topics; and the minister of\nRerrick informs me that several MSS. by Mr. Telfair, author of the\ntract already quoted, were only dispersed about 1877. Examples of\nthese clerical psychical researchers may be found in C. K. Sharpe\u2019s\nprefatory notice to Law\u2019s _Memorials_ (Edinburgh, 1818). Such an\none is the Rev. Robert Knox, who writes from Cavers to the Rev. Mr.\nWyllie on the case of Sir George Maxwell of Pollock. He dare not\nattribute the mediumship of Janet Douglas \u201cpositively to an evil\ncause.... _It is our ignorance of any natural agent_ that makes us\nimpute the effects to evil spirits\u201d (_Memorials_, p. lxxv). Moreover,\nLord Reay writes as if his \u201cparson\u201d were still alive in 1699,\nwhereas Mr. Kirk \u201cwent to his own herd\u201d in 1692. \u201cI am promised the\nacquaintance of this man, of which I am very covetous.\u201d Lord Reay was\nat Durness, and may not have heard of the mishap which carried the\nminister of Aberfoyle into Fairyland. It may be added that Dr. Hickes\nwrites to Mr. Pepys about neolithic arrow heads as \u201ca subject of near\nalliance to that of the Second Sight, and of witchcraft, which is\nakin to them both.\u201d He also speaks of \u201ca very tragical, but authentic\nstory told me by the Duke of Lauderdale, which happened in the family\nof Sir John Dalrymple, Laird of Stair, and then Lord President. His\nGrace had no sooner told it me, but my Lord President coming into\nthe room, he desired my Lord to tell it himself, which, altering his\ncountenance, he did with a very melancholick air; but it is so long\nsince that I dare not trust my memory with relating the particulars\nof it\u201d (June 19, 1700).\n\nDr. Hickes calls the first Lord Stair \u201cJohn,\u201d Scott calls him\n\u201cJames.\u201d There can be no doubt that Dr. Hickes refers to the woful\ntale of the bride of Lammermoor, who died on September 12, 1669.\nLaw, in his _Memorials_, says she \u201cwas harled through the house\u201d\u2014by\nspirits, he means. This \u201charling\u201d or tossing about of a patient,\nprobably epileptic, we have noticed in many of the old stories,\nas in the modern instance of \u201cMr. H.\u201d Now, in his Introduction to\nthe _Bride of Lammermoor_, Scott gives all the authorities at his\ncommand: Law, Symson\u2019s _Elegie_, and Hamilton of Whitelaw\u2019s _Satire_,\nwhich avers that Satan seized the bride and \u201cthrew the bridegroom\nfrom the nuptial bed.\u201d Sir Walter was unacquainted with Dr. Hickes\u2019\nhint, which actually produces the bride\u2019s own father as evidence\nfor a story which was plainly regarded as supernatural. It is most\nunlucky that Dr. Hickes distrusted his memory. However, it is\nsomething to feel assured that \u201ca memorable story\u201d was accepted at\nthe time by the family of the bride, and was known to Lauderdale.[40]\nLauderdale himself, by the way, was a psychical researcher, and\naccommodated Richard Baxter with some accounts of haunted houses,\npublished in his _World of Spirits_. One story of a haunted house,\nwhere a spectral hand appeared, he gives on the authority of \u201cthe\nRev. James Sharp,\u201d afterwards the famous Archbishop. Lauderdale\ninspected the famed Loudun nuns, and saw only \u201cwanton wenches singing\nbaudy songs in French.\u201d His letter to Mr. Baxter is dated March 12,\n1659. His best haunted house is of the Epworth type.\n\n\n                _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.\n                        _Edinburgh and London_\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Note (_a_), p. 81.\n\n[2] _The Testimony of Tradition_, p. 75.