One is tempted to say that THE NATIONS, as if conscious of the kindly
disposition inhering in the spiritual existences toward ourselves,
have simultaneously agreed in conferring upon them titles of
endearment and affection. The brothers Grimm write--"In Scotland they
[The Fairies] are called _The Good People, Good Neighbours, Men of
Peace;_ in Wales--_The Family, The Blessing of their Mothers, The
Dear Ladies;_ in the old Norse, and to this day in the Faroe islands,
_Huldufolk_ (_The Gracious People;_) in Norway, _Huldre_;[23] and, in
conformity with these denominations, discover a striving to be in the
proximity of men, and to keep up a good understanding with them."[24]
[Footnote 23: May we for HULDRE read HULDREFOLK; and understand the
_following_, or the _Folk_ of HULDRE? Huldre _means_ the Gracious
Lady: she is a sort of Danish and Norwegian Fairy-Queen.--See GRIMM'S
_German Mythology_, p. 168. First edition.]
[Footnote 24: The Brothers GRIMM: _Introduction to the Irish Fairy
Tales_.]
2. THIS GOOD NEIGHBOURHOOD, to which these last words point, is
interestingly depicted by the Traditions.
In Scotland and Germany the Fairies plant their habitation
_adjoining_ that of man--"_under the threshold_"--and in such
attached Fairies an alliance is unfolded with us of a most
extraordinary kind. "The closest connexion" (_id est_, of the Fairy
species with our own) "is expressed," say the Brothers Grimm, "by the
tradition, agreeably to which the family of the Fairies ORDERED
ITSELF ENTIRELY AFTER THE HUMAN to which it belonged; and OF WHICH IT
WAS AS IF A COPY. These domestic Fairies _kept their marriages upon
the same day_ as the Human Beings; _their children were born upon the
same day_; and _upon the same day they wailed for their dead._"[25]
[Footnote 25: The Brothers GRIMM: _Introduction to the Irish Fairy
Tales._]
Two artlessly sweet breathings of Elfin Table, from the Helvetian
Dales,[26] lately revived to your fancy the sinless--blissful years,
when gods with men set fellowing steps upon one and the same fragrant
and unpolluted sward, until transgression, exiling those to their own
celestial abodes, left these lonely--a nearer, dearer, BARBARIAN
Golden Age--wherein the kindly Dwarf nation stand representing the
great deities of Olympus.
[Footnote 26: See _The Dwarfs upon the Maple-Tree_, and _The Dwarfs
upon the Crag-Stone_, in the former paper.]
The healthful pure air fans restoration again to us. We lay before
you--