connected with their building. In Brittany they are associated with
several of the megalithic remains.[A] "At Carnac, near Quiberon," says M.
De Cambry, "in the department of Morbihan, on the sea-shore, is the Temple
of Carnac, called in Breton 'Ti Goriquet' (House of the Gories), one of
the most remarkable Celtic monuments extant. It is composed of more than
four thousand large stones, standing erect in an arid plain, where neither
tree nor shrub is to be seen, and not even a pebble is to be found in the
soil on which they stand. If the inhabitants are asked concerning this
wonderful monument, they say it is an old camp of Cæsar's, an army turned
into stone, or that it is the work of the Crions or Gories. These they
describe as little men between two and three feet high, who carried these
enormous masses on their hands; for, though little, they are stronger than
giants. Every night they dance around the stones, and woe betide the
traveller who approaches within their reach! he is forced to join in the
dance, where he is whirled about till, breathless and exhausted, he falls
down, amidst the peals of laughter of the Crions. All vanish with the
break of day. In the ruins of Tresmalouen dwell the Courils. They are of a
malignant disposition, but great lovers of dancing. At night they sport
around the Druidical monuments. The unfortunate shepherd that approaches
them must dance their rounds with them till cockcrow; and the instances
are not few of persons thus ensnared who have been found next morning dead
with exhaustion and fatigue. Woe also to the ill-fated maiden who draws
near the Couril dance! nine months after, the family counts one member
more. Yet so great is the cunning and power of these dwarfs, that the
young stranger bears no resemblance to them, but they impart to it the
features of some lad of the village."
[Footnote A: Keightley, 440.]
In India megalithic remains are also associated with little people.
"Dwarfs hold a distinct place in Hindu mythology; they appear sculptured
on all temples. Siva is accompanied by a body-guard of dwarfs, one of
whom, the three-legged Bhringi, dances nimbly. But coming nearer to
Northern legend, the cromlechs and kistvaens which abound over Southern
India are believed to have been built by a dwarf race, a cubit high, who
could, nevertheless, move and handle the huge stones easily. The villagers
call them Pandayar."[A]
[Footnote A: _Folk Lore_, iv. 401.]
Mr. Meadows Taylor, speaking of cromlechs in India, says, "Wherever I
found them, the same tradition was attached to them, that they were Morie
humu, or Mories' houses; these Mories having been dwarfs who inhabited the
country before the present race of men." Again, speaking of the cromlechs
of Koodilghee, he states, "Tradition says that former Governments caused
dwellings of the description alluded to to be erected for a species of
human beings called 'Mohories,' whose dwarfish stature is said not to have
exceeded a span when standing, and a fist high when in a sitting posture,
who were endowed with strength sufficient to roll off large stones with a
touch of their thumb." There are, he also tells us, similar traditions
attaching to other places, where the dwarfs are sometimes spoken of as
Gujaries.[A]
[Footnote A: _Jour. Ethnol. Soc_., 1868-69, p. 157.]
Of stone structures built by fairies or little people for the use of
others, may be mentioned the churches built by dwarfs in Scotland and
Brittany, and described by Mr. MacRitchie, as also the two following
instances, taken from widely distant parts of the globe. In Brittany, the
dolmen of Manné-er Hrock (Montaigne de la Fee), at Locmariaquer, is said
to have been built by a fairy, in order that a mother might stand upon it
and look out for her son's ship.[A] In Fiji the following tale is told
about the Nanga or sacred stone enclosure:--"This is the word of our
fathers concerning the Nanga. Long ago their fathers were ignorant of it;
but one day two strangers were found sitting in the Rara (public square),
and they said they had come up from the sea to give them the Nanga. They
were little men, and very dark-skinned, and one of them had his face and
bust painted red, while the other was painted black. Whether these were
gods or men our fathers did not tell us, but it was they who taught our
people the Nanga. This was in the old times, when our fathers were living
in another land--not in this place, for we are strangers here."[B] It is
worthy of note that the term "Nanga" applies not merely to the enclosure,
but also to the secret society which held its meetings therein.[C]
[Footnote A: _Flint Chips_, p. 104.]
[Footnote B: Fison, _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xiv, 14.]
[Footnote C: Joske, _Internat. Arch. f. Ethnographie_, viii. 254.]
