is very apt to mislead (since contiguous peoples have been, and are,
in different "periods" of this nature, at the same moment of time),
it is at least clear from the above tradition that the most
primitive form of dart was associated with the Feens. But, although
this species of weapon is of great antiquity, it does not follow
that a tradition which relates to people who employed it, is
necessarily of great antiquity also. Or that those javelin-men were
at all "prehistoric." We have already seen that a race of people
employed darts in exactly the same way when fishing--or, perhaps,
more correctly, when seal-hunting--within British waters, only two
hundred years ago. And the people who in this respect resembled the
_Feens_ of Gaelic folk-lore are themselves remembered as _Finns_.
But perhaps the readiest and surest way of obtaining something like
a true conception of these legendary Feens, is to regard them from
the ethnological point of view, as well, that is, as our imperfect
information will allow. We shall therefore look at them in this
aspect, whether considered as _Picts_ or _Cruithné_ or as _Feens_.
The great hero of the Feenic legends, and the "King" or "General" of
the Feens of Ireland, was the famous "Finn" or "Fionn." If the
battle of Gawra was really fought in the third century, as is
alleged, and if this "Fionn" was a real man, and not the type or
"eponymus" of his race, then he ought to be assigned to the third
century. For he is said to have been present at that battle, where
his grandson was slain and the supremacy of his race destroyed. At
any rate, whether he lived at that date or not, and whether he was
an individual or merely a personification of his race, Fionn figures
throughout the tales of these people as a very Feen of the Feens.
Now, among the many stories told of him, there is one, entitled
"How Fin[83] went to the Kingdom of the Big Men." It is unnecessary
to give all the particulars of this tale. But Fin is pictured as
starting from Dublin Bay in his little coracle (_curachan_) on his
voyage to the country of the Big Men. Although he is described as
"hoisting the spotted, towering sails," they cannot have been very
large, or very many, for the coracle was so small that "Fin was
guide in her prow, helm in her stern, and tackle in her middle," and
when he landed on the coast of the Big Men's country, he drew his
tiny vessel, unaided, up into the dry grass, above the tide-mark. It
ought to be added, however, that this coracle was an open boat,
capable of holding at least four persons; as is shown on the return
voyage.
After landing, Fin encountered a "big wayfarer" (_tais-dealach
mòr_), who informed him that his king had long been in want of a
dwarf (_troich_), and that Fin would suit him capitally. "He took
with him Fin; but another big man (_fear mòr_) came, and was going
to take Fin from him. The two fought; but when they had torn each
other's clothes, they left it to Fin to judge. He chose the first
one. He took Fin with him to the palace of the king, whose worthies
and high nobles assembled to see the little man (_an duine bhig_").
And then and there Fin was installed as the royal dwarf.[84]
In this story, then, we have the tacit admission that, not far from
Fin's home at the hill of Allen, Kildare, there was a country whose
inhabitants were so much taller than the race of Fin, that the
latter were mere dwarfs beside them. Now, this is precisely _the
most striking_ characteristic of the kayak-using Finns of Shetlandic
tradition.
The _Finns_ of Shetland folk-lore are, says Mr. Karl Blind,
"reckoned among the _Trows_." The king of the _Feens_ was hailed in
the country of the big men as a _Troich_. And these are simply two
forms of the same word. _Troich_ or _droich_, among Gaelic-speaking
people, is softened into _trow_ or _drow_ among the English-speaking
Shetlanders.[85] In both cases it signifies "dwarf."
And, just as the Shetlanders have memories of a race of small men,
who, in spite of their mean stature, were a terror to the taller
people, whom they oppressed and took tribute from, so have the
Gaelic-speaking people a mass of legends which also tell of similar
dwarfish but dreaded tyrants. The former designate their dwarfs
"Finns": if the Gaelic traditions are not equally definite, they at
least suggest that a caste of "Feens," who levied a tax upon the
Gaelic-speaking people, were themselves dwarfs in stature. And the
Highland tales abound in stories of fierce and tyrannical dwarfs.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] It is to be remembered that "Lochlan," the term used to denote
the territory last named, was ultimately applied to the whole of
Scandinavia, and _may_ have been used in its widest sense at the
period here referred to.
[76] Introduction, p. lxxvi. In the above, I have again taken the
liberty of modifying the various designations.
[77] "Celtic Scotland," vol. i, p. 131; vol. iii, chap, iii, etc.
_See_ also his "Chronicles of the Picts and Scots."
[78] "Celtic Scotland," vol. ii, pp. 108-16.
[79] M. J. Tuchmann, in "Mélusine," t. iv, no. 16.
[80] Mr. Charles de Kay, in one of the valuable articles already
referred to, remarks ("Woman in Early Ireland," _Century Magazine_,
July 1889, p. 439): "Although in the Kalewala the tribes of Pohjola,
or the Lapps, are considered foul magicians, and ever the foe of the
heroes of Kaleva, or the Finns, yet it is from Pohjola that
Waïnamoïnen and his comrades always take their brides by force or by
purchase." This quotation not only confirms the above account of M.
Tuchmann, but it also illustrates the fact that even the most
antagonistic races do not refrain from mixing their blood. Thus it
may be seen how Lapps and Finns could eventually become almost
identified. And the "Heimskringla" shows us how, in turn, this
composite Finno-Lapp race could later on become blended with that of
the Haralds and Sigurds of the Sagas.
[81] This has already been propounded by the late Mr. J. F. Campbell
("West Highland Tales," iv, 29-30).
[82] "West Highland Tales," iii, 394-5.
[83] So spelt in the English translation given by the Rev. John G.
Campbell, minister of Tiree, in _The Scottish Celtic Review_,
Glasgow, 1885, pp. 184-90.
[84] Referring to the component parts of Fin's army on a certain
occasion, Mr. Charles de Kay remarks ("Early Heroes of Ireland,"
_Century Magazine_, June 1889, p, 200): "The battalion of
'middle-sized men' and that of 'small men' we may understand as
recruited from the true hunter and fisher tribes, who gave the name
Fenian to the army itself, and Fion to the folk-hero."
[85] _Trow_ is the favourite form among the Shetlanders; but other
forms are given by Edmondston in his "Glossary," such as _drow_,
_troll_, _troil_, _troilya_, and _trolld_. The Shetland terms are,
therefore, also variants of the Scandinavian _troll_, following a
common Scotch tendency, which modifies _boll_, _knoll_, _poll_,
_roll_, etc., into _bow_, _know_, _pow_, _row_, etc. (the vowel
sound being as in _now_). But whichever form may be the oldest, it
is manifest that _trow_ or _drow_, and _troich_ or _droich_, are
radically one.
CHAPTER VIII.
But, if the legendary "Feens" are identical with, or closely akin
to, the Picts of history, then the historical Picts must also belong
to this stunted Eskimo-like race. Let us look at the people called
"Picts."
And, first of all, since the word "Pict" is admittedly the result of
a pun or a misapprehension on the part of Latin-speaking people, it
may be as well to discard that special spelling. The forms which the
word appears to have most commonly taken in the mouths of the
country-people of Scotland are _Pik_, _Pech_, _Pecht_, and _Peht_
(the _ch_ being of course pronounced as in German). Doubtless, other
forms might be adduced; but perhaps the best compromise is _Pecht_.
What, then, are the accounts given with regard to the stature of the
Pechts?
The question is practically answered at once in considering the
nature of the dwellings that the traditions of Scotland unanimously
assign to these people.
"The only tradition which I heard current on the subject of the
former inhabitants of the country," says a writer on Shetland,[86]
"was, that the remains of old dwellings were Pechts' houses, and
that those who lived in them were little men." And, in reporting to
the Anthropological Society of London the result of an archæological
tour in Shetland, Dr. James Hunt[87] remarks of such "old
dwellings"--"These remains are called 'Pights' or Picts' houses.'
Mr. Umfray [a local archæologist] surmises that they were originally
'pights' or dwarfs' houses.' Dwarfs, in this locality, are still
called _pechts_."[88] And the present writer, when visiting a
"Pict's house" three or four miles north of the place just spoken
of, and which had also been inspected by Dr. Hunt, obtained similar
testimony. The place is known as Saffester, or Seffister, and its
antiquarian features consist of the remains of a chambered tumulus
and a separate subterranean gallery. The latter is referred to by
one writer as a "Pict's house," although it is only a passage. As,
however, local tradition alleges that it leads to the chambered
mound, the name may be correct enough. Now, this tumulus was opened
fifty or more years ago by the parish minister.[89] And an old man,
who was then a boy, informed the writer that the entrance was
effected by what he and his boy companions had always called "the
_trow's_ door." Another similar experience of the writer's yields a
like result. Near Hamna Voe, at the south end of the island of Yell,
there is a small loch and islet, with the remains of a "broch," the
loch being known as "the loch of Kettlester." The "broch" that once
stood there (for the ruins no longer retain their original shape)
was built by "the Pechts," said the intelligent lad (a native of the
district) who was the writer's guide, and these Pechts he described
as very small people.[90]
The popular Shetland notions regarding the Pechts are again
repeated by a lady writer, who has the advantage of being herself a
Shetlander[91]: "The first folks that ever were in our isles were
the Picts.... They had no ships, only small boats.... They were very
small [people]." Indeed, so much has their small stature been
impressed upon the popular memory, that, as we have seen, "dwarfs,
in this locality, are still called _pechts_." Nor is it only in
Shetland that this word has such a meaning. In Aberdeenshire _picht_
denotes a dwarfish person, and Dr. Jamieson, in recording the
fact,[92] suggests its connection with "the _pichts_ or _pechts_,
whom the vulgar view as a race of pigmies." In the south of Scotland
also, this signification appears to prevail; for the Ettrick
Shepherd, in the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," employs "pegh" as an everyday
synonym for "dwarf." In point of fact, although it has just been
stated that dwarfs "are still called _pechts_" in Shetland, because
of the small size of the race so known to history, it is really a
question whether the historical people did not so become
historically remembered _because_ a pre-existing word fitly
described their dwarfish stature. But this etymological point is of
little importance here.
Although Shetland has been chiefly considered in these recent
remarks, it will be seen that the popular belief regarding the
stature of the Pechts is apparently common to the whole of Scotland.
Dr. Jamieson evidently thought so when he referred to "the Pichts,
or Pechts, whom the vulgar view as a race of pigmies." And he does
not stand alone. "Throughout Scotland," says another writer, "the
vulgar account is 'that the _Pechs_ were unco wee bodies, but
terrible strang'; that is, that they were of very small stature, but
of prodigious strength."[93] "Long ago," quotes the late Robert
Chambers,[94] and his quotation also applies to the whole of
Scotland, "there were people in this country called the Pechs;
short, wee men they were,"--and so on.
Enough has been said to show that the ideas held by the "vulgar"
(whose traditions, once contemptuously rejected by scholars, are
nowadays being rated at their true value), throughout Scotland, with
respect to the Pechts, agree in describing those people as decidedly
dwarfish in stature. And this belief is most convincingly borne out
by the dwellings which the Pechts are believed to have inhabited;
the "Pechts' houses" which we glanced at a few paragraphs back, and
which speedily led us to consider the Pechts themselves. No man of
the average height of modern British people, who has personally
inspected these "Pechts' houses," can arrive at any other conclusion
than that they were built and inhabited by people of a stature very
much less than his own. This is a point so manifest that it need not
be emphasized to those who have stooped, squeezed, and crept among
the chambers and passages of a "Pictish broch." A few particulars of
measurement would quickly convince others; but such details need not
be entered into here. However, something may be said with regard to
the appearance of the dwelling which may best be regarded as the
typical "Pecht's house."
In a "Notice of the Brochs and the so-called Picts' Houses of
Orkney," submitted to the Anthropological Society of London,[95] Mr.
George Petrie points out that "the name Pict's house is applied
indiscriminately, in the northern counties of Scotland, to every
sort of ancient structure." And as there is certainly a great
difference, in degree, between the various structures referred to,
we may here accept Mr. Petrie's guidance as to what constitutes the
typical "Pict's house." "The class of buildings to which I have for
many years restricted the appellation of _Picts' house_ have been,"
says Mr. Petrie, "very different from the brochs,[96] both in
external appearance and general structure and arrangements. The
_Pict's house_ is generally of a conical form, and externally
closely resembles a large bowl-shaped barrow. It consists of a solid
mass of masonry, covered with a layer of turf, a foot or more in
thickness, and has a central chamber surrounded by several smaller
cells. The entrance to the central chamber from the outside is by a
long, low, narrow passage; while the cells are connected with the
chamber by short passages of similar dimensions to the long one. The
walls of the chambers and cells converge towards the top, where they
approach so closely that the aperture can be spanned by a stone a
couple of feet in length."
Another writer[97] describes a Pict's house--that on Wideford Hill,
near Kirkwall--in these terms: "All that meets the eye at first is a
green, conical mound, with an indescribable aspect of something
_eerie_ and weird about it, resting silently amid the moorland
solitude. On closer inspection we discover an entrance passage,
about eighteen inches high and two feet broad, leading from the
lower side into the interior of the prehistoric dwelling,"--and so
on.
The resemblance between this kind of dwelling, or its more modern
representative, the "bee-hive" hut of the Hebrides and Western
Ireland, to the dwellings of modern Eskimos has long been
recognized. But it may be permitted to quote here from the accounts
given by two Arctic voyagers of the early part of this century,
especially as these accounts, both relating to the most northern
tribes of Greenland, appear to describe with peculiar exactness the
"Pict's house" of Mr. Petrie.
