DEAR BROWNIE.
BROWNIE, the willing drudge, the kind little housemate, was the most
popular of all fairies; and it is he whom we now love and know best.
He was a sweet, unselfish fellow; but very wide awake as well, full of
mischief, and spirited as a young eagle, when he was deprived of his
rights. He belonged to a tribe of great influence and size, and each
division of that tribe, inhabiting different countries, bore a different
name. But the word Brownie, to English-speaking people, will serve as
meaning those fairies who attached themselves persistently to any spot
or any family, and who labored in behalf of their chosen home.
The Brownie proper belonged to the Shetland and the Western Isles, to
Cornwall, and the Highlands and Borderlands of Scotland. He was an
indoor gentleman, and varied in that from our friends the Black and
Light Elves. He took up his dwelling in the house or the barn, sometimes
in a special corner, or under the roof, or even in the cellar pantries,
where he ate a great deal more than was good for him. In the beginning
he was supposed to have been covered with short curly brown hair, like a
clipped water-spaniel, whence his name. But he changed greatly in
appearance. Later accounts picture him with a homely, sunburnt little
face, as if bronzed with long wind and weather; dark-coated, red-capped,
and shod with noiseless slippers, which were as good as wings to his
restless feet. Along with him, in Scotch houses, and in English houses
supplanting him, often lived the Dobie or Dobbie who was not by any
means so bright and active ("O, ye stupid Dobie!" runs a common phrase),
and therefore not to be confounded with him.
[Illustration: BROWNIE'S DELIGHT WAS TO DO DOMESTIC SERVICE.]
Brownie's delight was to do domestic service; he churned, baked, brewed,
mowed, threshed, swept, scrubbed, and dusted; he set things in order,
saved many a step to his mistress, and took it upon himself to manage
the maid-servants, and reform them, if necessary, by severe and original
measures. Neatness and precision he dearly loved, and never forgot to
drop a penny over-night in the shoe of the person deserving well of him.
But lax offenders he pinched black and blue, and led them an exciting
life of it. His favorite revenge, among a hundred equally ingenious, was
dragging the disorderly servant out of bed. A great poet announced in
Brownie's name:
'Twixt sleep and wake
I do them take,
And on the key-cold floor them throw!
If out they cry
Then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh I: "Ho, ho, ho!"
Like all gnomes truly virtuous, he could be the worst varlet, the most
meddlesome, troublesome, burdensome urchin to be imagined, when the whim
was upon him. At such times he gloried in undoing all his good deeds;
and by way of emphasizing his former tidiness and industry, he tore
curtains, smashed dishes, overturned tables, and made havoc among the
kitchen-pans. All this was done in a sort of holy wrath; for be it to
Brownie's credit, that if he were treated with courtesy, and if the
servants did their own duties honestly, he was never other than his
gentle, well-behaved, hard-working little self.
He asked no wages; he had a New England scorn of "tipping," when he had
been especially obliging; and he could not be wheedled into accepting
even so much as a word of praise. A farmer at Washington, in Sussex,
England, who had often been surprised in the morning at the large heaps
of corn threshed for him during the night, determined at last to sit up
and watch what went on. Creeping to the barn-door, and peering through a
chink, he saw two manikins working away with their fairy flails, and
stopping an instant now and then, only to say to each other: "See how I
sweat! See how I sweat!" the very thing which befell Milton's "lubbar
fiend" in L'Allegro. The farmer, in his pleasure, cried: "Well done, my
little men!" whereupon the startled sprites uttered a cry, and whirled
and whisked out of sight, never to toil again in his barn.
It is said that not long ago, there was a whole tribe of tiny, naked
Kobolds (Brownie's German name) called Heinzelmaenchen, who bound
themselves for love to a tailor of Cologne, and did, moreover, all the
washing and scouring and kettle-cleaning for his wife. Whatever work
there was left for them to do was straightway done; but no man ever
beheld them. The tailor's prying spouse played many a ruse to get sight
of them, to no avail. And they, knowing her curiosity and grieved at it,
suddenly marched, with music playing, out of the town forever. People
heard their flutes and viols only, for none saw the little exiles
themselves, who got into a boat, and sailed "westward, westward!" like
Hiawatha, and the city's luck is thought to have gone with them.
