23465	----	[Illustration] THE STORY OF THE THREE GOBLINS BY MABEL G. TAGGART LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS 1903 THE STORY OF THE THREE GOBLINS. Once upon a time there were three little goblins. Their names were Red-Cap, Blue-Cap and Yellow-Cap, and they lived in a mountain. The goblins had a great friend--a green frog whose name was Rowley. Rowley came every year to see the little goblins, and told them stories about the Big World where he lived. The goblins had never seen the Big World, and often asked their father to let them go with Rowley, but he always said, "Not yet, my sons." [Illustration] [Illustration] The name of the goblins' father was Old Black-Cap. He was King of the Mountain. At last, one day Old Black-Cap called the three goblins and said to them: "I am going to send you into the Big World to look for something which the fairies stole from me a long time ago. A Red Feather which always belongs to the King of the Mountain. Go, my sons, and the one who finds it shall be king of this mountain after me." [Illustration] [Illustration] Red-Cap, Blue-Cap and Yellow-Cap said good-bye to their father and climbed out into the Big World through a rabbit hole. When they had gone a little way they saw something lying on the ground. Something large and white and round. "What is that?" they all cried together. Red-Cap, who was the eldest, got inside it to see what it was made of. "Oh! oh!" cried Blue-Cap and Yellow-Cap. "It is moving! Stop! Stop!" But the white thing rolled away down the mountain with poor little Red-Cap inside it; faster and faster it went, and Blue-Cap and Yellow-Cap were left quite behind. Now little Red-Cap was a brave goblin, but he was rather frightened when the White Thing began to roll so fast. He wondered if it would ever stop, when--Bump! Splash!--he found he was in the water, and something big with a smooth coat was close beside him. It was a kind water-rat who had seen the poor little goblin roll into the water. "I can swim," said Mr. Rat. "I will hold you by the collar and take you to dry land again." [Illustration] [Illustration] Red-Cap thanked the kind water-rat very much, and they sat down on the bank of the stream to rest. Red-Cap told the rat all about his father and brothers and the Red Feather, and soon Blue-Cap and Yellow-Cap came running up, quite out of breath, but very glad to find their brother quite safe and not even scratched. They all soon said good-bye to the rat, who wished them good luck, showed them the road and told them to look in a tree--which he pointed out--where he said they would find something which would help them very much. [Illustration] [Illustration] The goblins raced to the tree. Yellow-Cap won the race and climbed up quickly, while the others ran all round looking to see what they could find. They found nothing, and Yellow-Cap was just coming down again when he spied a bird's-nest with three dear little blue eggs in it. He crawled along the branch to look at the eggs, and saw something white under the nest. Yellow-Cap pulled it gently, and out came an envelope. Full of joy he slipped down to his brothers. They opened the envelope and found a sheet of paper on which was written in gold letters,-- "You who seek the Feather Red First the Serpent's blood must shed; In the cave where fairies dwell The Feather lies, so search it well." "Hurrah!" cried Red-Cap. "Let us make haste and find the cave." Soon they came to a big dark forest, and after they had gone a little way they saw a fence and a large board on which was written in red letters,-- TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. The goblins looked over the fence and saw that the ground was covered with gold and silver! "Oh!" they cried, "let us fill our pockets. What fun!" and they began to climb over the fence. [Illustration] [Illustration] They all got safely down on the other side, and seeing no one about they began to fill their pockets with the shining money, singing, "We are on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver." Suddenly they heard a big rough voice say, "Yes, you are on Tom Tiddler's ground, and Tom Tiddler will lock you all up, you little thieves." The goblins dropped their handfuls of gold and silver, and found themselves caught up by a great big giant who carried them off, with great long strides, to his house. Tom Tiddler took them into a large kitchen where Mrs. Tiddler was busy making the tea. "Wife," said he, "put these goblins in the pantry, and we will have them fried on toast for breakfast." The poor little brothers were locked up in the pantry, and they sat down on the floor holding each others hands very tight and shaking with fear. At last they grew bolder, and began to think how they could get away. They tried to open the window, and found to their joy that Tom Tiddler had forgotten to lock it. They crept out very quietly and climbed down by the thick ivy which grew up the wall. The goblins ran as fast as they could, only stopping to fill a sack which they had found with gold and silver. They knew that Tom Tiddler and his wife were at tea, and would not think of coming out for some time. [Illustration] [Illustration] The brothers managed, after a great deal of hard work, to get the sack over the fence, and as it was too heavy to drag with them they agreed to bury it in the forest and dig it up as they came back. Just when they were ready a rabbit came up to them. "Hullo, little chaps," said the rabbit, "where are you off to?" "We are on our way to the fairies' cave," they replied. "You have a long way to go yet," said the rabbit; "the cave is on an island in the sea; but I am going that way, and if you jump on my back I will give you a lift." The little brothers thanked the rabbit very much, as they were feeling tired after their hard work. As soon as they were safely seated the rabbit started off. On and on they went until they had left the dark forest far behind, and were on the sea-shore. Here the rabbit stopped, saying, "I can take you no farther; you have now to cross the water, and must consult the Great Fish. He will appear if you knock three times on the rock. Take also this red dust, you will find it useful;" and putting a little bag of red dust into Red-Cap's hand the rabbit ran off. The goblins did as the rabbit had told them, and when they had knocked three times on a rock a large fish raised itself slowly out of the water and said, "Why have you called me?" "Please will you tell us how to get to the fairies' cave?" said Blue-Cap. "Look between the rocks so green, There a boat will soon be seen; In the boat you all must sail, Wafted gently by the gale." said the fish, and sank again beneath the blue waves. [Illustration] [Illustration] The brothers, after looking about for a little while, found a white boat between two big rocks covered with green seaweed. They pulled it out and got in, and no sooner had they sat down than a gentle wind sprang up and blew them steadily out to sea. They were rather frightened as they had never been on the sea before, but soon they saw that they were coming to land. The land proved to be an island, and when the boat stopped on the yellow sand the goblins all jumped out. They made the boat fast by tying the rope to a large piece of rock, and feeling that their hardest work was coming walked bravely over the sands, carrying a boat-hook which they had found in the boat. They soon came to a dark cave in the rocks. In front of the cave was a big dragon which breathed fire out of its mouth and roared like hundreds of lions. The goblins, after trying many times, managed to creep over the rocks behind the dragon, and throwing the dust which the rabbit had given them into its flaming eyes they at last, after a hard fight, killed the monster and entered the cave. [Illustration] [Illustration] The goblins looked round in the darkness for the serpent of which they had heard, but they could not find it. At last, when they were sadly thinking of going back to the boat, Red-Cap cried out that he saw something yellow in the dark shadow of a rock. It was the serpent's tail! They all ran after it, shouting loudly, and it led them some way down a rocky passage. It went very quickly, and they had to run very fast to keep it in sight; but at last they caught it, and after a sharp struggle--in which poor little Red-Cap nearly lost his life--killed it. [Illustration] [Illustration] The three little brothers stood looking at the dead serpent, and while they were looking it seemed to change! It moved! and grew thinner and darker, and the bright yellow colour turned to orange, and from orange colour to red, and then redder! and redder!! and redder!!! until they saw--that it was no longer the serpent, but the Red Feather for which they had come so far to look! At that moment a bright light seemed to shine, and standing near the goblins was a lovely lady. "Goblins," she cried, "welcome to the cave of the fairies. Long have I waited for this happy day, when my kingdom should be once more restored to me. You must know that many years ago the wicked wizard, Tom Tiddler, cast over me a cruel spell. I and my people were forced to leave our fairy isle, and wander in the shape of birds in the Big World. We were told that never would the spell be broken until three goblins should enter the cave in search of a feather. We therefore stole your Royal Red Feather, and hid it in our cave. No sooner had we done so than the cruel wizard turned it into a yellow serpent and put a terrible dragon