22 mates. LETTERS ON But in thus adopting the superstitions of the an- | either despised as impostors, or feared as sorceresses; There is a remarkable story in the Eyrbiggia Saga, (Historia Eyranorum,) giving the result of such a controversy between two of these gifted women, one of whom was determined on discovering and putting to death the son of the other, named Katla, who in a brawl had cut off the hand of the daughter-in-law of Gierada. A party detached to avenge this wrong, by putting Oddo to death, returned deceived by the skill of his mother. They had found only Katia, they said, spinning flax from a large distaff. "Fools," said Geirada, "that distaff was the man you sought." They returned, seized the distaff, and burned it. But this second time, the witch disguised her son under the appearance of a tame kid. A third time he was a hog, which grovelled among the ashes. The party returned yet again; augmented, as one of Katla's maidens, who kept watch, informed her misAlas!" said Katla, tress, by one in a blue mantle. it is the sorceress Geirada, against whom spells avail not." Accordingly, the hostile party, entering for the fourth time, seized on the object of their animosity, and put him to death. This species of witchcraft is well known in Scotland as the glamour, or deceptio visus, and was supposed to be a special attribute of the race of Gipsies. Neither are those prophetesses to be forgotten, so much honoured among the German tribes, that, as we are assured by Tacitus, they rose to the highest rank in their councils, by their supposed supernatural knowledge, and even obtained a share in the direction of their armies. This peculiarity in the habits of the North was so general, that it was no unusual thing to see females, from respect to their supposed views into futurity, and the degree of divine inspiration which was vouchsafed to them, arise to the degree of HAXA, or chief priestess, from which comes the word Here, now universally used for a witch; a circumstance which plainly shows, that the mythological system of the ancient natives of the North had given to the modern language an appropriate word for distinguishing those feinales who had intercourse with the spiritual world.† It is undeniable that these Pythonesses were held in high respect while the pagan religion lasted; but for that very reason they became odious so soon as the tribe was converted to Christianity. They were, of course, if they pretended to retain their influence, * Eyrbiggia Saga, in Northern Antiquities. The warriors of the North received this new impression concerning the influence of their deities, and the source from which it was derived, with the more indifference, as their worship, when their mythology was most generally established, was never of a very reverential or devotional character. Their ideas of their own merely human prowess was so high, that the champions made it their boast, as we have already hinted, they would not give way in fight even to the immortal gods themselves. Such, we learn from Cesar, was the idea of the Germans concerning the Suevi or Swabians, a tribe to whom the others yielded the palm of valour; and many individual stories are told in the Sagas concerning bold champions, who had fought, not only with the sorcerers, but with the demigods of the system, and come off unharmed, if not victorious, in the contest. Hother, for example, encountered the god Thor in battle, as Diomede, in the Iliad, engages with Mars, Know this," and with like success. Bartholinet gives us repeated examples of the same kind. said Kiartan to Olaus Trigguasen, "that I believe neither in idols or demons. I have travelled through various strange countries, and have encountered many giants and monsters, and have never been conquered by them; I therefore put my sole trust in my own strength of body and courage of soul." Another yet more broad answer was made to St. Olaus, King of Norway, by Gaukater. "1 am neither pagan nor Christian. My comrades and I profess no other religion than a perfect confidence in our own strength and invincibility in battle." Such chieftains were of the sect of Mezentius "Dextra mihi Deus, et telum, quod missile libro Nunc adsint!"'S And we cannot wonder that champions of such a character, careless of their gods while yet acknow ledged as such, readily regarded them as demons after their conversion to Christianity. To incur the highest extremity of danger became accounted a proof of that insuperable valour for which every Northman desired to be famed, and their annals afford numerous instances of encoun ters with ghosts, witches, furies, and fiends, whom the Kiempe, or champions, compelled to submit to their mere mortal strength, and yield to their ser vice the weapons or other treasures which they guarded in their tombs. The Norsemen were the more prone to these superstitions, because it was a favourite fancy of theirs that, in many instances, the change from life to death altered the temper of the human spirit from benignant to malevolent; or perhaps, that when the soul