In Penzance I had the privilege of also meeting Miss M. A. Courtney, the

well-known folk-lorist, who quite agrees with me in believing that there

is in Cornwall a widespread Legend of the Dead; and she cited a few

special instances in illustration, as follows:--

_Cornish Legend of the Dead._--'Here amongst the fishermen and sailors

there is a belief that the dead in the sea will be heard calling if a

drowning is about to occur. I know of a woman who went to a clergyman to

have him exorcize her of the spirit of her dead sister, which she said

appeared in the form of a bee. And I have heard of miners believing that

white moths are spirits.'[72]

EVIDENCE FROM NEWLYN

In Newlyn, Mrs. Jane Tregurtha gave the following important testimony:--

_The 'Little Folk'._--'The old people thoroughly believed in the _little

folk_, and that they gambolled all over the moors on moonlight nights.

Some pixies would rain down blessings and others curses; and to remove

the curses people would go to the wells blessed by the saints. Whenever

anything went wrong in the kitchen at night the pixies were blamed.

After the 31st of October [or after Halloween] the blackberries are not

fit to eat, for the pixies have then been over them' (cf. the parallel

Irish belief, p. 38).

_Fairy Guardian of the Men-an-Tol._[73]--'At the Men-an-Tol there is

supposed to be a guardian fairy or pixy who can make miraculous cures.

And my mother knew of an actual case in which a changeling was put

through the stone in order to get the real child back. It seems that

evil pixies changed children, and that the pixy at the Men-an-Tol being

good, could, in opposition, undo their work.'

_Exorcism._--'A spirit was put to rest on the Green here in Newlyn. The

parson prayed and fasted, and then commanded the spirit to _teeme_ (dip

dry) the sea with a limpet shell containing no bottom; and the spirit is

supposed to be still busy at this task.'

_Piskies as Apparitions._--When I talked with her in her neat cottage at

Newlyn, Miss Mary Ann Chirgwin (who was born on St. Michael's Mount in

1825) told me this:--'The old people used to say the piskies were

apparitions of the dead come back in the form of little people, but I

can't remember anything more than this about them.'

AN ARTIST'S TESTIMONY

One of the members of the Newlyn Art School was able to offer a few of

his own impressions concerning the pixies of Devonshire, where he has

frequently made sketches of pixies from descriptions given to him by

peasants:--

_Devonshire Pixies._--'Throughout all the west of Devonshire, anywhere

near the moorlands, the country people are much given to belief in

pixies and ghosts. I think they expect to see them about the twilight

hour; though I have not found anybody who has actually seen a pixy--the

belief now is largely based on hearsay.'

TESTIMONY FROM THE HISTORIAN OF MOUSEHOLE

To Mr. Richard Harry, the historian of Mousehole, I am indebted for

these remarks about the nature and present state of the belief in pixies

as he observes it in that region:--

_The Pixy Belief._--'The piskies, thought of as little people who appear

on moonlight nights, are still somewhat believed in here. If interfered

with too much they are said to exhibit almost fiendish powers. In a

certain sense they are considered spiritual, but in another sense they

are much materialized in the conceptions of the people. Generally

speaking, the belief in them has almost died out within the last fifty

years.'

A SEAMAN'S TESTIMONY

'Uncle Billy Pender,' as our present witness is familiarly called, is

one of the oldest natives of Mousehole, being eighty-five years old; and

most of his life has been passed on the ocean, as a fisherman, seaman,

and pilot. After having told me the usual things about piskies, fairies,

spirits, ghosts, and the devil, Uncle Billy Pender was very soon talking

about the dead:--

_Cornish Legend of the Dead._--'I was up in bed, and I suppose asleep,

and I dreamt that the boy James came to my bedside and woke me up by

saying, "How many lights does Death put up?" And in the dream there

appeared such light as I never saw in my life; and when I woke up

another light like it was in the room. Within three months afterwards we

buried two grand-daughters out of this house. This was four years ago.'

When this strange tale was finished, Uncle Billy Pender's daughter, who

had been listening, added:--'For three mornings, one after another,

there was a robin at our cellar door before the deaths, and my husband

said he didn't like that.'

Then Uncle Billy told this weird Breton-like tale:--'"Granny" told about

a boat named _Blücher_, going from Newlyn to Bristol with six thousand

mackerel, which put in at Arbor Cove, close to Padstow, on account of

bad weather. The boat dragged her anchors and was lost. "Granny"

afterwards declared that he saw the crew going up over the Newlyn Slip;

and the whole of Newlyn and Mousehole believed him.'

TESTIMONY BY TWO LAND'S END FARMERS

In the Sennen country, within a mile of the end of Britain, I talked

with two farmers who knew something about piskies. The first one,

Charles Hutchen, of Trevescan, told me this legend:--

_A St. Just Pisky._--'Near St. Just, on Christmas Day, a pisky carried

away in his cloak a boy, but the boy got home. Then the pisky took him a

second time, and again the boy got home. Each time the boy was away for

only an hour' (probably in a dream or trance state).

_Seeing the Pisky-Dance._--Frank Ellis, seventy-eight years old, of the

same village of Trevescan, then gave the following evidence:--'Up on

Sea-View Green there are two rings where the piskies used to dance and

play music on a moonlight night. I've heard that they would come there

from the moors. _Little people_ they are called. If you keep quiet when

they are dancing you'll see them, but if you make any noise they'll

disappear.' Frank Ellis's wife, who is a very aged woman, was in the

house listening to the conversation, and added at this point:--'My

grandmother, Nancy Maddern, was down on Sea-View Green by moonlight and

saw the piskies dancing, and passed near them. She said they were like

little children, and had red cloaks.'

TESTIMONY FROM A SENNEN COVE FISHERMAN

John Gilbert Guy, seventy-eight years old, a retired fisherman of Sennen

Cove, offers very valuable testimony, as follows:--

_'Small People'._--'Many say they have seen the _small people_ here by

the hundreds. In Ireland they call the _small people_ the fairies. My

mother believes there were such things, and so did the old folks in

these parts. My grandmother used to put down a good furze fire for

_them_ on stormy nights, because, as she said, "_They_ are a sort of

people wandering about the world with no home or habitation, and ought

to be given a little comfort." The most fear of _them_ was that they

might come at night and change a baby for one that was no good. My

mother said that Joan Nicholas believed the fairies had changed her

baby, because it was very small and cross-tempered. Up on the hill

you'll see a round ring with grass greener than anywhere else, and that

is where the _small people_ used to dance.'

_Danger of Seeing the 'Little People'._--'I heard that a woman set out

water to wash her baby in, and that before she had used the water the

_small people_ came and washed their babies in it. She didn't know about

this, and so in washing her baby got some of the water in her eyes, and

then all at once she could see crowds of _little people_ about her. One

of them came to her and asked if she was able to see their crowd, and

when she said "Yes," the _little people_ wanted to take her eyes out,

and she had to clear away from them as fast as she could.'

TESTIMONY FROM A CORNISH MINER

William Shepherd, a retired miner of Pendeen, near St. Just, where he

has passed all his life, offers us from his own experiences under the

earth the evidence which follows:--

_Mine Piskies._--'There are mine-piskies which are not the "knockers".

I've heard old men in the mines say that they have seen them, and they

call them the _small people_. It appears that they don't like company,

for they are always seen singly. The "knockers" are spirits, too, as one

might say. They are said to bring bad luck, while the _small people_ may

bring good luck.'

TESTIMONY FROM KING ARTHUR'S COUNTRY

Leaving the Land's End district and South Cornwall, we now pass

northward to King Arthur's country. Our chief researches there are to be

made outside the beaten track of tourists as far as possible, in the

country between Camelford and Tintagel. At Delabole, the centre of this

district, we find our first witness, Henry Spragg, a retired

slate-quarryman, seventy years old. Mr. Spragg has had excellent

opportunities of hearing any folk-lore that might have been living

during his lifetime; and what he offers first is about King Arthur:--

_King Arthur._--'We always thought of King Arthur as a great warrior.

And many a time I've heard old people say that he used to appear in this

country in the form of a nath.'[74] This was all that could be told of

King Arthur; and the conversation finally was directed toward piskies,

with the following results:--

_Piskies._--'A man named Bottrell, who lived near St. Teath, was

pisky-led at West Down, and when he turned his pockets inside out he

heard the piskies going away laughing.[75] Often my grandmother used to

say when I got home after dark, "You had better mind, or the piskies

will carry you away." And I can remember hearing the old people say that

the piskies are the spirits of dead-born children.' From pixies the

conversation drifted to the spirit-hounds 'often heard at night near

certain haunted downs in St. Teath parish', and then, finally, to

ordinary Cornish legends about the dead.

Our next witnesses from Delabole are John Male, eighty-two years old,

one of the very oldest men in King Arthur's country, and his wife; and

all of Mr. Male's ancestors as far back as he can trace them have lived

in the same parish.

_Piskies in General._--Mr. Male remarked:--'I have heard a good deal

about the piskies, but I can't remember any of the old women's tales. I

have heard, too, of people saying that they had seen the piskies. It was

thought that when the piskies have misled you they show themselves

jumping about in front of you; they are a race of little people who live

out in the fields.' Mrs. Male had now joined us at the open fire, and

added:--'Piskies always come at night, and in marshy ground there are

round places called pisky beds where they play. When I was little, my

mother and grandmother would be sitting round the fire of an evening

telling fireside stories, and I can remember hearing about a pisky of

this part who stole a new coat, and how the family heard him talking to

himself about it, and then finally say:--

Pisky fine and pisky gay,

Pisky's got a bright new coat,

Pisky now will run away.

And I can just remember one bit of another story: A pisky looked into a

house and said:--

All alone, fair maid?

No, here am I with a dog and cat,

And apples to eat and nuts to crack.'

_Tintagel Folk-Beliefs._--A retired rural policeman of the Tintagel

country, where he was born and reared, and now keeper of the Passmore

Edwards Art Gallery at Newlyn, offered this testimony from

Tintagel:--'In Tintagel I used to sit round the fire at night and hear

old women tell so much about piskies and ghosts that I was then afraid

to go out of doors after darkness had fallen. They religiously believed

in such things, and when I expressed my doubts I was driven away as a

rude boy. They thought if you went to a certain place at a certain hour

of the night that you could there see the piskies as little spirits. It

was held that the piskies could lead you astray and play tricks on you,

but that they never did you any serious injury.' Of the Arthurian

folk-legend at Tintagel he said:--'The spirit of King Arthur is supposed

to be in the Cornish chough--a beautiful black bird with red legs and

red beak.'

We now leave Great Britain and cross the English Channel to Little

Britain, the third of the Brythonic countries.

VII. IN BRITTANY

Introduction by ANATOLE LE BRAZ, Professor of French Literature,

University of Rennes, Brittany; author of _La Légende de la Mort, Au

Pays des Pardons_, &c.

MON CHER MONSIEUR WENTZ,

Il me souvient que, lors de votre soutenance de thèse devant la Faculté

des Lettres de l'Université de Rennes, un de mes collègues, mon ami, le

professeur Dottin, vous demanda:

'Vous croyez, dites-vous, à l'existence des fées? En avez-vous vu?'

Vous répondîtes, avec autant de phlegme que de sincérité:

'Non. J'ai tout fait pour en voir, et je n'en ai jamais vu. Mais il y a

beaucoup de choses que vous n'avez pas vues, monsieur le professeur, et

dont vous ne songeriez cependant pas à nier l'existence. Ainsi fais-je à

l'égard des fées.'

Je suis comme vous, mon cher monsieur Wentz: je n'ai jamais vu de fées.

J'ai bien une amie très chère que nous avons baptisée de ce nom, mais,

malgré tous ses beaux dons magiques, elle n'est qu'une humble mortelle.

En revanche, j'ai vécu, tout enfant, parmi des personnes qui avaient

avec les fées véritables un commerce quasi journalier.

C'était dans une petite bourgade de Basse-Bretagne, peuplée de paysans à

moitié marins, et de marins à moitié paysans. Il y avait, non loin du

village, une ancienne gentilhommière que ses propriétaires avaient

depuis longtemps abandonnée pour on ne savait au juste quel motif. On

continuait de l'appeler le 'château' de Lanascol, quoiqu'elle ne fût

plus guère qu'une ruine. Il est vrai que les avenues par lesquelles on y

accédait avaient conservé leur aspect seigneurial, avec leurs quadruples

rangées de vieux hêtres dont les vastes frondaisons se miraient dans de

magnifiques étangs. Les gens d'alentour se risquaient peu, le soir, dans

ces avenues. Elles passaient pour être, à partir du coucher du soleil,

le lieu de promenade favori d'une 'dame' que l'on désignait sous le nom

de _Groac'h Lanascol_,--la 'Feé de Lanascol'.

Beaucoup disaient l'avoir rencontrée, et la dépeignaient sous les

couleurs, du reste, les plus diverses. Ceux-ci faisaient d'elle une

vieille femme, marchant toute courbée, les deux mains appuyées sur un

tronçon de béquille avec lequel, de temps en temps, elle remuait, à

l'automne, les feuilles mortes. Les feuilles mortes qu'elle retournait

ainsi devenaient soudain brillantes comme de l'or et s'entrechoquaient

avec un bruit clair de métal. Selon d'autres, c'était une jeune

princesse, merveilleusement parée, sur les pas de qui s'empressaient

d'étranges petits hommes noirs et silencieux. Elle s'avançait d'une

majestueuse allure de reine. Parfois elle s'arrêtait devant un arbre, et

l'arbre aussitôt s'inclinait comme pour recevoir ses ordres. Ou bien,

elle jetait un regard sur l'eau d'un étang, et l'étang frissonnait

jusqu'en ses profondeurs, comme agité d'un mouvement de crainte sous la

puissance de son regard.

On racontait sur elle cette curieuse histoire:--

Les propriétaires de Lanascol ayant voulu se défaire d'un domaine qu'ils

n'habitaient plus, le manoir et les terres qui en dépendaient furent mis

en adjudication chez un notaire de Plouaret. Au jour fixé pour les

enchères nombre d'acheteurs accoururent. Les prix étaient déjà montés

très haut, et le domaine allait être adjugé, quand, à un dernier appel

du crieur, une voix féminine, très douce et très impérieuse tout

ensemble, s'éleva et dit:

'Mille francs de plus!'