at the entrance of the cave. Our friend Rowley the frog told your father that we had stolen the feather, and as soon as you were old enough we gave you the wish to undertake this journey. But for your courage I should still be in Tom Tiddler's power. In return for your bravery I now charm your Red Feather. Henceforth any goblin holding it in his hand shall have his wish--whatever it may be--granted." As the Princess said these words she touched the Feather with her wand. [Illustration] [Illustration] The goblins thanked the lovely Princess many times, and asked her to send for them at once if they could ever help her. They then took leave of the fairies and started for home. They sailed again over the sea and found the rabbit waiting for them. They jumped on the rabbit's back and off they went. When they got to the place where they had left the sack of gold and silver they found it had been dug up ready for them, and standing by it was a big blue bird with a red beak and red legs. "Jump on," said he, "and I will pull you; I am Pukeko,[A] the fairies' servant, sent to take you back to the mountain." [Footnote A: New Zealand Swamp-hen.] They thanked the kind rabbit, and jumping on the sack went on their way. They had not gone far when they heard a great noise behind them, and looking round saw Tom Tiddler trying hard to catch them. Before Tom Tiddler could touch them, however, Blue-Cap pointed the Red Feather at him, and said, "I wish you to become a snail!" and Tom Tiddler turned at once into a crawling snail. "He can never hurt any one again," the goblins cried with joy. "His treasure now is ours. Hurrah!" [Illustration] [Illustration] They soon reached home, and Old Black-Cap was very pleased to have them back safe and sound. "My dear sons," said he, taking them in his arms, "the kingdom is yours. Rule it well together, as together you have found the Feather. I am an old man now, and shall be glad to see you on the throne." Old Black-Cap and his sons gave a mushroom feast to celebrate the goblins' safe return. They invited the rat, the rabbit, the pukeko, and Rowley the frog, and they all enjoyed it very much and lived happily ever after. [Illustration] 
45239	----	provided by the Internet Archive LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE and BILLY MILLERS CIRCUS-SHOW By James Whitcomb Riley Illustrated by Ethel Franklin Betts [Illustration: 001] {001} [Illustration: 007] {007} [Illustration: 010] {010} [Illustration: 011] {011} 1892 LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE [Illustration: 013] INSCRIBED{013}--WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION-- To _all_ the little children:--The happy ones; and sad ones; The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones; The good ones, yes the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones. [Illustration: 014] {014} [Illustration: 015] LITTLE {015}ORPHANT ANNIE she knows riddles, rhymes and things! Knows 'bout the Witches 'at rides brooms, an' Imps 'at flies with w'n The same as bats er lightnin'-bugs!--An' knows 'bout Ring-mo-rees 'At thist can take an' turn theirselves in anything they please! "An' childerns all, both great an' small," she says, an' rolls her eyes When we're a-listnun', all so still, "you needen' be surprise' Ef right this livin' minut'--'fore ye know they's one about-- 'At the GOBBLE-UNS 'll git ye-- Ef you Don't Watch out!" [Illustration: 016] {016} [Illustration: 017] Little {017}Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay, An wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away, An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep, An make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep; An all us other childern, when the supper things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about, An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you Ef you Don't Watch Out! [Illustration: 018] Onc't {018}they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,-- So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs, His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl, An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all! An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press, An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess; But all they ever found was thist his pants and roundabout:-- An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out! [Illustration: 019] {019} [Illustration: 021] An' {021}one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin, An' make fun of ever'one, an' all her blood an' kin; An' onc't, when they was "company," an' ole folks was there, She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care! An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide, They was two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side, An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about An' the Gobble-uns 'il git you Ef you Don't Watch Out [Illustration: 022] An' {022}little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue, An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes _woo-oo!_ An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray, An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,-- You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear, An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear, An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about, Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you Ef you Don't Watch Out! [Illustration: 023] BILLY MILLERS CIRCUS-SHOW At Billy {023}Miller's Circus-Show-- In their old stable where it's at-- The boys pays twenty pins to go, An' gits their money's-worth at that!-- 'Cause Billy he can climb an' chalk His stockin'-feet an' purt'-nigh walk A tight-rope--yes, an' ef he fall He'll ketch, an' "skin a cat"--'at's all! [Illustration: 024] He {024}ain't afeard to swing an' hang 1st by his legs!--an' mayby stop An' yell "look out!" an' nen--k-spang He'll let loose, upside-down, an' drop Wite on his hands! An' nen he'll do "Contortion-acts"--ist limber through As "Injarubber Mens" 'at goes With shore-fer-certain circus-shows! [Illustration: 025] {025} [Illustration: 027] He's {027}got a circus-ring--an' they's A dressin'-room,--so's he can go An' dress an' paint up when he plays He's somepin' else;--'cause sometimes he's "Ringmaster"--bossin' like he please-- An' sometimes "Ephalunt"--er "Bare- Back Rider," prancin out o' there! [Illustration: 028] An' {028}sometimes--an' the best of all!-- He's "The Old Clown," an' got on clo'es All stripud,--an' white hat, all tall An' peakud--like in shore-'nuff shows,-- An' got three-cornered red-marks, too, On his white cheeks--ist like they do!-- An' you'd ist die, the way he sings An' dances an' says funny things! 
39712	----	GOBLIN TALES OF LANCASHIRE. BY JAMES BOWKER, F.R.G.S.I. AUTHOR OF 'PHOEBE CAREW, A NORTH COAST STORY,' 'NAT HOLT'S FORTUNE,' ETC. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY THE LATE CHARLES GLIDDON._ 'Of Faery-land yet if he more enquire, By certain signes here sett in sondrie place, He may itt fynd.' SPENSER 'La veuve du même Plogojovits déclara que son mari depuis sa mort lui était venu demander des souliers.' CALMET, _Traité sur les Apparitions_, 1751. London W. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW TO THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON, P.C., D.C.L. THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MUCH KINDNESS. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION, I.--THE SKRIKER, II.--THE UNBIDDEN GUEST, III.--THE FAIRY'S SPADE, IV.--THE KING OF THE FAIRIES, V.--MOTHER AND CHILD, VI.--THE SPECTRAL CAT, VII.--THE CAPTURED FAIRIES, VIII.--THE PILLION LADY, IX.--THE FAIRY FUNERAL, X.--THE CHIVALROUS DEVIL, XI.--THE ENCHANTED FISHERMAN, XII.--THE SANDS OF COCKER, XIII.--THE SILVER TOKEN, XIV.--THE HEADLESS WOMAN, XV.--THE RESCUE OF MOONBEAM, XVI.--THE WHITE DOBBIE, XVII.--THE LITTLE MAN'S GIFT, XVIII.--SATAN'S SUPPER, XIX.--THE EARTHENWARE GOOSE, XX.--THE PHANTOM OF THE FELL, XXI.--ALLHALLOW'S NIGHT, XXII.--THE CHRISTMAS-EVE VIGIL, XXIII.--THE CRIER OF CLAIFE, XXIV.--THE DEMON OF THE OAK, XXV.--THE BLACK COCK, XXVI.--THE INVISIBLE BURDEN, APPENDIX.