changeling on a chair with bagpipesTHERE WAS AN IRISH CHANGELING.
The Welsh fairies had good taste, and admired wholesome and handsome children. They stole such often, and left for substitute the plentyn-newid(the change-child) who at first was exactly like the absent nursling, but soon grew ugly, shrivelled, biting, wailing, cunning and ill-tempered. In the hope of proving whether it were a fairy-waif or not, people put the little creature to such hard tests, that sometimes it nearly died of acquaintance with a rod, or an oven, or a well.
Cat angry at changeling"THE ACORN BEFORE THE OAK HAVE I SEEN."
If the bereaved parent did some very astonishing thing in plain view of the wonder-chick, that would generally entrap it into betraying its secrets. A French changeling was once moved unawares to sing out that it was nine hundred years old, at least! In Wales, and also in Brittainy (which are sister-countries of one race) the following story is current: A mother whose infant had been spirited away, and who was much perplexed over what she took to be a changeling, was advised to cook a meal for ten farm-servants in one egg-shell. When the queer little creature, burning with curiosity, asked her from his high-chair what she was about, she could hardly answer, so excited was she to hear him speak. At that he cried louder: "A meal for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell? The acorn before the oak have I seen, and the wilderness before the lawn, but never did I behold anything like that!" and so gave damaging evidence of his age and his unlucky wisdom. And the woman replied: "You have seen altogether too much, my son, and you shall have a beating!" And thereupon she began to thrash him, until he screeched, and a fairy appeared hurriedly to rescue him, and in the crib lay the round, rosy, real child, who had been missing a long while.
Now the "gentry" of modern Greece had an eye also to clever children; but they almost always brought them back, laden with gifts, lovelier in person than when they were taken from home. And if they appointed a changeling in the meantime (which they were not very apt to do) it never showed its elfin nature until it was quite grown up! unlike the uncanny goblins who were all too ready from the first to give autobiographies on the slightest hint.
The Drows of the Orkney Islands fancied larger game. They used to stalk in among church congregations and carry off pious deacons and deaconesses!So wrote one Lucas Jacobson Debes, in 1670.
In a pretty Scotch tale, a sly fairy threatened to steal the "lad bairn," unless the mother could tell the fairy's right name. The latter was a complete stranger, and the woman was sore worried; and went to walk in the woods to ease her anxious and aching heart, and to think over some means of outwitting the enemy of her boy. And presently she heard a faint voice singing under a leaf:
Little kens the gude dame at hameThat Whuppity Stoorie is ma name!
When the smart lady in green came to take the beautiful "lad bairn," the mother quietly called her "Whuppity Stoorie!" and off she hurried with a cry of fear; like the Austrian dwarf Kruzimügeli, the "dear Ekke Nekkepem" of Friesland, and many another who tried to play the same trick, and who were always themselves the means of telling mortals the very names they would conceal.
Fairy in a flowerSHE HEARD A FAINT VOICE SINGING UNDER A LEAF.
Fairy-folk young and old were coquettish enoughabout their names, and greatly preferred they should not be spoken outright. This habit got them into many a scrape. The anecdote of "Who hurt you? Myself!" was told in Spain, Finland, Brittainy, Japan, and a dozen other kingdoms, and seems to be as old as the Odyssey. Do you remember where Ulysses tells the Cyclop that his name is Outis, which means Nobody? and how, after the eye of the wicked Polyphemus has beenput out, the comrades of the big blinded fellow ask him who did the deed, and he growls back, very sensibly: "Nobody!" Consider what follows a typical modern version of the same trick.
girl finds dancing fairy"AINSEL."