But Brownie, who would take neither money, nor thanks, nor a glance of
mortal eyes, and who departed in high dudgeon as soon as a reward was
offered him, could be bribed very prettily, if it were done in a polite
and secretive way. He was not too scrupulous to pocket whatever might be
dropped on a stair, or a window-sill, where he was sure to pass several
times in a day, and walk off, whistling, to keep his own counsel, and
say nothing about it. And for goodies, mysterious goodies left in queer
places by chance, he had excellent tooth. Housewives, from the era of
the first Brownie, never failed slyly to gladden his favorite haunt with
the dish which he liked best, and which, so long as it was fresh and
plentiful, he considered a satisfactory squaring-up of accounts. One of
these desired treats was knuckled cakes, made of meal warm from the
mill, toasted over the embers, and spread with honey. To other tidbits,
also, he was partial; but, first and last, he relished his bowl of cream
left on the floor overnight. Cream he drank and expected the world over;
and in Devon, and in the Isle of Man, he liked a basin of water for a
bath.
[Illustration: BROWNIE RELISHES HIS BOWL OF CREAM.]
Fine clothes were quite to his mind; he was very vain when he had them;
and it was what Pet Marjorie called "majestick pride," and no whim of
anger or sensitiveness, which sent him hurrying off the moment his
wardrobe was supplied by some grateful housekeeper, to eschew work
forever after, and set himself up as a gentleman of leisure. Many funny
stories are told of his behavior under an unexpected shower of dry
goods. Brownie, who in his humble station, was so steadfast and
sensible, had his poor head completely turned by the vision of a new
bright-colored jacket. The gentle little Piskies or Pixies of
Devonshire, who are of the Brownie race, and very different from the
malicious Piskies in Cornwall, were likewise great dandies, and sure to
decamp as soon as ever they obtained a fresh cap or petticoat. Indeed,
they dropped violent hints on the subject. Think of a sprite-of-all-work,
recorded as being too proud to accept any regular payment even in fruit
or grain, standing up brazenly before his mistress, his sly eyes fixed
on her, drawling out this absurd, whimpering rhyme (for Piskies scorned
to talk prose!):
Little Pisky, fair and slim,
Without a rag to cover him!
With his lisp, and his funny snicker, and his winning impudence
generally, don't you think he could have wheedled clothes out of a
stone? Of course the lady humored him, and made him a costly, trimmed
suit; and the ungrateful small beggar made off with it post-haste,
chanting to another tune:
Pisky fine, Pisky gay!
Pisky now will run away.
The moment the Brownie-folk could cut a respectable figure in
fashionable garments, they turned their backs on an honest living, and
skurried away to astonish the belles in Fairyland.
Very much the same thing befell some German house-dwarves, who used to
help a poor smith, and make his kettles and pans for him. They took
their milk evening by evening, and went back gladly to their work, to
the smith's great profit and pleasure. When he had grown rich, his
thankful wife made them pretty crimson coats and caps, and laid both
where the wee creatures might stumble on them. But when they had put the
uniforms on, they shrieked "Paid off, paid off!" and, quitting a task
half-done, returned no more.
The Pisky was not alone in his bold request for his sordid little
heart's desire. A certain Pueck lived thirty years in a monastery in
Mecklenburg, Germany, doing faithful drudgery from his youth up; and one
of the monks wrote, in his ingenious Latin, that on going away, all he
asked was "_tunicam de diversis coloribus, et tintinnabulis plenam!_"
You may put the goblin's vanity into English for yourselves. Brownie is
known as Shelley-coat in parts of Scotland, from a German term meaning
bell, as he wears a bell, like the Ruegen Dwarves, on his parti-colored
coat.
[Illustration: "_Tunicam de diversis coloribus, et tintinnabulis
plenam!_" WAS ALL THAT PUeCK DEMANDED.]
