Coblynau wiht pickaxeA COBLYNAU.
The Welsh Coblynau followed the same profession, and pointed out the desired places in mines and quarries. The Coblynau were copper-colored, and very homely, as were all the pigmies who lived away from the sun; they were busybodies, half-a-yard high, who imitated the dress of their friends the miners, and pegged away at the rocks, like them, with great noise and gusto, accomplishing nothing. Their houses were far-removed from mortal vision, and unlike certain proper children, now obsolete, the Coblynau themselves were generally heard, but not seen.
Their German relation was the Wichtlein (little wight) an extremely small fellow, whom the Bohemiansnamed Hans-schmiedlein (little John Smith!) because he makes a noise like the stroke of an anvil.
Dwarves and mine-men went about, unfailingly, with a purseful of gold. But if anyone snatched it from them, only stones and twine and a pair of scissors were to be found in it. The Leprechaun, or Cluricaune, whom we shall meet later as the fairy-cobbler, was an Irish celebrity who knew where pots of guineas were hidden, and who carried in his pocket a shilling often-spent and ever-renewed. He looked, in this banker-like capacity, a clumsy small boy, dressed in various ways, sometimes in a long coat and cocked hat, unlike the Danish Troll, who kept to homely gray, with the universal little red cap. Even the respectable Kobold, who was, virtually, a house-spirit, caught the fever of fortune-hunting, and often threw up his domestic duties to seek the fascinating nuggets in the mines.
There is a funny anecdote of a Troll who, as was common with his race, cunningly concealed his prize under the shape of a coal. Now a peasanton his way to church one bright Sunday morning saw him trying vainly to move a couple of crossed straws which had blown upon his coal; for anything in the shape of a cross seemed to shrivel up an elf's power in the most startling manner. So the little sprite turned, half-crying, and begged the peasant to move the straws for him. But the man was too shrewd for that, and took up the coal, straws and all, and ran, despite the poor Troll's screaming, and saw, on reaching home, that he had captured a lump of solid gold.
All Black Elves were particular about their neighborhoods, and a whole colony would migrate at once if they took the least offence, or if the villagers about got "too knowing" for them. (An American poet once wrote a sonnet "To Science," in which he berated her for having made him "too knowing," and for having driven
—"the Naiad from her floodThe elfin from the green grass";
and it was in consequence of his very knowingness, no doubt, that, beauty-loving and marvel-loving as were his sensitive eyes, they never saw so muchas the vanishing shadow of a fairy.) A little dwarf-woman told two young Bavarians that she intended to leave her favorite dwelling, because of the shocking cursing and swearing of the country-people! But they were not all so godly.
crying male fairy"I CAN'T STAY ANY LONGER!"
Ever since the great god Thor threw his hammer at the Trolls, they have hated noise as much as Mr. Thomas Carlyle, who, however, made Thor's own bluster in the world himself. They sought sequestered places that they might not be disturbed. The Prussian mites near Dardesheim were frightened away by the forge and the factory. Above all else, church-bells distressed them, and spoiled their tempers. A huckster once passed a Danish Troll, sitting disconsolately on a stone, and asked him what the matter might be. "I hate to leave this country," blubbered the fat mourner, "but I can't stay where there is such an eternal ringing and dinging!"
THE LIGHT ELVES.
OVER the beautiful Light Elves of theEdda, in old Scandinavia, ruled the beloved sun-god Frey; and they lived in a summer land called Alfheim, and it was their office to sport in air or on the leaves of trees, and to make the earth thrive.
But they changed character as centuries passed; and they came to resemble the fairies of Great Britain in their extreme waywardness and fickleness. For though they were fair and benevolent most of the time, they could be, when it so pleased them, ugly and hurtful; and what they could be, they very often were; for fairies were not expected to keep a firm rein on their moods and tempers.
Norwegian peasants described some of their Huldrafolk as tiny bare boys, with tall hats; andin Sweden, as well, they were slender and delicate. When a Swedish elf-maid or moon-maid wished to approach the inmates of a house, she rode on a sunbeam through the keyhole, or between the openings in a shutter.
The German wild-women were like them, going about alone, and having fine hair flowing to their feet. They had some odd traits, one of which was sermonizing! and exhorting stray mortals who had done them a service, to lead a godly life.
