THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT From the Library of Henry Goldman, Ph.D. 1886-1972 TUP] FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE Romance anfc Superstition of batious (Countries | THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, Author of the Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy ; Histories of Greece, itoauk England, and India, The Crusaders, &c., &c. Another sort there be, that will be talking of the Fairies still ; Nor never can they have their fill, As they were wedded to them DBiTTOF. A NFW KDITION, REVISED AND GREATLY ENLARGED LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN, AND NEW YORK. 1892. MJWDOBI FROM STEREOTYPE PLATES BY WILLIAM CLOWES AKD sous, LCMITED, STAMFORD STKRET AND CHARING CBOBS. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE. FRANCIS EARL OF ELLESMERE, IN TESTIMOKY OF ESTEEM AND RESPECT FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VIRTUE, LITERARY TASTE, TALENT, AND ACQUIREMENTS, AND PATRONAGE OP LITERATURE AND THE ARTS. Cfjts Folume is 3nscribeti THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. A PEEP ACE is to a book what a prologue is to a play a usual, often agreeable, but by no means necessary precursor. It may therefore be altered or omitted at pleasure. I have at times exercised this right, and this is the third I have written for the present work. In the first, after briefly stating what had given occasion to it, I gave the germs of the theory which I afterwards de- veloped in the Tales and Popular Fictions. The second contained the following paragraph : " I never heard of any one who read it that was not pleased with it. It was translated into German as soon as it appeared, and was very favourably received. Goethe thought well of it. Dr. Jacob Grimm perhaps the first authority on these matters in Europe wrote me a letter commending it, and assuring me that even to him it offered something new ; and I was one Christmas most agreeably surprised by the receipt of a letter from Vienna, from the celebrated orientalist, Jos Von Hammer, informing me that it had been the companion of a journey he had lately made to his native province of Styria, and had afforded much pleasure and information to himself and to some ladies of high rank and cultivated minds in that country. The initials at the end of the preface, he said, led him to suppose >f . Mas a work of mine. So far for the Continent. In this iv PREFACE. country, when I mention the name of Robert. Southey as that of one who has more than once expressed his decided approbation of this performance, I am sure I shall have said quite enough to satisfy any one that the work is not devoid of merit." I could now add many names of distinguished persons who have been pleased with this work and its pendent, the Tales and Popular Fictions. I shall only mention that of the late Mr. Douce, who, very shortly before his death, on the occasion of the publication of this last work, called on me to assure me that " it was many, many years indeed, since he had read a book which had yielded him so much delight." The contents of the work which gave such pleasure to this learned antiquary are as follows: I. Introduction Similarity of Arts and Customs Similarity of Names Origin of the Work Imitation Casual Coincidence Milton Dante. IL The Thousand and One Nights Bedowcen Audience around a Story-teller Cleomades and Claremond Enchanted Horses Peter of Provence and the fair Maguelone. III. The Pleasant Nights The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and theBeautiful Green Bird The Three Little Birds Lactantius Ulysses and Sindbad. IV. The Shah-Nameh Roostem and Soohrab Conloch s>d Cuchullin Macpherson's Ossian Irish Antiquities. V. The Pentamerone Tale of the Serpent Hindoo Legend. VI. Jack the Giant-killer The Brave Tailoring Thor's Journey to Utgard Ameen of Isfahan and the Ghool The Lion and the Goat The Lion and the Ass. VIL Whittington and his Cat Danish Legends Italian Stories Persian Legend. VIIL The Edda Sigurd and Brynhilda Volund Helgi Holger Danske Ogier le Dauois Toko William Tell. IX. Peruonto Peter the Fool Emelyan the Fool Conclusion. Appendix. Never, I am convinced, did any one enter on a literary career with more reluctance than I did when I found it to be my only resource fortune being gone, ill health and delicacy of constitution excluding me from the learned pro- PREFACE v feasions, want of interest from every thing else. As I journeyed to the metropolis, I might have sung with the page whom Don Quixote met going a-soldiering : A la guerra me lleva mi necesidad, Si tuviera dineros no fuera en verdad for of all arts and professions in this country, that of literature is the least respected and the worst remunerated. There is something actually degrading in the expression " an author by trade," which I have seen used e,ven of Southey, and that by one who did not mean to disparage him in the slightest degree. My advice to those who may read these pages is to shun literature, if not already blest with competence. One of 11 iy earliest literary Mends in London was T. Crofton Croker, who was then engaged in collecting mate- rials for the Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland. He of course applied to his friends for aid and information ; and I, having most leisure, and, I may add, most knowledge, was able to give him the greatest amount of assistance. My inquiries on the subject led to the writing of the present vork, which was succeeded by the Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, and the Tales and Popular Fictions ; so that, in effect, if Mr. Croker had not planned the Fairy Legends, these works, be their value what it may, would in all probability never have been written. Writing and reading about Fairies some may deem to be the mark of a trifling turn of mind. On this subject 1 have given my ideas in the Conclusion ; here I will only remind such critics, that as soon as this work was com- pleted, I commenced, and wrote in the space of a few weeks, my Outlines of History ; and whatever the faults of that work may be, no one has ever reckoned among them want of vigour in either thought or expression. It was also necessary, in order to write this work and its pendent, to be able to read, perhaps, as many as eighteen or twenty VI PREFACB. different languages, dialects, and modes of orthography, and to employ different styles both in prose and verse. At all events, even if it were trifling, dulce est desipere in loco; and I shall never forget the happy hours it caused me, especially those spent over the black-letter pages of the French romances of chivalry, in the old reading-room of the British Museum. Many years have elapsed since this work was first pub- lished. In that period much new matter has appeared in various works, especially in the valuable Deutsche Mytho- logie of Dr. Grimm. Hence it will be found to be greatly enlarged, particularly in the sections of England and France. I have also inserted much which want of space obliged me to omit in the former edition. In its present form, 1 am presumptuous enough to expect that it may live for many years, and be an authority on the subject of popular lore. The active industry of the Grimms, of Thiele, and others, had collected the popular traditions of various countries. I came then and gathered in the harvest, leaving little, I apprehend, but gleanings for future writers on this subject. The legends will probably fade fast away from the popular memory ; it is not likely that any one will relate those which I have given over again ; and it therefore seems more pro- bable that this volume may in future be reprinted, with notes and additions. For human nature will ever remain un_ changed ; the love of gain and of material enjoyments, omni- potent as it appears to be at present, will never totally ex- tinguish the higher and purer aspirations of mind ; and there will always be those, however limited in number, who will desire to know how the former dwellers of earth thought, felt, and acted. For these mythology, as connected with religion and history, will always have attractions. October, 1850. Whatever errors have been discovered are corrected in this impression. January, 1870. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, *K Origin of the Belief in Fairies ...... 1 Origin of the Word Fairy ... .... 4 ORIENTAL ROMANCE. PERSIAN ROMANCE . . . . . , . . .14 The Peri- Wife .... .... 20 ARABIAN ROMANCE ......... 24 MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE. FAIRY-LAND 44 SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE 55 EDDAS AND SAGAS .... 60 THE ALFAR 64 THE DUERGAR .... 66 Loki and the Dwarf ........ 68 Thorston and the Dwar . 70 The Dwarf-Sword Tirnng 72 SCANDINAVIA. ELVES 78 Sir Olof in the Elve-Dance 82 The Elf-Woman and Sir Olof 84 The Young Swain and the Elves So Svend Faelling and the Elle-Maid 88 The Elle-Maids 89 MaidVaj 89 The Elle-Maid near Ebeltoft 90 Hans Puntleder ......... 91 DWARFS OR TROLLS 94 SirThynne 97 Proud Margaret 103 The Troll Wife 108 The Altar-Cup in Aagerup . . . . . . .109 Origin of Tiis Lake Ill A Farmer tricks a Troll 113 Skotte in the Fire 113 The Legend of Bodedys . . . . . . .115 Kallundborg Church 116 The Hill-Man invited to the Christening .... 118 The Troll turned Cat 120 Kirsten's-Hill 121 The Troll-Labour 122 The Hill-Smith 123 The Girl at the Troll-Dance 12 The Changeling 12; viii COKTEMM. tm The Tile-Stove jumping over the Brook . . . . 127 Departure of the Trolls from Vendsyssel . . . .127 Svend Faelling 128 The Dwarfs' Banquet 130 NIBSES 139 The Nis removing ........ 140 The Penitent Nis 141 The Nis and the Boy 142 The Nis stealing Corn 143 The Nis and the Mare 144 The Nis riding 145 The Nisses in Vosborg ....... 146 NECKS, MERMEN. AND MERMAIDS 147 The Power of the Harp 150 Duke Magnus and the Mermaid 154 ORTHERN ISLANDS. ICELAND 157 FEROES 162 SHETLAND 164 Gioga'sSon . . 167 The Mermaid Wife 169 ORKNEYS 171 ISLE OF RCGEN 174 Adventures of John Dietrich 178 The Little Glass Shoe 194 The Wonderful Plough 197 The Lost Bell 200 The Black Dwarfs of Granitz 204 GERMANY. DWARFS . 216 The Hill-Man at the Dance 217 The Dwarf's Feast 218 The Friendly Dwarfs 220 Wedding-Feast of the Little People 220 Smith Riechert 221 Dwarfs stealing Corn 222 Journey of Dwarfs over the Mountain 223 The Dwarfs borrowing Bread ...... 226 Th, Changeling 7 The Dwarf-Husband 232 Inee of Rantum 232 THE "\A ILD- WOMEN 234 The Oldenburg Horn 237 KOBOLDS 239 Hinzelmann 240 Hpdeken ..... 255 King Goldemar 256 The Heinzelmanchen 257 NIXES 258 The Peasant and the Waterman .... 259 The Water-Smith 260 CONTENTS. IX Page The Working Waterman ... . 261 The Nix-Labour . ... . . 261 SWITZERLAND. DWARFS ........... 264 Gertrude and Rosy ........ 266 The Chamois-Hunter . 271 The Dwarfs on the Tree . ... 273 Curiosity punished ........ 273 The Rejected Gift ... 275 The Wonderful Little Pouch . ... 276 Aid and Punishment . . . ... 277 The Dwarf in search of Lodging . ... 278 GREAT BRITAIN. ENGLAND. The Green Children 281 The Fairy-Banquet 283 The Fairy-Horn 284 The Fortunes 285 The Grant 286 The Luck of Eden Hall 292 The Fairy-Fair . . 294 The Fairies' Caldron 295 The Cauld Lad of Hilton 296 The Pixy-Labour 301 Pixy-Vengeance . 303 Pixy-Gratitude 304 The Fairy-Thieves 305 The Boggart 307 Addlers and Menters 308 The Fary-Nurseling 310 The Fary-Labour 311 Ainsel 313 Puck 314 SCOTTISH LOWLANDS. The Fairies' Nurse 353 The Fairy-Rade 354 The Changeling 355 Departure of the Fairies 356 The Brownie 357 CELTS AND CYMRY. IRELAND. Clever Tom and the Leprechaun 373 The Leprechaun in the Garden 376 The Three Leprechauns ....... 379 The Little Shoe 382 SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. The Fairy's Inquiry 385 The Young Man in the Shian 38 J The two Fiddlers 387 The Fairy-Labour 383 X CONTENTS. Fu The Fairy borrowing Oatmeal ..... 389 The Fairy-Gift ......... 389 The Stolen Ox ......... 390 The Stolen Lady ......... 391 The Changeling ......... 393 The Wounded Seal ........ 394 The Brownies ......... 395 TheUrisk ..... .... 396 ISLE OF MAN. The Fairy-Chapman ........ 398 The Fairy-Banquet ........ 399 The Fairies' Christening ....... 400 The Fairy-Whipping ........ 400 The Fairy-Hunt ......... 401 The Fiddler and the Fairy ....... 402 The Phynnodderee ........ 402 WALES. Tale of Elidurus ........ 404 The Tylwyth Teg ......... 408 The Spirit of the Van ....... 409 Rhys at the Fairy-Dance ....... 415 GittoBach ......... 416 The Fairies banished ........ 417 BRITTANY. LaiD'Ywenec ......... 422 Lord Nann and the Kerrigan ....... 433 The Dance and Song of the Korred ..... 438 SOUTHERN EUROPE. GBEECK ......... . 443 ITALY ........... 447 SPAIN ........... 456 The Daughter of Peter de Cabinam ..... 456 Origin of the House of Haro ...... 458 La Infantina .......... 459 Pepito el Corcovado ........ 461 FRANCE. Legend of Melusina ..... ... 480 EASTERN EUROPE. FINNS ........... 487 SLAVES ........... 490 Vilas ........... 492 Deer and Vila ......... 493 AFRICANS, AFRICANS ...... . . . 4S5 JEWS ........... 497 The Broken Oaths ........ 498 The Moohel ...... ... 506 TheMazik-Ass ..... ... 510 APPENDIX ..... .513 INDEX . s . 557 THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY INTRODUCTION. In oldfe dayes of the King Artour, Of which that Bretons spoken gret honotir, All was this lond fulfilled of faerie ; The elf*qrene with hir jolie companie Danced full oft in many a grenfe mede. CHAUCER. ORIGIN OF THE BELIEF IN FAIRIES. ACCOBDING to a well-known law of our nature, effects suggest causes ; and another law, perhaps equally general, impels us to ascribe to the actual and efficient cause the attribute of intelligence. The mind of the deepest philoso- pher is thus acted upon equally with that of the peasant or the savage ; the only difference lies in the nature of the intelligent cause at which they respectively stop. The one pursues the chain of cause and effect, and traces out its various links till he arrives at the great intelligent cause of all, however he may designate him ; the other, when unusual phenomena excite his attention, ascribes their production to the immediate agency of some of the inferior beings recog- nised by his legendary creed. The action of this latter principle must forcibly strike the irtinds of those who disdain not to bestow a portion of their attention on the popular legends and traditions of different ^ IKTBODUCTIOir. countries. Every extraordinary appearance is found to have its extraordinary cause assigned ; a cause always connected with the history or religion, ancient or modern, of the country, and not unfrequently varying with a change of faith.* The noises and eruptions of ^Etna and Stromboli were, in ancient times, ascribed to Typhon or Vulcan, and at this day the popular belief connects them with the infernal regions. The sounds resembling the clanking of chains, hammering of iron, and blowing of bellows, once to be heard in the island of Barrie, were made by the fiends whom Merlin had set to work to frame the wall of brass to surround Caermarthen.t The marks which natural causes have impressed on the solid and unyielding granite rock were produced, according to the popular creed, by the contact of the hero, the saint, or the god: masses of stone, resembling domestic implements in form, were the toys, or the corresponding implements of the heroes and giants of old. Grecian imagination ascribed to the galaxy or milky way an origin in the teeming breast of the queen of heaven: marks appeared in the petals of flowers on the occasion of a youth's or a hero's untimely death : the rose derived its present hue from the blood of Venus, as she hurried barefoot through the woods and lawns; while the professors of Islam, less fancifully, refer the origin of this flower to the moisture that exuded from the sacred person of their prophet. Under a purer form of religion, the cruciform stripes which mark the back and shoulders of * The mark on Adam's Peak in Ceylon is, by the Buddhists, ascribed to Buddha ; by the Mohammedans, to Adam. It reminds one of the story of the lady and the vicar, viewing the moon through a telescope ; they saw in it, as they thought, two figures inclined toward each other : " Methinks," sayg the lady, " they are two fond lovers, meeting to pour forth their vows by earth- light." " Not at all," says the vicar, taking his turn at the glass ; " they are the steeples of two neighbouring churches." t Faerie Queene, III. c. iii. st. 8, 9, 10, 11. Dray ton, Poly-Olbion, Song VI. We fear, however, that there is only poetic authority for this belief. Mr. Todd merely quotes Warton, who says that Spenser borrowed it from Giraldus Cambrensis, who picked it up among the romantic traditions propa- gated by the Welsh bards. The reader will be, perhaps, surprised to hear that Giraldus says nothing of the demons. He mentions the sounds, and endea- vours to explain them by natural causes. Hollingshed indeed (1. i. c. 24.) aye, " whereof the superstitious sort do gather many toys." OF THE BELIEF IN FAIEIES. 3 the patient ass first appeared, according to the popukr tradition, when the Son of God condescended to enter the Holy City, mounted on that animal ; and a fish only to be found in ':he sea * stills bears the impress of the finger and thumb of the apostle, who drew him out of the waters of Lake Tiberias to take the tribute-money that lay in his mouth. The repetition of the voice among the hills is, in Norway and Sweden, ascribed to the Dwarfs mocking the human speaker, while the more elegant fancy of Greece gave birth to Echo, a nymph who pined for love, and who still fondly repeats the accents that she hears. The magic scenery occasionally presented on the waters of the Straits of Messina is produced by the power of the Fata Morgana ; the gossamers that float through the haze of an autumnal morning, are woven by the ingenious dwarfs ; the verdant circlets in the mead are traced beneath the light steps of the dancing elves ; and St. Cuthbert forges and fashions the beads that bear his name, and lie scattered along the shore of Lindisfarne.f In accordance with these laws, we find in most countries a popular belief in different classes of beings distinct from men, and from the higher orders of divinities. These beings are usually believed to inhabit, in the caverns of earth, or the depths of the waters, a region of their own. They gene- rally excel mankind in power and in knowledge, and like them are subject to the inevitable laws of death, though after a more prolonged period of existence. How these classes were first called into existence it is not easy to say ; but if, as some assert, all the ancient systems of heathen religion were devised by philosophers for the instruction of rude tribes by appeals to their senses, \va might suppose that the minds which peopled the skies with their thousands and tens of thousands of divinities gave birth also to the inhabitants of the field and flood, and that the numerous tales of their exploits and adventures are the production of poetic fiction or rude invention. It may The Haddock. + For a well-chosen collection of examples, see the very learned and philo- tophical preface of the late Mr. Price to his edition of Warton's History of English Poetry, p. 28 et seq. 2 4 IBTBODUCTIOX. further be observed, that not unfrequently a change of reli- gious faith has invested with dark and malignant attributes beings once the obiocts of love, confidence, and veneration.* It is not our intention in the following pages to treat of the awful or lovely deities of Olympus, Valhalla, or Meru. Our subject is less aspiring; and we confine ourselves to those beings who are our fellow-inhabitants of earth, whose manners we aim to describe, and whose deeds we propose to record. "We write of FAIBIES, PATS, ELVES, aut olio quo nomine gaudent. ORIGIN OF THE WORD FAIRY. Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not historically certain, the word Fairy has obtained various and opposite etymons. Meyric Casaubon, and those who like him deduce everything from a classic source, however unlikely, derive Fairy from ^rjp, a Homeric name of the Centaurs ;f or think that fee, whence Fairy, is the last syllable of nympha. Sir W. Ouseley derives it from the Hebrew INS (peer), to adorn; Skinner, from the Anglo- Saxon papan, to fare, to go ; others from Feres, companions, or think that Fairy-folk is quasi Fair-folk. Finally, it has been queried if it be not Celtic. J But no theory is so plausible, or is supported by such names, as that which deduces the English Fairy from the Persian Peri. It is said that the Paynim foe, whom the warriors of the Cross encountered in Palestine, spoke only Arabic ; the alphabet of which language, it is well known, pos- sesses no p, and therefore organically substitutes any in such foreign words as contain the former letter ; consequently Peri became, in the mouth of an Arab, Feri, whence the crusaders and pilgrims, who carried back to Europe the marvellous * In the Middle Ages the gods of the heathens were all held to be devils. f 1 *^p is the Ionic form of 0ty>, and is nearly related to the German thier, Least, animal. The Scandinavian dyr, and the Anglo-Saxon beori, have the tome signification ; and it is curious to observe the restricted sense which this l:it lias gotten in the English deer. J Preface to Warton, p. 44 ; and Breton philologists furnish us with an etymon ; not, indeed, of Fairy, but of Fada. " Fada, fata, etc.," says M. de Cambry (Monumens Celtiques), "come from the Breton mat or mad, in con- r.ruction fat, good ; whence the English, maid" OHIO IN OF THE WORD FAIEY. tales of Asia, introduced into the West the Arabo-Persian word Fairy. It is further added, that the Morgain or Mor- gana, so celebrated in old romance, is Merjan Peri, equally celebrated all over the East. All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology. Had Feerie, or Fairy, origi- nally signified the individual in the French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we might feel dis- posed to acquiesce in it. But they do not : and even if they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have deduced Lutin from Lemur the first letter being the same in both? As to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou*), we fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her. Her name, as far as we can learn, only occurs in the Caherman Nameh, a Turkish romance, though perhaps translated from the Persian. The foregoing etymologies, it is to be observed, are all the conjectures of English scholars ; for the English is the only language in which the name of the individual, Fairy, has the canine letter to afford any foundation for them. Leaving, then, these sports of fancy, we will discuss the true origin of the words used in the Romanic languages to express the being which we name Fairy of Romance. These are Faee, Fee, French ; Fada, Proven9al (whence Hada, Spanish) ; and Fata, Italian. The root is evidently, we think, the Latin fatum. In the fourth century of our aera we find this word made plural, and even feminine, and used as the equivalent of Parcae. On the reverse of a gold medal of the Emperor Diocletian are three female figures, with the legend Fatis victricibus ; a cippus, found at Valencia in Spain, has on one of its sides * D'Herbelot litre Mergian says, " C'est du norn de cette Fee que nos anciens remans ont forme celui de More/ante la Deconnue." He here con- founds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his mistake. D'Herbelot also thinks it possi ble that Feerie may come from Peri ; but he regards the common derivation from Fata as much more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is Mor Gwyun, the White Maid. 6 Fatis Q. Fdbius ex voto, and on the other, three female figures, with the attributes of the Moerae or Parcse.* In this last place the gender is uncertain, but the figures would lead us to suppose it feminine. On the other hand, Ausoniusf has tres Charites, tria Fata; and ProcopiusJ names a building at the Eoman Forum rd rpia fdra, adding ovru) ydp 'Pwftaiot rdf /xo7pac vevopiKaffi KaXi'iv. The Fatae or Fata, then, being persons, and their name coinciding so exactly with the modern terms, and it being observed that the Mcerae were, at the birth of Meleager, just as the Fees were at that of Ogier le Danois, and other heroes of romance and tale, their identity has been at once asserted, and this is now, we believe, the most prevalent theory. To this it may be added, that in G-ervase of Tilbury, and other writers of the thirteenth century, the Fada or Fee seems to be regarded as a being different from human kind. On the other hand, in a passage presently to be quoted from a celebrated old romance, we shall meet a definition of the word Fee, which expressly asserts that such a being was nothing more than a woman skilled in magic ; and such, on examination, we shall find to have been all the Fees of the romances of chivalry and of the popular tales ; in effect, that fee is a participle, and the words dame or femme is to be understood. In the middle ages there was in use a Latin veTb,fatare,\\ derived fromfatum or fata, and signifying to enchant. This * These two instances are given by Mdlle. Amelie Bosquet (La Nonnandie Romanesque, etc. p. 91.) from Dom Martin, Rel. des Gaulois, ii. ch. 23 and 24. f Gryphus ternarii nntiuri. J De Belj. Got. i. 25. See below, France. It is also remarked that in some of the tales of the Pentamerone, the number of the Fate is three ; but to this it may be replied, that in Italy every thing took a classic tinge, and that the Fate of those tales are only Maghe ; so in the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso we meet with La Fata Urganda. In Spain and France the number would rather seem to have been seven. Cervantes speaks of " los siete castillos do las siete fadas ; " in the Rom. de la lufantina it is said, "siete fadas me fadaron, en brazos dc una ama inia," and the Fees are seven in La Belle au Bois dormant. In the romance, however, of Guillaume au Court-nez, the Fees who carry the sleeping Renoart out of the boat are three in number. See Grimm Deutsche My thologie, p. 383. || A MS. of the 13th century, quoted by Grimm (ut sup. p. 405), thtu relates the origin of Aquisgrani (Ahc la Chapelle) : Aquisgrani iicitur Ays, ct OBI GIN OF THE WOED FAIET. 7 verb was adopted by the Italian, Provei^al* and Spanish languages ; in French it became, according to the analogy of that tongue, faer, feer. Of this verb the past participle \$fae,fe; hence in the romances we continually meet with les chevaliers faes, les dames /bees, Oberon la fae, le cheval etoit fae, la clef etait fe, and such like. We have further, we think, demonstrated f that it was the practice of the Latin language to elide accented syllables, especially in the past participle of verbs of the first conjugation, and that this practice had been transmitted to the Italian, whence fatato-a would formfato-a, and una donna fatata might thus become unafata. Whether the same was the case in the Proven9al we cannot affirm, as our knowledge of that dialect is very slight ; but, judging from analogy, we would say it was, for in Spanish Hadada and Hada are synonymous. In the Neapolitan Pentamerone Fata and Maga are the same, and a Fata sends the heroine of it to a sister of hers, pure fatata. Ariosto says of Medea E perche per virtu d' erbe e d'incanti Delle Fate una ed immortal fatta era. / Cinque Canti, ii. 106. The same poet, however, elsewhere says Queste che or Fate e dagli antichi foro Gia dette Ninfe e Dee con piu bel nome. Ibid. i. 9. and, Nascemmo ad un punto che d'ogni altro male Siamo capaci fuorche della morte. Orl. Fur. xliii. 48. dicitur eo, quod Karolus tenebat ibi quandam mulierem fatatam,s\\e quandam fatam, quae alio nomine nimpha vel dea vel adriades (1. dryas) appellatur, et ad hanc consuetudinem habebat, et earn cognoscebat ; et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad earn vivebat ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur. Contigit dum quadam vice ad ipsam accessisset ut cum ea delectaretur, radius soil's intravit os ejus, et tune Karolus vidit granum auri lingue ejus affixum, quod fecit abscindi et contingenti (1. in continenti) mortua est, nee postea revixit. * " Aissim fadaro tres serors En aquella ora qu' ieu ui natz Que totz temps fos enamoratz." Folquet de Romans. (Thus three sisters fated, in the hour that I was born, that I should be ai til times in love.) " Aissi fuy de nueitz fadatz sobr' un puegau." Guilh. de Poitou. (Thus was I fated by night on a bill.) Grimm, ut sup. p. 383. f See our Virgil, Excurs. ix. 8 INTBODUCT101T. which last, however, is not decisive. Bojardo also calls the water-nymphs Fate ; and our old translators of the Classics named them fairies. From all this can only, we apprehend, be collected, that the ideas of the Italian poets, and others, were somewhat vague on the subject. From the verb faer, feer, to enchant, illude, the French made a substantive faerie, f eerie,* illusion, enchantment, the meaning of which was afterwards extended, particularly after it had been adopted into the English language. We find the word Faerie, in fact, to be employed in four different senses, which we will now arrange and exemplify. 1. Illusion, enchantment. Plusieurs parlent de Guenart, Du Loup, de 1'Asne, de Renart, De faeries et de songes, Do phantosmes et de mensonges. Gul. Giar. ap. I>ucange. Where we must observe, as Sir Walter Scott seems not to have been aware of it, that the four last substantives bear the same relation to each other as those in the two first verses do. Me bifel a ferly Of faerie, me thought. Vision of Piers Plowman, v. 11. Maius that sit with so benigne a chere, Hire to behold it seemed faerie. Chaucer, Marchante's Tale. It (the horse of brass) was of faerie, as the peple semed, Diversd folk diversely han demed. Squiers Tale. The Emperor said on high, Certes it is a faerie, Or elles a vanite. Emare. With phantasme and faerie, Thus she blerede his eye. Libeaus Discount. The God of her has made an end, And fro this worldes faerie Hath taken her into companie. Gower, Constance. * Following the analogy of the Gotho-Cerman tongues, zaulerei, Germ. trylleri, Dan. trolkri, Swed. illusion, enchantment. The Italian word it fattucchieria. ORIGIN OF THE WORD FAIRY. 9 Mr. Kitson professes not to understand the meaning of faerie in this last passage. Mr. Bitson should, as Sir Hugh Evans says, have ' prayed his pible petter ;' where, among other things that might have been of service to him, he would have learned that ' man walketh in a vain shew,' that ' all is vanity] and that ' the fashion of this world passeth away ;' and then he would have found no difficulty in com- prehending the pious language of ' moral Gower,' in his allusion to the transitory and deceptive vanities of the World. 