\n\n[3] In Father Macdonald\u2019s book on Moidart.\n\n[4] A much odder case is reported. Two young men photographed a\nreach of a river. In the photograph, when printed, was visible the\ndead body of a woman floating on the stream. The water was dragged.\nNothing was found; but two or three days later a girl drowned herself\nin the pool! As the Reports of the Psychical Society sometimes say,\n\u201cno confirmation has been obtained;\u201d but this is a pleasing instance\nof the Reflex, and of second sight in a photographic camera.\n\n[5] It is also published in Mrs. Graham Tomson\u2019s _Border Ballads_\n(Walter Scott).\n\n[6] Note (_b_), p. 81.\n\n[7] Many instances may be read of in a little anonymous work,\n_Obeah_. The scene is Hayti.\n\n[8] Note (_c_), p. 82.\n\n[9] _Proc. S. P. R._, July 1891, February 1892.\n\n[10] As far as the author has watched _s\u00e9ances_ personally, they have\nended in nothing but \u201cgiggling and making giggle.\u201d\n\n[11] Some _s\u00e9ances_ were held at \u2014\u2014 College, Oxford, about 1875. The\nperformers were all athletic undergraduates. The breath of chill air\nwas always felt \u201cbefore anything happened,\u201d and, when the out-college\nmen had gone, the owner of the rooms, in his bed-chamber, was\ndisturbed by the racket which continued in the sitting-room. But I\nknow not if he had sported his oak!\n\n[12] _An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences_, by\nIncrease Mather. Boston, 1684; London, Reeves & Turner, 1890, pp.\n101-111.\n\n[13] _Diseases of the Nervous System_, iii. 249. London, 1890.\n\n[14] _Proc. S. P. R._, xix. 160-173.\n\n[15] _Op. cit._, pp. 173-189.\n\n[16] _Memoirs of the Wesley Family_, by Adam Clarke, LL.D., F.A.S.\nLondon, 1823, pp. 161-200.\n\n[17] Letter to Terry, April 30. Lockhart, v. 309.\n\n[18] Scott to Terry, May 16.\n\n[19] Susannah Wesley to Samuel Wesley, March 27, 1717.\n\n[20] _Op. cit._, p. 193.\n\n[21] _Op. cit._, p. 194.\n\n[22] Note (_d_), p. 83.\n\n[23] _Memoirs of the Wesley Family_, p. 198.\n\n[24] Edinburgh: Mossman, 1696. There is a London reprint, of which I\nhave a copy. The pamphlet is republished in Mr. Stevenson\u2019s edition\nof Sinclair\u2019s _Satan\u2019s Invisible World Discovered_, 1685-1871,\nAppendix, p. xix.\n\n[25] Compare similar phenomena in _Obeah_, and in Peruvian example,\nnote (_c_), p. 82.\n\n[26] Glanvil\u2019s version is given in Sinclair\u2019s _Satan\u2019s Invisible\nWorld_.\n\n[27] Note (_e_), p. 85.\n\n[28] Note (_f_), p. 86.\n\n[29] The \u201cearth-houses\u201d in Scotland and the isles, which seem to\nhave been inhabited at an early period, can seldom be called hills\nor mounds; being built for purposes of concealment, they are usually\nalmost on a level with the surrounding land. The _Fairy hills_, on\nthe other hand, are higher and much more notable, and were probably\nsepulchral. This, at least, is the impression left on me by Mr.\nMacRitchie\u2019s book, _The Underground Life_. (Privately printed.\nEdinburgh, 1892.)\n\n[30] Note (_a_), p. 86.\n\n[31] Note (_b_), p. 87.\n\n[32] The _Death-candle_ is called DRUIG.\n\n[33] Note (_c_), p. 87.\n\n[34] Note (_d_), p. 88.\n\n[35] Note (_e_), p. 88.\n\n[36] Thus in the Manuscript, which is only a Transcript of Mr. Kirk\u2019s\nOriginal. Perhaps M\u2018Intyre?\n\n[37] The original Transcriber has added: \u201cSee the Rest in a little\nManuscript belonging to Coline Kirk,\u201d probably the author\u2019s son of\nthat name.\u2014A.L.\n\n[38] _The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon_, ch. cxviii.\n\n[39] Mr. Hoole\u2019s account, _Memoirs of the Wesleys_, p. 91.