and hind into the forest, and though occasionally seen by individuals to whom he has chosen to show himself, has never again mixed familiarly with mankind.

Thomas of Erceldoune, during his retirement, has been supposed, from time to time, to be levying forces to take the field in some crisis of his country's fate. The story has often been told, of a daring horse-jockey having sold a black horse to a man of venerable and antique appearance, who appointed the remarkable hillock upon Eildon hills, called the Lucken hare, as the place where, at twelve o'clock at night, he should receive the price. He came, his money was paid in ancient coin, and he was invited by his customer to view his residence. The trader in horses followed his guide in the deepest astonishment through several long ranges of stalls, in each of which a horse stood motionless, while an armed warrior lay equally still at the charger's feet. "All these men," said the wizard, in a whisper, "will awaken at the battle of Sheriffmoor." the extremity of this extraordinary depôt hung a sword and a horn, which the prophet pointed out to the horse-dealer as containing the means of dissolving the spell. The man in confusion took the horn, and attempted to wind it. The horses instantly started in their stalls, stamped, and shook their bridles, the men arose and clashed their armour, and the mortal, terrified at the tumult he had excited, dropped the horn from his hand. A voice like that of a giant, louder even than the tumult around, pronounced these words:

"Wo to the coward that ever he was born,

That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn"

At

A whirlwind expelled the horse-dealer from the cavern, the entrance to which he could never again find. A moral might be perhaps extracted from the legend, namely, that it is best to be armed against

danger before bidding it defiance. But it is a circumstance worth notice, that although this edition of the tale is limited to the year 1715, by the very mention of the Sheriffmoor, yet a similar story, appears to have been current during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which is given by Reginald Scot. The narrative is edifying, as peculiarly illustrative of the mode of marring a curious tale in telling it, which was one of the virtues professed by Caius when he hired himself to King Lear. Reginald Scot, incredulous on the subject of witchcraft, seems to have given some weight to the belief of those who thought that the spirits of famous men do, after death, take up some particular habitations near cities, towns, and countries, and act as tutelary and guardian spirits to the places which they loved while in the flesh.

"But more particularly to illustrate this conjecture," says he, "I could name a person who hath lately appeared thrice since his decease, at least some ghostly being or other that calls itself by the name of such a person, who was dead above a hundred years ago, and was, in his lifetime, accounted as a prophet or predictor, by the assistance of sublunary spirits; and now, at his appearance, did also give strange predictions respecting famine and plenty, war and bloodshed, and the end of the world. By the information of the person that had communication with him, the last of his appearances was in the following manner. "I had been," said he, "to sell a horse at the next market town, but not attaining my price, as I returned home, by the way I met this man, who began to be familiar with me, asking what news, and how affairs moved through the country? I answered as I thought fit; withal, I told him of my horse, whom he began to cheapen, and proceeded with me so far, that the price was agreed upon. So he turned back with me, and told me that if I would go along with him, I should receive my money.

On our way we went, I upon my horse, and he on another milk-white beast. After much travel, I asked him where he dwelt, and what his name was? He told me that his dwelling was a mile off at a place called Farrun, of which place I had never heard, though I knew all the country round about.* He also told me that he himself was that person of the family of Learmonths,† so much spoken of as a prophet. At which I began to be somewhat fearful, perceiving we were on a road which I never had been on before, which increased my fear and amazement more. Well! on we went till he brought me under ground, I knew not how, into the presence of a beautiful woman, who paid the money without a word speaking. He conducted me out again through a large and long entry, where I saw above six hundred men in armour laid prostrate on the ground, as if asleep. At last I found myself in the open field, by the help of the moonlight, in the very place where I first met him, and made a shift to get home by three in the morning. But the money I had received was just double of what I esteemed it when the woman paid me, of which, at this instant, I have several pieces to show, consisting of ninepennies, thirteen-pencehalfpennies," &c.‡

It is a great pity that this horse-dealer, having specimens of the fairy coin, of a quality more permanent than usual, had not favoured us with an account of an impress so valuable to medallists. It is not the less edifying, as we are deprived of the more picturesque parts of the story, to learn that Thomas's payment was as faithful as his prophecies. The

*In this the author is in the same ignorance as his namesake Reginald, though having at least as many opportunities of information.