Captain Scoresby, in the account of his explorations in the year
1822, thus describes the deserted dwellings of some of those
northern Eskimos:
"The roofs of all the huts had either been removed or had
fallen in; what remained, consisted of an excavation in the
ground at the brow of the bank, about 4 feet in depth, 15
in length, and 6 to 9 in width. The sides of each hut were
sustained by a wall of rough stones, and the bottom
appeared to be gravel, clay, and moss. The access to these
huts, after the manner of the Esquimaux, was a horizontal
tunnel perforating the ground, about 15 feet in length,
opening at one extremity on the side of the bank, into the
external air, and, at the other, communicating with the
interior of the hut. This tunnel was so low, that a person
must creep on his hands and knees to get into the dwelling:
it was roofed with slabs of stone and sods. This kind of
hut being deeply sunk in the earth, and being accessible
only by a subterranean passage, is generally considered as
formed altogether under ground. As, indeed, it rises very
little above the surface, and as the roof, when entire, is
generally covered with sods, and clothed with moss or
grass, it partakes so much of the appearance of the rest of
the ground, that it can scarcely be distinguished from it.
I was much struck by its admirable adaptation to the nature
of the climate and the circumstances of the inhabitants.
The uncivilized Esquimaux, using no fire in these
habitations, but only lamps, which serve both for light and
for warming their victuals, require, in the severities of
winter, to economise, with the greatest care, such
artificial warmth as they are able to produce in their
huts. For this purpose, an under-ground dwelling, defended
from the penetration of the frost by a roof of moss and
earth, with an additional coating of a bed of snow, and
preserved from the entrance of the piercing wind by a long
subterranean tunnel, without the possibility of being
annoyed by any draught of air, but what is voluntarily
admitted--forms one of the best contrivances which,
considering the limited resources, and the unenlightened
state of these people, could possibly have been
adopted."[98]
Scoresby's description fully corroborates that given by Captain Ross
a few years earlier, when relating his visit to the Eskimos living
about the north-eastern corner of Baffin's Bay. These people he
describes as "short in stature, seldom exceeding five feet," and he
mentions that their sorcerers alleged that it was in their power to
raise a storm or make a calm, and to drive off seals and birds."
With regard to their dwellings, he says:
"None of their houses were seen, but they described them as
built entirely of stone, the walls being sunk about three
feet into the earth, and raised about as much above it.
They have no windows, and the entrance is by a long, narrow
passage, nearly under ground. Several families live in one
house, and each has a lamp made of hollowed stone, hung
from the roof, in which they burn the blubber of the seal,
etc., using dried moss for a wick, which is kindled by
means of iron and stone. This lamp, which is never
extinguished, serves at once for light, warmth, and
cooking."[99]
It is not out of place to refer here also to an instructive article
on "The Archæology of Lighting Appliances," read before the Society
of Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A.Scot., in
the course of which he describes the stone lamps found in the
habitations known as "brochs" (and popularly assigned to the Picts),
with regard to which lamps he states that although not quite
identical in shape with those used by modern Eskimos, they are
substantially identical, and must have been used in precisely the
same way. Comparing this with Baron Nordenskiöld's accounts, Mr.
Romilly Allen observes: "The picture here given of the domestic life
of the Eskimos at the present time enables us to form a tolerably
correct idea of the way in which the inhabitants of the Scottish
brochs lighted their dwellings during the long winter nights two
thousand years ago." ("Proceedings of Soc. of Antiq. of Scot."
1887-88, p. 84.)
From all these remarks, then, it will be seen that the dwelling of
the dwarfish Eskimo and the "house" assigned by Scottish tradition
to the Pechts, or dwarfs, are substantially one. And a consideration
of the statements also demonstrates clearly that, whatever the age
of the word "pecht," none but a race of dwarfish stature would have
built such places of abode. Indeed, the stature of the dwellers in
the Pecht's house is doubly impressed upon the memory of the
Northern Islanders. When Mr. Gorrie describes its outward
appearance, he tells us (in similar terms to the Arctic voyagers),
that "all that meets the eye at first is a green, conical mound ...
resting silently amid the moorland solitude." But he really repeats
himself, although he is not aware of it, when he refers on another
page[100] to "the simple superstition (?) long prevalent among the
inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland, that the strange green mounds
rising by the sea-side and on solitary moors, were the abodes of
supernatural beings known by the name of Trows." Of the
"supernatural" attributes assigned to those people, or claimed by
them--in early Scotland, in Lapland, and in Greenland--much remains
to be said. But the people just referred to under two different, but
synonymous, names, are undoubtedly one and the same.
The Pechts of history, then, were a race of dwarfs. Thus, when Dr.
Skene identifies the Feens of Gaelic folk-lore with the historic
Pechts, he reveals them to us as a race of dwarfs. Therefore, the
traditional story of the Feen chiefs visit to the "country of the
big men," where he was regarded by that latter race as a "droich,"
is entirely in accordance with Dr. Skene's belief that the Feens
were of the same race as the historic Pechts. It is not at all
unlikely that this identity was taken for granted long before the
nineteenth century, and in Scotland. In Allan Ramsay's _Evergreen_,
a collection of Scottish poems written before the year 1600, there
is a certain "Interlude of the Droichs," also referred to as "The
Droichs' Part of a Play." Now, the spokesman of these droichs (or
trows, or dwarfs) announces himself as a grandson of Fin, the great
chief of the Feens of Ireland. And he makes a statement which is
identical with one contained in a Feenic poem on the battle of
Gawra. This statement need not be particularized here, but it tells
us unmistakably that these "droichs" were regarded as the
representatives of Fin and his Feens.[101] Therefore, it would
appear from this poem that Fin and his Feens were regarded by the
ruling class in Scotland, prior to 1600, as dwarfs. That is, as
_pechts_.
So far, then, all that has here been said tends to show that the
_Feinne_ of Gaelic folk-lore, and the Finns of Northern history and
tradition, ought to be regarded as one and the same people. And that
one section, at any rate, of such people ought to be identified with
the Pechts, or Picts, of history.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] Rev. J. Russell, "Three Years in Shetland." Paisley and London,
1887, pp. 135-6.
[87] _See_ the Society's "Memoirs," 1865-6, vol. ii, pp. 294-338.
[88] The spelling _pight_, which Dr. Hunt uses above, must clearly
represent the guttural and vowel sound of _licht_, _micht_, _dight_,
etc., in "broad Scotch." Without this caution, the reader would
naturally infer the sound of _pite_.
[89] Rev. J. Bryden: _see_ "Anthrop. Soc. Mem." _ut supra_.
[90] Close to Kettlester there is a noted haunt of the "trows,"
which bears the name of _Houlland_. With this may be compared
_Troil-Houlland_, which adjoins Seffister, of "trow" memory. This
very common Shetland termination "ster" or "setter" is the Icelandic
_setr_, a dwelling; and these two names resolve themselves
respectively into dwellings of _Kettle_ and _Seffi_. The former name
at once recalls the ninth century _Ketil Flat-nose_ of the Sagas,
and this "setr," still associated with dwarfs (otherwise _trows_ or
_pechts_), may have been one of his dwellings.
[91] Mrs. Saxby, in "Folk-lore from Unst, Shetland" (part v),
contributed to _The Leisure Hour_, 1880. (For another reference to
the boats of the Picts, _see_ pp. 178-9, _post_.)
[92] "Scottish Dictionary" (Supplement), _s. v._ "Picht."
[93] "The Topography of the Basin of the Tay," by James Knox,
Edinburgh, 1831, p. 108. This writer adds that "they are said to
have been about three or four feet in height"; and it may be
mentioned that when I asked my young guide at Kettlester the exact
height of the small Pechts he had just been speaking of, he said,
"About that height," indicating at the same time a stature of three
feet or so. Whatever their height really was, this young
Shetlander's ideas were in agreement with those held "throughout
Scotland."
[94] "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, p. 80.
[95] _See_ the Society's "Memoirs," 1865-6, vol. ii, pp. 216-225.
[96] The term "broch" has hitherto been used in a general sense in
these pages. This its etymology permits: for it is the same word as
_borough_, _burgh_, _burg_, _barrow_, etc. But the students of these
ancient structures have recently restricted "broch" to the more
elaborate and superior building of the round or "martello" tower
order. This definition is very convenient, and saves much confusion.
In spite, however, of the great difference that Mr. Petrie speaks of
as between the so-called "Pictish" broch and the humbler dwelling
that alone is recognized by him as a "Pict's house," it is yet
evident that the "broch" is to a very great extent evolved from the
more primitive and rudimentary "Pict's house."
[97] Mr. Daniel Gorrie, in "Summers and Winters in the Orkneys,"
London, 1869, p. 117.
[98] This extract is quoted from the review in the _Scots Magazine_
of 1823 (pp. 457-8) of Captain Scoresby's "Journal" (published
1823).
[99] From an extract contained in the review (_Scots Magazine_,
1819, vol. iv, pp. 332-3) of Capt. Ross's account (published by John
Murray, London, 1819).
[100] _Op. cit._, p. 119.
[101] The fact that the "Interlude" is allegorical does not at all
affect the question.
CHAPTER IX.
While the Picts, or Pechts, are remembered to a great extent as the
builders of the subterranean and half-subterranean dwellings with
which they are associated, these are far from being the only
structures which popular tradition has stamped as the work of their
hands. The architectural skill, of a kind, which they displayed in
the construction of their own "Pechts' houses" may be seen from such
a casual reference as this, gleaned from among certain specimens of
Clydesdale folk-lore: "Our milkhouse," says a Clydesdale peasant,
"whilk stude on the side of a dentie burn, and was ane o' thae auld
vowts [vaults] whilk the Pechs biggit langsyne, had wa's sae doons
strang that ane waud hae thocht it micht hae stude to the last day;
but its found had been onnerminit by the last Lammas-spait."[102] If
the "Pechts' houses" lacked, as they certainly did, evidences of
high culture in the designers, or outward beauty of design in
themselves, they were at least remarkable for their great strength
and durability; so that, were it not for such accidents as a
Lammas-flood, they might well have stood "to the last day." But the
great bodily strength of this race, and their turn for masonry, were
made use of in other ways than in the construction of the dwellings
referred to; that is, if there is any truth in the popular ideas
upon this subject.
The late Robert Chambers, in putting together the popular Scotch
beliefs regarding these people,[103] not only states that they were
"short, wee men," but he adds, still speaking as a Scottish peasant:
"The Pechs were great builders; they built a' the auld castles in
the kintry; and do ye ken the way they built them? I'll tell ye.
They stood all in a row from the quarry to the place where they were
building, and ilk ane handed forward the stanes to his neebor, till
the hale was biggit." A special example of one of the buildings so
reared is the Round Tower of Abernethy in Perthshire, well known as
one of the two towers of this class still to be found in Scotland.
"The story goes," says the Rev. Andrew Small, in his "Antiquities of
Fife,"[104] "that it was built by the Pechts,... and that, while the
work was going on, they stood in a row all the way from the Lomond
Hill to the building, handing the stones from one to another....
That it has been built of freestone from the Lomond Hill is clear to
a demonstration, as the grist or nature of the stone points out the
very spot where it has been taken from, namely, a little west, and
up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile straight south
from Meralsford." That Abernethy was long a seat of Pictish power is
what no historian would deny, and the tower referred to is always
denominated "Pictish." Of the way in which it was built we have just
seen the local account.
Similar ideas are current in Northumberland. "The erection of
several of these old castles [_e.g._, Dunstanborough Castle] is, by
popular tradition, ascribed to the Picts.... The building of the
Roman wall, which is by country people commonly called the Picts'
wall, is also ascribed to them; and they are said to have formed the
Catrail on the Scottish border, which is frequently called the
Picts-work ditch. The Picts are described as men of low stature, but
of superhuman strength; and on the moors of Northumberland the heaps
of stone, which are supposed by antiquaries to mark the spot where
'bones of mighty chiefs lie hid,' are sometimes pointed out to the
inquiring stranger as places where a Pict's apron-string had broken
as he was carrying a load of stones to his work."[105]
Although the tower at Abernethy, and the "Pechts' houses" already
spoken of, may be classed together as having been built for the use
of the builders themselves, it is quite evident that if these people
actually reared the many other structures attributed to them, in
Scotland and in Northumberland, they did so in the character of
serfs, working for people of other races. If Dunstanborough Castle,
the Wall of Hadrian, and (perhaps also) the Catrail, not to speak of
"a' the auld castles in the kintry," were built by the Pechts, the
builders were evidently not working on their own behalf. This
clearly must have been the case in the instance of the "Roman Wall,"
which was raised for the very purpose of checking the southward
inroads of these fierce warriors. That it actually was a "Roman
wall" is of course beyond question. But that fact does not interfere
with the supposition that the drudgery was performed by captive
Pechts, whose immense strength, and intimate acquaintance with the
art of building such structures, would render them of the greatest
use to their conquerors. That they, and not the Romans, were the
actual _builders_ of the wall, as Northumbrian tradition asserts, is
therefore far from improbable. Indeed, there are one or two
indications that the more northern "Wall of Antoninus" may also have
been reared by kindred hands. And as with these early examples, so
may the later buildings referred to have actually been unwillingly
built by Pechts, at the command of other people.[106]
Not only walls and castles, or towers, but churches and cathedrals
are also said to have been reared by the same dwarfish but powerful
builders, as may be seen from the following instances.
One part of Scotland that continued to be a "reservation" of the
Pechts, after that people had ceased to hold sway, is the hilly
country lying to the south of Edinburgh, and known as "the
Pentlands." Like the "Pentland Firth" on the north-east of Scotland,
this district was so called because it was associated with the
Pechts. We need not here concern ourselves as to the causes which
made the name, in both instances, assume the modern form of
"Pentland." But, in each case, the name was formerly "Pehtland," and
it signified "the land of the Pehts, or Pechts." According to Dr.