--COMPARATIVE NOTES, INTRODUCTION. For many of the superstitions which still cling to him the Lancashire man of the present day is indebted to his Celtic and Scandinavian ancestors. From them the Horse and Worm stories, and the Giant lore of the northern and southern mountains and fells, have come down, while the relationship of the 'Jinny Greenteeth,' the presiding nymph of the ponds and streams, with allusions to whom the Lancastrian mother strives to deter her little ones from venturing near the pits and brooks; to the water-spirits of the Gothic mythology, is too evident to admit of any doubt. The source of the 'Gabriel Ratchets,' the hell-hounds whose fear-inspiring yelps still are heard by the benighted peasant, who finds in the dread sound a warning of the approach of the angel of death; in the Norse Aasgaardsveia, the souls condemned to ride about the world until doomsday, and who gallop through the midnight storm with shrieks and cries which ring over the lonely moors; or in that other troop of souls of the brave ones who had died in battle, being led by the storm-god Woden to Walhalla, also is undeniable. Striking, however, as are the points of similitude between some of the Lancastrian traditions and those of the north of Europe, others seem to be peculiar to the county, and that these are of a darker and gloomier cast than are the superstitions of districts less wild and mountainous, and away from the weird influence of the sea, with its winter thunderings suggestive of hidden and awful power, may in a great measure be correctly attributed to the nature of the scenery. It is easy to understand how the unlettered peasant would people with beings of another world either the bleak fells, the deep and gloomy gorges, the wild cloughs, the desolate moorland wastes two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea, of the eastern portion of the county; or the salt marshes where the breeze-bent and mysterious-looking trees waved their spectral boughs in the wind; the dark pools fringed with reeds, amid which the 'Peg-o'-Lantron' flickered and danced, and over which came the hollow cry of the bittern and the child-like plaint of the plover; and the dreary glens, dark lakes, and long stretches of sand of the north and west. To him the forest, with its solemn Rembrandtesque gloom, Where Druids erst heard victims groan, the lonely fir-crowned pikes, and the mist-shrouded mountains, would seem fitting homes for the dread shapes whose spite ended itself in the misfortunes and misery of humanity. Pregnant with mystery to such a mind would be the huge fells, with their shifting 'neetcaps' of cloud, the towering bluffs, the swampy moors, and trackless morasses, across which the setting sun cast floods of blood-red light; and irresistible would be the influence of such scenery upon the lonely labourer who would go about his daily tasks with a feeling that he was surrounded by the supernatural. And wild as are many parts of the county to-day, it is difficult to conceive its condition a century or two ago, when much of the land was not only uncultivated, but was, for at least a portion of the year, covered by sheets of water, the highways being little more than bridle roads, or, if wider than usual, very sloughs of despond, the carts in several of the rural districts being laid aside in winter as utterly useless, and grain and other commodities, even in summer time, being conveyed from place to place on the backs of long strings of pack-horses. Living in lonely houses and cottages shut out from civilisation by the difficulties of communication, and hemmed in by floating mists and by much that was awe-inspiring, with in winter additional barriers of storm, snow and flood, it is easy to imagine how in the fancy of the yeoman, shepherd, farmer, or solitary lime burner, as 'th' edge o' dark' threw its weird glamour over the scene, boggarts and phantoms would begin to creep about to the music of the unearthly voices heard in every sough and sigh of the wandering wind as it wailed around the isolated dwellings. In everything weird they found a message from the unknown realms of death. The noise of the swollen waters of the Ribble or the Lune, or the many smaller streams hurrying down to the sea, was to them the voice of the Water Spirit calling for its victim, and the howling of their dogs bade the sick prepare to meet 'the shadow with the keys.' All around them were invisible beings harmful or mischievous, and to them they traced much of the misfortune which followed the stern working of nature's laws. The superstitions which date from, as well as the actual annals of the Witch Mania in Lancashire, in some slight degree confirm this theory, for whereas in the flat and more thickly-populated districts the hag contented herself with stealing milk from her neighbour's cows, spoiling their bakings, and other practical jokes of a comparatively harmless kind, in the wilder localities--the region of pathless moors and mist-encircled mountains--the witch ever was raising terrible storms, bringing down the thunder, killing the cattle, dealing out plagues and pestilence at will, wreaking evil of every conceivable kind upon man and beast, and, hot from her sabbath of devil-worship, even casting the sombre shadows and dread darkness of death over the households of those who had fallen under the ban of her hate. Lancashire has, however, an extensive ghost lore to which this theory has no reference, consisting as it does of stories of haunted houses and churchyards, indelible blood-stains, and all the paraphernalia of the Shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains and wave The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. The sketch in this volume, 'Mother and Child,' for the skeleton of which tradition I am indebted to the late Mr. J. Stanyan Bigg, may be considered a fair specimen of these stories. In most cases these legends are not simply the vain creations of ignorance and darkness, although they fade before the light of knowledge like mists before the sun, for under many of them may be found a moral and a warning, or a testimony to the beauty of goodness, hidden it is true beneath the covering of a rude fable, just as inscriptions rest concealed below the moss of graveyards. The well-known legend of the Boggart of Townley Hall, with its warning cry of 'Lay out, lay out!' and its demand for a victim every seventh year, is a striking example of traditions of this class--emphatic protests against wrong, uttered in the form of a nerve-affecting fable. In more than one of the stories of this kind to which I have listened, the ghost of the victim has re-visited 'the pale glimpses of the moon,' and made night so hideous to the wrong-doer, that, in despair and remorse, he has put an end to himself; and trivial as these things may seem to Mr. Gradgrind and his school, they have, like other and nobler parables, influenced minds impervious to dry fact. To the devil lore of the county, however, the theory certainly will apply, for surely it is in a gloomy gorge, through which forked lightnings flash and chase each other, and the thunder rolls and reverberates, or on a dark and lonesome moor, rather than upon the shady side of Pall Mall, one would expect to meet the Evil One. Yet, undoubtedly, other causes contributed to enrich the store of tales of fiends with which the county abounds. In Lancashire many of the old customs, even such as the riding of the wooden Christ on Palm Sunday, continued to be kept up at a later period than was the case in other parts of England; and, notwithstanding the prohibitory edicts of the commissioners appointed by Queen Elizabeth, Miracle Plays and Moralities doubtless were performed there even during the early part of the reign of James I., for the Reformation, rapidly as its principles took root and spread in other parts of the country, did not make rapid headway in Lancashire, where great numbers of the people remained true to the faith of their forefathers. In fact, in many parishes, long after the Church of England had been by law established, Catholic priests continued to be the only officiating ministers. Probably the people loved their church not only on account of its doctrines, of which it may be presumed most of them knew but little, and of its impressive ceremonies, but also because of its recognition of the holy days and fair days, wakes, and games it was powerless to suppress; and perhaps of all the amusements thus winked at or even patronised by the church, that of dramatic representations, rude and grotesque as they undoubtedly were, was the most important. In many places the members of the various guilds and brotherhoods were the performers, but in the majority of cases the entertainments were given by the priests and other ecclesiastical functionaries. What part the Devil played in these amusements is well known to the antiquary, the old accounts containing particulars of the expenditure upon not only hair for the Evil One's wig, but also for canvas, of which to construct black shirts for the Satanic tag-rag, or, as the old scribes plainly put it, 'for the damned.' It is evident from the old records that Satan left the hands of his dresser an object compared with which the most hideous jack-in-the-box of the modern toy shop would be a vision of loveliness; and, as his chief occupations were those of roaring and yelling, and of suffering all sorts of indignities at the hands of the Vice, as does the pantaloon at the hands of the clown in a pantomime of to-day, it is easy to see that his _rôle_ was not a very dignified one. Everywhere the stage devil was simply the stage fool. Even in France, where the drama ever has been submitted to precise rules, 'there was,' as Albert Reville has remarked (_Histoire du Diable, ses origines, sa grandeur et sa decadence._ Strasbourg: 1870), 'a class of popular pieces called devilries (_diableries_), gross and often obscene masquerades, in which at least four devils took part.... In Germany also the devil was diverting on the stage. There exists an old Saxon Mystery of the Passion, in which Satan repeats, like a mocking echo, the last words of Judas who hangs himself; and when, in accordance with the sacred tradition, the traitor's bowels fall asunder, the Evil One gathers them into a basket, and, as he carries them away, sings a little melody appropriate to the occasion.' Undoubtedly these misrepresentations of the apostate angel helped to familiarise the popular mind with the idea of a personal devil going about veritably seeking whom he might devour; and although, when with the crowd in the presence of the Thespian ecclesiastics, people might feel quite at home with, and really enjoy, the company of the Evil One, away again on the dreary moor, or in the lonely hillside cottage, with the night wind howling at the door, fear