A young Scotch child, whom we will call Alan, sits by the fire, when a pretty creature the size of a doll, waltzes down the chimney to the hearth, and begins to frolic. When asked its name it says shrewdly: "Ainsel"; which to the boy sounds like what it really is, "Ownself," and makes him,when it is his turn to be questioned, as saucy and reticent as he supposes his elfin playfellow to be. So Alan tells the sprite that his name is "MyAinsel," and gets the better of it. For bye-and-bye they wax very frisky and friendly, and right in the middle of their sport, when little Alan pokes the fire, and gets a spark by chance on Ainsel's foot, and when he roars with pain, and the old fairy-mother appears instantly, crying angrily: "Who has hurt thee? Who has hurt thee?" the elf blurts, of course, "My Ainsel!" and she kicks him unceremoniously up chimney, and bids him stop whimpering, since the burn was of his own silly doing! Alan, meanwhile, climbs upstairs to bed, rejoicing to escape the vengeance of the fairy-mother, and chuckling in his sleeve at the funny turn things have taken.
FAIRYLAND.
"And never would I tire, Janet,In Fairyland to dwell."
SO runs the song. Who would weary of so sweet a place? At least, we think of it as a sweet place; but like this own world of ours, it was whatever a man's eyes made it: good and gracious to the good, troublous to the evil. According to an old belief, a mean or angry, or untruthful person, always exposed himself, by the very violence of his wrong-doing, to become an inmate of Fairyland; and for such a one, it could not have been all sunshine. A foot set upon the fairy-ring was enough to cause a mortal to be whisked off, pounded, pinched, bewildered, and left far from home. It was a strange experience, and it is recorded that it befell many a lad andmaid to be loosed from earth, and cloistered for uncounted years, to return, like our Catskill hero, Rip Van Winkle, after what he supposes to be a little time, and to find that generations had passed away. For those absent took no thought of time's passing, and on reaching earth again, would begin where their lips had dropped a sentence half-spoken, a hundred years before. Tales of such truants are common the world over.
Gitto Bach (little Griffith) was a Welsh farmer's boy, who looked after sheep on the mountain-top. When he came home at evenfall he often showed his brothers and sisters bits of paper stamped like money. Now when it was given to him, it was real money; but the fairy-gifts would not bear handling, and turned useless and limp as soon as Gitto showed them. One day he did not return. After two years his mother found him one morning at the door, smiling, and with a bundle under his arm. She asked him, with many tears, where he had been so long, while they had mourned for him as dead. "It is only yesterday I went away!" said Gitto. "See the pretty clothes the mountain-childrengave me, for dancing with them to the music of their harps." And he opened his bundle, and showed a beautiful dress: but his mother saw it was only paper, after all, like the fairy money.
Shepherd visited by fairiesGITTO BACH AND THE FAIRIES.
fairy sitting in flowerKAGUYAHIME, THE MOON-MAID.
Our pretty friends enjoyed beguiling mortals into their shining underworld, with song, and caresses, and winning promises. Once the mortal entered, he met with warm welcomes from all, and the most exquisite meat and drink were set before him.Now, if he had but the courage to refuse it, he soon found himself back on earth, whence he was stolen. But if he yielded to temptation, and his tongue tasted fairy food, he could never behold his native hills again for years and years. And when, after that exquisite imprisonment, he should be torn from his delights and set back at his father's door, he should find his memory almost forgotten, and others sitting with a claim in his empty seat. And he should not remember how long he had been missing, but grow silent and depressed, and sit for hours, with dreamy eyes, on lonely slopes and wildwood bridges, not desiring fellowship of any soul alive; but with a heartache always for hislittle lost playfellows, and for that bright country far away, until he died.
Often the creature who has once stood in the courts of Fairyland, is placed under vow, when released, and allowed to visit the earth, to come back at call, and abide there always. For the spell of that place is so strong, no heart can escape it, nor wish to escape it. Thus ends the old romance of Thomas the Rhymer: that, at the end of seven years, he was freed from Fairyland, made wise beyond all men; but he was sworn to return whenever the summons should reach him. And once as he was making merry with his chosen comrades, a hart and a hind moved slowly along the village street; and he knew the sign, laid down his glass, and smiled farewell; and followed them straightway into the strange wood, never to be seen more by mortal eyes.