5. The little people make their dwellings either in the interior of a
stone or amongst stones. I am not here alluding to the stones on the sides
of mountains which are the doorways to fairy dwellings, but to a closer
connection, which will be better understood from some of the following
instances than from any lengthy explanation. The Duergas of the
Scandinavian Eddas had their dwelling-places in stones, as we are told in
the story of Thorston, who "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."[A] In Ireland, in Innisbofin, co. Galway, Professor Haddon
relates that the men who were quarrying a rock in the neighbourhood of the
harbour refused to work at it any longer, as it was so full of "good
people" as to be hot.[B] In England the Pixy-house of Devon is in a stone,
and a large stone is also connected with the story of the Frensham
caldron, though it is not clear that the fairies lived in the rock
itself.[C] Oseberrow or Osebury (_vulgo_ Rosebury) Rock, in Lulsey,
Worcestershire, was, according to tradition, a favourite haunt of the
fairies.[D] In another part of Worcestershire, on the side of the
Cotswolds, there is, in a little spinney, a large flat stone, much worn on
its under surface, which is called the White Lady's Table. This personage
is supposed to take her meals with the fairies at this rock, but what the
exact relation of the little people to it as a dwelling-place may be, I
have not been able to learn.
[Footnote A: Keightley, 70.]
[Footnote B: _Folklore_, iv. 49.]
[Footnote C: Ritson, 106, quoting Aubrey's _Natural History of Surrey_,
iii. 366.]
[Footnote D: Allies, _Antiquities and Folk-Lore of Worcestershire_,
p.443.]
There is an Iroquois tale of dwarfs, in which the summons to the Pigmies
was given by knocking upon a large stone.[A] The little people of
Melanesia seem also to be associated in some measure with stones. Speaking
of these beings, Mr. Codrington says,[B] "There are certain Vuis having
rather the nature of fairies. The accounts of them are vague, but it is
argued that they had never left the islands before the introduction of
Christianity, and indeed have been seen since. Not long ago there was a
woman living at Mota who was the child of one, and a very few years ago a
female Vui with a child was seen in Saddle Island. Some of these were
called Nopitu, which come invisibly, or possess those with whom they
associate themselves. The possessed are called Nopitu. Such persons would
lift a cocoa-nut to drink, and native shell money would run out instead of
the juice and rattle against their teeth; they would vomit up money, or
scratch and shake themselves on a mat, when money would pour from their
fingers. This was often seen, and believed to be the doing of a Nopitu. In
another manner of manifestation, a Nopitu would make himself known as a
party were sitting round an evening fire. A man would hear a voice in his
thigh, 'Here am I, give me food.' He would roast a little red yam, and
fold it in the corner of his mat. He would soon find it gone, and the
Nopitu would begin a song. Its voice was so small and clear and sweet,
that once heard it never could be forgotten; but it sang the ordinary Mota
songs. Such spirits as these, if seen or found, would disappear beside a
stone; they were smaller than the native people, darker, and with long
straight hair. But they were mostly unseen, or seen only by those to whom
they took a fancy. They were the friendly Trolls or Robin Goodfellows of
the islands; a man would find a fine red yam put for him on the seat
beside the door, or the money which he paid away returned within his
purse. A woman working in her garden heard a voice from the fruit of a
gourd asking for some food, and when she pulled up an arum or dug out a
yam, another still remained; but when she listened to another spirit's
panpipes, the first in his jealousy conveyed away garden and all." Amongst
the Australians also supernatural beings dwell amongst the rocks, and the
Annamites and Arabians know of fairies living amongst the rocks and
hills.[C]
[Footnote A: Smith, _Myths of Iroquois, ut supra._]
[Footnote B: _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, x. 261.]
[Footnote C: Hartland, _Science of Fairy Tales_, p. 351.]