Skene, the Angles of Northumbria had, as early as the seventh
century, established themselves pretty securely as the ruling caste
throughout the south-east of what is now Scotland, then a part of
"Northumbria." This territory seems to have reached as far on the
north-west as the modern county of Linlithgow, and one of the chief
Northumbrian strongholds in that neighbourhood has ever since been
known by the name of the Northumbrian king, Edwin. Edinburgh,
therefore, in the seventh century, appears as a seat of the Anglian
race, which ruled from the Forth to the Humber. Three or four
centuries later, the steadily growing power of "Scotia" annexed the
whole of Northumbria lying north of the Borders. But the population,
no doubt, remained little affected by this political change, and its
speech and traditions continued the same.[107]
But, although those Angles were the rulers of south-eastern
Scotland (in modern topography), there still remained a remnant of
the Pechts in at least one part of that northern Northumbria.[108]
And it was because of their residence there that the Angles spoke of
the hilly region lying to the south and south-west of Edinburgh as
"the Peht or Pecht land." How long the Pechts maintained some kind
of individuality in that neighbourhood it is impossible to say. It
is said that, after Kenneth's great victory over the Pechts at
Forteviot or at Scone, in the middle of the ninth century, many of
the fugitives sought refuge in England. And, as the Pentland Hills
were then in "England," it is likely that they found shelter among
their kindred there. In other parts of Scotland the Pechts are
historically visible long after the seventh and ninth centuries. At
the battle of the Standard, in 1138, the Galloway section formed one
division of the Scottish army.[109] A popular tradition, to be
presently referred to, also speaks of them as a distinct people in
the Clyde valley, during the same century. It is therefore quite
permissible to suppose that, once the people of the Midlothian
"Pecht-lands" had realized that they were a conquered remnant, with
no hope of ultimately recovering their lost power, they may have
continued to live, if merely as serfs, not only to the twelfth
century, but for several centuries longer.
That they did so is to be inferred from the following bit of
"folk-lore," which relates to a locality that, though not strictly
included in the district of the "Pecht-lands," is quite near enough
to agree with this hypothesis.
The hill of Corstorphine, situated a little to the west of
Edinburgh, is only about three miles north of the nearest point of
the "Pecht-lands." Now, the village church of Corstorphine is one of
the few churches in Scotland which are of interest to the antiquary.
"Ancient it most unquestionably is," says a modern writer in the
course of a description of the village and its church, and the
foundation of the latter is placed in the year 1429. The fifteenth
century is not very "ancient," as these things go, but perhaps the
site has been occupied by a church from a much earlier period. At
any rate, the writer just referred to, in visiting Corstorphine for
the purpose of inspecting both church and village, obtained this
piece of local tradition, believed to relate to the church of 1429.
"Of this [church], in November 1881, an intelligent native assured
the writer that it was 'wonderfully ancient, built by the
Hottentots, who stood in a row and handed the stones on one to
another from Ravelston quarry'"--on the adjacent hill of
Corstorphine.[110]
Now, if one compares this account with the traditional description
of the _modus operandi_ of the Pechts, already instanced in the case
of Abernethy, and generally accepted throughout Scotland, one hardly
requires the historical testimony of the "Pecht-lands" to recognize
in these "Hottentots" the Pechts of tradition. It is not necessary
to take the expression here used by the Corstorphine villager as
absolutely correct. His statement, it may be remarked, succeeded a
conversation in which our various wars in South Africa had been
discussed,[111] and it is not unlikely that this had suggested to
the speaker the term "Hottentot" as aptly enough describing a race
that to his ancestors, whose ideas he inherited, had seemed savage
and inferior. That he absolutely believed the labourers who reared
the walls of the church to be of a different race from his own is
unquestionably indicated by the whole tenor of his remarks.[112]
This Corstorphine tradition points to a body of Pechts still
surviving as a distinct type, in the Midlothian of 1429; and then
regarded by the general population as a caste of drudges. This, too,
is the position accorded to that race in one phase of Highland
tradition. "I am informed," says Dr. Jamieson,[113] "that in
Inverness-shire, the foundations of various houses have been
discovered, of a round form,... and that when the Highlanders are
asked to whom they belonged, they say that they were the houses of
the _Drinnich_ or _Trinnich_, _i.e._, of the _labourers_, a name
which they give to the Picts." They may be seen in the Clyde valley,
in the same position as those of Corstorphine, but three centuries
earlier, on the testimony of tradition. "Throughout Scotland," says
an antiquary previously quoted, "the vulgar account is, 'that the
_Pechs_ were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang'; that is, that
they were of very small stature, but of prodigious strength. It is
commonly added [he goes on] 'that the meal (oatmeal) was a penny the
peck when they built the _Hie_ Kirk [the Cathedral] of Glasgow;' for
the building of all the cathedrals, and in general everything very
ancient, is ascribed by the common people to the _Pechs_."[114] Now,
the present Cathedral of Glasgow is said to have been built in the
twelfth century, at which date the Pechts of Galloway formed a
distinct and separate population in south-western Scotland.
According to Reginald of Durham, as we have already seen, the town
of Kirkcudbright was situated in the "Pecht-lands" (_terra
Pictorum_), and the _sermo Pictorum_ was still spoken there. In the
same century the Galloway Pechts formed the van of the Scottish army
at the battle of the Standard; and the Pechts of this period are
remembered in the popular memory, assisted by a homely enough
detail, as having been employed in the building of the "High Church"
of Glasgow. Of course, the Clyde valley is not situated in Galloway;
but the presence of Pechts in twelfth-century Glasgow may easily be
explained by assuming that they belonged to another detachment of
the race, or that it was worth while sending to Galloway for such
famous builders. Belonging to a period less easily defined are the
Pecht masons of the famous Round Tower at Brechin. Regarding this
tower a local writer states: "Tradition, in Brechin, as well as at
Abernethy, ascribes the erection to the _Peghts_," and he adds, that
"it has stated they were only allowed a trifle for this work, and
were cheated out of part of this trifle."[115] In this instance,
also, the Pechts are remembered as working for people of another
race; which is somewhat remarkable, as the tower itself is one of
those which seem to have been built by the Pechts for _their own_
purposes.
Without going much out of the way, it may be as well to point out
that the popular idea of the Pechts being "men of low stature, _but
of superhuman strength_," "unco wee bodies, _but terrible strang_,"
is not only supported by tradition on every side, but it is borne
out by a consideration of the mementos they have left behind them.
Much could be said on this subject; but it will perhaps be enough
here to point to a hill-fortress in Forfarshire, which history and
tradition agree in ascribing to these people. This is the stronghold
known as the White Cater Thun, situated a few miles north-west of
Brechin (which possesses the Pictish round-tower just referred to,
and which was once a seat of Pictish monarchy). The fort crowns a
hill which rises about 300 feet above the general level of the great
valley of Strathmore, and is thus referred to:
"This is, perhaps, the strongest Pictish fortification
extant. It is surrounded by a double rampart of an
elliptical figure, being 436 feet long by about 200 broad,
and containing about two imperial acres.... But the most
wonderful thing that occurs in this Pictish fort is the
extraordinary dimensions of the ramparts, composed entirely
of large, loose stones, being 26 feet thick at the top, and
upwards of 100 at the bottom, reckoning quite to the ditch,
which, indeed, seems to be much filled up with the tumbling
down of the walls. The vast labour that it must have cost
to amass so enormous a quantity of large stones, and convey
them to such a height, is astonishing.... In conveying the
enormous quantity of large stones to the summit of White
Cater Thun, the natives must doubtless have expended great
labour, and much time. They seem, however, to have been
familiar with a method of removing immense masses from
considerable distances, and it is supposed they made use of
hurdles on such occasions; it is not improbable they might
have some kind of rude windlass for raising the larger
stones from the bottom to the top of the hill."[116]
Whatever the method employed by the builders of this stronghold,
the description just given will show the reader, what he cannot fail
to be impressed with on a study of the Pechts, that these people and
their buildings belonged to what is known as the "Cyclopean" type,
and that they--the people--represented a race now quite extinct, in
its purity, but which must undoubtedly have been remarkable for a
prodigious strength of body, a strength that may well be spoken of
as "superhuman," if it is to be compared with that of any existing
race of men. It is this point that must always be borne in mind when
one considers the traditions regarding the buildings of the Pechts,
and this it is that justifies the very parts of those traditions
which would otherwise appear utterly wild and incredible. Beyond
question, there is much that demands criticism and inquiry in the
traditional description of the way in which such edifices as
Abernethy Tower and Corstorphine Church were reared. But two
important points must not be overlooked. The one is that an immense
number of people may have been simultaneously at work; the other is
that the workers were of vast muscular strength.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] _Scots Magazine_, vol. iii. 1818, p. 503.
[103] "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, pp. 80-82.
[104] Edinburgh, 1823, pp. 152-3.
[105] "Rambles in Northumberland," by S. Oliver. London, 1835, p.
104.
[106] The earliest instance which has come under my notice of such
work performed in the British Islands by a subject people, who
correspond in many ways with the Pechts, is that given by Lady
Ferguson ("The Story of the Irish before the Conquest," London,
1868, p. 32), with reference to the rebuilding of the fort of
Cruachan, in Connaught.
[107] For Dr. Skene's accounts, on which these statements are based,
see "Celtic Scotland," vol. i. pp. 236-241; and p. cvii of his
Preface to the "Chronicles of the Picts and Scots."
[108] It is not meant to be implied that Angles and Pechts were
exclusively the inhabitants of this territory at that time. But it
seems clear that the former predominated, and gave to the district
the impression of speech and custom which it yet retains.
[109] "Celtic Scotland," vol. i. pp. 203 and 467. "Reginald of
Durham, writing in the last half of the twelfth century, mentions,
in 1164, Kirkcudbright as being in 'terra Pictorum,' and calls their
language 'sermo Pictorum.'" (_Op. cit._, p. 203, _note_.) Dr. Skene,
quoting various authorities, gives us an interesting description of
the Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard. It was composed, we
learn, of Normans, Germans, English, Northumbrians, Cumbrians, men
of Teviotdale and the Lothians, Picts (commonly called Galloways or
Galloway-men), and Scots. This is the statement made by Richard of
Hexham, a contemporary writer, and it seems to agree on the whole
with the other accounts. His "Cumbrians" are identified with the
"Welsh" of Strathclyde. No doubt his "Northumbrians" were those who,
living on the north of the Border, belonged to that part of
Northumbria which had then been Scottish for more than a century.
The Galloway Picts, it may be added, were in the front of the
battle, and "claimed to lead the van as their right."
[110] _See_ the _Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1882,
vol. i. p. 287.
[111] This I am informed by the writer of the lines quoted.
[112] "The tradition that certain buildings were erected by men who
stood in a row and handed the stones from one to the other is quite
familiar to me with regard to buildings in Ireland," writes a
correspondent (the Rev. J. Ffrench, of Clonegal, Fellow of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries of Ireland); and he furnishes one
example:--"Brash, in his 'Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland,'
when describing the Round Tower of _Ardmore_, tells us: 'I have
before stated that the materials of which this tower was built were
brought from the Mountain of Slieve-Grian, some four or five miles
distant. The local legend is that the stones were brought to the
spot without "horse or wheel," and laid without the noise of a
hammer, the meaning of which is that the stones were all dressed in
the quarry, and a line of men being stationed along from the quarry
to the tower, the stones were handed from one to the other.'"
While this Irish tradition does not identify these builders with
any special race of men, it is noteworthy that their method of
building is that which Scottish tradition regards as peculiarly
characteristic of the Picts, or "Pechts." Moreover, the building
referred to by Brash is of precisely the same order as the Round
Tower of Abernethy, said to have been built after the same fashion.
And the builders of the Round Tower of Abernethy, as also the
builders of the Round Tower of Brechin, are alleged by local
tradition to have been "Pechts."
[113] In the "Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish Language,"
prefixed to his Scottish Dictionary.
[114] Knox's "Topography of the Tay," Edinburgh, 1831, pp. 108-9.
[115] "History of Brechin," by David D. Black. Edinburgh and
Brechin, 1867, 2nd edition, p. 247.
[116] Knox's "Topography," pp. 92-94.
CHAPTER X.
In the immediately preceding pages we have been considering the
people known as "Pechts." But it is contended that the "Feens" of
Gaelic story ought to be identified with the "Pechts." When the
leader of the "Feens" landed in "the country of the big men," he was
at once seized upon as eminently fitted to be the court dwarf, into
which office he was duly installed; from which it was reasonably
inferred that he was a "pegh," or dwarf. Now, in one of the many
songs ascribed to the son of this "pegh," Oisin, who is ever
bemoaning the departed glories of his race, he laments the fact that
he finds himself in his old age "wearily dragging stones along to
the church on the hill of the priest." "Here, where he is a drudge,
he has seen the Feinne in their glory.... Were they alive,
shavelings would not hold this mound." Thus laments Oisin, the
representative of the old heathen Feens, bitter in his denunciations
of Patrick the priest, and the new order which he represents, and
ever bewailing the vanished "glory of the Feinn."