left the body, its departure was occasionally supplied by a wicked demon, who took the opportunity to enter and occupy its late habitation. a Upon such a supposition the wild fiction that follows is probably grounded; which, extravagant as it is, possesses something striking to the imagination. Saxo Grammaticus tells us of the fame of two Norse princes or chiefs, who had formed what was called brotherhood in arms, implying not only the firmest friendship and constant support during all the adven tures which they should undertake in life, but binding them by a solemn compact, that after the death of either, the survivor should descend alive into the sepulchre of his brother-in-arms, and consent to be buried along with him. The task of fulfilling this dreadful compact fell upon Asmund, his companion, Assucit, having been slain in battle. The tomb was formed after the ancient northern custom was called the age of hills,-that is, when it was Lopes inward. With this place of sacrifice communicated a path, usual to bury persons of distinguished merit or rank It may be worth while to notice, that the word Haxa is still used in Scotland in its sense of a druidess, or chief priestess, to distinguish the places where such females exercised their ritual. There is a species of small intrenchment on the western descent of the Eildon hills, which Mr. Milne, in his account of the parish of Melrose, drawn up about eighty years ago, says was denomina ted Bourjo, a word of unknown derivation, by which the place is still known. Here a universal and subsisting tradition bore, that human sacrifices were of yore offered, while the people assisting could behold the ceremony from the elevation of the glacis, which still discernible, called the Harellgate, leading to a small glen, or : De causis contemptæ necis, lib. i. cap. 6. what 1 on some conspicuous spot, which was crowned with a mound. With this purpose a deep narrow vault was constructed, to be the apartment of the future tomb over which the sepulchral heap was to be piled. Here they deposited arms, trophies, poured forth, perhaps, the blood of victims, introduced into the tomb the war-horses of the champions, and when these rites had been duly paid, the body of Assucit was placed in the dark and narrow house, while his faithful brother-in-arms entered and sat down by the corpse, without a word or look which testified regret or unwillingness to fulfil his fearful engagement. The soldiers who had witnessed this singular interment of the dead and living, rolled a huge stone to the mouth of the tomb, and piled so much earth and stones above the spot as made a mound visible from a great distance, and then, with loud lamentation for the loss of such undaunted leaders, they dispersed themselves like a flock which has lost its shepherd. Years passed away after years, and a century had elapsed, ere a noble Swedish rover, bound upon some high adventure, and supported by a gallant band of followers, arrived in the valley which took its name from the tomb of the brethren-in-arms. The story was told to the strangers, whose leader determined on opening the sepulchre, partly because, as already hinted, it was reckoned a heroic action to brave the anger of departed heroes by violating their tombs; partly to attain the arms and swords of proof with which the deceased had done their great actions. He set his soldiers to work, and soon removed the earth and stones from one side of the mound, and laid bare the entrance. But the stoutest of the rovers started back, when, instead of the silence of a tomb, they heard within horrid cries, the clash of swords, the clang of armour, and all the noise of a mortal combat between two furious champions. A young warrior was let down into the profound tomb by a cord, which was drawn up shortly after, in hopes of news from beneath. But when the adventurer descended, some one threw him from the cord, and took his place in the noose. When the rope was pulled up, the soldiers, instead of their companion, beheld Asmund, the survivor of the brethren-in-arms. He rushed into the open air, his sword drawn in his hand, his armour half torn from his body, the left side of his face almost scratched off, as by the talons of some wild beast. He had no sooner appeared in the light of day, than, with the improvisatory poetic talent which these champions often united with heroic strength and bravery, he poured forth a string of verses containing the history of his hundred years' conflict within the tomb. It seems that no sooner was the sepulchre closed than the corpse of the slain Assueit arose from the ground, inspired by some ravenous goule, and having first torn to pieces and devoured the horses which had been entombed with them, threw himself upon the companion who had just given him such a sign of devoted friendship, in order to treat him in the same manner. The hero, no way discountenanced by the horrors of his situation, took to his arms, and defended himself manfully against Assueit, or rather against the evil demon who tenanted that champion's body. In this manner the living brother waged a preternatural combat, which had endured during a whole century, when Asmund, at last obtaining the victory, prostrated his enemy, and by driving, as he boasted, a stake through his body, had finally reduced him to the state of quiet becoming a tenant of the tomb. Having chanted the triumphant account of his contest and victory, this mangled conqueror fell dead before them. The body of Assueit was taken out of the tomb, burned, and the ashes dispersed to heaven; while that of the victor, now lifeless, and without a companion, was deposited there, so that it was hoped his slumbers might remain undisturbed.