A wonderful and beautiful Japanese story, too, the ancient Taketori Monogatari, written in the first half of the tenth century, tells us how a grey-haired bamboo-gatherer found in a bamboo-blade a radiant elf-baby, and kindly took it home to hiswife; and because of their great and ready generosity to the waif, the gods made them thrive in purse and health; and how, when the little one had been with them three months, Kaguyahime, for that was she, grew suddenly to a tall and fair girl, and so remained unchanging, for twenty years, while five gallant Japanese lords were doing her strange commands, and running risks the world over. Then, though the emperor, also, was her suitor, and though she was unspeakably fond of her old foster-parents, and grieved to go from them, she, being a moon-maid, went back in her chariot one glorious night to her shining home, whence she had been banished for some old fault, and whither the love and longing and homage of all the land pursued her.
Many sweet wild Welsh and Cornish legends deal with shepherds and yeomen who set foot on a fairy mound by chance, or who, in some other fashion, were transplanted to the realm of the dancing, feasting elves. But they have a pathetic ending, since no wanderer ever strayed back with all his old wits sound and sharp. He seemed asone who walked in sleep, and had no care or recognition for the faces that once he held dear. And if he were roused too rudely from his long reverie, he died of the shock.
fairies visiting boyTHE LITTLE HUNCHBACK.
A merrier tale, and one which is very wise and pretty as well, is current in many literatures. The Irish version runs somewhat in this fashion, and the Spanish and Breton versions are extraordinarily like it. A little hunchback resting at nightfall in an enchanted neighborhood, heard the fairies, from their borderlands near by, singing over and over the names of the days of the week. "And Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday!" they chorus: "and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday."The boy thinks it rather hard that they do not know enough to finish their musical chant with the names of the remaining days; so, when they pause a little, very softly, and tunefully, he adds: "And Wednesday"! The wee folk are delighted, and make their chant longer by one strophe; and they crowd out in their finery from the mound, bearing the stranger far down into its depths where there are the glorious open halls of Fairyland: kissing and praising their friend, and bringing him the daintiest fruit lips ever tasted; and to reward him lastingly, their soft little hands lift the cruel hump from his back, and he runs dancing home, at a year's end, to acquaint the village with his happy fortune. Now another deformed lad, his neighbor, is racked with jealousy at the sight of his former friend made straight and fair; and he rushes to the fairy-mound, and sits, scowling, waiting to hear them begin the magic song. Presently rise the silver voices: "And Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday": whereat the audience breaks in rudely, right in the middleof a cadence: "And Friday." Then the gentle elves were wrathful, and swarmed out upon him, snarling and striking at him in scorn; and before he escaped them, they had fastened on his crooked back beside his own, the very hump that had belonged to the first comer! In the anecdote, as it is given in Picardy, the justice-dealing goblins are described as very small and comely, clad in violet-colored velvet, and wearing hats laden with peacock plumes. In the Japanese rendering, a wen takes the place of the hump.
Fairyland is the home of every goblin, bright or fierce, that ever we heard of; the home, too, of the ogres and dragons, and enchanted princesses, and demons, and Jack-the-giant-killers of all time. The Brownies belonged there, and went thither in their worldly finery, when service was over; the gnomes and snarling mine-sprites, the sweet dancing elves, the fairies who stole children, or romped under the river's current, or plagued honest farmers, or tiptoed it with a torch down a lonesome road—every one there had his country and his fireside.
Fairy tending birdTAKNAKANX KAN.
