the mark of circles, which sometimes appeared yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep green hue; and within which it was dangerous to sleep, or to be found after sun-set."*

Of the Lowland fairy, Mr. Cromek, in his Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, gives us a beautiful account; they were a much more engaging race than those of the Highlands; and yet many of their properties were the same.

Dr. Leyden, in his Scenes of Infancy, observes, that "lakes and pits, on the

Kirk, in the essay already quoted from, "called fairie-hills, which the mountainpeople think impious and dangerous to peel or discover, by taking earth or wood from them;" these are the habitations of the Sleagh Maith; and, in another place he says, they "are called large and fair, and (unless at some odd occasions) unperceivable by vulgar eyes, like Rachland and other enchanted islands, having for lights, continual lamps, and fires, without "They were small of stature, exquisitely fuel to sustain them." This account he shaped and proportioned; of a fair com- confirms by the testimony of a female plexion, with long fleeces of yellow hair neighbour of his, who, being conveyed to flowing over their shoulders, and tucked || Elf-land, "found the place full of light, above their brows with combs of gold. without any fountain or lamp from whence A mantle of green cloth, inlaid with wild it did spring." flowers, reached to their middle; green pantaloons, buttoned with bobs of silk, and sandals of silver, formed their under-tops of mountains, were regarded with dress. On their shoulders hung quivers of adder slough, stored with pernicious arrows; and bows, fashioned from the rib of a man, buried where three lairds' lands meet, tipped with gold, ready bent for warfare, were slung by their sides. Thus accoutred, they mounted on steeds whose hoofs would not print the new-ploughed || land, nor dash the dew from the cup of a hare-bell. They visited the flock, the folds, the fields of coming grain, and the habitations of men; and woe to the mortal whose frailty threw him in their power! A flight of arrows, tipped with deadly plagues, were poured into his folds; and nauseous weeds grew up in his pastures; his coming harvest was blighted with pernicious breath, and whatever he had no longer prospered. These fatal shafts were formed of the bog reed, pointed with white flint, and dipped in the dew of hemlock. They were shot into cattle with such magical dexterity, that the smallest aperture could not be discovered, but by those deeply skilled in fairy warfare, and in the use of elf-shooting. Cordials and potent charms are applied; the burning arrow is extracted, and instant recovery ensues. The fairies seem to have been much attached to particular places. A green hill; an opening in a wood; a burn just freeing itself from the uplands, were kept sacred for revelry and festival."

"There be many places," says Mr.

* Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

a degree of superstitious horror, as the porches or entrances of the subterraneous habitations of the fairies; from which confused murmurs, the cries of children, moaning voices, the ringing of bells, and the sounds of musical instruments, are often supposed to be heard. Round these hills the green fairy circles are supposed to wind, in a spiral direction, till they reach the descent to the central cavern ; so that, if the unwary traveller be be nighted on the charmed ground, he is inevitably conducted, by an invisible power, to the fearful descent.”—Secluded waterfalls were also thought to be the abode of fairies. Thus the Minister of Dumfries, describing a linn, formed by the water of the Crichup, as inaccessible to real beings, says it had anciently been "considered as the habitation of imaginary ones; and at the entrance into it, there was a curious cell, or cave, || called the Elf's Kirk, where, according to the superstition of the times, the imaginary inhabitants of the linn were supposed to hold their meetings.”*—The elfin tribe was supposed to make frequent migrations; they remove," says Mr. Kirke," to other lodgings at the beginning of each quarter of the year, so traversing till Domesday; being imputent, and staying in one place, and find

SIR JOHN SINCLAIR's Statistical Ac count of Scotland, vol. xiii, page 245.

ing some ease by purning*, and changing habitations. Their camelion-like bodies swim in the air near the earth, with bag and baggage: and at each revolution of time, seers or men of the second sight (females being seldom so qualified) have very terrifying encounters with them, even on high ways; who therefore usually shune to travell abroad at these four seasons of the year, and thereby have made it a custome to this day among the Scottish-Irish, to keep church duely every first Sunday of the quarter, to serve or hallow themselves, their cows and cattell, from the shots and stealth of these wandering tribes; and many of these superstitious people will not be seen in church againe till the nixt quarter begin, as if no duty were to be learned or done by them, but all the use of worship and sermons were to save them from these arrows that fly in the darke."