† In popular tradition, the name of Thomas the Rhymer was always averred to be Learmonth, though he neither uses it himself, nor is de scribed by his son other than Le Rymour. The Learmonths of Dairsie, in Fife, claimed descent from the prophet.

Discourse of Devils and Spirits appended to the Discovery of Witchcraft, by Reginald Scot, Esq., book iii. chap. ii, § 19.

beautiful lady who bore the purse must have been undoubtedly the Fairy Queen, whose affection, though, like that of his own heroine Yseult, we cannot term it altogether laudable, seems yet to have borne a faithful and firm character.

I have dwelt at some length on the story of Thomas the Rhymer, as the oldest tradition of the kind which has reached us in detail, and as pretending to show the fate of the first Scottish poet, whose existence, and its date, are established both by history and records; and who, if we consider him as writing in the Anglo-Norman language, was certainly one among the earliest of its versifiers. But the legend is still more curious, from its being the first, and most distinguished instance, of a man alleged to have obtained supernatural knowledge by means of the fairies.

Whence or how this singular community derived their more common popular name, we may say has not as yet been very clearly established. It is the opinion of the learned, that the Persian word Peri, expressing an unearthly being, of a species very similar, will afford the best derivation, if we suppose it to have reached Europe through the medium of the Arabians, in whose alphabet the letter P does not exist, so that they pronounce the word Feri instead of Peri. Still there is something uncertain in this etymology. We hesitate to ascribe, either to the Persians or the Arabians, the distinguishing name of an ideal commonwealth, the notion of which they certainly did not contribute to us. Some are,

therefore, tempted to suppose, that the elves may have obtained their most frequent name from their being, par excellence, a fair or comely people, a quality which they affected on all occasions; while the superstition of the Scottish was likely enough to give them a name which might propitiate the vanity for which they deemed the race remarkable; just as, in other instances, they called the fays 66 men

of peace," "good neighbours," and by other titles of the like import. It must be owned, at the same time, that the words fay and fairy may have been mere adoptions of the French fee and feerie, though these terms, on the other side of the Channel, have reference to a class of spirits corresponding, not to our fairies, but with the far different Fata of the Italians. But this is a question which we willingly leave for the decision of better etymologists than ourselves.

LETTER V.

Those who dealt in Fortune-telling, Mystical Cures by Charms, and the like, often claimed an Intercourse with Fairy Land-Hudhart or Hudikin-Pitcairn's Scottish Criminal Trials-Story of Bessie Dun lop and her Adviser-Her Practice of Medicine-and of Discovery of Theft-Account of her Familiar, Thome Reid-Trial of Alison Pearson Account of her Familiar, William Sympson-Trial of the Lady Fowlis, and of Hector Munro, her step-son--Extraordinary Species of Charm used by the latter-Confession of John Stewart, a Juggler, of his Intercourse with the Fairies-Trial and Confession of Isobel Gowdie--Use of Elf-arrow Heads-Parish of Aberfoyle Mr. Kirke, the Minister of Aberfoyle's Work on Fairy Superstitions He is himself taken to Fairyland-Dr. Grahame's interesting Work, and his Information on Fairy Superstitions Story of a Female in East Lothian carried off by the Fairies-Another Instance from Pennant

To return to Thomas the Rhymer, with an account of whose legend I concluded the last letter, it would seem, that the example which it afforded of obtaining the gift of prescience, and other supernatural powers, by means of the fairy people, became the common apology of those who attempted to cure diseases, to tell fortunes, to revenge injuries, or to engage in traffic with the invisible world, for the purpose of satisfying their own wishes, curiosity, or revenge, or those of others. Those who prac tised the petty arts of deception in such mystic