Natural History of the Little People. 7 



to catch one. The people went out into the woods and felled a 

 tree. At the sound of its falling the brownies came running as 

 hard as they could to see what was done with it, so they sat down 

 by the woodmen and talked to them about one thing and another. 

 When the wedges were driven into the felled tree it would often 

 happen that a brownie's little tail would fall into the cleft, and 

 when the wedge was driven out, the tail was fast, and brownie was 

 a prisoner." It need hardly be pointed out what an important 

 fact the tail is in throwing light upon their original ancestry. The 

 only thing needed to clinch the argument seems to be the dis- 

 covery of a cloven hoof. 



The elves are a class of little people who are sometimes held 

 to be of a different origin from the fairies and brownies. Here 

 again is a wide scope for investigation by our Welsh folklorists. 

 It will be best to give the account as far as possible in the simple 

 language of the Iceland peasant, who sincerely believed in the 

 reality of it all. "One time the Almighty came to Adam and 

 Eve. They received him heartily, and showed him all their 

 household possessions, as well as their children, whom he thought 

 very promising. He asked Eve whether they had no more 

 children than those she had just shown. She said no ; but the 

 fact was that Eve had not got some of the children washed, and 

 was ashamed to let them be seen, so she kept them out of the way. 

 God knew this, and said. ' That which has been hid from me 

 shall also be hid from men. 7 These children now became invisible 

 to mortals, and lived in holts and heaths, in knolls and stones. 

 From these are the elves descended, but men are descended from 

 those of Eve's children which she showed. Mortal men can never 

 see elves, unless they wish it themselves, but they can both see 

 mortals and give power to see them." 



It will have been noticed that these tales have many features 

 in common with Welsh and English versions. One of the most 

 remarkable features of folklore is the way in which almost identical 

 traits occur in regions where there apparently can have been no 

 means of thought transference except telepathy. Both the above 

 explanations of the origin of the little people, for example, are 



