And a thousand forms, by fancy bred, "Do I slumber?" quoth the maid, "Daughter of Earth!" the angel said, I dwell within a land divine; But my thoughts are not more pure than thine. Morning heard the convent-bell, Pale as alabaster stone "Where hath sister Linda gone?" Quoth the Ladye-Abbess, in solemn mood, She was too holy, far, for earth." A MODERN PYTHAGORLAN. THE NATIONAL FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF ENGLAND.* THE promise of a new edition of The Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland, which is announced to be speedily published in the Family Library, brings joy to our heart. Many is the time we have read and laughed over the tales of Merrows, and FirDarrigs, and Cluricaunes, and "the likes of them chaps," which its author has told in his own admirable manner; and greatly do we rejoice at the inviting opportunity now offered to us of again reading and laughing over them. And heartily glad are we to perceive that there is a spirit abroad which will encourage works on the popular mythology and superstitions; for, not to mention the almost inexhaustible fund of genuine amusement which they contain, they form a most important chapter in the history of man and of the workings of his mind; and we wish we had many such works as Crofton Croker has here given us. This book, too, ought to be the dearer to every one who feels an interest in such things, because it alone, by the exquisite touches of humour and traits of character with which it abounds, has made the subject popular, and has spread abroad the spirit at which we rejoice. Several publications connected more or less with this subject have appeared during the last two or three years: among the rest we may particularise a neat compilation from foreign authors on Fairy Mythology, by Mr. Keightley, which has, it is true, added little or nothing to our knowledge of the subject, though it has given us a tolerably connected view of what has been done by others. We might perhaps have been tempted to say somewhat more in praise of Mr. Keightley's book; but in the preface to the" second issue" of it, and also in a later publication, the Tales and Popular Fictions, he has said so very much in praise of it himself, that he has really left us nothing more to add in the way of commendation. We regret the egotism of the author much; and we deplore still more that, not content with praising himself, he should attempt to detract from the praise of others; because there is in all this a kind of" humbug' which we particularly detest, and which, let it appear when and where it will, seldom fails to sharpen the edge of our criticisms. We are not, however, at present, inclined to be angry, and only hope that Mr. Keightley will take due warning; and since he has had so much intercourse with the "good people," we would have him consider how highly they have always esteemed humility and gentleness of spirit, and how severely they punish those witless mortals who approach them with presumption or selfishness. Even the legend of the peasant has its moral. We turn with pleasure to another little work before us, the Lays and Legends of Various Nations, by W. J. Thoms, already favourably known as the editor of the Early English Prose Romances. Of the Lays and Legends, which are now in the course of publication in monthly parts, we have seen three, being portions respectively of the legends of Germany, France, and Ireland; and, forming our judgment of the whole on what has been published, we most cordially wish it suc cess. The term "fairy mythology" adopted by Mr. Keightley we take to signify the popular mythology of the Teutonic nations; and we in England give it this title, because in our language the name fairies has become the common appellation of the elves of the popular creed. We therefore think that Mr. Keightley has quite lost sight of the object of his book, or that its title is a misnomer, when he makes an exhibi Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. London, Murray. The Fairy Mythology; illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of various Countries. By Thomas Keightley, Author of "Outlines of History," &c. &c. 2 vols. London, 1834. Whittaker. Tales and Popular Fictions; their Resemblance and Transmission from Country to Country. By Thomas Keightley, Author of "Outlines of History," "The Crusaders," &c. 1 vol. London, 1834. Whittaker. Lays and Legends of Various Nations, illustrative of their Traditions, popular Literature, Manners, Customs, and Superstitions. By William J. Thoms, Editor of the "Early English Prose Romances.' London, 1834. Cowie. tion of his learning in running wild among the Persians and Arabs, about whose superstitions we are, if necessary, prepared to shew that he knows nothing beyond the shreds and patches to be picked out of a grammar or a dictionary. We could also very well do without the fairy mythologies of Greece and Italy; but we have an especial objection to either a fairy mythology of the Jews or a fairy mythology of the Hottentots. It may be granted that the Greeks and the Persians are both branches of the great Indo-Teutonic stock, and, therefore, that there is every reason to