THE BLACK ELVES.
ACCORDING to the very old Scandinavian notion, land-fairies were of two
sorts; the Light or Good Elves who dwelt in air, or out-of-doors on the
earth, and the Black or Evil Elves who dwelt beneath it.
We will follow the Norse folk. If we were required to group human beings
under two headings, we should choose that same Good and Evil, because
the division occurs to one naturally, because it saves time, and because
everybody comprehends it, and sees that it is based upon law; and so do
we deal with our wonder-friends, who have the strange moral sorcery
belonging to each of us their masters, to help or to harm.
The evil fairies, then, were the scowling underground tribes, who hid
themselves from the frank daylight, and the open reaches of the fields.
Yet just as the good fairies had many a sad failing to offset their
grace and charm, the grim, dark-skinned manikins had sudden impulses
towards honor and kindness. In fact, as we noted before, they were
astonishingly like our fellow-creatures, of whom scarce any is entirely
faultless, or entirely warped and ruined.
For instance, the Hill-men, in Switzerland, were very generous-minded;
they drove home stray lambs at night, and put berry-bushes in the way of
poor children. And the more modern Dwarves of Germany, frequenting the
clefts of rocks, were silent, mild, and well-disposed, and apt to bring
presents to those who took their fancy. Like others of the elf-kingdom,
they loved to borrow from mortals. Once a little bowing Dwarf came to a
lady for the loan of her silk gown for a fairy-bride. (You can imagine
that, at the ceremony, the groom must have had a pretty hunt among the
wilderness of finery to get at her ring-finger!) Of course the lady gave
it; but worrying over its tardy return, she went to the Dwarves' hill
and asked for it aloud. A messenger with a sorrowful countenance
brought it to her at once, spotted over and over with wax. But he told
her that had she been less impatient every stain would have been a
diamond!
[Illustration: THE DWARF THAT BORROWED THE SILK GOWN.]
The huge, terrible, ogre-like Hindoo Rakshas, the weird Divs and Jinns
of Persia, and the ancient demon-dwarves of the south called Panis, may
be considered the foster-parents of our dwindled minims, as the glorious
Peris on the other hand gave their name, and some of their qualities, to
a little European family of very different ancestry.
The Black Elves will serve as our general name for dwarves and
mine-fairies. These are closely connected in all legends, live in the
same neighborhoods, and therefore claim a mention together. They have
four points in common: dark skin; short, bulky bodies; fickle and
irritable natures; and occupations as miners, misers, or metalsmiths.
And because of their exceeding industry, on the old maxim's authority,
where all work and no play made Jack a dull boy, they are curiously
heavy-headed and preposterous jacks; and, waiving their plain faces, not
in any wise engaging. Yet perhaps, being largely German, they may be
philosophers, and so vastly superior to any little gabbling,
somersaulting ragamuffin over in Ireland.
In the Middle Ages, they were described as withered and leering, with
small, sharp, snapping black eyes, bright as gems; with cracked voices,
and matted hair, and horns peering from it! and as if that were not
enough adornment, they had claws, which must have been filched from the
ghosts of mediaeval pussy-cats, on their fingers and toes.
The first Duergars belonging to the Gotho-German mythology, were
muscular and strong-legged; and when they stood erect, their arms
reached to the ground. They were clever and expert handlers of metal,
and made of gold, silver and iron, the finest armor in the world. They
wrought for Odin his great spear, and for Thor his hammer, and for Frey
the wondrous ship _Skidbladnir_.
Long ago, too, armor-making Elves, black as pitch, lived in
Svart-Alfheim, in the bowels of the earth, and were able, by their
glance or touch or breath, to cause sickness and death wheresoever they
wished.
[Illustration: THE BLACK DWARVES OF RUeGEN PLANNING MISCHIEF.]
Still uglier were the Black Dwarves of the mysterious Isle of Ruegen; nor
had they any frolicsome or cordial ways which should bring up our
opinion of them. Their pale eyes ran water, and every midnight they
mewed and screeched horribly from their holes. In idle summer-hours they
sat under the elder-trees, planning by twos and threes to wreak mischief
on mankind. They, as well, were once useful, if not beautiful; for in
the days when heroes wore a panoply of steel, the Black Dwarves wrought
fair helmets and corselets of cobwebby mail which no lance could pierce,
and swords flexible as silk which could unhorse the mightiest foe. The
little blackamoors frequented mining districts, and dug for ore on
their own account. They were said to be very rich, owning unnumbered
chests stored underground. The most exciting tales about gnomes of all
nations were founded on the efforts of daring mortals to get possession
of their wealth.
To the mining division belong the dwarf-Trolls of Denmark and Sweden
(for there were giant-Trolls as well), and the whimsical Spriggans of
Cornwall. The Trolls burrowed in mounds and hills, and were called also
Bjerg-folk or Hill-folk; they lived in societies or families, baking and
brewing, marrying and visiting, in the old humdrum way. They made
fortunes, and hoarded up heaps of money. But they were often obliging
and benevolent; it gave them pleasure to bestow gifts, to lend and
borrow, and sometimes, alas! to steal. They played prettily on musical
instruments, and were very jolly. People used to see the stumpy little
children of the genteel Troll who lived at Kund in Jutland, climbing up
the knoll which was the roof of their own house, and rolling down one
after the other with shouts of laughter. The Trolls were famous
gymnasts, and very plump and round. Our word "droll" is left to us in
merry remembrance of them.
