SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 47 



is approaching, as the banshee comes to warn of approaching death. On 

 the sea coast and by the lochs it is those who have been drowned that are 

 supposed to become fairies. 



Quite a different view is that the fairies represent a heavenly race, and 

 in short are a special group of the fallen angels ; those, namely, who, when 

 the gates of heaven and of hell were simultaneously closed found themselves 

 in the middle world between the two, and, consequently, had remained ever 

 since about the earth, excluded both from heaven and from hell, although 

 some of the kinder reporters seemed to hope that salvation would come for 

 them at the end of time. The " fallen angels " theory is the most common 

 in Scotland. 



Many, however, of the spirits connected with the fairies, as the brownie 

 and the kelpie, seem to represent spirits neither of the one class nor of the 

 other, but reminiscences of the old nature gods. The certain part of all 

 these beliefs is that the fairies are spirits, that they are immortal, relatively 

 to man at least, that they are always youthful, that being spirits they can 

 appear and disappear at will, and that in the main they are dangerous to 

 man ; hence the euphemistic names by which they are addressed or spoken 

 of, the " good people," the " kind people," the " little people," the " fair 

 people," and so on. 



Why should this medley of fanciful superstitions be regarded as throwing 

 light upon the primitive mind ? The answer is that it has really come down 

 from primitive times, the oldest histories, the oldest collections of tales of 

 heroes or gods contain just such materials, whether in Patagonia, in the 

 East, in Greece, in Russia, or in England and Scotland ; perhaps in the 

 Celtic tales there is more of romance, more of mystery than with other races, 

 still the foundation is the same ; beliefs in beings of an invisible other 

 world, gifted with eternal youth, capable of interfering with and of being 

 influenced by men, in whose world time goes for man at a miraculous rate, 

 in human beings changed into animals, and in animals who are really gods 

 ready to help or to injure man, these have been and still are world-wide.* 

 But we have not only the tales, we have also many customs ; some in our 

 own country slowly undergoing dissolution, but its remoter corners still 

 living, and in backward parts vigorous and flourishing. These are the 



*See S. Hartland's "Science of Fairy Tales," and J. A. MaoCulloch's "Childhood of Fiction." 