\n\n[40] The letters to Pepys are quoted from his Correspondence,\npublished as Vol. X. of his _Diary_ (New York, 1885).\n\n\n\n\n                      Biblioth\u00e8que de Carabas.\n\n         _Crown 8vo Volumes, Printed on Hand-made Paper, with\n                Wide Margins and Uncut Edges, done up\n                    in Japanese Vellum Wrappers._\n\n                     The Prices are net for cash.\n\n               _THESE VOLUMES WILL NEVER BE REPRINTED._\n\n\n  =I. CUPID AND PSYCHE=: The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of\n  the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche. Done into English by WILLIAM\n  ADLINGTON, of University College in Oxford. With a Discourse on\n  the Fable by ANDREW LANG, late of Merton College, in Oxford.\n  Frontispiece by W. B. RICHMOND, and Verses by the EDITOR, MAY\n  KENDALL, J. W. MACKAIL, F. LOCKER-LAMPSON, and W. H. POLLOCK.\n  (lxxxvi. 66 pp.) 1887. _Out of print._\n\n  =II. EUTERPE=: The Second Book of the Famous History of\n  Herodotus. Englished by B. R. 1584. Edited by ANDREW LANG,\n  with Introductory Essays on the Religion and the good Faith of\n  Herodotus. Frontispiece by A. W. TOMSON; and Verses by the EDITOR\n  and GRAHAM R. TOMSON. (xlviii. 174 pp.) 1888. _Out of print._\n\n  =III. THE FABLES OF BIDPAI; or, The Morall Philosophie of Doni=:\n  Drawne out of the auncient writers, a work first compiled in\n  the Indian tongue. Englished out of Italian by THOMAS NORTH,\n  Brother to the Right Honourable Sir ROGER NORTH, Knight, Lord\n  NORTH of Kyrtheling, 1570. Now again edited and induced by\n  JOSEPH JACOBS, together with a Chronologico-Biographical Chart\n  of the translations and adaptations of the Sanskrit Original,\n  and an Analytical Concordance of the Stories. With a full-page\n  Illustration by EDWARD BURNE JONES, A.R.A., Frontispiece from\n  a 16th century MS. of the Anvari Suhaili, and facsimiles of\n  Woodcuts in the Italian Doni of 1532. (lxxxii. 264 pp.) 1888.\n  _Nearly out of print._ The few remaining copies, 12_s._\n\n  =IV.-V. THE FABLES OF \u00c6SOP=, as first printed by W. CAXTON\n  in 1484. Now again edited and induced by J. JACOBS. With\n  Introductory Verses by Mr. ANDREW LANG. 2 Vols. (280 pp., 320\n  pp.) 1890. \u00a31, 1_s._\n\n  \u201cCes deux volumes de la \u2018Biblioth\u00e8que de Carabas\u2019 (Bidpai et\n  \u00c6sop) constituent l\u2019examen le plus complet et le plus savant qui\n  ait \u00e9t\u00e9 fait depuis Benfey de cette grande question de l\u2019origine\n  et de la migration des fables, et la critique de l\u2019auteur s\u2019y\n  montre partout aussi sage que bien inform\u00e9e.\u201d\u2014M. A. BARTH, in\n  _M\u00e9lusine_.\n\n  \u201cThe degree and quality of the editor\u2019s learning are not to\n  be doubted; it is varied, profound, and without a spice of\n  pedantry.\u201d\u2014_Scots Observer._\n\n  =VI. THE ATTIS OF CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS.= Translated into\n  English Verse, with Dissertations on the Myth of Attis, on the\n  Origin of Tree-Worship, and on the Galliambic Metre. By GRANT\n  ALLEN, B.A., formerly Postmaster of Merton College, Oxford. (xvi.\n  154 pp.) 1892. 7_s._ 6_d._\n\n  \u201cThe paramount interest of this book lies in its two\n  disquisitions upon the meaning of the Attis myth and upon the\n  meaning of tree-worship.\u201d\u2014_Speaker._\n\n  \u201cAs a contribution to folk-lore it is of real value and interest,\n  and to a considerable extent new in the line it takes.\u201d\u2014_Literary\n  World._\n\n  \u201cThis theory, in which \u2018the ghost plays ... the same part that\n  guano and phosphates play to-day,\u2019 when stated thus baldly sounds\n  strange, but when read in the author\u2019s own vivacious narrative,\n  along with the excellent illustrations which he brings forward,\n  it is singularly attractive.