The elle-maid in Denmark and in neighboring countries was always winsome and graceful, and carried an enchanted harp. She loved moonlight best, and was a charming dancer. But her evil element was in her very beauty, with which she entrapped foolish young gentlemen, and waylaid them, and carried them off who knows whither? She could be detected by the shape of her back, it being hollow, like a spoon; which was meant to show that there was something wrong with her, and that she was not what she seemed, but fit only for the abhorrence of passers-by. The elle-man, her mate, was old and ill-favored, a disagreeableperson; for if any one came near him while he was bathing in the sun, he opened his mouth and breathed pestilence upon them.
butterfly fairy sitting on crescent moonAN ELLE-MAID, OF DENMARK.
fairy in whiteBERTHA, THE WHITE LADY.
A common trait of the air-fairies was to assist at a birth and give the infant, at their will, good and bad gifts. Dame Bertha, the White Lady ofGermany, came to the birth of certain princely babes, and the Korrigans made it a general practice. Whenever they nursed or tended a new-born mortal, bestowed presents on him and foretold his destiny, one of the little people was almostalways perverse enough to bestow and foretell something unfortunate. You all know Grimm's beautiful tale of Dornröschen, which in English we call The Sleeping Beauty, where the jealous thirteenth fairy predicts the poor young lady's spindle-wound. Around the famous Roche des Fées in the forest of Theil, are those who believe yet that the elves pass in and out at the chimneys, on errands to little children.
The modern Greek fairies haunted trees, danced rounds, bathed in cool water, and carried off whomsoever they coveted. A person offending them in their own fields was smitten with disease.
The Chinese Shan Sao were a foot high, lived among the mountains, and were afraid of nothing. They, too, were revengeful; for if they were attacked or annoyed by mortals, they "caused them to sicken with alternate heat and cold." Bonfires were burnt to drive them away.
The innocent White Dwarves of the Isle of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, made lace-work of silver, too fine for the eye to detect, all winter long; but came idly out into the woods and fields with returningspring, leaping and singing, and wild with affectionate joy. They were not allowed to ramble about in their own shapes; therefore they changed themselves to doves and butterflies, and winged their way to good mortals, whom they guarded from all harm.
two fairies in lotus blossomsSOME GREEK FAIRIES.
The Korrigans of Brittainy, mentioned a while ago, were peculiar in many ways. They had beautiful singing voices and bright eyes, but they neverdanced. They preferred to sit still at twilight, like mermaids, combing their long golden hair. The tallest of them was nearly two feet high, fair as a lily, and transparent as dew itself, yet able as the rest to seem dark, and humpy, and terrifying. He who passed the night with them, or joined in their sports, was sure to die shortly, since their very breath or touch was fatal. And again, as in the case of Seigneur Nann, about whom a touching Breton ballad was made, they doomed to death any who refused to marry one of them within three days.
Of the American Indian fairies we do not know much. In Mr. Schoolcraft's books of Indian legends there is a beautiful little Bone-dwarf, who may almost be considered a fairy. In the land of the Sioux they tell the pretty story of Antelope and Karkapaha, and how the wee warrior-folk, thronging on the hill, clad in deerskin, and armed with feathered arrow and spear, put the daring heart of a slain enemy into the breast of the timid lover, Karkapaha, and made him worthy both to win and keep his lovely maiden, and to deservehomage for his bravery, from her tribe and his. Some of you will remember one thing against the Puk-Wudjies, which is an Algonquin name meaning "little vanishing folk," to wit: that they killed Hiawatha's friend, "the very strong man Kwasind," as our Longfellow called him. He had excited their envy, and they flung on his head, as he floated in his canoe, the only thing on earth that could kill him, the seed-vessel of the white pine.
