wizard was, as might be expected, in a profuse perspiration, and certainly much exhausted by his exertions, which had continued for at least half an hour. We now observed a couple of bunches, each consisting of two stripes of white deer-skin, and a long piece of sinew, attached to the back of his coat. These we had not seen before, and were informed that they had been sewn on by Tornga, while he was below."1

When this account is compared with that of the Greenland sorcerers, it seems to set beyond a doubt that ventriloquism is a talent to be acquired. It appears to have formed the sole means of deception to which the angekoks had recourse, and as they had many pupils, some of whom always succeeded in acquiring a knowledge of their profession, it must have been the chief object of their studies. The failure of many only sets the matter in a stronger light; for it must be an art very difficult of acquirement, and if it could not be obtained the individual could not, of course, exercise a profession which mainly depended upon it. Crantz, in his History of Greenland, remarks, "Their procedure with witches is also very short. rumour prevails that a certain old woman is a witch, or a man a wizard, which the poor old creatures may thank themselves for, because they made pretences to charms and quackery: when, I say, her name is up, a man need but have his wife or child die, his arrows miss their mark, or his gun miss fire—the angekok, or

If a

1 Captain Lyon's Private Journal, pp. 358, 361'; and Sir David Brewster's Natural Magic, pp. 176-178.

2 Crantz, book iii. chap. iv. sect. 33.

conjurer, lays all the blame upon such a poor wretch, and if she has no alliance with some man of arms, all the country will join to stone her, or she will be thrown into the sea or hewn to pieces, according as their rage dictates to them-nay, there have been instances that a man has stabbed his own mother or sister in the presence of a houseful of people, and no one hath upbraided him for it. However, if the executed person hath any near relations they endeavour to avenge her death, and thus the tragedy issues in a prolonged series of murders. Sometimes, when such poor wretches find there is no possible escape, they plunge themselves into the more friendly bosom of the ocean to elude the bloodthirsty weapons that would hew them in pieces, and would leave their dismembered carcase a prey to the ravens. The sign of the cross is made by those pagans at the death of any person, that the spirit may not come back and haunt the survivors, but this is probably merely a relic of Christianity which was once introduced among them by the Norwegians.

1 Crantz, book v. year 7, § 4.

CHAPTER V.

FAIRY MYTHOLOGY.

OUR late chapters have been devoted to the consideration of Witchcraft and Sorcery, and our present will be occupied with another branch, Pneumatology. Of these, at once the most beautiful and most important is the fairy mythology. As to the word fairy, it has often been derived from the French fee, and the Italian futa; but without correctness, or even much plausibility. The derivation is evidently from the Persian peri, pronounced in English peerī, and in Arabic, the word is pheri; so that it has but to be reduced to English spelling to be precisely the same. Nor has this derivation the merit of closeness only; the Eastern peri is the same as the Western fairy. They were, we are told by the Mohammedan doctors, celestial spirits, who fell from their pristine glory, and lost somewhat of their native innocence: yet their crime was not heavy enough to weigh them down to hell; but they alighted upon earth, where they retained much of their beauty and benevolence, and were not entirely destitute of a hope one day to regain their former blissful abodes. How exactly this agrees with the English and Irish fairy, we shall see in the course of this investigation. It would be perfectly in accordance with this account, that, knowing the uncertainty of their future condition,

they should object to the introduction of sacred subjects, and that they should be implacable in their vengeance against those who offended them; and yet, not having lost their love of virtue, that they should encourage its cultivation among mortals, and aid with their favour and protection the excellent and the amiable. So far do the Irish fairies agree with the Persian peri; and the Spanish fairy, derived immediately from the Moors, and by them communicated to the Irish, forms the ground-work of the character: but with this character there is mixed, and often amalgamated, that of the Scandinavian duerga, inhabiting holes and caves, working in metals -sportive, indeed, but malicious, mischievous, and intractable. From the imitations of these strange beings in different lands, arose the Pucks, Robin Goodfellows, Phookas, Bogles, Will-o'-the-wisps, &c., with which the superstitions of all nations are filled; and these, together with the peri-sometimes the two characters being grotesquely blended into one, and sometimes kept beautifully distinct,-make up the Irish fairy mythology. The Eastern idea is exhibited more purely, but in a far less beautiful form, in Scotland. There the fairy superstition is a very gloomy one. Inhabiting caves and rocks, destitute of everything that can render existence tolerable, and yet surrounded with a pomp and splendour illusory only to the unfortunate mortal who beholds them, but invisible to themselves, these unhappy beings were supposed to drag on a miserable life, subject to the power of the devil, who every year carried off the tenth part of them to hell.

They recruited their ranks from mortals whom they seduced, by their apparent splendour, to taste their viands, or to join their dances; or from children, whom they stole from the cradle and enlisted in their dismal ranks. Now it is remarkable, that both these modes of making fairies were believed in England, and the latter in Ireland, though in neither country did the frightful cause obtain credit. The Scottish daoine shí, or men of peace (they were called the Good People in Ireland, and Pixies in England), lived in great apparent pomp, feasting and holding court in their subterranean abodes; yet if any eye, properly disenchanted, saw them, all the beautiful illusion vanished; the splendid halls were changed into bare and damp caverns; the gorgeous feasts and delicate viands into such refuse as by mortals would not be eaten; their own bloom, beauty, and gaiety likewise vanished, and they appeared wrinkled, haggard, and miserable. Men saw sometimes the delightful fiction, but rarely the dreadful reality, till there was no longer any opportunity of retracting, and the unfortunate individual was bound for ever with the gloomy fate of the fairies themselves. Many are the legends told in Scotland of persons thus carried off by these malevolent beings. It was sufficient to taste of the dishes so tempting to the eye, to join in the graceful and voluptuous dance, or to quaff of the enchanted cup; by these actions the power of the fairies extended over their victim, and the person so caught, though at once undeceived with regard to the splendor and beauty around him, remained for ever with his captors.