The Philosophy of Mystery · 14 of 35

Fairy Mythology

“I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee.”

Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Astr. Why so thoughtful, fair Castaly? I fear Evelyn has clipped your sylphid wings, and made a mortal of you.

Cast. Your finger on your lips, Astrophel; for the world, not a syllable of confession to Evelyn.

I could think I heard the murmurs of a host of fairies streaming up to earth from elf-land, in fear of libels on their own imperial sovereignty by this matter-of-fact scholar.

Astr. Why did we listen to his philosophy? why not still believe the volumes of our antique legends; that those which tell the influence of fairies and demons on man’s life, have their source in the real history of a little world of creatures more ethereal than ourselves? Perhaps even the bright thoughts of a poet’s fancy are not his own creation.

Cast. We must hear no more, although Evelyn will still convert syrens into rocks and trees, and make a monster out of a mist or a thunder-cloud. The sunlight is sleeping on Wyndcliff, and the breeze, creeping among the leaves, seems to me a symphony meet to conjure the phantoms of romantic creatures. Evelyn is far away among the rocks; let us steal the moment to revel in our dreams of faëry. Even now, are we not in a realm of Peristan? Yon mossy carpet of emerald velvet, strewed with pearls and gold, may be the presence-chamber of Titania; and fays are dancing within their ring, which the silvery beech o’ercanopies so shadily; and the chaunting of their viralays, or green-songs, comes like the humming of a zephyr’s wing flitting o’er the mouth of a lily. Ariel is lying asleep in her cinque-spotted cowslip bell, and the fays are feeding on their fairy-bread, made of the pollen of the jasmine; and Oberon quaffs to his queen the drops that hang on the purple lip of the violet, or glitter in the honied bell of the hyacinth, or that purest crystal of the lotus, that brings life to the fainting Indian in the desert, or the liquid treasure of the nepenthe.

We pray you, Astrophel, recount to us, now we are in the humour, the infancy of bright and dark spirits; for you have dipped deep, I know, into the Samothracian mysteries.

Astr. Know, then, that the birth-time of mythology and romance was in the primeval ages of man. The ancient heathens believed in the legends of their deities, as we have credence in modern history and biography; indeed, the romance of the moderns was with the ancients truth. They had implicit faith in the presence of their gods, and that they might perchance meet them in the groves and hills, which were consecrated to their worship, and adorned with sculpture and idols in honour of the deities. Hence the profusion of their names and nature, recorded in the pages of the olden time, when the scribe traced his reed letter on the papyrus.

From the climes of the sun came the orient tales of genie, and deeves, and peris; and of naiad, and nereid, and dryad, and hamadryad, from Greece and Rome. In the Koran shone forth the promised houris of Mahomet’s paradise; and its mysteries were echoed to us from the lips and tables of pilgrims and crusaders, who had blazoned their red cross in the holy wars. Thus was romance cradled and bosomed in religion.

From the legends of the East, spring the fairy romances of our own days. The Peri of Persia was the denizen of Peristan, as the Ginn of Arabia was of Ginnistan, and the Fairy of England of Fairyland; and we have their synonyms in the Fata of Italy and the Duerga of northern Europe.

These spirits of romance are almost innumerable; for thus saith the “Golden Legend:” that “the air is full of sprites as the sonnebeams ben full of small motes, which is small dust or poudre.”

The alchemyst Paracelsus asserts that the elements were peopled with life; the air with sylphs and sylvains, the water with ondines, the earth with gnomes, and the fire with salamanders. And Martin Luther coincides with these assertions; nay, hath not Master Cross of Bristol illustrated the creed, and shown, by his galvanic power, an animated atom starting forth, as if by magic, from a flint, a seeming inorganic mass?