The Scotch, Irish and English overground fairies were, as a general thing, very much alike. They had the power of becoming visible or invisible, compressing or enlarging their size, and taking any shape they pleased. When an Irish Shefro was disturbed or angry, and wanted to get a house or a person off her grounds, she put on the strangest appearances: she could crow, spit fire, slap a tail or a hoof about, grin like a dragon, or give a frightful, weird, lion-like roar. Of course the object of her polite attentions thought it best to oblige her. If she and her companions were anxious to enter a house, they lifted the spryest of their number to the keyhole, and pushed himthrough. He carried a piece of string, which he fastened to the inside knob, and the other end to a chair or stool; and over this perilous bridge the whole giggling tribe marched in one by one. The Irish and Scotch fays were more mischievous than the English, but have not fared so well, having had no memorable verses made about them. The little Scots were sometimes dwarfish wild creatures, wrapped in their plaids, or, oftener, comely and yellow-haired; the ladies in green mantles, inlaid with wild-flowers; and dapper little gentlemen in green trousers, fastened with bobs of silk. They carried arrows, and went on tiny spirited horses, as did the Welsh fairies, "the silver bosses of their bridles jingling in the night-breeze." An old account of Scotland says that they were "clothed in green, with dishevelled hair floating over their shoulders, and faces more blooming than the vermeil blush of a summer morning."
Their Welsh cousins were many. A native poet once sang of them:
——In every hollow,A hundred wry-mouthed elves.
They were queer little beings, and had notions of what was decorous, for they combed the goats' beards every Friday night, "to make them decent for Sunday!" They were very quarrelsome; you could hear them snarling and jabbering like jays among themselves, so that in some parts of Wales a proverb has arisen: "They can no more agree than the fairies!" The inhabitants believed that the midgets never had courage to go through the gorse, or prickly furze, which is a common shrub in that country. One sick old woman who was bothered by the Tylwyth Teg ("the fair family") souring her milk and spilling her tea, used to choke up her room with the furze, and make such a hedge about the bed, that nothing larger than a needle could be so much as pointed at her. In Breconshire the Tylwyth Teg gave loaves to the peasantry, which, if they were not eaten then and there in the dark, would turn in the morning into toadstools! When Welsh fairies took it into their heads to bestow food and money, very lazy people were often supported in great style, without a stroke of work. And the Tylwyth Teg loved toreward patience and generosity. They played the harp continuously, and, on grand occasions, the bugle; but if a bagpipe was heard among them, that indicated a Scotch visitor from over the border.
King Jamesi.of England mentions in hisDæmonologya "King and Queene of Phairie: sic a jolie courte and traine as they had!" Nothing could have exceeded the state and elegance of their ceremonious little lives. According to a sweet old play, they had houses made all of mother-of-pearl, an ivory tennis-court, a nutmeg parlor, a sapphire dairy-room, a ginger hall; chambers of agate, kitchens of crystal, the jacks of gold, the spits of Spanish needles! They dressed in imported cobweb! with a four-leaved clover, lined with a dog-tooth violet, for overcoat; and they ate (think of eating such a pretty thing!) delicious rainbow-tart, the trout-fly's gilded wing, and
——the broke heart of a nightingaleO'ercome with music.
But we never heard that Chinese or Scandinavian elves could afford such luxury.
Their English dwellings were often in the bubble-castles of sunny brooks; and the bright-jacketed hobgoblins took their pleasure sitting under toadstools, or paddling about in egg-shell boats, playing jew's-harps large as themselves. Beside the freehold of blossomy hillocks and dingles, they had dells of their own, and palaces, with everything lovely in them; and whatever they longed for was to be had for the wishing. They had fair gardens in clefts of the Cornish rocks, where vari-colored flowers, only seen by moonlight, grew; in these gardens they loved to walk, tossing a posy to some mortal passing by; but if he ever gave it away they were angry with him forever after. They liked to fish; and the crews put out to sea in funny uniforms of green, with red caps. They travelled on a fern, a rush, a bit of weed, or even boldly bestrode the bee and the dragon-fly; and they went to the chase, as in the Isle of Man, on full-sized horses whenever they could get them! and when it came to time of war, their armies laid-to like Alexander's own, with mushroom-shield and bearded grass-blades for mighty spears,and honeysuckle trumpets braying furiously! There are traditions of battles so vehement and long that the cavalry trampled down the dews of the mountain-side, and sent many a peerless fellow, at every charge, to the fairy hospitals and cemeteries.
Fairy riding a beeAN ELF-TRAVELLER.
Their chief and all but universal amusement, sacred to moonlight and music, was dancing hand-in-hand; and what was called a fairy-ring was the swirl of grasses in a field taller and deeper green than the rest, which was supposed to mark their circling path. Inside these rings it was considered very dangerous to sleep, especially after sundown. If you put your foot within them, with a companion's foot upon your own, the elfin tribe became visible to you, and you heard their tinkling laughter; and if, again, you wished a charmto defy all their anger, for they hated to be overlooked by mortal eyes, you had merely to turn your coat inside out. But a house built where the wee folks had danced was made prosperous.