* The precautions taken against Assucit's reviving a second time, remind us of those adopted in the Greek islands, and in the Turkish provinces, against the vampire. It affords also a derivation of the ancient English law in case of suicide, when a stake was driven through the body, originally to keep it secure in the tomb. * See Saxo Grammaticus, Hist. Dan. lib. v. The Northern people also acknowledged a kind of ghosts, who, when they had obtained possession of a building, or the right of haunting it, did not defend themselves against mortals on the knightly principle of duel, like Assueit, nor were amenable to the prayers of the priest or the spells of the sorcerer, but became tractable when properly convened in a legal process. The Eyrbiggia Saga acquaints us, that the mansion of a respectable landholder in Iceland was, soon after the settlement of that island, exposed to a persecution of this kind. The molestation was produced by the concurrence of certain mystical and spectral phenomena, calculated to introduce such persecution. About the commencement of winter, with that slight exchange of darkness and twilight which constitutes night and day in these latitudes, a contagious disease arose in a family of consequence, and in the neighbourhood, which, sweeping off several members of the family at different times, seemed to threaten them all with death. But the death of these persons was attended with the singular consequence, that their spectres were seen to wander in the neighbourhood of the mansionhouse, terrifying, and even assaulting, those of the living family who ventured abroad. As the number of the dead members of the devoted household seemed to increase in proportion to that of the survivors, the ghosts took it upon them to enter the house, and produce their aerial forms and wasted physiognomy, even in the stove where the fire was maintained for the general use of the inhabitants, and which, in an Iceland winter, is the only comfortable place of assembling the family. But the remaining inhabitants of the place, terrified by the intrusion of these spectres, chose rather to withdraw to the other extremity of the house, and abandon their warm seats, than to endure the neighbourhood of the phantoms. Complaints were at length made to a pontiff of the god Thor, named Snorro, who exercised considerable influence in the island. By his counsel, the young proprietor of the haunted mansion assembled a jury, or inquest, of his neighbours, constituted in the usual judicial form, as if to judge an ordinary civil matter, and proceeded, in their presence, to cite individually the various phantoms and resemblances of the deceased members of the family, to show by what warrant they disputed with him and his servants the quiet possession of his property, and what defence they could plead for thus interfering with and incommoding the living. The spectres of the dead, by name, and in order, as summoned, appeared on their being called, and muttering some regrets at being obliged to abandon their dwelling, departed, or vanished, from the astonished inquest. Judgment then went against the ghosts by default; and the trial by jury, of which we here can trace the origin, obtained a triumph unknown to any of the great writers who have made it the subject of eulogy.t It was not only with the spirits of the dead that the warlike people of the North made war without timidity, and successfully entered into suits of ejectment: these daring champions often braved the indignation even of the superior deities of their mythology, rather than allow that there existed any being before whom their boldness could quail. Such is the singular story, how a young man of high courage, in crossing a desolate ridge of mountains, met with a huge wagon, in which the goddess Freya, (i. e. a gigantic idol formed to represent her,) together with her shrine, and the wealthy offerings attached to it, was travelling from one district of the country to another. The shrine, or sanctuary of the idol, was, like a modern caravan, travelling with a show, screened by boards and curtains from the public gaze, and the equipage was under the immediate guidance of the priestess of Freya, a young, goodlooking, and attractive woman. The traveller naturally associated himself with the priestess, who, as she walked on foot, apparently was in no degree displeased with the company of a powerful