FAIRY RULERS.
THE forming of character among the fairy-folk was a very simple and
sensible matter. You will imagine that the Pagan, Druid and Christian
elves varied greatly. And they did; still their morals had nothing to do
with it, nor pride, nor patriotism, nor descent, nor education; nor
would all the philosophy you might crowd into a thimble have made one
bee-big resident of Japan different from a man of his own size in Spain.
They saved themselves no end of trouble by setting up the local
barometer as their standard. The only Bible they knew was the weather,
and they followed it stoutly. Whatever the climate was, whatever it had
helped to make the grown-up nation who lived under it, that, every time,
were the "brownies and bogles." Where the land was rocky and grim, and
subject to wild storms and sudden darknesses, the fairies were grim and
wild too, and full of wicked tricks. Where the landscape was level and
green, and the crops grew peacefully, they were tame, as in central
England, and inclined to be sentimental.
And they copied the distinguishing traits of the race among whom they
dwelt. A frugal Breton fairy spoke the Breton dialect; the Neapolitan
had a tooth for fruits and macaroni; the Chinese was ceremonious and
stern; a true Provencal fee was as vain as a peacock, flirting a mirror
before her, and an Irish elf, bless his little red feathered caubeen!
was never the man to run away from a fight.
If you look on the map, and see a section of coast-line like that of
Cornwall or Norway, a sunshiny, perilous, foamy place, make up your mind
that the fairies thereabouts were fellows worth knowing; that you would
have needed all your wit and pluck to get the better of them, and that
they would have made live, hearty playmates, too, while in good humor,
for any brave boy or girl.
We do not know nearly so much about the genuine fairies as we should
like. They must have been, at one time or another, in every European
country. Most of the Oriental spirits were taller, and of another brood;
they figured either as demons, or as what we should now call angels. But
in the Germanic colonies, from very old days, fairy-lore was finely
developed, and we count up tribe on tribe of necks, nixies, stromkarls
and mermaids, who were water-sprites; of bergmaennchen (little men of the
mountain), and lovely wild-women in hilly places; of trolls around the
woods and rocks; of elves in the air, and gnomes or duergars in caverns
or mines. Yet from Portugal, and Russia, and Hungary, and from our own
North American Indians, we learn so little that it is not worth
counting.
If the good dear peasants who were acquainted with the fairies had made
more rhymes about them, and handed them down more attentively; if it had
occurred to the knowing scholar-monks to keep diaries of elfin doings,
as it would have done had they but known how soon their little friends
were to be extinct, like the glyptodon and the dodo, how wise should we
not be!
[Illustration: THE NEAPOLITAN FAIRY.]
But again, though there were hosts of supernatural beings in the beliefs
of every old land, we have no business with any but the wee ones. And as
these were settled most thickly in the Teutonic, Celtic and Cymric
countries, we will turn our curiosity thither, without farther
grumbling, and be glad to get so much authentic news of them as we may.
Fairies, as a whole, seem at bottom rather weak and disconsolate. For
all of their magic and cunning, for all of their high station, and its
feasting and glory, they could not keep from seeking human sympathy.
They did, indeed, hurt men, resent intrusions, foretell the future, and
call down disease and storm, but they stood in awe of the weakest mortal
because of his superior strength and size; they came to him to borrow
food and medicine, and even to ask the loan of his house for their
revels. They rendered themselves invisible, but he had always at his
feet the fern-seed, the talisman of four-leaved clover (or, as in
Scotland, the leaf of the ash or rowan-tree), with which he could defeat
their design, and protect himself against the attacks of any witch, imp,
or fairy whatsoever.
Their government was a happy-go-lucky affair. The various tribes of
fairies had no common interests which would make them sigh for
post-offices, or cables, or general synods. Each set of them got along,
independent of the rest. Once in a while a mine-man would live alone
with his wife, pegging away at his daily work, without any idea of
hurrahing for his King or, more likely, his Queen; or even of hunting up
his own cousins in the next county.