2. From the sense of illusion simply, the transition was easy to that of the land of illusions, the abode of the Faes, who produced them ; and Faerie next came to signify the country of the Fays. Analogy also was here aiding; for as a Nonnerie was a place inhabited by Nonnes, a Jewerie a place inhabited by Jews, so a Faerie was naturally a place inhabited by Fays. Its termination, too, corresponded with a usual one in the names of countries : Tartarie, for instance, and ' the regne of Feminie.' Here beside an elfish knight Hath taken my lord in fight, And hath him led with him away Into the Faerie, sir, parmafay. Sir Guy. La puissance qu'il avoit sur toutes faeries du monde. Huon de Bordeaux. En effect, s'il me falloit retourner en faerie, je ne S9auroye ou prendre mon chemin. Ogier le Dannoys. . That Gawain with his olde curtesie, Though he were come agen out of faerie. Squier's Tale. He (Arthur) is a king y-crowned in Faerie, With sceptre and pall, and with his regalty Shalle resort, as lord and sovereigne, Out of Faerie, and reigne in Bretaine, And repair again the oulde Rounde Table. Lydgate, Fall of Princes, bk. viii. c. 24. 3. From the country the appellation passed to the inhabi- tants in their collective capacity, and the Faerie now signified the people of Fairy-land.* * Here too there is perhaps an analogy with cavali-y, infantry, sguierie, and similar collective terms. 10 INTRODUCTION. Of the fourth kind of Spritis called the Phairie. K. James, Demonologie, 1. 8. Full often time he, Pluto, and his quene Proserpina, and alle hir faerie, Disporten hem, and maken melodie About that well. Marchante's Tale. The feasts that underground the Faerie did him make, And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake. Drayton, Poly-Olb., Song IV. 4. Lastly, the word came to signify the individual denizen of Fairy-land, and was equally applied to the full-sized fairy knights and ladies of romance, and to the pygmy elves that haunt the woods and dells. At what precise period it got this its last, and subsequently most usual sense, we are unable to say positively ; but it was probably posterior to Chaucer, in whom it never occurs, and certainly anterior to Spenser, to whom, however, it seems chiefly indebted for its future general currency.* It was employed during the sixteenth century t for the Fays of romance, and also, especially by translators, for the Elves, as corresponding to the Latin Nympha. They vxdieved that king Arthur was not dead, but carried awaie by the Fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then returne again and reign in as great authority as ever. Hollingshed, bk. v. c. 14. Printed 1577. Semicaper Pan Nunc tenet, at quodam tenuerunt tempore nymphse. Ovid, Met. xiv. 520. The halfe-goate Pan that howre Possessed it, but heretofore it was the Paries' bower. Gelding, 1567 * The Faerie Queene was published some years before the Midsummer Night's Dream. Warton (Obs. on the Faerie Queene) observes : " It appears from Marston's Satires, printed 1598, that the Faerie Queene occasioned many publications in which Fairies were the principal actors. Go buy some ballad of the FAERY KING. Ad Lectorem. Out steps some Faery with quick motion, And tells him wonders of some flowerie vale Awakes, straight rubs his eyes, and prints his tale. B. III. Sat. 6." ( It is in this century that we first meet with Fmry as a dissyllable, and with a plural. It is then used in its fourth and last sense. ORIGIN OF THE WOBD FAIET. 11 Hjec nemora indigenae fauni nymphseque tenebant, Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata. Virgil, jEneis, viii. 314. With nymphis and faunis apoun every side, Qwhilk Farefolkis or than Elfis clepen we. Gawin Dowglas. The woods (quoth he) sometime both fauns and nymphs, and gods of ground, And Fairy-queens did keep, and under them a nation rough. Phaer, 1562. Inter Hamadryadas celeberrima Nonacrinas Nai'as una fait. Ovid, Met. 1. i. 690. Of all the nymphes of Nonacris and Fairie ferre and neere, In beautie and in personage this ladie had no peere. Golding. Pan ibi dum teneris jactat sua cannina nymphis. Ov. Ib. xi. 153. There Pan among the Fairie-elves, that daunced round togither. Golding. Solaque Naiadum celeri non nota Diana?. Ov. Ib. iv. 304. Of all the water-fayries, she alonely was unknowne To swift Diana. Golding. Nymphis latura coronas. Ov. Ib. ix. 337. Was to the fairies of the lake fresh garlands for to bear. Golding. Thus we have endeavoured to trace out the origin, and mark the progress of the word Fairy, through its varying significations, and trust that the subject will now appear placed in a clear and intelligible light. After the appearance of the Faerie Queene, all distinctions were confounded, the name and attributes of the real Fays or Fairies of romance were completely transferred to the little beings who, according to the popular belief, made ' the green sour ringlets whereof the ewe not bites.' The change thus operated by the poets established itself firmly among the people ; a strong proof, if this idea be correct, of the power of the poetry of a nation in altering the phraseology of even the lowest classes* of its society. * The Fata Morgana of the Straits of Messina is an example ; for the name of Morgana, whencesoever derived, was probably brought into Italy ty the poets. 12 INTRODUCTION. Shakspeare must be regarded as a principal agent in this revolution ; yet even he uses Fairy once in the proper sense of Fay; a sense it seems to have nearly lost, till it waa again brought into use by the translators of the French Contes des Fees in the last century. To this great Fairy 1 11 commend thy acts. Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 8. And Milton speaks Of Faery damsels met in forests wide By knights of Logres or of Lyones, Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellinore. Yet he elsewhere mentions the Faery elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain some belated peasant sees. Finally, Randolph, in his Amyntas, employs it, for perhaps the last time, in its second sense, Fairy-land : I do think There will be of Jocastus' brood in Fairy. Act L sc. 3. We must not here omit to mention that the Germans, along with the French romances, early adopted the name of the Fees. They called them Feen and Feinen.* In the Tristram of Gottfried von Strazburg we are told that Duke Gylan had a syren-like little dog, Dez wart dem Herzoge gesandt 'Twas sent unto the duke, parde, Uz Avalun, der Feinen land, From Avalun, the Fays' countrie, Von einer Gottinne. V. 1673. By a gentle goddess. In the old German romance of Isotte and Blanscheflur, the hunter who sees Isotte asleep says, I doubt Dez sie menschlich sei, If she human be, Sie ist schoner derm eine Feine. She is fairer than a Fay. Von Fleische noch von Beine Of flesh or bone, I say, Kunte nit gewerden Never could have birth So schones auf der erden. A thing so fair on earth. Dobenek, des deutschen Mittelalter* und Volksglauhen. Berlin, 1818. INTBO-DUCTIOIT. 13 Our subject naturally divides itself into two principal branches, corresponding to the different classes of beings to which the name Fairy has been applied. The first, beings of the human race, but endowed with powers beyond those usually allotted to men, whom we shall term FATS, or FAIBIES OP BOMANCE. The second, those little beings of the popular creeds, whose descent we propose to trace from the cunning and ingenious Duergar or dwarfs of northern mythology, and whom we shall denominate ELVES or POPTTLAB FAIBIES. It cannot be expected that our classifications should vie in accuracy and determinateness with those of natural science. The human imagination, of which these beings are the off- spring, works not, at least that we can discover, like nature, by fixed and invariable laws ; and it would be hard indeed to exact from the Fairy historian the rigid distinction of classes and orders which we expect from the botanist or chemist. The various species so run into and are confounded with one another ; the actions and attributes of one kind are so fre- quently ascribed to another, that scarcely have we begun to erect our system, when we find the foundation crumbling under our feet. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings once formed parts of ancient and exploded systems of religion, and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. We will now proceed to consider the Fairies of romance i and as they are indebted, though not for their name, yet perhaps for some of their attributes, to the Peries of Persia, we will commence with that country. We will thence pursue our course through Arabia, till we arrive at the middle-age romance of Europe, and the gorgeous realms of Fairy-land ; and thence, casting a glance at the Faerie Queene, advance to the mountains and forests of the Korth, there to trace the origin of the light-hearted, night-tripping elves. ORIENTAL ROMANCE.* y Joue ji J^xl SADEK. All human beings must in beauty yield To you ; a PERI I have ne'er beheld. PERSIAN ROMANCE. THE pure and simple religion of ancient Persia, originating, it is said, with a pastoral and hunting race among the lofty hills of Aderbijan, or, as others think, in the elevated plains of Bactria, in a region where light appears in all its splen- dour, took as its fundamental principle the opposition between light and darkness, and viewed that opposition as a conflict. Light was happiness ; and the people of Iran, the land 01 light, were the favourites of Heaven ; while those of Turan, the gloomy region beyond the mountains to the north, were its enemies. In the realms of supernal light sits enthroned Ormuzd, the first-born of beings ; around him are the six Amshaspands, the twenty-eight Izeds, and the countless myriads of Ferohers.f In the opposite kingdom of darkness * See D'Herbelot, Richardson's Dissertation, Ouseley's Persian Miscellanies, Wahl in the Mines de 1'Orient, Lane, Thousand and One Nights, Forbes, Hatim TaY, etc., etc. + Onnuzd employed himself for three thousand years in making the heavens and their celestial inhabitants, the Ferohers, which are the angels and the unembodied souls of all intelligent beings. All nature is filled with Ferohers, or guardian angels, who watch over its various departments, and are occupied in performing their various tasks for the benefit of mankind. Erslcine on the Sacred Books and Religion of the Parsis, in the Transaction* of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. ii. p. 318. The Feroher bears in fact a very strong resemblance to the Genius of the ancient Roman religion : gee our Mythology of Greece and Italy PERSIAN EOMANCE. 15 Aherman is supreme, and his throne is encompassed by the six Arch-Deevs, and the numerous hosts of inferior Deevs. Between these rival powers ceaseless warfare prevails ; but at the end the prince of darkness will be subdued, and peace and happiness prevail beneath the righteous sway of Ormuzd. From this sublime system of religion probably arose the Peri-* or Fairy-system of modern Persia ; and thus what was once taught by sages, and believed by monarchs, has shared the fate of everything human, and has sunk from its pristine rank to become the material and the machinery of poets and romancers. The wars waged by the fanatical successors of the Prophet, in which literature was confounded with ido- latry, have deprived us of the means of judging of this system in its perfect form ; and in what has been written respecting the Peries and their country since Persia has received the law of Mohammed, the admixture of the tenets and ideas of Islam is evidently perceptible. If, however, Orientalists be right in their interpretation of the name of Artaxerxes' queen, Parisatis, as Pari-zadehf (Peri-born), the Peri must be coeval with the religion of Zoroaster. The Peries and Deevs of the modern Persians answer to the good and evil Jinn of the Arabs, of whose origin and nature we shall presently give an account. The same Suleymans ruled over them as over the Jinn, and both alike were punished for disobedience. It is difficult to say which is the original ; but when we recollect in how much higher a state of culture the Persians were than the Arabs, and how well this view accords with their ancient system of religion, we shall feel inclined to believe that the Arabs were the borrowers, and that by mingling with the Persian system ideas derived from the Jews, that one was formed by them which is now the common property of all Moslems. In like manner we regard the mountains of Kaf, the abode alike of Jinn and of Peries and Deevs, as having belonged originally to Persian geography. The fullest account of it * This word is pronounced Perry or rather Parry. "1* 8t) ; i fr) Hence it follows that the very plausible idea tf tb.. Pcii > *TV having bsen the same with the Feroher cannot be correct. 16 OB1ESTAL 011 ASCII. appears in the Persian romance of Hatim Tai,* the hero of which often visited its regions. From this it would seem that this mountain-range was regarded as, like that of the ancient Greek cosmology, surrounding the flat circular earth "like a ring, or rather like the bulwarks of a ship, outside of which flowed the ocean ; while some Arab authorities make it to lie beyond, and to enclose the ocean as well as the earth.f It is said to be composed of green chrysolite, the reflection of which gives its greenish tint to the sky. According to some, its height is two thousand English miles. Jinnestan is the common appellation of the whole of this ideal region. Its respective empires were divided into many "kingdoms, containing numerous provinces and cities. Thus in the Peri-realms we meet with the luxuriant province of Shad-u-kam (Pleasure and Delight), with its magnificent capital Juherabad (Jewel-city}, whose two kings solicited the aid of Caherman against the Deevs,J and also the stately Amberabad (Amber-city), and others equally splendid. The metropolis of che Deev-empire is named Ahermanabad (Aher- mari's city) ; and imagination has lavished its stores in the description of the enchanted castle, palace, and gallery of the Deev monarch, Arzshenk. The Deevs and Peries wage incessant war with each other. Like mankind, they are subject to death, but afte" n much longer period of existence ; and, though far superior to man in power, they partake of his sentiments and passions. We are told that when the Deevs in their wars make prisoners of the Peries, they shut them up in iron cages, and hang them froii- the tops of the highest trees, exposed to every gaze and to every chilling blast. Here their com- panions visit them, and bring them the choicest odours to feed on ; for the ethereal Peri Lives on perfume, which has more- over the property of repelling the cruel Deevs, whose malignant nature is impatient of fragrance. When the Peries are unable to withstand their foes, they * Translated by Mr. Duncan Forbes. It is to be regretted that he hoi employed the terms Fairies and Demons instead of Peries and Deevs. f See Lane, Thousand and One Nights, i. p. 21, seq. t The Caherman Nameh is a romance in Turkish. Cahermao was tha father of Sim, the grandfather of the celebrated Roostem. It is 1:1 the Caherman Nameh that this circums'ance occurs- PEBSIAX EOMASCE. 17 solicit the aid of some mortal hero. Enchanted arms and talismans enable him to cope with the gigantic Deevs, and he is conveyed to Jinnestan on the back of some strange and wonderful animal. His adventures in that country usually furnish a wide field for poetry and romance to expatiate in. The most celebrated adventurer in Jinnestan was Tah- muras, surnamed Deev-bend (Deev-binder),* one of the ancient kings of Persia. The Peries sent him a splendid embassy, and the Deevs, who dreaded him, despatched an- other. Tahmuras, in doubt how to act, consults the won- derful bird Seemurgh,t who speaks all languages, and whose knowledge embraces futurity. She advises him to aid the Peries, warns him of the dangers he has to encounter, and discloses his proper line of action. She further offers to * the Arabs. The poet Sadee, to express the bounty of the Ajmigntv savg .4} .x-JU, His liberal board he spreadeth out so wide, On Kaf the Seemurgh is with food supplied. The Seemurgh probably belongs to the original mythology of Persia, for sh appears in the early part of the Shah Nanieh. When Zal was corn to Sam Neriman, his hair proved to be white. The father regarding this as a proor o Deev origin, resolved to expose him, and sent him for that purpose to Mount Elburz. Here the poor babe lay crying and sucking his fingers till he was found by the Seemurgh, who abode on the summit of Klburz, as sne was looking for food for her young ones. But God put pity into her heart, and sne took him to her nest and reared him with her young. As he grew up, the caravans that passed by, spread the fame of his beauty and his strength, and a vision having informed Sam that he was his son, he set out for Elburz to claim him from the Seemurgh.. It was with grief that Zal quitted the materna. nest. The Seemurgh, when parting with her foster-son, gave him one of her feathers, >* bade him, whenever he should be in trouble or danger, to cast it into the fire, and he would have proof of her power; and she charged him at he same time stiictly never to forget his nurse. C 18 ORIENTAL 11OMAHCE. convey him to Jinnestan, and plucks some feathers from her breast, with which the Persian monarch adorns his helmet. Mounted on the Seemurgh, and bracing on his arm tha potent buckler of Jan-ibn-Jan,* Tahmuras crosses the abysa impassable to unaided mortality. The vizier Iinlan, who had headed the Deev embassy, deserting his original friends, had gone over to Tahmuras, and through the magic arts of the Deev, and his own daring valour, the Persian hero defeata the Deev-king Arzshenk. He next vanquishes a Deev still more fierce, named Demrush, who dwelt in a gloomy cavern, surrounded by piles of wealth plundered from the neigh- bouring realms of Persia and India. Here Tahmuras finds a fair captive, the Peri Merjan,t whom Demrush had carried off, and whom her brothers, Dal Peri and Milan Shah Peri, had long sought in vain. He chains the Deev in the centre of the mountain, and at the suit of Merjan hastens to attack another powerful Deev named Houndkonz ; but here, alas ! fortune deserts him, and, maugre his talismans and enchanted arms, the gallant Tahmuras falls beneath his foe. The great Deev-bend, or conqueror of Deevs, of the Shah-NamehJ is the illustrious Roostem. In the third of his Seven Tables or adventures, on his way to relieve the Shah Ky-Caoos, whom the artifice of a Deev had led to Mazenderan, where he was in danger of perishing, he encounters in the dark of the night a Deev named Asdeev, who stole on him in a dragon's form as he slept. Twice the hero's steed, Beksh, awoke him, but each time the Deev vanished, and Eoostem was near slaying his good steed for giving him a false alarm. The third time he saw the Deev and slew him after a fearful combat. He then pursued his way to the cleft in the mountain in which abode the great Deev Sefeed, or "White Deev. The seventh Table brought him to where lay an army of the Deev Sefeed' s Deevs, commanded by Arzshenk, whose head he struck off, and put his troops to flight. At length he reached the gloomy cavern of the Deev * See Arabian Romance. f- ..il*-.* a pearl. Life, soul also, according to Wilkins. * Ferdousee's great heroic poem. It is remarkable that the Peries are very rarely spoken of in this poem. They merely appear in it with the birds and beasts amoug the subjects of the first Iranian monarchs. PEBSIAN ROMANCE. 19 Sefeed himself, whom he found asleep, and scorning the advantage he awoke him, and after a terrific combat deprived him also of life. Many years after, when Ky-Khosroo sat on the throne, a wild ass of huge size, his skin like the sun, and a black stripe along his back, appeared among the royal herds and destroyed the horses. It was supposed to be the Deev Akvan,who was known to haunt an adjacent spring. Eoostem wenjt in quest of him ; on the fourth day he found him and cast his noose at him, but the Deev vanished. He re-appeared ; the hero shot at him, but he became again invisible. Eoostem then let Eeksh graze, and laid him to sleep by the fount. As he slept, Akvan came and flew up into the air with him ; and when he awoke, he gave him his choice of being let fall on the mountains or the sea. Eoostem secretly chose the latter, and to obtain it he pre- tended to have heard that he who was drowned never entered paradise. Akvan thereupon let him fall into the sea, from which he escaped, and returning to the fount, he there met and slew the Deev. Eoostem' s last encounter with Deevs was with Akvan' s son, Berkhyas, and his army, when he went to deliver Peshen from the dry well in which he was confined by Afrasiab. He slew him and two-thirds of his troops. Berkhyas is described as being a mountain in size, his face black, his body covered with hair, his neck like that of a dragon, two boar's tussks from his mouth, his eyes wells of blood, his hair bristling like needles, his height 140 ells, his breadth 17, pigeons nestling in his snaky locks. Akvan had had a head like an elephant. In the Hindoo-Persian Bahar Danush (Garden of Know- ledge) of Yudyet-ullah, written in India A.D. 1650,* we find the following tale of the Peries, which has a surprisi resemblance to European legends hereafter to be noticed.f * Chap. xx. translation of Jonathan Scott, I79i>. f See below, Shetland. 20 OEIEJSTAL ROMANCE. THE son of a merchant in a city of Hindostan, having been driven from his father's house on account of his undutifu] conduct, assumed the garb of a Kalenderee or wandering Derweesh, and left his native town. On the first day of his travels, being overcome with fatigue before he reached any place of rest, he went off the high road and sat down at the foot of a tree by a piece of water : while he sat there, he saw at sunset four doves alight from a tree on the edge of the pond, and resuming their natural form (for they were Peries) take off their clothes and amuse them- selves by bathing in the water. He immediately advanced softly, took up their garments, without being seen, and con- cealed them in the hollow of a tree, behind which he placed himself. The Peries when they came out of the water and missed their clothes were distressed beyond measure. They ran about on all sides looking for them, but in vain. At length, finding the young man and judging that he had possessed himself of them, they implored him to restore them. He would only consent on one condition, which was that one of them should become his wife. The Peries asserted that such a union was impossible between them whose bodies were formed of fire and a mortal who was composed of clay and water ; but he persisted, and selected the one which was the youngest and handsomest. They were at last obliged to consent, and having endeavoured to console their sister, who shed copious floods of tears at the idea of parting with them and spending her days with one of the sons of Adam ; and having received their garments, they took leave of her and flew away. The young merchant then led home his fair bride and clad her magnificently ; but he took care to bury her Peri- raiment in a secret place, that she might not be able to leave him. He made every effort to gain her affections, and at length succeeded in his object " she placed her foot in PEESIAN BOMAUCE. 21 the path of regard, and her head on the carpet of affection." She bore him children, and gradually began to take pleasure in the society of his female relatives and neighbours. AH doubts of her affection now vanished from his mind, and he became assured of her love and attachment. At the end of ten years the merchant became embarrassed in his circumstances, and he found it necessary to under- take a long voyage. He committed the Peri to the care of an aged matron in whom he had the greatest confidence, and to whom he revealed the secret of her real nature, and showed the spot where he had concealed her raiment. He then " placed the foot of departure in the stirrup of travel," and set out on his journey. The Peri was now overwhelmed with sorrow for his absence, or for some more secret cause, and continually uttered expressions of regret. The old woman sought to console her, assuring her that " the dark night of absence would soon come to an end, and the bright dawn of interview gleam from the horizon of divine bounty." One day when the Peri had bathed, and was dry- ing her amber-scented tresses with a corner of her veil, the old woman burst out into expressions of admiration at her dazzling beauty. "Ah, nurse," replied she, "though you think my present charms great, yet had you seen me in my native raiment, you would have witnessed what beauty and grace the Divine Creator has bestowed upon Peries ; for know that we are among the most finished portraits on the tablets of existence. If then thou desirest to behold the skill of the divine artist, and admire the wonders of cre- ation, bring the robes which my husband has kept concealed, that I may wear them for an instant, and show thee my native beauty, the like of which no human eye, but my lord's, hath gazed upon." The simple woman assented, and fetched the robes and presented them to the Peri. She put them on, and then, like a bird escaped from the cage, spread her wings, and, crying Farewell, soared to the sky and was seen no more. When the merchant returned from his voyage " and found no signs of the rose of enjoyment on the tree oi hope, but the lamp of bliss extinguished in the chamber of felicity, he became as one Peri-stricken,* a recluse in the cell of mad- * i. e. possessed, insane. It is like tlie wfi6\ijirros of the Greeks. 22 OB1ENTAL BOMANCE. ness. Banished from the path of understanding, he remained lost to all the bounties of fortune and the useful purposes of life." The Peri has been styled " the fairest creation of poetical imagination." No description can equal the beauty of the female Peri,* and the highest compliment a Persian poet can pay a lady is to liken her to one of these lovely aerial beings.t Thus Sadee, in the lines prefixed to this section, declares that only the beauty of a Peri can be compared with that of the fair one Le addresses ; and more lately, Aboo Taleeb Khan says to Lady Elgin, as he is translated by M. von Hammer,J The sun, the moon, the Penes, and mankind, Compared with you, do far remain behind ; For sun and moon have never form so mild, The Peries have, but roam in deserts wild. Sir ~W. Ouseley is at a loss what to compare them to. They do not, he thinks, resemble the Angels, the Cherubim and Seraphim of the Hebrews, the Daemons of the Platonists, or the Genii of th? Romans ; neither do they accord with the Houri of the Arabs. Still less do they agree with the Fairies of Shakspeare ; for though fond of fragrance, and * It must be recollected that the Peries are of both sexes: we have just spoken of Peri Icings, and of the brothers of Merjan. f In the Shah Nameh it is said of Prince Siyawush, that when he was born he was bright as a Peri. We find the poets everywhere comparing female beauty to that of supetior beings. The Greeks and Romans compared a lovely woman to Venus, Diana, or the nymphs ; the Persians to a Peri : the ancient Scandinavians would say she was Frith sem Alfkone, "fair as an Alf-woman;" and an Anglo-Saxon poet says of Judith that she was Elf-sheen, or fair as at Elf. In the Lay of Gugemer it is said, Dedenz la Dame unt trovee Ki de biaute resanbloit Fie. The same expression occurs in Meon (3, 412) ; and in the Romant de la ROM we meet, jure que plus belle est que fee (10, 425). In the Pentamerone it ii said of a king's son, lo quale essenno bello comme a no fato. J Mines de 1'Orient, vol. iii. p. 40. To make his version completely English, M. von Hammer uses the word Fairies ; we have ventured t change it. PERSIAN ROMANCE. 23 living on that sweet essential food, we never find them employed in Killing cankers in the musk-rose buds, or obliged To serve the fairy queen To dew her orbs upon the green. Neither is their stature ever represented so diminutive as to make key-holes pervious to their flight, or the bells of flowers their habitations. But Milton's sublime idea of a 'faery vision,' he thinks, corresponds more nearly with what the Persian poets have conceived of the Peries. Their port was more than human, as they stood ; I took it for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element That in the colours of the rainbow live And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awestruck, And as I pass'd I worshipp'd. Comw. "I can venture to affirm," concludes Sir William gallantly, "that he will entertain a pretty just idea of a Persian Peri, who shall fix his eyes on the charms of a beloved and beauti- ful mistress." If poetic imagination exhausted itself in pourtraying the beauty of the Peries, it was no less strenuous in heaping attributes of deformity on the Deevs. They may well vie in ugliness with the devils of our forefathers. " At Lahore, in the Mogul's palace," says William Finch, "are pictures ot Dews, or Dives, intermixed in most ugly shapes, with long horns, staring eyes, shaggy hair, great fangs, ugly paws, long tails, with such horrible difformity and deformity, that I wonder the poor women are not frightened therewith."* Such then is the Peri-system of the Mohammedan Persians, in which the influence of Islam is clearly percep- tible, the very names of their fabled country and its kings being Arabic. Had we it as it was before the Arabs forced their law on Persia, we should doubtless find it more con^ sistent in all its parts, more light, fanciful, and etherial. * In Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i., quoted by Sir W. Ouseley. 24 OEI3KTAL HOMATfCB. ARABIAN ROMANCE. THE Prophet is the centre round which every thing con- nected with Arabia revolves. The period preceding his birth is regarded and designated as the times of ignorance, and our knowledge of the ancient Arabian mythology com- prises little more than he has been pleased to transmit to us. The Arabs, however, appear at no period of their history to have been a people addicted to fanciful invention. Their minds are acute and logical, and their poetry is that of the heart rather than of the fancy. They dwell with fondness on the joys and pains of love, and with enthusiasm describe the courage and daring deeds of warriors, or in moving strains pour forth, the plaintive elegy ; but for the description of gorgeous palaces and fragrant gardens, or for the wonders of magic, they are indebted chiefly to their Persian neighbours.* What classes of beings the popular creed may have recognised before the establishment of Islam we have no means of ascertaining.f The Suspended Poems, and Antar, give us little or no information ; we only know that the tales of Persia were current among them, and were listened to with such avidity as to rouse the indignation of the Prophet. We must, therefore, quit the tents of the Bedoween, and the valleys of ' Araby the Blest,' and accom- pany the khaleefehs to their magnificent capital on the Tigris, whence emanated all that has thrown such a halo of splen- dour around the genius and language of Arabia. It is in. this seat of empire that we must look to meet with the origin of the marvels of Arabian literature. Transplanted to a rich and fertile coil, the sons of the * Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W. Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the court-poet d" Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the Arabs of the Desert. f The Jinn are mentioned in the Kuran and also in Antar. ABABIV2? BOMAUCE. 