Hear how deftly old John Lyly, nearly four hundred years ago, put the dancing in his lines:
Round about, round about, in a fine ring-a,Thus we dance, thus we prance, and thus we sing-a!Trip and go, to and fro, over this green-a;All about, in and out, for our brave queen-a.
For the elves, as we know, were governed generally by a queen, who bore a white wand, and stood in the centre while her gay retainers skipped about her. Fairy-rings were common in every Irish parish. At Alnwick in Northumberland County in England, was one celebrated from antiquity; and it was believed that evil would befall any who ran around it more than nine times. The children were constantly running it that often; but nothing could tempt the bravest of them all to go one step farther. In France, as in Wales, the fairies guarded the cromlechs with care, and preferred to hold revel near them.
At these merry festivals, in the pauses of action, meat and drink were passed around. A Danish ballad tells how Svend-Fälling drained a horn presented by elf-maids, which made him as strong as twelve men, and gave him the appetite of twelve men, too; a natural but embarrassing consequence. It used to be proclaimed that any one daring enough to rush on a fairy feast, and snatch the drinking-glass, and get away with it, would be lucky henceforward. The famous goblet, the Luck of Edenhall, was seized after that fashion, by one of the Musgraves; whereat the little people disappeared, crying aloud:
If that glass do break or fall,Farewell the Luck of Edenhall!
Once upon a time the Duke of Wharton dined at Edenhall, and came very near ruining his host, and all his race; for the precious Luck slipped from his hand; but the clever butler at his elbow happily caught it in his napkin, and averted the catastrophe: so the beautiful cup and the favored family enjoy each other in security to this day.
In the Song of Sir Olaf, we are told how he fell in, while riding by night, with the whirling elves; and how, after their every plea and threat that he should stay from his to-be-wedded sweetheart at home, and dance, instead, with them, he hears the weird French refrain:
O the dance, the dance! How well the dance goes under the trees!
And through their wicked magic, after all his steadfast resistance, with the wild music and the dizzy measure whirling in his brain, there he dies.
All the gay, unsteady, fantastic motion broke up at the morning cock-crow, and instantly the little bacchantes vanished. And, strangest of all! the betraying flash of the dawn showed their peach-like color, their blonde, smooth hair, and bodily agility changed, like a Dead Sea apple, and turned into ugliness and distortion! It was not the lovely vision of a minute back which hurried away on the early breeze, but a crowd of leering, sullen-eyed bugaboos, laughing fiercely to think how they had deceived a beholder.
These, then, were the Light Elves, not all lovable, or loyal, or gentle, as they were expected to be, but cruel to wayfarers like poor Sir Olaf, and treacherous and mocking; beautiful so long as they were good, and hideous when they had done a foul deed. It is hard to say wherein they were better than the Underground Elves, who were, despite some kindly characteristics, professional doers of evil, and had not the choice or chance of being so happy and fortunate. But we record them as we find them, not without the sobering thought that here, as at every point, the fairies are a running commentary on the puzzle of our own human life.
DEAR BROWNIE.
BROWNIE, the willing drudge, the kind little housemate, was the most popular of all fairies; and it is he whom we now love and know best.
He was a sweet, unselfish fellow; but very wide awake as well, full of mischief, and spirited as a young eagle, when he was deprived of his rights. He belonged to a tribe of great influence and size, and each division of that tribe, inhabiting different countries, bore a different name. But the word Brownie, to English-speaking people, will serve as meaning those fairies who attached themselves persistently to any spot or any family, and who labored in behalf of their chosen home.
The Brownie proper belonged to the Shetland and the Western Isles, to Cornwall, and the Highlandsand Borderlands of Scotland. He was an indoor gentleman, and varied in that from our friends the Black and Light Elves. He took up his dwelling in the house or the barn, sometimes in a special corner, or under the roof, or even in the cellar pantries, where he ate a great deal more than was good for him. In the beginning he was supposed to have been covered with short curly brown hair, like a clipped water-spaniel, whence his name. But he changed greatly in appearance. Later accounts picture him with a homely, sunburnt little face, as if bronzed with long wind and weather; dark-coated, red-capped, and shod with noiseless slippers, which were as good as wings to his restless feet. Along with him, in Scotch houses, and in English houses supplanting him, often lived the Dobie or Dobbie who was not by any means so bright and active ("O, ye stupid Dobie!" runs a common phrase), and therefore not to be confounded with him.
fairy churningBROWNIE'S DELIGHT WAS TO DO DOMESTIC SERVICE.
