494 Sir George Douglas [Jan. 29, 



two of the most curious pieces of composition known to me are, a 

 pamphlet on the Second Sight written by a Minister of Tiree, and 

 an article on the Fairies written by a Minister of Aberfoyle, — both in 

 the Seventeenth Century. Both writers were firm believers in the 

 superstitions upon which they wrote ; and in both cases the gross 

 ignorance and darkness of the writer's mind is only equalled by the 

 authoritative weight and pedantry of his style. 



The fairies, however, and that rough, grotesque, humoursome, but 

 good-natured figure, the Brownie, occupy but a small space in the 

 popular mythology in comparison with such shapes of awe, of terror, 

 or of ill-omen, as the ghosts, " more real than living men," which the 

 Highland Ezekiel saw borne past him on the wind in Morven, or as 

 the witch, the wraith, the " warning," the water-kelpie, the man or 

 woman who has the second-sight. 



The characteristic rough humour of the Scotch peasant, as it 

 affects the creations of the fancy, embodies itself almost exclusively in 

 the Brownie. The Brownie was a wild, half -human, creature, whose 

 custom it was to devote himself to domestic service in a particular 

 family. But he worked from perfectly disinterested motives ; and 

 so strained was his sense of self-respect that, on the slightest attempt 

 to recompense his services, he would disappear for ever. The Brown 

 Man of the Moors is another of these twilight, or half-seen, creations ; 

 but he is not of a domestic character. Wanderers upon lonely moors 

 might, on rare occasions, catch a glimpse of him lurking in a hollow, — 

 a short, squat, powerful figure, earth-coloured, or of the tint of the 

 surrounding ling. " Shellycoat " dwelt in the waters. His coat was 

 hung with shells, which clattered as he moved ; and his delight was 

 in mischief, — such as, for instance, like Will-o'-the-Wisp, in leading 

 travellers astray. " Nuckelavee," the Sea-Devil of the Orkney 

 Islanders, a more formidable phantom, seems to be shaped like a man 

 above and like a horse below ; and his peculiar horror lies in the fact 

 that, being skinless, his raw red flesh is exposed to view. Then there 

 is the Eiver Horse, a supernatural being supposed to feed, in the 

 shape of a horse, on the shores of Loch Lochy, and when dis- 

 turbed to plunge into its waters. The Eiver Bull it is who 

 emerges from the lake to visit the cow-pastures; and cow-herds 

 pretend that they can distinguish the calves of which he is the 

 sire. But a more awe-inspiring water-spirit than any of these was 

 the Kelpie ; whose appearances were generally timed cither to give 

 warning of death by cbowning, or to lure men to a watery grave ; 

 and who illustrates the feeling — as I have already observed, so 

 insistent throughout Scottish mythology — of the inveterate hostility 

 of Nature. The elements are oui- enemies, and wage an internecine 

 war. 



Perhaps the most valuable element in the peasant-tales, con- 

 sidered from the poetic standpoint, is the human element. The 

 juxta-position of the supernatural brings out in extraordinary strength 

 certain traits of the human. For instance : the strangest, the most 

 startling, and to us the most incomprehensible, of all the Scotch 