25 desert speedily abandoned their former simple mode of life ; and the court of Bagdad equalled or surpassed in magnifi- cence any thing that the East has ever -witnessed. Genius, whatever its direction, was encouraged and rewarded, and the musician and the story-teller shared with the astronomer and historian the favour of the munificent khaleefehs. The tales which had aoused the leisure of the Shahpoors and Tezdejirds were not disdained by the Haroons and Alrnan- soors. The expert narrators altered them so as to accord with the new faith. And it was thus, probably, that the delightful Thousand and One Nights * were gradually pro- duced and modified. As the Genii or Jinn f are prominent actors in these tales, where they take the place of the Persian Peries and Deevs, we will here give some account of them. According to Arabian writers, there is a species of beings named Jinn or Jan (Jinnee m., Jinniyeh f. sing.), which were created and occupied the earth several thousand years before Adam. A tradition from the Prophet says that they were formed of " smokeless fire," i.e. the fire of the wind Simoom. They were governed by a succession of forty, or, as others say, seventy-two rnonarchs ; named Suleyman, the last of whom, called Jan-ibn-Jan, built the Pyramids of Egypt. Prophets were sent from time to time to instruct and admonish them ; but on their continued disobedience, an army of angels appeared, who drove them from the earth to the regions of the islands, making many prisoners, and slaughtering many more. Among the prisoners, was a young Jinnee, named 'Azazeel, or El-Harith (afterwards called Iblees, from his despair}, who grew up among the angels, and became at last their chief. When Adam was created, God commanded the angels to worship him ; and they all obeyed except Iblees, who, for his disobedience, was turned into a Sheytan or Devil, and he became the father of the Sheytans.J * See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, seq. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, passim. f Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence. The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius. " When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn." Kuran. chap, xviii. v. 48. Worship 26 ORIENTAL BOMAJfCB. The Jinn are not immortal ; they are to survive mankind, but to die before the general resurrection. Even at present many of them are slain by other Jinn, or by men ; but chiefly by shooting-stars hurled at them from Heaven. The fire of which they were created, circulates in their veins instead of blood, and when they receive a mortal wound, it bursts forth and consumes them to ashes. They eat and drink, and propagate their species. Sometimes they unite with human beings, and the offspring partakes of the nature of both parents. Some of the Jinn are obedient to the will of Grod, and believers in the Prophet, answering to the Peries of the Persians ; others are like the Deevs, disobedient and malignant. Both kinds are divided into communities, and ruled over by princes. They have the power to make themselves visible and invisible at pleasure. They can assume the form of various animals, especially those of serpents, cats, and dogs. "When they appear in the human form, that of the good Jinnee is usually of great beauty ; that of the evil one, of hideous deformity, and sometimes of gigantic size. When the Zoba'ah, a whirlwind that raises the sand in the form of a pillar of tremendous height, is seen sweeping over the desert, the Arabs, who believe it to be caused by the flight of an evil Jinnee, cry, Iron ! Iron ! {Hadeed ! Hadeed /) or Iron ! thou unlucky one ! (Hadeed ! yd meshoom /) of which metal the Jinn are believed to have a great dread. Or else they cry, God is most great ! (Allahu akbar /) They do the same when they see a water-spout at sea ; for they assign the same cause to its origin.* The chief abode of the Jinn of both kinds is the Moun- tains of Kaf, already described. But they also are dispersed through the earth, and they occasionally take up their resi- dence in baths, wells, latrina?, ovens, and ruined houses.f is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, " Thou hast created me of fire, and hast created Itim of earth." Jb. vii. 11; xxxviii. 77. * It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say, " God speed you, gentlemen !" For the power of iron, see Scandinavia. + The Arabs when they povir water on the ground, let down a bucket into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, "Permission!" (Destoor .') or, Poravlssion, ye blessed ! (Deatoor, yd mid>drakeen /) AEABIAN EOMANCE. 27 They also frequent the sea and rivers, cross-roads, and market-places. They ascend at times to the confines of the lowest heaven, and by listening there to the conversation of the angels, they obtain some knowledge of futurity, which they impart to those men who, by means of talismans or magic arts, have been able to reduce them to obedience.* The following are anecdotes of the Jinn, given by historians of eminence.f It is related, says El-Kasweenee, by a certain narrator of traditions, that he descended into a valley with his sheep, and a wolf carried off a ewe from among them ; and he arose and raised his voice, and cried, " O inhabitant of the valley!" whereupon he heard a voice saying, " O wolf, restore him his sheep ! " and the wolf came with the ewe and left her, and departed. Ben Shohnah relates, that in the year 456 of the Hejra, in the reign of Kaiem, the twenty-sixth khaleefeh of the house of Abbas, a report was raised in Bagdad, which imme- diately spread throughout the whole province of Irak, that some Turks being out hunting saw in the desert a black tent, beneath which there was a number of people of both sexes, who were beating their cheeks, and uttering loud cries, as is the custom in the East when any one is dead. Amidst their cries they heard these words The great Icing of the Jinn is dead, woe to this country ! and then there came out a great troop of women, followed by a number of other rabble, who proceeded to a neighbouring cemetery, still beating themselves in token of grief and mourning. The celebrated historian Ebn Athir relates, that when he was at Mosul on the Tigris, in the year 600 of the Hejra, there was in that country an epidemic disease of the throat ; and it was said that a woman, of the race of the Jinn, having lost her son, all those who did not condole with her on account of his death were attacked with that disease ; so that to be cured of it men and women assembled, and with all their strength cried out, G mother of AnJcood, excuse us I AnJcood is dead, and we did not mind it ! * For the preceding account of the Jinn, -we are -wholly indebted to Lane' Valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30, seq. f The first is given by Lane, the other two by D'Herbolot. MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE. Ecco qnel che le carte empion di sogui, Lancilotto, Tristano e gli altri errand, Onde conven che il volgo errante agogni. PETEABCA. will now endeavour to trace romantic and marvellous fiction to any individual source. An extensive survey of the regions of fancy and their productions will incline us rather to consider the mental powers of man as having an uniform operation under every sky, and under every form of political existence, and to acknowledge that identity of invention is not more to be wondered at than identity of action. It is strange how limited the powers of the imagination are. Without due consideration of the subject, it might be imagined that her stores of materials and powers of com- bination are boundless ; yet reflection, however slight, will convince us that here also ' there is nothing new, ' and charges of plagiarism will in the majority of cases be justly suspected to be devoid of foundation. The finest poetical expressions and similes of occidental literature meet us when we turn our attention to the East, and a striking analogy pervades the tales and fictions of every region. The reason is, the materials presented to the inventive facul- ties are scanty. The power of combination is therefore limited to a narrow compass, and similar combinations must hence frequently occur. Yet still there is a high degree of probability in the supposition of the luxuriant fictions of the East having through Spain and Syria operated on European fancy. The poetry and romance of the middle ages are notoriously richer in detail, and more gorgeous in invention, than the MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE. 29 more correct and chaste strains of Greece anc Latium ; the island of Calypso, for example, is in beauty and variety left far behind by the retreats of the fairies of romance. Whence arises this difference ? No doubt When ancient chivalry display 'd The pomp of her heroic games, And crested knights and tissued dames Assembled at the clarion's call, In some proud castle's high-arch'd hall, that a degree of pomp and splendour met the eye of the minstrel and romancer on which the bards of the simple republics of ancient times had never gazed, and this might account for the difference between the poetry of ancient and of middle-age Europe. Yet, notwithstanding, we discover such an Orientalism in the latter as would induce us to acquiesce in the hypothesis of the fictions and the manner of the East having been early transmitted to the "West ; and it is highly probable that along with more splendid habits of life entered a more lavish use of the gorgeous stores laid open to the plastic powers of fiction. The tales of Arabia were undoubtedly known in Europe from a very early period. The romance of Cleomades and Clare- monde, which was written in the thirteenth century,* not merely resembles, bat actually is the story of the Enchanted Horse in the Thousand and One Nights. Another tale in the same collection, The two Sisters who envied their younger Sister, may be found in Straparola, and is also a popular story in Germany ; and in the Pentamerone and other collections of tales published loLjg before the appear- ance of M. Galland's translation of the Eastern ones, numerous traces of an oriental origin may be discerned. The principal routes they came by may also be easily shown. The necessities of commerce and the pilgrimage to Mecca occasioned a constant intercourse between the Moors of Spain and their fellow-sectaries of the East ; and the Venetians, who were the owners of Candia, carried on an extensive trade with Syria and Egypt. It is worthy of notice, that the Notti Piacevoli of Straparola were first * On the subjects mentioned in this paragraph, see Ti.les and Popular Fictions, chap. ii. and ... 30 MIDDLE-AGE EOMANCE. published in Venice, and that Basil e, the author of the Pentamerone, spent his youth in Candia, and was afterwards a long time at Venice. Lastly, pilgrims were notorious narrators of marvels, and each, as he visited the Holy Land, was anxious to store . his memory with those riches, the diffusal of which procured him attention and hospitality at home. AVe think, therefore, that European romance may be indebted, though not for the name, yet for some of the attri- butes and exploits of its fairies to Asia. This is more espe- cially the case with the romances composed or turned into prose in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries ; for in the earlier ones the Fairy Mythology is much more sparingly introduced. But beside the classic and oriental prototypes of its fairies, romance may have had an additional one in the original mythology of the Celtic tribes, of which a being very nearly allied to the fay of romance appears to have formed a part. Such were the damoiselles who bestowed their favours upon Lanval and Graelent. This subject shall, however, be more fully considered under the head of Brittany. Romances of chivalry, it is well known, may be divided into three principal classes ; those of Arthur and his Round Table, of Charlemagne and his Paladins, and those of Amadis and Palmerin, and their descendants and kindred. In the first, with the exception of Isaie le Triste, which appears to be a work of the fifteenth century, the fairies appear but seldom ; the second exhibits them in all their brilliancy and power ; in the third, which all belong to the literature of Spain, the name at least does not occur, but the enchantress Urganda la Desconecida seems equal in power to La Dame du Lac, in the romance of Lancelot du Lac.* Among the incidents of the fine old romance just alluded to,f is narrated the death of King Ban, occasioned by grief at the sight of his castle taken and in flames through the treachery of his seneschal. His afflicted queen had left her * In the Amadigi of B. Tasso, she is La Fata Urganda. f 1 Lancelot is regarded as probably the earliest prose romance of chivalry. It was first printed in 1494. The metrical romance called La Charrette, of which Lancelot is the hero, -was begun by Chrestien de Troyes, who died in 1 191, and finished by Geoffrey de Lignjr. We may here observe that almost MIDDLE-AGE BOJIAXCE. 31 ftew-bom infant on the margin of a lake, while she went to Boothe the last moments of the expiring monarch. On her return, she finds her babe in the arms of a beautiful lady. She entreats her pathetically to restore the orphan babe ; but, without heeding her entreaties, or even uttering a single word, she moves to the edge of the lake, into which she plunges and disappears with the child. The lady was the celebrated Dame du Lac : the child was Lancelot, afterwards styled Du Lac. The name of the lady was Yivienne, and she had dwelt " en la marche de la petite Bretaigne." Merlin the demon-born, the renowned enchanter, became enamoured of her, and taught her a portion of his art; and the ill-return she made is well known in the annals of female treachery.* In consequence of the knowledge thus acquired she became a fairy ; for the author informs us that " the damsel who carried Lancelot to the lake was a fay, and in those times all those women were called fays who had to do with enchant- ments and charms and there were many of them then, principally in Great Britain and knew the power and virtues of words, of stones, and of herbs, by which they were kept in youth and in beauty, and in great riches, as they devised." t The lake was afeerie, an illusion raised by the art which the devil had taught Merlin, and Merlin the lady. The all the French romances of chivalry were written originally in verse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, principally by Chrestien de Troves and Huon de Villeneuvc. The prose romances in general were made from them in tl e fifteenth century. * For while it was in hand, by loving of an elf, For all his wondrous skill was cozened of himself: For walking with his Fay, her to the rock he brought, In which he oft before his nigromancies wrought. And going in thereat, his magics to have shown, She stopt the cavern's mouth with an enchanted stone, Whose cunning strongly crossed, amazed while he did stand, She captive him conveyed unto the Fairy-land. Dray ton, 7Wy-0#>. Song IV. See above, p. 2. f La damoiselle qui Lancelot porta au lac estoit une/ee, et en cellui temps estoient appellees fees toutes celles qui sentremeloient denchanteuients et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principallement en la Grand Bretaigne, ct savoient la force et la vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoi elles estoient en jeuuesse, et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses, comment elle divisoient. 32 MIDDLE-AGE romance says : " The lady who reared him conversed only in the forest, and dwelt on the summit of a hill, which was much lower than that on which King Ban had died. In this place, where it seemed that the wood was large and deep, the lady had many fair houses, and very rich ; and in the plain beneath there was a gentle little river well-stored with fish ; and this place was so secret and so concealed, that right difficult was it for any one to find, for the semblance of the said lake covered it so that it could not be perceived." * When her young protege had gone through his course of knightly education, she took him to King Arthur's court, and presented him there ; and his subsequent history is well known. In the romance of Maugis d'Aygremont et de Vivian son Frere, when Tapinel and the female slave had stolen the two children of Duke Bevis of Aygremont, the former sold to the wife of Sorgalant the child which he had taken, whose name was Esclarmonde, and who was about fifteen years of age, and was " plus belle et plus blanche qu'une fee." The slave having laid herself to rest under a white-thorn (aube- spine), was devoured by a lion and a leopard, who killed one another in their dispute for the infant. " And the babe lay under the thorn, and cried loudly, during which it came to pass that Oriande la Fee, who abode at Eosefleur with four other fays, came straight to this thorn ; for every time she passed by there she used to repose under that white-thorn. She got down, and hearing the child cry, she came that way and looked at him, and said, ' By the god in whom we be- lieve, this child here is lying badly (mal gist), and this shall be his name ; ' and from that time he was always called Maugis." Oriande la Fee brought the child home with her and her * La dame qui le nourissoit ne conversoit que en forest, et estoit au plain de ung tertre plus bus assez que celui ou le roy Ban estoit mort : en ce lieu ou il sembloit que le bois fust grant et parfont (profond) avoit la dame moult de belles maisons et moult riches; et au plain dessoubs y avoit une gente petite riviere moult plantureuse de poissons ; et estoit ce lieu si cele et secret que bien difficille estoit a homme de le trouver, car la semblance du dit lac le couvroit si que il nc pouvoit estre apperceu. And farther, La damoiselle uestoit mie seulle, mais y avoit grande compaignie de chevaliers et de dame* et danioisrlles. MIDDLE-AGE EOMAKCS. 33 damsels ; and having examined him, and found, by a precious ring that was in his ear, that he was of noble lineage, " she prayed our Lord that he would be pleased of his grace to make known his origin (nation)." When she had finished her prayer, she sent for her nephew Espiet, " who was a dwarf, and was not more than three feet high, and had his hair yellow as fine gild, and looked like a child of seven years, but he was more than a hundred ; and he was one of the falsest knaves in the world, and knew every kind of enchantment." Espiet informed her whose child he was ; and Oriande, having prayed to our Lord to preserve the child, took him with her to her castle of Eosefleur, where she had him baptised and named Maugis. She and her damsels reared him with great tenderness ; and when he was old enough she put him under the care of her brother Baudris, " who knew all the arts of magic and necromancy, and was of the age of a hundred years ; " and he taught what he knew to Maugis. "When Maugis was grown a man, the Eay Oriande clad him in arms, and he became her ami ; and she loved him " de si grand amour qu'elle doute fort qu'il ne se departe d'avecques elle." Maugis shortly afterwards achieved the adventure of gain- ing the enchanted horse Bayard, in the isle of Boucaut. Of Bayard it is said, when Maugis spoke to him, " Bayard estoit feye, si entendoit aussi bien Maugis comme s'il (Bayard) eust parle." On his return from the island, Maugis con- quers and slays the Saracen admiral Anthenor, who had come to win the lands and castle of Oriande, and gains tha sword Elamberge (Eloberge), which, together with Bayard, he afterwards gave to his cousin Eenaud. In Perceforest, Sebille la Dame du Lac, whose castle was surrounded by a river on which lay so dense a fog that no one could see across the water, though not called so, was evidently a fay. The fortnight that Alexander the Great and Floridas abode with her, to be cured of their wounds, seemed to them but as one night. During that night, " la dame demoura enceinte du roy dung filz, dont de ce lignage le roi Artus." * * Vol. L ch. 42. 34 MIDDLE-AGE EOMANCE. In the same romance * we are told that " en lysle de Zellande jadis fut demourante une face qui estoit appellee Morgane." This Morgane was very intimate with "ung esperit (named Zephir) qui repairoit es lieux acquatiques, niais jamais nestoit veu que de nuyt." Zephir had been in the habit of repairing to Morgane la Face from her youth up, " car elle estoit malicieuse et subtille et tousjours avoit moult desire a aucunement S9avoir des enchantemens et de8 conjurations." He had committed to her charge the young Passelyon and his cousin Bennucq, to be brought up, and Passelyon was detected in an intrigue with the young Mor- gane, daughter of the fay. The various adventures of this amorous youth form one of the most interesting portions of the romance. In Tristan de Leonois,f king Meliadus, the father of Tristan, is drawn to a chase par mal engin et negromance of a fairy who was in love with him, and carries him off, and from whose thraldom he was only released by the power of the great enchanter Merlin. In Parthenopex of Blois,J the beautiful fairy Melior, whose magic bark carries the knight to her secret island, is daughter to the emperor of Greece. In no romance whatever is the fairy machinery more pleasingly displayed than in Sir Launfal, a metrical romance, composed by Thomas Chestre, in the reign of Henry VI. Before, however, we give the analysis of this poem, which will be followed by that of another, and by our own imita- tions of this kind of verse, we will take leave to offer some observations on a subject that seems to us to be in general Vol. iii. ch. 31. + Tristan was written in terse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose romance was first printed in 1489. + Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century, according to Le Grand ; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort. Composed for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le Grand's and Way'i Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he " seems to have given a faithful aa well as spirited version of this old Breton story," is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable nH it ion s of Chestre's own invention, or derived from other sources. TheM Lais will be considered under Brittany. MIDDLE-AGE EOMATTCE. 35 but little understood, namely, the structure of our old English verse, and the proper mode of reading it. Our forefathers, like their Gotho- German kindred, regu- lated their verse by the number of accents, not of syllables. The foot, therefore, as we term it, might consist of one, two, three, or even four syllables, provided it had only one strongly marked accent. Further, the accent of a word might be varied, chiefly by throwing it on the last syllable, as nature for nature, honour for honour, etc. (the Italians, by the way, throw it back when two accents come into collision, as, II Pastor Fido*) ; they also sounded what the French call the feminine e of their words, as, In olde dayes of the King Artour ; and so well known seems this practice to have been, that the copyists did not always write this 0, relying on the skill of the reader to supply it.f There was only one restriction, namely, that it was never to come before a vowel, unless where there was a pause. In this way the poetry of the middle ages was just as regular as that of the present day ; and Chaucer, when properly read, is fully as harmonious as Pope. But the editors of our ancient poems, with the exception of Tyrwtitt, seem to have been ignorant or regardless of this principle ; and in the Canterbury Tales alone is the verse properly arranged. We will now proceed to the analysis of the romance of Sir Launfal. Sir Launfal was one of the knights of Arthur, who loved him well, and made him his steward. But when Arthur married the beautiful but frail Gwennere, daughter of Eyon, king of Ireland, Launfal and other virtuous knights manifested their dissatisfaction when she came to court. The queen was aware of this, and, at the first entertainment given by the king, The queen yaf (gave) giftes for the nones, Gold and silver, precious stones, Her courtesy to kythe (show) : Everiche knight she yaf broche other (or) ring, But Sir Launfal she yaf no thing, That grieved him many a sythe (time). * Thus we ourselves say the Princess Royal, extreme need, etc. This, by t'.e way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it is easily moveable. + As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and elsewhere mark the feminine e and the change of accent. D 2 36 MIDDLE-AGE ROMANCE. Launfal, under the feigned pretext of the illness of his father, takes leave of the king, and retires to Karlyoun, where he lives in great poverty. Having obtained the loan of a horse, one holyday, he rode into a fair forest, where, overcome by the heat, he lay down under the shade of a tree, and meditated on his wretched state. In this situation he is attracted by the approach of two fair damsels splendidly arrayed. Their faces were white as snow on down, Their rode * was red, their eyne were brown ; I saw never none swiche. That one bare of gold a basin, That other a towel white and fine, Of silk that was good and riche ; Their kercheves were wele skire (clear) Amid (striped) with riche golde wire Launfal began to siche They come to him over the hoth (heath), He was cartels, and against them goeth, And greet them mildeliche. They greet him courteously in return, and invite him to visit their mistress, whose pavilion is at hand. Sir Launfal complies with the invitation, and they proceed to where the pavilion lies. Nothing could exceed this pavilion in magni- ficence. It was surmounted by an erne or eagle, adorned with precious stones so rich, that the poet declares, and we believe, that neither Alexander nor Arthur possessed " none swiche jewel." He founde in the paviloun The kinges daughter of Oliroun, Dame Tryamour that hight ; Her father was king of Faerie, Of occientef fer and nigh, A man of mickle might The beauty of dame Tryamour was beyond conception. For heat her cloathes down she dede Almoste to her girdle stede (place), Than lay she uncover't ; She was as white as lily in May, Or snow that snoweth in winter's day : He seigh (saw) never none so pert (lively). Rode complexion ; from red. t Occient Occident or ocean? The Gascon peasantry cal he By Biscay LaMer & Occient. The Spaniards say Mar Oceano. MIDDLE-AGE EOMAUCE- 37 The rede rose, when she is new, Against her rode was naught of hew I dare well say in cert ; Her haire shone as golde wire : May no man rede her attire, Ne naught well think in hert (heart). This lovely dame bestows her heart on Sir Launfal, on condition of his fidelity As marks of her affection, she gives him a never-failing purse and many other valuable presents, and dismisses him next morning with the assur- ance, that whenever he wished to see her, his wish would be gratified on withdrawing into a private room, where she would instantly be with him. This information is accom- panied with a charge of profound secrecy on the subject of their loves. The knight returns to court, and astonishes every one by his riches and his munificence. He continues happy in the love of the fair Tryamour, until an untoward adventure interrupts his bliss. One day the queen beholds him dancing, with other knights, before her tower, and, inspired with a sudden affection, makes amorous advances to the knight. These passages of love are received on his part with an indignant repulse, accompanied by a declaration more enthusiastic than politic or courteous, that his heart Avas given to a dame, the foulest of whose maidens surpassed the queen in beauty. The offence thus given naturally effected an entire conversion in the queen's sentiments ; and, when Arthur returned from hunting, like Potiphar's wife, she charges Launfal with attempting her honour. The charge is credited, and the unhappy knight condemned to be burned alive, unless he shall, against a certain day, produce that peerless beauty. The fatal day arrives; the queen is urgent for the execution of the sentence, when ten fair damsels, splendidly arrayed, and mounted on white palfreys, are descried advancing toward the palace. They announce the approach of their mistress, who soon appears, and by her beauty justifies the assertion of her knight. Sir Launfal is instantly set at liberty, and, vaulting on the courser his mistress had bestowed on him, and which was held at hand by his squire, he follows her out of the town. The lady rode down Cardevile, Fer into a jolif ile, 38 MIDDLE-AGE BOMANCE. Oliroun that hight ; * Every year upon a certain day, Men may heare Launfales steede neighe, And him see with sight. He that will there axsy (ask) justes To keep his armes fro the rustes, In turnement other (or) fight, Dar (need) he never further gon ; There he may find justes anon, With Sir Launfal the knight. Thus Launfal, withouten fable, That noble knight of the rounde table, Was taken into the faerie ; Since saw him in this land no man, Ne no more of him tell I ne can, For soothe, without lie.f No romance is of more importance to the present sub- ject than the charming Huon de Bordeaux.J Generally known, as the story should be, through Wieland's poem and Mr. Sotheby's translation, we trust that we shall be excused for giving some passages from the original French romance, as Le petit roy Oberon appears to form a kind of connecting link between the fairies of romance and the Elves or Dwarfs of the Teutonic nations. When we come to Germany it will be our endeavour to show how the older part of Huon de Bordeaux has been taken from the story of Otnit in the Heldenbuch, where the dwarf king Elberich performs * It is strange to find the English poet changing the Avalon of the Lai de Lauval into the well-known island of Oleron. It is rather strange too, that Mr. Ritson, who has a note on " Oliroun," did not notice this. t The Lai ends thus : Od (awe) li sen vait en Avalun, Ceo nus recuntent le Bretun ; En une isle que mut est beaus, La fut ravi li dameiseaus, Nul humme nen ot plus parler, Ne jeo nen sai avant cunter. In Graelent it is said that the horse of the knight used to return annually ta the river where he lost his master. The rest is Thomas Chestre's own, taken probably from the well-known story in Gervase of Tilbury. J Huon, Hue, or Hullin (for he is called by these three names in the poetic romance) is, there can be little doubt, the same person with Yon king of Bordeaux in the Quatre Filz Aymon, another composition of Huon de Villeneuve, and with Lo Re Ivone, prince or duke of Guienne in Bojardo and Ariosto. See the Orl. Inn. 1. L c. iv. st. 46. I Cinque Canti,c. v. BL 42 MIDDLE-AGE KOilANCE. 39 nearly the same services to Otnit that Oberon does to Huon, and that, in fact, the name Oberon is only Elberich slightly altered.