The sagas, or historical records of Scandinavia, of the Celtic, Scaldic, and Runic mythology, assert that the duergas or dwarfs, which are the Runic fairies, sprang from the worms in the body of the giant Ymor, slain, according to the Edda, by Odin and his brother; and Spenser has left a very interesting genealogical record of the faëry brood, in that romantic allegory of the Elizabethan age, the “Faëry Queen.” Elf, the man fashioned and inspired by Prometheus, was wandering over the earth alone, and in the bosky groves of Adonis he discovered a lady of marvellous beauty—Fay. From this romantic pair sprang the mighty race of the fairies, and we have wondrous tales of the prowess of their heroic princes. Elfiline threw a golden wall round the city of Cleopolis; Elfine conquered the Gobbelines; Elfant built Panthea, of purest crystal; Elfan slew the giant twins; and Elfinor spanned the sea with a bridge of glass.

Cast. Spenser, I presume, borrowed his romance from Italy. We read that the rage and party spirit of the potent Guelphs and Ghibellines rankled even in their nurseries. The nurses were wont to frighten the children into obedience with these hated names, which, corrupted to the epithets of elf and goblin, were hence-forth applied to fairies and phantoms.

Astr. This story is itself a mere fiction. Ere the period of these feuds of party, the term Elfen (and Dance identifies this with the Teutonic Helfen,) was a common epithet of the Saxon spirits: Weld-elfen were their dryads; Zeld-elfen their field-fairies, &c.

The American Indians to this day have faith in the presidencies of spirits over those lakes, trees, and mountains, and even fishes, birds, and beasts, which excel in magnitude. The orient Indian, too, at this hour, peoples the forests with his gods; and peacocks, and squirrels, and other wild creatures, are thus profanely deified.

The legends of later days have quaintly blended the classic with the fairy mythology. Hassenet tells us that Mercurius was called the Prince of Fairies; and Chaucer sings of Pluto, the King of Fayrie; and, in the romance of the Nine Champions, Proserpine sits crowned among the fairies. The great zoologist, Pliny, writes in his Natural History, that “you often encounter fairies that vanish away like phantasies.” And Baxter believed that “fairies and goblins might be as common in the air, as fishes in the sea.”

As the Peri could not enter Paradise in consequence of the errors of her “recreant race,” so the elves could not enjoy eternity without marrying a Christian; and on this plea they came up to the daughters of men. And we read, in the tenets of the Cabala, that, by these earthly weddings, they could enjoy the privileges and happiness of each other’s nature. But these unnatural unions were not always happy. There is, in our old chronicles, a tradition of a marriage between one of the counts of Anjou and a fair demonia, which entailed misery and commission of crime on the noble house of Plantagenet.

Now there are appointed times when the influence of the spirit fades for a season. It was the moment of the eclipse, among the American Indians and the African blacks; in Ireland, it is the feast of the Beltane; in Scotland, this immunity came over the mortal life on Hogmanay, or New-year’s Eve, and during the general assemblies of these mystic spirits of the world.

In Britain, it was on the eve of the first of May, the second of November, and on All Souls’ Day. At these times, indeed, they might be induced to divulge the secrets of their mysterious freemasonry.

In Germany, on May-day, when the unearthly rendezvous was on the dark mountain of the Hartz, and on Halloween, in Caledonia, even the secrets of time and futurity were unfolded by the spirits to a mortal, if one were found so bold as to repair on these festivals to their unhallowed haunts.

If a mortal enters the secret abodes of the Daoine Shi, in Scotland, and anoints his eyes with their charmed ointment, the gift of seeing that which is to all others invisible is imparted; but this must be kept secret, for the Men of Peace will blind the second-sighted eye, if once they are recognized on earth by a mortal.

In the gloomy forests of Germany rose the legends of Kobolds, and Umbriels, and Wehrwolves, the Holts Konig, the Waldebach, the Reiberzahl, and the Schattenman, the Hudekin, the Erl Konig, and the beautiful naiad, the Nixa. The devil himself was believed to be a gnome king; for when the Elector of Saxony offered Martin Luther the profit of a mine, he refused it, “lest by accepting it he should tempt the devil, who is lord of those subterraneous treasures, to tempt him.”

Then we have the Putseet, or Puck of the Samogitæ, on the Baltic; the Biergen Trold, or Skow, of Iceland; and those mermaids which gambol around the Faroe Islands. We read in the Danske Folksaga, that these “merrows” cast their skins like the boa, and in that condition are changed into human beings, till their scales are restored to them. And the Shetlanders implicitly believe that awful storms instantly arise on the murder of one of these sea-maids.