6. The little people may have their habitation in forests or trees. Such
were the Skovtrolde, or Wood-Trolls of Thorlacius,[A] who made their home
on the earth in great thick woods, and the beings in South Germany who
resemble the dwarfs, and are called Wild, Wood, Timber and Moss People.[B]
"These generally live together in society, but they sometimes appear
singly. They are small in stature, yet somewhat larger than the Elf, being
the size of children of three years, grey and old-looking, hairy and clad
in moss. Their lives are attached, like those of the Hamadryads, to the
trees, and if any one causes by friction the inner bark to loosen, a
Wood-woman dies." In Scandinavia there is also a similarity between
certain of the Elves and Hamadryads. The Elves "not only frequent trees,
but they make an interchange of form with them. In the churchyard of Store
Heddinge, in Zeeland, 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 soldiers. 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 underground people frequently hold their meetings under
its branches. There is, in another place, an elder-tree growing in a
farmyard, which frequently takes a walk in the twilight about the yard,
and peeps in through the window at the children when they are alone. 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 sunset."[C] In England, the
fairies also in some cases frequent the woods, as is their custom in the
Isle of Man, and in Wales, where there was formerly, in the park of Sir
Robert Vaughan, a celebrated old oak-tree, named Crwben-yr-Ellyl, or the
Elf's Hollow Tree. In Formosa[D] there is also a tale of little people
inhabiting a wood. "A young Botan became too ardent in his devotion to a
young lady of the tribe, and was slain by her relatives, while, as a
warning as to the necessity for love's fervour being kept within bounds,
his seven brothers were banished by the chief. The exiles went forth into
the depths of the forest, and in their wanderings after a new land they
crossed a small clearing, in which a little girl, about a span in height,
was seated peeling potatoes. 'Little sister,' they queried, 'how come you
here? where is your home?' 'I am not of homes nor parents,' she replied.
Leaving her, they went still farther into the forest, and had not gone far
when they saw a little man cutting canes, and farther on to the right a
curious-looking house, in front of which sat two diminutive women combing
their hair. Things looked so queer that the travellers hesitated about
approaching nearer, but, eager to find a way out of the forest, they
determined in their extremity to question the strange people. The two
women, when interrogated, turned sharply round, showing eyes of a flashing
red; then looking upward, their eyes became dull and white, and they
immediately ran into the house, the doors and windows of which at once
vanished, the whole taking the form and appearance of an isolated
boulder." Amongst the Maories also we have "te tini ote hakuturi," or "the
multitude of the wood-elves," the little people who put the chips all back
into the tree Rata had felled and stood it up again, because he had not
paid tribute to Tane.[E]
[Footnote A: Quoted by Keightley, p. 62.]
[Footnote B: Grimm ap. Keightley, p. 230.]
[Footnote C: Keightley, p. 92, quoting from Thiele.]
[Footnote D: _Folk Lore Journal_, v. 143.]
[Footnote E: Tregear, _Journ. Anth. Inst._, xix. 121.]
7. The association of little people with water as a home is a widespread
notion. The Sea-Trows of the Shetlanders inhabit a region of their own at
the bottom of the sea. They here respire a peculiar atmosphere, and live
in habitations constructed of the choicest submarine productions. They
are, however, not always small, but may be of diverse statures, like the
Scandinavian Necks. In Germany the Water-Dwarfs are also known. At
Seewenheiher, in the Black Forest, a little water-man (_Seemännlein_) used
to come and join the people, work the whole day along with them, and in
the evening go back into the lakes.[A] The size of the Breton Korrigs or
Korrigan, if we may believe Villemarqué in his account of this folk, does
not exceed two feet, but their proportions are most exact, and they have
long flowing hair, which they comb out with great care. Their only dress
is a long white veil, which they wind round their body. Seen at night or
in the dusk of the evening, their beauty is great; but in the daylight
their eyes appear red, their hair is white, and their faces wrinkled;
hence they rarely let themselves be seen by day. They are fond of music,
and have fine voices, but are not much given to dancing. Their favourite
haunts are the springs, by which they sit and comb their hair.[B] The
Maories also have their Water-Pigmies, the Ponaturi, who are, according to
Mr. Tregear, elves, little tiny people, mostly dwellers in water, coming
ashore to sleep.[C] "The spirits most commonly met with in African
mythology," says Mr. Macdonald, "are water or river spirits, inhabiting
deep pools where there are strong eddies and under-currents. Whether they
are all even seen now-a-days it is difficult to determine, but they must
at one time have either shown themselves willingly, or been dragged from
their hiding-places by some powerful magician, for they are one and all
described. They are dwarfs, and correspond to the Scottish conception of
kelpies or fairies. They are wicked and malevolent beings, and are never
credited with a good or generous action. Whatever they possess they keep,
and greedily seize upon any one who comes within their reach. 'One of
them, the Incanti, corresponds to the Greek Python, and another, called
Hiti, appears in the form of a small and very ugly man, and is exceedingly
malevolent' (Brownlee). It is certain death to see an Incanti, and no one
but the magicians sees them except in dreams, and in that case the
magicians are consulted, and advise and direct what is to be done."[D]
[Footnote A: Grimm ap. Keightley, p. 261.]