* . Huon, our readers must know, encounters in Syria an old follower of his family named Gerasmes ; and \vhen consult- ing with him on the way to Babylon he is informed by him that there are two roads to that city, the one long and safe, the other short and dangerous, leading through a wood, " which is sixteen leagues long, but is so full of Fairie and strange things that few people pass there without being lost or stopt, because therewithin dwelleth a king, Oberon the Fay. He is but three feet in height ; he is all humpy ; but he hath an angelic face ; there is no mortal man who should see him who would not take pleasure in looking at him, he hath so fair a face. ]Vow you will hardly have entered the wood, if you are minded to pass that way, when he will find how to speak to you, but of a surety if you speak to him, you are lost for evermore, without ever returning ; nor will it lie in you, for if you pass through the wood, whether straightforwards or across it, you will always find him before you, and it will be impossible for you to escape at all without speaking to him, for his words are so pleasant to hear, that there is no living man who can escape him. And if so be that he should see that you are nowise inclined to speak to him, he will be passing wroth with you. For before you have left the wood he will cause it so to rain on you, to blow, to hail, and to make such right marvellous storms, thunder and lightning, that you will think the world is going to end. Then you will think that you see a great flowing river before you, wondrously black and deep ; but know, sire, that right easily will you be able to go through it without wetting the feet of your horse, for it is nothing but a phantom and enchantments that the dwarf will make for you, because he wishes to have you with him, and if it so be that you keep * Otnit was supposed to have been written by Wolfram von Eschembach, in tbe early part of the thirteenth century. It is possibly much older. Huon de Bordeaux was, it is said, written in French verse by Huon de Villeneuve, some time in the same century. It does not appear in the list of Huon da Villeneuve's works given by Mons. de Roquefort. At the end of the proco romance we are told that it was written at the desire of Charles seigneur de Rochefort, and completed on the 29th of January, 1454. 40 MIDDLE-AGE EOMAXCE. firm to your resolve, not to speak to him, you will be suiely able to escape," etc.* Huon for some time followed the sage advice of Grerasmea, and avoided Oberon le faye. The storms of rain and thunder came on as predicted, the magic horn set them all dancing, and at last the knight determined to await and accost the dwarf. " The Dwarf Fay came riding through the wood, and waa clad in a robe so exceeding fine and rich, that it would be a marvel to relate it for the great and marvellous riches that were upon it ; for so much was there of precious stones, that the great lustre that .they cast was like unto the sun when he shineth full clear. And therewithal he bare a right fair bow in his fist, so rich that no one could value it, so fine it was; and the arrow that he bare was of such sort and manner, that there was no beast in the world that he wished to have, that it did not stop at that arrow. He had at his neck a rich horn, which was hung by two rich strings of fine gold."t * Qui a de long seizes lieues, mais tant est plain de faerie et chose estrange que peu de gens y passent qui n'y soient perdus ou arrestez, pour ce que la dedans demeure un roi, Oberon le faye. II n'a que trois piedg de hauteur ; il est tout bossu ; mais il a un visage angelique ; il n'est homme mortel que le voye que plaisir ne prengne a le regarder tant a beau visage. Ja si tost ne serez entrez au bois se par la voulez passer qu'il ne trouve maniere de parler a vous, si ainsi que a luy parliez perdu estus a tousjours sans jamais plus reveuir ; ne il ne sera en vous, car se par le bois passez, soil de long ou de travers, vous le trouverez tousjours au devant de vous, et vous sera im- possible que eschappiez nullement que ne parliez a luy, car ses parolles sent tant plaisantes a ouyr qu'il n'est homme mortel qui de luy se puisse eschapper. Et se chose ect qu'il voye que nullement ne vueillez parler a luy, il sera moult trouble envers vous. Car avant que du bois soyez parti vous fera pleuvoir, ventrer, gresiller, et faire si tres-mervueilleux orages, tonnerres, et esclairs, que advis vous sera que le monde doive finir. Puis vous sera advis que par devant vous verrez une grande riviere courante, noire et parfonde a grand merveilles ; mais sachez, sire, que bien y pourrez aller sans mouiller les pieds de vostre cheval, car ce n'est que fantosme et enchantemens que le nain vous fera pour vous cuider avoir avec lui, et se chose est que bien tenez propos en TOUS de non parler a luy, bien pourrez eschapper, etc. f- Le Nain Fee s'en vint chevauchant par le bois, et estoit vestu d'une robbe si tres-belle et riche, que merveilles sera ce racompter pour la grand et mer- veilleuse richesse que dessus estoit, car tant y avoit de pierres precieuses, que la grand clarte qu'elles jettoient estoit pareille au soldi quant il luit bien clair. Et avec ce portoit un moult bel arc en son poing, tant nclie jne on ne le sauroit estimer tant estoit beau. Et la fleche qu'il portoit est it de telle MIDDLE-AGE BOMANCE. 41 This horn was wrought by four Fairies, who had endowed it with its marvellous properties. Oberon, on bringing Huon to speech, informed him that he was the son of Julius Caesar, and the lady of the Hidden Island, afterwards called Cephalonia. This lady's first love had been Florimont of Albania, a charming young prince, but being obliged to part from him, she married, and had a son named Neptanebus, afterwards King of Egypt, who begot Alexander the Great, who afterwards put him to death. Seven hundred years later, Caesar, on his way to Thessaly, was entertained in Cephalonia by the lady of the isle, and he loved her, for she told him he would defeat Pompey, and he became the father of Oberon. Many a noble prince and noble fairy were at the birth, but one Fairy was unhappily not invited, and the gift she gave was that he should not grow after his third year, but repenting, she gave him to be the most beautiful of nature's works. Other Fairies gave him the gift of penetrating the thoughts of men, and of transporting himself and others from place to place by a wish ; and the faculty, by like easy means, of raising and removing castles, palaces, gardens, banquets, and such like. He further informed the knight, that he was king and lord of Mommur ; and that when he should leave this world his seat was prepared in Paradise for Oberon, like his prototype Elberich, was a veritable Christian. When after a variety of adventures Oberon comes to Bor- deaux to the aid of Huon, and effects a reconciliation between him and Charlemagne, he tells Huon that the time is at hand that he should leave this world and take the seat prepared for him in Paradise, " en faerie ne veux plus de- meurer." He directs him to appear before him within four years in his city of Mommur, where he will crown him as his successor. Here the story properly ends, but an addition of consider- able magnitude has been made by a later hand, in which the story is carried on. Many are the perils which Huon encounters before the period appointed by Oberon arrives. At length, however, he sorte et maniere, qu'il n'estoit beste an monde qu'il vousist souhaiter qu i icelle Heche elle ne s'arrestast. II avoit a son cc a uu riche cor, lequel estoit pendu a deux riches attaches de fin or. 42 MIDDLE-AGE EOMAI?C*. and the fair Esclairmonde (the Eezia of "Wieland) come to Moinmiir. Here, in despite of Arthur (who, with his sister Morgue la face and a large train, arrives at court, and seta himself in opposition to the will of the monarch, but is reduced to order by Oberon's threat of turning him into a Luyton de Mer*), Huon is crowned king of all Faerie " tant du pais des Luytons comme des autres choses secretes reser- vees dire aux hommes." Arthur gets the kingdom of Bouquant, and that which Sybilla held of Oberon, and all the Faeries that were in the plains of Tartary. The good king Oberon then gave Huon his last instructions, recom- mending his officers and servants to him, and charging him to build an abbey before the city, in the mead which the dwarf had loved, and there to bury him. Then, falling asleep in death, a glorious troop of angels, scattering odours as they flew, conveyed his soul to Paradise. Isaie le Triste is probably one of the latest romances, certainly posterior to Huon de Bordeaux, for the witty but deformed dwarf Tronc, who is so important a personage in it, is, we are told, Oberon, whom Destiny compelled to spend a certain period in that form. And we shall, as we have promised, prove Oberon to be the handsome dwarf-king Elberich. In Isaie the Faery ladies approach to the Fees of Perrault, and Madame D'Aulnoy. Here, as at the birth of Oberon and of Ogier le Danois, they interest themselves for the new-born child, and bestow their gifts upon it. The description in this romance of the manner in which the old hermit sees them occupied about the infant Isaie is very pleasing. It was most probably Fairies of this kind, and not the diminutive Elves, that Milton had in view when writing these lines : Good luck betide thee, con, for, at thy birth, The Faery ladies danced upon the hearth. Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie, And, sweetly singing round about thy bed, Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head. * This sort of transformation appears to have been a usual mode of punish- ing in a Fairy land. It may have come from Circe, hut the Thousand and One Nights is full of such transformations. For luyton or lutin, see below, France. MIDDLE-AGE EOMANCE. 4S The description of the Vergier des Fees in Isaie le Triste, and of the beautiful valley in which it was situated, may rival in richness and luxuriancy similar descriptions in Spenser and the Italian poets.* We have now, we trust, abundantly proved our position of the Fairies of romance being, at least at the commence- ment, only ' human mortals,' endowed with superhuman powers, though we may perceive that, as the knowledge of Oriental fiction increased, the Fairies began more and more to assume the character of a distinct species. Our position will acquire additional strength when in the course of our inquiry we arrive at France and Italy. Closely connected with the Fairies is the place of their abode, the region to which they convey the mortals whom they love, ' the happy lond of Faery.' We are only acquainted with this romance through Mr. Duulop's analym. FAIRY LAND. There, renewed the vital spring, Again he reigns a mighty king And many a fair and fragrant clime, Blooming in immortal prime, By gales of Eden ever fanned, Owns the monarch's high command. T. WABTOW. all nations the mixture of joy and pain, of exqui- site delight and intense misery in the present state, has led the imagination to the conception of regions of unmixed bliss destined for the repose of the good after the toils of this life, and of climes where happiness prevails, the abode of beings superior to man. The imagination of the Hindoo paints his Swergas as ' profuse of bliss,' and all the joys of sense are collected into the Paradise of the Mussulman. The Persian lavished the riches of his fancy in raising the Cities of Jewels and of Amber that adorn the realms of Jinnestan ; the romancer erected castles and palaces filled with knights and ladies in Avalon and in the land of Faerie ; while the Hellenic bards, unused to pomp and glare, filled the Elysian Fields and the Island of the Blest with tepid gales and brilliant flowers. We shall quote without apology two beautiful passages from Homer and Pindar, that our readers may at one view satisfy themselves of the essential difference between classic and romantic imagination. In Homer, Proteus tells Menelaus that, because he had had the honour of being the son-in-law of Zeus, he should not die in "horse-feeding Argos." But thee the ever-living gods will send Unto the Elysian plain and distant bounds Of Earth, where dwelleth fair-hair'd Rhadamanthui. There life is easiest unto men ; no snow, TAIftY LAND. 45 Or wintry storm, jr rain, at any time, Is there ; but evermore the Ocean sends Soft-breathirig airs of Zephyr to refresh The habitants. Od. iv. 563. This passage is finely imitated by Pindar, an: connected with that noble tone of pensive morality, so akin to the Oriental spirit, and by which the ' Dircsean Swan' is dis- tinguished from all his fellows. They speed their way To Kronos' palace, where around The Island of the Blest, the airs Of Ocean breathe, and golden flowers Blaze ; some on land From shining trees, and other kinds The water feeds. Of these Garlands and bracelets round their arms they bind, Beneath the righteous sway Of Khadamanthus 01. ii. 126. Lucretius has transferred these fortunate fields to the superior regions, to form the abode of his faineans, gods ; and Virgil has placed them, with additional poetic splendour, in the bosom of the earth. "Widely different from these calm and peaceful abodes of parted warriors are the Faeries of the minstrels and roman- cers. In their eyes, and in those of their auditors, nothing was beautiful or good divested of the pomp and pride of chivalry ; and chivalry has, accordingly, entered deeply into the composition of their pictures of these ideal realms. The Peeries of romance may be divided into three kinds Avalon, placed in the ocean, like the Island of the Blest ; those that, like the palace of Pari Banou, are within the earth ; and, lastly, those that, like Oberon's domains, are situate ' in wilderness among the holtis hairy.' Of the castle and isle of Avalon,* the abode of Arthur and Oberon, and Morgue la faye, the fullest description is to be * Avalon was perhaps the Island of the Blest, of Celtic mythology, ana then the abode of the Fees, through the Breton Kerrigan. Writers, however, seem to be unanimous in regarding it and Glastonbury as the same place, called an isle, it is stated, as being made nearly such by the " river's embrace- 46 FAIET LA1TD. seen in the romance of Ogier le Danois, from which, as we know no sure quarter but the work itself to refer to for the part connected with the present subject, we will make some extracts.* At the birth of Ogier several Fairies attended, who bestowed on him various gifts. Among them was Morgue la Faye, who gave him that he should be her lover and friend. Accordingly, when Ogier had long distinguished himself in love and war, and had attained his hundredth year, the affectionate Morgue thought it was time to withdraw him from the toils and dangers of mortal life, and transport him to the joys and the repose of the castle of Avalon. In pur- suance of this design, Ogier and king Caraheu are attacked by a storm on their return from Jerusalem, and their vessels separated. The bark on which Ogier was " floated along the sea till it came near the castle of loadstone, which is called the 3astle of Avalon, which is not far on this side of the terrestrial paradise, whither were rapt in a flame of fire Enock and Helias ; and where was Morgue la Faye, who at his birth had endowed him with great gifts, noble and virtuous."t The vessel is wrecked against the rock ; the provisions are divided among the crew, and it is agreed that every man, as his stock failed, should be thrown into the sea. Ogier' s stock holds out longest, and he remains alone. He is nearly reduced to despair, when a voice from heaven cries to him : " God commandeth thee that, as soon as it is night, thou go unto a castle that thou wilt see shining, and pass from bark to bark till thou be in an isle which thou wilt find. And when thou wilt be in that isle thou wilt find a little path, and of what thou mayest see within be not dismayed at any- thing. And then Ogier looked, but he saw nothing." J "When night came, Ogier recommended himself to Grod, ment." It was named Avalon, we are told, from the British word Aval, an apple, as it abounded with orchards ; and Ynys gwydrin ; Saxon Glarrn-ey, glassy isle ; Latin, Glastonia, from the green hue of the water surrounding it, * See Tales and Popular Fictions, ch. ix., for a further account of Ogier. f- Tant nagea en iner qu'il arriva pres du chastel daymant quon nomme le chastcau davallon, qui nest gueres deca paradis terrestre la ou furent ravis en une raye de feu Enoc et Helye, et la ou estoit Morgue la faye, qui a sa nais- ance lui avoit donne de grands dons, nobles et vertueux. Dieu te mantle que si tott que sera nuit que tu ailles en ung chasteau que FAIRY LAJTD. 47 and seeing the castle of loadstone all resplendent with light, he went from one to the other of the vessels that were wrecked there, and so got into the island where it was. On arriving at the gate he found it guarded by two fierce lions. He slew them and entered ; and making his way into a hal^ found a horse sitting at a table richly supplied. The cour- teous animal treats him with the utmost respect, and the starving hero makes a hearty supper. The horse then pre- vails on him to get on his back, and carries him into a splendid chamber, where Ogier sleeps that night. The name of this horse is Papillon, " who was a Luiton, and had been a great prince, but king Arthur conquered him, so he was condemned to be three hundred years a horse with- out speaking one single word, but after the three hundred years he was to have the crown of joy which they wore in Faerie." * Next morning he cannot find Papillon, but on opening a door he meets a huge serpent, whom he also slays, and follows a little path which leads him into an orchard " tant bel et tant plaisant, que cestoit w.ng petit paradis a veoir." He plucks an apple from one of the trees and eats it, but is immediately affected by such violent sickness as to be put in fear of speedy death. He prepares himself for his fate, regretting " le bon pays de France, le roi Charlemaigne . . . et principallement la bonne royne dangleterre, sa bonne espouse et vraie amie, ma dame Clarice, qui tant estoit belle et noble." While in this dolorous state, happening to turn to the east, he perceived " une moult belle dame, toute vestue de blanc, si bien et si richement aornee que cestoit ung grant triumphe que de la veoir." Ogier, thinking it is the Virgin Mary, commences an Ave; but the lady tells him she is Morgue la Faye, who at his birth had kissed him, and retained him for her loyal amoureux, though forgotten by him. She places then on his finger a tu verras luire, et passe de bateau en bateau tant que tu soies en une isle que tu trouveras. Et quand tu seras en lisle tu trouveras une petite sente, et de chose que tu voies leans ne tesbahis de rien. Et adonc Ogier regarda mais il ne vit rien. * Lequel estoit luiton, et avoit este ung grant prince ; mais le roi Artus le conquist, si fust condampne a estre trois cens ans cheval sans parler ung tou seul mot ; mais apres les trois cens ans, il devoit avoir la couronne de joye d laquclle ils usoient en faerie. 48 ring, which removes all infirmity, and Ogier, a hundred years old, returns to the vigour and beauty of thirty. She now leads him to the castle of Avalon, where were her brother king Arthur, and Auberon, and Mallonbron, " ung luiton de mer." "And when Morgue drew near to the said castle of Avalon, the Fays came to meet Ogier, singing the most melodiously that ever could be heard, so he entered into the hall to solace himself completely. There he saw several Fay ladies adorned and all crowned with crowns most sumptuously made, and very rich, and evermore they sung, danced, and led a right joyous life, without thinking of any evil thing whatever, but of taking their mundane pleasures."* Morgue here introduces the knight to Arthur, and she places on his head a crown rich and splendid beyond estimation, but which has the Lethean quality, that whoso wears it, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain ; for Ogier instantly forgot country and friends. He had no thought whatever " ni de la dame Clarice, qui tant estoit belle et noble," nor of Guy on his brother, nor of his nephew Gauthier, " ne de creature vivante." His days now rolled on in never-ceasing pleasure. " Such joyous pastime did the Fay ladies make for him, that there is no creature in this world who could imagine or think it, for to hear them sing so sweetly it seemed to him actually that he was in Paradise ; so the time passed from day to day, from week to week, in such sort that a year did not last a month to him."f * Et quand Morgue approcha du dit chasteau, les Faes vindrent au devant dogier, chantant le plus melodieusement quon scauroit jamais ouir, si entra dedans la salle pour se deduire totallement. Adonc vist plusieurs dames Faces aournees et toutes courronnees de courounes tressomptueusement faictes, et moult riches, et tout jour cbantoicnt, dansoient, et menoient vie tresjoyeuse, gang penser a nulle quelconque meschante chose, fors prandre leurs mondaioa plaisirs. + Tant de joyeulx passctemps lui faisoient les dames Faees, quil nest creature en ce monde quil le sceust imaginer ne penser, car les ouir si doulce- ment chanter il lui sembloit proprement quil fut en Paradis, si passoit temp* de jour en jour, de sepmaine en sepmaine, tellement que ung an ne lui duroit oas ung moit. TAIKT LAITl). 49 But Avalou was still on earth, and therefore its bliss Tas not unmixed. One day Arthur took Ogier aside, and informed him that Capalus, king of the Luitons, incessantly attacked the castle of Faerie with design to eject king Arthur from its dominion, and was accustomed to penetrate to the basse court, calling on Arthur to come out and engage him. Ogier asked permission to encounter this formidable personage, which Arthur willingly granted. No sooner, however, did Capalus see Ogier than he surrendered to him ; and the knight had the satisfaction of leading him into the castle, and reconciling him to its inhabitants. Two hundred years passed away in these delights, and seemed to Ogier but twenty: Charlemagne and all his lineage had failed, and even the race of Ogier was extinct, when the Paynims invaded France and Italy in vast numbers; and Morgue no longer thought herself justified in withhold- ing Ogier from the defence of the faith. Accordingly, she one day took the Lethean crown from off his head : imme- diately all his old ideas rushed on his mind, and inflamed him with an ardent desire to revisit his country. The Fairy gave him a brand which was to be preserved from burning, for so long as it was unconsumed, so long should his life extend. She adds to her gift the horse Papillon and his comrade Benoist. " And when they were both mounted, all the ladies of the castle came to take leave of Ogier, by the command of king Arthur and of Morgue la Faye, and they sounded an aubade of instruments, the most melodious thing to hear that ever was listened to ; then, when the aubade was finished, they sung with the voice so melodiously, that it was a thing so melodious that it seemed actually to Ogier that he was in Paradise. Again, when that was over, they sung with the instruments in such sweet concordance that it seemed rather to be a thins divine than mortal."* The * Et quand ils furent tous deux monies, toutes les dames du chasteau vindrent a la departie dogier, par le commandement du roi Artus et de Morgue la fae, et sonnerent une aubade dinstrumeiis, la plus melodieuse chose a ouir que on entendit janiais ; puis, 1'aubade aehevec, chantcrent de gorge si melodieusement que cestoit une cliose si melodieuse que il sembloit propre- ment a Ogier quil estoit en Paradis. De rechief, cela fini, ils chanterent avecques les instrumens par si doulce concordance quil sembloit mieulx chose divine que humtine. E 50 FAIRY LAND. knight then took leave of all, and a cloud, enveloping hin, and his companion, raised them, and set them down by a fair fountain near Montpellier. Ogier displays his ancient prowess, routs the infidels, and on the death of the king is on the point of espousing the queen, when Morgue appears and takes him back to Avalon. Since then Ogier has never reappeared in this world. Nowhere is a Faerie of the second kind so fully and circumstantially described as in the beautiful romance of Orfeo and Heurodis. There are, indeed, copious extracts from this poem in Sir Walter Scott's Essay on the Fairies of Popular Superstition ; and we have no excuse to offer for repeating what is to be found in a work so universally diffused as the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, but that it is of absolute necessity for our purpose, and that romantic poetry is rarely unwelcome. Orfeo and Heurodis were king and queen of Winchester. The queen happening one day to sleep under an ymp* tree in the palace orchard, surrounded by her attendants, had a dream, which she thus relates to the king : As I lay this undertide (afternoon) To sleep under the orchard-side, There came to me two faire knightes Well arrayed alle rightes, And bade me come without letting To speake with their lord the king ; And I answer'd with wordes bolde That I lie durste ne I nolde : Fast again they can (did) drive, Then came their kinge all so blive (quick) With a thousand knights and mo, And with ladies fifty also, And riden all on snow-white steedes, And also white were then- weedes. I sey (saw) never sith I was borne So faire knightes me by forne. The kiiige had a crown on his head, It was not silver ne gold red ; * Imp tree is a grafted tree. Sir W. Scott queries if it be not a tree con- secrated to the imps or fiends. Had imp that sense BO early ? A grafted tree had |>erhaps the game relation to the Fairies that the linden in Germany and the North had to the dwarfs. FAIRY LATTD. 51 All it was of precious stone, As bright as sun forsooth it shone. All so soon he to me came, Wold I, nold I he me name (took), And made me with him ride On a white palfrey by his side, And brought me in to his palis, Right well ydight over all ywis. He shewed me castels and toures, Meadows, rivers, fields and flowres, And hid forests everiche one, And sith he brought me again home. The fairy-king orders her, under a dreadful penalty, to await him next morning under the ymp tree. Her husband and ten hundred knights stand in arms round the tree to protect her, And yet amidde's them full right The queene was away y-twight (snatched) ; With Faery forth y-nome (taken) ; Men wist never where she was become. Orfeo in despair abandons his throne, and retires to the wilderness, where he solaces himself with his harp, charming with his melody the wild beasts, the inhabitants of the spot. Often while here, He mighte see him besides Oft in hot undertides The king of Faery with his rout Come to hunt him all about, With dim cry and blowing, And houndes also with him barking. Ac (yet) no beastd they no nome, Ne never he nist whither they be come ; And other while he might them see As a great hoste by him te.* Well atourned ten hundred knightes Each well y-armed to his rightes, Of countenance stout and fierce, With many displayed banners, And each his sword y-drawe hold ; Ac never he niste whither they wold. And otherwhile he seigh (saw) other thing, Knightes and levedis (ladies) come dauncing * Te or tew (Drayton, Poly-Olb. xxv.) is to draw, to march ; from A. Si te<5jan, trujan, ceon (Germ, zieneri), whence tug, team. 3 52 FAIET LAXD. In quaint attire guisely, Quiet pace and softely. Tabours and trumpes gede (went) him by, And alle manere niinstracy. And on a day he seigh him beside Sixty levedis on horse ride, Gentil and jolif as brid on ris (bird on branch), Nought o (one) man amonges hem ther nis, And each a faucoun on hond bare, And riden on hauken by o river. Of game they found well good haunt, Mallardes, heron, and cormeraunt. The fowles of the water ariseth, Each faucoun them well deviseth, Each faucoun his preye slough * (slew). Among the ladies he recognises his lost queen, and h determines to follow them, and attempt her rescue. In at a roche (rock) the levedis rideth, And he after and nought abideth. When he was in the roche y-go Well three miles other (or) mo, He came into a fair countray As bright soonne summers day, Smooth and plain and alle grene, Hill ne dale nas none y-seen. Amiddle the lond a castel he seigh, Rich and real and wonder high. Alle the utmoste wall Was clear and shine of cristal. An hundred towers there were about, Deguiselich and batailed stout. The buttras come out of the ditch, Of rede gold y-arched rich. The bousour was anowed all Of each manere diverse animal, Within there were wide wones All of precious stones. The worste pillar to behold Was all of burnished gold. All that lond was ever light, For when it should be therk (dark) and night, * Beanie probably knew nothing of Orfeo and Heurodis, and the Fairy Vision in the Minstrel (a dream that would never have occurred to any ruinstrel) was derived from the Flower and the Leaf, Dryden's, not Chaucer's, for the personages in the latter are not called Fairies. In neither are thev Elves. FAIRY LA> T D. 63 The riche stones lighte gonue (yield*) Bright as doth at nonne the sonne, No man may tell ne think in thought The riche work that there was wrought. Orfeo makes his way into this palace, and so charms the king with his minstrelsy, that he gives him back his wife. They return to Winchester, and there reign, in peace and happiness. Another instance of this kind of Feerie may be seen in Thomas the Bymer, but, restricted by our limits, we must omit it, and pass to the last kind. Sir Thopas was written to ridicule the romancers; its incidents must therefore accord with theirs, and the Feerie in it in fact resembles those in Huon de Bordeaux. It has the farther merit of having suggested incidents to Spenser, and perhaps of having given the idea of a queen regnante of Fairy Land. Sir Thopas is chaste as Graelent. Full many a maide bright in bour They mourned for him par amour ; When hem were bete to slepe ; But he was chaste and no lechour, And sweet as is the bramble flour That bereth the red hepe. He was therefore a suitable object for the love of a gentle elf-queen. So Sir Thopas one day " pricketh through a faire forest" till he is weary, and he then lies down to sleep on the grass, where he dreams of an elf-queen, and awakes, declaring An elf-queen wol I love, y wis. All other women I forsake, And to an elf-queen I me take By dale and eke by down. He determines to set out in quest of her. Into his sadel he clombe anon. And pricked over style and stone, An elf-quene for to espie ; Till he so long had ridden and gone, That he found in a privee wone The countree of Faerie,+ * G'onnen, Germ. The " countrie of Faerie," situated in a " privee wone," plainly accord* 54 FAIET LAIO. Wherein he soughte north and south. And oft he spied with his mouth In many a forest wilde ; For in that countree n'as there none That to him dorst ride or gon, Neither wif ne childe. The " gret giaunt " Sire Oliphaunt, however, informs that Here is the quene of Faerie, With harpe and pipe and simphonie, Dwelling in this place. Owing to the fastidiousness of "mine hoste," we are unable to learn how Sir Thopas fared with the elf-queen, and we have probably lost a copious description of Fairy Land. From the glimmering of the morning star of English poetry, the transition is natural to its meridian splendour, the reign of Elizabeth, and we will now make a few remarks on the poem of Spenser. rather with the Feeries of Huon de Bordeaux than with A valon, or the regioa into which Dame Heurodia was taken. SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE. A braver lady never Iript on land, Except the ever-living Faerie Queene, "Whose virtues by her swain so written been That time shall call her high enhanced story, In his rare song, the Muse's chiefest glory. BBOVTH. DTJBING the sixteenth century the study of classical litera- ture, which opened a new field to imagination, and gave it a new impulse, was eagerly and vigorously pursued. A classic ardour was widely and extensively diffused. The composi- tions of that age incessantly imitate and allude to the beauties and incidents of the writings of ancient Greece and Eome. Tet amid this diffusion of classic taste and knowledge, romance had by no means lost its influence. The black- letter pages of Lancelot du Lac, Perceforest, Mort d' Arthur, and the other romances of chivalry, were still listened to with solemn attention, when on winter-evenings the family of the good old knight or baroii ' crowded round the ample fire,' to hear them made vocal, and probably no small degree of credence was given to the wonders they recorded. The passion for allegory, too, remained unabated. Fine moral webs were woven from the fragile threads of the Innamorato and the Furioso ; and even Tasso was obliged, in compliance with the reigning taste, to extract an allegory from his divine poem ; which Fairfax, when translating the Jerusalem, was careful to preserve. Spenser, therefore, when desirous of consecrating his genius to the celebration of the glories of the maiden reign, and the valiant warriors and grave statesmen who adorned it, had hh materials ready pre- pared. Fairy-land, as described by the romancers, gave him 56 SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE. a scene ; the knights and dames with whom it sras peopled, actors ; and its court, its manners, and iisages, a facility of transferring thither whatever real events might suit his design. It is not easy to say positively to what romance the poet was chiefly indebted for his Faery-land. We might, perhaps, venture to conjecture that his principal authority was Huon de Bordeaux, which had been translated some time before by Lord Berners, and from which it is most likely that Shakes- peare took his Oberon, who was thus removed from the realms of romance, and brought back among his real kindred, the dwarfs or elves. Spenser, it is evident, was acquainted with this romance, for he says of Sir Guyon, He was an elfin born of noble state And mickle worship in his native land ; Well could he tourney and in lists debate, And knighthood took of good Sir Jfuon's hand, When with King Oberon he came to Fairy-land. B. ii. c. 1. st. vL And here, if such a thing were to be heeded, the poet commits an anachronism in making Sir Huon, who slew the son of Charlemagne, a contemporary of Arthur. Where " this delightful land of Faery" lies, it were as idle to seek as for Oberon' s realm of Mommur, the island of Calypso, or the kingdom of Lilliput. Though it shadow forth England, it is distinct from it; for Cleopolis excels Troynovant in greatness and splendour, and Elfin, the first Fairy king, ruled over India and America. To the curious the poet says, Of Faery-lond yet if he more inquire, By certain signes here sett in sondrie place, He may it fynd, ne let him then admyre, But yield his sence to be too blunt and bace, That no'te without an hound fine footing trace. The idea of making a queen sole regnante of Fairy-land was the necessary result of the plan of making " the fayrest princesse under sky" view her "owne realmes in lond of faery." Yet there may have been sage authority for this settlement of the fairy throne. Some old romancers may have spoken only of a queen ; and the gallant Sir Thopas SPENSEB'S FAEBIE QUEENE. 