would resume its wonted supremacy, and the feeling would be deepened and intensified by the memory of the horrid appearance of the stage Satan. It is possible that in a great measure we owe to these performances the somewhat monotonous frequency with which, in the purely local Lancashire devil stories, the Evil One, who generally in the most stupid manner permits himself to be overreached, comes oft second best, for doubtless many of the traditions were moulded in accordance with the lot of Satan in the miracle plays, as, in their turn, these were, although perhaps indirectly, based upon the teachings of the church, and that, in its turn, upon the writings of the Fathers, some of whom, and notably Origen, did not hesitate to speak of the Redemption even as due in no small degree to Satanic stupidity, a view so lastingly predominant in the Church that as Reville has said, 'la poesie ecclésiastique, la prédication populaire, des enseignements pontificaux même le repandirent, le dramatisèrent, le consacrèrent partout.' An interesting chapter in the history of religious beliefs might be written upon the views of the early Fathers with reference to Satan and his legion, and the student is not inclined to be quite so severe upon the superstitions of the unlettered peasant when he finds Jerome recording it as the opinion of all the doctors in the church, that the air between heaven and earth is filled with Evil Spirits, and Augustine and others stating that the devils had fallen there from a higher and purer region of the air. The early Christian Church too had its order of _Exorcists_, who had care of those possessed by Evil Spirits, the _energumeni_, and the Bishops, departing from the original idea that laymen had the power of exorcism, ordained men to the office and called upon them to exercise their functions even before the rite of baptism, to deliver the candidates 'from the dominion of the power of darkness.' Of the lighter superstitions in Lancashire, that of belief in fairies appears to be almost extinct, and it is to be lamented that forty years ago folk lore was considered of so little importance, for the slight and vague references in a rare little 'History of Blackpool,' by the Rev. W. Thornber, upon two of which the sketches entitled 'The Silver Token,' and 'The Fairy's Spade' are founded, show that the task of gathering a goodly store of such vestiges of ancient faiths would at the time when that volume was written have been a comparatively easy one. To-day, however, the case is different. Even my friend, the late Mr. John Higson, of Lees, to whose kindness I owe the tradition upon which the story of 'The King of the Fairies' is based, and whose labours in out-of-the-way paths dear to antiquaries were for some years as untiring as successful and praiseworthy, was not able to gather much bearing upon the fairy mythology of the Lancashire people. Most of the fairy and folk stories it was my good fortune to hear in the county and moorland districts were of a conventional kind, lubber fiends, death warnings, fairy ointment, and fairy money being as plentiful as diamonds in Eastern tales, and for that reason it was not thought necessary to reproduce them in this volume. The darker forms of superstition, like lower organisms, are more tenacious of life, and in many a retired nook of Lancashire there still may be found small congregations of believers in all the mystic lore of devildom and witchcraft. Readers of Mr. Edwin Waugh's exquisite sketches of north country life will at once call to mind, in the 'Grave of the Griselhurst Boggart,' an illustration of that dim fear of the supernatural which is yet so all-powerful, while the valuable collection of Folk Lore from the pens of the late Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. John Harland is full of testimony to the vitality of many of these offshoots from old-world creeds. GOBLIN TALES OF LANCASHIRE. TH' SKRIKER (SHRIEKER). On a fine night, about the middle of December, many years ago, a sturdy-looking young fellow left Chipping for his cottage, three or four miles away, upon the banks of the Hodder. The ground was covered with snow, which in many places had drifted into heaps, and the keen frost had made the road so slippery that the progress he made was but slow. Nature looked very beautiful, and the heart of the rustic even was touched by the sweet peacefulness of the scene. The noble old Parlick, and the sweeping Longridge, with its fir-crowned Thornley Height and Kemple End, stood out boldly against the clear sky, and the moon shed her soft silvery light into the long silent valley, stretching away until its virgin paleness mingled with the shadows and the darkness of the distant fells beyond Whitewell. All was still, save when the sighing wind rustled gently through the frosted branches of the leafless trees by the roadside, and shook down upon the wayfarer a miniature shower of snow; for even the tiny stream, so full of mirth and music in the summer time, had been lulled to sleep by the genius of winter; and the cottagers, whose little houses, half-hidden by the rime, seemed hardly large enough for the dwellings of dwarfs, had been snugly sleeping for hours. Adam was by no means a timid or nervous being, but there was a nameless something in the deathly silence which oppressed, if it did not actually frighten, him; and although he sang aloud a verse of the last song he had heard before he left the kitchen of the Patten Arms, his voice had lost its heartiness. He earnestly wished himself safely across the little bridge over the brook; but he was yet some distance from the stream when the faint chimes of midnight fell upon the air. Almost immediately after the last stroke of twelve had broken the silence a cloud passed over the face of the moon, and comparative darkness enveloped the scene; the wind, which before had been gentle and almost noiseless, began to howl amid the boughs and branches of the waving trees, and the frozen snow from the hedgerows was dashed against the wayfarer's face. He had already begun to fancy that he could distinguish in the soughing of the wind and the creaking of the boughs unearthly cries and fiendish shouts of glee; but as he approached the dreaded stream his courage almost entirely failed him, and it required a great effort to keep from turning his back to it, and running away in the direction of the little village at the foot of Parlick. It struck him, however, that he had come a long distance; that if he did go back to the Patten Arms the company would be dispersed, and the inmates asleep, and, what was more effective than all, that if he could only cross the bridge he would be safe, the Greenies, Boggarts, and Feorin not having power over any one who had passed over the water. Influenced by this thought, yet with his knees trembling under him, he pushed forward with assumed boldness, and he had almost reached the bridge when he heard the noise of passing feet in the crunching snow, and became conscious of the presence of a ghastly thing he was unable to see. Suddenly a sepulchral howl brought him to a stop, and, with his heart throbbing loudly enough to be heard, he stood gazing fixedly into the darkness. There was nothing to be perceived, however, save the copings of the bridge, with their coverings of rime; and he might have stood there until daylight had not another cry, louder and even more unearthly and horrible than the preceding one, called him from his trance. No sooner had this second scream died away than, impelled by an irresistible impulse, he stepped forward in the direction whence the noise had come. At this moment the moon burst forth from behind the clouds which had for some time obscured her light, and her rays fell upon the road, with its half-hidden cart-tracks winding away into the dim distance; and in the very centre of the bridge he beheld a hideous figure with black shaggy hide, and huge eyes closely resembling orbs of fire. Adam at once knew from the likeness the dread object bore to the figure he had heard described by those who had seen the Skriker, that the terrible thing before him was an Ambassador of Death. Without any consciousness of what he was doing, and acting as though under the sway of a strange and irresistible mesmeric influence, he stepped towards the bridge; but no sooner did he stir than the frightful thing in front of him, with a motion that was not walking, but rather a sort of heavy gliding, moved also, slowly retreating, pausing when he paused, and always keeping its fiery eyes fixed upon his blanched face. Slowly he crossed the stream, but gradually his steps grew more and more rapid, until he broke into a run. Suddenly a faint knowledge of the horrible nature of his position dawned upon him. A little cottage stood by the roadside, and from one of its chamber-windows, so near to the ground as to be within his reach, a dim light shone, the room probably being occupied by a sick person, or by watchers of the dead. Influenced by a sudden feeling of companionship, Adam tried to cry out, but his tongue clave to his parched mouth, and ere he could mumble a few inarticulate sounds, scarcely audible to himself, the dwelling was left far behind, and a sensation of utter loneliness and helplessness again took possession of him. He had thus traversed more than a mile of the road, in some parts of which, shaded by the high hedgerows and overhanging boughs, the only light seemed to him to be that from the terrible eyes, when suddenly he stumbled over