We find Oisin, therefore, accepted universally as the type of his
race, unwillingly occupied in "dragging stones for priests to build
churches," in his old age and after the downfall of his people. Nor
was it only as the serf of another race that he had so worked;
because, he explains to Patrick that this old age of drudgery had
been foretold to him by his leader, Fin, on a previous occasion,
before the coming of Patrick, and on that occasion not only Oisin,
but a great number of the Feens of Ireland, were engaged in a
similar task. The great difference was that then they were not
working as the drudges of another people, but for themselves, and at
the command of their leader. And it was not a church, but a
hill-fortress, that they were building, "on Cuailgne's bare and
rounded hill." Oisin speaks of it as Fin's "famous fort," and the
hill on which it was built is "said to be in the county of Armagh,"
or, as another writer states, in County Louth. According to Oisin,
two-thirds of the materials for the fort were brought thither by the
Feens of Connaught and the west of Ireland, and the remainder by the
Feens of Leinster and the east of Ulster, to which section both
Oisin and Fin belonged. Assuming these traditional accounts to be
correct, we thus see the Feens, in the day of their independence,
"dragging stones" to the top of a hill, in order to build a
fortress; and later on we see them, personified by Oisin, occupied
in a similar manner, but as the drudges of Christian priests and the
builders of Christian churches. The one account applies to Scotland
and the other to Ireland; but the Pechts of the White Cater Thun
have their counterparts in the Feens who reared the "famous fort"
"on Cuailgne's bare and rounded hill;" and the Pechts who built the
churches of Glasgow and Corstorphine are also duplicated in the
conquered Feens, "weary dragging stones for priests to build
churches," in Ireland. Consequently, the traditional fame of the
Pechts of Scotland, as a great race of builders, is not at all at
variance with the belief that they and the Feens were of one
nation.[117]
But, if Fin and his Feens were builders of the hill-forts of the
"Pechts," and were themselves veritable Pechts, it is evident that
the Feens built and inhabited the dwellings known as "Pechts'
houses." This is quite borne out when we regard that class of
building which, although an archæologist already quoted (Mr. Petrie)
does not hold it to be strictly entitled to the designation of
"Pecht's house," is nevertheless a variety of the same species, and
often receives the same title. The variety referred to differs from
what has been accepted as the true "Pecht's house," in that it has
no superimposed covering of earth or turf. But the two varieties
undoubtedly belong to the same general class. Now, with regard to
this second order of "Pecht's house," we have such a statement as
the following: "Glenlyon, in Perthshire, is remarkable for the great
number of remains of aboriginal works scattered through it, in the
shape of circular castles built entirely of dry stones. The common
people believe these structures to have belonged to their mythic
hero, Fion,... and have a verse to that effect:
'Bha da chaisteal dheug aig Fionn
Ann an Crom-ghleann-nan-clach.'
That is, _Fion had twelve castles in the Crooked Glen of Stones_
(such being an old name for Glenlyon)."[118] And a like belief
prevails in other Perthshire glens, such as Glenshee and Glenalmond,
beside the latter of which, as every reader of Wordsworth knows,
Oisin himself is said to be buried.
The true "Pecht's house," however, is not this dry-stone circular
"castle," open to air and sun. These "castles" are, indeed,
popularly included among "Pechts' houses," but such an archæologist
as the one recently referred to prefers to speak of them as
"brochs." This word "broch" (akin to _burgh_, etc.) has been adopted
by Dr. Joseph Anderson and other eminent students of such buildings,
to distinguish this special structure; and although, etymologically
regarded, the distinction is arbitrary, it is very convenient. But
the "broch," standing visibly exposed like any other ruin, its stone
walls uncovered to the sun, is by no means the same thing as the
"Pecht's house" described by Mr. Petrie and others. This, it may be
remembered, is almost or altogether identical with the dwellings of
the North-Greenland Eskimos, as portrayed by the explorers of
seventy years ago. It is approached through a long, dark tunnel,
entered from the face of a bank or brae, so low that one has to
crawl along it, its sides and roofs composed of large stone slabs,
and the roof itself flush with, or even underneath, the surface of
the ground. At the end of this long, dark, narrow passage one enters
the central chamber of the dwelling of the North-Greenlander and the
ancient Pecht. It, too, would be in darkness, were it not for the
rude stone lamp, fed with the oil of seal or whale, soaking through
moss or the pith of rushes, which hangs from the roof and is always
burning. Here and there at the side of this central chamber are
openings in the wall which lead into small cavities used as
sleeping-places. Briefly and imperfectly, that is the interior of
the Pecht's house.[119]
Viewed from the outside, what does it resemble? The underground
passage of approach is invisible. The "house" itself "is generally
of a conical form, and externally closely resembles a large
bowl-shaped barrow. It consists of a solid mass of masonry, covered
with a layer of turf a foot or more in thickness, and has a central
chamber surrounded by several smaller cells." Or, as another writer
describes it, "all that meets the eye at first is a green, conical
mound ... resting silently amid the moorland solitude." The entrance
to this seeming hillock, situated sometimes at its base, more
frequently, perhaps, at the extremity of a narrow, underground
tunnel, was never very conspicuous, since it was only about a couple
of feet high. In the days when the Pechts were actually inhabiting
these "green hillocks," it is likely they took the precaution to
conceal this outer orifice, small though it was, as well as
possible. Thus, the adventurer or colonist of another race, arriving
at a settlement of Pechts' houses, saw nothing but one or more
grassy, conical hillocks rising out of the surrounding moor.
Since the Gaelic term _broch_ (for it is Gaelic, though not
exclusively so) is used to denote the one variety of these "Pictish"
dwellings, let us employ, if only temporarily, the Gaelic term which
denotes the other. That kind of _broch_, then, which is covered over
with earth and turf so as to resemble a conical green mound, is
known in Gaelic by the name of _sith-bhrog_, or _sith-bhrugh_; that
is to say, the broch of the _sith_. Still more commonly, it is
styled a _sithean_, or _sith_-place. When rendered in our modern
English spelling, according to its pronunciation, this distinctive
_sith_ becomes spelt _shee_; as in the case of _Gleann-sith_, which
is written "Glenshee." And, similarly, _sithean_ becomes _sheean_.
It is the "sheean," then, and not the "broch" proper, that is
regarded by such archæologists as Mr. Petrie as peculiarly the
dwelling of the Pechts.
Now, if any Highlander were asked his opinion as to the former
inhabitants of the "sheeans," he would have but one answer to give.
And the nature of that answer is very clearly shown by those
Highlanders who have compiled the leading Scottish-Gaelic
dictionaries. _Brog_ (_i.e._, "broch") is itself defined as an
obsolete term for "a house"; but _bruth_ and other variants connect,
if they do not identify, the "broch" with the "sheean." The various
definitions are these: _Bruth_, "a house half under the surface,"
"the dwelling of fairies in a hill"; _sith-bruth_, _sith-bhrugh_, "a
fairy hill or mansion"; _sith-bhrog_, _sith-bhruach_, _sith-bhruth_,
"a fairy hill," "a fairy residence," "fairyland"; _sithean_, "a
little hill or knoll," "a fairy hill"; _sithain_, "a green knoll or
hillock, tenanted, according to superstitious belief, by
fairies."[120]
Thus, the houses of the Pechts or dwarfs were inhabited by the
people known as "fairies." As the fairies were "little people,"
there is here no contradiction in terms. We have, moreover, seen
that the same "conical, green mounds" are remembered in Orkney and
Shetland as the homes of the "trows." "Trow," however, is itself
equivalent to _droich_, or dwarf. Therefore, the belief that those
outward-seeming "green hillocks" were the abodes of Pechts is quite
in agreement with the traditions that refer to those mound-dwellers
as _trows_ and _fairies_ (otherwise "the little people"). Because
_pecht_ (or _pech_), _trow_, and _fairy_ are all synonyms for
"dwarf."
FOOTNOTES:
[117] For these references to Oisin and the Feens see Skene's "Book
of the Dean of Lismore," pp. 12-14 (English version), and 10-11
(Gaelic). Also Mr. J. F. Campbell's "Leabhar na Feinne," pp. xiii,
47 and 49.
[118] Chambers's "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, pp. 254-55.
[119] Although the Pechts made use of stone lamps similar to those
of the northern Eskimos, it is perhaps too much to assume that the
dwellings of the former admitted nothing of the light of day. Mr.
Petrie states that the walls of the Pechts' houses "converge towards
the top, where they approach so closely that the aperture can be
spanned by a stone a couple of feet in length." If this aperture
remained open during the day, which seems quite likely, then the
above reference as to the ever-burning lamp is only applicable to
the dwellings of the northern Greenlanders. For the sake of safety,
while their lands were over-run by hostile forces, it is probable
that the Pechts did cover the two-foot hole in the roof with a large
stone, which itself would need to be hidden by earth and turf. But
the fact that such an aperture was left in the building indicates
that it was frequently uncovered; perhaps always at night, and also,
during times of safety, in the day. In the latter case, the interior
of this underground dwelling would thus receive, through the hole
overhead, enough light to fill the central chamber with a sort of
twilight, although the smaller cells might have been quite in
darkness.
[120] See the dictionaries of Armstrong, McLeod and Dewar, and
McAlpine. McAlpine also defines the word _digh_ as a "conical
mound," "an abode of fairies"; and that more uncommon term is thus
employed in an Islay story of Mr. J. F. Campbell's (_West Highland
Tales_, ii, 48).
CHAPTER XI.
In a reference to the popular traditions of Northumberland, the
Picts are spoken of as "a race of people who are represented, in
such legends, as endowed with supernatural power, and holding, in
the scale of beings, an intermediate rank between men and
fairies."[121] Sir Walter Scott also corroborates this belief as
existent in Northumberland ("Rob Roy," ch. xxiii). And the writer
previously quoted, in describing the local tradition with regard to
the building of the tower at Abernethy by the Pechts, explains that
"the people always, when they speak of these Peghs, associate that
idea with a notion that they were a preternatural sort of beings,
such as fairies and brownies." Therefore, without entering into any
discussion as to what is or was meant by "supernatural power," we
have ascertained from these extracts that the Pechts were regarded,
in Northumberland and in Scotland, as a race of people possessing or
claiming "supernatural" attributes. And that they were akin to
"fairies and brownies," if they were not identical with them. This
also is the position of the "Feens" of Gaelic folk-lore, as the
following references will show.
When the celebrated Irish king, Brian Borumha, defeated the Danes
of Dublin and their allies, in the year 1000 A.D., it is stated that
he appropriated all the vast treasures that the Danes had gathered
together:--"gold and silver, and bronze, and precious stones, and
carbuncle-gems, and buffalo-horns, and beautiful goblets," as well
as "various vestures of all colours."[122] And the chronicler
explains that "never was there a fortress, or a fastness, or a
mound, or a church, or a sacred place, or a sanctuary," which the
Danes had not plundered when it fell to their arms. The first three
terms, which in the Gaelic are _dún_, _daingean_, and _diongna_, are
closely allied, and each designates something akin to the "hollow
mounds" of which we have been speaking.[123] But the succeeding
sentence is quite explicit: "Neither was there in concealment under
ground in Erinn, _nor in the various solitudes belonging to Fians or
to fairies_, anything that was not discovered by these foreign,
wonderful Denmarkians, through paganism and idol worship." With
regard to which last allusion, Dr. Todd says: "The meaning is, that
notwithstanding the potent spells employed by the Fians and fairies
of old for the concealment of their hidden treasures, the Danes, by
their pagan magic and the diabolical power of their idols, were
enabled to find them out."[124] (The Gaelic from which Dr. Todd
translates the above sentences is as follows:--"Ni raibh imorro
_dún_ no _daingean_, no _diongna_, no ceall, no cadhas, no neimedh
do gabhadh ris an ngláim nglifidhigh, nglonnmair, ngnuismhir do bhí
ag teaglaim, ocus ag teaccar na hédala sin, óir ni raibhe ifolach
_fo thalmain_ in Erinn ina fá dhiamhraibh díchealta ag _fianaibh_ no
ag _síthcuiraibh_ ní na fuaratar na Danmargaigh allmardha ingantacha
sin, tre geintlidhecht, ocus tre iodhaladhradh.")[125]
Like the Pechts in Northumbrian tradition, the Feens are here not
absolutely _identified_ with the fairies, although the two are so
closely associated that it is difficult to distinguish between the
one and the other. The traditions of the Feens themselves testify to
a distinction between the two. Thus, in the "Dan an Fhir Shicair,"
or Ballad of the Fairy Man,[126] Fin and his six nobles, while
walking out one evening, see a fairy-man coming towards them, who
announces that he comes from the neighbouring Golden Doon (_Dún an
oir_), and that his purpose is to cause those Feens to come, by
enchantment, to dine that day with him and his people in their
"hill." Here, then, we have the Feens associating, to some extent
(though not, as it appears, on a very friendly footing) with
fairies, and yet not themselves regarded as identical with that
people.
From the foregoing reference to the plunder of the Danes at Dublin,
in the year 1000, it is evident that "the Feens and Fairies" were
understood, in the traditional history of the Gaels, to be then
actually inhabiting those underground and half-underground
dwellings known as "Pechts' houses." There is another reference,
in the same history, that corroborates this belief. The date when
Brian Borumha became possessor of those "fairy-hoards," which the
Danes had previously obtained by their well-known process of
"how-breaking,"[127] was the close of the tenth century. Now, a son
of this same Brian, and also one of his father's chief warriors, are
both described as asserting (on a certain occasion, in the reign of
the same Brian)[128] that they had been tempted by the fairies to
forsake their ancestral cause. "Often," says Murchadh, "was I
offered, in hills and in fairy mansions [_i sithaib ocus i
sithbrugaib_], this world and these gifts; but I never abandoned for
one night my country nor my inheritance for them." As Murchadh's
response was evoked by a similar statement on the part of Dunlang,
it thus appears that, in rifling the abodes of the "how-folk," the
Danes were robbing a race _then alive_, and were not merely
appropriating unclaimed treasure. And, indeed, the Scandinavian
accounts of "how-breaking" distinctly point out that this pastime
involved a struggle of life and death with the armed inmate of the
"how."
The evidence of Murchadh and Dunlang, then, shows that intercourse
with "the fairies" was not a matter for wonder; and, moreover, that,
for one reason or another, the latter desired to seduce the
Gaelic-speaking people from their allegiance. That they were
eventually successful with Dunlang seems pointed out by the
statement, made elsewhere, that this Dunlang was himself a fairy
(_sioguidhe_).[129] And it is well known that "Fairies," as well as
"Feens," while possessing distinct innate attributes, were not
averse to obtaining adherents from other races, who thus became
"Feens" and "Fairies" by adoption.