Both in Highland and Lowland superstition, an Elf-land court, which inhabited a fixed abode, called peculiarly Elf-land, was a striking feature, as it was in Scandinavian mythology. In 1586, a woman, named Alison Pearson, was tried, and found guilty, of holding intercourse with, and visiting the Queen of Elf-land: the indictment specified her crime to be“haunting and repairing with the gude neighbours, and Queene of Elf-land, this divers years by past, as she had confest; and that she had friends in that court, which were of her own blude, who had gude acquaintance of the Queene of Elfland; and that she was seven years illhandled in the court of Elf-land." For this crime, the poor creature was burnt to death! The road to this court was through a wilderness,

"Where living hand was left behind.” The journeyers to it had to

"Wade through red blude to the knee; For a' the blood that's shed on earth,

Runs through the springs of that countrie." It was, however, a most magnificent || region; and the roof of the fairy palace was of beaten gold, and the floor of crystal. Dr. Leyden has embodied the traditions relative to fairy-land in the following beautiful lines, in which he is describing the visit of Thomas the Rhymer to

• Journeying.

that resort of the creatures of our immaterial world :-

"Silent they wade, where sounding torrents
lave

The banks, and red the tinge of every wave;
For all the blood, that dyes the warrior's hand,
Level and green the downward region lies,
Runs through the thirsty springs of Fairy-land.
And low the ceiling of the fairy skies;
Self kindled gems a richer light display
Than gilds the earth, but not a purer day.
Resplendent crystal forms the palace wall;
The diamond's trembling lustre lights the hall:
But where soft emeralds shed an umber'd light,
Beside each coal-black courser sleeps a knight;
A raven plume waves o'er each helmed crest,
And black the mail which binds each manly
breast,

Girt with broad faulchion, and with bugle
Ah!

green

could a mortal trust the fairy queen!

From mortal lips an earthly accent fell,
And Rymour's tongue confessed the numbing
spell:

In iron sleep the minstrel lies forlorn,

Who breathed a sound before he blew the horn."

Such was the residence of the fairy cate,t in some parts of Scotland; and Dame court, of which the queen is called HeHabunde, or Abunde, is also an appellation applied to the same royal personage. The former seems to have been one of the malignant, the latter one of the benevolent fairies. Yet her character is rather dubious. "She is mentioned in the works

Thomas of Ercildoun, commonly called Thomas the Rhymer, who flourished in the lat ter end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century (being alive, according to Richerton, in 1300) is supposed to have attained his prophetic skill from his intercourse with the Queen of Elfland. He was carried off, according to popular tradition, at an early age, to the fairy land, where he remained seven years, when he was permitted to re-visit the earth, being bound to return to his royal mistress whenever she should intimate her pleasure that he should do so. Some years after, when he was making merry with his friends in his tower of Ercildoun, a person came in, and said, a hart and hinde had left the neighbouring forest, and were composedly parading the street of the vil lage. The prophet knew the signal was for him. He left his friends, followed the animals to the forest, and was never seen more. + See Dr. LEYDEN's Glossary to his Edition of the Complaints of Scotland.

however, especially during the night, they borrow horses of flesh and blood, whose speed they are well known not to spare. Their movements are sometimes accompanied by huge eddies of sand, and a cry of horse and hattock may be heard at the same time. Aubrey (Miscella

of William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the fourteenth century, as a spirit enriching the houses that she visited. Delrio adds, that on her coming with the rest of the good ladies, the superstitious old woman used to provide plenty of victuals for them, leaving all the dishes and wine vessels uncovered, to prevent any ob-nies, 209) recounts, on the authority of a struction to their getting at the food, and "learned friend in Scotland," whose letexpecting on the occasion nothing butter to him is dated March 25, 1695, “that plenty and prosperity." Yet she has been an ancestor of the noble family of Duffus, made to preside over the white nymphs, once walking in the fields, and hearing white ladies, or witte wyven, 66 who all ap- this shout, had the hardiness to join in it. pear to have been of a mischievous dis- || He had the good luck to be transported position, committing nocturnal depreda- by the fairies into no worse place than tions on men and cattle, but more parti- the royal cellar in Paris, where, having cularly on pregnant women and infants, drank to his heart's content, he was whom they shut up in their subterraneous found on the following morning with a abodes, from which groans and lamenta- silver cup in his hand, with which the tions, and occasionally melodious sounds,|| king, on hearing his marvellous narrative, were often heard to issue." presented him." "This story," continues Aubrey's correspondent "(if it could be sufficiently attested) would be a noble instance for your purpose." He then adds, "that the existing Lord Duffus acknowledged the genuineness of this tradition, but thought that the circum

"

The fairies of Scotland are represented as being particularly fond of horse exercise, and their invisible steeds may be discovered in their passage by the shrill ringing of their bridles. Now and then, ||

See DOUCE's Illustrations of Shakspeare, stances which it related were fabulous, vol. i. page 386-391. notwithstanding that among the family plate was an ancient silver cup, called

+ An old woman of Nithsdale related, with the artless simplicity of sure belief, the follow-the fairy cup." ing incidents :-"I' the night afore Rood's mass, I had trysted wi' a neeber lass, a Scots mile frae hame, to talk anent buying braws i' the fair we had nae satten lang aneath the haw-buss, till we heard the loud laugh o' fowk riding, wi' the jingling o' bridles, an' the clanking o' hoofs. We banged up, thinking they wad ryde owre us; we kent nae but it was drunken fowk riding to the fair, i' the fore night. We glowred roun' an' roun', an' sune saw it was the fairie fowk's rade. We cowered down till they passed by. A leam o' light was ⚫ dancing owre them, mair bonnie than moonshine they were a wee wee fowk, wi' green scarfs on, but ane that rade foremost, an' that ane was a gude deal langer than the lave, wi' bonnie lang hair bun' about wi' a strap, whilk glented lyke stars. They rade on braw wee whyte naigs, wi' unco lang swooping tails, an'

manes hung wi' whustles that the win' played on. This, an' their tongue when they sang, was like the soun' of a far awa psalm. Marrow an' me was in a brade lea fiel', whare they cam by us, a high hedge o' haw-trees keep them frae gaun through Johnny Corrie's corn; but they lap a' owre't like sparrows, an' gallop't into a greene knowe beyont it. We gade i' the morn