[Footnote B: Villemarqué, ibid., 431.]
[Footnote C: Tregear, _ut supra._]
[Footnote D: _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xx. 124.]
Dr. Nansen, speaking of the Ignerssuit (plural of Ignersuak, which means
"great fire"), says that they are for the most part good spirits, inclined
to help men. The entrance to their dwellings is on the sea-shore.
According to the Eskimo legend, "The first earth which came into existence
had neither seas nor mountains, but was quite smooth. When the One above
was displeased with the people upon it, He destroyed the world. It burst
open, and the people fell down into the rifts and became Ignerssuit and
the water poured over everything."[A] The spirits here alluded to appear
to be the same as those described by Mr. Boas as Uissuit in his monograph
on the Central Eskimo. He describes them as "a strange people that live in
the sea. They are dwarfs, and are frequently seen between Iglulik and
Netchillik, where the Anganidjen live, an Innuit tribe whose women are in
the habit of tracing rings around their eyes. There are men and women
among the Uissuit, and they live in deep water, never coming to the
surface. When the Innuit wish to see them, they go in their boats to a
place where they cannot see the bottom, and try to catch them with hooks
which they slowly move up and down. As soon as they get a bite they draw
in the line. The Uissuit are thus drawn up; but no sooner do they approach
the surface than they dive down headlong again, only their legs having
emerged from the water. The Innuit have never succeeded in getting one out
of the water."[A]
[Footnote A: Nansen, _ut supra_, p. 259.]
[Footnote A: _American Bureau of Ethnology_, vi. 612.]
8. Amongst habitations not coming under any of the above categories may be
mentioned the moors and open places affected by the Cornish fairies, and
lastly the curious residences of the Kirkonwaki or Church-folk of the
Finns. "It is an article of faith with the Finns that there dwell under
the altar in every church little misshapen beings which they call
Kirkonwaki, i.e., Church-folk. When the wives of these little people have
a difficult labour, they are relieved if a Christian woman visits them and
lays her hand upon them. Such service is always rewarded by a gift of gold
and silver."[A] These folk evidently correspond to the Kirkgrims of
Scandinavian countries, and the traditions respecting both are probably
referable to the practice of foundation sacrifices.
[Footnote A: Grimm ap. Keightley, p. 488.]
IV.
The subject of Pigmy races and fairy tales cannot be considered to have
been in any sense fully treated without some consideration of a theory
which, put forward by various writers and in connection with the legends
of diverse countries, has recently been formulated by Mr. MacRitchie in a
number of most interesting and suggestive books and papers. An early
statement of this theory is to be found in a paper by Mr. J.F. Campbell,
in which he stated, "It is somewhat remarkable that traditions still
survive in the Highlands of Scotland which seem to be derived from the
habits of Scotch tribes like the Lapps in our day. Stories are told in
Sutherlandshire about a 'witch' who milked deer; a 'ghost' once became
acquainted with a forester, and at his suggestion packed all her
plenishing on a herd of deer, when forced to flit by another and a bigger
'ghost;' the green mounds in which 'fairies' are supposed to dwell closely
resemble the outside of Lapp huts. The fairies themselves are not
represented as airy creatures in gauze wings and spangles, but they appear
in tradition as small cunning people, eating and drinking, living close at
hand in their green mound, stealing children and cattle, milk and food,
from their bigger neighbours. They are uncanny, but so are the Lapps. My
own opinion is that these Scotch traditions relate to the tribes who made
kitchen-middens and lake-dwellings in Scotland, and that they were allied
to Lapps."[A] Such in essence is Mr. MacRitchie's theory, which has been
so admirably summarised by Mr. Jacobs in the first of that series of
fairy-tale books which has added a new joy to life, that I shall do myself
the pleasure of quoting his statement in this place. He says: "Briefly
put, Mr. MacRitchie's view is that the elves, trolls, and fairies
represented in popular tradition are really the mound-dwellers, whose
remains have been discovered in some abundance in the form of green
hillocks, which have been artificially raised over a long and low passage
leading to a central chamber open to the sky. Mr. MacRitchie shows that in
several instances traditions about trolls or 'good people' have attached
themselves to mounds which long afterwards, on investigation, turned out
to be evidently the former residence of men of smaller build than the
mortals of to-day. He goes on further to identify these with the Picts--
fairies are called 'Pechs' in Scotland--and other early races, but with
these ethnological equations we need not much concern ourselves. It is
otherwise with the mound traditions and their relation, if not to fairy
tales in general, to tales about fairies, trolls, elves, &c. These are
very few in number, and generally bear the character of anecdotes. The
fairies, &c., steal a child; they help a wanderer to a drink and then
disappear into a green hill; they help cottagers with their work at night,
but disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to
help fairy mothers; fairy maidens marry ordinary men, or girls marry and
live with fairy husbands. All such things may have happened and bear no
such _a priori_ marks of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through
the air, and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as
archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in Northern Europe
very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground chambers artificially
concealed by green hillocks, it does not seem unlikely that odd survivors
of the race should have lived on after they had been conquered and nearly
exterminated by Aryan invaders, and should occasionally have performed
something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls."[B] In the same
place, and also in another article,[C] the writer just quoted has applied
this theory to the explanation of the story of "Childe Rowland."