\u201d\u2014_Bookman._\n\n  \u201cHighly interesting, and at this time will probably fall in with\n  prevailing opinions.\u201d\u2014ROBINSON ELLIS in _The Academy_.\n\n  \u201cWhether readers adopt Mr. Allen\u2019s conclusions or net, all\n  must agree that he has propounded a most interesting theory,\n  and stated it in a manner forcible and stimulating to\n  thought.\u201d\u2014_Nation._\n\n  =VII. PLUTARCH\u2019S ROMANE QUESTIONS.= Translated, A.D. 1603, by\n  PHILEMON HOLLAND. Now again Edited by FRANK BYRON JEVONS, M. A.,\n  Classical Tutor to the University of Durham. With Dissertations\n  on Italian Cults, Myths, Taboos, Man Worship, Aryan Marriage,\n  Sympathetic Magic, and the Eating of Beans. (cxxviii. 170 pp.)\n  1892. 10_s._\n\n  \u201cMr. Jevons\u2019s essay is learned and interesting, and in some cases\n  he has probably found out the reason of behaviour which the\n  Romans could not account for themselves.\u201d\u2014_Daily News_, Jan. 10,\n  1893.\n\n  \u201cAll antiquaries and folk-lorists will thank him for enabling\n  them to peruse in a convenient form that part of Plutarch\u2019s\n  \u2018Moralia\u2019 which bears upon their science.\u201d\u2014_Daily Chronicle_,\n  Jan. 6, 1893.\n\n  \u201cAn admirable essay on Roman religion and on the characteristics\n  of Aryan religion.\u201d\u2014_Glasgow Herald_, Jan. 5, 1893.\n\n  \u201cHolland\u2019s quaintness and homely vigour make his translations\n  delightful reading. A most valuable and interesting introduction\n  is supplied by a sound scholar and shrewd thinker, Mr. F. B.\n  Jevons.\u201d\u2014_Athen\u00e6um_, Jan. 7, 1893.\n\n  \u201cHolland\u2019s translation, a delightful piece of Elizabethan\n  English, as Mr. Jevons says, provides a seemly garb for\n  Plutarch\u2019s ancient reasonings. Mr. Jevons\u2019s own contribution\n  to the volume is, as a help towards a true interpretation, of\n  scarcely less value than the translation itself.\u201d\u2014_Scotsman_,\n  Dec. 26, 1892.\n\n  \u201cMr. Jevons\u2019s introduction is at once learned and\n  readable.\u201d\u2014_Times_, Dec. 22, 1892.\n\n  \u201cThe editor has supplied an excellent commentary upon some of\n  the most striking parts in a series of dissertations on Italian\n  cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, Aryan marriage, sympathetic\n  magic, and the eating of beans. The mere titles of these essays\n  show the curiosity and interest of the problems dealt with in the\n  text.\u201d\u2014_Manchester Guardian_, Jan. 10, 1893.\n\n\n\n\n  TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE\n\n  Except for the changes below, all spelling in the text has been\n  left unchanged.\n\n  Main text (probable printer\u2019s errors):\n  Pg 1: \u2018heretofioir going\u2019 replaced by \u2018heretofoir going\u2019.\n        (befoir, therefoir and foirtell all appear in the text)\n  Pg 7: \u2018by ws\u2019 replaced by \u2018by us\u2019.\n  Pg 18: \u2018unaictve State\u2019 replaced by \u2018unactive State\u2019.\n  Pg 67: \u2018bewixt the two\u2019 replaced by \u2018betwixt the two\u2019.\n\n  Lang\u2019s Notes and Footnotes:\n  Pg 86: \u2018distingnished surgeon\u2019 replaced by \u2018distinguished surgeon\u2019.\n\n  Publisher\u2019s Catalog:\n  \u201cde l\u2019ateur\u201d replaced by \u201cde l\u2019auteur\u201d.\n  \u201cPlutarch\u2019s \u2018Moralio\u2019\u201d replaced by \u201cPlutarch\u2019s \u2018Moralia\u2019\u201d.","title":"The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":30003}