57 does not seem to apprehend that he is in pursuit of the wedded wife of another. This doughty champion's dream was evidently the original of Arthur's. Forwearied with my sportes, I did alight From loftie steede, and downe to sleepe me layd ; The verdant grass my couch did goodly dight, And pillow was my helmett fayre displayd ; Whiles every sence the humour sweet embay d, Me seemed by my side a royall mayd Her dainty limbes full softly down did lay, So faire a creature yet saw never sunny day. Most goodly glee and lovely blandishment She to me made, and badd me love her deare, For dearly, sure, her love was to me bent, As, when iust time expired, should appeare : But whether dreames delude, or true it were, Was never hart so ravisht with delight, Ne living man such wordes did never heare As she to me delivered all that night, And at her parting said, she queen of Faries hight. ***** From that day forth I cast in carefull mynd To seek her out with labor and long tyne, And never vow to rest till her I fynd N"yne months I seek in vain, yet n'ill that vow unbynd. B. i. c. 9. st. xiii., xiv., xv. The names given by Spenser to these beings are Faya (Fees), Farys or Fairies, Elfes and Elfins, of which last- words the former had been already employed by Chaucer, and in one passage it is difficult to say what class of beings is intended. Spenser's account of the origin of his Fairies is evidently mere invention, as nothing in the least resem- bling it is to be found in any preceding writer. It bears, indeed, some slight and distant analogy to that of the origin of the inhabitants of Jinnestan, as narrated by the Orientals. According to the usual practice of Spenser, it is mixed up with the fables of antiquity. Prometheus did create A man of many parts from beasts deryved ; That man so made he called Elfe, to weet, Quick,* the first author of all Elfin kynd, Who, wandring through the world with wearie feet, * That is, elfe is alive. 58 SPENSER'S FAEKIK QUEENE, Did in the gardins of Adonis fynd A goodly creature, whom he deemed in mynd To be no earthly wight, but either spright Or angell, the authour of all woman-kynd ; Therefore a Fay he her according hight, Of whom all Faryes spring, and fetch their lignage right. Of these a mighty people shortly grew, And puissant kings, which all the world warrayd, And to themselves all nations did subdue. B. ii. c. 9. st. Ixx., IxxL, Ixxii. Sir "Walter Scott remarks with justice (though his memory played him somewhat false on the occasion), that " the stealing of the Red Cross Knight while a child, is the only incident in the poem which approaches to the popular cha- racter of the Fairy." It is not exactly the only incident; but the only other, that of Arthegal, is a precisely parallel one: He wonneth in the land of Fayeree, Yet is no Fary born, ne sib at all To Elfes, but sprung of seed terrestriall, And whyleome by false Faries stolne away, Whyles yet in infant cradle he did crall : Ne other to himself is knowne this day, But that he by an Elfe was gotten of a Fay. B. iii. c. 3. st. xxvL Sir "Walter has been duly animadverted on for this dan- gerous error by the erudite Mr. Todd. It would be as little becoming as politic in us, treading, as we do, on ground where error ever hovers around us, to make any remark. Freedom from misconception and mistake, unfortunately, forms no privilege of our nature. We must here observe, that Spenser was extremely inju- dicious in his selection of the circumstances by which he endeavoured to confound the two classes of Fairies. It was Siite incongruous to style . the progeny of the subjects of loriane a " base elfin brood," or themselves " false Fairies," especially when we recollect that such a being as Belphrebe whose whole creation did her shew Pure and unspotted from all loathly crime, That is ingenerate in fleshly slime, was born of a Fairie. SPENSEB'S FAEEIE QTJEEXE. 59 Our poet seems to have forgotten himself also in the Legend of Sir Calidore ; for though the knight is a Faerie himself, and though such we are to suppose were all the native inhabitants of Faerie-land, yet to the " gentle flood ' that tumbled down from Mount Acidale, ne mote the ruder clown Thereto approach ne filth mote therein drown ; But Nymphs and Faenes on the banks did sit In the woods shade which did the waters crown. B. vi. c. 10. st. vii. And a little farther, when Calidore gazes on the " hundred naked maidens lily white," that danced around the Graces, lie wist not Whether it were the train of beauty's queen, Or Nymphs or Faeries, or enchanted show, With which his eyes mote have deluded been. St. xvii. The popular Elves, who dance their circlets on the green, were evidently here in Spenser's mind.* It is now, we think, if not certain, at least highly probable, that the Fairy-land and the Fairies of Spenser are those of romance, to which the term Fairy properly belongs, and that it is without just reason that the title of his poem has been styled a misnomer.^ After the appearance of his Faerie Queene, all distinction between the different species was rapidly lost, and Fairies became the established name of the popular Elves. Here, then, we will take our leave of the potent ladies of romance, and join the Elves of the popular creed, tracing their descent from the Duergar of northern mythology, till we meet them enlivening the cottage fireside with the tales of their pranks and gambols. * These Fairies thus coupled with Nymphs remind us of the Fairies of the old translators. Spenser, in the Shepherd's Calendar, however, had united them before, as Nor elvish ghosts nor ghastly owls do flee, But friendly Faeries met with many Graces, And light-foot Nymphs. JEg. 6. + " Spenser's Fairy Queen, which is one of the grossest misnomers in romance or history, bears no features of the Fairy nation." Gifford, note on B. Jonson, vol. ii. p. 202. EDDAS AND SAGAS. En sang om stralende Valhalla, Om Gudar och Gudinnar alia. TEGNEI. A song of Vallhall's bright abodes, Of all the goddesses and gods. THE ancient religion of Scandinavia, and probably of the whole Gotho- German race, consisted, like all other systems devised by man, in personifications of the various powers of nature and faculties of mind. Of this system in its fulness and perfection we possess no record. It is only from the poems of the elder or poetic Edda,* from the narratives of the later or prose Edda and the various Sagas or histories written in the Icelandic language,t that we can obtain any knowledge of it. The poetic or Ssemund's Edda was, as is generally believed, collected about the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century by an Icelander named Saemund, and styled Hinns Proda, or The Wise. It consists of a number of mythological and historical songs, the production of the ancient Scalds or poets, all, or the greater part, composed before the introduction of Christianity into the north. The measure of these venerable songs is alliterative rime, and they present not unfrequently poetic beauties of a high and striking character. J * Edda signifies grandmother. Some regard it as the feminine of othr, or odr, wisdom. f- This language is so called because still spoken in Iceland. Its proper name is the Norrsena Tunga (northern tongue). It was the common language of the whole North. See Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. is. EDDAS AND SAGAS. 61 The prose Edda is supposed to have been compiled in the thirteenth century by Snorro Sturlesou, the celebrated his- torian of Norway. It is a history of the gods and their actions formed from the songs of the poetic Edda, and from other ancient poems, several stanzas of which are incorpo- rated in it. Beside the preface and conclusion, it consists of two principal parts, the first consisting of the Gylfa- ginning (Gylfa's Deception), or Hars Lygi (Heir's i. e. Odin's Fiction), and the Braga-rsedur (Brayas Narrative), each of which is divided into several Daemi-sagas or Illustrative Stories; and the second named the Kenniiigar or list of poetic names and periphrases.* The Gylfa-ginning narrates that Gylfa king of Sweden, struck with the wisdom and power of the -3ser,f as Odin and his followers were called, journeyed in the likeness of an old man, and under the assumed name of Ganglar, to Asgard their chief residence, to inquire into and fathom their wisdom. Aware of his design, the ^ser by their magic art caused to arise before him a lofty and splendid palace, roofed with golden shields. At the gate he found a man who was throwing up and catching swords, seven of which were in the air at one time. This man inquires the name of the stranger, whom he leads into the palace, where Granglar sees a number of persons drinking and playing, and three thrones, each set higher than the other. On the thrones sat Har (Hiff7i), Jafnhar (JEqual-higli), and Thridi (Third). Ganglar asks if there is any one there wise and learned. Har replies that he will not depart in safety if he knows more than they.J Ganglar then commences his interrogations, which embrace a variety of recondite subjects, and extend from the creation to the end of all things. To each he receives a satisfactory reply. At the last reply Ganglar hears a loud * It was first published by Resenius in 1665. "I" By the JEser are understood the Asiatics, who with Odin brought their arts and religion into Scandinavia. This derivation of the word, however, is rather dubious. Though possibly the population and religion of Scatdinavia came originally from Asia there seems to be no reason whatever for putting any faith in the legend of Odin. It is not unlikely that the name of their gods, .ffiser, gave birth to the whole theory. It is remarkable that the ancient Etrurians also should have called the gods -flEsar. J So the lotunn or Giant Vaf'tlirudnir to Odin in the Vafthrudnisma!. Strophe vii. 62 EDDAS AND SAGAS. rush and noise : the magic illusion suddenly vanishes, and he finds himself alone on an extensive plain. The Braga-raedur is the discourse of Braga to -2Egir, the god of the sea, at the banquet of the Immortals. This part contains many tales of gods and heroes old, whose adventures had been sung by Skalds, of high renown and lofty genius. Though both the Eddas were compiled by Christians, there appears to be very little reason for suspecting the compilers of having falsified or interpolated the mythology of their forefathers. Ssemund's Edda may be regarded as an Antho- logy of ancient Scandinavian poetry ; and the author of the prose Edda (who it is plain did not always understand the true meaning of the tales he related) wrote it as a northern Pantheon and Gradus ad Parnassum, to supply poets with incidents, ornaments, and epithets. Fortunately they did so, or impenetrable darkness had involved the ancient religion of the Gothic stock ! Beside the Eddas, much information is to be derived from the various Sagas or northern histories. These Sagas, at times transmitting true historical events, at other times con- taining the wildest fictions of romance, preserve much valu- able mythic lore, and the Tnglinga, Volsunga, Hervarar, and other Sagas, will furnish many important traits of northern mythology. It is not intended here to attempt sounding the depths of Eddaic mythology, a subject so obscure, and concerning which so many and various opinions occur in the works of those who have occupied themselves with it. Suffice it to observe that it goes back to the most remote ages, and that two essential parts of it are the Alfar (Alfs or Elves) and the Duergar (Dwarfs), two classes of beings whose names con- tinue to the present day in all the languages of the nations descended from the Gotho- German race. " Our heathen forefathers," says Thorlacius,* " believed, like the Pythagoreans, and the farther back in antiquity the more firmly, that the whole world was filled with spirits of various kinds, to whom they ascribed in general the same nature and properties as the Greeks did to their Daemons. These were divided into the Celestial and the Terrestrial, * Thorlacius, Noget om Thor og bans Hammer. ormr. These Xornir bear a remarkable resemblance to the classi- cal Parcse and to the fairies of romance. They are all alike represented as assisting at the birth of eminent personages, as bestowing gifts either good or evil, and as foretelling the future fortune of the being that has just entered on exist- ence.* This attribute of the fairies may have been derived from either the north or the south, but certainly these did not borrow from each other. Of the origin of the word Alf nothing satisfactory is to be found. Some think it is akin to the Latin albus, white ; others, to alpes, Alps, mountains. There is also supposed to be some mysterious connexion between it and the word Elf, or Elv, signifying water in the northern languages ; an ana- logy which has been thought to correspond with that between the Latin Nympha and Lympha. Both relations, however, are perhaps rather fanciful than just. Of the derivation of Alf, as just observed, we know nothing certain,! and the original meaning of Xympha would appear to be a new- married woman,;]; and thence a marriageable young woman ; and it was applied to the supposed inhabitants of the moun- tains, seas, aiid streams, on the same principle that the northern nations gave them the appellation of men and women, that is, from their imagined resemblance to the human form. Whatever its origin, the word Alf has continued till the present day in all the Teutonic languages. The Danes have Elv, pi. Elve ; the Swedes, Elf pi. Elfoar m. Elfvor f. ; and the words Elf-dans and Elf-blcest, together with Olof and other proper names, are derived from them. The Germans call the nightmare Alp; and in their old poems we meet * See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 274. } The analogy of Deev, and other words of like import, might lead to tha supposition of Spirit being the primary meaning of Alf. J See Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 248, second edition. r 66 THE DUERGAB. with Elbe and Elbinne, and Elbisch occurs in them in the bad sense of elvish of Chaucer and our old romancers ; and a number of proper names, such as Alprecht, Alphart, Alpine, Alpwin,* were formed from it, undoubtedly before it got its present ill sense.f In the Anglo-Saxon, ./Elf or ^Elpen, with its feminine and plural, frequently occurs. The Oreas, Naias, and Hamodryas of the Greeks and Eomans are rendered in an Anglo-Saxon glossary by GOunc-aelpen, rsfi-aelpeu, and pelb-aelfen.J ^Elp is a component part of the proper names ^Elfred and jJElfric ; and the author of the poem of Judith says that his heroine was ^Elp-pcine (Elf-sheen), bright or fair as an elf. But of the character and acts of the elfs no traditions have been preserved in Anglo-Saxon litera- ture. In the English language, Elf, Elves, and their deriva- tives are to be found in every period, from its first formation down to this present time. THE DUEEGAE. By ek fur jorth nethan, A ek, undir stein, stath. ALVIB-MAL. I dwell the earth beneath, I possess, under the stone, my seat. THESE diminutive beings, dwelling in rocks and hills, and distinguished for their skill in metallurgy, seem to be pecu- liar to the Gotho-German mythology. Perhaps the most probable account of them is, that they are personifications of * After the introduction of Christianity, Engel, angel, was employed for Alp in most proper names, as Engelrich, Engelhart, etc. f See MM. Grimm's learned Introduction to their translation of the Irish Fairy Legends, and the Deutsche Mythologie of J. Grimm. J MM. Grimm suppose with a good deal of probability, that these are compounds formed to render the Greek ones, and are not expressive of a belief in analogous classes of spirits. Some think, but with little reason, thej- were originally a part of th Finnish mythology, and were adopted into the Gothic gyatem EDDAS AND SAAS. 07 the subterraneous powers of nature ; for it may be again observed, that all the parts of every ancient mythology are but personified powers, attributes, and moral qualities. The Edda thus describes their origin : " Then the gods sat on their seats, and held a council, and called to mind how the Duergar had become animated in the clay below in the earth, like maggots in flesh. The Duergar had been first created, and had taken life in Tmir's * flesh, and were maggots in it, and by the will of the gods they became partakers of human knowledge, and had the likeness of men, and yet they abode in the ground and in stones. Modsogner was the first of them, and then Dyrin." The Duergar are described as being of low stature, with short legs and long arms, reaching almost down to the ground when they stand erect.f They are skilful and expert work- men in gold, silver, iron, and the other metals. They form many wonderful and extraordinary things for the -Sser, and for mortal heroes, and the arms and armour that come from their forges are not to be paralleled. Tet the gift must be spontaneously bestowed, for misfortune attends those ex- torted from them by violence. + In illustration of their character we bring forward the following narratives from the Edda and Sagas. The homely garb in which they are habited, will not, it is hoped, be dis- pleasing to readers of taste. We give as exact a copy as we are able of the originals in all their rudeness. The tales are old, their date unknown, and they therefore demand respect. Yet it is difficult to suppress a smile at finding such familiar, nay almost vulgar terms applied to the great supernal powers of nature, as occur in the following tale from the Edda. * The giant Ymir is a personification of Chaos, the undigested primal matter. The sons of Borr (other personifications) slew him. Out of him they Conned the woil ; his blood made the sea, his flesh the laud, his bones the mountains; rocks sin cliffs were his teeth, jaws, and broken pieces of bones ; his skull formed t ie heavens. f- On mund Andreas in notis ad Volnspd. J Th t they are not insensible to kindness one of the succeeding tales will sli_-i . Tin- habitual reader of the northern and German writers, or evei, nin old Engli -h ones, will observe with Minirise his gradually diminished rout for man) < juvssions now beconu .:iltr;>r ll< will find Inmselt' im;i >lj falling ii ;o the habit of rep:' 'ln-m in tin- linlit "f 'lirir pristine OS THE DUE&ttAJl. Eofct an& tijr Stoarf. LOKI, the son of Laufeiar, had out of mischief cut off all the hair of Sif. When Thor found this out he seized Loki', and would have broken every bone in his body, only that he swore to get the Suartalfar to make for Sif hair of gold, which would grow like any other hair. Loki then went to the Dwarfs that are called the sons of Ivallda. They first made the hair, which as soon as it was put on the head grew like natural hair ; then the ship Skidbladni,* which always had the wind with it, wherever it would sail ; and, thirdly, the spear Gugner, which always hit in battle. Then Loki laid his head against the dwarf Brock, that his brother Eitri could not forge three such valuable things as these were. They went to the forge ; Eitri set the swine- skin (bellows) to the fire, and bid his brother Brock to blow, and not to quit the fire till he should have taken out the things he had put into it. And when he was gone out of the forge, and that Brock was blowing, there came a fly and settled upon his hand, and bit him ; but he blew without stopping till the smith took the work out of the fire ; and it was a boar, and its bristles were of gold. He then put gold into the fire, and bid him not to stop blowing till he came back. He went away, and then the fly came and settled on his neck, and bit him more severely than before ; but he blew on till the smith came back and took out of the fire the gold-ring which is called Drupner.f Then he put iron into the fire, and bid him blow, and said * Skidbladni, like Par! Banou's tent, could expand and contract as required. It would carry all the JEser and their arms, and when not in use it could bo taken asunder and put in a purse. "A (food ship," says Ganglar, " is Skid- dlailni, but great art must Lave been employed in making it." Mythologist* lay i: is the clouds. + f. < . The Dripper. EDDAS ANJ) 8AQAS. GP that if he stopped blowing all the work would be lost. Thn fly now settled between his eyes, and bit so hard that the blood ran into his eyes, so that he could not see ; so when the bellows were down he caught at the fly in all haste, and tore off its wings ; but then came the smith, and said that all that was in the fire had nearly been spoiled. He then took out of the fire the hammer Miolner,* gave all the things to his brother Brock, and bade him go with them to Asgard and settle the wager. Loki also produced his jewels, and they took Odin, Thor, and Prey, for judges. Then Loki gave to Odin the spear Ghigner, and to Thor the hair that Sif was to have, and to Frey Skidbladni, and told their virtues as they have been already related. Brock took out his jewels, and gave to Odin the ring, and said that every ninth night there would drop from it eight other rings as valuable as itself. To Frey he gave the boar, and said that he would run through air and water, by night and by day, better than any horse, and that never was there night so dark that the way by which he went would not be light from his hide. He gave the hammer to Thor, and said that it would never fail to hit a Troll, and that at whatever he threw it it would never miss it ; and that he could never fling it so far that it would not of itself return to his hand ; and when he chose, it would become so small that he might put it into his pocket. But the fault of the hammer was that its handle was too short. Their judgment was, that the hammer was the best, and that the Dwarf had won the wager. Then Loki prayed hard not to lose his head, but the Dwarf said that could not be. "Catch me then," said Loki; and when he went to catch him he was far away, for Loki had shoes with which he could run through air and water. Then the Dwarf prayed Thor to catch him, and Thor did so. The Dwarf now went to cut off his head, but Loki said he was to have the head only, and not the neck. Then the Dwarf took a knife and a thong, and went to sew up his mouth ; but the knife was bad, so the Dwarf wished that his brother's awl were there ; and as soon as he wished it it was there, and he sewed his lips together.t * f. e. The Bruiser or Crusher, from Myla, to bruise or crush. Lfttlethi Fancy know of the high connexions of their phrase Mill. J" Edda Resenii, Daemisaga 59. 70 THE DUERGAB. Northern mythologists thus explain this very ancient fable. Sif is the earth, and the wife of Thor, the heaven or atmosphere ; her hair is the trees, bushes, and plants, that adorn the surface of the earth. Loki is the Fire-God, that delights in mischief, bene servit, male imperat. When by immoderate heat he has burned off the hair of Sif, her hus- band compels him so by temperate heat to warm the mois- ture of the earth, that its former products may spring up more beautiful than ever. The boar is given to Freyr, to whom and his sister Freya, as the gods of animal and vegetable fecundity, the northern people offered that animal, as the Italian people did, to the earth. Loki's bringing the gifts from the under-ground people seems to indicate a belief that metals were prepared by subterranean fire, and perhaps the forging of Thor's hammer, the mythic emblem of thunder, by a terrestrial demon, on a subterranean anvil, may suggest that the natural cause of thunder is to be sought in the earth. anto rtje Qtonrf. WHEN spring came, Thorston made ready his ship, and put twenty-four men on board of her. When they came to Vinland, they ran her into a harbour, and every day he went on shore to amuse himself. He came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great rock, and out a little way from it a Dwarf, who was horridly ugly, and was looking up over his head with his mouth wide open ; and it appeared to Thorston that it ran from ear to ear, and that the lower jaw came down to his knees. Thorston asked him, why he was acting so foolishly. " Do not be surprised, my good lad," replied the Dwarf; " do you not see that great dragon that is flying up there ? He has taken off my son, and I believe that it is Odin him- self that has sent the monster to do it. But I shall burst and die if I lose my son." Then Thorston shot at the dragon, and hit him under one of the wings, so that he feU EDDAS AND SAGAS, 71 dead to the earth ; butThorston caught the Dwarf's child in the air, and brought him to his father. The Dwarf was exceeding glad, and was more rejoiced than any one could tell ; and he said, " A great benefit have I to reward you for, who are the deliverer of my son ; and now choose your recompense in gold and silver." " Cure your son," said Thorston, " but I am not used to take rewards for my services." " It were not becoming," said the Dwarf, " if I did not reward you ; and let not my shirt of sheeps'- wool, which I will give you, appear a contemptible gift, for you will never be tired when swimming, or get a wound, if you wear it next your skin." Thorston took the shirt and put it on, and it fitted him well, though it had appeared too short for the Dwarf. The Dwarf now took a gold ring out of his purse and gave it to Thorston, and bid him to take good care of it, telling him that he never should want for money while he kept that ring. He next took a black stone and gave it to Thorston, and said, " If you hide this stone in the palm of your hand no one will see you. I have not many more things to offer you, or that would be of any value to you ; I will, however, give you a fire-stone for your amusement." He then took the stone out of his purse, and with a steel point. The stone was triangular, white on one side and red on the other, and a yellow border ran round it. The Dwan then said, " If you prick the stone with the point in the white side, there will come on such a hail-storm that no one will be able to look at it ; but if you want to stop this shower, you have only to prick on the yellow part, and there will come so much sunshine that the whole will melt away. But if you should like to prick the red side, then there will come out of it such fire, with sparks and crackling, that no one will be able to look at it. You may also get whatever you will by means of this point and stone, and they will come 01 themselves back to your hand when you call them. I can now give you no more such gifts." Thorston then thanked the Dwarf for his presents, and returned to his men, and it was better for him to have made this voyage than to have stayed at home.* * Thoreton'g Saga, c. 3, in the KUmpa Dater. 