Brownie's delight was to do domestic service; he churned, baked, brewed, mowed, threshed, swept, scrubbed, and dusted; he set things in order,saved many a step to his mistress, and took it upon himself to manage the maid-servants, and reform them, if necessary, by severe and original measures. Neatness and precision he dearly loved, and never forgot to drop a penny over-night in the shoe of the person deserving well of him. But lax offenders he pinched black and blue, andled them an exciting life of it. His favorite revenge, among a hundred equally ingenious, was dragging the disorderly servant out of bed. A great poet announced in Brownie's name:
'Twixt sleep and wakeI do them take,And on the key-cold floor them throw!If out they cryThen forth I fly,And loudly laugh I: "Ho, ho, ho!"
Like all gnomes truly virtuous, he could be the worst varlet, the most meddlesome, troublesome, burdensome urchin to be imagined, when the whim was upon him. At such times he gloried in undoing all his good deeds; and by way of emphasizing his former tidiness and industry, he tore curtains, smashed dishes, overturned tables, and made havoc among the kitchen-pans. All this was done in a sort of holy wrath; for be it to Brownie's credit, that if he were treated with courtesy, and if the servants did their own duties honestly, he was never other than his gentle, well-behaved, hard-working little self.
He asked no wages; he had a New England scorn of "tipping," when he had been especially obliging; and he could not be wheedled into accepting even so much as a word of praise. A farmer at Washington, in Sussex, England, who had often been surprised in the morning at the large heaps of corn threshed for him during the night, determined at last to sit up and watch what went on. Creeping to the barn-door, and peering through a chink, he saw two manikins working away with their fairy flails, and stopping an instant now and then, only to say to each other: "See how I sweat! See how I sweat!" the very thing which befell Milton's "lubbar fiend" in L'Allegro. The farmer, in his pleasure, cried: "Well done, my little men!" whereupon the startled sprites uttered a cry, and whirled and whisked out of sight, never to toil again in his barn.
It is said that not long ago, there was a whole tribe of tiny, naked Kobolds (Brownie's German name) called Heinzelmänchen, who bound themselves for love to a tailor of Cologne, and did, moreover, all the washing and scouring and kettle-cleaningfor his wife. Whatever work there was left for them to do was straightway done; but no man ever beheld them. The tailor's prying spouse played many a ruse to get sight of them, to no avail. And they, knowing her curiosity and grieved at it, suddenly marched, with music playing, out of the town forever. People heard their flutes and viols only, for none saw the little exiles themselves, who got into a boat, and sailed "westward, westward!" like Hiawatha, and the city's luck is thought to have gone with them.
But Brownie, who would take neither money, nor thanks, nor a glance of mortal eyes, and who departed in high dudgeon as soon as a reward was offered him, could be bribed very prettily, if it were done in a polite and secretive way. He was not too scrupulous to pocket whatever might be dropped on a stair, or a window-sill, where he was sure to pass several times in a day, and walk off, whistling, to keep his own counsel, and say nothing about it. And for goodies, mysterious goodies left in queer places by chance, he had excellent tooth. Housewives, from the era ofthe first Brownie, never failed slyly to gladden his favorite haunt with the dish which he liked best, and which, so long as it was fresh and plentiful, he considered a satisfactory squaring-up of accounts. One of these desired treats was knuckled cakes, made of meal warm from the mill, toasted over the embers, and spread with honey. To other tidbits, also, he was partial; but, first and last, he relished his bowl of cream left on the floor overnight. Cream he drank and expected the world over; and in Devon, and in the Isle of Man, he liked a basin of water for a bath.
brownie drinking creamBROWNIE RELISHES HIS BOWL OF CREAM.
