MISCHIEF-MAKERS.
THE fairy-fellows who made a regular business of mischief-making seemed
to have two favorite ways of setting to work. They either saddled
themselves with little boys and spilled them, sooner or later, into the
water, or else they danced along holding a twinkling light, and led any
one so foolish as to follow them a pretty march into chasms and
quagmires. Their jokes were grim and hurtful, and not merely funny, like
Brownie's; for Brownie usually gave his victims (except in Molly Jones's
case) nothing much worse than a pinch. So people came to have great awe
and horror of the heartless goblins who waylaid travellers, and left
them broken-limbed or dead.
Very often quarrelsome, disobedient or vicious folk fell into the snare
of a Kelpie, or a Will-o'-the-Wisp; for the little whipper-snappers had
a fine eye for poetical justice, and dealt out punishments with the
nicest discrimination. We never hear that they troubled good, steady
mortals; but only that sometimes they beguiled them, for sheer love,
into Fairyland.
We know that all "ouphes and elves" could change their shapes at will;
therefore when we spy fairy-horses, fairy-lambs, and such quadrupeds, we
guess at once that they are only roguish small gentlemen masquerading.
Never for the innocent fun of it, either; but alas! to bring silly
persons to grief.
In Hampshire, in England, was a spirit known as Coltpixy, which, itself
shaped like a miniature neighing horse, beguiled other horses into bogs
and morasses. The Irish Pooka or Phooka was a horse too, and a famous
rascal. He lived on land, and was something like the Welsh Gwyll: a
tiny, black, wicked-faced wild colt, with chains dangling about him.
Again, he frisked around in the shape of a goat or a bat. Spenser has
him:
"Ne let the Pouke, ne other evill spright, . . .
Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,
Fray us with things that be not."
"Fray," as you are likely to guess, means to frighten or to scare.
[Illustration: THE IRISH POOKA WAS A HORSE TOO.]
Kelpies, who were Scotch, haunted fords and ferries, especially in
storms; allured bystanders into the water, or swelled the river so that
it broke the roads, and overwhelmed travellers.
Very like them were the Brag, the little Shoopil-tree of the Shetland
Islands, and the Nick, who was the Icelandic Nykkur-horse; gamesome
deceivers all, who enticed children and others to bestride them, and who
were treacherous as a quicksand, every time. And there were many more of
the Kelpie kingdom, of whom we can hunt up no clews.
A man who saw a Kelpie gave himself up for lost; for he was sure, by
hook or crook, to meet his death by drowning. Kelpie, familiar so far
away as China, never stayed in the next-door countries, Ireland or
England, long enough to be recognized. They knew nothing of him by
sight, nor of the Nix his cousin, nor of anything resembling them. In
Ireland lived the merrow; but she was only an amiable mermaid.
[Illustration: WILL-O'-THE-WISP.]
The Japanese had a water-dragon called Kappa, "whose office it was to
swallow bad boys who went to swim in disobedience to their parents'
commands, and at improper times and places." In the River Tees was a
green-haired lady named Peg Powler, and in some streams in Lancashire
one christened Jenny Greenteeth; two hungry goblins whose only
delight was to drown and devour unlucky travellers. But we know already
that the water-sprites were more than likely so to behave.
In Provence there is a tale told of seven little boys who went out at
night against their grandmother's wishes. A little dark pony came
prancing up to them, and the youngest clambered on his sleek back, and
after him, the whole seven, one after the other, which was quite a
wonderful weight for the wee creature; but his back meanwhile kept
growing longer and larger to accommodate them. As they galloped along,
the children called such of their playmates as were out of doors, to
join them, the obliging nag stretching and stretching until thirty pairs
of young legs dangled at his sides! when he made straight for the sea,
and plunged in, and drowned them all.
The Piskies, or Pigseys, of Cornwall, were naughty and unsociable. Their
great trick was to entice people into marshes, by making themselves look
like a light held in a man's hand, or a light in a friendly cottage
window. Pisky also rode the farmers' colts hard, and chased the
farmers' cows. For all his diabolics, you had to excuse him in part,
when you heard his hearty fearless laugh; it was so merry and sweet. "To
laugh like a Pisky," passed into a proverb. The Barguest of Yorkshire,
like the Osschaert of the Netherlands, was an open-air bugaboo whose
presence always portended disaster. Sometimes he appeared as a horse or
dog, merely to play the old trick with a false light, and to vanish,
laughing.