believe, if we could trace their popular superstitions far enough back, that we should find in them an agreement with those of the Teutons in the west. But as we are no believers in the transmission of these superstitions from one people to another, and as the particular causes which have so long been constantly producing changes in the mythology of the Greeks and the Latins, and again in that of the eastern_nations, are so very different from those which have operated upon our own, we imagine that to attempt a comparison, without more knowledge of each than we at present have, would be but a vain and useless labour. We need rather such books as the Germans, and Danes, and Swedes have written for the popular mythology of their countries,such books as Crofton Croker has written for Ireland-the only one that has yet rendered justice to the superstitions of the peasantry of any part of our islands. There is much yet to be gathered: not enough has been accomplished towards collecting the fairy legends of Scotland and Wales; and as for England, where there is still room for a good harvest, there has been done nothing! But it is easier and more flattering to our vanity to invent schemes, than to gather together materials which may establish truth. Mr. Keightley tells us at some length how, after a long consideration of the subject, he has come to the conclusion, that of the tales and stories which have during ages floated about in every country, some are, as it were, "geological formations ;" having grown up with the people themselves, some have come in by transmission from other countries, and some by other means. All this is very true, and indeed only amounts to the same thing as saying, in familiar English, that they came one way or another. But, then, Mr. Keightley claims this as a discovery, and makes a book on the subject, in which he certainly proves the proposition, but he makes no great progress towards giving any answer, much more a general answer, to those most important questions, what? how? when? and why? However, the volume to which we allude hardly belongs to the subject of the present article, in which we intend to confine ourselves to popular mythology, and to the popular mythology of our own island; yet we hope to shew, that it is by investigating this mythology in one country, and by examining historically the changes which it has there undergone, and the causes to which we may attribute those changes, that we are most likely to find satisfactory answers to those questions, and to place the subject in a clearer light. Perhaps we may at some future time be tempted to return to the volume which has occasioned these remarks. We will observe, however, in passing, that there are stronger grounds than its author seems to suspect for believing Wilhelm Tell to be a mythic personage, at least as far as he is concerned in shooting the apple off his son's head. Sprenger, an early writer on these matters, in his Malleus Maleficarum, has a chapter "de Sagittariis Maleficis," where he relates the same story of one Punkler, a magician of Rorbach, in the diocese of Worms; and, if our memory be not very treacherous, we have read in one We cannot forbear saying a word or two on Mr. Keightley's discoveries, because he makes so much parade of them. He asserts that he has proved, that the name Oberon, in French, is the German Elberich; yet he has but taken it on the authority of Grimm, who has shewn, not merely that the word Elberich did take that form in French, but that it could not have taken any other! He says, that he alone bas discovered why Shakespeare gave the fairy queen the name Titania-we can assure him, that a tolerably advanced boy in one of our public schools would stand in peril of dire birch if he could not make the discovery at a very short notice. We will only add, that his account of the origin and meaning of the word fairy is, at best, but a lame and most unsatisfactory performance. of these older works on spirits and magic of a wood-spirit, concerning whom some such observation as the following was added—“ this is the hobgoblin who shot the apple off the child's head." Mr. Keightley will find, too, from the excellent old ballad of those three worthies Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee, that the legend was also current at an early period in England. The memorials of the days of AngloSaxon heathendom are unfortunately few. The only work which we can ascribe with any degree of certainty to so early a period of their history, or rather of the history of their forefathers before they came here, is the poem of Beowulf, of which an excellent edition has been given to us by Mr. Kemble; and this "Hie dygel lond warigeað wulf-bleóðu þær mæg nihta ge-hwan When, after the death of the son, Beowulf and his companions pursued the mother into her retreat, they found the water full of sea-drakes and serpents (wyrm-cynnes fela), and nicers lying on the banks. To Beowulf these were no new antagonists; in one of his exploits by sea, the nicers-for there were nicers in the sea as well as in the lakes-had, during a storm, dragged him out of his boat, and carried him to the bottom, where the desperate