In that merry company were many who have escaped us, and who sit in a blossomy corner by themselves, the oddest of the odd: like the Japanese Tengus, who have little wings and feathers, like birds, until they grew up; mouths very seldom opened, and most amazing big noses, with which, on earth, they were wont to fence, to whitewash, to write poetry, and to ring bells! There, too, were the dark-skinned Indian wonder-babies: Weeng, whom Mr. Longfellow celebrates as Nepahwin, the Indian god of sleep, with his numerous train of little fairy men armed with clubs; who at nightfall sought out mortals, and with innumerable light blows upon their foreheads, compelled them to slumber. The great boaster, Iagoo, whom Hiawatha knew, once declared that he had seen King Weeng himself, resting against a tree, with many waving and music-making wings on his back. Indian, likewise, was the spirit named Canotidan, who dwelt in many a hollow tree; and the lively fellow, Taknakanx Kan, who sported "in the nodding flowers; who flew with the birds, frisked with the squirrels, and skipped with the grasshopper;who was merry with the gay running brooks, and shouted with the waterfall; who moved with the sailing cloud, and came forth with the dawn." He never slept, and never had time to sleep, being the god of perpetual motion. Near him, perhaps, see-sawed a couple of long-eyed Chinese San Sao, or the glossy-haired Fées of Southern France pelted one another with dew-drops. There also, the African Yumboes had their magnificent tents spread: those strange little thieving Banshee-Brownies,wrapped in white cotton pangs, who leaned back in their seats after a gorgeous repast, and beheld an army of hands appear and carry off the golden dishes! There abided, as the venerated elder of the rest, the long-bearded Pygmies whom Homer, Aristotle and good Herodotus had not scorned to celebrate, whom Sir John Mandeville avowed to be "right fair and gentle, after their quantities, both the men and the women.... And he that liveth eight year, men hold him right passing old ... and of the men of our stature have they as great scorn and wonder as we would have among us of giants!"
Of these and thousands more marvellous is Fairyland full; full of things startling and splendid and grewsome and visionary:
——full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs that give delight, and hurt not.
Any picture of it is tame, any worded description dull and heavy, to you who discover it daily at first hand, and who know its faces and voices, which fade too quickly from the brain. All fine adventuresspring thence: all loveliest color, odor and companionship are in that stirring, sparkling world. Can you not help us back there for an hour? Who knows the path? Who can draw a map, and set up a sign-post? Who can bar the gate, when we are safe inside, and keep us forever and ever in our forsaken "dear sweet land of Once-upon-a-Time"?
THE PASSING OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE.
THERE was once a very childish child who laid her fairy-book on its face across her knee, and sat all the morning watching the cups of the honeysuckle, grieved that not one solitary elf was left to swing on its sun-touched edges, and laugh back at her, with unforgetful eyes.
We are sorry for her, and sorry with her. The Little People, alas! have gone away; would that they might return! No man knows why nor when they left us; nor whither they turned their faces. The exodus was made softly and slowly, till the whole bright tribe had stolen imperceptibly into exile. Mills, steam-engines and prowling disbelievers joined to banish them; their poetic and dreamy drama is over, their magic lamp out, and their jocund music hushed and forbidden. Orperhaps they of themselves went lingeringly and sorrowfully afar, because the world had grown too rough for them.
Geoffrey Chaucer, in the fourteenth century, wrote in his sweet, tranquil fashion:
In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour . . .Al was this lond fulfilled of faerie . . . . .I speke of mony hundrid yeer ago;But now can no man see non elves mo:
which you may understand as an announcement somewhat ahead of time. For many, many "elves mo" were on record after the good poet's lyre was hushed, and "thick as motes in the sunbeam" centuries after their reported flight. There have been sound-headed folk in every age, of whom Chaucer was one, who jested over the poor fairies and their arts, and spoke of them only for gentle satire's sake. But though Chaucer was sure the goblins had perished, his neighbors saw manifold lively specimens of the race, without stirring out of the parish. Up to two hundred years ago prayers were said in the churches against bad fairies!
fairy sitting on a mushroom above other faires and bugs"AL WAS THIS LOND FULFILLED OF FAERIE."