a stone and fell. In a second, impressed by a fear that the ghastly object would seize him, he regained his feet, and, to his intense relief, the Skriker was no longer visible. With a sigh of pleasure he sat down upon a heap of broken stones, for his limbs, no longer forced into mechanical movement by the influence of the spectre's presence, refused to bear him further. Bitterly cold as was the night, the perspiration stood in beads upon his whitened face, and, with the recollection of the Skriker's terrible eyes and horrible body strong upon him, he shook and shivered, as though in a fit of the ague. A strong and burly man, in the very prime of life, he felt as weak as a girl, and, fearing that he was about to sink to the ground in a swoon, he took handfuls of the crisp snow and rubbed them upon his forehead. Under this sharp treatment he soon revived a little, and, after several unsuccessful efforts, he succeeded in regaining his feet, and resumed his lonely journey. Starting at the least sough of the breeze, the faintest creak of a bending branch, or the fall of a piece of frozen rime from a bough, he slowly trudged along. He had passed the quaint old house at Chaigely, the sudden yelp of a chained dog in the court-yard giving him a thrill of horror as he went by, and he had reached the bend in that part of the road which is opposite the towering wood-covered Kemple End. A keen and cutting blast swept through the black firs that crowned the summit, and stood, like solemn sentinels, upon the declivity. There was a music in the wind mournful as a croon over the corpse of a beautiful woman, whose hair still shimmers with the golden light of life; but Adam heard no melody in the moaning sighs which seemed to fill the air around. To him, whose soul was yet under the influence of the terror through which he had so recently passed, the sounds assumed an awful nature; whilst the firs, standing so clearly defined against the snow, which lay in virgin heaps upon the beds of withered fern, seemed like so many weird skeletons shaking their bony arms in menace or in warning. With a suddenness that was more than startling, there was a lull, and the breeze ceased even to whisper. The silence was more painful than were the noises of the blast battling with the branches, for it filled the breast of the solitary wayfarer with forebodings of coming woe. At the point he had reached the road sank, and as Adam stepped into the almost utter darkness, caused by the high banks, to which clung masses of decayed vegetation, beautified by the genius of winter into white festoons, again and again the terrible shriek rang out. There was no mistaking the voice of the Skriker for that of anything else upon earth, and, with a sickly feeling at his heart, Adam slowly emerged from the gloom, and, in expectation of the appearance of the ghastly figure, passed on. He had not to wait long, for as he reached the old bridge spanning the Hodder, once more he saw, in the centre of the road, about midway of the stream, the same terrible object he had followed along the lane from the brook at Thornley. With a sensation of terror somewhat less intense than that which had previously influenced him, he again yielded to the power which impelled him forward, and once more the strange procession commenced, the Skriker gliding over the snow, not, however, without a peculiar shuffling of its feet, surrounded, as they were, by masses of long hair, which clung to them, and deadened the sound, and Adam following in his mechanical and involuntary trot. The journey this time, however, was of but short duration, for the poor fellow's cottage was only a little way from the river. The distance was soon traversed, and the Skriker, with its face towards the terrified man, took up its position against the door of the dwelling. Adam could not resist the attraction which drew him to the ghastly thing, and as he neared it, in a fit of wild desperation, he struck at it, but his hand banged against the oak of the door, and, as the spectre splashed away, he fell forward in a swoon. Disturbed by the noise of the fall, the goodwife arose and drew him into the cottage, but for some hours he was unable to tell the story of his terrible journey. When he had told of his involuntary chase of the Skriker, a deep gloom fell over the woman's features, for she well knew what the ghastly visit portended to their little household. The dread uncertainty did not continue long, however, for on the third day from that upon which Adam had reached his home the eldest lad was brought home drowned; and after attending the child's funeral, Adam's wife sickened of a fever, and within a few weeks she too was carried to Mytton churchyard. These things, together with the dreadful experience of the journey from Chipping, so affected Adam that he lost his reason, and for years afterwards the sound of his pattering footsteps, as in harmless idiotcy, with wild eyes and outstretched hands, he trotted along the roads in chase of an imaginary Boggart, fell with mournful impressiveness upon the ears of groups gathered by farm-house fires to listen to stories of the Skriker.{1} THE UNBIDDEN GUEST. In a little lane leading from the town of Clitheroe there once lived a noted 'cunning man,' to whom all sorts of applications were made, not only by the residents, but also by people from distant places, for the fame of the wizard had spread over the whole country side. If a theft was committed, at once the services of 'Owd Jeremy' were enlisted, and, as a result, some one entirely innocent was, if not accused, at least suspected; while maidens and young men, anxious to pry into futurity, and behold the faces of their unknown admirers, paid him trifling fees to enable them to gratify their curiosity. In short, Jeremy professed to be an able student of the Black Art, on familiar speaking terms with Satan, and duly qualified to foretell men's destinies by the aid of the stars. The cottage in which the old man resided was of a mean order, and its outward appearance was by no means likely to impress visitors with an idea that great pecuniary advantages had followed that personal acquaintance with the Evil One of which the wizard boasted. If, however, the outside was mean and shabby, the inside of the dwelling was of a nature better calculated to inspire inquirers with feelings of awe, hung round, as the one chamber was, with faded and moth-eaten black cloth, upon which grotesque astrological designs and the figure of a huge dragon were worked in flaming red. The window being hidden by the dingy tapestry, the only light in the room came from a starved-looking candle, which was fixed in the foot of the skeleton of a child, attached to a string from the ceiling, and dangling just over the table, where a ponderous volume lay open before a large crystal globe and two skulls. In an old-fashioned chair, above which hung suspended a dirty and dilapidated crocodile, the wizard sat, and gave audience to the stray visitors whose desire to peer into futurity overmastered the fear with which the lonely cottage was regarded. A quaint-looking old man was Jeremy, with his hungry-looking eyes and long white beard; and, as with bony fingers he turned over the leaves of the large book, there was much in his appearance likely to give the superstitious and ignorant customers overwhelming ideas of his wondrous wisdom. The 'make up' was creditable to Jeremy, for though he succeeded in deceiving others with his assumption of supernatural knowledge, he himself did not believe in those powers whose aid he so frequently professed to invoke on behalf of his clients. One day, when the ragged cloth had fallen behind a victim who was departing from the wizard's sanctum with a few vague and mysterious hints in exchange for solid coin, the old man, after laughing sarcastically, pulled aside the dingy curtains and stepped to the casement, through which the glorious sunlight was streaming. The scene upon which the wizard looked was a very beautiful one; and the old man leaned his head upon his hands and gazed intently upon the landscape. ''Tis a bonnie world,' said he,--''tis a bonnie world, and there are few views in it to compare with this one for beauty. My soul is drawn toward old Pendle, yon, with a love passing that of woman, heartless and passionless though the huge mass be. Heartless!' said he, after a pause,--'heartless! when every minute there is a fresh expression upon its beautiful front? Ay, even so, for it looms yonder calm and unconcerned when we are ushered into the world, and when we are ushered out of it, and laid to moulder away under the mountain's shadow; and it will rear its bold bluffs to heaven and smile in the sunlight or frown in the gloom after we who now love to gaze upon it are blind to the solemn loveliness of its impassable face. Poor perishable fools are we, with less power than the breeze which ruffles yon purple heather!' With a heavy sigh Jeremy turned away from the window, and as the curtain fell behind him, and he stood again in the wretchedly-lighted room, he saw that he was not alone. The chair in which the trembling hinds generally were asked to seat themselves held a strange-looking visitor of dark and forbidding aspect. 'Jeremiah,' said this personage, 'devildom first and poetising afterwards.' There was an unpleasant tone of banter in this speech, which did not seem in keeping with the character of one who fain would pry into futurity; and as the wizard took his usual position beneath the crocodile, he looked somewhat less oracular than was his wont when in front of a shivering and terrified inquirer. 