and handsome young man, as a guide and companion on the journey. It chanced, however, that the presence of the champion, and his discourse with the priest↑ Eyrbiggia Saga. See Northern Antiquities. deities, of whom they believed so much that was impious, in the light of evil demons. But there were some particulars of the Northern creed, in which it corresponded so exactly with that of the classics, as leaves room to doubt whether the original Asæ, or Asiatics, the founders of the Scandinavian system, had, before their migration from Asia, derived them from some common source with those of the Greeks and Romans; or whether, on the other hand, the same proneness of the human mind to superstition has caused that similar ideas are adopted in different regions, as the same plants are found in distant countries, without the one, as far as can be discovered, having obtained the seed from the others. ess, was less satisfactory to the goddess than to the parties principally concerned. By a certain signal the divinity summoned the priestess to the sanctuary, who presently returned with tears in her eyes, and terror in her countenance, to inform her companion that it was the will of Freya that he should depart, and no longer travel in their company. You must have mistaken the meaning of the goddess," said the champion; Freya cannot have formed a wish so unreasonable, as to desire I should abandon the straight and good road, which leads me directly on my journey, to choose precipitous paths and by-roads, where I may break my neck.""Nevertheless," said the priestess, "the goddess will be highly offended if you disobey her commands, nor can I conceal from you that she may personally The classical fiction, for example, of the satyrs, assault you."-"It will be at her own peril if she and other subordinate deities of wood and wild, should be so audacious." said the champion, "for I whose power is rather delusive than formidable, will try the power of this axe against the strength of and whose supernatural pranks intimate rather a beams and boards." The priestess chid him for his wish to inflict terror than to do hurt, was received impiety; but being unable to compel him to obey among the northern people, and perhaps transferred the goddess' mandate, they again relapsed into by them to the Celtic tribes. It is an idea which familiarity, which advanced to such a point, that a scems common to many nations. The existence of clattering noise within the tabernacle, as of ma- a satyr, in the sylvan form, is even pretended to be chinery put in motion, intimated to the travellers proved by the evidence of Saint Anthony, to whom that Freya, who perhaps had some qualities in com- one is said to have appeared in the desert. The mon with the classical Vesta, thought a personal Scottish Gael have an idea of the same kind, respectinterruption of this tête-à-tête ought to be deferreding a goblin called Ourisk, whose torm is like that no longer. The curtains flew open, and the massive and awkward idol, who, we may suppose, resembled in form the giant created by Frankenstein, leaped lumbering from the carriage, and rushing on the intrusive traveller, dealt him, with its wooden hands and arms, such tremendous blows, as were equally difficult to parry or to endure. But the champion was armed with a double-edged Danish axe, with which he bestirred himself with so much strength and activity, that at length he split the head of the image, and with a severe blow hewed off its left leg. The image of Freya then fell motionless to the ground, and the demon which had animated it, fled yelling from the battered tenement. The champion was now victor; and, according to the law of arms, took possession of the female and the baggage. The priestess, the divinity of whose patroness had been, by the event of the combat, sorely lessened in her eyes, was now easily induced to become the associate and concubine of the conqueror. She accompanied him to the district whither he was travelling, and there displayed the shrine of Freya, taking care to hide the injuries which the goddess had received in the brawl. The champion came in for a share of a gainful trade driven by the priestess, besides appropriating to himself most of the treasures which the sanctuary had formerly contained. Neither does it appear that Freya, having, perhaps, a sensible recollection of the power of the axe, ever again ventured to appear in person for the purpose of call-species of lubber fiend, and capable of being overing her false stewards to account. of Pan, and his attendants something between a man and a goat, the nether extremities being in the latter form. A species of caveru, or rather hole, in the rock, affords to the wildest retreat in the romantic neighbourhood of Loch Katrine, a name taken from classical superstition. It is not the least curious circumstance, that from this sylvan deity the modern nations of Europe have borrowed the degrading and unsuitable emblems of the goat's visage and form, the horns, hoofs, and tail, with which they have depicted the