There was the Norse goddess, Freya, which, like the Dragon of Wantley, and the Caliban of the “still vexed Bermoothes,” blasted the fair face of nature, and far eclipsed the giant-serpent off Cape Saint Anne, or the kraken of Norway; and even that monstrous sea-snake, the jormungandz (so conspicuous among the wild romances of the Edda), whose coils entwined the globe. Thor angled for this snake with a bull’s head, but it was not to be caught, being reserved for some splendid achievement in the grand conflict which is to herald the Ragnarockr,—the twilight of the gods.

Among the mountains of our own island we have a profuse legion. In Wales, the Tylwth Tag and the Pooka; and many a hollow in the mountain where these strange animals resort, is called Cwm Pooka; and the wondrous cavern of the Meltè, in Breconshire, was believed to be haunted by this little pony.

In Ireland, they have a Merrow, the Runic sea, or oigh-maid; the Banshee, or fairy prophet; the Fear-Dearg, the Irish Puck; the Clurricane, a sottish pigmy; and the Pooke, the wild pony.

Cast. These must have been a prolific as well as a wandering brood, for I also have seen many caverns in the rocky districts, called Poola Phouka, in which these mischievous little creatures concealed themselves.

Astr. In Man there is a hill called the “Fairy Hill,” a tumulus of the Danes, which is thought to be a nocturnal revel-place for the Man fairies which preside over their fisheries.

Scotland was a fertile mother of monsters: the Ourisks or Uriskin, the goblin-satyrs or shaggy men; the Brownies; the Kelpies, or river-demons; the Bargheists; the Red-cap; the Daoine Shi, or Men of Peace; the Glaslic, or noontide hag, which haunted the district of Knoidart; and the Lham-Dearg, or red-hand, in the forests of Glenmore, and Rothiemurchus; the Bodach-Glas; and the Pixies, or small grey men.

Cast. There is an islet among the Scottish Hebrides, which is called the Isle of Pigmies; and I remember a chapel there, in which very minute human bones were some time ago discovered. Think you, Astrophel, that these were the skeletons of pixies?

Astr. I cannot think the notion irrational; there are dwarfs and giants even in our days. The Bosgis-men of the Cape, and the Patagonians of South America, prove the existence of beings of another stature; and perchance of another nature, in days long agone. The Laplander and Bushman of the Cape are little more than three feet high; and that there were giants too, is proved by the fossil bones which have been found in the strata of our earth.

Cast. Then we have really dwindled in our growth, and Adam was really a hundred and twenty-three feet nine inches high, and Eve a hundred and eighteen feet nine inches and three quarters, as we are solemnly informed by our profane chronicles? Nay, even the story may be true of the Pict, who bit off the end of the mattock, with which some slave of science was opening his coffin, and thundered forth this exclamation: “I see the degeneracy of your race by the smallness of your little finger.”

Ida. If Evelyn were here, he would ask why we have no skeletons of giants as of lizards in our secondary rocks; and he would tell this learned Theban, Castaly, that Cuvier decided these fossils, which seemed to be the débris of a giant race, to be the bones of elephants. The legends of Athenæus are probably a fable, and the fossils of the pigmies were, I dare say, the petrified skeletons of “span-long, wee unchristen’d bairns.”

Your allusion to the brownies, reminds me of the monstrous errors which have crept into our legends from the mingling of two stories, or the warping of plain facts in natural history. And indeed I interrupt you to recount, in proof of this, some fragments from “Surtees’ Durham.”