'What wantest thou with me?' said he, with an ill-assumed appearance of unconcern. The occupant of the chair smiled sardonically as he replied-- 'A little security--that's all. For five-and-twenty years thou hast been amassing wealth by duping credulous fools, and it is time I had my percentage.' The wizard stared in astonishment. Was the stranger a thief, or worse? he wondered, but after a time, however, he said, drily-- 'Even if thou hadst proved thy right to a portion of the profits of my honest calling--and thou hast not--thou wouldst not require a packhorse to carry thy share away. Doth this hovel resemble the abode of a possessor of great wealth? Two chairs, a table, and a few old bones, its furniture; and its tenant a half-starved old man, who has had hard work to support life upon the pittance he receives in return for priceless words of wisdom! Thou art a stranger to me, and thy portion of my earnings is correctly represented by a circle.' A loud and unmusical laugh followed the wizard's words; and before the unpleasant sound had died away the visitor remarked-- 'If I am yet a stranger to thee, Jeremiah, 'tis not thy fault, for during the last quarter of a century thou hast boasted of me as thy willing servant, and extorted hard cash from thy customers upon the strength of my friendship and willingness to help thee; and now, true to thy beggarly instincts, thou wouldst deny me! But 'twill be in vain, Jeremiah--'twill be in vain! I have postponed this visit too long already to be put off with subterfuges now.' 'I repeat, I know thee not,' said the wizard, in a trembling voice. And, hurriedly rising from his chair, he flung aside the thick curtain, in order that the light of day might stream into the chamber, for a nameless fear had taken possession of him, and he did not care to remain in the darkened apartment with his suspicious visitor. To his surprise and terror, however, darkness had fallen upon the scene, and, as he gazed in alarm at the little diamond-framed window, through which so short a time before he had looked upon a fair prospect of meadow and mountain, a vivid flash of lightning darted across the heavens, and a clap of thunder burst over the cottage. ''Twill spoil good men's harvests, Jeremiah,' the stranger calmly said; 'but it need not interrupt our interesting conversation.' Angry at the bantering manner in which the visitor spoke, the wizard flung open the door, and cried-- 'Depart from my dwelling, ere I cast thee forth into the mire!' 'Surely thou wouldst not have the heart to fulfil thy threat,' said the stranger, 'although 'tis true I have but one shoe to be soiled by the mud.' And as he spoke he quietly crossed his legs, and Jeremiah perceived a hideous cloven foot. With a groan, the wizard sank into his chair, and, deaf to the roaring of the thunder, and to the beating of the rain through the doorway, he sat helplessly gazing at his guest, whose metallic laughter rang through the room. 'Hast thou at length recognised me, Jeremiah?' asked the Evil One, after an interval, during which he had somewhat prominently displayed the hoof, and gloated over the agony its exhibition had caused his victim. The old man was almost too terrified to answer, but at last he whispered-- 'I have.' 'And thou no longer wilt refuse me the security?' hissed the tormentor, as he placed a parchment upon the table. 'What security dost thou demand?' feebly inquired the quaking wizard. 'Personal only,' said Satan. 'Put thy name to this,' and he pointed to the bond. Jeremy pushed his chair as far from the suspicious-looking document as he could ere he replied-- 'Thou shalt not have name of mine.' He had expected that an outburst of fiendish wrath would follow this speech, but to his surprise the guest simply remarked-- 'Very well, Jeremiah. By to-morrow night, however, thou shalt be exposed as the base and ignorant pretender thou art. Thou hast trespassed upon the rightful trade of my faithful servants long enough, and 'tis time I stopped thy prosperous career. Ere sunset thou shalt have a rival, who will take the bread from thy ungrateful mouth.' After this polite speech the visitor picked up the parchment, and began to fold it in a methodical manner. Such utterly unexpected gentlemanly behaviour somewhat reassured Jeremiah, and in a fainter voice he humbly asked what his visitor had to give in exchange for a wizard's autograph. 'Twenty-two years of such success as thou hast not even dared to dream of! No opposition--no exposure to thy miserable dupes,' readily answered Satan. Jeremiah considered deeply. The offer undoubtedly was a tempting one, for after all, his profession had not been very lucrative, and to lose his customers, therefore, meant starvation. He was certain that if another wizard opened an establishment the people would flock to him, even through mere curiosity; but he knew what signing the bond included, and he was afraid to take the step. After a long delay, during which Satan carefully removed a sharp stone from his hoof, Jeremiah therefore firmly said-- 'Master, I'll not sign!' Without more ado the visitor departed, and almost before he was out of sight the storm abated, and old Pendle again became visible. A few days passed, and no one came to the dwelling of the wizard; and as such an absence of customers was very unusual, Jeremy began to fear that the supernatural stranger had not forgotten his threat. On the evening of the fifth day he crept into the little town to purchase some articles of food. Previously, whenever he had had occasion to make a similar journey, as he passed along the street the children ran away in terror, and the older people addressed him with remarkable humility; but this time, as he stepped rapidly past the houses, the youngsters went on with their games as though only an ordinary mortal went by, and a burly fellow who was leaning against a door jamb took his pipe from his mouth to cry familiarly-- 'Well, Jerry, owd lad, heaw are ta'?' These marks of waning power and fading popularity were sufficiently unmistakable; but as he was making his few purchases he was informed that a stranger, who seemed to be possessed of miraculous powers, had arrived in the town, and that many people who had been to him were going about testifying to his wonderful skill. With a heavy heart the wizard returned to his cottage. Next night a shower of stones dashed his window to pieces, and, as he peered into the moonlight lane, he saw a number of rough fellows, who evidently were waiting and watching in hopes that he would emerge from his dwelling. These were the only visitors he had during an entire week; and at length, quite prepared to capitulate, he said to himself-- 'I wish I had another chance.' No sooner had he uttered the words, than there was a sudden burst of thunder, wind roared round the house, again the clients' chair was occupied, and the parchment lay upon the table just as though it had not been disturbed. 'Art thou ready to sign?' asked Satan. 'Ay!' answered the old man. The Evil One immediately seized the wizard's hand, upon which Jeremy gave a piercing yell, as well he might do, for the Satanic grip had forced the blood from the tips of his fingers. 'Sign!' said the Devil. 'I can't write,' said the wizard. The Evil One forthwith took hold of one of the victim's fingers, and using it as a pen, wrote in a peculiarly neat hand 'Jeremiah Parsons, his × mark,' finishing with a fiendish flourish. After doing this he again vacated the chair and the room as mysteriously as on the previous occasion. The autograph-loving visitor had barely departed with the parchment ere a knock at the door was heard, and in stepped a man who wished to have the veil lifted, and who brought the pleasing news that, influenced by the reports of the opposition wizard, he had been to his house in Clitheroe, but had found it empty, the whilom tenant having fled no one knew whither. From that time things looked up with Jeremy, and money poured into the skulls, for people crowded from far and near to test his skill. For two-and-twenty years he flourished and was famous, but the end came.{2} One morning, after a wild night when the winds howled round Pendle, and it seemed as though all the powers of darkness were let loose, some labourers who were going to their work were surprised to find only the ruins of the wizard's cottage. The place had been consumed by fire; and although search was made for the magician's remains, only a few charred bones were found, and these, some averred, were not those of old Jeremy, but were relics of the dusty old skeleton and the dirty crocodile under the shadow of which the wizard used to sit. THE FAIRY'S SPADE. 'Th' fairies han getten varra shy sin' thee an' me wir young, Matty, lass!' said an old grey-headed man, who, smoking a long pipe, calmly sat in a shady corner of the kitchen of a Fylde country farm-house. 