CHAPTER II.
FAIRY RULERS.
THE forming of character among the fairy-folk was a very simple andsensible matter. You will imagine that the Pagan, Druid and Christianelves varied greatly. And they did; still their morals had nothing to dowith it, nor pride, nor patriotism, nor descent, nor education; norwould all the philosophy you might crowd into a thimble have made onebee-big resident of Japan different from a man of his own size in Spain.
They saved themselves no end of trouble by setting up the localbarometer as their standard. The only Bible they knew was the weather,and they followed it stoutly. Whatever the climate was, whatever it hadhelped to make the grown-up nation who lived under it, that, every time,were the "brownies and bogles." Where the land was rocky and grim, andsubject to wild storms and sudden darknesses, the fairies were grim andwild too, and full of wicked tricks. Where the landscape was level andgreen, and the crops grew peacefully, they were tame, as in centralEngland, and inclined to be sentimental.
And they copied the distinguishing traits of the race among whom theydwelt. A frugal Breton fairy spoke the Breton dialect; the Neapolitanhad a tooth for fruits and macaroni; the Chinese was ceremonious andstern; a true Provencal fee was as vain as a peacock, flirting a mirrorbefore her, and an Irish elf, bless his little red feathered caubeen!was never the man to run away from a fight.
If you look on the map, and see a section of coast-line like that ofCornwall or Norway, a sunshiny, perilous, foamy place, make up your mindthat the fairies thereabouts were fellows worth knowing; that you wouldhave needed all your wit and pluck to get the better of them, and thatthey would have made live, hearty playmates, too, while in good humor,for any brave boy or girl.
We do not know nearly so much about the genuine fairies as we shouldlike. They must have been, at one time or another, in every Europeancountry. Most of the Oriental spirits were taller, and of another brood;they figured either as demons, or as what we should now call angels. Butin the Germanic colonies, from very old days, fairy-lore was finelydeveloped, and we count up tribe on tribe of necks, nixies, stromkarlsand mermaids, who were water-sprites; of bergmaennchen (little men of themountain), and lovely wild-women in hilly places; of trolls around thewoods and rocks; of elves in the air, and gnomes or duergars in cavernsor mines. Yet from Portugal, and Russia, and Hungary, and from our ownNorth American Indians, we learn so little that it is not worthcounting.
If the good dear peasants who were acquainted with the fairies had mademore rhymes about them, and handed them down more attentively; if it hadoccurred to the knowing scholar-monks to keep diaries of elfin doings,as it would have done had they but known how soon their little friendswere to be extinct, like the glyptodon and the dodo, how wise should wenot be!
THE NEAPOLITAN FAIRY.]
But again, though there were hosts of supernatural beings in the beliefsof every old land, we have no business with any but the wee ones. And asthese were settled most thickly in the Teutonic, Celtic and Cymriccountries, we will turn our curiosity thither, without farthergrumbling, and be glad to get so much authentic news of them as we may.
Fairies, as a whole, seem at bottom rather weak and disconsolate. Forall of their magic and cunning, for all of their high station, and itsfeasting and glory, they could not keep from seeking human sympathy.They did, indeed, hurt men, resent intrusions, foretell the future, andcall down disease and storm, but they stood in awe of the weakest mortalbecause of his superior strength and size; they came to him to borrowfood and medicine, and even to ask the loan of his house for theirrevels. They rendered themselves invisible, but he had always at hisfeet the fern-seed, the talisman of four-leaved clover (or, as inScotland, the leaf of the ash or rowan-tree), with which he could defeattheir design, and protect himself against the attacks of any witch, imp,or fairy whatsoever.
Their government was a happy-go-lucky affair. The various tribes offairies had no common interests which would make them sigh forpost-offices, or cables, or general synods. Each set of them got along,independent of the rest. Once in a while a mine-man would live alonewith his wife, pegging away at his daily work, without any idea ofhurrahing for his King or, more likely, his Queen; or even of hunting uphis own cousins in the next county.