72 THE DUEHGAB. Che 0toarf=toortJ Cirfing. STJAFOBLAMI, the second in descent from Odin, was king over G-ardarike (Russia). One day he rode a-hunting, and sought long after a hart, but could not find one the whole day. When the sun was setting he found himself immersed so deep in the forest that he knew not where he was. There lay a hill on his right hand, and before it he saw two Dwarfs ; he drew his sword agains ', them, and cut off their retreat by getting between them and the rock. They proffered him ransom for their lives, and he asked them then their names, and one of them was called Dyren, and the other Dualin. He knew then that they were the most ingenious and expert of all the Dwarfs, and he therefore imposed on them that they should forge him a sword, the best that they could form ; its hilt should be of gold, and its belt of the same metal. He moreover enjoined, that the sword should never miss a blow, and should never rust ; and should cut through iron and stone, as through a garment ; and should be always victorious in war and in single combat for him who bare it. These were the conditions on which he gave them their lives. On the appointed day he returned, and the Dwarfs came forth and delivered him the sword ; and when Dualin stood in the door he said, " This sword shall be the bane of a man every time it is drawn ; and with it shall be done three of the greatest atrocities. It shall also be thy bane." Then Sua- torlami struck at the Dwarf so, that the blade of the sword penetrated into the solid rock. Thus Suaforlami became possessed of this sword, and he called it Tirfing, and he bare it in war and in single combat, and he slew with it the Giant Thiasse, and took his daughter Fridur. Suaforlami was shortly after slain by the Berserker* The Berserker* were warriors who used to be inflamed with such rage .Tid fury at the thoughts of combats as to bite their shields, run through fire, EDDAS AND SAGAS. 73 Andgriift, who then became master of the sword. When the twelve sons of Andgrim were to fight with Hialmar Jind Oddur for Ingaborg, the beautiful daughter of King Inges, Angantyr bore the dangerous Tirfing ; but all the brethren were slain in the combat, and were buried with their arms. Angantyr left an only daughter, Hervor, who, when she grew up, dressed herself in man's attire, and took the name of Hervardar, and joined a party of Vikinger, or Pirates. Knowing that Tirfing lay buried with her father, she deter- mined to awaken the dead, and obtain the charmed blade ; and perhaps nothing in northern poetry equals in interest and sublimity the description of her landing alone in the evening on the island of Sams, where her father and uncles lay in their sepulchral mounds, and at night ascending to the tombs, that were enveloped in flame,* and by force of en- treaty obtaining from the reluctant Angantyr the formidable Tirfing. Hervor proceeded to the court of King Gudmund, and there one day, as she was playing at tables with the king, one of the servants chanced to take up and draw Tirfing, which shone like a sunbeam. But Tirfing was never to see the light but for the bane of man, and Hervor, by a sudden impulse, sprang from her seat, snatched the sword and struck oif the head of the unfortunate man. Hervor, after this, returned to the house of her grandfather, Jarl Biartmar, where she resumed her female attire, and was married to Haufud, the son of King Gudmund. She bare him two sons, Angantyr and Heidreker ; the former of a mild and gentle disposition, the latter violent and fierce. Haufud would not permit Heidreker to remain at his court ; and as he was departing, his mother, with other gifts, presented him Tirfing. His brother accompanied him out of the castle. Before they swallow burning coals, and perform such like mad feats. " Whether the avidity for fighting or the ferocity of their nature," says Suxo, " brought thit madness on them, is uncertain." * The northern nations believed that the tombs of their heroes emitted a kind of lambent flame, which was always visible in the night, and served to guard the ashes of the dead ; they called it Hauga Elldr, or The Sepulchral Fire. It vas supposed more particularly to surround such tombs as contained hidden treasures. Bartholin, dc Cwtttmpt. a Dan. Morte, p. 275. 74 THE DUERGAB. partei, Heidreker drew out his sword to look at and admire it ; but scarcely did the rays of light Ml on the magic blade, when the Berserker rage came on its owner, and he slew his gentle brother. After this he joined a body of ViMnger, and became so distinguished, that King Harold, for the aid he lent him, gave him his daughter Helga in marriage. But it was the destiny of Tirfing to commit crime, and Harold fell by the hand of his son-in-law. Heidreker was afterwards in Russia, and the son of the king was his foster-son. One day, as they were out hunting, Heidreker and his foster-son happened to be separated from the rest of the party, when a wild boar appeared before them ; Heidreker ran at him with his spear, but the beast caught it in his mouth and broke it across. He then alighted and drew Tirfing., and killed the boar ; but on looking around, he could see no one but his foster-son, and Tirfing could only be appeased with warm human blood, and he slew the unfortunate youth. Finally, King Heidreker was murdered in his bed by his Scottish slaves, who carried off Tirfing ; but his son Angantyr, who succeeded him, dis- covered and put them to death, and recovered the magic blade. In battle against the Huns he afterwards made great slaughter ; but among the slain was found his own brother Laudur. And so ends the history of the Dwarf-sword Tirfing.* Like Alf, the word Duergr has retained its place in the Teutonic languages. Dvergt is the term still used in the north; the Germans have Zwerg, and we Dwarf, J which, however, is never synonymous with Fairy, as Elf is. Ihre * Hervarar Saga passim. The Tirfing Saga would b its more proper appellation. In poetic and romantic interest it exceeds all the northern f In Swedish Dverg also signifies a spider. J In the old Swedish metrical history of Alexander, the word Duerf occur*. The progress in the English word is as follows : Anglo-Saxon bt>eopj ; thence dwerlce ; A maid that is a niessingere And a dwerke me brought here, Her to do socour. Lylcnus Disconiu. ltly, dwarf, at in old Swedish. EDDAS AND SAGAS. 75 rejects all the etymons proposed for it, such, for example, as that of G-udmund Andreae, 8io\. tpyov ; and with abundant reason. Some have thought that by the Dwarfs were to be under- stood the Finns, the original inhabitants of the country, who were driven to the mountains by the Scandinavians, and who probably excelled the new-comers in the art of working their mines and manufacturing their produce. Thorlacius, on the contrary, thinks that it was Odin and his followers, who came from the country of the Chalybes, that brought the metal- lurgic arts into Scandinavia. Perhaps the simplest account of the origin of the Dwarfs is, that when, in the spirit of all ancient religions, the sub- terranean powers of nature were to be personified, the authors of the system, from observing that people of small stature usually excel in craft and ingenuity, took occasion to repre- sent the beings who formed crystals and purified metals within the bowels of the earth as of diminutive size, which also corresponded better with the power assigned them of slipping through the fissures and interstices of rocks and stones. Similar observations led to the representation of the wild and awful powers of brute nature under the form of huge gianta. SCANDINAVIA. D* vare syv og hundrede Trolde, De vare baade grumme og lede, De vilde gjore Bonden et Gjoosterie, Med hannem baade drikke og sede. ELINK AF VILLENSZOV. There were seven and a hundred Trolls, They were both ugly and grim, A visit they would the farmer make, Both eat and drink with him. UNDEE the name of Scandinavia are included the kingdoms of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, which once had a common religion and a common language. Their religion is still one, and their languages differ but little ; we therefore feel that we may safely treat of their Fairy Mythology together. Our principal authorities are the collection of Danish popular traditions, published by Mr. Thiele,* the select Danish ballads of Nyerup and Eahbek,f and the Swedish ballads of Geijer and Afzelius.J As most of the principal Danish ballads treating of Elves, etc., have been already trans- lated by Dr. Jamieson, we will not insert them here ; but translate, instead, the corresponding Swedish ones, which are in general of greater simplicity, and often contain additional traits of popular belief. As we prefer fidelity to polish, the reader must not be offended at antique modes of expressioc and imperfect rimes. Our rimes we can, however, safely say shall be at least as perfect as those of our originals. These ballads, none of which are later than the fifteenth * Danske Folkesagn, 4 vols. 12mo. Copenh. 181822. f- Udvalgde Danske Viser fra Middelaldaren, 5 vols. 12mo. Copenh. 1812. Svenska Folk- Visor frSn Forntiden, 3 vols. 8 TO. Stockholm, 1814 16. We have not seen the late collection of Arvidsson named Svenska Fornsange:, in 3 vols. 8vo. SCAXDIWA.VIA. 77 century, are written in a strain of the most artless simplicity; not the slightest attempt at ornament is to be discerned in them ; the same ideas and expressions continually recur ; and the rimes are the most careless imaginable, often a mere assonnance in vowels or consonants ; sometimes not possess- ing even that slight similarity of sound. Every Visa or ballad has its single or double Omquaed * or burden, which, like a running accompaniment in music, frequently falls in with the most happy effect ; sometimes recalling former joys or sorrows ; sometimes, by the continual mention of some attribute of one of the seasons, especially the summer, keep- ing up in the mind of the reader or hearers the forms of external nature. It is singular to observe the strong resemblance between the Scandinavian ballads and those of England and Scotland, not merely in manner but in subject. The Scottish ballad first mentioned below is an instance ; it is to be met with in England, in the Feroes, in Denmark, and in Sweden, with very slight differences. Greyer observes, that the two last stanzas of ' William and Margaret,' in Percy's Reliques, are nearly word for word the same as the two last in the Swedish ballad of ' Kosa Lilla,' t and in the corresponding * The reader will find a beautiful instance of a double Omquaed in the Scottish ballad of the Cruel Sister. There were two sisters sat in a bower, Binnorie o Binnorie There came a knight to be their wooer By the bonny mill-dams of Binnorie. And iu the Cruel Brother, There were three ladies played at the ba', With a heigh ho and a lily gay ; There came a knight and played o'er them a', As the primrose spreads so sweetly. The second and fourth lines are repeated in every stanza, f These are the Swedish verses : Det vaxte upp Liljor p begge deres graf, Med aran och med dygd De vaxte tilsamman med alia sina blad. J vinnen v'dl, J vinnen v'dl bade rosr och liljor, Det vaxte upp Rnsor ur bada deras mui', Med aran och med dygd De vaxte tilsammans i faareste lund. J vinnen v'dl, J vinnen v'dl bade rcsor t. ^h liljor. 78 ELVES. Danish one. This might perhaps lead to the supposition of many of these ballads having come down from the time when the connexion was so intimate between this country and Scandinavia. We will divide the Scandinavian objects of popular belief into four classes : 1. The Elves ; 2. The Dwarfs, or Trolls, as they are usually called ; 3. The Nisses ; and 4. The Necks, Mermen, and Mermaids.* ELVES. Sag, kannar du Elfvornas glada slagt ? De bygga ved flodernas rand; De spinna af mSnsken sin hogtidsdragt, Med liljehvit spelande hand. STAONELIUS. Say, knowest thou the Elves' gay and joyous race ? The banks of streams are their home; They spin of the moonshine their holiday-dress, With their Illy-white hands frolicsome. THE Alfar still live in the memory and traditions of the peasantry of Scandinavia. They also, to a certain extent, retain their distinction into White and Black. The former, or the Good Elves, dwell in the air, dance on the grass, or sit in the leaves of trees ; the latter, or Evil Elves, are regarded as an underground people, who frequently inflict sickness or injury on mankind ; for which there is a par- ticular kind of doctors called Kloka mim,^ to be met with in all parts of the country. * Some readers may wish to know the proper mode of pronouncing such Danish and Swedish words as occur in the following legends. For their satis- faction we give the following information. J is pronounced as our y ; when it comes between a consonant and a vowel, it is very short, like the y that is expressed, but not written, in many English words after c and g : thus Icjar is pronounced very nearly as care : o sounds like the German o, or French eu : d after another consonant is rarely sounded, Trold is pronounced Troll : oa, which the Swedes write tf, as o in more, tore. Aarhuus is pronounced Ore-hoos. f That is, Wise People or Conjurors. They answer to the Fairy-women of Ireland. SCANDINAVIA. 79 The Elves are believed to have their kings, and to celebrate their weddings and banquets, just the same as the dwellers above ground. There is an interesting intermediate class of them in popular tradition called the Hill-people (Hdgfolk), who are believed to dwell in caves and small hills : when they show themselves they have a handsome human form. The com- mon people seem to connect with them a deep feeling of melan- choly, as if bewailing a half-quenched hope of redemption.* There are only a few old persons now who can tell any thing more about them than of the sweet singing that may occasionally on summer nights be heard out of their hills, when one stands still and listens, or, as it is expressed in the ballads, "lays his ear to the Elve-hill" (logger sift or a till Elfvehogg ) : but no one must be so cruel as, by the slightest word, to destroy their hopes of salvation, for then the spritely music will be turned into weeping and lamentation.f The Norwegians call the Elves Huldrafolk, and their music Huldraslaat : it is in the minor key, and of a dull and mournful sound. The mountaineers sometimes play it, and pretend they have learned it by Listening to the under- ground people among the hills and rocks. There is also a tune called the Elf-king's tune, which several of the good fiddlers know right well, but never venture to play, for as soon as it begins both old and young, and even inanimate objects, are impelled to dance, and the player cannot stop unless he can play the air backwards, or that some one comes behind him and cuts the strings of his fiddle. J The Little underground Elves, who are believed to dwell * Afzelius is of opinion that this notion respecting the Hill-people is derived from the time of the introduction of Christianity into the north, and expresses the sympathy of the first converts with their forefathers, who had died without a knowledge of the Redeemer, and lay hurled in heathen earth, and whose unhappy spirits were doomed to wander about these lower regions, or sigh within their mounds till the great day of redemption. f 1 "About fifteen years ago," says Odman (Bahuslan, p. 80), "people used to hear, out of the hill under Garun, in the parish of Tanum, the playing, as it were, of the very best musicians. Any one there who had a fiddle, and wished to play, was taught in an instant, provided they promised them salva- tion ; but whoever did not do so, might hear them within, in the hill, breaking their violins to pieces, and weeping bitterly." See Grimm. Deut. Myth. 45L J Aradt, Reise nach Schwcden, iv. 241. 80 SCANDINAVIA. under the houses of mankind, are described as sportive and mischievous, and as imitating all the actions of men. They are said to love cleanliness about the house and place, and to reward such servants as are neat and cleanly. There was one time, it is said, a servant girl, who was for her cleanly, tidy habits, greatly beloved by the Elves, par- ticularly as she was careful to carry away all dirt and foul water to a distance from the house, and they once invited her to a wedding. Every thing was conducted in the greatest order, and they made her a present of some chips, which she took good-humouredly and put into her pocket. But when the bride-pair was coming there was a straw unluckily lying in the way, the bridegroom got cleverly over it, but the poor bride fell on her face. At the sight of this the girl could not restrain herself, but burst out a-laughing, and that instant the whole vanished from her sight. Next day, to her utter amazement, she found that what she had taken to be nothing but chips, were so many pieces of pure gold.* A dairy-maid at a place called Skibshuset (the Ship-house), in O dense, was not so fortunate. A colony of Elves had taken up their abode under the floor of the cowhouse, or it is more likely, were there before it was made a cowhouse. However, the dirt and filth that the cattle made annoyed them beyond measure, and they gave the dairy-maid to understand that if she did not remove the cows, she would have reason to repent it. She gave little heed to their representations ; and it was not very long till they set her up on top of the hay-rick, and killed all the cows. It is said that they were seen on the same night removing in a great hurry from the cowhouse down to the meadow, and that they went in little coaches ; and their king was in the first coach, which was far more stately and magnificent than the rest. They have ever since lived in the meadow.f * Svenska Folk-Visor, vol. iii. p. 159. There is a similar legend in Germany. A servant, one time, seeing one of the little ones very hard-set to carry a single grain of wheat, burst out laughing at him. In a rage, he threw it on the ground, and it proved to he the purest gold. But he and his comrades quitted the house, and it speedily went to decay. Strack. Beschr. v. Eilsen, p. 124, ap. Grimm, Introd., etc., p. 90. + Thiele, vol. iv. p. 22. They are called Trolls in the original. As they had a king, we think they must have been Klvcs. The Dwarfs have long since abolished monarchy. ELTT8. Si The Elves are extremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form those circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elf-dance (Elfdans). AVhen the country people see in the morning stripes along the dewy grass in the woods and meadows, they say the Elves hare been dancing there. If any one should at midnight get within their circle, they become visible to him, and they may then illude him. It is not every one that can see the Elves ; and one person may see them dancing while another perceives nothing. Sunday children, as they are called, i. e. those born on Sunday, are remarkable for possessing this property of seeing Elves and similar beings. The Elves, however, have the power to bestow this gift on whomsoever they please. People also used to speak of Elf-books which they gave to those whom they loved, and which enabled them to foretell future events. The Elves often sit in little stones that are of a circular form, and are called Elf-mills (Elf-quarnor) ; the sound of their voice is said to be sweet and soft like the air.* The Danish peasantry give the following account of their Ellefolk or Elve-people. The Elle-people live in the Elle-moors. The appearance of the man is that of an old man with a low-crowned hat on his head; the Elle-woman is young and of a fair and attractive countenance, but behind she is hollow like a dough-trough. Young men should be especially on their guard against her, for it is very difficult to resist her ; and she has, moreover, a stringed instrument, wiiich, when she plays on it, quite ravishes their hearts. The man may be often seen near the Elle-moors, bathing himself in the sun- beams, but if any one comes too near him, he opens his mouth wide and breathes upon them, and his breath produces sickness and pestilence. But the women are most frequently to be seen by moonshine ; then they dance their rounds in the high grass so lightly and so gracefully, that they seldom meet a denial when they offer their hand to a rash young man. It is also necessary to watch cattle, that they may not graze in any place where the Elle-people have been for * The greater part of what precedes has been taken from Afzelius ; n tl.e Sver^ka Visor, vol. iii. o 82 SCANDINAVIA. if any animal come to a place where the Elle-people have spit, or done what is worse, it is attacked by some grievous disease which can only be cured by giving it to eat a hand- ful of St. John's wort, which had been pulled at twelve o'clock on St. John's night. It might also happen that they might sustain some injury by mixing with the Elle-people's cattle, which are very large, and of a blue colour, and which may sometimes be seen in the fields licking up the dew, on which they live. But the farmer has an easy remedy against this evil ; for he has only to go to the Elle-hill when he is turning out his cattle and to say, " Thou little Troll ! may I graze my cows on thy hill ?" And if he is not prohibited, he may set his mind at rest.* The following ballads and tales will fully justify what has been said respecting the tone of melancholy connected with the subject of the Elves.f ittr <9Iof in SIB Olof he rode out at early day, And so came he unto an Elve-dance gay. The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. The Elve-father reached out his white hand free, " Come, come, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. " O nought I will, and nought I may, To-morrow will be my wedding-day." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. * Thiele, iv. 26. f In the distinction which we have made between the Elves and Dwarf* we find that we are justified by the popular creed of the Norwegians. Fajc, p. 49, op. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 412. ELVES. 88 And the Elve-mother reached out her white hand free, " Come, come, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. " O nought I will, and nought I may, To-morrow will be my wedding-day." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. And the Elve-sister reached out her white hand free, " Come, come, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. " O nought I will, and nought I may, To-morrow will be my wedding-day." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. And the bride she spake with her bride-maids so, " What may it mean that the bells thus go ?" The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. " 'Tis the custom of this our isle," they replied ; " Each young swain ringeth home his bride." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. " And the truth from you to conceal I fear, Sir Olof is dead, and lies on his bier." The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. And on the morrow, ere light was the day, In Sir Olof's house three corpses lay. The dance it goes well, So well in the grove. It was Sir Olof, his bonny bride, And eke his mother, of sorrow she died. The dance it goes well, So well in the grove.* * Svenska Visor, iii. 158, aa sung in Upland and East Gothland. a 2 SCANDINAVIA. (Tljc e?If=itlDmaii autJ jHr SIE Olof rideth out ere dawn, Breaketh day, falleth rime ; Bright day him came on. Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-greeu. Sir Olof rides by Borgya, Breaketh day, falleth rime ; Meets a dance of Elves so gay. Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. There danceth Elf and Elve-maid, Breaketh day, falleth rime ; Elve-king's daughter, with her flying hair. Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. Elve-king's daughter reacheth her hand free, Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " Come here, Sir Olof, tread the dance with me.** Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " Nought I tread the dance with thee," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " My bride hath that forbidden me." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " Nought I will and nought I may," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " To-morrow is my wedding-day." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-greeu. ELYES. 86 " Wilt tliou not tread the dance with me f " Breaketli day, falleth rime ; " An evil shall I fix on thee." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. Sir Olof turned his horse therefrom, Breaketh day, falleth rime ; Sickness and plague follow him home. Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. Sir Olof to his mother's rode, Breaketh day, falleth rime ; Out before him his mother stood. Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " Welcome, welcome, my dear son," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " Why is thy rosy cheek so wan ?" Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " My colt was swift and I tardy," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " I knocked against a green oak-tree." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " My dear sister, prepare my bed," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " My dear brother, take my horse to the mead.* 1 Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " My dear mother, brush my hair," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; ** My dear father, make me a bier." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. SCAXDEfAYIA. My dear son, that do not say,** Breaketh day, falleth rime ; To-morrow is thy wedding-day." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green. " Be it when it will betide," Breaketh day, falleth rime ; " I ne'er shall come unto my bride." Sir Olof cometh home, When the wood it is leaf-green.* gating jrtu.it'n airtr tlj I WAS a handsome young swain, And to the court should ride. I rode out in the evening-hour ; In the rosy grove I to sleep me laid. Since I her first saw. I laid me under a lind so green, My eyes they sunk in sleep ; There came two maidens going along, They fain would with me speak. Since I her first saw. The one she tapped me on my cheek, The other whispered in my ear : " Stand up, handsome young swain, If thou list of love to hear." Since I her first saw. * Svenska Visor, iii. 1 65, from a MS. in the Royal Library. This and the preceding one are variations of the Danish Ballad of Elveskud, which has been translated by Dr. Jamieson (Popular Ballads, i. 219), and by Lewis in the Tales of Wonder. The Swedish editors give a third variation from East Gothland. A comparison of the two ballads with each other, and with the Danish one, will enable the reader to judge of the modifications a subject undergoes in different parts of a country. 87 They led then forth a maiden, Whose hair like gold did shine : " Stand up, handsome young swain, If thou to joy incline." Since 1 her first saw. The third began a song to sing, "With good will she did so ; Thereat stood the rapid stream, Which before was wont to flow. Since I her first saw. Thereat stood the rapid stream, Which before was wont to flow ; And the hind all with her hair so brown, Forgot whither she should go. Since I her first saw. I got me up from off" the ground, And leaned my sword upon ; The Elve-women danced in and out, All had they the Elve fashion. Since I her first saw. Had not fortune been to me so good, That the cock his wings clapped then, I had slept within the hill that night, All with the Elve-women. Since I her first saw.* Svenska Visor, iii. p. 1 70. This is the Elveshoj of the Danish ballads, translated by Jamieson (i. 225), and by Lewis. In the different Swedish varia- tions, they are Hafsfruen, i. e. Mermaids, who attempt to seduce young men to their love by the offer of costly presents. A Danish legend (Thiele, i. 22) relates that a poor man, who was working near Gillesbjerg, a haunted hill, lay down on it to rest himself in the middle of the day. Suddenly there appeared before him a beautiful maiden, with a gold cup in her hand. She made signs to him to come near, but when the man in his fright made the sign of the cross, she was obliged to turn round and then he nw her back that it was hollow. 8ft SCANDINAVIA. SVEND FUELLING was, while a little boy, at service in Sjeller-wood-house in Framley ; and it one time happened that he had to ride of a message to Ristrup. It was evening before he got near home, and as he came by the hill of Borum Es, he saw the Elle-maids, who were dancing without ceasing round and round his horse. Then one of the Elle- maids stept up to him, and reached him a drinking cup, bidding him at the same time to drink. Svend took the cup, but as he was dubious of the nature of the contents, he flung it out over his shoulder, where it fell on the horse's back, and singed oif all the hair. While he had the horn fast in his hand, he gave his horse the spurs and rode off full speed. The Elle-maid pursued him till he came to Trigebrand's mill, and rode through the running water, over which she could not follow him. She then earnestly conjured Svend to give her back the horn, promising him in exchange twelve men's strength. On this condition he gave back the horn, and got what she had promised him ; but it very frequently put him to great inconvenience, for he found that along with it he had gotten an appetite for twelve.* * Thiele, ii. 67. Framley is in Jutland. Svend (i. e. Swain) Falling is a celebrated character in Danish tradition ; he is regarded as a second Holgei Danske, and he is the hero of two of the Kjempe Viser. In Sweden he is named Sven Farling or Foiling. Grimm has shown that he and Sigurd are the same person. Deutsche Mythologie, p. 345. In the Nibelungen Lied (st. 345) Sifret (Sigurd) gets the strength of twelve men by wearing the tamkappe of the dwarf Albrich. Another tradition, presently to be men- tioned, says it was from a Dwarf he got his strength, for aiding him in battle against another Dwarf. It is added, that when Svend came home in the evening, after his adventure with the Elle-maids, the people were drinking their Yule-beer, and they sent him down for a fresh supply. Svend went without saying anything, and returned with a barrel in each hand and one under each arm. ELVES. 89 TIIEHI lived a man in Aasum, near Odense, who, as lie wag coiriug home one night from Seden, passed by a hill that was standing on red pillars, and underneath there was dancing and great festivity. He hurried on past the hill as fast as he could, never venturing to cast his eyes that way. But as he went along, two fair maidens came to meet him, with beautiful hair floating over their shoulders, and one of them held a cup in her hand, which she reached out to him that he might drink of it. The other then asked him if he would come again, at which he laughed, and answered, Tes. But when he got home he became strangely affected in his mind, was never at ease in himself, and was continually saying that he had promised to go back. And when they watched him closely to prevent his doing so, he at last lost his senses, and died shortly after.* iHattr THERE was once a wedding and a great entertainment at (Esterha3singe. The party did not break up till morning, and the guests took their departure with a great deal of noise and bustle. While they were putting their horses to their carriages, previous to setting out home, they stood talking about their respective bridal-presents. And while they were talking loudly, and with the utmost earnestness, there came from a neighbouring moor a maiden clad in green, with plaited rushes on her head ; she went up to the man who was loudest, and bragging most of his present, and said to him : " What wilt thou give to maid VSP ? " The * Thiele, iii. 43. Odense is in Funen. 