'Nubry seems to see 'em neaw-a-days as they ust. I onst had a seet o' one on 'em, as plain as I con see thee sittin' theer, ravellin' thi owd stockin'. I wir ploughin' varra soon after dayleet, an' ther worn't a saand to be heeart nobbut th' noise o'th' graand oppenin', an' th' chirp ov a few brids wakkenin' an' tunin' up, an' ov a toothrey crows close at after mi heels a-pikin' up th' whorms. O ov a suddent I heeard sumbry cry, i' a voice like owd Luke wench i'th' orgin loft ov a Sundays, "I've brokken mi speet!" I lost no toime i' tornin' to see whoa wir at wark at that haar, an' i' aar fielt too, an' I clapt mi een on as pratty a little lass as ever oppent een i' this country side. Owd England choilt's bonny, yone warrant mi, but hoo's as feaw as sin aside o'th' face as I see that morn. Hoo stood theer wi' th' brokken spade i' her hond, an' i'th' tother a hommer an' a toothrey nails, an' hoo smoilt at mi, an' offert mi th' tackle, as mich as t' say, "Naaw, Isik, be gradely for onst i' thi loife, an' fettle this speet for mi, will ta?" For a whoile I stood theear gapin' like a foo', and wontherin' wheear hoo could ha' risen fray, but hoo cried aat onst mooar, "I've brokken mi speet!" Sooa I marcht toart her and tuk th' hommer an' th' nails, an' tacklet it up. It didn't tek mi long a-dooin', for it wir but a loile un; but when I'd done hoo smoilt at mi, an' so bonny, summat loike tha ust, Margit, when owd Pigheeod wir cooartin' tha; an' gan mi a hanful o' brass,{3} an' afooar I'd time to say owt off hoo vanisht. That wur th' only feorin as ivver I've seen, an' mebbi th' only one as I'm likely to luk at, for mi seet's getten nooan o'th' best latterly.' THE KING OF THE FAIRIES. Many years ago there lived in a farm-house at a point of the high-road from Manchester to Stockport, where Levenshulme Church now stands, a worthy named Burton, 'Owd Dannel Burton.'[A] The farm held by Daniel was a model one in its way, the old man raising finer crops than any other farmer in the district. It was rumoured that Daniel was very comfortably provided for, and that a few bad years would not harm him; and so wonderfully did everything he took in hand prosper, that his 'luck' became proverbial. Such uniform prosperity could not long continue without the tongue of envy and detraction being set wagging, and the neighbours who permitted thistles to overrun their pastures whilst they gadded about to rush-bearings and wakes, finding a reproach to their idleness not only in the old man's success, but also in the careful, industrious habits of his daily life, were not slow to insinuate that there was something more than farming at the bottom of it. 'Dannel' had sold himself to Satan, said some whose pigs had faded away, and whose harvests had not been worth the gathering; and others pretended to know even the terms of the contract, and how many years the old man yet had to play on. A few of these detractors were young men whose imaginations were not kept in sufficient control, but they grew wonderfully reserved respecting the Satanic bargain after the hearty Daniel had had an interview with them, and proved to them that he had not forgotten the use of a good tough black-thorn. [A] Mr. Burton's grandson was for many years rector of All Saints', Manchester. 'It's nobbut luck,' philosophically remarked others, 'mebbe it'll be my turn to-morn;' but the remainder vowed that neither luck or Evil One had anything to do with it, for the success was due to the labours of Puck, King of the Fairies. They were right. It was Puck, although no one ever knew how the old man had been able to enlist the services of so valuable an auxiliary, Daniel being strangely reticent upon the point, although generally by no means loth to speak of the fairies and their doings. Reserve with reference to these things, however, would not have availed much, for the farm labourers, the ruddy-cheeked milkmaids, and the other women-folk about the farm-house, were fond of boasting of the exploits of Puck--how during the night everything was 'cleaned up,' and all was in apple-pie order when they came into the kitchen at daybreak, the milk churned, the cows foddered, the necessary utensils filled with water from the well, the horses ready harnessed for their day's work at the plough, and even a week's threshing done and the barn left as tidy as though it had just been emptied and swept. Evidently the servant lasses had no fear of, or objection to, a hard-working supernatural visitor of this kind, but just the reverse, and many of their listeners found themselves wishing that their house, too, had its Boggart. For so long a period did this state of things continue, each morning revealing an astounding amount of work performed by the willing and inexpensive workman, that at length the assistance was taken for granted, and as a matter of course, offering no food for surprise, although it did not cease to be a cause of envy to the neighbours. On one occasion, however, as old Daniel was despatching a hearty and substantial breakfast, a heated labourer brought word that all the corn had been housed during the past night. The strange story was true enough, for when the old man reached the field, where on the previous evening the golden sheaves of wheat had stood, he found the expanse quite bare, and as clean as though reapers, leaders, gleaners, and geese had been carefully over it. The harvest was in the barn, but not content with this, Daniel, illustrating the old proverb that 'much would have more,' suddenly exclaimed, 'I wonder whose horses Puck{4} used in this work. If yon of mine, I daresay he sweated them rarely;' and away he strode towards the stable. He had not reached the fold, however, when he met Puck coming towards him, and in a fever of greedy anxiety he cried, 'Puck, I doubt thou'st spoiled yon horses!' No sooner were the words out of his mouth, however, than he saw that for once in his life he had made a mistake, for the fairy went pale with anger as he shouted in a shrill treble:-- Sheaf to field, and horse to stall, I, the Fairy King, recall! Never more shall drudge of mine Stir a horse or sheaf of thine. After which vow he at once vanished. The old man walked home in a sorrowful mood, and actually forgot to go to the stable; but next morning early he was disturbed by a knocking at his chamber door. 'Mesthur, ger up,' cried the messenger, who on the previous day had brought the news of the housing of the corn, 'Mesthur, ger up, th' corn's back i'th' fielt.' With a groan of anguish Daniel arose, and hastily made his way to the barn. All the pile was gone, and the floor littered with straw, exactly as it was before the fairy labour had so transformed the place. It did not take the farmer long to get over the ground between his barn and the corn-field, and arrived there he found the expanse once more covered with yellow sheaves, on which the beams of the rising sun were beginning to fall. Here and there a sheaf had fallen upon the ground, and everywhere straw and ears of corn were scattered about as though the reapers had not long before left the place. The old man turned away in despair. From that time forward there was no more work done about the farm, or the shippons, and stables; but in the house, however, the maids continued to find their tasks performed as usual. Great were the rejoicings in the locality when the story of the sheaves became known, and it got noised about that 'Dannel's' fairy had 'fown eawt' with him. The old man became very dejected, for although he did not clearly perceive that the rupture was entirely due to his own selfish greed, he could not go about the farm without observing how much he had lost. One summer evening in a thoughtful mood he was walking homewards, and wishing that the meadows were mown. Plunged in such reflections, he met a neighbour, who at once asked the cause of his trouble. Daniel turned to point to the meadows, and as he did so he saw the fairy, in an attitude of rapt attention, stooping behind the hedgerow as though anxious to overhear the conversation. 'Yo' miss your neet-mon?' said the neighbour. The old man thought that the time was come to make his peace with offended royalty, and with a cunning glance in the direction of the hiding-place, he answered, 'I do, Abrum, and may God bless Puck, th' King o'th' Fayrees.'{5} There was a startled cry from behind the hedgerow, and both men turned in that direction, but there was nothing to be observed. The fairy had vanished, never again to be seen in Daniel Burton's fields. That night the work was left undone even inside the farm-house, and thenceforward when the kitchen needed cleaning, water was wanted from the well, or when milk had to be churned, the maids had to get up early and do the work, for Puck, King of the Fairies, would not touch either mop or pail. MOTHER AND CHILD. The tenants of Plumpton Hall had retired to rest somewhat earlier than was their wont, for it was the last night of November. The old low rooms were in darkness, and all was silent as the grave; for though the residents, unfortunately for themselves, were not asleep, they held their breath, and awaited in fear the first stroke of the hour from the old clock in the kitchen. Suddenly the sound of hurried footsteps broke the silence; but with sighs of relief the terrified listeners found that the noise was made by a belated wayfarer, almost out of his wits with fright, but who was unable to avoid passing the hall, and who, therefore, ran by the haunted building as quickly as his legs could carry him. The sensation of escape, however, was of but short duration, for the hammer commenced to strike; and no sooner had the last stroke of eleven startled the echoes than loud thuds, as of a heavy object bumping upon the stairs, were heard. The quaking occupants of the chambers hid their heads beneath the bedclothes, for they knew that an old-fashioned oak chair was on its way down the noble staircase, and was sliding from step to step as though dragged along by an invisible being who had only one hand at liberty. If any