In the instance of Murchadh and Dunlang, however, the _Feens_ are
not named; and it is a matter for conjecture whether they ought to
be included among the Fairies there spoken of. But, at any rate, the
incident shows that the Fairies (if not the Feens) formed an active,
existent caste or race, subsequent to the date of Brian's famous
victory over the Danes; and that the Danish inroads on their doons,
brochs, hows, etc., in the neighbourhood of Dublin had not by any
means annihilated them as a people.
Of this robbery of the "how-folk" by the Danes in the Dublin
district, something further may be said in passing. The date of
these raids is stated to have been 861 or 862 A.D., when the Danes
overran the whole district of the Boyne and Blackwater (co. Meath),
and broke into the "fairy hills" of that region; one of which, that
of New Grange, is probably the most interesting example of its class
that is at present known to archæologists.[130] Therefore, the booty
which the Danes thus obtained in 862 must have formed a portion of
that captured by King Brian, after his victory, in the year 1000.
And it is clear enough that it was this special treasure that the
chronicler referred to when he spoke of the hoards which the Danes
sought out and discovered "in concealment under ground" and "in the
various solitudes (or secret places) belonging to Feens or to
Fairies."
Ought "Fairies," then, to be identified with the "Feens" and
"Pechts" of history and tradition? We have already seen that, both
in Scotland and in Northumberland, the Pechts are classed with the
Fairies in the popular memory. And from the brief references just
made, one would be disposed at the first glance to say that the two
names applied to one people. But all the people who form the subject
of consideration in these pages belong, even in their most modern
and most modified phases, to the past; and in looking down that long
vista one is often deceived by the "foreshortening" effects of
distance, which seems to unite what is really distinct and separate.
Still, it is evident that "Fairies" have so many points in common
with "Feens" and "Pechts" that they must all, at least, be classed
together.
The Ayrshire term _Fane_, which, according to Dr. Jamieson,[131]
signifies "a fairy," offers itself as very probably a variant of the
Gaelic _Fian_ (pl. _Feinne_). But Brittany affords even a better
instance. There, we are told, the peasantry have memories of a race
of _Fions_, who were dwarfs in stature, and are described as "living
with the fairies."[132] And although we have endeavoured, as far as
possible, to restrict these remarks to the British Islands, and even
to a few special districts, yet the folk-lore of Brittany coincides
so closely with that of the districts just referred to, and is so
corroborative of the theories here stated, that it may be
permissible to quote a few of the Breton beliefs bearing upon this
subject.
Of those whom he states are called the _Christian_ fairies of
Brittany, M. Paul Sébillot gives several particulars.[133] These
so-called "Christian" fairies were, he says, "neither wholly
Christian nor wholly pagan," and in the traditions relating to them
he dimly recognizes their possible identification with the heathen
priestesses[134] of Brittany, at the time when they were gradually
becoming converted to Christianity. They are celebrated, like the
Pechts of Scotland, as the builders of churches. And just as local
tradition states that the Pechts who built the Round Tower of
Abernethy, in the manner already described, accomplished their work
in the course of a single night, so a certain chapel in the
Côtes-du-Nord is said to have been built in one night by the
"fairies." Moreover, in two of the instances referred to by M.
Sébillot, the top stone of the building is or was lacking, for the
reason that the daylight had surprised the builders at their
work.[135] Now, this is precisely what is stated of the Pictish
builders of the Round Tower at Abernethy, who are said to have been
much irritated because an early riser in the village discovered them
at work, and thus deprived the building and its builders of their
claim to a "supernatural" origin.[136] Further, these Breton
"fairies" are spoken of as carrying the stones in their aprons, like
the Picts of Northumberland, the castle-building "genii" of
Yorkshire, and the "witch" who helped to build the Forfarshire fort
of Cater Thun.[137] And, as in the two latter instances, as well as
in several of the others referred to, the stones were carried from
"a great distance" by the Breton fairies, on at least one occasion.
To this Breton comparison one is tempted to add that of the
Netherlands. In referring to the dwarfs who once inhabited the
neighbourhood of Tienen, M. Pol de Mont states that "they were
uncommonly small of stature, but of extraordinarily great
strength"[138]; a statement which is paralleled by "the vulgar
account" in Scotland, "that the Pechs were unco wee bodies, but
terrible strang." And, in the Journal of Folk-lore just quoted from,
the same kind of people are again suggested by the _Gypnissen_;
"queer little women," who lived in a "castle" which had been reared
in a single night, and who, like the Scotch "brownies" (with whom
the Pechts are classed by the Scotch), were content to perform such
everyday drudgery as washing the clothes of the taller race living
near them, for no higher remuneration than their daily food.[139]
The "castle" in which they dwelt is not spoken of as visible at the
present day, but the probability is that it was of the same nature
as the _Aschberg_, near Casterlé, which M. Pol de Mont states[140]
is declared by tradition to be a chambered mound, capable of housing
as many as fifty _bergmannetjes_, or mound-dwarfs (the Dutch term
being equivalent to the Scotch "how-folk" or the English
"hill-men").
Nor can one omit the following testimony from the island of Sylt,
off the Schleswig coast, supplied by Mr. William George Black.
Referring to a story of "Finn, the king of the dwarfs," Mr. Black
explains as follows:--"These were an odd, small, tricky, people whom
the Frisians found in Sylt when they took possession. They lived
underground, wore red caps, and lived on berries and mussels, fish
and birds, and wild eggs. They had stone axes and knives, and made
pots of clay. They sang and danced by moonlight on the mounds of the
plain which were their homes, worked little, were deceitful, and
loved to steal children and pretty women: the children they
exchanged for their own, the women they kept. Those who lived in the
bushes, and later in the Frieslanders' own houses, like our own
brownies, were called 'Pucks,' and a sandy dell near Braderup is
still known as the Pukthal.... They had a language of their own,
which lingers yet in proverbs and children's games. The story of
King Finn's subjects is evidently one of those valuable legends
which illuminate dark pages of history. It clearly bears testimony
to the same small race having inhabited Friesland in times which we
trace in the caves of the Neolithic age, and of which the Esquimaux
are the only survivors." Mr. Black has himself visited one of those
"green mounds" which are said to have been inhabited by this Sylt
"Finn," and he states that when it was first scientifically
examined, in 1868, it was found to contain "remains of a fireplace,
bones of a small man, some clay urns, and stone weapons."[141]
These Continental instances may be regarded as relating rather to
the "Feens of Lochlin" than to those of Ireland and Great Britain.
But one thing quite evident from the foregoing references is that
the "Fians and Fairies" of Ireland, the "Fions, or Feins, and
Fairies" of Brittany, and the similar people in the Netherlands and
in Friesland, were all nearly identical, if they were not quite
identical, with the "preternatural sort of beings" known to Scotch
folk-lore as Pechs, or Pechts, or Piks, and to history in general as
Picts.
FOOTNOTES:
[121] "Rambles in Northumberland," by S. Oliver, London, 1835, p.
104.
[122] "The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill," edited by J. H. Todd,
D.D. London, 1867, p. 115. In the above quotation, the word
translated "bronze" is _finndruine_. This is referred to as "a
metal, the constituents of which are not well known. O'Clery
describes it as _prás go n-airgead buailte_, 'brass, with silver
hammered on to it.'" It is also referred to as "white silver,"
"silver or white bronze," "brass," and "copper." It was employed to
furnish such various articles as "leg armour," the rim of a shield,
a royal chessboard, and, further, a bedstead--which surely ought to
have been royal also. (_Op. cit._, pp. ciii-civ. _note_, and 50 and
94; also Skene's "Celtic Scotland," ii. 507.) The passage relating
to buffalo-horns is given in the Gaelic version ("War of the
Gaedhil," p. 114), "_ocus do chornaibh buabaill_." The word _corn_,
of which _chornaibh_ is an inflection, is substantially the Latin
_cornu_. The Scotch-Gaelic dictionaries give it chiefly the
signification of "drinking-horn," and "sounding-horn or trumpet."
Armstrong states that the drinking-cups of the northern nations were
made from the horns of the "urus or European buffalo," referred to
by Latin writers: He adds--"One of these immense horns, at least an
ox-horn of prodigious size, is still preserved in the Castle of
Dunvegan, Isle of Sky." _Buabhall_ itself has the secondary meaning
of "trumpet," or "cornet"; but its true meaning is "buffalo."
Armstrong subjoins these comparisons--Armorican _bual_, French
_bufle_, Latin _bubulus_, Greek _boubalos_. Also Cornish _buaval_,
with the meaning of "trumpet." And also _buabhull-chorn_, "a
bugle-horn," with which he compares the Welsh _bual-gorn_. Halliwell
has _bougil_, "a bugle-horn," and _bugle_, "a buffalo"; and with
reference to the latter spelling he says, "hence bugle-horn, a
drinking-vessel made of horn; also a hunting-horn." Professor Skeat,
who cites Halliwell also, defines "bugle" as "a wild ox." It is
clear that these are all merely variants of one word, or rather of
two words. The _u_ in "bugle" has originally been broad. The hard
_c_ of "corn" has become a guttural in "chorn," and a mere aspirate
in "horn," although it is still found as "corn" both in English and
Gaelic dictionaries (with a very restricted meaning in the former
instance).
[123] Dr. Todd (_op. cit._, p. 40, _note_), in referring to another
instance in which these terms occur, says:--"The words here used,
_Dún_, _Daingen_, _Dingna_, all signify a fort or fortress. It is
not easy to define the precise difference between them. _Dún_ ...
seems to signify a fortified hill or mound. _Daingen_ (dungeon) is a
walled fort or strong tower; hence _daingnigim_, I fortify. _Dingna_
[which he translates 'mound' in the above instance] is apparently
only another form of the same word. Cf. 'Zeuss,' p. 30 n."
[124] _Op. cit._, p. 115, _note_.
[125] Even the expression "_fo thalmain_" may be held to denote the
"conical hill" of the fairies. _Talmhainn_ is certainly the genitive
of _talamh_, "the ground"; and so "_fo thalmain_" signifies "under
the ground." But _tolman_ particularly denotes "a mound." And it, or
the variant _tulman_, is used in a fairy tale of the island of Barra
(Campbell's "West Highland Tales," ii. 39) with special reference to
one of those abodes of the "little people." It may be added that the
word translated the "solitudes" of the Feens, etc., might also be
rendered the "secret places" or "concealed places."
[126] "Leabhar na Feinne," pp. 94-95.
[127] The "fairy mound" was also known as a "how" or "haug," and its
people as "how-folk." To "break," or break into a "how," in the hope
of obtaining treasure (an early form of burglary), was a well-known
custom of the Danes.
[128] "The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill," pp. clxxviii-clxxix,
note 5, and pp. 172-173.
[129] Dr. Todd, in mentioning this and the other relative
circumstances, refers the reader to "Mr. O'Kearney's Introd. to the
'Feis Tighe Chonain' (Ossianic Soc.) p. 98 _sq._"--and to
O'Flaherty's "Ogygia," iii. c. 22, p. 200.
[130] _See_ Sir W. R. Wilde's "Beauties of the Boyne," Dublin, 1849,
p. 202. The same work refers (p. 24) to "sidh Nectain, the fairy
hill of Nechtain," where the river Boyne rises, but does not state
whether early Dane or modern archæologist has ever investigated it.
(It is now known as the Hill of Carbury.)
[131] "Scottish Dictionary," s. v. _Fane_.
[132] _See_ the "Revue des Traditions populaires," Nov. 1889,
p. 613. The reader is there referred to M. Paul Sébillot's
"Contes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne" for those _Fions_; and
also to Bézier's "Inventaire des monuments mégalithiques de
l'Ille-et-Vilaine," (p. 26) for certain _Feins_, who seem very
likely to be the same people.
[133] "Revue des Traditions populaires," Oct. 1889, pp. 515-519.
[134] These "Christian" fairies appear to be remembered as women;
like the _banshee_ or fairy woman of Ireland and Gaelic-Scotland.
[135] Another illustration of these special features is afforded by
the church at Eckwadt, in Denmark, which is said to have been built
by a "hill-man," or dwarf. In this case, also, the last stone was
not put on. Of this builder, too, it is stated that "he worked only
during the night."--(Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, III. 38-39).
[136] In this mysterious method of working,--first preparing the
stones in a quarry at some distance off, and then conveying them to
the chosen site, and erecting them according to a pre-arranged
method, and all in the course of a single night (as the nature and
dimensions of the buildings rendered quite possible)--one seems to
discern one of the methods by which those dwarf tribes asserted and
maintained the "supernatural" qualities ascribed to them.
[137] For these latter references, see pp. 99-100 _post_. Of course,
the "aprons" of the traditional dwarfs, it need hardly be added,
were _leather_ aprons.
[138] _Volkskunde_: "Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche Folklore," 2^e
Jaargang, 9e Aflevering, p. 182.
[139] _Op. cit._, 2^e Jaar. 5^e Afl., p. 89.
[140] _Op. cit._, 2^e Jaar. 5^e Afl., p. 89.
[141] _Heligoland_; by William George Black, Blackwood & Sons, 1888,
Chapter IV.
CHAPTER XII.
The Gaelic accounts do not, of course, refer to the "Fairies" under
that name. It is therefore unnecessary to add anything here to the
many attempted solutions of the etymology of "Fairy." But the Gaelic
records speak of these people as the _Fir Sithe_, or _Daoine
Sithe_--the _Sithe_-folk. As already pointed out, this word is
pronounced as if spelt _Shee_ or _Sheey[)e]_]. It is also written
_Sidhe_, and this brings us to the older spelling before the dental
had been aspirated out of existence. The older form of the word is
_Side_, presumably pronounced as _Sheed[)e]_. What are the
conclusions arrived at with regard to these _Fir Sidhe_?