author of evil, when it pleased him to show himself on earth. So that the alteration of a single word would render Pope's well-known line more truly adapted to the fact, should we venture to read, mn "And Pan to Satan lends his heathen horn." We cannot attribute the transference of the attributes of the northern satyr, or Celtic ourisk, to the arch-fiend, to any particular resemblance between the character of these deities and that of Satan. On the contrary, the ourisk of the Celts was a creature by no means peculiarly malevolent, or formidably powerful; but rather a melancholy spirit, which dwelt in wildernesses far removed from men. If we are to identify him with the brown Dwarf of the Border noors, the ourisk has a mortal term of life, and a hope of salvation, as indeed the same high claim was made by the satyr who appeared to St. Anthony. Moreover, the Highland ourisk was a reached by those who understood philology. It is The national estimation of deities, concerning related of one of these goblins, which frequented a whom such stories could be told and believed, was, mill near the foot of Loch Lomond, that the miller, of course, of no deep or respectful character. The desiring to get rid of this meddling spirit, who injured Icelanders abandoned Odin, Freya, Thor, and their the machinery by setting the water on the wheel whole pagan mythology, in consideration of a single when there was no grain to be ground, contrived to disputation between the heathen priests and the have a meeting with the goblin by watching in his Christian missionaries. The priests threatened the mill till night. The ourisk then entered and deisland with a desolating eruption of the volcano manded the miller's name, and was informed that called Hecla, as the necessary consequence of the he was called Myself; on which is founded a story vengeance of their deities. Snorro, the same who almost exactly like that of OUTIS in the Odyssey, a advised the inquest against the ghosts, had become tale which, though classic, is by no means an ele a convert to the Christian religion, and was present gant or ingenious fiction, but which we are astonishon the occasion, and as the conference was held oned to find in an obscure district, and in the Celtic the surface of what had been a stream of lava, now covered with vegetable substances, he answered the priests with much readiness, "To what was the indignation of the gods owing, when the substance on which we stand was fluid and scorching? Believe me, men of Iceland, the eruption of the volcano de-may have transferred the legend from Sicily to Dunpends on natural circumstances, now as it did then, and is not the engine of vengeance intrusted to Thor and Odin." It is evident, that men who reasoned with so much accuracy concerning the imbecility of Odin and Thor, were well prepared, on abandoning their worship, to consider their former tongue, seeming to argue some connexion or communication between these remote Highlands of Scotland and the readers of Homer in former days. which we cannot account for. After all, perhaps, some churchman more learned than his brethren crune, from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of Loch Lomond. I have heard it also told, that the celebrated freebooter Rob Roy once gained a victory by disguising a part of his men with goatskins, so as to resemble the ourisk, or Highland satyr. There was an individual, satyr called, I think, I tain species of subordinate deities, resembling the Meming, belonging to the Scandinavian mythylogy, modern elves in their habits. Good old Mr. Gibb, of a character different from the ourisk, though of the Advocates' Library, (whom all lawyers, whose similar in shape, whom it was the boast of the high- youth he assisted in their studies by his knowledge est champions to seek out in the solitudes which he of that noble collection, are bound to name with inhabited. He was an armourer of extreme dex-gratitude,) used to point out among the ancient alterity, and the weapons which he forged were of the tars under his charge, one which is consecrated Diis highest value. But as club-law pervaded the an- campestribus, and usually added, with a wink, "The cient system of Scandinavia, Meming had the hu- Fairies, ye ken." This relic of antiquity was dismour of refusing to work for any customer save covered near Roxburgh Castle, and a vicinity more such as compelled him to it with force of arms. He delightfully appropriate to the abode of the sylvan may be, perhaps, identified with the rescusant smith deities can hardly be found. Two rivers of consiwho fled before Fingal from Ireland to the Orkneys, derable size, made yet more remarkable by the fame and being there overtaken, was compelled to forge which has rendered them in some sort classical, the sword which Fingal afterward wore in all his unite their streams beneath the vestiges of an exbattles, and which was called the Son of the dark tensive castle, renowned in the wars with England, brown Luno, from the name of the armourer who and for the valiant, noble, and even royal blood forged it.