The famous Cauld Lad of Hilton was considered a Brownie. If everything
was left well-arranged in the rooms, he amused himself by night with
pitching chairs and vases about; but if he found the place in confusion,
he kindly went to work and put it in exquisite order. But the Cauld Lad
was, more likely, by his own confession, a ghost, and no true fairy.
Romances were told of him, and he had been heard to sing this canticle,
which makes you wonder whether he had ever heard of the House that Jack
Built:
Wae's me, wae's me!
The acorn's not yet fallen from the tree
That's to grow the wood that's to make the cradle
That's to rock the bairn that's to grow to the man
That's to lay me!
It was only ghosts who could be "laid," and to "lay" him meant to give
him freedom and release, so that he need no longer go about in that
bareboned and mournful state.
But the merriest grig of all the Brownies was called in Southern
Scotland, Wag-at-the-Wa'. He teased the kitchen-maids much by sitting
under their feet at the hearth, or on the iron crook which hung from the
beam in the chimney, and which, of old, was meant to accommodate pots
and kettles. He loved children, and he loved jokes; his laugh was very
distinct and pleasant; but if he heard of anybody drinking anything
stronger than home-brewed ale, he would cough virtuously, and frown
upon the company. Now Wag-at-the-Wa' had the toothache all the time,
and, considering his twinges, was it not good of him to be so cheerful?
He wore a great red-woollen coat and blue trousers, and sometimes a grey
cloak over; and he shivered even then, with one side of his poor face
bundled up, till his head seemed big as a cabbage. He looked impish and
wrinkled, too, and had short bent legs. But his beautiful, clever tail
atoned for everything, and with it, he kept his seat on the swinging
crook.
[Illustration: "WAG-AT-THE-WA'."]
Scotch fairies called Powries and Dunters haunted lonely
Border-mansions, and behaved like peaceable subjects, beating flax from
year to year. The Dutch Kaboutermannekin worked in mills, as well as in
houses. He was gentle and kind, but "touchy," as Brownie-people are.
Though he dressed gayly in red, he was not pretty, but boasted a fine
green tint on his face and hands. Little Killmoulis was a mill-haunting
brother of his, who loved to lie before the fireplace in the kiln. This
precious old employee was blest with a most enormous nose, and with no
mouth at all! But he had a great appetite for pork, however he managed
to gratify it.
Bolieta, a Swiss Kobold, distinguished himself by leading cows safely
through the dangerous mountain-paths, and keeping them sleek and happy.
His branch of the family lived as often in the trunk of a near tree, as
in the house itself.
In Denmark and Sweden was the Kirkegrim, the "church lamb," who
sometimes ran along the aisles and the choir after service-time, and to
the grave-digger betokened the death of a little child. But there was
another Kirkegrim, a proper church-Brownie, who kept the pews neat, and
looked after people who misbehaved during the sermon.
As queer as any of these was the Phynodderee, or the Hairy One, the Isle
of Man house-helper. He was a wild little shaggy being, supposed to be
an exile from fairy society, and condemned to wander about alone until
doomsday. He was kind and obliging, and drove the sheep home, or
gathered in the hay, if he saw a storm coming.
The Klabautermann was a ship-Brownie, who sat under the capstan, and in
time of danger, warned the crew by running up and down the shrouds in
great excitement. This eccentric Flying Dutchman had a fiery red head,
and on it a steeple-like hat; his yellow breeches were tucked into heavy
horseman's boots.
Huettchen was a German Brownie, who lived at court, but who dressed like
a little peasant, with a flapping felt hat over his eyes. The Alraun, a
sort of house-imp shorn of all his engaging diligence, was very small,
his body being made of a root; he lived in a bottle. If he was thrown
away, back he came, persistently as a rubber ball. But that instinct
was common to the Brownie race.
The Roman Penates, _Vinculi terrei_, which brave old Reginald Scott
called "domesticall gods," were Brownie's venerable and honorable
ancestors. We shall see presently what names their descendants bore in
various countries. But the Russian Domovoi we shall not count among
them, because they were ghostly, like the poor Cauld Lad, and seem to
have been full-sized.