CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



obstruct the building of a church or other good 

 work. Nor is the medieval devil a whit more 

 acute than the heathen giants were ; in the 

 numerous bargains he makes with men about 

 building barns, bridges, and churches, he is 

 uniformly done out of his hire by some quibble 

 or trick. 



Dwarfs and Fairies. In the Scandinavian 

 mythology there were two races of alfr or elves 

 the light elves, bright, beautiful, and friendly 

 to men ; the dark elves, misshapen, malicious, 

 and dwelling under the earth. The latter became 

 the dark or gray dwarfs that work in mines. (The 

 word elf, we may remark, signifies ' white,' and is 

 connected with the Latin albus.} The Celtic 

 nations had a belief in similar beings, and the 

 whole have become mixed in inextricable con- 

 fusion. Their character has also been affected 

 by the notions that came to be prevalent regard- 

 ing the devil and good and evil angels. Beings 

 of this class are of mixed disposition ; they have 

 all a delight in playing tricks on mankind, but 

 some are more spiteful than others. Many of 

 them enter into friendly and confidential relations 

 with men, forming a class of domestic spirits, 

 acting often as drudges (brownies, &c.). To those 

 who keep in favour with them, they are all ready 

 to grant aid, especially in skilled operations, such 

 as smith-work. 



The fairies proper differ from the other dwarf- 

 ish beings in the beauty of their forms, being 

 represented as beautiful miniatures of human 

 beings. They represent the light elves of north- 

 ern mythology. In Scotland, and other countries 

 where the Celtic traditions predominated, the 

 fairies retained in part the original and better 

 features of their character, and were usually called 

 the Good Neighbours, or the Men of Peace ; but 

 even there their character was deteriorated by a 

 considerable leaven of dwarfish malignancy. This 

 evil part of their nature caused much annoyance 

 to mankind, and more especially their propensity 

 to the kidnapping of human beings. Unchristened 

 infants were chiefly liable to this calamity, but 

 sometimes adult men and women were also carried 

 off. The reason for these abductions is to be 

 found, according to the authorities on this subject, 

 in the necessity which the fairies lay under of 

 paying ' kane,' as it was called, to the master-fiend ; 

 or, in other words, of yielding up one of their 

 number septennially into his hands by way of 

 tribute. They greatly preferred on such occasions 

 to make a scapegoat of some member of the 

 human family. 



The necessity for this kidnapping shews the 

 fairies to have been family people. They are 

 always represented as living, like mankind, in 

 large societies, and under a monarchical form of 

 government. The Salique law seems to have had 

 no countenance among them ; for we more often 

 hear of fairy queens than of fairy kings, though 

 both are frequently spoken of. The Land of 

 Faerie was situated somewhere under ground, and 

 there the royal fairies held their court In their 

 palaces, all was beauty and splendour. Their 

 pageants and processions were far more magnifi- 

 cent than any that Eastern sovereigns could get 

 up, or poets devise. They rode upon milk-white 

 steeds. Their dresses, of brilliant green, were 

 rich beyond conception ; and when they mingled 

 in the dance, or moved in procession among the 



440 



shady groves, or over the verdant lawns of earth, 

 they were entertained with delicious music, such 

 as mortal lips or hands never could emit or pro- 

 duce. At the same time, most of the legendary 

 tales on the subject represent these splendours 

 as shadowy and unsubstantial. When the eye of 

 a seer, or any one gifted with supernatural powers, 

 was turned upon the fairy pageantries or banquets, 

 the illusion vanished. Their seeming treasures 

 of gold and silver became slate-stones, their 

 stately halls became damp caverns, and they 

 themselves, from being miniature models of 

 human beauty, became personifications of fan- 

 tastic ugliness. In short, the Fairy Eden was 

 a day-dream a thing of show without substance. 



This is the general account given of the fairy 

 state, but few of the legends on the subject agree 

 on all points. From a very early period, however, 

 every fairy annalist concurred in giving to the 

 king and queen of the fairies the names of Oberon 

 and Titania. Oberon is the Elb-rich, or Elf-king, 

 of the Germans, which was changed into Auberon 

 or Oberon by the old French romancers, who 

 represented him as a tiny creature of surpassing 

 loveliness, with a crown of jewels on his head, 

 and a horn in his hand that set all who heard it 

 a-dancing. 



It was the belief that unchristened children were 

 peculiarly liable to be carried off by the fairies, 

 who sometimes left little changelings of their 

 own blood in place of the infants of mortal kind. 

 Various charms were used in Scotland for the 

 restoration of stolen children. The most effica- 

 cious was believed to be the roasting of the sup- 

 posititious child upon live embers, when it was 

 understood that the false infant would disappear, 

 and the true one be left in its place. The posses- 

 sion of what are called toad-stones was also held 

 to be an efficient preservative against the abduc- 

 tion of children by the fairies. 



In some instances, fairies came to be mixed 

 up with witchcraft. Some of the poor creatures 

 arraigned in Scotland in past times for witchcraft 

 admitted having had correspondence with them. 

 There can be little doubt that these wretched 

 beings, whom the torture forced into the confes- 

 sion of some kind or other of supernatural traffic, 

 were induced to admit an association with fairies, 

 in the hope that this would be looked upon as less 

 sinful than a league with the enemy of mankind. 

 The trials of Bessie Dunlop and Alison Pearson, 

 in the years 1576 and 1588, illustrate this state- 

 ment. Bessie Dunlop avowed that her familiar 

 was one Thorn Reid, the ghost of a soldier slain at 

 Pinkie in 1547, and who, after his death, seems to 

 have become an inmate of Elf-land. She related 

 that this Thorn Reid, who appeared frequently to 

 her in the likeness of an elderly man, gray-coated 

 and gray-bearded, wished her to go with him to 

 the fairy country, and gave her herbs to cure 

 various diseases. He even once brought to her 

 the queen of the fairies, who, to the confusion of 

 poetry, was a fat woman, fond of ale, and, in 

 short, most unlike the Titania of romance. 

 Alison Pearson also admitted her familiarity with 

 the fairies, from whom she frequently received 

 herbs for the cure of disease. It is remarkable 

 that Patrick Adamson, an able scholar and divine, 

 who was created archbishop of St Andrews by 

 James VI., actually took the medicines prescribed 

 by this poor woman, in the hope that they wo " 



uld 