90 man, who was elevated with all the ale and brandy he haJ been drinking, snatched up a whip, and replied : " Ten cuts of my whip;" and that very moment he dropt down dead on the ground.* war (btltalt. A FARMER'S boy was keeping cows not far from Ebeltoft. There came to him a very fair and pretty girl, and she asked him if he was hungry or thirsty. But when he per- ceived that she guarded with the greatest solicitude against his getting a sight of her back, he immediately suspected that she must be an EHe-maid, for the Elle-people are hollow behind. He accordingly would give no heed to her, and endeavoured to get away from her ; but when she perceived this, she offered him her breast that he should suck her. And so great was the enchantment that accompanied this action, that he was unable to resist it. But when he had done as she desired him, he had no longer any command of himself, so that she had now no difficulty in enticing him with her. He was three days away, during which time his father and mother went home, and were in great affliction, for they were well assured that he must have been enticed away. But on the fourth day his father saw him a long way off coming home, and he desired his wife to set a pan of meat on the fire as quick as possible. The son then came in at the door, and sat down at the table without saying a word. The father, too, remained quite silent, as if every thing was as it ought to be. His mother then set the meat before him, and his father bid him eat, but he let the food lie untouched, and said that he knew now where he could get much better food. The father then became highly enraged, took a good large switch, and once more ordered him to take * Thicle, i. 109. (communicated). Such legends, aa Mr. Thicie learned directly from the mouths of the peasantry, he terms oral ; those he procurer from his friends, communicated. (Esterhesinge, the scene of this legend, is in the island of Kunen. ELVES. 91 Lis food. The boy was then obliged to eat, and as soon as he had tasted the flesh he ate it up greedily, and instantly fell into a deep sleep. He slept for as many days as the enchantment had lasted, but he never after recovered the use of his reason.* THEBE are three hills on the lands of Bubbelgaard in Funen, which are to this day called the Dance-hills, from the following occurrence. A lad named Hans was at service in Bubbelgaard, and as he was coming one evening past the hills, he saw one of them raised on red pillars, and great dancing and much merriment underneath. He ' was so enchanted with the beauty and magnificence of what he saw, that he could not restrain his curiosity, but was in a strange and wonderful manner attracted nearer and nearer, till at last the fairest of all the fair maidens that were there came up to him and gave him a kiss. From that moment he lost all command of himself, and became so violent, that he used to tear to pieces all the clothes that were put on him, so that at last they were obliged to make him a dress of sole- leather, which he could not pull off him ; and ever after he went by the name of Hans Puntleder, i. e. Sole-leather, t According to Danish tradition, the Elle-kings, under the denomination of Promontory-kings, (Klintekonger), keep watch and ward over the country. Whenever war, or any other misfortune, threatens to come on the land, there may be seen, on the promontory, complete armies, drawn up in array to defend the country. One of these kings resides at Moen, on the spot which fctill bears the name of King's-hill (Kongsbjerg). His queen * Thiele, i. 118. (communicated). F.heltoft is a village in North Jutland. f- Thiele, iv. 32. From the circumstances, it would appear that these were Elves and not Dwarfs ; hut one cannot be positive in these mattvn. 92 5CANDI5fATIA. is the most beautifu- 3f beings, and she dwells at the Queen's Chair (Dronningstolen) . This king is a great friend of the king of Stevns, and they are both at enmity with Crap, the promontory-king of Rtigen, who must keep at a distance, and look out over the sea to watch their approach. Another tradition, however, says, that there is but one king, who rules over the headlands of Moen, Stevns, and Riigen. He has a magnificent chariot, which is drawn by four black horses. In this he drives over the sea, from one promontory to another. At such times the sea grows black, and is in great commotion, and the loud snorting and neigh- big of his horses may be distinctly heard.* It was once believed that no mortal monarch dare come to Stevns ; for the Elle-king would not permit him to cross the stream that bounds it. But Christian IV. passed it without opposition, and since his time several Danish monarchs have been there. At Skjelskor, in Zealand, reigns another of these jealous promontorial sovereigns, named king Tolv (Twelve). He will not suffer a mortal prince to pass the bridge of Kjelskor. Wo, too, betide the watchman who should venture to cry twelve o'clock in the village, he might chance to find himself transported to the village of Borre or to the Windmills. Old people that have eyes for such things, declare they frequently see Kong Tolv rolling himself on the grass in the sunshine. On New-year's night he takes from one smith's forge or another nine new shoes for his horses ; they must be always left ready for him, and with them the necessary complement of nails. The Elle-king of Bornholmt lets himself be occasionally heard with fife and drum, especially when war is at hand ; he may then be seen in the fields with his soldiers. This king will not suffer an earthly monarch to pass more than three nights on his isle. In the popular creed there is some strange connexion between the Elves and the trees. They not only frequent them, but they make an interchange of form with them. In * Moen and Stevns are in Zealand. As Riigen does not belong to the Danish monarchy, the former tradition is probably the more correct one. Yet the latter may be the original one. t Bornholm is a holm, or small island, adjacent to Zealand. LLVES 93 the church-yard of Store Heddinge,* in Zealand, there are the remains of an oak wood. These, say the common people, are the Elle-king's soldiers ; by day they are trees, by night valiant warriors. In the wood of Rugaard, in the same island, is a tree which by night becomes a whole Elle-people, and goes about all alive. It has no leaves upon it, yet it would be very unsafe to go to break or fell it, for the under- ground-people frequently hold their meetings under its branches. There is, in another place, an elder-tree growing in a farm-yard, which frequently takes a walk in the twilight about the yard, and peeps in through the window at the children when they are alone. It was, perhaps, these elder-trees that gave origin to the notion. In Danish Hyld or Hyl a word not far removed from Elle is Elder, and the peasantry believe that in or under the elder-tree dwells a being called Hyldemoer (Elder- mother), or Hyldequinde (Elder-woman), with her ministrani spirits.t A Danish peasant, if he wanted to take any part of an elder-tree, used previously to say, three times " O, Hyldemoer, Hyldemoer ! let me take some of thy elder, and I will let thee take something of mine in return." If this was omitted he would be severely punished. They tell of a man who cut down an elder-tree, but he soon after died sud- denly. It is, moreover, not prudent to have any furniture made of elder-wood. A child was once put to lie in a cradle made of this wood, but Hyldemoer came and pulled it by the legs, and gave it no rest till it was put to sleep else- where. Old David Monrad relates, that a shepherd, one night, heard his three children crying, and when he inquired the cause, they said some one had been sucking them. Their breasts were found to be swelled, and they were removed to another room, where they were quiet. The reason is said to have been that that room was floored with elder. The linden or lime tree is the favourite haunt of the Elves and cognate beings ; and it is not safe to be near it after sun set. J * The Elle-king of Stevns has his bedchamber in the wall of this church. f- This is evidently the Frau Holle of the Germans. J The preceding particulars are all derived from M. Thiele's work. SCAITDIIfATIA. Ther bygde folk i the barg, Quinnor och man, for mycken dnerf. HIST. ALEX. MAO. Suedice. Within the hUls folk did won, Women and men, dwarfs many a one. THE more usual appellation of the Dwarfs is Troll or Trold,* a word originally significant of any evil spirit,f giant mon- ster, magician,;}; or evil person ; but now in a good measure divested of its ill senses, for the Trolls are not in general regarded as noxious or malignant beings. The Trolls are represented as dwelling inside of hills, mounds, and hillocks whence they are also called Hill- people (BjergfolK) sometimes in single families, sometimes in societies. In the ballads they are described as having kings over them, but never so in the popular legend. Their character seems gradually to have sunk down to the level of the peasantry, in proportion as the belief in them was consigned to the same class. They are regarded as There is no etymon of this word. It is to be found in both the Icelandic and the Finnish languages ; whether the latter borrowed or communicated it is uncertain. Ihre derives the name of the celebrated waterfall of Trollhaeta, near G6.Ter.lurg, from Troll, and Haute Lapponice, an abyss. It therefore answers to the Irish Povl-a-Pkooka. See Ireland. + In the following lines quoted in the Heimskringla, it would seem to signify the Dii Manes. Tha gaf hann Trescegg Trollum, Torf-Einarr drap Scurfo. Then gave he Trescegg to the Trolls, Turf-Einarr slew Scurfo. * The ancient Gothic nation was called Troll by their Vandal neighbour* (Junii Batavia, c. 27) ; according to Sir J. Malcolm, the Tartars call the Chinese Deevs. It was formerly believed, says Ihre, that the noble family of Troll, in Sweden, derived their name from having killed a Troll, that it, probably, a Dwarf. DWAEFB OB TBOLLS. 95 extremely rich for when, on great occasions of festivity, they have their hills raised up on red pillars, people that have chanced to be passing by have seen them shoving large chests full of money to and fro, and opening and clapping down the lids of them. Their hill-dwellings are very mag- nificent inside. " They live," said one of Mr. Arndt's guides, " in fine houses of gold and crystal. My father saw them once in the night, when the hill was open on St. John's night. They were dancing and drinking, and it seemed to him as if they were making signs to him to go to them, but his horse snorted, and carried him away, whether he would or no. There is a great number of them in the Guldberg (GoldhilP), and they have brought into it all the gold and silver that people buried in the great Eussian war."* They are obliging and neighbourly; freely lending and borrowing, and elsewise keeping up a friendly intercourse with mankind. But they have a sad propensity to thieving, not only stealing provisions, but even women and children. They marry, have children, bake and brew, just as the peasant himself does. A farmer one day met a hill-man and his wife, and a whole squad of stumpy little children, in his fields ;t and people used often to see the children of the man who lived in the hill of Kund, in Jutland, climbing up the hill, and rolling down after one another, with shouts of laughter. The Trolls have a great dislike to noise, probably from a recollection of the time when Thor used to be flinging his hammer after them ; so that the hanging of bells in the churches has driven them almost all out of the country. The people of Ebeltoft were once sadly plagued by them, as they plundered their pantries in a most unconscionable manner; so * Arndt, Reise nach Schweden, yol. iii. p. 8. + Like our Fairies the Trolls are sometimes of marvellously snull aimen- *>ns : in the Danish ballad of Eline af Villenskov we read Det da mtldte den mindste Trold, Han var ikke sti'rre end en my)-e, Her er kommet en Christen mand, Den maa jag visseligen styre. Out then spake the tinyest Troll, No bigger than an emmet was he, Hither is come a Christian man, And manage him will I suit-lie. 96 SCANDINAVIA. they consulted a very wise and pious man ; and his advice was, that they sho\ild hang a bell in the steeple of the 'hurcn. They did so, and they were soon eased of the Trolls.* These beings have some very extraordinary and useful properties ; they can, for instance, go about invisibly, t or turn themselves into any shape ; they can foresee future events; they can confer prosperity, or the contrary, on a family ; they can bestow bodily strength on any one ; and, in short, perform numerous feats beyond the power of man. Of personal beauty they have not much to boast: the Ebeltoft Dwarfs, mentioned above, were often seen, and they had immoderate humps on their backs, and long crooked noses. They were dressed in gray jackets,J and they wore pointed red caps. Old people in Zealand say, that when the Trolls were in the country, they used to go from their hill to the village of Gudmandstrup through the Stone-meadow, and that people, when passing that way, used to meet great tall men in long black clothes. Some have foolishly spoken to them, and wished them good evening, but they never got any other answer than that the Trolls hurried past them, saying, Mi ! mi ! mi ! mi ! Thanks to the industry of Mr. Thiele, who has been inde- fatigable in collecting the traditions of his native country, we are furnished with ample accounts of the Trolls ; and the following legends will fully illustrate what we have written concerning them. We commence with the Swedish ballads of the Hill- kings, as in dignity and antiquity they take precedence of the legends. * Tliiele, i. 36. f- For this they seem to be indebted to their hat or cap. Eske Brok being one day in the fields, knocked off, without knowing it, the hat of a Dwarf who instantly became visible, and had, in order to recover it, to grant him every thing he asked. Thiele iii. 49. This hat answers to the Tarnkappe or Hel-kaplein of the German Dwaifs ; who also become visible when their capi re struck off. In the Danish ballad of Eline af Villenskov the hero is called Trolden grade, the Gray Trold, probably from the colour of his habiliments. We deem it needless in future to refer to volume and page of Mr. Thiele'l work. Those acquainted with the original will easily find the legend*. IWA.RFS OK TEOLLfl. 07 r Cfjrmtte. A.TSD it was the knight Sir Thynne, He was a knight so grave ; Whether he were on foot or on horse, He was a knight so brave.* And it was the knight Sir Thynne Went the hart and the hind to shoot, So he saw Ulva, the little Dwarf's daughter, At the green linden's foot. And it was TJlva, the little Dwarf's daughter, Unto her handmaid she cried, " Gro fetch my gold harp hither to me, Sir Thynne I '11 draw to my side." The first stroke on her gold harp she struck, So sweetly she made it ring, The wild beasts in the wood and field They forgot whither they would spring. The next stroke on her gold harp she struck, So sweetly she made it ring, The little gray hawk that sat on the bough, He spread out both his wings. The third stroke on her gold harp she struck, So sweetly she made it ring, The little fish that went in the stream, He forgot whither he would swim. * We have ventured to omit the Omqused. 1 styrcn tail de Runnel (Manage well the runes !) The final e in Thynne is marked merely to hJ, ; - wite that it i to be sounded. II 98 SCAJTDTNAVIA. Then flowered the mead, then leafed all, 'Twas caused by the runic lay ;* Sir Thynne he struck his spurs in his horse, He no longer could hold him away. And it was the knight Sir Thynne, From his horse he springs hastily, So goeth he to Ulva, the little Dwarf's daughter, All under the green linden tree. u Here you sit, my maiden fair, A rose all lilies above ; See you can never a mortal man Who will not seek your love." " Be silent, be silent, now Sir Thynne, "With your proffers of love, I pray ; For I am betrothed unto a hill-king, A king all the Dwarfs obey. " My true love he sitteth the hill within, And at gold tables plays merrily ; My father he setteth his champions in ring, And in iron arrayeth them he. " My mother she sitteth the hill within, And gold in the chest doth lay ; And I stole out for a little while, Upon my gold harp to play." And it was the knight Sir Thynne, He patted her cheek rosie : " "Why wilt thou not give a kinder reply ; Thou dearest of maidens, to me ? " * Raneslag, literally Rune-stroke. Runes originally signified letters, and then songs. They were of two kinds, Maalrunor (Speech-runes), and Troll- runor (Magic-rwnes). These last were again divided into Skaderunor (Mischief-runes) and Hjelprunor (Help-runes), of each of which there were five kinds. See Verelius' notes to the Hervarar Saga, cap. 7. The power of music over all nature is a subject of frequent recurrence in northern poetry. Here all the wild animals are entranced by the magic tones of the harp ; the meads flower, the trees put forth leaves ; the knight, though grave and silent, is attracted, and even if inclined to stay away, be cannot restrain his horse. DWARFS OB TROLLS. 99 u I can give you no kinder reply : I may not myself that allow ; I am betrothed to a hill-king, And to him I must keep my vow." And it was Thora, the little Dwarf's wife, She at the hill-door looked out, And there she saw how the knight Sir Thynne, Lay at the green linden's foot. And it was Thora, the little Dwarfs wife, She was vest and angry, Grod wot : " What hast thou here in the grove to do ? Little business, I trow, thou hast got. " 'Twere better for thee in the hill to be, And gold in the chest to lay, Than here to sit in the rosy grove,* And on thy gold harp to play. " And 'twere better for thee in the hill to be, And thy bride-dress finish sewing, Than sit under the lind, and with runic lay A Christian man's heart to thee win." And it was Ulva, the little Dwarf's daughter, She goeth in at the hill-door : And after her goeth the knight Sir Thynne, Clothed in scarlet and fur. And it was Thora, the little Dwarf's wife, Forth a red-gold chair she drew : Then she cast Sir Thynne into a sleep "Until that the cock he crew. And it was Thora, the little Dwarfs wife, The five rune-books she took out ; So she loosed him fully out of the runes, Her daughter had bound him about. Botenddund. The word Lund signifies any kind of grove, thicket, &. 100 SCANDINAVIA. " And hear thou me, Sir Thynue, From the runes thou now art tree ; This to thee I will soothly say, My daughter shall never win thee. " And I was born of Christian kind, And to the hill stolen in ; My sister dwelleth in Iseland,* And wears a gold crown so fine. " And there she wears her crown of gold, And beareth of queen the name ; Her daughter was stolen away from her, Thereof there goeth great fame. " Her daughter was stolen away from her, And to Berner-land brought in ; And there now dwelleth the maiden free, She is called Lady Hermolin. " And never can she into the dance go, But seven women follow her ; And never can she on the gold-harp play, If the queen herself is not there. '* The king he hath a sister's son, He hopeth the crown to possess, For him they intend the maiden free, For her little happiness. ' And this for my honour will I dq And out of good- will moreover, To thee will I give the maiden free, And part her from that lover." Then she gave unto him a dress so new, With gold and pearls bedight ; Every seam on the dress it was With precious stones all bright. * Not the island of Iceland, but a district in Norway of that name. By Berner-land, Geijer thinks is meant the land of Bern ( Verona), the country of Dietrich, so celebrated in German romance DWARFS OR TROLLS. 101 Then she gave unto him a horse so good, And therewith a new sell ; " And never shalt thou the way inquire, Thy horse will find it well." And it was TJlva, the little Dwarf's daughter, She would show her good- will to the knight ; So she gave unto him a spear so new, And therewith a good sword so bright. " And never shalt thou fight a fight, Where thou shalt not the victory gain ; And never shalt thou sail on a sea Where thou shalt not the land attain." And it was Thora, the little Dwarf's wife, She wine in a glass for him poured : " Ride away, ride away, now Sir Thynne, Before the return of my lord." And it was the knight Sir Thynne, He rideth under the green hill side, There then met him the hill-kings two. As slow to the hill they ride. " Well met ! Good day, now Sir Thynne ! Thy horse can well with thee pace ; Whither directed is thy course ? Since thou'rt bound to a distant place." " Travel shall I and woo ; Plight me shall I a flower ; Try shall I my sword so good, To my weal or my woe in the stour." " Eide in peace, ride la peace, away, Sir Thynue, From us thou hast nought to fear ; They are coming, the champions from Iseland, Who with thee long to break a spear." And it was the knight Sir Thynne, He rideth under the green hill side ; There met him seven Bernisk champions, Thev bid him to halt and abide. 102 8CAITDINAVIA.. " And whether shall we fight to-dar, For the red gold and the silver ; Or shall we fight together to-day, For both our true loves fair ? " And it was the king's sister's son, He was of mood so hasty ; " Of silver and gold I have enow, If thou wilt credit me." " But hast thou not a fair true love^ Who is called Lady Hermolin ? For her it is we shall fight to-day, If she shall he mine or thine. The first charge they together rode, They were two champions so tall ; He cut at the king's sister's son, That his head to the ground did fall. Back then rode the champions six, And dressed themselves in fur ; Then went into the lofty hall, The aged king before. And it was then the aged king, He tore his gray hairs in woe. " Te must avenge my sister's son's deatn: I will sables and martins bestow. ' * Back then rode the champions six, They thought the reward to gain, But they remained halt and limbless : By loss one doth wit obtain. And he slew wolves and bears, All before the high chamber ; Then taketh he out the maiden free "Who so long had languished there. ' Sabel och Mdrd. These furs are always mentioned in the uorthf m ballads, as the royi.1 rewards of distinguished actions. DWARFS OB TBOLL8. 103 And now hath Lady Hennolin Escaped from all harm ; Now sleeps she sweet full many a sleep, On brave Sir Thynne's arm. And now has brave Sir Thynne Escaped all sorrow and tine ; Now sleeps he sweet full many a sleep, Beside Lady Hennolin, Most thanketh he Ulva, the little Dwarf's daughter Who him with the runes had bound, For were he not come inside of the hill, The lady he never had found.* PBOTJD Margaret' sf father of wealth had store, Time with me goes slow. And he was a king seven kingdoms o'er, But that grief is heavy I know.J To her came wooing good earls two, Time with me goes slow, But neither of them would she hearken unto, But that grief is heavy I know. * This fine ancient Visa was taken down from recitation in West Gothland. The corresponding Danish one of Herr Tonne is much later. f- Niebuhr, speaking of the Celsi Ramnes, says, w With us the salutation of blood relations was Willkommen stolze Vetter (Welcome, proud cousins)- and in the Danish ballads, proud (stolt) is a noble appellation of a maiden." Romische Geschichte, 2d edit. vol. i. p. 316. It may be added, that in English, proud and the synonymous term itout (titolz, stolt) had also the sense of noble, high-born. Do now your devoir, yonge knightes proud, Knighft Tale. Up stood the queen and ladies stout. Launfal. $ Men jag vet at targe tir twng. 104 SCANDINAVIA. To her came wooing princes five, Time with me goes slow. Yet not one of them would the maiden have, But that grief is heavy I know. To her came wooing kings then seven, Time with me goes slow. But unto none her hand has she given, But that grief is heavy I know. And the hill-king asked his mother to read, Time with me goes slow. How to win proud Margaret he might speed, But that grief is heavy I know. " And say how much thou wilt give unto me," Time with me goes slow. " That herself may into the hill come to thee r"' But that grief is heavy I know. " Thee will I give the ruddiest gold," Time with me goes slow. " And thy chests full of money as they can hold," But that grief is heavy I know. One Sunday morning it fell out so, Time with me goes slow. Proud Margaret unto the church should go, But that grief is heavy I know. And all as she goes, and all as she stays, Time with me goes slow. All the nearer she comes where the high hill lay, But that grief is heavy I know. So she goeth around the hill compassing, Time with me goes slow. So there openeth a door, and thereat goes she in, But that grief is heavy I know. Proud Margaret stept in at the door of the hill, Time with me goes slow. And the hill-king salutes her with eyes joyful, But that grief is heavy I know. DWAEFS OB TEOLLS. 105 So he took the maiden upon his knee, Time with me goes slow. And took the gold rings and therewith her wed he, But that grief is heavy I know. So he took the maiden his arms between, Time with me goes slow. He gave her a gold crown and the name of queen, But that grief is heavy I know. So she was in the hill for eight round years, Time with me goes slow. There bare she two sons and a daughter so fair, But that grief is heavy I know. When she had been full eight years there, Time with me goes slow. She wished to go home to her mother so dear, But that grief is heavy I know. And the hill-king spake to his footpagos twain, Time with me goes slow. " Put ye the gray pacers now unto the wain,"* But that grief is heavy I know. And Margaret out at the hill-door stept, Time with me goes slow. And her little children they thereat wept, But that grief is heavy I know. And the hill-king her in his arms has ta'en, Time with me goes slow. So he lifteth her into the gilded wain, But that grief is heavy I know. " And hear now thou footpage what I unto thee say," Time with me goes slow. " Thou now shalt drive her to her mother's straightway,'' But that grief is heavy I know. * Wain, our readers hardly need be informed, originally signified any kind of carriage : see Faerie Queene, passim. It is the Aug. Sax. J?a:n, and not * sontraction of wagyon. 306 SCANDINAVIA. Proud Margaret stept in o'er the door-sill, Time with me goes slow. And her mother saluteth her with eyes joyful, But that grief is heavy I know. " And where hast thou so long stayed ? " Time with me goes slow. " I have been in the flowery meads," But that grief is heavy I know. " What veil is that thou wearest on thy hair ? " Time with me goes slow. " Such as women and mothers use to wear," But that grief is heavy I know. " Well may I wear a veil on my head," Time with me goes slow. " Me hath the hill-king both wooed and wed," But that grief is heavy I know. " In the hill have I been these eight round years," Time with me goes slow. " There have I two sons and a daughter so fair," But that grief is heavy I know. " There have I two sons and a daughter so fair," Time with me goes slow. " The loveliest maiden the world doth bear," But that grief is heavy I know. " And hear thou, proud Margaret, what I say unto thee," Time with me goes slow. " Can I go with thee home thy children to see ?" But that grief is heavy I know. And the hill-king stept now in at the door, Time with me goes slow. And Margaret thereat fell down on the floor, But that grief is heavy I know. " And stayest thou now here complaining of me," Time with me goes slow,- " Camest thou not of thyself into the hill to me ?" But that grief is heavy I know. DWABFS OB TROLLS. 107 * And stayest tbou now here and thy fate dost deplore ? " Time with me goes slow. " Camest thou not of thyself in at my door ?" But that grief is heavy I know. The hill-king struck her on the cheek rosie, Time with me goes slow. "And pack to the hill to thy children wee," But that grief is heavy I know. The hill-king struck her with a twisted root, Time with me goes slow. " And pack to the hill without any dispute," But that grief is heavy I know. And the hill-king her in his arms has ta'en, Time with me goes slow. And lifted her into the gilded wain, But that grief is heavy I know. "And hear thou my footpage what I unto tnee say," Time with me goes slow. " Thou now shalt drive her to my dwelling straightway," But that grief is heavy I know. Proud Margaret stept in at the hill door, Time with me goes slow. And her little children rejoiced therefore, But that grief is heavy I know. "It is not worth while rejoicing for me," Time with me goes slow. " Christ grant that I never a mother had been," But that grief is heavy I know. The one brought out a gilded chair, Time with me goes slow. " rest you, my sorrow-bound mother, there," But that grief is heavy I know. The one brought out a filled up horn, Time with me goes slow. The other put therein a gilded corn, But that grief is heavy I know. 108 SCANDINAVIA. The first driiik she drank out of the horn, Time with me goes slow. She forgot straightway both heaven and earth, But that grief is heavy I know. The second drink she drank out of the horn, Time with me goes slow. She forgot straightway both God and his word, But that grief is heavy I know. The third drink she drank out of the horn, Time with me goes slow. She forgot straightway both sister and brother, But that grief is heavy I know. She forgot straightway both sister and brother, Time with me goes slow. But she never forgot her sorrow-bound mother, But that grief is heavy I know.* THE grandfather of Reor, who dwelt at Fuglekarr (i.e. Bird-marsh), in the parish of Svartsborg (Black-castle), lived close to a hill, and one time, in the broad daylight, he saw sitting there on a stone a comely maiden. He wished to intercept her, and for this purpose he threw steel between her and the hill ; whereupon her father laughed within the hill, and opening the hill-door asked him if he would have his dauglfter. He replied in the affirmative and as she was stark naked he took some of his own clothes and covered her with them, and he afterwards had her christened. As he was going away, her father said to him, " When you are going to have your wedding (brollup) you must provide twelve barrels of beer and bake a heap of bread and the flesh of four oxen, and drive to the barrow or hill where I keep, and when the bridal gifts are to be bestowed, depend on it I will give mine." This also came to pass ; for when * From Vennland and Upland. DWARJfS OB TEOLL8. 