Sir Walter Scott related that the last Browniewas the Brownie of Bodsbeck, who lived there long, and vanished, as is the wont of his clan, when the mistress of the house laid milk and a piece of money in his haunts. He was loath to go, and moaned all night: "Farewell to Bonnie Bodsbeck!" till his departure at break of day. A girl from Norfolk, England, questioned by Mr. Thomas Keightley, admitted that she had often seen theFrairies, dressed in white, coming up from their little cities underground! Mr. John Brand saw a man who said he had seen one that had seen fairies!And Mr. Robert Hunt, author of theDrolls and Traditions of Old Cornwall, wrote that forty years ago every rock and field in that country was peopled with them! and that "a gentleman well-known in the literary world of London very recently saw in Devonshire a troop of fairies! It was a breezy summer afternoon, and these beautiful little creatures were floating on circling zephyrs up the side of a sunlit hill, fantastically playing,
'Where oxlips and the nodding violet grow.'
So here are three trustworthy gentlemen, makers of books on this special subject, and none of them very long dead, to offset Master Geoffrey Chaucer, and to bring the "lond fulfilled of faerie" closer than he dreamed. About the year 1865, a correspondent told Mr. Hunt the following queer little story:
"I heard last week of three fairies having been seen in Zennor very recently. A man who lived at the foot of Trendreen Hill in the valley of Treridge, I think, was cutting furze on the hill. Nearthe middle of the day he saw one of the small people, not more than a foot long, stretched at full length and fast asleep, on a bank of heath, surrounded by high brakes of furze. The man took off his furze-cuff and slipped the little man into it without his waking up, went down to the house, and took the little fellow out of the cuff on the hearthstone, when he awoke, and seemed quite pleased and at home, beginning to play with the children, who were well pleased also with the small body, and called him Bobby Griglans. The old people were very careful not to let Bob out of thehouse, nor be seen by the neighbors, as he had promised to show the man where crocks of gold were buried on the hill. A few days after he was brought, all the neighbors came with their horses, according to custom, to bring home the winter's reek of furze, which had to be brought down the hill in trusses on the backs of the horses. That Bob might be safe and out of sight, he and the children were shut up in the barn. Whilst the furze-carriers were in to dinner, the prisoners contrived to get out to have a run round the furze-reek, when they saw a little man and woman not much larger than Bob, searching into every hole and corner among the trusses that were dropped round the unfinished reek. The little woman was wringing her hands and crying 'O my dear and tender Skillywidden! wherever canst thou be gone to? Shall I ever cast eyes on thee again?' 'Go 'e back!' says Bob to the children; 'my father and mother are come here too.' He then cried out: 'Here I am, mammy!' By the time the words were out of his mouth, the little man and woman, with their precious Skillywidden, were nowhere to be seen,and there has been no sight nor sign of them since. The children got a sound thrashing for letting Skillywidden escape."
girl reading fairy storiesFAIRY STORIES.
capturing a fairyTHE CAPTURE OF SKILLYWIDDEN.
Such is the latest evidence we can find of the whereabouts of our goblins.
We may, however, consider ourselves their contemporaries, since among the peasantry of many countries over-seas, the belief is not yet extinct. But it is pretty clear to us, modern and American as we are (safer in so thinking than anybody was anywhere before!) that the "restless people," as the Scotch called them, are at rest, and clean quit of this world; and perhaps satisfied, at last, of their chance of salvation, along with fortunate Christians.
Such a great system as this of fairy-lore, propped on such show of earnestness, grew up, not of asudden like a mushroom after a July rain, but gradually and securely, like a coral-reef. And the dream-building was not nonsense at all, but a way of putting what was evident and marvellous into a familiar guise. If certain strange things, which are called phenomena, happened—things like the coming of pebbles from clouds, music from sand, sparkling light from decay, or disease and death from the mere handling of a velvety leaf—then our forefathers, instead of gazing straight into the eyes of the fact, as we are taught to do, looked askance, and made a fantastic rigmarole concerning the pebbles, or the music, and passed it down as religion and law.