If we had elves in the United States nowadays, they would no doubt beAmerican enough to elect a President and have him as honest, and steady,and sound-hearted as needs be. But dwelling as they did in feudal days,they set up thrones and sceptres all over Fairydom.
According to the poets, Mab and Oberon are the crowned rulers of thelittle people. In reality, they had no supreme head. Among many partiesand factions, each small agreeing community had its own chief, thetallest of his race, who was no chief at all, mind you, to the fairyneighbors a mile east. The delicate yellow Chinese fairy-mother was SiWang Mu; and in the Netherlands, the elf-queen, who was also queen ofthe witches, was called Wanne Thekla.
We snatch an item here and there of the royal histories. We find thatthe sweet-natured Elberich in the Niebelungen is the same as Oberon. InGermany was a dwarf-king named Goldemar, who lived with a knight, sharedhis bed, played at dice with him, gave him good advice, called himBrother-in-law very fondly, and comforted him with the music of hisharp. But Goldemar, though the knight loved him and could touch and feelhim, was unseen. He was like a wreath of blue smoke, or a fragment ofmoonlight, and you could run a sword through him, and never change hiskind smile. His royal hands were lean, and soft, and cold as a frog's.After three years, perhaps when Brother-in-law was dead, or when he wasmarried, and needed him no longer, the gentle dwarf-king disappeared.
Sinnels, Guebich, and Heiling were other dwarf-princes, probably rivalsof Goldemar, and ready to have at him till their breath gave out. Theirlittle majesties were quarrelsome as cock-sparrows. The elf-monarchLaurin was once conquered by Theodoric; and because he had beentreacherous in war (which was not "fair" at all, despite the proverb),he got a very sad rebuff to his dignity, in being made fool or buffoonat the court of Bern.
THE ELF-MONARCH WHO WAS MADE COURT-FOOL.]
We are told in the Mabinogion how the daughter of Llud Llaw Ereint was"the most splendid maiden in the three islands of the mighty," and howfor her Gwyn ap Nudd, the Welsh fairy-king, battles every May-day fromdawn until sunset. Gwyn once carried her off from Gwythyr, her truelord; and both lovers were so furious and cruel against each other thatblessed King Arthur condemned them to wage bitter fight on eachfirst-of-May till the world's end; and to whomsoever is victorious thegreatest number of times, the fair lady shall then be given. Let ushope the reward will not fall to thieving Gwyn.
We have said that we should do pretty much as we pleased in ranging themyriad fairy-folk into ranks and species. If, as we prowl about, we seea baby in the house of the Elfsmiths, who has a look of the Elfbrowns,we will immediately kidnap him from his fond parents, and add him to thefamily he resembles. Now that might make wailing and confusion, andbring down vengeance on our heads, if there were any Queen Mab left torap us to order; but as things go, we shall find it a very neat way ofsmoothing difficulties.
THE ISLE OF RUeGEN DWARVES THAT GIVE PRESENTS TOCHILDREN.]
Of course there are certain pigwidgeons too accomplished, too slippery,too many things in one, to be ticketed and tied down like the rest; suchversatile fellows as the Brown Dwarves of the Isle of Ruegen, forinstance. They lived in what were called the Vine-hills, and were notquite eighteen inches high. They wore little snuff-brown jackets and abrown cap (which made them invisible, and allowed them to pass throughthe smallest keyhole), with one wee silver bell at its peak, not to belost for any money. But they did some roguish things; and children whofell into their hands had to serve them for fifty years! With capriceusual to their kin, they will, on other occasions, befriend and protectchildren, and give them presents; or plague untidy servants, likeBrownie, or lead travellers astray by night into bogs and marshes, likethe Ellydan and the Fir-Darrig, and mischievous double-faced RobinGoodfellow himself.
; An ancient tradition says that while the grass-blades are sprouting atthe root, the earth-elves water and nourish them; and the moment thegrowth pierces the soil, affectionate air-elves take it in charge.Therefore we borrow a hint from the grass; and after first going downamong the swarthy fairies who burrow underground, we shall pass up tocompanionship with little beings so beautiful that wherever they flockthere is starlight and song.