The Scotch fairies were supposed to be also endowed with great mechanical powers; they worked actively in the mines, and were the guardians of hidden treasure. The honest presbyterian, Mr. Kirk, to whom we have so often alluded, seems to be quite au fait in all that concerns these beings: in addition to the former particulars, he also describes their manner of speech, their food, and their work. "They speak," he tells us, “by way of whistling, clear, not rough."— "Some are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquors, that pierce like pure air and oyl: others feed more gross on the foyson or substance of corne and liquors, or corne itself, that grows on the surface of the earth, which those fairies steal away, partly invisible, partly preying on the grain, as do crowes

||ing to looke at the tredded corn, but the fient a hoof mark was there, nor a blade broken."Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, page 298 and 299.

Baronet's family, obliged him to name an earlier day for his marriage than had been anticipated, and it happened to be the very one which was also to witness my departure from Elmwood Park, my paternal home. I was indeed importuned to remain and witness Adelaide's espousals; but I offered so plausible an excuse that it was quite sufficient to satisfy the unsuspecting mind of Adelaide. At length, the morning of my departure came. My parting scene with Adelaide I have al

the bitter dejection with which I sank back in the carriage, as it swept round the lawn, when I saw the wave of Adelaide's hand at the window, and felt that on earth I must behold her beloved form no more, or look on her as the wife of another!

thought less of her personal loveliness than of the endearing and estimable qualities of her heart and mind. We renewed our former friendly intercourse, and hope whispered to my heart that I might yet be happy. Soon, however, I learned with dismay, that Sir James Mantravers was an ardent admirer of my cousin Adelaide, and that it was suspected she regarded him with partiality. Here was a death-blow to the airy fabric of happiness which I had been raising. The Baronet was younger than myself; hand-ready described; but how shall I tell of some, and of most polished manners. He evidently sought to gain Adelaide's affection, and I watched her closely when in company with him. I saw the deepened blush on the cheek of my cousin when the young Baronet addressed her, and the sparkle of her eye as she listened to his welcome conversation: from that moment While in India I heard frequently from the long-treasured and secret hopes of my my sister Catherine. She, however, said heart died within me. I saw that her but little respecting Adelaide, as I half young heart's affections were fixed, and suspect that she had some idea of my unthat she was lost to me for ever. I re- happy attachment; but I learned that solved that my wretchedness and disap- Adelaide was a mother, and that Sir pointment should be buried in the recesses James was extremely gay, and the first of my own heart. Sir James soon after to join in every fashionable extravagance. made proposals for the hand of Adelaide, I sighed when I read this, for my heart which were accepted. I know not why, whispered to me that Adelaide was unbut though he was a general favourite in happy, as I knew her habits and dispo→ society, I never liked him. I suspected sition were averse to scenes of reckless that much of dissimulation lurked beneath gaiety and dissipation. Time soothed his smooth exterior and insinuating ad- my bitter feelings of disappointment, and dress. Though I knew Adelaide would the novel scenes of activity in which I soon be the bride of another, I still lin- | engaged, tended to dissipate my unhap gered near her; willing to listen to her piness, until at length I was enabled to sweet voice, and gaze on her enchanting think of Adelaide with calmness, yet still smile; but when the day of her union was as a dear and cherished being for whose fixed, I awoke from my trance, to a full welfare I felt the most tender solicitude. sense of my misery. I felt that I could not witness her the wife of another, and retain my senses. I resolved to leave England for India, where I had an uncle, || who had for many years filled an important post under the Government. "I will quit England,” I exclaimed in bitter for years, perhaps for ever, and lose, if possible, the remembrance of my misery amid new climes and scenery."My wish was at first strenuously objected to by my family; but when they saw my settled determination, they refrained from offering further opposition, and a day was named for my departure. Circumstances, immaterial now, connected with the

sorrow,

66

||

I had been twelve years in India, when my uncle died, and left me the bulk of his property; the remainder to be equally divided between Adelaide and my sister Catherine. When I lost my uncle I had no remaining tie in India, and I felt a longing desire to revisit my native shores, and to embrace my mother and sister→ my father had been dead some years. How my heart even then throbbed when I thought that I should see Adelaide !

I found my mother but little touched by time; scarcely a furrow on her brow, and she wore the same placid smile as ever: and Catherine, dear Catherine, still as lively and good-humoured as when