Il y eut grande rumeur dans la salle. Tout le monde chercha des yeux la

personne qui avait lancé cette surenchère, et qui ne pouvait être qu'une

femme. Mais il ne se trouva pas une seule femme dans l'assistance. Le

notaire demanda:

'Qui a parlé?'

De nouveau, la même voix se fit entendre.

'Groac'h Lanascol!' répondit-elle.

Ce fut une débandade générale. Depuis lors, il ne s'était jamais

présenté d'acquéreur, et voilà pourquoi, répétait-on couramment,

Lanascol était toujours à vendre.

Si je vous ai entretenu à plaisir de la Fée de Lanascol, mon cher

monsieur Wentz, c'est qu'elle est la première qui ait fait impression

sur moi, dans mon enfance. Combien d'autres n'en ai-je pas connu, par la

suite, à travers les récits de mes compatriotes des grèves, des champs

ou des bois! La Bretagne est restée un royaume de féerie. On n'y peut

voyager l'espace d'une lieue sans côtoyer la demeure de quelque fée mâle

ou femelle. Ces jours derniers, comme j'accomplissais un pèlerinage

d'automne à l'hallucinante forêt de Paimpont, toute hantée encore des

grands souvenirs de la légende celtique, je croisai, sous les opulents

ombrages du Pas-du-Houx, une ramasseuse de bois mort, avec qui je ne

manquai pas, vous pensez bien, de lier conversation. Un des premiers

noms que je prononçai fut naturellement celui de Viviane.

'Viviane!' se récria la vieille pauvresse. 'Ah! bénie soit-elle, la

bonne Dame! car elle est aussi bonne que belle.... Sans sa protection,

mon homme, qui travaille dans les coupes, serait tombé, comme un loup,

sous les fusils des gardes....' Et elle se mit à me conter comme quoi

son mari, un tantinet braconnier comme tous les bûcherons de ces

parages, s'étant porté, une nuit, à l'affût du chevreuil, dans les

environs de la Butte-aux-Plaintes, avait été surpris en flagrant délit

par une tournée de gardes. Il voulut fuir: les gardes tirèrent. Une

balle l'atteignit à la cuisse: il tomba, et il s'apprêtait à se faire

tuer sur place, plutôt que de se rendre, lorsque, entre ses agresseurs

et lui, s'interposa subitement une espèce de brouillard très dense qui

voila tout,--le sol, les arbres, les gardes et le blessé lui-même. Et il

entendit une voix sortie du brouillard, une voix légère comme un bruit

de feuilles, murmurer à son oreille: 'Sauve-toi, mon fils: l'esprit de

Viviane veillera sur toi jusqu'à ce que tu aies rampé hors de la forêt.'

'Telles furent les propres paroles de la fée,' conclut la ramasseuse de

bois mort.

Et, dévotement, elle se signa, car la religieuse Bretagne--vous le

savez--vénère les fées à l'égal des saintes.

* * * * *

J'ignore s'il faut rattacher les lutins au monde des fées, mais, ce qui

est sûr, c'est que cette charmante et malicieuse engeance a toujours

pullulé dans notre pays. Je me suis laissé dire qu'autrefois chaque

maison avait le sien. C'était quelque chose comme le petit dieu pénate.

Tantôt visible, tantôt invisible, il présidait à tous les actes de la

vie domestique. Mieux encore: il y participait, et de la façon la plus

efficace. A l'intérieur du logis, il aidait les servantes, soufflait le

feu dans l'âtre, surveillait la cuisson de la nourriture pour les hommes

ou pour les bêtes, apaisait les cris de l'enfant couché dans le bas de

l'armoire, empêchait les vers de se mettre dans les pièces de lard

suspendues aux solives. Il avait pareillement dans son lot le

gouvernement des étables et des écuries: grâce à lui, les vaches

donnaient un lait abondant en beurre, et les chevaux avaient la croupe

ronde, le poil luisant. Il était, en un mot, le bon génie de la famille,

mais c'était à la condition que chacun eût pour lui les égards auxquels

il avait droit. Si peu qu'on lui manquât, sa bonté se changeait en

malice et il n'était point de mauvais tours dont il ne fût capable

envers les gens qui l'avaient offensé, comme de renverser le contenu des

marmites sur le foyer, d'embrouiller la laine autour des quenouilles, de

rendre infumable le tabac des pipes, d'emmêler inextricablement les

crins des chevaux, de dessécher le pis des vaches ou de faire peler le

dos des brebis. Aussi s'efforçait-on de ne le point mécontenter. On

respectait soigneusement toutes ses habitudes, toutes ses manies. C'est

ainsi que, chez mes parents, notre vieille bonne Filie n'enlevait jamais

le trépied du feu sans avoir la précaution de l'asperger d'eau pour le

refroidir, avant de le ranger au coin de l'âtre. Si vous lui demandiez

pourquoi ce rite, elle vous répondait:

'Pour que le lutin ne s'y brûle pas, si, tout à l'heure, il s'asseyait

dessus.'

* * * * *

Il appartient encore, je suppose, à la catégorie des hommes-fées, ce

_Bugul-Noz_, ce mystérieux 'Berger de la nuit' dont les Bretons des

campagnes voient se dresser, au crépuscule, la haute et troublante

silhouette, si, d'aventure, il leur arrive de rentrer tard du labour. On

n'a jamais pu me renseigner exactement sur le genre de troupeau qu'il

faisait paître, ni sur ce que présageait sa rencontre. Le plus souvent,

on la redoute. Mais, comme l'observait avec raison une de mes

conteuses, Lise Bellec, s'il est préférable d'éviter le _Bugul-Noz_, il

ne s'ensuit pas, pour cela, que ce soit un méchant Esprit. D'après elle,

il remplirait plutôt une fonction salutaire, en signifiant aux humains,

par sa venue, que la nuit n'est pas faite pour s'attarder aux champs ou

sur les chemins, mais pour s'enfermer derrière les portes closes et pour

dormir. Ce berger des ombres serait donc, somme toute, une manière de

bon pasteur. C'est pour assurer notre repos et notre sécurité, c'est

pour nous soustraire aux excès du travail et aux embûches de la nuit

qu'il nous force, brebis imprudentes, à regagner promptement le bercail.

Sans doute est-ce un rôle tutélaire à peu près semblable qui, dans la

croyance populaire, est dévolu à un autre homme-fée, plus spécialement

affecté au rivage de la mer, comme l'indique son nom de _Yann-An-Ôd_. Il

n'y a pas, sur tout le littoral maritime de la Bretagne ou, comme on

dit, dans tout l'_armor_, une seule région ou l'existence de ce 'Jean

des Grèves' ne soit tenue pour un fait certain, dûment constaté,

indéniable. On lui prête des formes variables et des aspects différents.

C'est tantôt un géant, tantôt un nain. Il porte tantôt un 'suroit' de

toile huilée, tantôt un large chapeau de feutre noir. Parfois, il

s'appuie sur une rame et fait penser au personnage énigmatique, armé du

même attribut, qu'Ulysse doit suivre, dans l'_Odyssée_. Mais, toujours,

c'est un héros marin dont la mission est de parcourir les plages, en

poussant par intervalles de longs cris stridents, propres à effrayer les

pêcheurs qui se seraient laissé surprendre dehors par les ténèbres de la

nuit. Il ne fait de mal qu'à ceux qui récalcitrent; encore ne les

frappe-t-il que dans leur intérêt, pour les contraindre à se mettre à

l'abri. Il est, avant tout, un 'avertisseur'. Ses cris ne rappellent pas

seulement au logis les gens attardés sur les grèves; ils signalent aussi

le dangereux voisinage de la côte aux marins qui sont en mer et, par là,

suppléent à l'insuffisance du mugissement des sirènes ou de la lumière

des phares.

Remarquons, à ce propos, qu'on relève un trait analogue dans la légende

des vieux saints armoricains, pour la plupart émigrés d'Irlande. Un de

leurs exercices coutumiers consistait à déambuler de nuit le long des

côtes où ils avaient établi leurs oratoires, en agitant des clochettes

de fer battu dont les tintements étaient destinés, comme les cris de

_Yann-An-Ôd_, à prévenir les navigateurs que la terre était proche.

Je suis persuadé que le culte des saints, qui est la première et la plus

fervente des dévotions bretonnes, conserve bien des traits d'une

religion plus ancienne où la croyance aux fées jouait le principal

rôle. Et il en va de même, j'en suis convaincu, pour ces mythes

funéraires que j'ai recueillis sous le titre de _La Légende de la Mort_

chez les Bretons armoricains. A vrai dire, dans la conception bretonne,

les morts ne sont pas morts; ils vivent d'une vie mystérieuse en marge

de la vie réelle, mais leur monde reste, en définitive, tout mêlé au

nôtre et, sitôt que la nuit tombe, sitôt que les vivants proprement dits

s'abandonnent à la mort momentanée du sommeil, les soi-disant morts

redeviennent les habitants de la terre qu'ils n'ont jamais quittée. Ils

reprennent leur place à leur foyer d'autrefois, ils vaquent à leurs

anciens travaux, ils s'intéressent au logis, aux champs, à la barque;

ils se comportent, en un mot, comme ce peuple des hommes et des

femmes-fées qui formait jadis une espèce d'humanité plus fine et plus

délicate au milieu de la véritable humanité.

* * * * *

J'aurais encore, mon cher monsieur Wentz, bien d'autres types à évoquer,

dans cet intermonde de la féerie bretonne qui, chez mes compatriotes, ne

se confond ni avec ce monde-ci, ni avec l'autre, mais participe à la

fois de tous les deux, par un singulier mélange de naturel et de

surnaturel. Je n'ai voulu, en ces lignes rapides, que montrer la

richesse de la matière à laquelle vous avez, avec tant de conscience et

de ferveur, appliqué votre effort. Et maintenant, que les fées vous

soient douces, mon cher ami! Elles ne seront que justes en favorisant de

toute leur tendresse le jeune et brillant écrivain qui vient de

restaurer leur culte en rénovant leur gloire.

RENNES,

ce 1{er} _novembre_ 1910.

My dear Mr. Wentz,

I recollect that, at the time of your examination on your thesis

before the Faculty of Letters of the University of Rennes, one of my

colleagues, my friend Professor Dottin, put to you this question:--

'You believe, you assert, in the existence of fairies? Have you seen

any?'

You answered, with equal coolness and candour:

'No. I have made every effort to do so, and I have never seen any.

But there are many things which you, sir, have not seen, and of

which, nevertheless, you would not think of denying the existence.

That is my attitude toward fairies.'

I am like you, my dear Mr. Wentz: I have never seen fairies. It is

true that I have a very dear lady friend whom we have christened by

that name [fairy], but, in spite of all her fair supernatural gifts,

she is only a humble mortal. On the other hand, I lived, when a mere

child, among people who had almost daily intercourse with real

fairies.

That was in a little township in Lower Brittany, inhabited by

peasants who were half sailors, and by sailors who were half

peasants. There was, not far from the village, an ancient

manor-house long abandoned by its owners, for what reason was not

known exactly. It continued to be called the 'Château' of Lanascol,

though it was hardly more than a ruin. It is true that the avenues

by which one approached it had retained their feudal aspect, with

their fourfold rows of ancient beeches whose huge masses of foliage

were reflected in splendid pools. The people of the neighbourhood

seldom ventured into these avenues in the evening. They were

supposed to be, from sunset onwards, the favourite walking-ground of

a 'lady' who went by the name of _Groac'h Lanascol_, the 'Fairy of

Lanascol'.

Many claimed to have met her, and described her in colours which

were, however, the most varied. Some represented her as an old woman

who walked all bent, her two hands leaning on a stump of a crutch

with which, in autumn, from time to time she stirred the dead

leaves. The dead leaves which she thus stirred became suddenly

shining like gold, and clinked against one another with the clear

sound of metal. According to others, it was a young princess,

marvellously adorned, after whom there hurried curious little black

silent men. She advanced with a majestic and queenly bearing.

Sometimes she stopped in front of a tree, and the tree at once bent

down as if to receive her commands. Or again, she would cast a look

on the water of a pool, and the pool trembled to its very depths, as

though stirred by an access of fear beneath the potency of her look.

The following strange story was told about her:--

The owners of Lanascol having desired to get rid of an estate which

they no longer occupied, the manor and lands attached to it were put

up to auction by a notary of Plouaret. On the day fixed for the

bidding a number of purchasers presented themselves. The price had

already reached a large sum, and the estate was on the point of

being knocked down, when, on a last appeal from the auctioneer, a

female voice, very gentle and at the same time very imperious, was

raised and said:

'A thousand francs more!'

A great commotion arose in the hall. Every one's eyes sought for the

person who had made this advance, and who could only be a woman. But

there was not a single woman among those present. The notary asked:

'Who spoke?'

Again the same voice made itself heard.

'The Fairy of Lanascol!' it replied.

A general break-up followed. From that time forward no purchaser has

ever appeared, and, as the current report ran, that was the reason

why Lanascol continued to be for sale.

I have designedly quoted to you the story of the Fairy of Lanascol,

my dear Mr. Wentz, because she was the first to make an impression

on me in my childhood. How many others have I come to know later on

in the course of narratives from those who lived with me on the

sandy beaches, in the fields or the woods! Brittany has always been

a kingdom of Faerie. One cannot there travel even a league without

brushing past the dwelling of some male or female fairy. Quite

lately, in the course of an autumn pilgrimage to the hallucinatory

forest of Paimpont (or Brocéliande), still haunted throughout by the

great memories of Celtic legend, I encountered beneath the thick

foliage of the Pas-du-Houx, a woman gathering faggots, with whom I

did not fail, as you may well imagine, to enter into conversation.

One of the first names I uttered was naturally that of Vivian.

'Vivian!' cried out the poor old woman. 'Ah! a blessing on her, the

good Lady! for she is as good as she is beautiful.... Without her

protection my good man, who works at woodcutting, would have fallen,

like a wolf, beneath the keepers' guns....' And she began to narrate

to me 'as how' her husband, something of a poacher like all the

woodcutters of these districts, had one night gone to watch for a

roebuck in the neighbourhood of the Butte-aux-Plaintes, and had been

caught red-handed by a party of keepers. He sought to fly: the

keepers fired. A bullet hit him in the thigh: he fell, and was

making ready to let himself be killed on the spot, rather than

surrender, when there suddenly interposed between him and his

assailants a kind of very thick mist which covered everything--the

ground, the trees, the keepers, and the wounded man himself. And he

heard a voice coming out of the mist, a voice gentle like the

rustling of leaves, and murmuring in his ear: 'Save thyself, my son:

the spirit of Vivian will watch over thee till thou hast crawled out

of the forest.'