109 others were giving he raised the cover of the cart and cast into it so large a bag of money that the body of it nearly broke, saying at the same time: "This is my gift!" He said, moreover, " When you want to have your wife's portion (hemmagifta)* you must drive to the hill with four horses, and get your share. When he came there afterwards at his desire he got copper-pots, the one larger than the other till the largest pot of all was filled with the smaller ones. He also gave him other things,t which were helmets, of that colour and fashion which are large and thick, and which are still remaining in the country, being preserved at the parsonage of Tanum. This man Reor's father surnamed I Foglekarsten, had a number of children by this wife of his, whom he fetched out of the hill, among whom was the afore- said Eeor. Olaf Stenson also in Stora Bijk, who died last year, was Keor's sister's son.J attar*Cup in BETWEEN the villages of Marup and Aagerup in Zealand, there is said to have lain a great castle, the ruins of which are still to be seen near the strand. Tradition relates that a great treasure is concealed among them, and that a dragon there watches over three kings' ransoms. Here, too, people frequently happen to get a sight of the underground folk, especially about festival-times, for then they have dancing and great jollity going on down on the strand. One Christmas-eve, a farmer's servant in the village of * This we suppose to be the meaning of hemmagifta, as it is that of hemgift, the only word approaching to it that we have met in our dictionary. + Brandcreatwr, a word of which we cannot ascertain the exact meaning We doubt greatly if the following hielmeta be helmets. Grimm (Deut. Mythol. p. 435) has extracted this legend from th e Bahuslan of Odman, who, as he observes, and as we may sec, relates it quite seriously, and with the real names of pel-sons. It is we believe the only legend of the union of a man with one of the hill-folk. " Three kings' ransoms" is a common maximum with a Danish peasant when speaking of treasure. 110 SCANDINAVIA. Aagerup went to his master and asked him if he might take a horse and ride down to look at the Troll-meeting. The farmer not only gave him leave but desired him to take the best horse in the stable ; so he mounted and rode away down to the strand. "When he was come to the place he stopped his horse, and stood for some time looking at the company who were assembled in great numbers. And while he was wondering to see how well and how gaily the little dwarfs danced, up came a Troll to him, and invited him to dismount, and take a share in their dancing and merriment. Another Troll came jumping up, took his horse by the bridle, and held him while the man got off, and went down and danced away merrily with them the whole night long. When it was drawing near day he returned them his very best thanks for his entertainment, and mounted his horse to return home to Aagerup. They now gave him an invitation to come again on New-year's night, as they were then to have great festivity ; and a maiden who held a gold cup iu her hand invited him to drink the stirrup-cup. He took the cup ; but, as he had some suspicion of them, he, while he made as if he was raising the cup to his mouth, threw the drink out over his shoulder, so that it fell on the horse's back, and it immediately singed off all the hair. He then clapped spurs to his horse's sides, and rode away with the cup in his hand over a ploughed field. The Tiolls instantly gave chase all in a body ; but being hard set to get over the deep furrows, they shouted out, without ceasing, " Ride on the lay, And not on the clay."* He, however, never minded them, but kept to the ploughed field. However, when he drew near the village he was forced to ride out on the level road, and the Trolls now gained on him every minute. In his distress he prayed unto God, and he made a vow that if he should be delivered he would bestow the cup on the church. He was now riding along just by the wall of the church- yard, and he hastily flung the cup over it, that it at least might be secure. He then pushed on at full speed, and at * ' Rid paa del Bolde, Og ikke paa dot Knold*. - DWA.BF3 OB TBOLLS. Ill last got into the village ; and just as they were on the point of catching hold of the horse, he sprung in through the farmer's gate, and the man clapt to the wicket after him. He was now safe ; but the Trolls were so enraged, that, taking up a huge great stone, they flung it with such force against the gate, that it knocked four planks out of it. There are no traces now remaining of that house, but the stone is still lying in the middle of the village of Aagerup. The cup was presented to the church, and the man got in return the best farm-house on the lands of Eriksholm.* Origin at CiuS llaftr. A TBOLL had once taken up his abode near the village of Kund, in the high bank on which the church now stands ; but when the people about there had become pious, and went constantly to church, the Troll was dreadfully annoyed by their almost incessant ringing of bells in the steeple of the church. He was at last obliged, in consequence of it, to take his departure ; for nothing has more contributed to the emigration of the Troll-folk out of the country than the increasing piety of the people, and their taking to bell- ringing. The Troll of Kund accordingly quitted the country, and went over to Funen, where he lived for some time in peace and quiet. Now it chanced that a man who had lately settled in the town of Kund, coming to Funen on business, met on the road with this same Troll : " Where do you live ? " said the * Oral. This is an adventure common to many countries. The church of Vigersted in Zealand has a cup obtained in the same way. The man, in this case, took refuge in the church, and was there besieged by the Trolls till morning. The bridge of Hagbro in Jutland got its name from a similar event. When the man rode off with the silver jug from the beautiful maiden who presented it to him, an old crone set off in pursuit of him with such velocity, that she would surely have caught him, but that providentially he came to a running water. The pursuer, however, like Nannie with Tarn o' Slianter, aught the horse's hind leg, but was only able to keep one of tie coilrt f hit hoe : hence the bridge was called Hagbro, i. e. Cock Bn 4ge. 112 SCANDINAVIA. Troll 'i him. Now there was nothing \vhatever about the Troll unlike a man, so he answered him, as was the truth, " I am from the town of Kund." " So ?" said the Troll. " ] don't know you, then ! And yet I think I know every man in Kund. "Will you, however," continued he, "just be so kind to take a letter from me back with you to Kund?" The man said, of course, he had no objection. The Troll then thrust the letter into his pocket, and charged him strictly not to take it out till he came to Kund church, and then to throw it over the churchyard wall, and the person for whom it was intended would get it. The Troll then went away in great haste, and with him the letter went entirely out of the man's mind. But when he was come back to Zealand he sat down by the meadow where Tiis Lake now is, and suddenly recollected the Troll's letter. He felt a great desire to look at it at least. So he took it out of his pocket, and sat a while with it in his hands, when suddenly there began to dribble a little water out of the seal. The letter now unfolded itself, and the water came out faster and faster, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the poor man was enabled to save his life ; for the mali- cious Troll had enclosed an entire lake in the letter. The Troll, it is plain, had thought to avenge himself on Kund church by destroying it in this manner ; but God ordered it so that the lake chanced to run out in the great meadow where it now flows.* * Oral. Tiis Lake is in Zealand. It is the general belief of the peasantry that there are now very few Trolls in the country, for the ringing of bells has driven them all away, they, like the Stille-folk of the Germans, delighting in quiet and silence. It is said that a farmer having found a Troll sitting very disconsolate on a stone near Tiis Lake, and taking him at first for a decent Christian man, accosted him with " Well ! where are you going, friend ? " " Ah !" said he, in a melancholy tone, " I am going off out of the country. I canno-, live here any longer, they keep such eternal ringing and dinging!" "There is a high hill," says Kalm (Resr>, &c. p. 136), "near Botna in Sweden, in which formerly dwelt a Troll. When they got up bells in Botna Lurch, and lie heard the ringing of them, he is related to have said : " Det ar set godt i det Botnaberg at bo, Vore ikke den leda Bj'dlltko." u Pleasant it were in Botnahill to dwell, Were it not for the sound of that plaguey bell." DWAH1S OE TROLLS. 113 <& JTarntcr trtdtsi a CroIT. A FARMER, on whose ground there was a little hill, resolved not to let it lie idle, so he began at one end to plough it up. The hill-man, w r ho lived in it, came to him and asked him how he dared to plough on the roof of his house. The farmer assured him that he did not know that it was the roof of his house, but at the same time represented to him that it was at present equally unprofitable to them both to let such a piece of land lie idle. He therefore took the opportunity of proposing to him that he should plough, sow, and reap it every year on these terms : that they should take it year and year about, and the hill-man to have one year what grew over the ground, and the farmer what grew in the ground ; and the next year the farmer to have what was over, and the hill-man what was under. The agreement was made accordingly ; but the crafty farmer took care to sow carrots and corn year and year about, and he gave the hill-man the tops of the carrots and the roots of the corn for his share, with which he was well content. They thus lived for a long time on extremely good 'erms with each other.* in fi)t Jftre. NEAR Grudmanstrup, in the district of Odd, is a hill called tijulehoi (Hollotv-hilF) . The hill-folk that dwell in this n ount are well known in all the villages round, and no one ever omits making a cross on his beer-barrels, for the Trolls are in the habit of slipping down from Hjulehoi to steal beer. One evening late a fanner was passing by the hill, and he * This story is told by Rabelais with his characteristic humour and ex- travagance. As there are no Trolls in France, it is the devil who is deceived in the French version. A legend similar to this is told of the district of Lujhman in Afghaoistan (Masson, Narrative, etc., iii. 297) ; but there it was the Shaitan (Satan) that cheated the fanners. The legends are surslf independent fictions. I 114 SCAKDINAYIA. saw that it was raised up on red pillars, and that under- neath there was music and dancing and a splendid Troll banquet. The man stood a long time gazing on their festivity ; but while he was standing there, deeply absorbed in admiration of what he saw, all of a sudden the dancing stopped, and the music ceased, and he heard a Troll cry out, in a tone of the utmost anguish, " Skotte is fallen into the fire ! Come and help him up !" The hill then sank, and all the merriment was at an end. Meanwhile the farmer's wife was at home all alone, and while she was sitting and spinning her tow, she never noticed a Troll who had crept through the window into the next room, and was at the beer-barrel drawing off the liquor into his copper kettle. The room-door was standing open, and the Troll kept a steady eye on the woman. The husband now came into the house full of wonder at what he had seen and heard. " Hark ye, dame," he began, " listen now till 1 tell you what has happened to me!" The Troll redoubled his attention. "As 1 came just now by Hjulehcii," con- tinued he, " I saw a great Troll-banquet there, but while they were in the very middle of their glee they shouted out within in the hill, ' Skotte is fallen into the fire ; come and help him up ! ' ' At hearing this, the Troll, who was standing beside the beer-barrel, was so frightened, that he let the tap run and the kettle of beer fall on the ground, and tumbled himself out of the window as quickly as might be. The people of the house hearing all this noise instantly guessed what had been going on inside ; and when they went in they saw the beer all running about, and found the copper kettle lying on the floor. This they seized, and kept in lieu of the beer that had been spilled ; and the same kettle is said to have been a long time to be seen in the villages round about there.* * Oral. Gudmanslrup is in Zealand. In Ourbe, a little island close to Zealand, there is a hill whence the Trolls used to come down anil supply themselves with provisions out of the farmers' pantries. Niel Jensen, who lived close to the hill, finding that they were making, as he thought, over free with his provisions, took the liberty of putting a lock on the door through which they had access. But he had better have left it alone, for his daughter grew stone blind, and never recovered her sight till the lock was removed. Resenii Allot, i. 10. There is a in.ilar story in Grimm's Deutsche Sugen, i. p. 55. UWAEFS OE TEOLLS. Clje lUsctrtr of THEEE is a hill called Bodedys close to the road in the neigh- bourhood of Lynge, that is near Soroe. Not far from it lived an old farmer, whose only son was used to take long journeys on business. His father had for a long time heard no tidings of him, and the old man became convinced that his son was dead. This caused him much affliction, as was natural for an old man like him, and thus some time passed oter. One evening as he was coming with a loaded cart by Bodedys, the hill opened, and the Troll came out and desired him to drive his cart into it. The poor man was, to be sure, greatly amazed at this, but well knowing how little it would avail him to refuse to comply with the Troll's request, he turned about his horses, and drove his cart straight into the hill. The Troll now began to deal with him for his goods, and finally bought and paid him honestly for his entire cargo. When he had finished the unloading of his vehicle, and was about to drive again out of the hill, the Troll said to him, " If you will now only keep a silent tongue in your head about all that has happened to you, I shall from this time out have an eye to your interest; and if you come here again to-morrow morning, it maybe you shall get your son." The farmer did not well know at first what to say to all this ; but as he was, however, of opinion that the Troll was able to perform what he had promised, he was greatly rejoiced, and failed not to come at the appointed time to Bodedys. He sat there waiting a long time, and at last he fell asleep, and when he awoke from his slumber, behold ! there was his son lying by his side. Both father and son found it difficult to explain how this had come to pass. The son related how he had been thrown into prison, and had there suffered great hardship and distress ; but that one night, while he was lying asleep in his cell, there came a man to him, who said, " Do you still love your father ? ' ' And when he had answered 1 2 110 SCANDINAVIA. that he surely did, his chains fell off and the wall barst open. "While he was telling this he chanced to put his hand up to his neck, and he found that he had brought a piece of the iron chain away with him. They both were for some time mute through excess of wonder; and they then arose and went straightway to Lynge, where they hung up the piece of the chain in the church, as a memorial of the wonderful event that had occurred.* WHEN Esbern Snare was about building a church in Kallundborg, he saw clearly that his means were not fully adequate to the task. But a Troll came to him and oifere'd his services ; and Esbern Snare made an agreement with him on these conditions, that he should be able to tell the Troll's name when the church was finished ; or in case he could not, that he should give him his heart and his eyes. The work now went on rapidly, and the Troll set the church on stone pillars ; but when all was nearly done, and there was only half a pillar wanting in the church, Esbern began to get frightened, for the name of the Troll was yet unknown to him. One day he was going about the fields all alone, and in great anxiety on account of the perilous state he was in ; when, tired, and depressed, by reason of his exceeding grief and affliction, he laid him down on Ulshoi bank to rest him- self a while. While he was lying there, he heard a Troll- woman within the hill saying th'ese words : " Lie still, baby mine ! To-morrow cometh Fin, Father thine, And giveth thee Esbern Snare's eyes and heart to play with."t This legend it oral, f Tie stille, barn min I Imorgen kommer Fin, Fa'er din, Og gi'er dig Esbern Snares olne og hjerte at legc med. BWAKFS OE TBOLLS. ll> When Esbern heard this, he recovered his spirits, and went back to the church. The Troll was just then coming with the half-pillar that was wanting for the church ; but when Esbern saw him, he hailed him by his name, and called him " Fin." The Troll was so enraged at this, that he went off with the half-pillar through the air, and this is the reason that the church has but three pillars and a half.* The same is told of a far greater than Esbern Snare. As St. Olaf, the royal apostle of the North, was one day going over hill and dale, thinking how he could contrive to build a splendid church without distressing his people by taxation, he was met by a man of a strange appearance, who asking him what he was thinking about, Olaf told him, and the Troll, or rather Giant (Jdtte), for such he was, undertook to do it within a certain time, stipulating, for his reward, the sun and moon, or else St. Olaf himself. Olaf agreed, but gave such a plan for the church as it seemed to be impossible ever could be executed. It was to be so large that seven priests could preach in it at the same time without disturbing each other ; the columns and other ornaments both within and without should be of hard flintstone, and so forth. It soon, however, was finished, all but the roof and pinnacle. Olaf, now grown uneasy, rambled once more over hill and dale, when he chanced to hear a child crying within a hill, and a giantess, its mother, saying to it, " Hush, hush ! Thy father, Wind-and- Weather, will come home in the morning, and bring with him the sun and moon, or else St. Olaf him- self." Olaf was overjoyed, for the power of evil beings ceases when their name is known. He returned home, where he saw every thing completed pinnacle and all. He im- mediately cried out, " Wind-and- Weather, you 've set the * Oral. Kallundborg is in Zealand. Mr. Thiele says he saw four pillars at the church. The same story is told of the cathedral of Lund in Funen, which was built by the Troll Finn at the desire of St. Laurentius. Of Esbern Snare, Holberg says, " The common people tell wonderful stories of him, and how the devil carried him off; which, with other things, will serve to prove that he was an able man." The German story of Rumpelstilzchen (Kinder and Haus-Marchen, No. 55) is similar to this legend. MM. Grimm, in their not* on this storr, notice the unexpected manner in which, in the Thousand and One Day*, or Persiau Tales, the princess Turandot learns the name of Calaf. 118 SCANDINAVIA. pinnacle crooked ! " * Instantly the Giant fell witn a great crash from the ridge of the roof, and broke into a thousand pieces, which were all flintstone.f inbttrtr to t THE hill-people are excessively frightened during thunder. AVhen, therefore, they see bad weather coming on, they lose no time in getting to the shelter of their hills. This terror is also the cause of their not being able to endure the beating of a drum, as they take it to be the rolling of thunder. It is therefore a good receipt for banishing them to beat a drum every day in the neighbourhood of their hills ; for they immediately pack up and depart to some more quiet residence. A farmer lived once in great friendship and unanimity with a hill-man, whose hill was on his lands. One time when his wife was lying-in, it gave him some degree of perplexity to think that he could not well avoid inviting the hill-man to the christening, which might not improbably bring him into bad repute with the priest and the other people of the village. He was going about pondering deeply, but in vain, how he might get out of this dilemma, when it came into his head to ask the advice of the boy that kept his pigs, who was a great head-piece, and had often helped him before. The Pig-boy instantly undertook to arrange the matter with the ill-man in such a manner that he should not only stay away without being offended, but moreover give a good christening- present. Wind och Veder I Du har salt spiran spedar I Other* saj it was Blaster I s'dtt spiran vaster I Blester ! set the pinnacle westwards ! , Or, Sl'dt f satt spiran r'dtt I Slatt ! set the pinnacle straight ! f Afcelius Sago-hafder, iii. 83. Grimm, Deut Mythol. p. 515. i; DWARFS OB TEOLLS. 119 Accordingly, when it was night he took a sack on his shoulder, went to the hill-man's hill, knocked, and was ad- mitted. He delivered his message, giving his master's compliments, and requesting the honour of his company at the christening. The hill-man thanked him, and said, "I think it is but right that I should give you a christening- gift." With these words he opened his money-chests, hid- ding the boy to hold up his sack while he poured money into it. "Is there enough now?" said he, when he had put a good quantity into it. " Many give more, few give less," replied the boy. The hill-man then fell again to filling the sack, and again asked, " Is there enough now ?" The boy lifted up the sack a little off the ground to try if he was able to carry any more, and then answered, " It is about what most people give." Upon this the hill-man emptied the whole chest into the bag, and once more asked, "Is there enough now?'" The guardian of the pigs saw that there was as much in it now as ever he was able to carry, so he made answer, " No one gives more, most people give less." " Come, now," said the hill-man, "let us hear who else is to be at the christening ?" " Ah," said the boy, " we are to have a great parcel of strangers and great people. First and foremost, we are to have three priests and a bishop ! " " Hem !" muttered the hill-man ; " however, these gentlemen usually look only after the eating and drinking : they will never take any notice of me. Well, who else ? " " Then we have asked St. Peter and St. Paul." " Hem ! hem ! how- ever, there will be a by-place for me behind the stove. Well, and then ? " " Then our Lady herself is coming ! " " Hem ! hem ! hem ! however, guests of such high rank come late and go away early. But tell me, my lad, what sort of music is it you are to have ?" " Music ! " said the boy, " why, we are to have drums." " Drums ! " repeated he, quite terrified ; " no, no, thank you, I shall stay at home in that case. Give my best respects to your master, and I thank him for the invitation, but I cannot come. I did but once go out to take a little walk, and some people beginning to beat a drum, I hurried home, and was just got to my door when they flung the drum-stick after me and broke one of my shins. I have been lame of that leg ever since, and I shall take good L20 SCANDINATIA. care in future to avoid that sort of music." So saying, he helped the boy to put the sack on his back, once more charging him to give his best respects to the farmer.* CroII turncfc Cat ABOUT a quarter of a mile from Soroe lies Pedersborg, and a little farther on is the town of Lyng. Just between these towns is a hill called Brondhoi (Spring-hill), said to be inhabited by the Troll-people. There goes a story that there was once among these Troll- people of Brondhoi an old crossgrained curmudgeon of a Troll, whom the rest nick-named Knurremurre (Humble- grumble), because he was evermore the cause of noise and uproar within the hill. This Knurremurre having discovered what he thought to be too great a degree of intimacy between his young wife and a young Troll of the society, took this in such ill part, that he vowed vengeance, swearing he would have the life of the young one. The hitter, accordingly, thought it would be his best course to be off out of the hili till better times ; so, turning himself into a noble tortoise- shell tom-cat, he one fine morning quitted his old residence, and journeyed down to the neighbouring town of Lyng, where he established himself in the house of an honest poor man named Plat. Here he lived for a long time comfortable and easy, with nothing to annoy him, and was as happy as any tom-cat or Troll crossed in love well could be. He got every day plenty of milk and good groutef to eat, and lay the whole day long at his ease in a warm arm-chair behind the stove. Plat happened one evening to come home rather late, and as he entered the room the cat was sitting in his usual place, * This event happened in Jutland. The Troll's dread of thunder seems to be founded in the mythologic narr.itivcs of Thor's enmity to the Trolls. t Groute, Danish Orod, is a species of food like furmety, made of shelled oats or barley. It is boiled and eaten -with milk or butter. OB TBOLLS. 121 scraping meal-groute out of a pot, and licking the pot itself carefully. " Harkye, dame," said Plat, as he came in at the door, " till I tell you what happened to me on the road. Just as I was coming past Brondhoi, there came out a Troll, and he called out to me, and said, " Harkye Plat, Tell your cat, That Knurremurre is dead."* The moment the cat heard these words, he tumbled the pot down on the floor, sprang out of the chair, and stood up on his hind-legs. Then, as he hurried out of the door, he cried out with exultation, " What ! is Knurremurre dead ? Then I may go home as fast as I please." And so saying he scampered off to the hill, to the amazement of honest Plat ; and it is likely lost no time in making his advances to the young widow.f THERE is a hill on the lands of Skjelverod, near Eingsted, called Kirsten's-hill (Sirstens Sjerg). In it there lived a Hill-troll whose name was Skynd, who had from time to time stolen no less than three wives from a man in the village of Englerup. It was late one evening when this man was nding home from Eingsted, and his way lay by the hill. When he came there he saw a great crowd of Hill-folk who were dancing round it, and had great merriment among them. But on looking a little closer, what should he recognise but all his three wives among them! Now as Kirsten, the * Hor du Plat, Siig til din Kat, A t Knurremurre er dod. f- The scene of this story is in Zealand. The same is related of a hill called Ornehbi in the same island. The writer has heard it in Ireland, but they were cats who addressed the man as he passed by the churchyard where they were assembled. 122 8CA.NDINAYIA. second of them, had been his favourite, and dearer to him than either of the others, he called out to her, and named her name. Troll Skynd then came up to the man, and asked him why he presumed to call Kirsten. The man told him briefly how she had been his favourite and best beloved wife, and entreated of him, with many tears and much lamentation, to let him have her home with him again. The Troll consented at last to grant the husband's request, with, however, the condition, that he should never hurry (likynde) her. For a long time the husband strictly kept the condition ; but one day, when the woman was above in the loft, getting something, and it happened that she delayed a long time, he called out, Make haste, Kirsten, make haste, (Skynde dig Kirsten) and scarcely had he spoken the words, when the woman was gone, compelled to return to the hill, which has ever since been called Kirsten's Bjerg.* CroIMLaiour. " IK the year 1660, when I and my wife had gone to my farm (Jaboderne), which is three quarters of a mile from Bagunda parsonage, and we were sitting there and talking a while, late in the evening, there came a little man in at the door, who begged of my wife to go and aid his wife, who was just then in the pains of labour. The fellow was of small size, of a dark complexion, and dressed in old grey clothes. My wife and I sat a while, and wondered at the man ; for we were aware that he was a Troll, and we had heard tell that such like, called by the peasantry Vettar (spirits), always used to keep in the farmhouses, when people left them in harvest-time. But when he had urged his request four or five times, and we thought on what evil the country folk say that they have at times suffered from the Vettar, when they have chanced to swear at them, or with * Thi legend wa orally related to Mr. Tbiele. DWAEFS OE TEOLLS. 123 uncivil words bid them go to holl, I took the resolution to read some prayers over my wile, and to bless her, and bid her in God's name go with him. She took in haste some old linen with her, and went along with him, and I remained sitting there. When she returned, she told me, that when she went with the man out at the gate, it seemed to her as if she was carried for a time along in the wind, and so she came to a room, on one side of which was a little dark chamber, in which his wife lay in bed in great agony. My wife went up to her, and, after a little while, aided her till she brought forth the child after the same manner as other human beings. The man then otfered her food, and when she refused it, he thanked her, and accompanied her out, and then she was carried along, in the same way in the wind, and after a while came again to the gate, just at ten o'clock. Meanwhile, a quantity of old pieces and clippings of silver were laid on a shelf, in the sitting-room, and my wife found them next day, when she was putting the room in order. It is to be supposed that they were laid there by the Vettr. That it in truth so happened, I witness, by inscribing my name. Eagunda, the 12th of April, 1671. " PET. KAHM."* BIOBX MAETIKSSON went out shooting, one day, with a gamekeeper, on the wooded hill of Ormkulla. They there found a hill-smith (bergsmed) lying fast asleep. Biorn directed the gamekeeper to secure him, but he refused, saying " Pray to God to protect you ! The hill-smith will fling you down to the bottom of the hill." He was, however, bold and determined, and he went up and seized the sleep- ing hill-smith, who gave a cry, and implored him to let him go, as he had a wife and seven little children. He said he would also do any iron work that should be required; it * Hulpher, Satnlingcn om Jamtland. Westeras, 1775. p. 210 ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 425. 124 SCANDINAVIA. would only be necessary to leave iron and steel on the side of the hill, and the work would be found lying finished in the same place. Biorn asked him for whom he worked ; he replied, " For my companions." When Biorn would not let him go, he said, " If I had my mist-cap (udtlehit) you should not carry me away. But if you do not let me go, not one of your posterity will attain to the importance which you possess, but continually decline ;" which certainly came to pass. Biorn would not, however, let him go, but brought him captive to Bahus. On the third day, however, he effected his escape out of the place in which he was confined.* The following legend is related in Denmark : On the lands of Nyegaard lie three large hills, one of which is the abode of a Troll, who is by trade a blacksmith. If any one is passing that hill by night, he will see the fire issuing from the top, and going in again at the side. Should you wish to have any piece of iron-work executed in a masterly manner, you nave only to go to the hill, and saying aloud what you want to have made, leave there the iron and a silver shilling. On revisiting the hill next morning, you will find the shilling gone, and the required piece of work lying there finished, and ready for use.f