"We know now," says a recent writer, already quoted, "that the
Sidhe were early peoples and their gods, incorporated into the
following races.... We find under the Arctic Circle, and among the
Finns and other 'Altaic' or Turanian tribes of Russia, the same
belief in 'Tshuds' or vanished supernatural inhabitants of the land,
pointing to the same mixture of ideas we find in Ireland concerning
dispossessed peoples of a different tongue but high civilisation,
whose record remains only in legend. The 'Shee' of Ireland is the
same word we find in Asia, but softened down in pronunciation. Among
the early Russians and Irish we can safely infer the Turanian
underfolk with its myths and manners of life, its subterranean
dwellings and repute as magicians; in both we perceive remarkably
clever members of the Finno-Ugrian women-folk gaining a power over
chiefs of the conquering hordes, and going down into legend as
supernatural Sidhes or Tshuds."[142] According to this writer, then,
the "Fairies," whose treasures were seized by the Danes of Dublin in
the ninth century, belonged to the Turanian or Finno-Ugrian race of
the Tshuds. And the traditions current in Ireland and Scotland
regarding the _Fir Sidhe_, are counterparts of those current in the
north of Europe with regard to the _Tshuds_. It does not certainly
tend to the simplification of a very complex question to discover
that the North Europeans, who remember so much about those _Tshuds_,
are the very people who, of all modern Europeans, seem to have most
resemblance to the _Fir Sidhe_. In reviewing a recent collection of
Lapp folk-tales, Mr. Ralston states that "the traditions relating to
the constant struggle maintained between the Lapp aborigines and
their foreign enemies" forms an important portion of the collection.
"The first nine stories all refer to the foes known as _Tsjuderne_,
the _Tsjuder_--the Chudic Finns of the Baltic and other coasts. When
these dreaded enemies appeared, the Lapps would take refuge in their
underground retreats."[143] Thus, in accepting Tshud as identical
with _Side_ or _Sidhe_, we have to recognize that the people so
_named_ were the bitter foes of the very race that most resembles
them--the "underground" folk of Lapland. Perhaps the explanation of
this apparent contradiction is, that the fact of antagonism existing
between two nations is no proof of any great racial difference
between them.
Whether the word "Tshud" is, or is not, a variant of _Sidhe_, there
seems good reason for believing that such a variant ought to be
recognized in the _seid_ of the Sagas. We are told by Thorpe that
witchcraft was _seidhr_, which word some derive from _siodha_
(modern _seethe_), to boil. "Boiling 'seid,' or the witches' broth,
was the chief art in witchcraft," says Mr. Du Chaillu; who adds that
"the witchcraft songs which were used for the seid" were called
_Vard-lokur_,--"weird or fate songs." The "seid" platform and the
rites performed on and around it are described at the same place
(_Viking Age_, ii., 394-398):--"_Seid_ was to be performed. A
_Seid-hjall_, or platform consisting of a flat stone, was laid upon
three or four posts, and women were to be found who knew how to
recite or sing the so-called Vardlokur. When all this was ready, and
the _Volva_ [sibyl] on the platform, the women formed in a circle
round it, and the effective song was chanted while the seeress, with
the strangest gesticulations, made her conjurations and received her
revelations." "Once at a feast, according to ancient custom, Ingjald
prepared incantation (_seid_), that men might know their fates.
There was a Finn woman skilled in witchcraft.... The Finn woman was
placed high, and splendid preparations made for her; each of the men
went from his seat to inquire of her about their fates."
Similar accounts are given by Thorpe, who states that it, _seid_,
"was regarded as unseemly for men, and was usually practised by
women only: we nevertheless meet with seid-men." And again:--"On
account of its wickedness, it was held unworthy of a man to practise
seid, and the seid-man was prosecuted and burned as an atrocious
trollman.[144] The seid-women received money to make men hard, so
that iron could not wound them." "The most remarkable class of
seid-women were the so-called Valas, or Völvas. We find them present
at the birth of children, when they seem to represent the Norns."
"That the Norns, who appeared at the birth of children, were of the
race of the dwarfs," is elsewhere suggested by Mr. Thorpe.[145]
Scott, also (_The Pirate_, Note R), quotes from Kaspar Bartholin a
long account of one of those "Valas," as given in the _Saga of Eric
Rauda_. From which it is seen that, according to the custom
described by Thorpe and Du Chaillu, she stood "on a sort of elevated
stage," when delivering her prophecy.[146] Scott adds that Bartholin
"mentions similar instances" to that of "the little Vala" (as this
one was called), "particularly of one Heida, celebrated for her
predictions," who attended festivals for the purpose of telling
fortunes, accompanied by "thirty male and fifteen female
attendants."
In all these accounts we see the fairies of tradition, notably the
"fairy godmother" who came to the birth or christening of children.
The man who practised _seid_ rendered himself liable to be
prosecuted and burned as a _trow_, "an atrocious trollman;" or, in
the Gaelic, a _fear-side_. If the words "seid" and "side" are not
practically one, it is at least evident that they relate to the very
same people. And the _bean-side_ (banshee) of Gaelic tradition is
simply the seid-woman, remembered chiefly in her less pleasing
aspect, as the foreboder of death or misfortune.
Thus, whether _side_ ought to be held as primarily denoting the
incantations, or the enchanters themselves, it is this worship that
is indicated in the metrical life of St. Patrick, which says of him
(Skene's "Celt. Scot.," II. 108):--
"He preached threescore years
The Cross of Christ to the _Tuatha_ [people] of Feni.
On the _Tuatha_ of Erin there was darkness.
The _Tuatha_ adored the _Side_."
Nor is there anything inconsistent with these deductions in the
appearance of a _Finn_ woman as a celebrated _seid_-woman. For, in
Shetland, the Finns are even yet "reckoned among the Trows."[147]
To return, however, to the _Sidhe_ people of the British Islands.
The Blackwater valley of Leinster, whose "fairy" strongholds and
abodes were entered and plundered by the ninth-century Danes,
reminds one by its name that the Blackwater valley of Munster is
also famous for its fairy associations. In one of Mr. William
Black's novels ("Shandon Bells") there are frequent references to a
chief of the Fir Sidhe named _Fierna_,[148] who is remembered as the
leader of the "little people" of the south-west. His chief residence
appears to have been a certain _Knockfierin_, or Fierna's Hillock,
which has perhaps been investigated by local archæologists. Several
of the Limerick traditions relating to Fierna have been contributed
by Mr. David Fitzgerald to the "Revue des Traditions populaires"
(April 1889), and one of these tells how a mysterious stranger one
night aroused a poor cripple and gave him a letter to take to
Fierna. The messenger entered the fairy "hill," where he saw the
chief--an old, white-bearded man. On reading the letter, Fierna
declared it to be a challenge of battle on the part of the "King of
the Sidhfir of the North"; a challenge which Fierna was loath to
accept, because, as he explains, "my people of Munster are the
weaker party."
This legend, then, shows the Fir Sidhe (or Sidhfir) as a people not
always friendly to each other, although of kindred race. Moreover,
it suggests that those of Ireland were divided into at least two
sections--the Sidhfir of Munster and those of "the North." When we
remember that in the ninth century "Feens and Fairies" were equally
regarded as owners of the "underground" dwellings which were then
plundered (and which still remain), it is noteworthy that in this
very detail we have another parallel between the two castes--if they
were two. For the Feens of Ireland were also divided into sections,
and it may be remembered that two of these--"the Feens of Leinster
and the east of Ulster," and those of "Connaught and the west of
Ireland," were referred to on a previous page as engaged in building
a famous hill-fort for their great leader, Fin. If the "Sidhfir of
the North" were not the same as the Feens of Leinster and the east
of Ulster, they occupied much of the same ground, and had so many
points in common, that it is difficult to say wherein they differed.
Nor is this deduction at variance with the belief that the people
just named were one with the Pechts of history. For the _Cruithné_
of Ulster formed a distinct division of the Pechts; and, indeed, to
be still more specific, were latterly associated with the _eastern_
part of that province. And, as for internecine warfare, that forms
no obstacle to the identification of the historical Pechts, in their
later stages, with the _Sidhfir_ of popular legend.[149]
Like the rivers of the same name in Leinster and Munster, there is a
Blackwater in Perthshire which has fairy traditions, and, in
consequence, the valley through which it flows is known as Glenshee
(_Gleann-sith_). It is also remembered as a favourite hunting-ground
of the Feens. Here they used to come, says an ancient poem,[150] to
chase the deer and elk. The stories of Fin and his Feens are full of
references to their hunting exploits. And an old poem[151] recites
how, even while Ireland was chiefly peopled and ruled by another
race, the ancient rights of the Feens, in this as in other respects,
were still duly acknowledged. Fin, we are told,
"possessed the old rights
Which previously were his.
From Hallowmass on to Beltin,
His _Feens_ had all the rights.
The hunting without molestation,
Was theirs in all the forests."
The "rights" possessed by these people between All Hallow-tide and
Beltin, or from the first of November to the first of May, were,
according to Keating,[152] that they were quartered upon the
country-people, who had to support them during all that period. But
from the first of May on to the first of November, the Feens were
obliged to support themselves, which they did by hunting and
fishing. It was during this latter period, therefore, that "the
hunting without molestation was theirs in all the forests." Perhaps
the expression "_all_ the forests" is too comprehensive. Mr. J. F.
Campbell, in referring to the Feens,[153] speaks of their
"maintaining themselves by hunting deer, extensive tracts of land
being allotted to them for that purpose." Perhaps, also, the word
"forest" ought to be understood much in the way that "deer forest"
now is.
"It was said at that time," says a West Highland tale,[154] "that
Ireland was a better hunting-ground than the Scotch Highlands; that
there were many great beamed deer in it, rather than in the
Highlands. It was this which used to cause the Feens to be so often
in Ireland." Nevertheless, the poem by Allan MacRuaridh, already
referred to, states that the Perthshire Glenshee (or rather, the
more important of the two Perthshire glens so named) was famous as a
hunting-ground of the Feens, for the reason that it abounded in
"deer and elk." Whether the "elk" of the one writer, and the "great
antlered deer" of the other represent the same animal, or two
separate species now extinct in these islands, is uncertain. In the
account contributed to the (Old) Statistical Account of Scotland,
the minister of the parish of Clunie, Perthshire, which is not very
far from Glenshee, remarks (ix. 256-7, _note_): "The head of the
urus has been dug up in this neighbourhood, as also the palmated
horns of the elk, together with the horns and skeletons of large
deer, supposed to be the moose-deer."[155] One of the tales of the
Feens, which is common from County Mayo to Sutherlandshire, says Mr.
J. F. Campbell, has reference to the hunting of an animal called the
_lon-dubh_, which word Mr. Campbell, on the suggestion of his
collector (Mr. MacLean), believes ought to be translated "black
elk." This "black elk," then, which the Feens used to hunt, was an
animal of much greater size than the deer, on the testimony of these
tales, told in the degenerate days when the "black elk" and its
hunters had become only a memory. "These [tales] _may_ date from the
days when men hunted elks in Erin, as they now do in Scandinavia,"
says Mr. Campbell.[156] It is to be remembered, however, that at the
battle of Gawra, and, indeed, long after that date, the Feens of
Scandinavia were in association with those of Ireland and of
Scotland; and traditions relating to animals long extinct in Britain
might really refer to incidents in Scandinavia, within comparatively
modern times. But, on the other hand, there is the visible testimony
of the "palmated horns of the elk, together with the horns and
skeletons of large deer, supposed to be the moose-deer," dug up in
the very neighbourhood which is famous as a favourite hunting-ground
of the Feens, where they came "to chase the deer and elk." The
inference is, then, that either the tales which relate to that time
are very old, or else that the animals referred to did not become
extinct in these localities at a very remote date.
And the latter inference is, in point of fact, the right one; if we
do not restrict _lon-dubh_ to the precise meaning of "black elk."
Mr. J. F. Campbell not only tells us that certain "great antlered
deer" were formerly hunted by the Feens, but he also points out
Sutherlandshire traditions which tell how witches and fairies used
to _milk_ the female deer. And this statement forms one of the
reasons which lead him to believe that Fairies, Picts, and Lapps
were practically one people; for his deduction therefrom is
this:--"Fairies, then, milked deer, as Lapps do." Now, the point of
this is that the deer milked by the Lapps is the _reindeer_, and not
any variety of deer now existing in the British Islands. Mr.
Campbell's further reference to "a story published by Grant Stewart,
in which a ghost uses a herd of deer to carry her furniture," quite
bears out his belief that the reindeer was domesticated, as well as
hunted, by the little people. And it is an actual historical fact
that the reindeer was hunted in Caithness so recently as the twelfth
century. In a very full and exhaustive "Notice of Remains of the
Rein-Deer, _Cervus tarandus_, found in Ross-shire, Sutherland, and
Caithness,"[157] the late Dr. John A. Smith, Sec. S. A., Scot., has
pointed out that the seventeenth-century historian, Torfæus,
mentions that it was the custom of two earls of Orkney, during the
twelfth century, to cross over to Caithness from the Orkneys, for
the purpose of hunting the roe-deer _and the reindeer_. Dr. Smith
adds that the correctness of Torfæus' statement having been at one
time called in question, the matter was placed beyond all doubt by a
reference to the work of a learned annotator and editor of Torfæus
(of the year 1780), who shows that the original manuscript whence
Torfæus derived his information uses the words "rauddýri edr
_hreína_" to denote those roes and reindeer of Caithness. Indeed,
Dr. Smith's paper affords plenty of confirmation of this historical
statement, since it is chiefly devoted to a consideration of the
reindeer's horns found in various parts of the north of Scotland;
some of them in those very "brochs" which are so associated with
"the little people." And as, even at the present day, the higher
mountains of Scotland abound in reindeer-lichen, there is nothing in
the natural condition of the place to contradict the assertion of
the historian. Therefore, Mr. Campbell's hypothesis that the fairy
"herds of Glen Odhar" were herds of reindeer, receives every
confirmation from history, tradition, and fact. And, thus, the
figure of the reindeer incised on the monumental stone near
Grantown, in the same quarter of Scotland (of which a representation
is given on page 122 of Dr. Anderson's "Scotland in Early Christian
Times"), may have been "drawn from life" at that very place, and
need not be any older than the twelfth century.[158]
"Hunting appears all along to have been a favourite amusement
of the _Seelie Court_," says a writer on the fairies of
Clydesdale,[159] "and innumerable are the stories which are told
concerning the magnificence and splendour of the royal retinue."