[Footnote A: _Journ. Ethnol. Soc._, 1869-70, p. 325.]
[Footnote B: _English Fairy Tales_, p. 241.]
[Footnote C: _Folk Lore_, ii. 126.]
Mr. MacRitchie has, in another paper,[A] collected a number of instances
of the use of the word _Sith_ in connection with hillocks and tumuli,
which are the resort of the fairies. Here also he discusses the possible
connection of that word with that of _Tshud_, the title of the vanished
supernatural inhabitants of the land amongst the Finns and other "Altaic"
Turanian tribes of Russia, as in other places he has endeavoured to trace
a connection between the Finns and the Feinne. Into these etymological
questions I have no intention to enter, since I am not qualified to do so,
nor is it necessary, as they have been fully dealt with by Mr. Nutt, whose
opinion on this point is worthy of all attention.[B] But it may be
permitted to me to inquire how far Mr. MacRitchie's views tally with the
facts mentioned in the foregoing section. I shall therefore allude to a
few points which appear to me to show that the origin of the belief in
fairies cannot be settled in so simple a manner as has been suggested, but
is a question of much greater complexity--one in which, as Mr. Tylor
says, more than one mythic element combines to make up the whole.
[Footnote A: _Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland_, iii. 367.]
[Footnote A: _Folk and Hero Tales from Argyleshire_, p. 420.]
(1.) In the first place, then, it seems clear, so far as our present
knowledge teaches us, that there never was a really Pigmy race inhabiting
the northern parts of Scotland.
The scanty evidence which we have on this point, so far as it goes, proves
the truth of this assertion. Mr. Carter Blake found in the Muckle Heog of
the Island of Unst, one of the Shetlands, together with stone vessels,
human interments of persons of considerable stature and of great muscular
strength. Speaking of the Keiss skeletons, Professor Huxley says that the
males are, the one somewhat above, and the other probably about the
average stature; while the females are short, none exceeding five feet two
inches or three inches in height.[A] And Dr. Garson, treating of the
osteology of the ancient inhabitants of the Orkneys, says that the female
skeleton which he examined was about five feet two inches in height, i.e.,
about the mean height of the existing races of England.[B] There is no
evidence that Lapps and Eskimo ever visited these parts of the world; and
if they did, as we have seen, their stature, though stunted, cannot fairly
be described as pigmy. Even if we grant that the stature of the early
races did not average more than five feet two inches, which, by the way,
was the height of the great Napoleon, it is more than doubtful whether it
fell so far short of that of succeeding races as to cause us to imagine
that it gave rise to tales about a race of dwarfs.
[Footnote A: Laing, _Prehistoric Remains of Caithness_, p. 101.]
[Footnote B: _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xiii. 60.]
(2.) The mounds with which the tales of little people are associated have
not, in many cases, been habitations, but were natural or sepulchral in
their nature. It may, of course, be argued that the story having once
arisen in connection with one kind of mound, may, by a process easy to
understand, have been transferred to other hillocks similar in appearance,
though diverse in nature. It is difficult to see, however, how this could
have occurred in Yorkshire and other parts of England, where it is not
argued that the stunted inhabitants of the North ever penetrated. It is
still more difficult to explain how similar legends can have originated in
America in connection with mounds, since there never were Pigmy races in
that continent.