'Such were the actual words of the fairy,' concluded the

faggot-gatherer. And she crossed herself devoutly, for pious

Brittany, as you know, reveres fairies as much as saints.

* * * * *

I do not know if _lutins_ (mischievous spirits) should be included

in the fairy world, but what is certain is that this charming and

roguish tribe has always abounded in our country. I have been told

that formerly every house had its own. It (the _lutin_) was

something like the little Roman household god. Now visible, now

invisible, it presided over all the acts of domestic life. Nay more;

it shared in them, and in the most effective manner. Inside the

house it helped the servants, blew up the fire on the hearth,

supervised the cooking of the food for men or beasts, quieted the

crying of the babe lying in the bottom of the cupboard, and

prevented worms from settling in the pieces of bacon hanging from

the beams. Similarly there fell within its sphere the management of

the byres and stables: thanks to it the cows gave milk abounding in

butter, and the horses had round croups and shining coats. It was,

in a word, the good genius of the house, but conditionally on every

one paying to it the respect to which it had the right. If

neglected, ever so little, its kindness changed into spite, and

there was no unkind trick of which it was not capable towards people

who had offended it, such as upsetting the contents of the pots on

the hearth, entangling wool round distaffs, making tobacco

unsmokeable, mixing a horse's mane in inextricable confusion, drying

up the udders of cows, or stripping the backs of sheep. Therefore

care was taken not to annoy it. Careful attention was paid to all

its habits and humours. Thus, in my parents' house, our old maid

Filie never lifted the trivet from the fire without taking the

precaution of sprinkling it with water to cool it, before putting it

away at the corner of the hearth. If you asked her the reason for

this ceremony, she would reply to you:

'To prevent the _lutin_ burning himself there, if, presently, he sat

on it.'

* * * * *

Further, I suppose there should be included in the class of male

fairies that _Bugul-Noz_, that mysterious Night Shepherd, whose tall

and alarming outline the rural Bretons see rising in the twilight,

if, by chance, they happen to return late from field-work. I have

never been able to obtain exact information about the kind of herd

which he fed, nor about what was foreboded by the meeting with him.

Most often such a meeting is dreaded. Yet, as one of my female

informants, Lise Bellec, reasonably pointed out, if it is preferable

to avoid the _Bugul-Noz_ it does not from that follow that he is a

harmful spirit. According to her, he would rather fulfil a

beneficial office, in warning human beings, by his coming, that

night is not made for lingering in the fields or on the roads, but

for shutting oneself in behind closed doors and going to sleep. This

shepherd of the shades would then be, take it altogether, a kind of

good shepherd. It is to ensure our rest and safety, to withdraw us

from excesses of toil and the snares of night, that he compels us,

thoughtless sheep, to return quickly to the fold.

No doubt it is an almost similar protecting office which, in popular

belief, has fallen to another male fairy, more particularly attached

to the seashore, as his name, _Yann-An-Ôd_, indicates. There is not,

along all the coast of Brittany or, as it is called, in all the

_Armor_, a single district where the existence of this 'John of the

Dunes' is not looked on as a real fact, fully proved and undeniable.

Changing forms and different aspects are attributed to him.

Sometimes he is a giant, sometimes a dwarf. Sometimes he wears a

seaman's hat of oiled cloth, sometimes a broad black felt hat. At

times he leans on an oar and recalls the enigmatic personage,

possessed of the same attribute, whom Ulysses has to follow, in the

_Odyssey_. But he is always a marine hero whose office it is to

traverse the shores, uttering at intervals long piercing cries,

calculated to frighten away fishermen who may have allowed

themselves to be surprised outside by the darkness of night. He only

hurts those who resist; and even then would only strike them in

their own interest, to force them to seek shelter. He is, before

all, one who warns. His cries not only call back home people out

late on the sands; they also inform sailors at sea of the dangerous

proximity of the shore, and, thereby, make up for the insufficiency

of the hooting of sirens or of the light of lighthouses.

We may remark, in this connexion, that a parallel feature is

observed in the legend of the old Armorican saints, who were mostly

emigrants from Ireland. One of their usual exercises consisted in

parading throughout the night the coasts where they had set up their

oratories, shaking little bells of wrought iron, the ringing of

which, like the cries of _Yann-An-Ôd_, was intended to warn voyagers

that land was near.

I am persuaded that the worship of saints, which is the first and

most fervent of Breton religious observances, preserves many of the

features of a more ancient religion in which a belief in fairies

held the chief place. The same, I feel sure, applies to those

death-myths which I have collected under the name of the Legend of

the Dead among the Armorican Bretons. In truth, in the Breton mind,

the dead are not dead; they live a mysterious life on the edge of

real life, but their world remains fully mingled with ours, and as

soon as night falls, as soon as the living, properly so called, give

themselves up to the temporary sleep of death, the so-called dead

again become the inhabitants of the earth which they have never

left. They resume their place at their former hearth, devote

themselves to their old work, take an interest in the home, the

fields, the boat; they behave, in a word, like the race of male and

female fairies which once formed a more refined and delicate species

of humanity in the midst of ordinary humanity.

* * * * *

I might, my dear Mr. Wentz, evoke many other types from this

intermediate world of Breton Faerie, which, in my countrymen's mind,

is not identical with this world nor with the other, but shares at

once in both, through a curious mixture of the natural and

supernatural. I have only intended in these hasty lines to show the

wealth of material to which you have with so much conscientiousness

and ardour devoted your efforts. And now may the fairies be

propitious to you, my dear friend! They will do nothing but justice

in favouring with all their goodwill the young and brilliant writer

who has but now revived their cult by renewing their glory.

RENNES,

_November_ 1, 1910.

BRETON FAIRIES OR _FÉES_

In Lower Brittany, which is the genuinely Celtic part of Armorica,

instead of finding a widespread folk-belief in fairies of the kind

existing in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, we find a widespread

folk-belief in the existence of the dead, and to a less extent in that

of the _corrigan_ tribes. For our Psychological Theory this is very

significant. It seems to indicate that among the Bretons--who are one of

the most conservative Celtic peoples--the Fairy-Faith finds its chief

expression in a belief that men live after death in an invisible world,

just as in Ireland the dead and fairies live in Fairyland. This opinion

was first suggested to me by Professor Anatole Le Braz, author of _La

Légende de la Mort_, and by Professor Georges Dottin, both of the

University of Rennes. But before evidence to sustain and to illustrate

this opinion is offered, it will be well to consider the less important

Breton _fées_ or beings like them, and then _corrigans_ and _nains_

(dwarfs).

_The 'Grac'hed Coz'._--F. M. Luzel, who collected so many of the popular

stories in Brittany, found that what few _fées_ or fairies there are

almost always appear in folk-lore as little old women, or as the Breton

story-teller usually calls them, _Grac'hed coz_. I have selected and

abridged the following legendary tale from his works to illustrate the

nature of these Breton fairy-folk:--

In ancient times, as we read in _La Princesse Blondine_, a rich nobleman

had three sons; the oldest was called Cado, the second, Méliau, and the

youngest, Yvon. One day, as they were together in a forest with their

bows and arrows, they met a little old woman whom they had never seen

before, and she was carrying on her head a jar of water. 'Are you able,

lads,' Cado asked his two brothers, 'to break with an arrow the jar of

the little old woman without touching her?' 'We do not wish to try it,'

they said, fearing to injure the good woman. 'All right, I'll do it

then, watch me.' And Cado took his bow and let fly an arrow. The arrow

went straight to its mark and split the jar without touching the little

old woman; but the water wet her to the skin, and, in anger, she said to

the skilful archer: 'You have failed, Cado, and I will be revenged on

you for this. From now until you have found the Princess Blondine all

the members of your body will tremble as leaves on a tree tremble when

the north wind blows.' And instantly Cado was seized by a trembling

malady in all his body. The three brothers returned home and told their

father what had happened; and the father, turning to Cado, said: 'Alas,

my unfortunate son, you have failed. It is now necessary for you to

travel until you find the Princess Blondine, as the _fée_ said, for that

little old woman was a _fée_, and no doctor in the world can cure the

malady she has put upon you.'[76]

_'Fées' of Lower Brittany._--Throughout the Morbihan and Finistère, I

found that stories about _fées_ are much less common than about

_corrigans_, and in some localities extremely rare; but the ones I have

been fortunate enough to collect are much the same in character as those

gathered in the Côtes-du-Nord by Luzel, and elsewhere by other

collectors. Those I here record were told to me at Carnac during the

summer of 1909; the first one by M. Yvonne Daniel, a native of the Île

de Croix (off the coast north-west of Carnac); and the others by M.

Goulven Le Scour.[77]

'The little Île de Croix was especially famous for its old _fées_; and

the following legend is still believed by its oldest inhabitants:--"An

aged man who had suffered long from leprosy was certain to die within a

short time, when a woman bent double with age entered his house. She

asked from what malady he suffered, and on being informed began to say

prayers. Then she breathed upon the sores of the leper, and almost

suddenly disappeared: the _fée_ had cured him."'

'It is certain that about fifty years ago the people in Finistère still

believed in _fées_. It was thought that the _fées_ were spirits who came

to predict some unexpected event in the family. They came especially to

console orphans who had very unkind step-mothers. In their youth, Tanguy

du Chatel and his sister Eudes were protected by a _fée_ against the

misfortune which pursued them; the history of Brittany says so. In Léon

it is said that the _fées_ served to guide unfortunate people, consoling

them with the promise of a happy and victorious future. In the

Cornouailles, on the contrary, it is said that the _fées_ were very

evilly disposed, that they were demons.

'My grandmother, Marie Le Bras, had related to me that one evening an

old _fée_ arrived in my village, Kerouledic (Finistère), and asked for

hospitality. It was about the year 1830. The _fée_ was received; and

before going to bed she predicted that the little daughter whom the

mother was dressing in night-clothes would be found dead in the cradle

the next day. This prediction was only laughed at; but in the morning

the little one was dead in her cradle, her eyes raised toward Heaven.

The _fée_, who had slept in the stable, was gone.'

In these last three accounts, by M. Le Scour, we observe three quite

different ideas concerning the Breton fairies or _fées_: in Finistère

and in Léon the _fées_ are regarded as good protecting spirits, almost

like ancestral spirits, which originally they may have been; in the

Cornouailles they are evil spirits; while in the third account, about

the old _fée_--and in the legend of the leper cured by a _fée_--the

_fées_ are rationalized, as in Luzel's tale quoted above, into

sorceresses or _Grac'hed Coz_.

_Children Changed by 'Fées'._--M. Goulven Le Scour, at my request, wrote

down in French the following account of actual changelings in

Finistère:--'I remember very well that there was a woman of the village

of Kergoff, in Plouneventer, who was called ----,[78] the mother of a

family. When she had her first child, a very strong and very pretty boy,

she noticed one morning that he had been changed during the night; there

was no longer the fine baby she had put to bed in the evening; there

was, instead, an infant hideous to look at, greatly deformed,

hunchbacked, and crooked, and of a black colour. The poor woman knew

that a _fée_ had entered the house during the night and had changed her

child.

'This changed infant still lives, and to-day he is about seventy years

old. He has all the possible vices; and he has tried many times to kill

his mother. He is a veritable demon; he often predicts the future, and

has a habit of running abroad during the night. They call him the

"Little _Corrigan_", and everybody flees from him. Being poor and infirm

now, he has been obliged to beg, and people give him alms because they

have great fear of him. His nick-name is Olier.

'This woman had a second, then a third child, both of whom were seen by

everybody to have been born with no infirmity; and, in turn, each of

these two was stolen by a _fée_ and replaced by a little hunchback. The

second child was a most beautiful daughter. She was _taken_ during the

night and replaced by a little girl babe, so deformed that it resembled

a ball. If her brother Olier was bad, she was even worse; she was the

terror of the village, and they called her Anniac. The third child met

the same luck, but was not so bad as the first and second.

'The poor mother, greatly worried at seeing what had happened, related

her troubles to another woman. This woman said to her, "If you have

another child, place with it in the cradle a little sprig of box-wood

which has been blessed (by a priest), and the _fée_ will no longer have

the power of stealing your children." And when a fourth child was born

to the unfortunate woman it was not stolen, for she placed in the cradle

a sprig of box-wood which had been blessed on Palm Sunday (_Dimanche des

Rameaux_).[79]

'The first three children I knew very well, and they were certainly

hunchbacked: it is pretended in the country that the _fées_ who come at

night to make changelings always leave in exchange hunchbacked infants.

It is equally pretended that a mother who has had her child so changed

need do nothing more than leave the little hunchback out of doors crying

during entire hours, and that the _fée_ hearing it will come and put the

true child in its place. Unfortunately, Yvonna ---- did not know what

she should have done in order to have her own children again.'

_Transformation Power of 'Fées'._--At Kerallan, near Carnac, this is

what Madame Louise Le Rouzic said about the transformation power of

_fées_:--'It is said that the _fées_ of the region when insulted

sometimes changed men into beasts or into stones.'[80]

_Other Breton Fairies._--Besides the various types of _fées_ already

described, we find in Luzel's collected stories a few other types of

fairy-like beings: in _Les Compagnons_ (The Companions),[81] the _fée_

is a magpie in a forest near Rennes--just as in other Celtic lands,

fairies likewise often appear as birds (see our study, pp. 302 ff.); in

_La Princesse de l'Étoile Brillante_ (The Princess of the Brilliant

Star),[81] a princess under the form of a duck plays the part of a fairy

(cf. how fairy women took the form of water-fowls in the tale entitled

the _Sick Bed of Cuchulainn_ (see our study, p. 345); in _Pipi Menou et

les Femmes Volantes_ (Pipi Menou and the Flying Women),[81] there are

fairy women as swan-maidens; and then there are yet to be mentioned _Les

Morgans de l'île d'Ouessant_ (The _Morgans_ of the Isle of Ushant), who

live under the sea in rare palaces where mortals whom they love and

marry are able to exist with them. In some legends of the _Morgans_,

like one recorded by Luzel, the men and women of this water-fairy race,

or the _Morgans_ and _Morganezed_, seem like anthropomorphosed survivals

of ancient sea-divinities, such, for example, as the sea-god called

_Shony_, to whom the people of Lewis, Western Hebrides, still pour

libations that he may send in sea-weed, and the sea-god to whom

anciently the people of Iona poured libations.[82]

_The 'Morgan'._--To M. J. Cuillandre (Glanmor), President of the

_Fédération des Étudiants Bretons_, I am indebted for the following

weird legend of the _Morgan_, as it is told among the Breton fisher-folk

on the Île Molène, Finistère:--'Following a legend which I have

collected on the Île Molène, the _Morgan_ is a fairy eternally young, a

virgin seductress whose passion, never satisfied, drives her to despair.