The simple-minded citizens of old referred any trifling occurrence, pleasant or unpleasant, to the fairies. The demons and deities, according to their notion of fitness, governed in vaster matters; and the new, potent sprites took shape in the popular brain as the controllers of petty affairs. If a shepherd found one of his flock sick, it had been elf-shot; if a girl's wits went wool-gathering, it was a sign she had been in fairyland; if a cooingbaby turned peevish and thin, it was a changeling! Wherever you now see a mist, a cobweb, a moving shadow on the grass; wherever you hear a cricket-chirp, or the plash of a waterfall, or the cry of the bird on the wing, there of yore were the fairy-folk in their beauty. They stood in the mind to represent the lesser secrets of Nature, to account for some wonder heard and seen. It was many a century before nations stopped romancing about the brave things on land and sea, and began to speculate, to observe more keenly, to hunt out reasons, and to lift the haze of their own fancy from heroic facts and deeds.
Think a moment of the Danish moon-man, who breathed pestilence, and the moon-woman, whose harp was so charming. Well, the moon-man meant nothing else than the marsh, slimy and dangerous, which yielded a malarial odor; and the wee woman with her harp represented the musical night-wind, which played over the marsh rushes and reeds. Was it not so, too, with the larger myths of Greece? For the story of Proserpine, carried away by the god of the under world, and aftera weary while, given back for half-a-year to her fond mother Ceres, tells really of the seed-corn which is cast into her dark soil, and long hidden; but reappears in glory, and stays overground for months, basking in the sun. And so on with many a fable, which we read, unguessing of the thought and purpose beneath. Though it was erring, we can hardly thank too much that joyous and reverent old paganism which fancied it saw divinity in each move of Nature, kept a natural piety towards everything that lived, and made a thousand sweet memoranda, to remind us forever of the wonder and charm of our earth. All mythology, and the part the fairies play in it, stands for what is true.
——"StillDoth the old instinct bring back the old names":
and again and again, when we cite some beautiful fiction of Merman and Kobold, of White Dwarf or Pooka, we but repeat, whether aware of it or not, how the dews come down at morning, or the storm-wind breaks the strong trees, or how a comet, trailing light, bursts headlong across the wide sky.
To comprehend fairy-stories, to get under thesurface of them, we would have to go over them all at great length, and with exhaustless patience. And as in digging for the tendrils of a delicate, berry-laden vine, we have to search, sometimes, deep and wide into the woodland loam, among gnarly roots of shrubs and giant pines, so in tracing thesourcesof the simplest tale which makes us glad or sad, we fall across a network of ponderous ancient lore; of custom, prejudice, and lost day-dreams, from which this vine, also, is hard to be severed.
The spirit of these neat little goblin-chronicles was right and sincere; but the matter of them was often sadly astray. Of course, sometimes, useless, misleading details gathered to obscure the first idea, and to overrun it with a tangle of error; and not only were fine stories spoiled, but many were started which were funny, or silly, or grim merely, without serving any use beyond that.
But so powerful is Truth, when there was actually a grain of it at the centre, that even those versions which were exaggerated and distorted,played into the hands of what we call Folk-lore, and laid their golden key at the feet of Science. You will discover that, besides pointing out the workings of the natural world, the fairy-tales rested often on the workings of our own minds and consciences. The Brownie was a little schoolmaster set up to teach love of order, and the need of perfect courtesy; the Nix betokened anything sweet and beguiling, which yet was hurtful, and to which it was, and is, a gallant heart's duty not to yield. And thus, from beginning to end, the elves at whom we laugh, help us toward larger knowledge, and a more chivalrous code of behavior. How shall we say, then, that there never was a fairy?
fairy in a bouquet
A miner, hearing the drip of subterranean water, took it to be a Duergar or a Bucca, swinging his tiny hammer over the shining ore. His notion of the Bucca, askew as it was, was one at bottom with our knowledge of the dark brooklet. You, the young heirs of mighty Science, can often outstrip the slow-gathered wisdom of dead philosophers. But do not despise that fine old imagination,which felt its way almost to the light. A sixteenth-century boy, who was all excitement once over the pranks of Robin Goodfellow, knew many precious things which our very great nineteenth-century acuteness has made us lose!