struggle between them ended with the death of nine of his opponents. We learn little from the poem of the form, or magnitude, or nature of these "heathen beasts," as they are called, except that against them weapons, the work of men, were useless; and Beowulf's sword, when it touched the Grendel's blood, melted like ice (ise gelicost). The last exploit of Beowulf was against another personage of the fairy poem has been much interpolated by Christian transcribers before it was reduced to the state in which it has come down to us. The chief exploit of the hero, Beowulf the Great, is the destruction of the two monsters Grendel and his mother; both, like most of the evil beings of old times, dwellers in the fens and the waters; and both, moreover, as some Christian bard has taken care to inform us, of "Cain's kin," as were also the eotens, and the elves, and the orcs (eótenas, and ylfe, and orcneas). The haunt of the Grendels was a lake in the middle of a dark and dreary morass; it was overshadowed by the thick branches of an ancient wood, and by night the surface of its waters appeared covered with flame (v. 2714). mythology, a dragon, or fire-drake, that sat brooding over his heaps of treasures of the olden days. During the slumber of its guardian, the "hea then hoard" had been plundered; and when the fire-drake awoke, and discovered that the object of his cares had been visited, he paced furiously about the entrance of his den in search of the intruder. He then returned to ascertain the extent of his loss, and at night he issued forth, and in revenge spread devastation through the country. The house of the dragon was a tumulus under a mountain near the waves of the sea. "Hlaw under brusan When the surviving conqueror, the companion of Beowulf, who was mortally wounded in the combat, entered it (v. 5508). “ Ge-seah đá sige-hredig máððum sigla feola gold glitmian grunde ge-tenge wundur on wealle and þæs wyrmes denn fyrn-manna fatu Swylce he siomian ge-seah þæt he done grund-wong on-gitan meahte." Popular superstitions are not easily removed; and with the introduction of Christianity, the Anglo-Saxons did not cease to believe in the existence and operations of the elves and the nicers, the orcs and the giants; nor did they cease to trust in the effects of charms and incantations, or to revere wells and fountains. The preachers of the faith of their Redeemer saw nothing in that faith which was contrary to the belief which they had sucked in even with their mothers' milk; for though it asserted the unity of God, yet it did not deny the existence of spirits. It was impossible, however, that so great a change should be made as the total subversion of the previously established religion of a country, without affecting in some measure even the superstitions of the peasant; and we find, accordingly, that the Christian Anglo-Saxons tried to account for the existence of these beings in a way very different from that of their Pagan forefathers. They attempted to rationalise the belief in the elves which they found already established; and they defined their pedigrees and functions, and limited their powers, on principles which varied according to the proportion wherein Christianity or heathendom ruled in their minds. Hence we hear at one time of the Elfin descendants of the first murderer, Cain, who were fated to wander over the wastes and fens, the terror and scourge of mankind; at another, of the spirits unworthy of He, exulting in victory, saw there a multitude of costly gems, gold glittering heavy upon the ground, a wonder on the wall; and in the den of the dragon the old flier in the twilightplatters standing, the vessels of men of old no longer living, fretted with ornaments: many an armlet So also he saw raised there the most wonderful of handy works, heaven, yet too good for hell, who were allowed or compelled to inhabit the air, and the water, and the earth. Just the same influence did Mohammedanism exert on the popular creed of the easterns-the beings with which it had peopled water and earth and air became a race of Peris, beautiful, and to a certain degree happy, and permitted even to approach the gates of paradise and to behold the joys within, joys which they could only hope to partake of after ages of penitence. The belief of the monks themselves in these spirits will account for the silence with which they are passed over in the homilies and religious discourses of the time. When they preached against heathendom, instead of attacking the superstitions of their countrymen, they broke out into declamations against the heathen practices of the Greeks and Romans. A manuscript homily, bearing the inviting title De falsis dus, told us much about Saturn, and Jupiter, and Venus, and their evil deeds, but of elves and nicers not a word. Another homily in the same collection is directed against witchcraft and magic, a title more tempting even than the former. We learn from it much about the witch of Endor, but of native superstitions we find only the following short and scattered notices. "Every one," says the writer," who uses witchcraft either by fowls, or by sneezings, or by horses, or by hounds, he is no Christian, but |