Her place of abode is beneath the sea; there she possesses marvellous

palaces where gold and diamonds glimmer. Accompanied by other fairies,

of whom she is in some respects the queen, she rises to the surface of

the waters in the splendour of her unveiled beauty. By day she slumbers

amid the coolness of grottoes, and woe to him who troubles her sleep. By

night she lets herself be lulled by the waves in the neighbourhood of

the rocks. The sea-foam crystallizes at her touch into precious stones,

of whiteness as dazzling as that of her body. By moonlight she moans as

she combs her fair hair with a comb of fine gold, and she sings in a

harmonious voice a plaintive melody whose charm is irresistible. The

sailor who listens to it feels himself drawn toward her, without power

to break the charm which drags him onward to his destruction; the bark

is broken upon the reefs: the man is in the sea, and the _Morgan_ utters

a cry of joy. But the arms of the fairy clasp only a corpse; for at her

touch men die, and it is this which causes the despair of the amorous

and inviolate _Morgan_. She being pagan, it suffices to have been

touched by her in order to suffer the saddest fate which can be reserved

to a Christian. The unfortunate one whom she had clasped is condemned to

wander for ever in the trough of the waters, his eyes wide open, the

mark of baptism effaced from his forehead. Never will his poor remains

know the sweetness of reposing in holy ground, never will he have a tomb

where his kindred might come to pray and to weep.'

_Origin of the 'Morgan'._--The following legendary origin is attributed

to the _Morgan_ by M. Goulven Le Scour, our Carnac witness:--'Following

the old people and the Breton legends, the _Morgan_ (_Mari Morgan_ in

Breton) was Dahut, the daughter of King Gradlon, who was ruler of the

city of Is. Legend records that when Dahut had entered at night the

bedchamber of her father and had cut from around his neck the cord which

held the key of the sea-dike flood-gates, and had given this key to the

Black Prince, under whose evil love she had fallen, and who, according

to belief, was no other than the Devil, St. Guenolé soon afterwards

began to cry aloud, "Great King, arise! The flood-gates are open, and

the sea is no longer restrained!"[83] Suddenly the old King Gradlon

arose, and, leaping on his horse, was fleeing from the city with St.

Guenolé, when he encountered his own daughter amid the waves. She

piteously begged aid of her father, and he took her up behind him on the

horse; but St. Guenolé, seeing that the waters were gaining on them,

said to the king, "Throw into the sea the demon you have behind you, and

we shall be saved!" Thereupon Gradlon flung his daughter into the abyss,

and he and St. Guenolé were saved. Since that time, the fishermen

declare that they have seen, in times of rough sea and clear moonlight,

Dahut, daughter of King Gradlon, sitting on the rocks combing her fair

hair and singing, in the place where her father flung her. And to-day

there is recognized under the Breton name _Marie Morgan_, the daughter

who sings amid the sea.'

_Breton Fairyland Legends._--In a legend concerning Mona and the king of

the _Morgans_, much like the Christabel story of English poets, we have

a picture of a fairyland not under ground, but under sea; and this

legend of Mona and her _Morgan_ lover is one of the most beautiful of

all the fairy-tales of Brittany.[84] Another one of Luzel's legends,

concerning a maiden who married a dead man, shows us Fairyland as a

world of the dead. It is a very strange legend, and one directly bearing

on the Psychological Theory; for this dead man, who is a dead priest,

has a palace in a realm of enchantment, and to enter his country one

must have a white fairy-wand with which to strike 'in the form of a

cross' two blows upon the rock concealing the entrance.[84] M. Paul

Sébillot records from Upper Brittany a tradition that beneath the

sea-waves there one can see a subterranean world containing fields and

villages and beautiful castles; and it is so pleasant a world that

mortals going there find years no longer than days.[85]

_Fairies of Upper Brittany._[86]--Principally in Upper Brittany, M.

Sébillot found rich folk-lore concerning _fées_, though some of his

material is drawn from peasants and fishermen who are not so purely

Celtic as those in Lower Brittany; and he very concisely summarizes the

various names there given to the fairy-folk as follows:--'They are

generally called _Fées_ (Fairies), sometimes _Fêtes_ (Fates), a name

nearer than _fées_ to the Latin _Fata_; _Fête_ (fem.) and _Fête_ (mas.)

are both used, and from _Fête_ is probably derived _Faito_ or _Faitaud_,

which is the name borne by the fathers, the husbands, or the children of

the _fées_ (Saint-Cast). Near Saint-Briac (Ille-et-Vilaine) they are

sometimes called _Fions_; this term, which is applied to both sexes,

seems also to designate the mischievous _lutins_ (sprites). Round the

Mené, in the cantons of Collinée and of Moncontour, they are called

_Margot la Fée_, or _ma Commère_ (my Godmother) _Margot_, or even the

_Bonne Femme_ (Good Woman) _Margot_. On the coast they are often enough

called by the name of _Bonnes Dames_ (Good Ladies), or of _nos Bonnes

Mères les Fées_ (our Good Mothers the Fairies); usually they are spoken

of with a certain respect.'[87] As the same authority suggests, probably

the most characteristic _Fées_ in Upper Brittany are the _Fées des

Houles_ (Fairies of the Billows); and traditions say that they lived in

natural caverns or grottoes in the sea-cliffs. They form a distinct

class of sea-fairies unknown elsewhere in France or Europe.[88] M.

Sébillot regards them as sea-divinities greatly rationalized. Associated

with them are the _fions_, a race of dwarfs having swords no bigger than

pins.[88] A pretty legend about magic buckwheat cakes, which in

different forms is widespread throughout all Brittany, is told of these

little cave-dwelling fairies:--

Like the larger _fées_ the _fions_ kept cattle; and one day a black cow

belonging to the _fions_ of Pont-aux-Hommes-Nées ate the buckwheat in

the field of a woman of that neighbourhood. The woman went to the

_fions_ to complain, and in reply to her a voice said: 'Hold your

tongue; you will be paid for your buckwheat!' Thereupon the _fions_ gave

the woman a cupful of buckwheat, and promised her that it would never

diminish so long as none should be given away. That year buckwheat was

very scarce, but no matter how many buckwheat cakes the woman and her

family ate there was never diminution in the amount of the fairy

buckwheat. At last, however, the unfortunate hour came. A rag-gatherer

arrived and asked for food. Thoughtlessly the woman gave him one of her

buckwheat cakes, and suddenly, as though by magic, all the rest of the

buckwheat disappeared for ever.

Along the Rance the inhabitants tell about _fées_ who appear during

storms. These storm-fairies are dressed in the colours of the rainbow,

and pass along following a most beautiful _fée_ who is mounted in a boat

made from a nautilus of the southern seas. And the boat is drawn by two

sea-crabs. In no other place in Brittany are similar _fées_ said to

exist.[89] In Upper Brittany, as in Lower Brittany, the _fées_ generally

had their abodes in tumuli, in dolmens, in forests, in waste lands where

there are great rocks, or about menhirs; and many other kinds of spirits

lived in the sea and troubled sailors and fisher-folk. Like all

fairy-folk of Celtic countries, those of Upper Brittany were given to

stealing children. Thus at Dinard not long ago there was a woman more

than thirty years old who was no bigger than a girl of ten, and it was

said she was a fairy changeling.[90] In Lower Brittany the _taking_ of

children was often attributed to dwarfs rather than to _fées_, though

the method of making the changeling speak is the same as in Upper

Brittany, namely, to place in such a manner before an open fire a number

of eggshells filled with water that they appear to the changeling--who

is placed where he can well observe all the proceedings--like so many

small pots of cooking food; whereupon, being greatly astonished at the

unusual sight, he forgets himself and speaks for the first time, thus

betraying his demon nature.

The following midwife story, as told by J. M. Comault, of Gouray, in

1881, is quite a parallel to the one we have recorded (on p. 54) as

coming from Grange, Ireland:--A midwife who delivered a _Margot la fée_

carelessly allowed some of the fairy ointment to get on one of her own

eyes. The eye at once became clairvoyant, so that she beheld the _fées_

in their true nature. And, quite like a midwife in a similar story about

the _fées des houles_, this midwife happened to see a _fée_ in the act

of stealing, and spoke to her. Thereupon the _fée_ asked the midwife

with which eye she beheld her, and when the midwife indicated which one

it was, the _fée_ pulled it out.[91]

Generally, like their relatives in insular Celtdom, the fairies of Upper

Brittany could assume various forms, and could even transform the human

body; and they were given to playing tricks on mortals, and always to

taking revenge on them if ill-treated. In most ways they were like other

races of fairies, Celtic and non-Celtic, though very much

anthropomorphosed in their nature by the peasant and mariner.

As a rule, the _fées_ of Upper Brittany are described in legend as young

and very beautiful. Some, however, appear to be centuries old, with

teeth as long as a human hand, and with backs covered with seaweeds, and

mussels, or other marine growths, as an indication of their great

age.[92] At Saint-Cast they are said to be dressed (like the _corrigans_

at Carnac, see p. 208) in _toile_, a kind of heavy linen cloth.[92]

On the sea-coast of Upper Brittany the popular opinion is that the

_fées_ are a fallen race condemned to an earthly exile for a certain

period. In the region of the Mené, canton of Collinée, the old folk say

that, after the angels revolted, those left in paradise were divided

into two parts: those who fought on the side of God and those who

remained neutral. These last, already half-fallen, were sent to the

earth for a time, and became the _fées_.[92]

The general belief in the interior of Brittany is that the _fées_ once

existed, but that they disappeared as their country was changed by

modern conditions. In the region of the Mené and of Ercé

(Ille-et-Vilaine) it is said that for more than a century there have

been no _fées_; and on the sea-coast, where it is still firmly believed

that the _fées_ used to live in the billows or amid certain grottoes in

the cliffs against which the billows broke, the opinion is that they

disappeared at the beginning of the last century. The oldest Bretons say

that their parents or grandparents often spoke about having seen _fées_,

but very rarely do they say that they themselves have seen _fées_. M.

Sébillot found only two who had. One was an old needle-woman of

Saint-Cast, who had such fear of _fées_ that if she was on her way to do

some sewing in the country, and it was night, she always took a long

circuitous route to avoid passing near a field known as the _Couvent des

Fées_. The other was Marie Chéhu, a woman eighty-eight years old.[93]

THE _CORRIGAN_ RACE[94]

It is the _corrigan_ race, however, which, more than _fées_ or fairies,

forms a large part of the invisible inhabitants of Brittany; and this

race of _corrigans_ and _nains_ (dwarfs) may be made to include many

kinds of _lutins_, or as they are often called by the peasant, _follets_

or _esprits follets_ (playful elves). Though the peasants both in Upper

and in Lower Brittany may have no strong faith in _fées_, most of them

say that _corrigans_, or _nains_, and mischievous house-haunting spirits

still exist. But in a few localities, as M. Sébillot discovered, there

is an opinion that the _lutins_ departed with the _fées_, and with them

will return in this century, because during each century with an odd

number like 1900, the fairy tribes of all kinds are said to be visible

or to reappear among men, and to become invisible or to disappear during

each century with an even number like 1800. So this is the visible

century.

_Corrigans_ and _follets_ only show themselves at night, or in the

twilight. No one knows where they pass the day-time. Some _lutins_ or

_follets_, after the manner of Scotch kelpies, live solitary lives in

lakes or ponds (whereas _corrigans_ are socially united in groups or

families), and amuse themselves by playing tricks on travellers passing

by after dark. Souvestre records a story showing how the _lutins_ can

assume any animal form, but that their natural form is that of a little

man dressed in green; and that the _corrigans_ have declared war on them

for being too friendly to men.[95] From what follows about _lutins_, by

M. Goulven Le Scour, they show affinity with Pucks and such

shape-shifting hobgoblins as are found in Wales:--'The _lutins_ were

little dwarfs who generally appeared at cross-roads to attack belated

travellers. And it is related in Breton legends that these _lutins_

sometimes transformed themselves into black horses or into goats; and

whoever then had the misfortune to encounter them sometimes found his

life in danger, and was always seized with great terror.' But generally,

what the Breton peasant tells about _corrigans_ he is apt to tell at

another time about _lutins_. And both tribes of beings, so far as they

can be distinguished, are the same as the elfish peoples--pixies in

Cornwall, Robin Good-fellows in England, goblins in Wales, or brownies

in Scotland. Both _corrigans_ and _lutins_ are supposed to guard hidden

treasure; some trouble horses at night; some, like their English

cousins, may help in the house-work after all the family are asleep;

some cause nightmare; some carry a torch like a Welsh death-candle; some

trouble men and women like obsessing spirits; and nearly all of them are

mischievous. In an article in the _Revue des Traditions Populaires_ (v.

101), M. Sébillot has classified more than fifty names given to _lutins_

and _corrigans_ in Lower Brittany, according to the form under which

these spirits appear, their peculiar traits, dwelling-places, and the

country they inhabit.

Like the fairies in Britain and Ireland, the _corrigans_ and the Cornish

pixies find their favourite amusement in the circular dance. When the

moon is clear and bright they gather for their frolic near menhirs, and

dolmens, and tumuli, and at cross-roads, or even in the open country;

and they never miss an opportunity of enticing a mortal passing by to

join them. If he happens to be a good-natured man and enters their sport

heartily, they treat him quite as a companion, and may even do him some

good turn; but if he is not agreeable they will make him dance until he

falls down exhausted, and should he commit some act thoroughly

displeasing to them he will meet their certain revenge. According to a

story reported from Lorient (Morbihan)[96] it is taboo for the

_corrigans_ to make a complete enumeration of the days of the week:--

_The 'Corrigan' Taboo._--'At night, the _corrigans_ dance, singing,

"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday"; they are prohibited from

completing the enumeration of the days of the week. A _corrigan_ having

had the misfortune to permit himself to be tempted to add "Saturday",

immediately became hunchbacked. His comrades, stupefied and distressed,

attempted in vain to knock in his hump with blows of their fists.'