* which has been shed around and before it ;-a landFrom this it will appear that there were originals scape ornamented with the distant village and huge enough in the mythology of the Goths, as well as abbey tower of Kelso, arising out of groves of aged Celts, to furnish the modern attributes ascribed to trees;--the modern mansion of Fleurs, with its terSatan in later times, when the object of painter or race, its woods, and its extensive lawn, form altopoet was to display him in his true form, and with gether a kingdom for Oberon and Titania to reign all his terrors. Even the genius of Guido and of in, or any spirit who, before their time, might love Tasso have been unable to surmount this prejudice, scenery of which the majesty, and even the beauty, the more rooted, perhaps, that the wicked are de- impress the mind with a sense of awe mingled with scribed as goats in Scripture, and that the Devil is pleasure. These sylvans, satyrs, and fauns, with called the old dragon. In Raphael's famous paint- whom superstition peopled the lofty banks and taning of the arch-angel Michael binding Satan, the gled copses of this romantic country, were obliged dignity, power, and angelic character expressed by to give place to deities very nearly resembling themthe seraph, form an extraordinary contrast to the seives in character, who probably derive some of poor conception of a being who ought not, even their attributes from their classic predecessors, alin that lowest degradation, to have seemed so un- though more immediately allied to the barbarian worthy an antagonist. Neither has Tasso been conquerors; we allude to the fairies, which, as remore happy, where he represents the divan of dark-ceived into the popular creed, and as described by ness, in the enchanted forest, as presided over by a the poets who have made use of them as machinemonarch having a huge tail, hoofs, and all the usual ry, are certainly among the most pleasing legacies accompaniments of popular diablerie. The genius of fancy. of Milton alone could discard all these vulgar puerilities, and assign to the author of evil the terrible dignity of one who should seem not "less than arch-angel ruined." This species of degradation is yet grosser when we take into consideration the changes which popular opinions have wrought respecting the taste, habits, powers, modes of tempting, and habits of tormenting, which are such as might rather be ascribed to some stupid, superannuated, and doting ogre of a fairy tale, than to the powerful-minded demon, who fell through pride and rebellion, not through folly or incapacity. Having, however, adopted our present ideas of the Devil as they are expressed by his nearest acquaintances, the witches, from the accounts of satyrs, which seem to have been articles of faith both among the Celtic and Gothic tribes, we must next notice another fruitful fountain of demonological fancies. But as this source of the mythology of the middle ages must necessarily comprehend same account of the fairy folk, to whom much of it must be referred, it is necessary to make a pause before we enter upon the mystic and marvellous connexion supposed to exist between the impenitent kingdom of Satan, and those merry dancers by moonlight. LETTER IV. The Fairy Superstition is derived from different Sources-The classical Worship of the Sylvans, or rural Deities, proved by Roman Altars discovered-The Gothic Duergar, or Dwarfs-supposed to be derived from the Northern Laps, or Fins-The Niebelungen Lied-King Laurin's Adventures-Celtic Fairies of a gayer Character, yet their Pleasures empty and illusory-Addicted to carry off human Beings, both Infants and Adults-Adventures of a Butler in Ireland-The Elves supposed to pay a Tax to Hell-The Irish, Welsh, Highlanders, and Manxmen. held the same Belief-It was rather rendered more gloomy by the Northern Traditions-Merlin and Arthur carried off by the Fairies also Thomas of Erceldoune-His Amour with the Queen of Elfland-His Reappearance in latter Tunes-Another Account from Reginald Scott-Conjectures on the Derivation of the word Fairy. WE may premise by observing, that the classics had not forgotten to enrol in their mythology a cerThe weapon is often mentioned in Mr. MacPherson's para phrases; but the Irish ballad, which gives a spirited account of VOL. L-5 Y Dr. Leyden, who exhausted on this subject, as, upon most others, a profusion of learning, found the first idea of the Elfin people in the northern opinions concerning the duergar, or dwarfs. These were, however, it must be owned, spirits of a coarser sort, more laborious vocation, and more malignant temper, and in all respects less propitious to humanity, than the fairies, properly so called, which were the invention of the Celuc people, and displayed that superiority of taste and fancy, which, with the love of music and poetry, has been generally ascribed to their race, through its various classes and modifications. In fact, there seems reason to conclude that these duergar were originally nothing else than