Fine clothes were quite to his mind; he was very vain when he had them; and it was what Pet Marjorie called "majestick pride," and no whim of anger or sensitiveness, which sent him hurrying off the moment his wardrobe was supplied by some grateful housekeeper, to eschew work forever after, and set himself up as a gentleman of leisure. Many funny stories are told of his behavior under an unexpected shower of dry goods. Brownie, who in his humble station, was so steadfast and sensible, had his poor head completelyturned by the vision of a new bright-colored jacket. The gentle little Piskies or Pixies of Devonshire, who are of the Brownie race, and very different from the malicious Piskies in Cornwall, were likewise great dandies, and sure to decamp as soon as ever they obtained a fresh capor petticoat. Indeed, they dropped violent hints on the subject. Think of a sprite-of-all-work, recorded as being too proud to accept any regular payment even in fruit or grain, standing up brazenly before his mistress, his sly eyes fixed on her, drawling out this absurd, whimpering rhyme (for Piskies scorned to talk prose!):
Little Pisky, fair and slim,Without a rag to cover him!
With his lisp, and his funny snicker, and his winning impudence generally, don't you think he could have wheedled clothes out of a stone? Of course the lady humored him, and made him a costly, trimmed suit; and the ungrateful small beggar made off with it post-haste, chanting to another tune:
Pisky fine, Pisky gay!Pisky now will run away.
The moment the Brownie-folk could cut a respectable figure in fashionable garments, they turned their backs on an honest living, and skurried away to astonish the belles in Fairyland.
Very much the same thing befell some Germanhouse-dwarves, who used to help a poor smith, and make his kettles and pans for him. They took their milk evening by evening, and went back gladly to their work, to the smith's great profit and pleasure. When he had grown rich, his thankful wife made them pretty crimson coats and caps, and laid both where the wee creatures might stumble on them. But when they had put the uniforms on, they shrieked "Paid off, paid off!" and, quitting a task half-done, returned no more.
The Pisky was not alone in his bold request for his sordid little heart's desire. A certain Pück lived thirty years in a monastery in Mecklenburg, Germany, doing faithful drudgery from his youth up; and one of the monks wrote, in his ingenious Latin, that on going away, all he asked was "tunicam de diversis coloribus, et tintinnabulis plenam!" You may put the goblin's vanity into English for yourselves. Brownie is known as Shelley-coat in parts of Scotland, from a German term meaning bell, as he wears a bell, like the Rügen Dwarves, on his parti-colored coat.
Puck talking to a man"Tunicam de diversis coloribus, et tintinnabulis plenam!"was all that pück demanded.
The famous Cauld Lad of Hilton was considered a Brownie. If everything was left well-arranged in the rooms, he amused himself by night with pitching chairs and vases about; but if he found the place in confusion, he kindly went to work and put it in exquisite order. But the Cauld Lad was, more likely, by his own confession,a ghost, and no true fairy. Romances were told of him, and he had been heard to sing this canticle, which makes you wonder whether he had ever heard of the House that Jack Built:
Wae's me, wae's me!The acorn's not yet fallen from the treeThat's to grow the wood that's to make the cradleThat's to rock the bairn that's to grow to the manThat's to lay me!
It was only ghosts who could be "laid," and to "lay" him meant to give him freedom and release, so that he need no longer go about in that bareboned and mournful state.
But the merriest grig of all the Brownies was called in Southern Scotland, Wag-at-the-Wa'. He teased the kitchen-maids much by sitting under their feet at the hearth, or on the iron crook which hung from the beam in the chimney, and which, of old, was meant to accommodate pots and kettles. He loved children, and he loved jokes; his laugh was very distinct and pleasant; but if he heard of anybody drinking anything stronger than home-brewed ale, he would coughvirtuously, and frown upon the company. Now Wag-at-the-Wa' had the toothache all the time, and, considering his twinges, was it not good of him to be so cheerful? He wore a great red-woollen coat and blue trousers, and sometimes a grey cloak over; and he shivered even then, with one side of his poor face bundled up, till his head seemed big as a cabbage. He looked impish and wrinkled, too, and had short bent legs. But his beautiful, clever tail atoned for everything, and with it, he kept his seat on the swinging crook.
Fairy on a tendril hook"WAG-AT-THE-WA'."