_'Corrigans' at Carnac._--How the tradition of the dancing _corrigans_

and their weekday song still lives, appears from the following accounts

which I found at and near Carnac, the first account having been given

during January 1909 by Madame Marie Ezanno, of Carnac, then sixty-six

years old:--'The _corrigans_ are little dwarfs who formerly, by

moonlight, used to dance in a circle on the prairies. They sang a song

the couplet of which was not understood, but only the refrain,

translated in Breton: "_Di Lun_ (Monday), _Di Merh_ (Tuesday), _Di

Merhier_ (Wednesday)."

'They whistled in order to assemble. Where they danced mushrooms grew;

and it was necessary to maintain silence so as not to interrupt them in

their dance. They were often very brutal towards a man who fell under

their power, and if they had a grudge against him they would make him

submit to the greatest tortures. The peasants believed strongly in the

_corrigans_, because they thus saw them and heard them. The _corrigans_

dressed in very coarse white linen cloth. They were mischievous spirits

(_esprits follets_), who lived under dolmens.'

One morning, M. Lemort and myself called upon Madame Louise Le Rouzic in

her neat home at Kerallan, a little group of thatched cottages about a

mile from Carnac. As we entered, Madame Le Rouzic herself was sitting on

a long wooden bench by the window knitting, and her daughter was

watching the savoury-smelling dinner as it boiled in great iron pots

hanging from chains over a brilliant fire on the hearth. Large gleaming

brass basins were ranged on a shelf above the broad open chimney-place

wherein the fire burned, and massive bedsteads carved after the Breton

style stood on the stone floor. When many things had been talked about,

our conversation turned to _corrigans_, and then the good woman of the

house told us these tales:--

_'Corrigans' at Church._--'In former times a young girl having taken the

keys of the church (presumably at Carnac) and having entered it, found

the _corrigans_ about to dance; and the _corrigans_ were singing,

"_Lundi, Mardi_" (Monday, Tuesday). On seeing the young girl, they

stopped, surrounded her, and invited her to dance with them. She

accepted, and, in singing, added to their song "_Mercredi_" (Wednesday).

In amazement, the _corrigans_ cried joyfully, "She has added something

to our song; what shall we give her as recompense?" And they gave her a

bracelet. A friend of hers meeting her, asked where the fine bracelet

came from; and the young girl told what had happened. The second girl

hurried to the church, and found the _corrigans_ still dancing the

_rond_. She joined their dance, and, in singing, added "_Jeudi_"

(Thursday) to their song; but that broke the cadence; and the

_corrigans_ in fury, instead of recompensing her wished to punish her.

"What shall we do to her?" one of them cried. "Let the day be as night

to her!" the others replied. And by day, wherever she went, she saw only

the night.'

_The 'Corrigans'' Sabbath._--'Where my grandfather lived,' continued

Madame Le Rouzic, 'there was a young girl who went to the sabbath of the

_corrigans_; and when she returned and was asked where she had been,

said, "I have travelled over water, wood, and hedges." And she related

all she had seen and heard. Then one night, afterwards, the _corrigans_

came into the house, beat her, and dragged her from bed. Upon hearing

the uproar, my grandfather arose and found the girl lying flat on the

stone floor. "Never question me again," she said to him, "or they will

kill me."'[97]

_'Corrigans' as Fairies._--Some Breton legends give _corrigans_ the

chief characteristics of fairies in Celtic Britain and Ireland; and

Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (pp. 25-30) makes the Breton word

_corrigan_ synonymous with _fée_ or fairy, thus:--'_Le Seigneur Nann et

la Fée (Aotrou Nann hag ar Corrigan)_.' In this legend the _corrigan_

seems clearly enough to be a water-fairy: 'The _Korrigan_ was seated at

the edge of her fountain, and she was combing her long fair hair.' But

unlike most water-fairies, the _Fée_ lives in a grotto, which, according

to Villemarqué, is one of those ancient monuments called in Breton

_dolmen_, or _ti ar corrigan_; in French, _Table de pierres_, or _Grotte

aux Fées_--like the famous one near Rennes. The fountain where the _Fée_

was seated seems to be one of those sacred fountains, which, as

Villemarqué says, are often found near a _Grotte aux Fées_, and called

_Fontaine de la Fée_, or in Breton, _Feunteun ar corrigan_. In another

of Villemarqué's legends, _L'Enfant Supposé_, after the egg-shell test

has been used and the little _corrigan_-changeling is replaced by the

real child, the latter as though all the while it had been in an

unconscious trance-state--which has a curious bearing on our

Psychological Theory--stretches forth its arms and awakening exclaims,

'Ah! mother, what a long time I have been asleep.'[98] And in _Les

Nains_ we see the little _Duz_ or dwarfs inhabiting a cave and guarding

treasures.[98]

In his introduction to the _Barzaz Breiz_, Villemarqué describes _les

korrigan_, whom he equates with _les fées_, as very similar to ordinary

fairies. They can foretell the future, they know the art of war--quite

like the Irish 'gentry' or Tuatha De Danann--they can assume any animal

form, and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the

twinkling of an eye. They love feasting and music--like all Celtic

fairy-folk; and dance in a circle holding hands, but at the least noise

disappear. Their favourite haunts are near fountains and dolmens. They

are little beings not more than two feet high, and beautifully

proportioned, with bodies as aerial and transparent as those of wasps.

And like all fairy, or elvish races, and like the Breton _Morgans_ or

water-spirits, they are given to stealing the children of mortals.

Professor J. Loth has called my attention to an unpublished Breton

legend of his collection, in which there are fairy-like beings

comparable to these described by Villemarqué; and he tells me, too, that

throughout Brittany one finds to-day the counterpart of the Welsh

_Tylwyth Teg_ or 'Fair Family', and that both in Wales and Brittany the

_Tylwyth Teg_ are popularly described as little women, or maidens, like

fairies no larger than children.

_Fairies and Dwarfs._--Where Villemarqué draws a clear distinction is

between these _korrigan_ and _fées_ on the one hand, and the _nains_ or

dwarfs on the other. These last are what we have found associated or

identified with _corrigans_ in the Morbihan. Villemarqué describes the

_nains_ as a hideous race of beings with dark or even black hairy

bodies, with voices like old men, and with little sparkling black eyes.

They are fond of playing tricks on mortals who fall into their power;

and are given to singing in a circular dance the weekday song. Very

often _corrigans_ regarded as _nains_, equally with all kinds of

_lutins_, are believed to be evil spirits or demons condemned to live

here on earth in a penitential state for an indefinite time; and

sometimes they seem not much different from what Irish Celts, when

talking of fairies, call fallen angels. _Le Nain de Kerhuiton_,

translated from Breton by Professor J. Loth, in part illustrates

this:--Upon seeing water boiling in a number of egg-shells ranged before

an open fire, a _polpegan_-changeling is so greatly astonished that he

unwittingly speaks for the first time, and says, 'Here I am almost one

hundred years old, and never such a thing have I yet seen!' 'Ah! son of

Satan!' then cries out the mother, as she comes from her place of hiding

and beats the _polpegan_--who thus by means of the egg-shell test has

been tricked into revealing his demon nature.[99] In a parallel story,

reported by Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 33 n.), a

_nain_-changeling is equally astonished to see a similar row of

egg-shells boiling before an open fire like so many pots of food, and

gives himself away through the following remark:--'I have seen the acorn

before the oak; I have seen the egg before the white chicken: I have

never seen the equal to this.'

_Nature of the 'Corrigans'._--As to the general ideas about the

_corrigans_, M. Le Scour says:--'Formerly the _corrigans_ were the

terror of the country-folk, especially in Finistère, in the Morbihan,

and throughout the Côtes-du-Nord. They were believed to be souls in pain

condemned to wander at night in waste lands and marshes. Sometimes they

were seen as dwarfs; and often they were not seen at all, but were heard

in houses making an infernal noise. Unlike the _lavandières de nuits_

(phantom washerwomen of the night), they were heard only in summer,

never in winter.'

THE BRETON LEGEND OF THE DEAD

We come now to the Breton Legend of the Dead, common generally to all

parts of Armorica, though probably even more widespread in Lower

Brittany than in Upper Brittany; and this we call the Armorican

Fairy-Faith. Even where the peasants have no faith in _fées_ or fairies,

and where their faith in _corrigans_ is weak or almost gone, there is a

strong conviction among them that the souls of the dead can show

themselves to the living, a vigorous belief in apparitions,

phantom-funerals, and various death-warnings. As Professor Anatole Le

Braz has so well said in his introduction to _La Légende de la Mort_,

'the whole conscience of these people is fundamentally directed toward

that which concerns death. And the ideas which they form of it, in spite

of the strong Christian imprint which they have received, do not seem

much different from those which we have pointed out among their pagan

ancestors. For them, as for the primitive Celts, death is less a change

of condition than a journey, a departure for another world.' And thus it

seems that this most popular of the Breton folk-beliefs is genuinely

Celtic and extremely ancient. As Renan has said, the Celtic people are

'a race mysterious, having knowledge of the future and the secret of

death'.[100] And whereas in Ireland unusual happenings or strange

accidents and death are attributed to fairy interference, in Brittany

they are attributed to the influence of the dead.

The Breton Celt makes no distinction between the living and the dead.

All alike inhabit this world, the one being visible, the other

invisible. Though seers can at all times behold the dead, on November

Eve (_La Toussaint_) and on Christmas Eve they are most numerous and

most easily seen; and no peasant would think of questioning their

existence. In Ireland and Scotland the country-folk fear to speak of

fairies save through an euphemism, and the Bretons speak of the dead

indirectly, and even then with fear and trembling.

The following legend, which I found at Carnac, will serve to illustrate

both the profundity of the belief in the power of the dead over the

living in Lower Brittany, and how deeply the people can be stirred by

the predictions of one who can see the dead; and the legend is quite

typical of those so common in Armorica:--

_Foretelling Deaths._--'Formerly there was a woman whom spirits

impelled to rise from her bed, it made no difference at what hour of the

night, in order to behold funerals in the future. She predicted who

should die, who should carry the corpse, who the cross, and who should

follow the _cortège_. Her predictions frightened every one, and made her

such a terror to the country that the mayor had threatened to take legal

proceedings against her if she continued her practice; but she was

compelled to tell the things which the spirits showed her. It is about

ten years since this woman died in the hospital at Auray.'

_Testimony of a Breton Seeress._--There lives in the little hamlet of

Kerlois, less than a mile from Carnac, a Breton seeress, a woman who

since eight years of age has been privileged to behold the world

invisible and its inhabitants, quite like the woman who died at Auray.

She is Madame Eugénie Le Port, now forty-two years old, and what she

tells of things seen in this invisible world which surrounds her, might

easily be taken for Irish legends about fairies. Knowing very little

French, because she is thoroughly Breton, Madame Le Port described her

visions in her own native tongue, and her eldest daughter acted as

interpreter. I had known the good woman since the previous winter, and

so we were able to converse familiarly; and as I sat in her own little

cottage, in company with her husband and daughters, and with M. Lemort,

who acted as recording secretary, this is what she said in her clear

earnest manner in answer to my questions:--

'We believe that the spirits of our ancestors surround us and live with

us. One day on a road from Carnac I encountered a woman of Kergoellec

who had been dead eight days. I asked her to move to one side so that I

could pass, and she vanished. This was eleven o'clock in the morning. I

saw her at another time in the Marsh of Breno; I spoke, but she did not

reply. On the route from Plouharnel (near Carnac) I saw in the day-time

the funeral of a woman who did not die until fifteen days afterwards. I

recognized perfectly all the people who took part in it; but the person

with me saw nothing. Another time, near three o'clock in the afternoon,

and eight days before her death, I saw upon the same route the funeral

of a woman who was drowned. And I have seen a phantom horse going to the

sabbath, and as if forced along against its will, for it reared and

pawed the earth. When Pierre Rouzic of Kerlois died, I saw a light of

all colours between heaven and earth, the very night of his death. I

have seen a woman asleep whose spirit must have been free, for I saw it

hovering outside her body. She was not awakened [at the time] for fear

that the spirit would not find its body again.' In answer to my question

as to how long these various visions usually lasted, Madame Le Port

said:--'They lasted about a quarter of an hour, or less, and all of them

disappeared instantaneously.' As Madame Le Port now seemed unable to

recall more of her visions, I finally asked her what she thought about

_corrigans_, and she replied:--'I believe they exist as some special

kind of spirits, though I have never seen any.'

_Proof that the Dead Exist._--This is what M. Jean Couton, an old

Breton, told me at Carnac:--'I am only an old peasant, without

instruction, without any education, but let me tell you what I think

concerning the dead. Following my own idea, I believe that after death

the soul always exists and travels among us. I repeat to you that I have

belief that the dead are seen; I am now going to prove this to you in

the following story:--

'One winter evening I was returning home from a funeral. I had as

companion a kinswoman of the man just buried. We took the train and soon

alighted in the station of Plouharnel. We still had three kilometres to

go before reaching home, and as it was winter, and at that epoch there

was no stage-coach, we were obliged to travel afoot. As we were going

along, suddenly there appeared to my companion her dead relative whom we

had buried that day. She asked me if I saw anything, and since I replied

to her negatively she said to me, "Touch me, and you will see without

doubt." I touched her, and I saw the same as she did, the person just

dead, whom I clearly recognized.'[101]

_Phantom Washerwomen._--Concerning a very popular Breton belief in

phantom washerwomen (_les lavandières de nuits_; or in Breton, _cannered

noz_), M. Goulven Le Scour offers the following summary:--'The

_lavandières de nuits_ were heard less often than the _corrigans_, but

were much more feared. It was usually towards midnight that they were

heard beating their linen in front of different washing-places, always

some way from the villages. According to the old folk of the past

generation, when the phantom washerwomen would ask a certain passer-by

to help them to wring sheets, he could not refuse, under pain of being

stopped and wrung like a sheet himself. And it was necessary for those

who aided in wringing the sheets to turn in the same direction as the

washerwomen; for if by misfortune the assistant turned in an opposite

direction, he had his arms wrung in an instant. It is believed that

these phantom washerwomen are women condemned to wash their mortuary

sheets during whole centuries; but that when they find some mortal to

wring in an opposite direction, they are delivered.'[102]

_Breton Animistic Beliefs._--M. Z. Le Rouzic, a Breton Celt who has

spent most of his life studying the archaeology and folk-lore of the

Morbihan, and who is at present Keeper of the Miln Museum at Carnac,

summarizes for us the state of popular beliefs as he finds them existing

in the Carnac country now:--'There are few traditions concerning the

_fées_ in the region of Carnac; but the belief in spirits, good and

bad--which seems to me to be the same as the belief in _fées_--is

general and profound, as well as the belief in the incarnation of

spirits. And I am convinced that these beliefs are the reminiscences of

ancient Celtic beliefs held by the Druids and conserved by

Christianity.'