There is also a Highland tale[160] which describes how the dwarfs
used to be seen "hunting on the sides of Ben Muich Dhui, dressed in
green, and with silver-mounted bridles to their horses which jingled
as they rode." And a writer of the seventeenth century[161] tells
"how there was a King and Queen of Pharie, of such a Court, and
train, as they had, and how they had the teind [tithe] and dutie, as
it were, of all corn, flesh, and meale, how they rode and went
alongs the sides of hills, all in Green apparel." That green was the
special colour of the fairies, everybody knows. And that it was also
the colour of the Feens is what certain sections of the people of
modern Ireland do not allow one to forget.
Thus, in regarding these people as hunters, any distinction between
"Feens and Fairies" seems to vanish altogether. Although it does not
appear to be stated in so many words that the Feens "had the tithe
and dutie, as it were, of all corns, flesh, and meale," yet the same
fact is practically stated when we are told that, during the six
months of autumn and winter, the Feens were kept in idleness by the
people of the country ("billeted upon the country," as Keating has
it), and this as a matter of right. The very dates upon which this
period began and ended--Hallow-E'en and Walpurgis-night--are
pregnant with "fairy" associations. And when the green-clad Feens,
typified by their dwarf chief, had the exclusive right of hunting,
during the spring and summer months, up till the end of October,
over "extensive tracts of land allotted to them for that purpose,"
they could not have greatly differed from those little people who
are even yet remembered as "hunting on the sides of Ben Muich Dhui,
dressed in green." And it was distinctly understood that this right
was theirs "without molestation." There is a real matter-of-fact
meaning in the ballad, placed in the mouths of people of a taller
race, and relating to that period and those privileged hunters--
"Up the airy mountain,
Down the rocky glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men."
Of which the historical interpretation, as applied to Scotland,
apparently is, that these popular traditions relate to the time when
the Pechts, conquered by the Scots, who subsequently were reinforced
by various later immigrant races, still retained a certain amount of
independence, with special rights in certain districts, reserved to
them as "Pecht lands." Their dwarfish stature is seen from the very
word by which they are known, as well as from the dwellings they
inhabited. Their small horses are spoken of in the earliest accounts
of them,[162] and indeed still survive, though no doubt in blended
forms, as the small breeds of Galloway, Shetland, and various parts
of England. Their favourite colour gave them, in their earliest
days, the title of Green Men or _Virides_; although then the
colouring was applied in a more primitive fashion.
Apart from all the resemblances specially referred to, there is a
general association in the popular mind between Pechts and Fairies.
Both are regarded as extinct races, and the date of their
disappearance, though vague, points to the one period; and
localities known as the abodes of Pechts are also known as the
abodes of Fairies. For example, an antiquary of that neighbourhood
(Sir Herbert Maxwell) states that "the fortified promontory of the
Mull [of Galloway] is locally believed to have been the last
stronghold to which the Picts of Galloway retired before an
overwhelming force of Scotic (?) invaders." In the same paper,[163]
and referring to the same promontory, the writer specifies "a small
fortification called the 'Dunnan,' credited with having been a
favourite haunt of the fairies." Again, the famous Pictish hill-fort
in Forfarshire, known as the "White Cater Thun," is equally famous
as a fairy stronghold. This celebrated fortress has been described
on a previous page. It crowns a hill in the neighbourhood of the
ancient city of Brechin, the centre of a district which was
indisputably a territory of the Pechts. Even yet one may discern in
the ruins of this fort the traces of the dwellings which so closely
characterize the architecture of the Pechts, the chambers made
within the thickness of the wall. Within the long elliptical
enclosure of the White Cater Thun there are, indeed, faint traces of
other buildings; but the great majority of its garrison must have
been housed, after the fashion of the race, in the chambers that are
traceable all along the actual rampart itself. And of this chambered
fortress local tradition states that it was "the abode of fairies,
and that a brawny witch carried the whole [of the stones] one
morning from the channel of the West Water [a neighbouring river] to
the summit of the hill, and would have increased the quantity ...
but for the ominous circumstance of her apron-string breaking, while
carrying one of the largest! This stone was allowed to lie where it
fell, and is pointed out to this day on the north-east slope of the
mountain! This tradition, it may be remarked," continues our
authority,[164] "however _outré_, is curious from its analogy to
that concerning the castles of Mulgrave and Pickering in Yorkshire,
the extensive causeways of which are said to have been paved by
genii named Wada and his wife Bell, the latter, like the Amazonian
builder of Caterthun, having carried the stones from a great
distance in her apron!" Among all the exaggeration and confusion of
these statements two things are quite discernible--the identity of
Pechts with fairies or other "supernaturals" in general--and (in
particular) the identity of the descriptions given of people so
denominated, in the region of Caterthun and of Yorkshire, and the
descriptions of the Northumbrian Pechts as quoted on a previous
page.[165] Indeed, the accounts given of the Pechts in the locality
last-named, as well as some features of the traditional builders of
Abernethy Round Tower, render it impossible to distinguish, in these
two cases, between "Pechts" and "Fairies," or "Witches." And this,
indeed, as we have seen, was the popular belief.
The conclusion, therefore, to be drawn from what has been said upon
this subject is that, although the term _Pict_ or _Pecht_ has been
chosen by History as that by which a certain race of people, once
found in Scotland, ought to be remembered, yet that term indicates
nothing more[166] than _Trow_ or _Dwarf_, either of which names
might as reasonably have been chosen as their synonym _Pecht_. And
that when one speaks of _Pechts_, _Trows_, or _Dwarfs_, one is
speaking of the same kind of people--the mound-dwellers, or
"underground" races of the past. Further, that the people
traditionally remembered in Shetland as _Finns_ belonged to that
group; as also those whom Gaelic folk-lore styles the _Feinne_. And
that, along with many other popular terms not here enumerated, one
of the names by which such people have been widely known is that of
"the Fairies."
FOOTNOTES:
[142] Mr. Charles de Kay, in _The Century_ of July 1889, p. 437.
[143] See Mr. Ralston's review in _The Academy_ of May 11, 1889.
[144] These trials and executions for "witchcraft" were the
precursors of those which were carried down almost into our own
times; and the above allusions to the "wickedness" of those rites
only serve to strengthen the growing belief that the relentless
persecution of "witches" was based upon most reasonable grounds, and
that the motives actuating the "persecutors" were far higher and
more sensible than a mere fanatical and narrow-minded hatred of
paganism.
[145] For these extracts, see Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, I., 14,
212, 213, 214, and 238.
[146] The flat stone, supported on three or four posts, or pillars
(as Thorpe calls them), upon which the seid-woman stood, is very
suggestive of the _cromleac_ or _dolmen_. (Cf. the _grottes aux
fées_ of Brittany.)
[147] The magical power of the Finns is still recognized by the
Swedish peasantry of to-day. An illustration of this appears in an
anecdote related in the London _Standard_ of 26 January, 1877, with
regard to a Swedish lady "who had been so ill-advised as to insult a
Finn, whose magical powers exceed those of the gipsies."
[148] It is no doubt owing to the infusion of Spanish blood in
Southern Ireland, still visible in the complexion, as well as in the
surnames (such as Costello and Jago, _i.e._, Diego) of people in
that neighbourhood, that this Fierna receives the most un-British
title of "Don" prefixed to his name.
[149] Compare this tradition, recorded by Thorpe (_Northern
Mythology_, III., 39):--"In very old times the dwarfs had long wars
with men, and also with one another."
[150] "The Death of Diarmaid," by Allan MacRuaridh. _See_ the "Dean
of Lismore's Book," p. 30 (Eng. version), and p. 21 (Gaelic).
[151] "Dean of Lismore's Book," pp. 141-43 (Eng.) and 108-11 (Gaelic
version).
[152] "History of Ireland"; Reign of Cormac Ulfada.
[153] "West Highland Tales," I. xiii.
[154] The Lay of Osgar: "West Highland Tales," III. 304-5.
[155] He adds:--"Some of these horns, which are of an amazing size,
are in the custody of the Duke of Athole, and of Mr. Farquharson of
Invercauld."
[156] "Tales," II. 107. The story referred to is on pp. 102-6.
[157] _See_ "Proc. of Soc. of Antiq. of Scot.": First Series, VIII.
p. 186, _et seq._ (with a special reference to pp. 205-6).
[158] For Mr. Campbell's references, _see_ "West Highland Tales,"
I., ci.-cix., and II., 46. This parallel has also been drawn by Miss
Gordon Cumming ("From the Hebrides to the Himalayas," Vol. I., p.
183).
[159] _Scots Magazine_, Vol. III., 1818, p. 154.
[160] One of Mrs. Ewing's "Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales": The Laird and
the Man of Peace.
[161] George Sinclair, in "Satan's Invisible World Discovered."
[162] _See_ Ritson's "Annals," Vol. I. p. 12 (quoted from Dion
Cassius, L. 76, c. 12).
[163] Which appears in the "Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland," 1885-86, pp. 76-90.
[164] Mr. A. Jervise, "The Land of the Lindsays," Edinburgh, 1853,
p. 265.
[165] Page 67.
[166] The Latin term _Picti_, though pointing to another
characteristic of the dwarfs, is not here taken into account, as it
misinterprets the original word.
CHAPTER XIII.
There is one variety of the underground dwellings which, in the
northern counties of Scotland if not elsewhere, is more specially
indicated by the term "Earth House," or "Eirde House." With regard
to this class of structure, an experienced archæologist[167] makes
the following remarks:--
"The whole of these have been formed after one idea, viz.
to secure an unobserved entrance, and to preserve a curved
shape. From the entrance the first part of these structures
is generally a low and narrow passage, growing in width and
height from the point where the direction is changed, and
terminating in a rounded extremity.
"The part of them last referred to is generally from five
to nine feet in width, with a height barely sufficient to
permit a man to stand erect. In some cases, however, they
have been found to be of much more contracted dimensions
throughout. The Eirde House at Migvie, in Cromar, only
admits a single person to pass along; while that at
Torrich, in Strathdonan, Sutherlandshire, is barely three
feet in width.
"Dr. Mitchell has described another at Erribol, in that
county, which is more like a large drain than anything
else.
* * * * *
"These underground houses have occasionally smaller
chambers, as offshoots from the main one, which are entered
by openings of small size.
"They occur at times singly, and at others in groups. On a
moor near Kildrummy, in Aberdeenshire, a group of nearly
fifty were discovered.
* * * * *
"It has been doubted if these houses were ever really used
as places of abode, a purpose for which they seem in no
degree to be suited.
"But as to this there can be no real doubt. The substances
found in many of them have been the accumulated _débris_ of
food used by man, and indicate his presence as surely as
the kindred kitchen-middens which have recently attracted
so much attention, while their occurrence in groups marks
the gregarious habits of the early people. The bones of the
ox, deer, and other like creatures have been found, as well
as the shells of fish, mixed with fatty earth and charred
wood. Ornaments of bronze have been found in a few of them,
and beads of streaked glass. In some cases the articles
found would indicate that the occupation of these houses
had come down to comparatively recent times, as in the case
of the Irish crannogs, where objects of the rudest times
are found alongside of those of the seventeenth century."
These underground passages or galleries are also known as Pechts' or
Picts' houses; and they unquestionably belong to the same family as
the other structures so denominated. But they are the rudest and
most primitive of all. Between them and a chambered mound such as
Maes-how, in Orkney, the difference is great; and still greater is
the difference between them and a non-subterranean "broch," such as
that of Mousa, in Shetland. Yet all these are so united by
intermediate forms that it is difficult to say exactly where the one
passes into the other. The nature of the difference may be expressed
etymologically by saying that they are _burrows_, _barrows_, and
_brochs_, or _burgs_; the "drain"-like Eirde House belonging to the
first class, the chambered mound to the second, and the above-ground
structure, such as that of Mousa, to the third. The three terms just
used are radically one, as the buildings themselves are. But they
represent different phases of one idea; and the last phase is very
much in advance of the first. Whether the superiority of the one
class of building over the other has been caused by the gradual
advancement of one homogeneous race, during a long stretch of time,
or by the blending of a higher race with a lower, within a limited
period, must be regarded as an open question.[168]
But, although that crude form of earth-house which we have
described as a burrow, is included among the Pechts' houses of
Scotland, it differs in several respects from that variety which has
been regarded as the typical "Pecht's house," namely, the chambered
mound, or "hollow hillock." One of the salient features of the
burrow, the "unobserved entrance," is equally a feature of the
hollow mound; and the latter has also the same narrow, low,
subterranean passage of approach, formed of huge stone slabs. In
each, too, as in the more advanced and elaborate "broch," it is seen
that the builders knew of no other kind of arch than that formed by
the gradual convergence of the walls, by means of each course
overlapping the course immediately below it, until only a single
slab was required to crown the whole by way of "keystone." The
better kind of "burrow," with its "smaller chambers, as offshoots
from the main one," is also closely akin, in that respect, to the
so-called "hollow hill." But, while having all these points of
resemblance, the latter differs from the former in that its passage
dispenses altogether with the curve which distinguishes the
"burrow;" and, greater difference still, in that it is not merely an
underground dwelling, but that the earth over it is heaped so high
above the level of the adjoining ground that it presents exactly the
appearance of a conical or rounded green hillock, when looked at
from the outside. Moreover, it is only rendered an "underground"
dwelling by the earth-heap imposed upon the original structure,
which itself was built upon what was then the surface of the ground.