Scotch fairies called Powries and Duntershaunted lonely Border-mansions, and behaved like peaceable subjects, beating flax from year to year. The Dutch Kaboutermannekin worked in mills, as well as in houses. He was gentle and kind, but "touchy," as Brownie-people are. Though he dressed gayly in red, he was not pretty, but boasted a fine green tint on his face and hands. Little Killmoulis was a mill-haunting brother of his, who loved to lie before the fireplace in the kiln. This precious old employee was blest with a most enormous nose, and with no mouth at all! But he had a great appetite for pork, however he managed to gratify it.
Boliéta, a Swiss Kobold, distinguished himself by leading cows safely through the dangerous mountain-paths, and keeping them sleek and happy. His branch of the family lived as often in the trunk of a near tree, as in the house itself.
In Denmark and Sweden was the Kirkegrim, the "church lamb," who sometimes ran along the aisles and the choir after service-time, and to the grave-digger betokened the death of a little child. But there was another Kirkegrim, a proper church-Brownie,who kept the pews neat, and looked after people who misbehaved during the sermon.
As queer as any of these was the Phynodderee, or the Hairy One, the Isle of Man house-helper. He was a wild little shaggy being, supposed to be an exile from fairy society, and condemned to wander about alone until doomsday. He was kind and obliging, and drove the sheep home, or gathered in the hay, if he saw a storm coming.
The Klabautermann was a ship-Brownie, who sat under the capstan, and in time of danger, warned the crew by running up and down the shrouds in great excitement. This eccentric Flying Dutchman had a fiery red head, and on it a steeple-like hat; his yellow breeches were tucked into heavy horseman's boots.
Hüttchen was a German Brownie, who lived at court, but who dressed like a little peasant, with a flapping felt hat over his eyes. The Alraun, a sort of house-imp shorn of all his engaging diligence, was very small, his body being made of a root; he lived in a bottle. If he was thrown away, back he came, persistently as a rubber ball.But that instinct was common to the Brownie race.
The Roman Penates,Vinculi terrei, which brave old Reginald Scott called "domesticall gods," were Brownie's venerable and honorable ancestors. We shall see presently what names their descendants bore in various countries. But the Russian Domovoi we shall not count among them, because they were ghostly, like the poor Cauld Lad, and seem to have been full-sized.
OTHER HOUSE-HELPERS.
IN modern Greece the Brownie was known as the Stœchia. He was called Para in Finland; Trasgo or Duende in Spain; Lutin, Gobelin, Follet, in France and Normandy; Niss-god-drange in Norway and Denmark; Tomte, in Sweden; Niss in Jutland, Denmark and Friesland; Bwbach or Pwcca in Wales; in Ireland, Fir-Darrig and, sometimes, Cluricaune; Kobold, in Germany; and in England, Brownie figured as Boggart, Puck, Hobgoblin, and Robin Goodfellow.
Often the Stœchia, a wayward little black being, went about the house under the shape of a lizard or small snake. He was harmless; his presence was an omen of prosperity; and great care was taken that no disrespect was shown him.
The services of the Para, who was a well-meaningrascal, were rather singular, and not at all indispensable. He had a way of following the neighbor's cows to pasture, and milking them himself, in a calf's fashion, until he had swallowed quart on quart, and was as full as a little hogshead. Then he went home, uncorked his thieving throat, and obligingly emptied every drop of his ill-gotten goods into his master's churn! How his feelings must have been hurt if anybody criticized the cheese and butter!
The Spanish house-goblin was a statelier person, and wore an enormous plumed hat, and threw stones in a stolid and haughty manner at people he disliked. But occasionally the Duende had the form of a little busy friar, like the Monachiello at Naples.
The Lutin, or Gobelin, or Follet of French belief, was likewise a stone-thrower. He was fond of children, and of horses; taking it upon himself to feed and caress his landlord's children when they were good, and to whip them when they were naughty; and he rode the willing horses, and combed them, and plaited their manes into knottybraids, for which, we may fear, the stable-boy never thanked him. He knew, too, how to worry and tease; and certain French mothers threatened troublesome little folk with the "Gobelin:" "Le gobelin vous mangera!" which we may translate into: "The goblin will gobble you!" or into the whimsical lines of an American poet:
The gobble uns'll git you,EfYouDon'tWatchOut!
The Norwegian Nis was like a strong-shouldered child, in a coat and peaky cap, who carried a pretty blue light at night. He enjoyed hopping or skating across the farmyard under the moon's ray. Dogs he would not allow in his house. If he was first promised a gray sheep for his own, he would teach any one to play the violin. Like many another of the Brownie race, he was a dandy, and loved nothing better than fine clothes.