In Finistère, as purely Breton as the Morbihan, I found the Legend of

the Dead just as widespread, and the belief in spirits and the

apparitional return of the dead quite as profound; but nothing worth

recording concerning fairies. The stories which follow were told to me

by M. Pierre Vichon, a pure Breton Celt, born at Lescoff, near the

Pointe du Raz, Finistère, in 1842. Peter is a genuine old 'sea-dog',

having made the tour of the globe, and yet he has not lost the innate

faith of his ancient ancestors in a world invisible; for though he says

he cannot believe all that the people in his part of Finistère tell

about spirits and ghosts, he must have a belief that the dead as spirits

exist and influence the living, because of his own personal

experience--one of the most remarkable of its kind. Peter speaks Breton,

French, and English fluently, and since he had an opportunity for the

first time in seventeen months of using English, he told me the stories

in my own native language:--

_Pierre Vichon's Strange Experience._--'Some forty years ago a strange

thing happened in my life. A relative of mine had taken service in the

Austrian army, for by profession he was a soldier, though at first he

had begun to study for the priesthood. During the progress of the war I

had no news from him; and, then one day while I was on the deck of a

Norwegian ship just off Dover (England), my fellow sailors heard a noise

as though of a gun being discharged, and the whirr of a shot. At the

same moment I fell down on the deck as though mortally wounded, and lay

in an unconscious state for two hours. When the news came, it was

ascertained that at the very moment I fell and the gun-report was heard,

my relative in Austria had been shot in the head and fell down dead. And

he had been seen to throw his hands up to his head to grasp it just as I

did.'

_An Apparition of the Dead._--'I had another relative who died in a

hospital near Christiania, Norway; and on the day he died a sister of

mine, then a little girl, saw his spirit appear here in Lescoff, and she

easily recognized it; but none of her girl companions with her at the

time saw the spirit. After a few days we had the news of the death, and

the time of it and the time of my sister's seeing the spirit coincided

exactly.'

In all the peninsula of which the famous and dangerous Pointe du Raz is

the terminus, similar stories are current. And among the fisher-folk

with whom I lived on the strange and historic Île de Sein, the Legend of

the Dead is even more common.

_The Dead and Fairies Compared._--Without setting down here in detail

numerous other death-legends which we have collected, we may now note

how much the same are the powers and nature of the dead and spirits in

Brittany, and the power and nature of the fairy races in Celtic Britain

and Ireland. Thus the Breton dead strike down the living just as fairies

are said to do; the _Ankou_,[103] who is a king of the dead, and his

subjects, like a fairy king and fairies, have their own particular paths

or roads over which they travel in great sacred processions;[104] and

exactly as fairies, the hosts of the dead are in possession of the earth

on November Eve, and the living are expected to prepare a feast and

entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served

on the family table covered with a fresh white table-cloth, and to

supply music. The Breton dead come to enjoy this hospitality of their

friends; and as they take their places at the table the stools are heard

to move, and sometimes the plates; and the musicians who help to

entertain them think that at times they feel the cold breath of the

invisible visitors. Concerning this same feast of the dead (_La

Toussaint_) Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 507) records that in

many parts of Brittany libations of milk are poured over or near

ancestral tombs--just as in Ireland and Scotland libations of milk are

poured to fairies. And the people of Armorica at other times than

November Eve remember the dead very appropriately, as in Ireland the

Irish remember fairies. The Breton peasant thinks of the dead as

frequently as the Irishman thinks of fairies. One day while I was

walking toward Carnac there was told to me in the most ordinary manner a

story about a dead man who used to be seen going along the very road I

was on. He quite often went to the church in Carnac seeking prayers for

his soul. And almost every man or woman one meets in rural Lower

Brittany can tell many similar stories. If a mortal should happen to

meet one of the dead in Brittany and be induced to eat food which the

dead sometimes offer, he will never be able to return among the

living,[105] for the effect would be the same as eating fairy-food. Like

ghosts and fairies in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, in Brittany the dead

guard hidden treasure. It is after sunset that the dead have most power

to strike down the living,[105] and to _take_ them just as fairies do. A

natural phenomenon, a malady, a death, or a tempest may be the work of a

spirit in Brittany,[105] and in Ireland the work of a fairy. The Breton

dead, like the Scotch fairies described in Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_,

are capable of making themselves visible or invisible to mortals, at

will.[105] Their bodies--for they have bodies--are material,[105] being

composed of matter in a state unknown to us; and the bodies of daemons

as described by the Ancients are made of congealed air. The dead in

Brittany have forms more slender and smaller in stature than those of

the living;[105] and herein we find one of the factors which supporters

of the Pygmy Theory would emphasize, but it is thoroughly psychical. Old

Breton farmers after death return to their farms, as though come from

Fairyland; and sometimes they even take a turn at the ploughing.[105] As

in Ireland, so in Brittany, the day belongs to the living, and the

night, when a mortal is safer indoors than out, to spirits and the

dead.[105] The Bretons take great care not to counterfeit the dead nor

to speak slightingly of them,[106] for, like fairies, they know all that

is done by mortals, and can hear all that is said about them, and can

take revenge. Just as in the case of all fairies and goblins, the dead

disappear at first cock-crow.[107] The world of the dead, like the land

of Faerie or the Otherworld, may be underground, in the air, in a hill

or mountain like a fairy palace, under a river or sea, and even on an

island out amid the ocean.[107] As other Celts do against evil spirits

and fairies, the Breton peasants use magic against evil souls of the

dead,[108] and the priests use exorcisms. The Breton realm of the dead

equally with the Irish Fairyland is an invisible world peopled by other

kinds of spirits besides disembodied mortals and fairies.[109] The dead

haunt houses just as Robin Good-fellows and brownies, or pixies and

goblins, generally do. The dead are fond of frequenting cross-roads, and

so are all sorts of fairies. In Brittany one must always guard against

the evil dead, in Cornwall against pixies, in other Celtic lands against

different kinds of fairies. In Ireland and Scotland there is the

banshee, in Wales the death-candle, in Brittany the _Ankou_ or king of

the dead, to foretell a death. And as the banshee wails before the

ancestral mansion, so the _Ankou_ sounds its doleful cry before the door

of the one it calls.[109] There seems not to be a family in the Carnac

region of the Morbihan without some tradition of a warning coming before

the death of one of its members. In Ireland only certain families have a

banshee, but in Brittany all families. Professor Le Braz has devoted a

large part of his work on _La Légende de la Mort_ to these Breton

death-warnings or _intersignes_. They may be shades of the dead under

many aspects--ghostly hands, or ghosts of inanimate objects. They may

come by the fall of objects without known cause; by a magpie resting on

a roof--just as in Ireland; by the crowing of cocks, and the howling of

dogs at night. They may be death-candles or torches, dreams, peculiar

bodily sensations, images in water, phantom funerals, and death-chariots

or death-coaches as in Wales.

The Bretons may be said to have a Death-Faith, whereas the other Celts

have a Fairy-Faith, and both are a real folk-religion innate in the

Celtic nature, and thus quite as influential as Christianity. Should

Christianity in some way suddenly be swept away from the Celt he would

still be religious, for it is his nature to be so. And as Professor Le

Braz has suggested to me, Carnac with its strange monuments of an

unknown people and time, and wrapped in its air of mystery and silence,

is a veritable Land of the Dead. I, too, have felt that there are

strange, vague, indefinable influences at work at Carnac at all times of

the day and night, very similar to those which I have felt in the most

fairy-haunted regions of Ireland. We might say that all of Brittany is a

Land of the Dead, and ancient Carnac its Centre, just as Ireland is

Fairyland, with its Centre at ancient Tara.

CONCLUSION

We can very appropriately conclude our inquiry about Brittany with a

very beautiful description of a _Veillée_ in Lower Brittany, written

down in French for our special use by the Breton poet, M. Le Scour, of

Carnac, and here translated. M. Le Scour draws the whole picture from

life, and from his own intimate experience. It will serve to give us

some insight into the natural literary ability of the Breton Celts, to

illustrate their love of tales dealing with the marvellous and the

supernormal, and is especially valuable for showing the social

environment amidst which the Fairy-Faith of Lower Brittany lives and

flourishes, isolated from foreign interference:--

_A 'Veillée'[110] in Lower Brittany._--'The wind was blowing from the

east, and in the intermittent moonlight the roof of the thatched cottage

already gleamed with a thin covering of snow which had fallen since

sunset. Each comer reached on the run the comfortable bakehouse, wherein

Alain Corre was at work kneading his batch of barley bread; and the

father Le Scour was never the last to arrive, because he liked to get

the best seat in front of the bake-oven.

'Victor had promised us for that night a pretty story which no person

had ever heard before. I was not more than fourteen years old then, but

like all the neighbours I hurried to get a place in order to hear

Victor. My mother was already there, making her distaff whirr between

her two fingers as she sat in the light of a rosin candle, and my

brother Yvon was finishing a wooden butter-spoon. Every few minutes I

and my little cousin went out to see if it was still snowing, and if

Victor had arrived.

'At last Victor entered, and everybody applauded, the young girls

lengthening out their distaffs to do him reverence. Then when silence

was restored, after some of the older men had several times shouted out,

"Let us commence; hold your tongues," Victor began his story as

follows:--

'"Formerly, in the village of Kastel-Laer, Plouneventer (Finistère),

there were two neighbours; the one was Paol al Ludu and the other Yon

Rustik. Paol al Ludu was a good-for-nothing sort of fellow; he gained

his living easily, by cheating everybody and by robbing his neighbours;

and being always well dressed he was much envied by his poorer

acquaintances. Yon Rustik, on the contrary, was a poor, infirm, and

honest man, always seeking to do good, but not being able to work, had

to beg.

'"One evening our two men were disputing. Paol al Ludu treated Yon

shamefully, telling him that it would be absurd to think an old lame man

such as he was could ever get to Paris; 'But I,' added Paol, 'am going

to see the capital and amuse myself like a rich _bourgeois_.' At this,

Yon offered to bet with Paol that in spite of infirmities he would also

go to Paris; and being an honest man he placed his trust in God. The

wager was mutually agreed to, and our two men set out for Paris by

different routes.

'"Paol al Ludu, who had no infirmities, arrived at Paris within three

weeks. He followed the career of a thief, and deceived everybody; and as

he was well dressed, people had confidence in him. The poor Yon Rustik,

on the contrary, did not travel rapidly. He was obliged to beg his way,

and being meanly dressed was compelled to sleep outdoors when he could

not find a stable. At the end of a month he arrived in a big forest in

the region of Versailles, and having no other shelter for the night

chose a great oak tree which was hollowed by the centuries and lined

with fungi within. In front of this ancient oak there was a fountain

which must have been miraculous, for it flowed from east to west, and

Yon had closely observed it.

'"Towards midnight Yon was awakened by a terrible uproar; there were a

hundred _corrigans_ dancing round the fountain. He overheard one of them

say to the others: 'I have news to report to you; I have cast an evil

spell upon the daughter of the King, and no mortal will ever be able to

cure her, and yet in order to cure her nothing more would be needed than

a drop of water from this fountain.' The _corrigan_ who thus spoke was

upon two sticks[111] (crippled), and commanded all the others. The

beggar having understood the conversation, awaited impatiently the

departure of the _corrigans_. When they were gone, he took a little

water from the fountain in a bottle, and hurried on to Paris, where he

arrived one fine morning.

'"In the house where Yon stopped to eat his crust of dry bread he heard

it reported that the daughter of the King was very ill, and that the

wisest doctors in France had been sent for. Three days later, Yon Rustik

presented himself at the palace, and asked audience with the King, but

as he was so shabbily dressed the attendants did not wish to let him

enter. When he strongly insisted, they finally prevailed upon the King

to receive him; and then Yon told the King that he had come to cure the

princess. Thereupon the King caused Yon to be fittingly dressed and

presented before the sick-bed; and Yon drew forth his bottle of water,

and, at his request, the princess drank it to the last drop. Suddenly

she began to laugh with joy, and throwing her arms about the neck of the

beggar thanked him: she was radically cured. At once the King gave

orders that his golden coach of state be made ready; and placing the

princess and the beggar on one seat, made a tour throughout all the most

beautiful streets of Paris. Never before were such crowds seen in Paris,

for the proclamation had gone forth that the one who had made the

miraculous cure was a beggar.

'"Paol al Ludu, who was still in Paris, pressed forward to see the royal

coach pass, and when he saw who sat next to the princess he was beside

himself with rage. But before the day was over he discovered Yon in the

great hotel of the city, and asked him how it was that he had been able

to effect the cure; and Yon replied to his old rival that it was with

the water of a miraculous fountain, and relating everything which had

passed, explained to him in what place the hollow oak and the fountain

were to be found.

'"Paol did not wait even that night, but set off at once to find the

miraculous fountain. When he finally found it the hour was almost

midnight, and so he hid himself in the hollow of the oak, hoping to

overhear some mysterious revelation. Midnight had hardly come when a

frightful uproar commenced: this time the crippled _corrigan_ chief was

swearing like a demon, and he cried to the others, 'The daughter of the

King has been cured by a beggar! He must have overheard us by hiding in

the hollow of that d----d old oak. Quick! let fire be put in it, for it

has brought us misfortune.'

'"In less than a minute, the trunk of the oak was in flames; and there

were heard the cries of anguish of Paol al Ludu and the gnashing of his

teeth, as he fought against death. Thus the evil and dishonest man ended

his life, while Yon Rustik received a pension of twenty thousand

francs, and was able to live happy for many years, and to give alms to

the poor."'