Whereas the long, curved gallery, which has more specially been
styled an "earth-house," is below the surface of the surrounding
land, and is generally discovered by some ploughman whose plough
happens to break or disarrange the stone slabs forming its roof.
There is no special reason for limiting the term "earth-house" to
the underground gallery just spoken of, because the chambered mound
is also as much an "earth-house." In either case, the structure
itself is of stone. Therefore, we need not here restrict the term
"earth-house" to one of these two varieties, but apply it equally to
both. Each variety is popularly known as a "Pecht's house," and the
one is as much an "earth-house" as the other.
The "hollow hill," however, will be the variety of earth-dwelling
chiefly considered in this place. But, before leaving the ruder
structure, reference may be made to a Shetland specimen, examined in
1865. It is described as "of a semicircular form, two feet or so
beneath the arable land, about thirty feet in length, three feet in
breadth and height, widening out at the western extremity to the
form of a chamber of five feet square; ponderous slabs of mica-slate
form the lintels. These stones have been transported from Norwick,
which is the nearest depôt for such, and distant two miles." Like
other similar structures this was locally known as a "Fairy
Ha'."[169]
Thus, the two varieties of earth-house, each known popularly as a
"Pecht's house," are also both remembered as the dwelling-place of
fairies. For the chambered mound is equally a "Fairy Knowe"; in
Gaelic, a "sheean" (_sithean_), or abode of fairies.
And as the "little people" of Scotland have been chiefly chronicled
as "Pechts," or "Picts," we may further consider them in that
twofold character; continuing also to regard them in the territories
which have already been most frequently named. Of these, none are
more worthy of examination than the districts--insulated or
otherwise--in the neighbourhood of the Pecht-land Firth.
"By an authentic record of Thomas, Bishop of the Orkneys, dated
1443, and published in Wallace's "Orkneys," edit. 1700; when the
Norwegians conquered these islands they found them possessed 'by two
nations, the Pets [Pehts, or Pechts] and Papas'"[170] (_i.e._, popes
or priests). The "popes" referred to are understood to have been the
Irish missionaries from Iona, and of them there seems to be no
distinct tradition surviving. But the other "nation" is well
remembered in both of the Northern groups. "The first folks that
ever were in our isles were the Picts," says Shetlandic folk-lore;
"they were very small [people]."[171]
What appears to be a popular tradition relating to the time when
the territory of the mound-dwelling Pechts was beginning to be
invaded and settled by colonists of another race, is furnished us by
Sir Walter Scott. The ballad of "Alice Brand," in "The Lady of the
Lake," speaks of a "moody Elfin King, who won'd[172] within the
hill." And we are told in the _Appendix_ that this legend "is
founded upon a very curious Danish Ballad, which occurs in the
'Kæmpe Viser,' a collection of heroic songs first published in
1591." It begins "_Der ligger en vold i Vester Haf_," which is
rendered in English, "There lies a wold in Wester Haf." Scott
says:--"As _Wester Haf_ ... means the _West Sea_, in opposition to
the Baltic or _East Sea_, Mr. Jamieson inclines to be of opinion
that the scene ... is laid in one of the Orkney, or Hebride
Islands." Both in this old ballad, and in Scott's adaptation, there
is an element of the magical, or impossible, or, at least,
unexplainable kind; but some of the leading facts are these:--A
"husband," or yeoman, goes to this "wold in Wester Haf," taking his
wife and all his belongings with him, and there he proceeds to
settle down as a colonist. Like many other "backwoodsmen," he begins
by felling the trees of the forest[173] for his new home, much to
the indignation of the dwarfs who inhabit a certain "knock" (Gael.
_cnoc_), or chambered mound, in that district, and who, indeed, are
the owners of the soil.
"He hew'd him kipples,[174] he hew'd him bawks,[175]
Wi' mickle moil and haste,
Syne speer'd the Elf i' the knock that bade,
'Wha's hacking here sae fast?'"[176]
The dwarfs are discomfited in their attempt to enter the "husband's"
house, but finally one of them succeeds:--
"The huswife she was a canny wife,
She set the Elf at the board;
She set before him baith ale and meat,
Wi' mony a weel-waled[177] word.
"'Hear thou, Gudeman o' Villenshaw,[178]
What now I say to thee;
Wha bade thee bigg[179] within our bounds,
Without the leave o' me?
"'But, an' thou in our bounds will bigg,
And bide, as well as may be,
Then thou thy dearest huswife maun
To me for a lemman gie.'"
However, the husband is not even temporarily bereft of his wife;
and, indeed, after all the threatenings of the "how-folk," the
settlers are allowed to remain quietly in possession of their
homestead, and their daughter is afterwards married to the dwarf
visitor.[180]
Though this song is from a Danish collection, there is another of
very similar nature in Unst, Shetland. It begins "Der lived a king
into da aste," and it recounts how a certain "wedded wife" was
carried off by "the King o' Ferrie." Her husband afterwards goes in
search of her; and "one day, in his wandering quest, he sees a
company passing along a hillside, and he recognizes among them his
lost lady." They go into "a great 'ha'-house,' or castle," which is
said to be _on_ the hillside; but as nothing is visible but "a grey
stane," after they have entered, it would seem that _the hill
itself_ was the castle, and the grey stone the entrance door, as in
the case of the Orcadian Maes-how, or many another residence of the
"how-folk." This assumption is quite borne out by the song itself.
The same writer[181] indicates that such abductions were quite
common in Shetland, when she states that a "witch" who married a
dwarf returned once to her mother's house, and, while imparting to
her various other counsels and warnings, "gave many instructions how
to provide against the enchantments used by Trows for the purpose of
decoying unsuspecting girls into their unhallowed domain." And her
parting injunction was to be sure and have the maidens "weel cöst
about" (? protected by charms) "when the grey women-stealers are
wandering." But instances of such intercourse between the dwarf
races and others, the abduction being by no means confined to one
side, could be quoted almost interminably.
The celebrated "how" known as Maes-how, in Orkney, has just been
referred to. It is so admirable a specimen of the "Pecht's house"
proper that no better selection can be made for a more particular
description of such a dwelling. "It stands about a mile to the
north-east of the great stone ring of Stennis. Its external
appearance is that of a truncated conical mound of earth, about 300
feet in circumference at the base and thirty-six feet high,
surrounded by a trench forty feet wide. Nothing was known of its
internal structure till the year 1861, when it was opened by Mr.
Farrer, M.P., but the common tradition of the country represented it
as the abode of a goblin, who was named 'the Hogboy,' though no one
knew why."[182] In Lincolnshire, this term "hog-boy" is pronounced
as "shag-boy."[183] The word pronounced _shag_ in one place and
_hog_ in another, is understood to be the same as _haug_ or _how_;
and the term is therefore a variant of the plural "how-folk." It was
one of those "shag-boys" or "hog-boys," then, that local tradition
remembered as the inhabitant of Maes-how. And nowhere is the
tenacity of the popular memory more strongly illustrated than in
this instance. For, during many centuries prior to 1861, this had
been nothing more, to the passing stranger, than a grassy hillock,
utterly void of any indication that its interior was "hollow," and
that the whole structure--stone-built dwelling, and super-imposed
earth--was entirely artificial,--the work of a vanished race. And
yet, so full of vitality is tradition, that the descendants of those
who had seen its inmate or inmates, knew, in spite of the lapse of a
thousand years, that this was no ordinary grassy mound, but that
once upon a time it had been the habitation of people of a certain
race, whose characteristics are even yet remembered, if only in a
confused and imperfect manner.
However important and necessary a written description may be, it is
very incomplete without a personal inspection of the place
described, or in lieu of that, the "counterfeit presentment," which
is almost as serviceable. From the view here given of Maes-how, as
it appears from the outside, and also from the following diagrams,
one obtains an admirable idea of the exterior and interior of a
_sheean_, Fairy Hillock, or Fairy Ha'.
[Illustration: SECTIONAL VIEW AND GROUND-PLAN OF MAES-HOW.]
After examining these pictures of this famous "how," one is able
to fully understand the traditional accounts of the "hollow
hillocks" of the dwarfs. One can fit any of the many stories that
tell of visits paid to such "hills" into this particular scene.
There is the small, concealed entrance at the base of the hill (at
which, or beside which, the visitor used to knock until "the hill
opened"--revealing a low, narrow, dark passage).
[Illustration: MAES-HOW, ORKNEY.
(The _Orka-haug_ of the Norsemen.)]
In this instance the aperture is two feet four inches in height, and
of exactly the same breadth; and its dimensions continue the same
for the first twenty-two and a half feet into the hill (for it will
be seen that the mound of stone and earth that surrounded and
covered the actual building gave the habitation a fictitious base,
which had to be penetrated by this passage until the walls of the
main building were reached--in the centre of the "hill.")[184]
[Illustration: THE INTERIOR OF THE "HOW."]
In Maes-how the passage of approach is fully fifty-three feet long.
Its height, as already stated, is only two feet four inches, during
the first twenty-two feet of length; so that no one, unless an
actual dwarf, could walk erect along this portion. After this the
roof of the passage rises to four feet four inches; and it retains
this height during the next twenty-eight feet of length. The
remaining distance--scarcely three feet--is four inches higher; and
then the passage "enters the middle of one of the four sides of a
chamber which is fifteen feet square, and has, when complete, been
about twenty feet high in the centre. The walls of this chamber are
perpendicular for about six feet, after which the slabs, which
generally extend the whole length of a side, project beyond the
courses on which they rest, until in this way the roof has been
completed in the shape of an inverted pyramid formed of successive
steps."[185] In the three sides of this central hall (excluding the
side at which the long passage emerges) there are respective
entrances into three small chambers. The largest of these is less
than seven feet long, less than five feet broad, and its roof is
only three and a half feet from the floor.
In assuming that the roof of this building, now open to the sky,
was "completed in the shape of an inverted pyramid formed of
successive steps," Colonel Leslie is at variance with the
description given by an eighteenth-century writer (in connection
with similar buildings), and at variance also with tradition. The
difference is a slight one, but it ought to be referred to. The roof
was not precisely _completed_ in such buildings, according to the
writer referred to; it "was carried on round about with long stones
[each successive course projecting, and thus gradually narrowing the
orifice], till it ended in an opening at the top, which served both
for light and a vent to carry off the smoke of their fire." Without
this opening the dwelling had very little light or air; for little
of either could have straggled in from the mouth of the narrow,
underground passage, which reached the open air at a distance of
fifty-three feet from the dwelling, and whose entrance (besides) was
nearly always closed during the day.[186]
While tradition seems clearly to indicate that the roof of the
dwelling communicated with the open air above, there is necessarily
some uncertainty on this point. The writer who speaks of the roof of
such a building being "carried on round about with long stones, till
it ended in an opening at the top," may have had in view a structure
more resembling the open air "broch" than the _sith-bhrog_; although
he mentions that the kind of building he describes often "looks
outwardly like a heap without any design."[187] It is undoubted that
many such mounds, for example, those of New Grange and Dowth, in the
Boyne district, have their rude, "Pelasgian arch," crowned with one
large stone as keystone; and that, therefore, any upward exit from
the chamber must have led off in a slant from some portion of the
wall. On the other hand, there are several indications that when one
ascended the outside of a _sheean_, in the days when it was
inhabited, one found oneself at the edge of a hollow or crater, at
the foot of which was the narrow orifice that gave light and air to
the chamber below. More than one fairy-hill of the present day, not
yet explored, has a small hole on its summit, and when a stone is
dropped therein, it is heard to rumble and fall into some unknown
cavern below. And the existence of such "craters" was well known (we
are told by Scott, in his Introduction to the _Tale of Tamlane_) to
the people of Scotland. "Wells, or pits, on the top of hills were
supposed to lead to the subterranean habitations of the Fairies."
Legendary stories in connection with these there are many--of men
descending such "pits," sometimes well knowing what to expect, and
of having hand-to-hand fights with the natives of these abodes. At
other times the attack was made by those "hillmen" themselves; who
seem to have emerged by this entrance as often as by the other. "A
savage issuing from a mount" was once a well-known bearing in
Scottish heraldry. Mr. J. F. Campbell records a Ross-shire tradition
of a dwarf who inhabited _Tombuidhe Ghearrloch_, "The Tawny Hillock
of Gairloch," and who was the terror of the neighbourhood (whose
chief inhabitants, in his day, belonged to another race). Before he
was himself slain, this formidable dwarf had killed many of the
latter race; none of whom (with one exception) dared to venture near
his "hillock" after dusk. He was at length killed by a local
champion, still remembered as "Big Hugh" (Uistean Mor, MacGhille
Phadrig;) who was celebrated as a slayer of dwarfs; and who appears
to have devoted himself to their extermination in that particular
district. And in the story of the killing of this noted dwarf, it is
stated that Uistean climbed to the top of the hillock (_Tom-buidhe_)
and attacked its inhabitant, who emerged from the foot of its
"crater" or "pit"; in other words, from the roof of his
dwelling.[188]
Such a "_sheean_" is the Denghoog in the Danish island of Sylt, one
of the mounds believed to have been the residence of Finn, the dwarf
king. Mr. W. G. Black, who has visited this "how," describes it
thus:[189]--