If we had elves in the United States nowadays, they would no doubt be
American enough to elect a President and have him as honest, and steady,
and sound-hearted as needs be. But dwelling as they did in feudal days,
they set up thrones and sceptres all over Fairydom.
According to the poets, Mab and Oberon are the crowned rulers of the
little people. In reality, they had no supreme head. Among many parties
and factions, each small agreeing community had its own chief, the
tallest of his race, who was no chief at all, mind you, to the fairy
neighbors a mile east. The delicate yellow Chinese fairy-mother was Si
Wang Mu; and in the Netherlands, the elf-queen, who was also queen of
the witches, was called Wanne Thekla.
We snatch an item here and there of the royal histories. We find that
the sweet-natured Elberich in the Niebelungen is the same as Oberon. In
Germany was a dwarf-king named Goldemar, who lived with a knight, shared
his bed, played at dice with him, gave him good advice, called him
Brother-in-law very fondly, and comforted him with the music of his
harp. But Goldemar, though the knight loved him and could touch and feel
him, was unseen. He was like a wreath of blue smoke, or a fragment of
moonlight, and you could run a sword through him, and never change his
kind smile. His royal hands were lean, and soft, and cold as a frog's.
After three years, perhaps when Brother-in-law was dead, or when he was
married, and needed him no longer, the gentle dwarf-king disappeared.
Sinnels, Guebich, and Heiling were other dwarf-princes, probably rivals
of Goldemar, and ready to have at him till their breath gave out. Their
little majesties were quarrelsome as cock-sparrows. The elf-monarch
Laurin was once conquered by Theodoric; and because he had been
treacherous in war (which was not "fair" at all, despite the proverb),
he got a very sad rebuff to his dignity, in being made fool or buffoon
at the court of Bern.
[Illustration: THE ELF-MONARCH WHO WAS MADE COURT-FOOL.]
We are told in the Mabinogion how the daughter of Llud Llaw Ereint was
"the most splendid maiden in the three islands of the mighty," and how
for her Gwyn ap Nudd, the Welsh fairy-king, battles every May-day from
dawn until sunset. Gwyn once carried her off from Gwythyr, her true
lord; and both lovers were so furious and cruel against each other that
blessed King Arthur condemned them to wage bitter fight on each
first-of-May till the world's end; and to whomsoever is victorious the
greatest number of times, the fair lady shall then be given. Let us
hope the reward will not fall to thieving Gwyn.
We have said that we should do pretty much as we pleased in ranging the
myriad fairy-folk into ranks and species. If, as we prowl about, we see
a baby in the house of the Elfsmiths, who has a look of the Elfbrowns,
we will immediately kidnap him from his fond parents, and add him to the
family he resembles. Now that might make wailing and confusion, and
bring down vengeance on our heads, if there were any Queen Mab left to
rap us to order; but as things go, we shall find it a very neat way of
smoothing difficulties.
[Illustration: THE ISLE OF RUeGEN DWARVES THAT GIVE PRESENTS TO
CHILDREN.]
Of course there are certain pigwidgeons too accomplished, too slippery,
too many things in one, to be ticketed and tied down like the rest; such
versatile fellows as the Brown Dwarves of the Isle of Ruegen, for
instance. They lived in what were called the Vine-hills, and were not
quite eighteen inches high. They wore little snuff-brown jackets and a
brown cap (which made them invisible, and allowed them to pass through
the smallest keyhole), with one wee silver bell at its peak, not to be
lost for any money. But they did some roguish things; and children who
fell into their hands had to serve them for fifty years! With caprice
usual to their kin, they will, on other occasions, befriend and protect
children, and give them presents; or plague untidy servants, like
Brownie, or lead travellers astray by night into bogs and marshes, like
the Ellydan and the Fir-Darrig, and mischievous double-faced Robin
Goodfellow himself.
An ancient tradition says that while the grass-blades are sprouting at
the root, the earth-elves water and nourish them; and the moment the
growth pierces the soil, affectionate air-elves take it in charge.
Therefore we borrow a hint from the grass; and after first going down
among the swarthy fairies who burrow underground, we shall pass up to
companionship with little beings so beautiful that wherever they flock
there is starlight and song.