[Illustration: THE TROLL'S CHILDREN.]
They were tractable creatures, as you may know from the tale of the
farmer, who, ploughing an angry Troll's land, agreed, for the sake of
peace, to go halves in the crops sown upon it, so that one year the
Troll should have what grew above ground, and the next year what grew
under. But the sly farmer planted radishes and carrots, and the Troll
took the tops; and the following season he planted corn; and his queer
partner gathered up the roots and marched off in triumph. Indeed, it was
so easy to outwit the simple Troll that a generous farmer would never
have played the game out, and we should have lost our little story. It
was mean to take advantage of the sweet fellow's trustfulness. There was
an English schoolmaster once, a man wise, firm, and kind, and of vast
influence, of whom one of his boys said to another: "It's a shame to
tell a lie to Arnold; he always believes it." That was a ray of real
chivalry.
The Spriggans were fond of dwelling near walls and loose stones, with
which it was unlucky to tamper, and where they slipped in and out with
suspicious eyes, guarding their buried treasure. If a house was robbed,
or the cattle were carried away, or a hurricane swooped down on a
Cornish village, the neighbors attributed their trouble to the
Spriggans; whereby you may believe they had fine reputations for
meddlesomeness. Their cousins, the Buccas, Bockles or Knockers, were
gentlemen who went about thumping and rapping wherever there was a vein
of ore for the weary workmen, cheating, occasionally, to break the
monotony.
[Illustration: A COBLYNAU.]
The Welsh Coblynau followed the same profession, and pointed out the
desired places in mines and quarries. The Coblynau were copper-colored,
and very homely, as were all the pigmies who lived away from the sun;
they were busybodies, half-a-yard high, who imitated the dress of their
friends the miners, and pegged away at the rocks, like them, with great
noise and gusto, accomplishing nothing. Their houses were far-removed
from mortal vision, and unlike certain proper children, now obsolete,
the Coblynau themselves were generally heard, but not seen.
Their German relation was the Wichtlein (little wight) an extremely
small fellow, whom the Bohemians named Hans-schmiedlein (little John
Smith!) because he makes a noise like the stroke of an anvil.
Dwarves and mine-men went about, unfailingly, with a purseful of gold.
But if anyone snatched it from them, only stones and twine and a pair of
scissors were to be found in it. The Leprechaun, or Cluricaune, whom we
shall meet later as the fairy-cobbler, was an Irish celebrity who knew
where pots of guineas were hidden, and who carried in his pocket a
shilling often-spent and ever-renewed. He looked, in this banker-like
capacity, a clumsy small boy, dressed in various ways, sometimes in a
long coat and cocked hat, unlike the Danish Troll, who kept to homely
gray, with the universal little red cap. Even the respectable Kobold,
who was, virtually, a house-spirit, caught the fever of fortune-hunting,
and often threw up his domestic duties to seek the fascinating nuggets
in the mines.
There is a funny anecdote of a Troll who, as was common with his race,
cunningly concealed his prize under the shape of a coal. Now a peasant
on his way to church one bright Sunday morning saw him trying vainly to
move a couple of crossed straws which had blown upon his coal; for
anything in the shape of a cross seemed to shrivel up an elf's power in
the most startling manner. So the little sprite turned, half-crying, and
begged the peasant to move the straws for him. But the man was too
shrewd for that, and took up the coal, straws and all, and ran, despite
the poor Troll's screaming, and saw, on reaching home, that he had
captured a lump of solid gold.
All Black Elves were particular about their neighborhoods, and a whole
colony would migrate at once if they took the least offence, or if the
villagers about got "too knowing" for them. (An American poet once wrote
a sonnet "To Science," in which he berated her for having made him "too
knowing," and for having driven
--"the Naiad from her flood
The elfin from the green grass";
and it was in consequence of his very knowingness, no doubt, that,
beauty-loving and marvel-loving as were his sensitive eyes, they never
saw so much as the vanishing shadow of a fairy.) A little dwarf-woman
told two young Bavarians that she intended to leave her favorite
dwelling, because of the shocking cursing and swearing of the
country-people! But they were not all so godly.
[Illustration: "I CAN'T STAY ANY LONGER!"]
Ever since the great god Thor threw his hammer at the Trolls, they have
hated noise as much as Mr. Thomas Carlyle, who, however, made Thor's own
bluster in the world himself. They sought sequestered places that they
might not be disturbed. The Prussian mites near Dardesheim were
frightened away by the forge and the factory. Above all else,
church-bells distressed them, and spoiled their tempers. A huckster once
passed a Danish Troll, sitting disconsolately on a stone, and asked him
what the matter might be. "I hate to leave this country," blubbered the
fat mourner, "but I can't stay where there is such an eternal ringing
and dinging!"