small stature, their industry, and their supposed propensity for inhabiting caves and clefts of the rocks. After all, the notion is not every where exploded that there are in the bowels of the earth Fairies, or a kind of dwarfish and tiny beings, of human shape, remarkable for their riches, their activity and malevolence. In many countries of the north, the people are still firmly persuaded of their existence. In Iceland, at this day, the good folks shew the very rocks and hills, in which they maintain that there are swarms of these small subterraneous men, of the most tiny size, but most delicate figures."*

It is probable, however, notwithstanding the ingenious remarks of Mallet, that Odin. brought this apparatus of Dwarfs with him from the East, where such unfortunate beings have been, for ages, the appendage of grandeur. They are there frequently represented as dwelling in caves and rocks. One part of there office is said to consist in the instruction. of the pages, but their principal duty is the amusement of their master.' If a dwarf

Vide Mallet's Northern Antiquities, Vol. ii. page 46.

happen to be a mute, he is much esteemed; but if he also be a eunuch, he is regarded as a prodigy; and no pains or expense are spared to obtain him.*

The northern mythology, however, has greatly added to the oriental attributes of the Dwarfs; it has given them, we see, the powers of magic and enchantment, and in the eighth fable of the Edda, they are gifted with the properties of the Destinies, and dispense the fates of mankind. "There are Nornies," (Nornir, Isl. Fates or Destinies) it observes, "of different originals: some proceed from the Gods, some from the Genii, and others from the Dwarfs," and these last are supposed to be evil and unfriendly to man.

From these passages of the Edda has arisen that system of Fairyism, which attributes to these minute, but potent agents, the most mischievous and malignant purposes, and which some of our most popular bards have employed with wonderful effect, to disturb

* Hebesci's State of the Ottoman Empire, page 164, + Mallet, Vol, ii. page 51.

the whole economy of nature.

Thus Pros

pero, in the Tempest of Shakspeare, raises, through the medium of these beings, the most dreadful commotions.

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune; and do fly him
When he comes back; ye demy-puppets, that
By the moonshine, the green sour ringlets make
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters tho' ye be) I have bedimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And twixt the green-sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluckt up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth,
By my so potent art.

Elves and Fairies, however, have been divided, by traditional superstition, and by the example of Shakspeare, Jonson, and their disciples, into Bad and Good, the latter favouring and protecting the human race, and

This

imparting the most salutary counsel. distinction, likewise, may have originated with the Edda, for the destinies of which some were derived from the Dwarfs, were always separated into good and bad, the former predicting felicity, the latter misfortune to those who consulted them. Independent of this, however, it is recorded in the Runic theology, that the Gods, after the formation of the earth, created a race of Dwarfs, very different from those engendered by Ymer, and four of which were employed by Odin to support the heavens. These were doubtless, from their creation, of a very superior kind, and most probably beneficent to man.

Whatever may have led to the superstition, it is certain, that during the dark ages, the custom prevailed throughout Europe, of resorting to the places which the good fairies were supposed to haunt, and consulting them as to future conduct and events. Thus, in the Journal of Paris, in the reigns of Charles the Sixth and Seventh, it is asserted, that the Maid of Orleans, in answer to an interrogatory of the Doctors, whether she had ever assisted at the assemblies held at the

Fountain of the Fairies near Domprien, round which the Evil Spirits dance, confessed that she had often repaired to a beautiful fountain in the country of Lorraine, which she named the Good Fountain of the Fairies of our Lord.* A confession which Mr. Southey has enlarged and decorated, with all the charms of poetry.

There is a fountain in the forest call'd
The fountain of the Fairies: when a child
With most delightful wonder I have heard
Tales of the Elfin tribe that on its banks
Hold midnight revelry. An ancient oak,
The goodliest of the forest, grows beside,
Alone it stands, upon a green grass plat,
By the woods bounded like some little isle.
It ever hath been deem'd their favourite tree,
They love to lie and rock upon its leaves,
And bask them in the moonshine. Many a time
Hath the woodman shown his boy where the dark round
On the green-sward beneath its boughs, bewrays
Their nightly dance, and bade him spare the tree.
Fancy had cast a spell upon the place
And made it holy; and the villagers

Would say that never evil thing approached

* Vide. Notes to the English Version of Le Grand's Fableaux.