Here M. Le Scour ends his narrative, leaving the reader to imagine the

enthusiastic applause and fond embraces bestowed upon Victor for this

most marvellous story, by the happy gathering of country-folk in that

cosy warm bakehouse in Lower Brittany, while without the cold east wind

of winter was whirling into every nook and corner the falling flakes of

snow.

* * * * *

The evidence from Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and

Brittany, which the living Celtic Fairy-Faith offers, has now been

heard; and, as was stated at the beginning of the inquiry, apparently

most of it can only be interpreted as belonging to a world-wide doctrine

of souls. But before this decision can be arrived at safely, all the

evidence should be carefully estimated according to anthropological and

psychological methods; and this we shall proceed to do in the following

chapter, before passing to Section II of our study.

SECTION I

THE LIVING FAIRY-FAITH

CHAPTER III

AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE

Anthropology is concerned with man and what is in man--_humani

nihil a se alienum putat_.--ANDREW LANG.

The Celtic Fairy-Faith as part of a World-wide Animism--Shaping

Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish Spirits and

Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and Occult Sciences--The

Changeling Belief and its explanation according to the Kidnap,

Human-Sacrifice, Soul-Wandering, and Demon-Possession

Theory--Ancient and Modern Magic and Witchcraft shown to be based

on definite psychological laws--Exorcisms--Taboos, of Name, Food,

Iron, Place--Taboos among Ancient Celts--Food-Sacrifice--Legend of

the Dead--Conclusion: The background of the modern belief in

Fairies is animistic.

THE CELTIC FAIRY-FAITH AS PART OF A WORLD-WIDE ANIMISM

The modern belief in fairies, with which until now we have been

specifically concerned, is Celtic only in so far as it reflects Celtic

traditions and customs, Celtic myth and religion, and Celtic social and

environmental conditions. Otherwise, as will be shown throughout this

and succeeding chapters, it is in essence a part of a world-wide

animism, which forms the background of all religions in whatever stage

of culture religions exist or to which they have attained by evolution,

from the barbarism of the Congo black man to the civilization of the

Archbishop of Canterbury; and as far back as we can go into human

origins there is some corresponding belief in a fairy or spirit realm,

as there is to-day among contemporary civilized and uncivilized races of

all countries. We may therefore very profitably begin our examination

of the living Fairy-Faith of the Celts by comparing it with a few

examples, taken almost at random, from the animistic beliefs current

among non-Celtic peoples.

To the Arunta tribes of Central Australia, furthest removed in space

from the Celts and hence least likely to have been influenced by them,

let us go first, in order to examine their doctrine of ancestral

_Alcheringa_ beings and of the _Iruntarinia_, which offers an almost

complete parallel to the Celtic belief in fairies. These _Alcheringa_

beings and _Iruntarinia_--to ignore the secondary differences between

the two--are a spirit race inhabiting an invisible or fairy world. Only

certain persons, medicine-men and seers, can see them; and these

describe them as thin and shadowy, and, like the Irish _Sidhe_, as

always youthful in appearance. Precisely like their Celtic counterparts

in general, these Australian spirits are believed to haunt inanimate

objects such as stones and trees; or to frequent totem centres, as in

Ireland demons (daemons) are believed to frequent certain places known

to have been anciently dedicated to the religious rites of the

pre-Christian Celts; and, quite after the manner of the Breton dead and

of most fairies, they are said to control human affairs and natural

phenomena. All the Arunta invariably regard themselves as incarnations

or reincarnations of these ancestral spirit-beings; and, in accordance

with evidence to be set forth in our seventh chapter, ancient and modern

Celts have likewise regarded themselves as incarnations or

reincarnations of ancestors and of fairy beings. Also the Arunta think

of the _Alcheringa_ beings exactly as Celts think of fairies: as real

invisible entities who must be propitiated if men wish to secure their

goodwill; and as beneficent and protecting beings when not offended, who

may attach themselves to individuals as guardian spirits.[112]

Among the Melanesian peoples there is an equally firm faith in spiritual

beings, which they call _Vui_ and _Wui_, and these beings have very

many of the chief attributes of the _Alcheringa_ beings.[113]

In Africa, the _Amatongo_, or _Abapansi_ of Amazulu belief, have

essentially the same motives for action toward men and women, and

exhibit the same powers, as the Scotch and Irish peasants assign to the

'good people'. They _take_ the living through death; and people so

_taken_ appear afterwards as apparitions, having become _Amatongo_.[114]

In the New World, we find in the North American Red Men a race as much

given as the Celts are to a belief in various spirits like fairies. They

believe that there are spirits in lakes, in rivers and in waterfalls, in

rocks and trees, in the earth and in the air; and that these beings

produce storms, droughts, good and bad harvests, abundance and scarcity

of game, disease, and the varying fortunes of men. Mr. Leland, who has

carefully studied these American beliefs, says that the _Un à

games-suk_, or little spirits inhabiting rocks and streams, play a much

more influential part in the social and religious life of the North

American Red Men than elves or fairies ever did among the Aryans.[115]

In Asia there is the well-known and elaborate animistic creed of the

Chinese and of the Japanese, to be in part illustrated in subsequent

sections. In popular Indian belief, as found in the Panjab, there is no

essential difference between various orders of beings endowed with

immortality, such as ghosts and spirits on the one hand, and gods,

demi-gods, and warriors on the other; for whether in bodies in this

world or out of bodies in the invisible world, they equally live and

act--quite as fairies do.[116] Throughout the Malay Peninsula, belief in

many orders of good and bad spirits, in demon-possession, in exorcism,

and in the power of black magicians is very common.[117] But in the

_Phi_ races of Siam we discover what is probably the most important and

complete parallel to the Celtic Fairy-Faith existing in Asia.

According to the Siamese folk-belief, all the stars and various planets,

as well as the ethereal spaces, are the dwelling-places of the

_Thévadas_, gods and goddesses of the old pre-Buddhist mythology, who

correspond pretty closely to the Tuatha De Danann of Irish mythology;

and this world itself is peopled by legions of minor deities called

_Phi_, who include all the various orders of good and bad spirits

continually influencing mankind. Some of these _Phi_ live in forests, in

trees, in open spaces; and watercourses are full of them. Others inhabit

mountains and high places. A particular order who haunt the sacred trees

surrounding the Buddhist temples are known as _Phi nang mai_; and since

_nang_ is the word for female, and _mai_ for tree, they are comparable

to tree-dwelling fairies, or Greek wood-nymphs. Still another order

called _Chao phum phi_ (gods of the earth) are like house-frequenting

brownies, fairies, and pixies, or like certain orders of _corrigans_ who

haunt barns, stables, and dwellings; and in many curious details these

_Chao phum phi_ correspond to the Penates of ancient Rome. Not only is

the worship of this order of _Phi_ widespread in Siam, but to every

other order of _Phi_ altars are erected and propitiatory offerings made

by all classes of the Siamese people.[118]

Before passing westwards to Europe, in completion of our rapid folk-lore

tour of the world, we may observe that the Persians, even those who are

well educated, have a firm belief in _jinns_ and _afreets_, different

orders of good and bad spirits with all the chief characteristics of

fairies.[119] And modern Arabs and Egyptians and Egyptian Turks hold

similar animistic beliefs.[120]

In Europe, the Greek peasant as firmly believes in nymphs or nereids as

the Celtic peasant believes in fairies; and nymphs, nereids, and fairies

alike are often the survivals of an ancient mythology. Mr. J. C. Lawson,

who has very carefully investigated the folk-lore of modern Greece,

says: 'The nereids are conceived as women half-divine yet not immortal,

always young, always beautiful, capricious at best, and at their worst

cruel. Their presence is suspected everywhere. I myself had a nereid

pointed out to me by my guide, and there certainly was the semblance of

a female figure draped in white, and tall beyond human stature, flitting

in the dusk between the gnarled and twisted boles of an old olive-yard.

What the apparition was, I had no leisure to investigate; for my guide

with many signs of the cross and muttered invocations of the Virgin

urged my mule to perilous haste along the rough mountain path.' Like

Celtic fairies, these Greek nereids have their queens; they dance all

night, disappearing at cock-crow; they can cast spells on animals or

maladies on men and women; they can shift their shape; they _take_

children in death and make changelings; and they fall in love with young

men.[121]

Among the Roumain peoples the widespread belief in the _Iele_ shows in

other ways equally marked parallels with the Fairy-Faith of the Celts.

These _Iele_ wait at cross-roads and near dwellings, or at village

fountains or in fields and woods, where they can best cast on men and

women various maladies. Sometimes they fall in love with beautiful young

men and women, and have on such occasions even been controlled by their

mortal lovers. They are extremely fond of music and dancing, and many a

shepherd with his pipes has been favoured by them, though they have

their own music and songs too. The Albanian peoples have evil fairies,

no taller than children twelve years old, called in Modern Greek [Greek:

ta exôtika], 'those without,' who correspond to the _Iele_. Young

people who have been enticed to enter their round dance afterwards waste

away and die, apparently becoming one of 'those without'. These Albanian

spirits, like the 'good people' and the Breton dead, have their own

particular paths and retreats, and whoever violates these is struck and

falls ill.[122] These parallels from Roumain lands are probably due to

the close Aryan relationship between the Roumains, the Greeks, and the

Celts. The _Iele_ seem nothing more than the nymphs and nereids of

classical antiquity transformed under Christian influence into beings

who contradict their original good character, as in Celtic lands the

fairy-folk have likewise come to be fallen angels and evil spirits.

There is an even closer relationship between the Italian and Celtic

fairies. For example, among the Etruscan-Roman people there are now

flourishing animistic beliefs almost identical in all details with the

Fairy-Faith of the Celts.[123] In a very valuable study on the Neo-Latin

Fay, Mr. H. C. Coote writes:--'Who were the Fays--the _fate_ of later

Italy, the _fées_ of mediaeval France? For it is perfectly clear that

the _fatua_, _fata_, and _fée_ are all one and the same word.' And he

proceeds to show that the race of immortal damsels whom the old natives

of Italy called _Fatuae_ gave origin to all the family of _fées_ as

these appear in Latin countries, and that the Italians recognized in the

Greek nymphs their own _Fatuae_.[124]

It is quite evident that we have here discovered in Italy, as we

discovered in Greece and Roumain lands, fairies very Celtic in

character; and should further examination be made of modern European

folk-lore yet other similar fairies would be found, such, for example,

as the elves of Germany and of Scandinavia, or as the _servans_ of the

Swiss peasant. And in all cases, whether the beliefs examined be Celtic

or non-Celtic, Aryan or non-Aryan, from Australia, Polynesia, Africa,

America, Asia, or Europe, they are in essence animistically the same, as

later sections in this chapter will make clear. But while the

parallelism of these beliefs is indicated it is, of course, not meant

for a moment that in all of the cases or in any one of the cases the

specific differences are not considerable. The ground of comparison

consists simply in those generic characteristics which these

fairy-faiths, as they may be called, invariably display--characteristics

which we have good precedent for summing up in the single adjective

animistic.

SHAPING INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

For the term animism we have to thank Dr. E. B. Tylor, whose _Primitive

Culture_, in which the animistic theory is developed, may almost be said

to mark the beginning of scientific anthropology. In this work, however,

there is a decided tendency (which indeed displays itself in most of the

leading anthropological works, as, for example, in those by Dr. Frazer)

to regard men, or at any rate primitive men, as having a mind absolutely

homogeneous, and therefore as thinking, feeling, and acting in the same

way under all conditions alike. But a decided change is beginning to

manifest itself in the interpretation of the customs and beliefs of the

ruder races. It is assumed as a working principle that each ethnic group

has or tends to have an individuality of its own, and, moreover, that

the members of such a group think, feel, and act primarily as the

representatives, so to speak, of that ethnic individuality in which they

live, move, and have their being. That is to say, a social as contrasted

with an individual psychology must, it is held, pronounce both the first

and last word regarding all matters of mythology, religion, and art in

its numerous forms. The reason is that these are social products, and as

such are to be understood only in the light of the laws governing the

workings of the collective mind of any particular ethnic group. Such a

method is, for instance, employed in Mr. William McDougall's _Social

Psychology_, in Mr. R. R. Marett's _Threshold of Religion_, and in many

anthropological articles to be found in _L'Année Sociologique_.

If, therefore, we hold by this new and fruitful method of social

psychology we must be prepared to treat the Fairy-Faith of the Celtic

peoples also in and for itself, as expressive of an individuality more

or less unique. It might, indeed, be objected that these peoples are not

a single social group, but rather a number of such groups, and this is,

in a way, true. Nevertheless their folk-lore displays such remarkable

homogeneity, from whatever quarter of the Celtic world it be derived,

that it seems the soundest method to treat them as one people for all

the purposes of the student of sociology, mythology, and religion.

Granting, then, such a unity in the beliefs of the pan-Celtic race, we

are finally obliged to distinguish as it were two aspects thereof.

On the one hand there is shown, even in the mere handful of non-Celtic

parallels, which for reasons of space we have been content to cite, as

well as in their Celtic equivalents, a generic element common to all

peoples living under primitive conditions of society. It is emphatically

a social element, but at the same time one which any primitive society

is bound to display. On the other hand, in a second aspect, the Celtic

beliefs show of themselves a character which is wholly Celtic: in the

Fairy-Faith, which is generically animistic, we find reflected all sorts

of specific characteristics of the Celtic peoples--their patriotism,

their peculiar type of imagination, their costumes, amusements,

household life, and social and religious customs generally. With this

fact in mind, we may proceed to examine certain of the more specialized

aspects of the Fairy-Faith, as manifested both among Celts and

elsewhere.