the diminutive natives of the Lappish, Lettish, and Finish nations, who, flying before the conquering weapons of the Asæ, sought the most retired regions of the north, and there endeavoured to hide themselves from their eastern invaders. They were a little, diminutive race, but possessed of some skill probably in mining or smelting minerals, with which the country abounds; perhaps also they might, from their acquaintance with the changes of the clouds, or meteorological phenomena, be judges of weather, and so enjoy another title to supernatural skill. At any rate, it has been plausibly supposed, that these poor people, who sought caverns and hiding-places from the persecution of the Asæ, were in some respects compensated for inferiority in strength and stature, by the art and power with which the superstition of the enemy invested them. These oppressed yet dreaded fugitives obtained, naturally enough, the debate between the champion and the armourer, is nowhere introduced. Another altar of elegant form, and perfectly preserved, was, within these few weeks, dug up near the junction of the Leader and the Tweed, in the neighbourhood of the village of Newstead, to the east of Melrose. It was inscribed by Carrius Domitianus, the prefect of the twentieth legion, to the god SYLVANUS, forming another instance how much the wild and sylvan character of the country disposed the feelings of the Romans to acknowledge the presence of the rural deitics. The altar is preserved at Drygrange, the seat of Mr. Tod. I See the Essay on the Fairy Superstition, in the "Minstrelay of the Scottish Border," of which many of the materials were contributed by Dr. Leyden, and the whole brought into its present form by the author. the character of the German spirits called Kobold, | to the men of peace, good neighbours, or by whatfrom which the English Goblin and the Scottish ever other names they called these sylvan pigmies, Bogle, by some inversion and alteration of pronunci- more social habits, and a course of existence far ation, are evidently derived.. The Kobolds were a species of gnomes, who haunted the dark and solitary places, and were often seen in the mines, where they seemed to imitate the labours of the miners, and sometimes took pleasure in frustrating their objects, and rendering their toil unfruitful. Sometimes they were malignant, especially if neglected or insulted; but sometimes also they were indulgent to individuals whom they took under their protection. When a miner, therefore, hit upon a rich vein of ore, the inference commonly was, not that he possessed more skill, industry, or even luck than his fellow-workmen, but that the spirits of the mine had directed him to the treasure. The employment and apparent occupation of these subterranean gnomes, or fiends, fed very naturally to identify the Fin, or Laplander, with the Kobold; but it was a bolder stretch of the imagination, which confounded this reserved and sullen race with the livelier and gayer spirit which bears correspondence with the British fairy. Neither can we be surprised that the Duergar, ascribed by many persons to this source, should exhibit a darker and more malignant character than the elves that revel by moonlight in more southern climates. According to the old Norse belief, these dwarfs form the current machinery of the Northern Sagas, and their inferiority in size is represented as compensated by skill and wisdom superior to those of ordinary mortals. In the Niebelungen-Lied, one of the oldest romances of Germany, and compiled, it would seem, not long after the time of Attila, Theodorick of Bern, or of Verona, figures among a cycle of champions, over whom he presides, like the Charlemagne of France, or Arthur of England. Among others vanquished by him is the Elf King, or Dwarf Laurin, whose dwelling was in an enchanted garden of roses, and who had a body-guard of giants, a sort of persons seldom supposed to be themselves conjurers. He becomes a formidable opponent to Theodorick and his chivalry; but as he attempted by treachery to attain the victory, he is, when overcome, condemned to fill the dishonourable vet appropriate office of buffoon and juggler at the court of Verona.* more gay, than the sullen and heavy toils of the more saturnine Duergar. Their elves did not avoid the society of men, though they behaved to those who associated with them with caprice, which rendered it dangerous to displease them; and although their gifts were sometimes valuable, they were usually wantonly given, and unexpectedly resumed. The employment, the benefits, the amusements of the Fairy court, resembled the aerial people themselves. Their government was always represented as monarchical. A King, more frequently a Queen, of Fairies, was acknowledged; and sometimes both held their court together. Their pageants and court entertainments comprehended all that the imagination could conceive of what was, by that age, accounted gallant and splendid. At their processions, they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of mere earthly