Good-bye, then, to the army of vanishing "gentry," and to their steadfast friends, and to you, children dear! who are the guardians of their wild unwritten records. Shall you not miss them when next the moon is high on the blossomy hillocks, and the thistledown, ready-saddled, plunges to be off and away? Merry fellows they were, and shrewd and just; and we were very fond of them; and now they are gone. And their going, like a mounting harmony, note by note, which ends in one noble chord, with a hush after it, leads us to a serious parting word. Keep the fairies in kindly memory; do not lose your interest in them. They and their history have an enchanting value, which need never be outgrown nor set aside; and to the gravest mind they bring much which is beautiful, humane and suggestive.
We have found that believers in the Little Peoplewere not so wrong, after all; and that the eye claiming to have seen a fairy saw, verily, a sight quite as astonishing. Let us think as gently of other myths to which men have given zeal, awe and admiration, of every faith hereafter which seems to us odd and mistaken. For many things which are not true in the exact sense, are yet dear to Truth; and follow her as a baby's tripping tongue lisps the language of its mother, not very successfully, but still with loyalty, and with a meaning which attentive ears can always catch.
Surely, our ancestors loved the "span-long elves" who wrought them no great harm, and who gave them help and cheer. We will praise them, too. Who knows but some little goblin's thorny finger directed many an innocent human heart to march, albeit waveringly, towards the ample light of God?
Transcriber's Notes:Obvious punctuation errors repaired. The remaining corrections made are listed below and are indicated as well by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.Page vii, "Puck" changed to "Pück" (All that Pück demanded)Page vii, "wa" changed to "Wa" (Wag-at-the-Wa')Page viii, "Kopenick" changed to "Köpenick" (Kobold of Köpenick)Page viii, "changling" changed to "changeling" (was an Irish changeling)Page viii, "Taknakaux" changed to "Taknakanx" (Taknakanx Kan)Page 27, "airy" changed to "fairy" (to the fairy neighbors)Page 30, illustration caption, "RUGEN" changed to "RÜGEN" (THE ISLE OF RÜGEN)Page 37, illustration caption, "RUGEN" changed to "RÜGEN" (DWARVES OF RÜGEN)Page 38, repeated word "and" removed from text. Original read (by twos and and threes)Page 93, illustration caption, "KOPENICK" changed to "KÖPENICK" (KOBOLD OF KÖPENICK)Page 169, "scources" changed to "sources" (the sources of the simplest)
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. The remaining corrections made are listed below and are indicated as well by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.
Page vii, "Puck" changed to "Pück" (All that Pück demanded)
Page vii, "wa" changed to "Wa" (Wag-at-the-Wa')
Page viii, "Kopenick" changed to "Köpenick" (Kobold of Köpenick)
Page viii, "changling" changed to "changeling" (was an Irish changeling)
Page viii, "Taknakaux" changed to "Taknakanx" (Taknakanx Kan)
Page 27, "airy" changed to "fairy" (to the fairy neighbors)
Page 30, illustration caption, "RUGEN" changed to "RÜGEN" (THE ISLE OF RÜGEN)
Page 37, illustration caption, "RUGEN" changed to "RÜGEN" (DWARVES OF RÜGEN)
Page 38, repeated word "and" removed from text. Original read (by twos and and threes)
Page 93, illustration caption, "KOPENICK" changed to "KÖPENICK" (KOBOLD OF KÖPENICK)
Page 169, "scources" changed to "sources" (the sources of the simplest)