Tomte of Sweden lived in a tree near the house. He was as tall as a year-old boy, with aknowing old face beneath his cap. In harvest-time he tugged away at one straw, or one grain, until he laid it in his master's barn; for his strength was not much greater than an ant's. If the farmer scorned his diligent little servant, and made fun of his tiny load, all luck departed from him, and the Tomte went away in anger. He liked tobacco, played merry pranks, and doubled up comically when he laughed. But he had another laugh, scoffing and sarcastic, which he sometimes gave at the top of his voice.
Like the Devon Piskies, the Niss-Puk required water left at his disposal over-night. The Nis of Jutland was the Puk of Friesland. He also liked his porridge with butter. He lived under the roof, or in dark corners of the stable and house. He was of the Tomte's size; he wore red stockings on his stumpy little legs, and a pointed red cap, and a long gray or green coat. For soft, easy slippers he had a great longing; and if a pair were left out for him, he was soon heard shuffling in them over the floor. He had long arms, and a big head, and big bright eyes, so thatthe people of Silt have a saying concerning an inquisitive or astonished person: "He stares like a Puk." Puk, too, played sorry tricks on the servants, and was indignant if he was ever deprived of his nightly bowl of groute.
The Bwbach of Wales churned the cream, and begged for his portion, like a true Brownie; he was a hairy blackamoor with the best-natured grin in the world. But he had an unpleasant habit of whisking mortals into the air, and doing flighty mischiefs generally.
Cluricaune working with hammerAN IRISH CLURICAUNE.
The unique Irish Cluricaune, who had that name in Cork, was called Luricaune and Leprechaun in other parts of the country. He differed from the Shefro in living alone, and in his queer appearance and habits. For though he was a house-spirit and did house-work, his ambitions ran in an opposite direction, and in his every spare minute, when he was not smoking or drinking, you might have seen him, a miniature old man, with a cocked hat, and a leather apron, sitting on a low stool, humming a fairy-tune, and perpetually cobbling at a pair of shoes no bigger than acorns.The shoes were occasionally captured and shown. And as we have seen, Mr. Cluricaune was a fortune-hunter, and a very wide-awake, versatile goblin altogether. In his capacity of Brownie, he once wreaked a hard revenge on a maid who served him shabbily. A Mr. Harris, a Quaker, had on his farm a Cluricaune named Little Wildbeam. Whenever the servants left the beer-barrel running through negligence, Little Wildbeam wedged himself into the cock, and stopped the flow, at great inconvenience to his poor little body, until some one came to turn the knob. So the master bade the cook always put a good dinner down cellar for Little Wildbeam. One Fridayshe had nothing but part of a herring, and some cold potatoes, which she left in place of the usual feast. That very midnight the fat cook got pulled out of bed, and thrown down the cellar-stairs, bumping from side to side, so that it made her very sore indeed, and meanwhile the smirking Cluricaune stood at the head of the steps, and sang at the luckless heap below:
Molly Jones, Molly Jones!Potato-skin and herring-bones!I'll knock your head against the stones,Molly Jones!
In Japanese houses, even, Brownies were familiar comers and goers. They were important and smooth-mannered pigmies, and serenely dealt out rewards and punishments as they saw fit. When they were engaged in befriending commendable boys and girls, their features had, somehow, the ingenious likeness of letters signifying "good;" and if they made it their business to plague and hinder naughty idlers, who, instead of doing their errands promptly, stopped at the shops to buy goodies, their queer little faces were screwed upto mean "bad," as you see in Japanese artists' pictures.
Japanese children with brownies flying aroundJAPANESE CHILDREN AND BROWNIES.
The English names for the affable Brownie-folk bring to our minds the most wayward, frolicsome elves of all fairydom. Boggart was the Yorkshire sprite, and the Boggart commonly disliked children, and stole their food and playthings; wherein he differed from his kindly kindred. Hobgoblin (Hop-goblin) was so called because he hopped on one leg. Hobgoblin is the same as Rob or Bob-Goblin, a goblin whose full nameseemed to be Robert. Robin Hood, the famous outlaw, dear to all of us, was thought to have been christened after Robin Hood the fairy, because he, too, was tricksy and sportive, wore a hood, and lived in the deep forest.