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the North, than is supposed. In the tales now extant among the Calmuc Tartars, and originating it seems in Thibet, mention is made of certain little children encountered by a wandering Khan in a wood, and quarrelling about " an invisible cup." The Khan tricks them of it in good swindling style; and proceeding onwards meets with certain Tchadkurs or evil spirits, quarrelling about some "boots of swiftness," of which he beguiles them in like manner.*

These may be chance coincidences; but these fictions are not of so universal a nature as most; and we cannot help regarding them as corroborations of the Eastern rise of our fablers of the North. We take this opportunity, before we proceed, of noticing another remarkable circumstance in the history of popular fictions; which is, that it is doubtful whether the Greeks had any little beings in their mythology. They regarded the Pygmies as a real people, and never seem to have thought of giving them a lift into the supernatural. And it may be observed, that although the Spaniards have a house-spirit which they call Duende, and Tasso, in the fever of his dungeon, was haunted with a Folletto, which is the Follet or Lutin of the French, it does not appear that these southern spirits are of necessity small; still less have those sunny nations any embodied system of fairyism. Their fairies are the

* See an excellent article in the "Quarterly Review," entitled "Antiquities of Nursery Literature." Of similar merit and probably by the same hand (which we presume to be that of Mr. Southey) is another on the popular mythology of the Middle Ages. We cannot refer to the volume, our copy happening to form part of a selection which we made some years ago from a bundle of the two reigning Reviews. [These articles are in volumes 21 and 22, of the "Quarterly Review." They were not written by Southey, at least they are not in the list of his contributions to the "Review" published in his biography. ED.]

enchantresses of romance. Little spirits appear to be of the country of little people, commented on by their larger neighbors. It is true that little shapes and shadows are seen in all countries; but the general tendency of fear is to magnify. Particular circumstances must have created a spirit at once petty and formidable.

We are of opinion with the author of the "Fairy Mythology," that the petty size of the haunted idols of antiquity argues nothing conclusive respecting the size of the beings they represented. Besides, they were often large as well as small, though the more domestic of them, or those that immediately presided over the hearth, were of a size suitable to convenience. The domestic idols of all nations have probably been small, for the like reason.

Whether the Lares were supposed to be of greater stature or not by the learned, it is not impossible that the constant sight of the little images generated a corresponding notion of the originals. The best argument against the smallness of these divinities is, that there is no mention of it in books; and yet the only passage we remember to have met with, implying any determinate notion of stature, is in favor of the little. We here give it out of an old and not very sage author.

"After the victory had and gotten against the Gethes, the Emperor Domitian caused many shewes and triumphs to be made, in signe and token of joy ; and amongst others hee invited publickly to dine with him, all sorts of persons, both noble and unnoble, but especially the Senators and Knights of Rome, to whom he made a feast in this fashion. Hee had caused a certaine house of al sides to bee painted black, the pavement thereof was black, so likewise were the hangings, or seelings, the roofe and the wals also black; and within it hee had prepared a very low room,

not unlike a hollow vault or cell, ful of emptie siedges or seats. Into this place he caused the Senators and Knights, his ghests, to be brought, without suffering any of their pages or attendants to enter in with them. And first of all he caused a little square piller to be set near to every one of them, upon the which was written the partie's name sitting next it; by which there hanged also a lamp burning before each seat, in such sort as is used in sepulchers. After this, there comes into this melancholicke and dark place a number of yong pages, with great joy and merriment, starke naked, and spotted or painted all over with a die or colour as blacke as inke: who, resembling these spirits called Manes, and such like idols, did leape and skip round about those Senators and Knights, who, at this unexpected accident, were not a little frighted and afraid. After which, those pages set them down at their feete, against each of them one, and there stayed, whilste certaine other persons (ordayned there of purpose) did execute with great solemnity all those ceremonies that were usually fit and requisit at the funeralls and exequies of the dead. This done, there came in others, who brought and served in, in black dishes and platters, divers meats and viands, all coloured black, in such sort that there was not any one in the place but was in great doubt what would become of him, and thought himself utterly undone, supposing he should have his throat cut, onely to give pleasure and content to the Emperour. Besides, there was kept the greatest silence that could be imagined. And Domitian himself being present, did nothing else but (without ceasing) speake and talke unto them of murthers, death and tragedies. In the end, the Emperour having taken his pleasure of them at the full, he caused their pages and lackies, which attended them without the gates,

to come in unto them, and so sent them away home to their own houses, some in coches, others in horselitters, guided and conducted by strange and unknown persons, which gave them as great cause of fear as their former entertainment. And they were no sooner arrived everyone to his own house, and had scant taken breath from the feare they had conceived, but that one of their servants came to tell them, that there were at the gates certaine which came to speake with them from the Emperour. God knows how this message made them stirre, what excessive lamentations they made, and with how exceeding feares they were perplexed in their minds; there was not any, no, not the hardiest of them all, but thought that hee was sent for to be put to death. But to make short, those which were to speake with them from the Emperour, came to no other purpose but to bring them either a little piller of silver, or some such like vessel or piece of plate (which had beene set before them at the time of their entertainment); after which, everyone of them had also sent unto him, for a present from the Emperour, one of those pages that had counterfeyted those Manes or Spirits at the banquet, they being first washed and cleansed before they were presented unto them."

Spirits of old could become small; but we read of none that were essentially little except the fairies. It was a Rabbinical notion, that angelical beings could render themselves as small as they pleased; a fancy of which Milton has not scrupled to avail himself in his Pandemonium.* It was proper enough to the idea of a being

*Milton's reduction of the size of his angels is surely a superfluity, and diminishes the grandeur of their meeting. It was one of the rare instances (theology apart) in which his learning betrayed his judgment.

made of thought or fire; though one would think it was easier to make it expand like the genius when let loose, than be contracted into the jar or vial in the first instance. But if spirits went in and out of crevices, means, it was thought, must be taken to enable them to do so; and this may serve to account for the Fairies themselves, in countries where other circumstances disposed the fancy to create them: but all the attributes of the little northern being, its petty stature, its workmanship, its superiority to men in some things, its simplicity and inferiority in others, its supernatural practices, and the doubt entertained by its believers whether it is in the way of salvation, conspire, we think, to render the opinion of M. Mallet, in his "Northern Antiquities," extremely probable; viz., that the character of the fairy has been modified by the feelings entertained by our Gothic and Celtic ancestors respecting the little race of the Laplanders, a people whom they despised for their timid peacefulness, and yet could not help admiring for their industry, and fearing for their magic.

In the "Edda," or northern " Pantheon," the dwarfs are described as a species of beings bred in the dust of the earth, like maggots in a carcase. "It was indeed," says the Edda, "in the body of the Giant Ymer, that they were engendered and first began to move and live. At first they were only worms; but by order of the gods they at length partook both of human shape and reason; nevertheless, they always dwell in subterranean caverns and among rocks."

Upon this passage, M. Mallet says (under correction of his translator), "We may discover here one of the effects of that ignorant prejudice, which hath made us for so many years regard all arts and handicrafts as the occu

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