THE SMALLNESS OF ELVISH SPIRITS AND FAIRIES

_Ethnological or Pygmy Theory_

In any anthropological estimate of the Fairy-Faith, the pygmy stature so

commonly attributed to various orders of Celtic and of non-Celtic

fairies should be considered. Various scholarly champions of the Pygmy

Theory have attempted to explain this smallness of fairies by means of

the hypothesis that the belief in such fairies is due _wholly_ to a

folk-memory of small-statured pre-Celtic races;[125] and they add that

these races, having dwelt in caverns like the prehistoric Cave Men, and

in underground houses like those of Lapps or Eskimos, gave rise to the

belief in a fairy world existing in caverns and under hills or

mountains. When analysed, our evidence shows that in the majority of

cases witnesses have regarded fairies either as non-human nature-spirits

or else as spirits of the dead; that in a comparatively limited number

of cases they have regarded them as the souls of prehistoric races; and

that occasionally they have regarded the belief in them as due to a

folk-memory of such races. It follows, then, from such an analysis of

evidence, that the Pygmy Theory probably does explain some ethnological

elements which have come to be almost inseparably interwoven with the

essentially animistic fabric of the primitive Fairy-Faith. But though

the theory may so account for such ethnological elements, it disregards

the animism that has made such interweaving possible; and, on the whole,

we are inclined to accept Mr. Jenner's view of the theory (see p. 169).

Since the Pygmy Theory thus fails entirely to provide a basis for what

is by far the most important part of the Fairy-Faith, a more adequate

theory is required.

_Animistic Theory_

The testimony of Celtic literature goes to show that leprechauns and

similar dwarfish beings are not due to a folk-memory of a real pygmy

race, that they are spirits like elves, and that the folk-memory of a

Lappish-like people (who may have been Picts) evidently was confused

with them, so as to result in their being anthropomorphosed. Thus, in

_Fionn's Ransom_, there is reference to an under-sized apparently

Lappish-like man, who may be a Pict; and as Campbell, who records the

ancient tale, has observed, there are many similar traditional Highland

tales about little men or even about true dwarfs who are good

bowmen;[126] but it is very certain that such tales have often blended

with other tales, in which supernatural figures like fairies play a

rôle; and, apparently, the former kind of tales are much more historical

and modern in their origin, while the latter are more mythological and

extremely archaic. This blending of the natural or ethnological and the

supernatural--in quite the same manner as in the modern Fairy-Faith--is

clearly seen in another of Campbell's collected tales, _The Lad with the

Skin Coverings_,[127] which in essence is an otherworld tale: 'a little

thickset man in a russet coat,' who is a magician, but who otherwise

seems to be a genuine Lapp dressed in furs, is introduced into a story

where real fairy-like beings play the chief parts. Again, in Irish

literature, we read of a _loch luchra_ or 'lake of the pygmies'.[128]

Light is thrown upon this reference by what is recorded about the

leprechauns and Fergus:--While asleep on the seashore one day, Fergus

was about to be carried off by the _luchorpáin_; 'whereat he awoke and

caught three of them, to wit, one in each of his two hands, and one on

his breast. "Life for life" (i. e. protection), say they. "Let my three

wishes (i. e. choices) be given," says Fergus. "Thou shalt have," says

the dwarf, "save that which is impossible for us." Fergus requested of

him knowledge of passing under loughs and linns and seas. "Thou shalt

have," says the dwarf, "save one which I forbid to thee: thou shalt not

go under Lough Rudraide [which] is in thine own country." Thereafter the

_luchuirp_ (little bodies) put herbs into his ears, and he used to go

with them under seas. Others say the dwarf gave his cloak to him, and

that Fergus used to put it on his head and thus go under seas.'[129] In

an etymological comment on this passage, Sir John Rhys says:--'The

words _luchuirp_ and _luchorpáin_ [Anglo-Irish leprechaun] appear to

mean literally "small bodies", and the word here rendered _dwarf_ is in

the Irish _abac_, the etymological equivalent of the Welsh _avanc_, the

name by which certain water inhabitants of a mythic nature went in

Welsh....'[130]

Besides what we find in the recorded Fairy-Faith, there are very many

parallel traditions, both Celtic and non-Celtic, about various classes

of spirits, like leprechauns or other small elvish beings, which Dr.

Tylor has called nature-spirits;[131] and apparently all of these can

best be accounted for by means of the animistic hypothesis. For example,

in North America (as in Celtic lands) there is no proof of there ever

having been an actual dwarf race, but Lewis and Clark, in their _Travels

to the Source of the Missouri River_, found among the Sioux a tradition

that a hill near the Whitestone River, which the Red Men called the

'Mountain of Little People' or 'Little Spirits', was inhabited by pygmy

demons in human form, about eighteen inches tall, armed with sharp

arrows, and ever on the alert to kill mortals who should dare to invade

their domain. So afraid were all the tribes of Red Men who lived near

the mountain of these little spirits that no one of them could be

induced to visit it.[132] And we may compare this American

spirit-haunted hill with similar natural hills in Scotland said to be

fairy knolls: one near the turning of a road from Reay Wick to Safester,

Isle of Unst;[133] one the well-known fairy-haunted Tomnahurich, near

Inverness;[133] and a third, the hill at Aberfoyle on which the 'people

of peace' took the Rev. Robert Kirk when he profaned it by walking on

it; or we may equate the American hill with the fairy-haunted Slieve

Gullion and Ben Bulbin in Ireland.

The Iroquois had a belief that they could summon dwarfs, who were

similar nature-spirits, by knocking on a certain large stone.[134]

Likewise the Polong, a Malay familiar spirit, is 'an exceedingly

diminutive female figure or mannikin'.[135] East Indian nature-spirits,

too, are pygmies in stature.[136] In Polynesia, entirely independent of

the common legends about wild races of pygmy stature, are myths about

the spirits called _wui_ or _vui_, who correspond to European dwarfs and

trolls. These little spirits seem to occupy the same position toward the

Melanesian gods or culture heroes, Qat of the Banks Islands and Tagaro

of the New Hebrides, as daemons toward Greek gods, or as good angels

toward the Christian Trinity, or as fairy tribes toward the Brythonic

Arthur and toward the Gaelic hero Cuchulainn.[137] Similarly in Hindu

mythology pygmies hold an important place, being sculptured on most

temples in company with the gods; e. g. Siva is accompanied by a

bodyguard of dwarfs, and one of them, the three-legged Bhringi, is a

good dancer[138]--like all _corrigans_, pixies, and most fairies.

Beyond the borders of Celtic lands--in Southern Asia with its islands,

in Melanesia with New Guinea, and in Central Africa--pygmy races,

generally called Negritos, exist at the present day; but they themselves

have a fairy-faith, just as their normal-sized primitive neighbours

have, and it would hardly be reasonable to argue that either of the two

fairy-faiths is due to a folk-memory of small-statured peoples. Ancient

and thoroughly reliable manuscript records testify to the existence of

pygmies in China during the twenty-third century B. C.;[139] yet no one

has ever tried to explain the well-known animistic beliefs of modern

Chinamen in ghosts, demons, and in little nature-spirits like fairies,

by saying that these are a folk-memory of this ancient pygmy race. In

Yezo and the Kurile Islands of Japan still survive a few of the hairy

Ainu, a Caucasian-like, under-sized race; and their immediate

predecessors, whom they exterminated, were a Negrito race, who,

according to some traditions, were two to three feet in stature, and,

according to other traditions, only one inch in stature.[140] Both pygmy

races, the surviving and the exterminated race, seem independently to

have evolved a belief in ghosts and spirits, so that here again it need

not be argued that the present pre-Buddhist animism of the Japanese is

due to a folk-memory of either Ainus or Negritos.

Further examination of the animistic hypothesis designed to explain the

smallness of elvish spirits leads away from mere mythology into

psychology, and sets us the task of finding out if, after all, primitive

ideas about the disembodied human soul may not have originated or at

least have helped to shape the Celtic folk conception of fairies as

small-statured beings. Mr. A. E. Crawley, in his _Idea of the Soul_ (pp.

200-1, 206), shows by carefully selected evidence from ancient and

modern psychologies that 'first among the attributes of the soul in its

primary form may be placed its size', and that 'in the majority of cases

it is a miniature replica of the person, described often as a mannikin,

or homunculus, of a few inches in height'. Sometimes the soul is

described as only about three inches in stature. Dr. Frazer shows,

likewise, that by practically all contemporary primitive peoples the

soul is commonly regarded as a dwarf.[141]

The same opinions regarding the human soul prevailed among ancient

peoples highly civilized, i. e. the Egyptians and Greeks, and may have

thence directly influenced Celtic tradition. Thus, in bas-relief on the

Egyptian temple of _Dêr el Bahri_, Queen Hatshepsû Ramaka is making

offerings of perfume to the gods, while just behind her stands her _Ka_

(soul) as a pygmy so little that the crown of its head is just on a

level with her waist.[142] The _Ka_ is usually represented as about half

the size of an ordinary man. In the _Book of the Dead_, the _Ba_, which

like the _Ka_ is one of the many separable parts of the soul, is

represented as a very little man with wings and bird-like body.

On Greek vases the human soul is depicted as a pygmy issuing from the

body through the mouth; and this conception existed among Romans and

Teutons.[143] Like their predecessors the Egyptians, the Greeks also

often represented the soul as a small winged human figure, and Romans,

in turn, imagined the soul as a pygmy with butterfly wings. These ideas

reappear in mediaeval reliefs and pictures wherein the soul is shown as

a child or little naked man going out of the dying person's mouth;[144]

and, according to Cædmon, who was educated by Celtic teachers, angels

are small and beautiful[145]--quite like good fairies.

_Alchemical and Mystical Theory_

In the positive doctrines of mediaeval alchemists and mystics, e. g.

Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians, as well as their modern followers, the

ancient metaphysical ideas of Egypt, Greece, and Rome find a new

expression; and these doctrines raise the final problem--if there are

any scientific grounds for believing in such pygmy nature-spirits as

these remarkable thinkers of the Middle Ages claim to have studied as

beings actually existing in nature. To some extent this interesting

problem will be examined in our chapter entitled _Science and Fairies_;

here we shall simply outline the metaphysical theory, adding the

testimony of some of its living advocates to explain the smallness of

elvish spirits and fairies.

These mediaeval metaphysicians, inheritors of pre-Platonic, Platonic,

and neo-Platonic teachings, purposely obscured their doctrines under a

covering of alchemical terms, so as to safeguard themselves against

persecution, open discussion of occultism not being safe during the

Middle Ages, as it was among the ancients and happily is now again in

our own generation. But they were quite scientific in their methods, for

they divided all invisible beings into four distinct classes: the

Angels, who in character and function are parallel to the gods of the

ancients, and equal to the Tuatha De Danann of the Irish, are the

highest; below them are the Devils or Demons, who correspond to the

fallen angels of Christianity; the third class includes all Elementals,

sub-human Nature-Spirits, who are generally regarded as having pygmy

stature, like the Greek daemons; and the fourth division comprises the

Souls of the Dead, and the shades or ghosts of the dead.

For us, the third class, which includes spirits of pygmy-like form, is

the most important in this present discussion. All its members are of

four kinds, according as they inhabit one of the four chief elements of

nature.[146] Those inhabiting the earth are called Gnomes. They are

definitely of pygmy stature, and friendly to man, and in fairy-lore

ordinarily correspond to mine-haunting fairies or goblins, to pixies,

_corrigans_, leprechauns, and to such elves as live in rocks, caverns,

or earth--an important consideration entirely overlooked by champions of

the Pygmy Theory. Those inhabiting the air are called Sylphs. These

Sylphs, commonly described as little spirits like pygmies in form,

correspond to most of the fairies who are not of the Tuatha De Danann or

'gentry' type, and who as a race are beautiful and graceful. They are

quite like the fairies in Shakespeare's _Midsummer-Night's Dream_; and

especially like the aerials in _The Tempest_, which, according to Mr.

Morton Luce, a commentator on the drama, seem to have been shaped by

Shakespeare from his knowledge of Rosicrucian occultism, in which such

spirits hold an important place. Those inhabiting the water are called

Undines, and correspond exactly to the fairies who live in sacred

fountains, lakes, or rivers. And the fourth kind, those inhabiting the

fire, are called Salamanders, and seldom appear in the Celtic

Fairy-Faith: they are supreme in the elementary hierarchies. All these

Elementals, who procreate after the manner of men, are said to have

bodies of an elastic half-material essence, which is sufficiently

ethereal not to be visible to the physical sight, and probably

comparable to matter in the form of invisible gases. Mr. W. B. Yeats has

given this explanation:--'Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers,

in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are

chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the

earth, who have no inherent form, but change according to their whim, or

the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing

and being influenced by hordes. The visible world is merely their skin.

In dreams we go amongst them, and play with them, and combat with them.

They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible--these creatures of

whim.'[147] And bringing this into relation with ordinary fairies, he

says:--'Do not think the fairies are always little. Everything is

capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or

shape pleases them.'[147] In _The Celtic Twilight_ Mr. Yeats makes the

statement that the 'fairies in Ireland are sometimes as big as we are,

sometimes bigger, and sometimes, as I have been told, about three feet

high.'[148]

Mrs. X, a cultured Irishwoman now living in County Dublin, who as a

percipient fulfils all the exacting requirements which psychologists and

pathologists would demand, tells me that very frequently she has had

visions of fairy beings in Ireland, and her own classification and

description of these fairy beings, chiefly according to their stature,

are as follows:--'Among the usually invisible races which I have seen in

Ireland, I distinguish five classes. (1) There are the Gnomes, who are

earth-spirits, and who seem to be a sorrowful race. I once saw some of

them distinctly on the side of Ben Bulbin. They had rather round heads

and dark thick-set bodies, and in stature were about two and one-half

feet. (2) The Leprechauns are different, being full of mischief, though

they, too, are small. I followed a leprechaun from the town of Wicklow

out to the _Carraig Sidhe_, "Rock of the Fairies," a distance of half a

mile or more, where he disappeared. He had a very merry face, and

beckoned to me with his finger. (3) A third class are the Little People,

who, unlike the Gnomes and Leprechauns, are quite good-looking; and they

are very small. (4) The Good People are tall beautiful beings, as tall

as ourselves, to judge by those I saw at the _rath_ in Rosses Point.

They direct the magnetic currents of the earth. (5) The Gods are really

the Tuatha De Danann, and they are much taller than our race. There may

be many other classes of invisible beings which I do not know.'

(Recorded on October 16, 1910.)

And independently of the Celtic peoples there is available very much

testimony of the most reliable character from modern disciples of the

mediaeval occultists, e. g. the Rosicrucians, and the Theosophists, that

there exist in nature invisible spiritual beings of pygmy stature and of

various forms and characters, comparable in all respects to the little

people of Celtic folk-lore. How all this is parallel to the Celtic

Fairy-Faith is perfectly evident, and no comment of ours is

necessary.[149]