The Tueckebold was a very malicious chap, carrying a candle, who lived in
Hanover; his blood-relation in Scandinavia was the Lyktgubhe. Over in
Flanders and Brabant was one Kludde, a fellow whisking here and there as
a half-starved little mare, or a cat, or a frog, or a bat; but who was
always accompanied by two dancing blue flames, and who could overtake
any one as swiftly as a snake. The Ellydan (dan is a Welsh word meaning
fire, and also a lure or a snare: a luring elf-fire) was a rogue with
wings, wide ears, a tall cap and two huge torches, who precisely
resembled the English Will-o'-the-Wisp, the Scandinavian Lyktgubhe and
the Breton Sand Yan y Tad. Our American negroes make him out
Jack-muh-Lantern: a vast, hairy, goggle-eyed, big-mouthed ogre, leaping
like a giant grasshopper, and forcing his victims into a swamp, where
they died. The gentlemen of this tribe preferred to walk abroad at
night, like any other torchlight procession. Their little bodies were
invisible, and the traveller who hurried towards the pleasant lamp
ahead, never knew that he was being tricked by a grinning fairy, until
he stumbled on the brink of a precipice, or found himself knee-deep in a
bog. Then the brazen little guide shouted outright with glee, put out
his mysterious flame, and somersaulted off, leaving the poor tourist to
help himself. The only way to escape his arts was to turn your coat
inside out.
You may guess that the ungodly wights had plenty of fun in them, by this
anecdote: A great many Scotch Jack-o'-Lanterns, as they are often
called, were once bothering the horse belonging to a clergyman, who with
his servant, was returning home late at night. The horse reared and
whinnied, and the clergyman was alarmed, for a thousand impish fires
were waltzing before the wheels. Like a good man, he began to pray
aloud, to no avail. But the servant just roared: "Wull ye be aff noo, in
the deil's name!" and sure enough, in a wink, there was not a goblin
within gunshot.
[Illustration: PISKY ALSO CHASED THE FARMERS' COWS.]
There were some freakish fairies in old England, whose names were
Puckerel, Hob Howland, Bygorn, Bogleboe, Rawhead or Bloodybones; the
last two were certainly scarers of nurseries.
The Boggart was a little spectre who haunted farms and houses, like
Brownie or Nis; but he was usually a sorry busybody, tearing the
bed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through the keyholes,
snatching his bread-and-butter from the baby, playing pranks upon the
servants, and doing all manner of mischief.
[Illustration: RED COMB WAS A TYRANT.]
The Dunnie, in Northumberland, was fond of annoying farmers. When night
came, he gave them and himself a rest, and hung his long legs over the
crags, whistling and banging his idle heels. Red Comb or Bloody Cap was
a tyrant who lived in every Border castle, dungeon and tower. He was
short and thickset long-toothed and skinny-fingered, with big red eyes,
grisly flowing hair, and iron boots; a pikestaff in his left hand, and a
red cap on his ugly head.
The village of Hedley, near Ebchester, in England, was haunted by a
churlish imp known far and wide as the Hedley Gow. He took the form of a
cow, and amused himself at milking-time with kicking over the pails,
scaring the maids, and calling the cats, of whom he was fond, to lick up
the cream. Then he slipped the ropes and vanished, with a great laugh.
In Northern Germany we find the Hedley Gow's next-of-kin, and there,
too, were little underground beings who accompanied maids and men to the
milking, and drank up what was spilt; but if nothing happened to be
spilt in measuring out the quarts, they got angry, overturned the pails,
and ran away. These jackanapes were a foot and a half high, and dressed
in black, with red caps.
Many ominous fairies, such as the Banshee, portended misfortune and
death. The Banshee had a high shrill voice, and long hair. Once in a
while she seemed to be as tall as an ordinary woman, very thin, with
head uncovered, and a floating white cloak, wringing her hands and
wailing. She attached herself only to certain ancient Irish families,
and cried under their windows when one of their race was sick, and
doomed to die. But she scorned families who had a dash of Saxon and
Norman ancestry, and would have nothing to do with them.
Every single fairy that ever was known to the annals of this world was,
at times, a mischief-maker. He could no more keep out of mischief than a
trout out of water. What lives the dandiprats led our poor
great-great-great-great grand-sires! As a very clever living writer put
it:
"A man could not ride out without risking an encounter
with a Puck or a Will-o'-the Wisp. He could not
approach a stream in safety unless he closed his ears
to the sirens' songs, and his eyes to the fair form of
the mermaid. In the hillside were the dwarfs, in the
forest Queen Mab and her court. Brownie ruled over him
in his house, and Robin Goodfellow in his walks and
wanderings. From the moment a Christian came into the
world until his departure therefrom, he was at the
mercy of the fairy-folk, and his devices to elude them
were many. Unhappy was the mother who neglected to lay
a pair of scissors or of tongs, a knife or her
husband's breeches, in the cradle of her new-born
infant; for if she forgot, then was she sure to
receive a changeling in its place. Great was the loss
of the child to whose baptism the fairies were not
invited, or the bride to whose wedding the Nix, or
water-spirit, was not bidden. If the inhabitants of
Thale did not throw a black cock annually into the
Bode, one of them was claimed as his lawful victim by
the Nickelmann dwelling in that stream. The Russian
peasant who failed to present the Rusalka or
water-sprite he met at Whitsuntide, with a
handkerchief, or a piece torn from his or her
clothing, was doomed to death."
One had to be ever on the lookout to escape the sharp little immortals,
whose very kindness to men and women was a species of coquetry, and who
never spared their friends' feelings at the expense of their own saucy
delight.