“Every castle, tower, or manor-house has its visionary inhabitants. ‘The Cauld Lad of Hilton’ belongs to a very common and numerous class, the brownie or domestic spirit, and seems to have possessed no very distinctive attributes. He was seldom seen, but was heard nightly by the servants who slept in the great hall. If the kitchen had been left in perfect order, they heard him amusing himself by breaking plates and dishes, hurling the pewter in all directions, and throwing every thing into confusion. If, on the contrary, the apartment had been left in disarray, (a practice which the servants found it most prudent to adopt,) the indefatigable goblin arranged every thing with the greatest precision. This poor esprit folet, whose pranks were at all times perfectly harmless, was at length banished from his haunts by the usual expedient of presenting him with a suit of clothes. A green cloak and hood were laid before the kitchen fire, and the domestics sat up watching at a prudent distance. At twelve o’clock the spirit glided gently in, stood by the glowing embers, and surveyed the garments provided for him very attentively, tried them on, and seemed delighted with his appearance, frisking about for some time, and cutting several summersets and gambados, till on hearing the first cock, he twitched his mantle tight about him and disappeared with the usual valediction:

“ ‘Here’s a cloak, and here’s a hood,

The cauld lad of Hilton will do no more good.’ ”

The genuine Brownie, however, is supposed to be, ab origine, an unembodied spirit; but the boy of Hilton has, with an admixture of English superstition, been identified with the apparition of an unfortunate domestic, whom one of the old chiefs of Hilton slew at some very distant period, in a moment of wrath or intemperance. The baron had, it seems, on an important occasion, ordered his horse, which was not brought out so soon as he expected. He went to the stable, found the boy loitering, and seizing a hay-fork, struck him, though not intentionally, a mortal blow. The story adds, that he covered his victim with straw till night, and then threw him into a pond, where the skeleton of a boy was (in confirmation of the tale) discovered in the last baron’s time.

I am by no means clear that the story may not have its foundation in the fact recorded in the following inquest:

“Coram Johannem King, coron., Wardæ de Chestræ, apud Hilton, 3 Jul. 7 Jac. 1609.”

(And here follows a report in Latin.)

Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that the unhousel’d spirit of Roger Skelton, whom in the hay-field the good Hilton ghosted, took the liberty of playing a few of those pranks which are said by writers of grave authority to be the peculiar privilege of those spirits only who are shouldered untimely by violence from their mortal tenements.

“Ling’ring in anguish o’er his mangled clay,

The melancholy shadow turn’d away,

And follow’d through the twilight grey.”

A free pardon for the above manslaughter appears on the rolls of Bishop James, dated 6th September, 1609.

I will only add that, among the Harleian MSS., the same legend is told with some variations, in which this “cauld lad” is termed the “ Pale Boy of Hilton.”

This confusion of our mythology is as conclusive of the fiction of all the mysterious legends of the moderns, as the jumble which the classic poets have made of their monsters. If we read Lempriere, the genealogy of the classic monster is involved in a maze of impious confusion; and the mythology of Chimera, and Echidna, and Typhon, Geryon, and Cerberus, and the Hydra and Bellerophon, and Ortha and the Sphynx, and the Nemæan Lion, and the Minotaur, and the demoniac records of their origin, it is almost profanation even to reflect on.

But when Martianus Capella tells us that devils have aërial bodies, that they live and die, and yet, if cut asunder, soon re-unite; and when Bodine asserts, in his “Solution of Natural Theology,” that spirits and angels are globular, as being of the most perfect shape, I confess I feel more disposed to smile at their imposture than to frown, were it not for their utter worthlessness.

Yet all the allegories which adorn our legends are not so remote from truth or nature. The vampires are said to have gloated over the sacrifices of human life, while the gouls and afrits, the hyenas in human shape, not only fed on dead carcases, but, by a special transmigration, took possession of a corpse. On this fable is founded the monstrous legend of “Assuet and Ajut.” I confess it monstrous; but indeed there is little exaggeration even in these tales of horror, if we may believe, for once, Master Edmund Spenser, in that part of his record of the rebellion of Desmond, in Ireland, which treats of the Munster massacre:—“Out of every corner of the woodes and glennes, they came creeping forth upon their handes, for their legges could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghostes, crying out of their graves: they eat the dead carrions—happy were they could they find them—yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves.” That episode also, in the “Inferno” of Dante, in which Count Ugolino wears out days and nights in gnawing the skull of an enemy, may well seem a fiction; but even this hellish repast is but a prototype of the savage rage for scalping and cannibalism among the Indian hordes of America.