parentage-the hawks and hounds which they employed in their chase were of the first race. At their daily banquets, the board was set forth with a splendour which the proudest kings of the earth dared not aspire to; and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most exquisite music. But when viewed by the eye of a seer the illusion vanished. The young knights and beautiful ladies showed themselves as wrinkled carles and odious hags-their wealth turned into slate-stones-their splendid plate into pieces of clay fantastically twisted-and their victuals, unsavoured by salt (prohibited to them, we are told, because an emblem of eternity,) became tasteless and insipid-the stately halls were turned into miserable damp caverns all the delights of the Elfin Elysium vanished at once. In a word, their pleasures were showy, but totally unsubstantialtheir activity unceasing, but fruitless and unavailing and their condemnation appears to have consisted in the necessity of maintaining the appearance of constant industry or enjoyment, though their toil was fruitless, and their pleasures shadowy and unsubstantial. Hence poets have designed them as the crew that never rest." Besides the unceasing and useless bustle in which these spirits seemed to live, they had propensities unfavourable and distressing to mortals. Such possession of supernatural wisdom is still One injury of a very serious nature was supposed imputed, by the natives of the Orkney and Zetland to be constantly practised by the fairies against the islands, to the people called Drous, being a corrup-human mortals," that of carrying off their children, tion of Duergar or dwarfs, and who may, in most other respects, be identified with the Caledonian fairies. Lucas Jacobson Debes, who dates his description of Feroe from his Pathmos, in Thors-haven, 12th March, 1670, dedicates a long chapter to the spectres who disturbed his congregation, and sometimes carried off his hearers. The actors in these disturbances he states to be the Skow, or BiergenTrold, i. c. the spirits of the woods and mountains, sometimes called subterranean people, and adds, they appeared in deep caverns and among horrid rocks; as also, that they haunted the places where murders, or other deeds of mortal sin, had been acted. They appear to have been the genuine northern dwarfs, or Trows, another pronunciation of Trollds, and are considered by the reverend author as something very little better than actual fiends. and breeding them as beings of their race. Unchristened infants were chiefly exposed to this calamity; but adults were also liable to be abstracted from earthly commerce, notwithstanding it was their natural sphere. With respect to the first, # may be easily conceived that the want of the sacred ceremony of introduction into the Christian Church rendered them the more obnoxious to the power of those creatures, who, if not to be in all respects considered as fiends, had, nevertheless, considering their constant round of idle occupation, little right to rank themselves among good spirits, and were ac counted by most divines as belonging to a very differ ent class. An adult, on the other hand, must have been engaged in some action which exposed him to the power of the spirits, and so, as the legal phrase went, "taken in the manner." Sleeping on a Fairy mount, within which the Fairy court happened to be held for the time, was a very ready mode of obtaining a passport for Elfland. It was well for the individual if the irate elves were contented, on such occasions, with transporting him through the air to a city at some forty miles distance, and leaving, perhaps, his hat or bonnet on some steeple between, to mark the direct line of his course. Others, when engaged in some unlawful action, or in the act of giving way to some headlong and sinful passion, exposed them selves also to become inmates of Fairy land. But it is not only, or even chiefly, to the Gothic race that we must trace the opinions concerning the elves of the middle ages; these, as already hinted, were deeply blended with the attributes which the Celtic tribes had, from the remotest ages, ascribed to their deities of rocks, valleys, and forests. We have already observed, what indeed makes a great feature of their national character, that the power of the imagination is peculiarly active among the Celts, and leads to an enthusiasm concerning national masic and dancing, national poetry and song, the departments in which fancy most readily indulges herself. The Irish, the Welsh, the Gael or Scotland. Glanville, in his Eighteenth Relation, tells us tish Highlander, all tribes of Celtic descent, assigned See an abstract, by the late learned Henry Weber, of a Lay on this subject of King Laurin, compiled by Henry of Osterdingen. Northern Antiquities, Edinburgh, 1814. The same belief on these points obtained in Ireof the butler of a gentleman, a neighbour of the Earl crossing the fields, he saw a table surrounded by of Orrery, who was sent to purchase cards. In people apparently feasting and making merry. They |