one had dared to follow that chair across the wide passage and into the wainscoted parlour, he would have been startled by the sight of a fire blazing in the grate, whence, ere the servants retired, even the very embers had been removed, and in the chair, the marvellous movement of which had so frightened all the inmates of the hall, he would have seen a beautiful woman seated, with an infant at her breast. Year after year, on wild nights, when the snow was driven against the diamond panes, and the cry of the spirit of the storm came up from the sea, the weird firelight shone from the haunted room, and through the house sounded a mysterious crooning as the unearthly visitor softly sang a lullaby to her infant. Lads grew up into grey-headed men in the old house; and from youth to manhood, on the last night of each November, they had heard the notes, but none of them ever had caught, even when custom had somewhat deadened the terror which surrounded the events of the much-dreaded anniversary, the words of the song the ghostly woman sang. The maids, too, had always found the grate as it was left before the visit--not a cinder or speck of dust remaining to tell of the strange fire, and no one had ever heard the chair ascend the stairs. Chair and fire and child and mother, however, were seen by many a weary wayfarer, drawn to the house by the hospitable look of the window, through which the genial glow of the burning logs shone forth into the night, but who, by tapping at the pane and crying for shelter, could not attract the attention of the pale nurse, clad in a quaint old costume with lace ruff and ruffles, and singing a mournful and melodious lullaby to the child resting upon her beautiful bosom. Tradition tells of one of these wanderers, a footsore and miserable seafaring man on the tramp, who, attracted by the welcome glare, crept to the panes, and seeing the cosy-looking fire, and the Madonna-faced mother tenderly nursing her infant, rapped at the glass and begged for a morsel of food and permission to sleep in the hayloft--and, finding his pleadings unanswered, loudly cursed the woman who could sit and enjoy warmth and comfort and turn a deaf ear to the prayers of the homeless and hungry; upon which the seated figure turned the weird light of its wild eyes upon him and almost changed him to stone--a labourer, going to his daily toil in the early morn, finding the poor wretch gazing fixedly through the window, against which his terror-stricken face was closely pressed, his hair turned white by fear, and his fingers convulsively clutching the casement. THE SPECTRAL CAT. Long ago--so long, in fact, that the date has been lost in obscurity--the piously-inclined inhabitants of the then thickly wooded and wild country stretching from the sea-coast to Rivington Pike and Hoghton determined to erect a church at Whittle-le-Woods, and a site having been selected, the first stone was laid with all the ceremony due to so important and solemn a proceeding. Assisted by the labours as well as by the contributions of the faithful, the good priest was in high spirits; and as the close of the first day had seen the foundations set out and goodly piles of materials brought upon the ground ready for the future, he fell asleep congratulating himself upon having lived long enough to see the wish of his heart gratified. What was his surprise, however, when, after arising at the break of day, and immediately rushing to his window to gaze upon the work, he could not perceive either foundation or pile of stone, the field in which he expected to observe the promising outline being as green and showing as few marks of disturbance as the neighbouring ones.{6} 'Surely I must have been dreaming,' said the good man, as he stood with rueful eyes at the little casement, 'for there are not any signs either of the gifts or the labours of the pious sons of the church.' In this puzzled frame of mind, and with a heavy sigh, he once more courted sleep. He had not slumbered long, however, when loud knocks at the door of his dwelling and lusty cries for Father Ambrose disturbed him. Hastily attiring himself, he descended, to find a concourse of people assembled in front of the house; and no sooner had he opened the door than a mason cried out-- 'Father Ambrose, where are the foundations we laid yesterday, and where is the stone from the quarry?' 'Then I did not simply dream that I had blessed the site?' said the old man, inquiringly. Upon which there was a shout of laughter, and a sturdy young fellow asked-- 'And I did not dream that I carted six loads from the quarry?' 'Th' Owd Lad's hed a hand int',' said a labourer, 'for t' fielt's as if fuut hed never stept int'.' The priest and his people at once set off to inspect the site, and sure enough it was in the state described by the mason; cowslips and buttercups decking the expanse of green, which took different shades as the zephyr swept over it. 'Well, I'm fair capped,' said a grey-headed old farmer. 'I've hed things stown afoor today, bud they'n generally bin things wi' feathers on an' good to heyt an' not th' feaundations uv a church. Th' warlt's gerrin' ter'ble wickit. We's hev' to bi lukkin' eawt for another Noah's flood, I warrant.' A peal of laughter followed this sally, but Father Ambrose, who was in no mood for mirth, sternly remarked--'There is something here which savoureth of the doings of Beelzebub;' and then he sadly turned away, leaving the small crowd of gossips speculating upon the events of the night. Before the father reached his dwelling, however, he heard his name called by a rustic who was running along the road. 'Father Ambrose,' cried the panting messenger, 'here's the strangest thing happened at Leyland. The foundations of a church and all sorts of building materials have been laid in a field during the night, and Adam the miller is vowing vengeance against you for having trespassed on his land.' The priest at once returned to the little crowd of people, who still were gaping at the field from which all signs of labour had been so wonderfully removed, and bade the messenger repeat the strange story, which he did at somewhat greater length, becoming loquacious in the presence of his equals, for he enjoyed their looks of astonishment. When the astounding narrative had been told, the crowd at once started for Leyland, their pastor promising to follow after he had fortified himself with breakfast. When the good man reached the village he had no need to inquire which was Adam the miller's field, for he saw the crowd gathered in a rich-looking meadow. As he opened the gate Adam met him, and without ceremony at once accused him of having taken possession of his field. 'Peace, Adam,' said the priest. 'The field hath been taken not by me, but by a higher power, either good or evil--I fear the latter,' and he made his way to the people. True enough, the foundations were laid as at Whittle, and even the mortar was ready for the masons. 'I am loth to think that this is a sorry jest of the Evil One,' said Father Ambrose; 'ye must help me to outwit him, and to give him his labour for his pains. Let each one carry what he can, and, doubtless, Adam will be glad to cart the remainder,'--a proposition the burly miller agreed to at once. Accordingly each of the people walked off with a piece of wood, and Adam started for his team. Before long the field was cleared, and ere sunset the foundations were again laid in the original place, and a goodly piece of wall had been built. Grown wise by experience, the priest selected two men to watch the place during the night. Naturally enough, these worthies, who by no means liked the task, but were afraid to decline it, determined to make themselves as comfortable as they could under the circumstances. They therefore carried to the place a quantity of food and drink, and a number of empty sacks, with which they constructed an impromptu couch near the blazing wood fire. Notwithstanding the seductive influence of the liquor, they were not troubled with much company, for the few people who resided in the vicinity did not care to remain out of doors late after what Father Ambrose had said as to the proceeding having been a joke of Satan's. The priest, however, came to see the men, and after giving them his blessing, and a few words of advice, he left them to whatever the night might bring forth. No sooner had he gone than the watchers put up some boards to shield them from the wind, and, drawing near to the cheerful fire, they began to partake of a homely but plentiful supper. Considering how requisite it was that they should be in possession of all their wits, perhaps it would have been better had not a large bottle been in such frequent requisition, for, soon after the meal was ended, what with the effects of the by-no-means weak potion, the warmth and odour sent forth by the crackling logs, and the musical moaning of the wind in the branches overhead, they began to feel drowsy, to mutter complaints against the hardship of their lot, and to look longingly upon the heap of sacks. 'If owt comes,' said the oldest of the two, 'one con see it as well as two, an' con wakken t' tother--theerfore I'm in for a nod.' And he at once flung himself upon the rude bed. 'Well,' said the younger one, who was perched upon a log close to the fire, 'hev thi own way, an' tha'll live lunger; but I'se wakken tha soon, an' hev a doze mysen. That's fair, isn't it?' To this question there was no response, for the old man was already asleep. The younger one immediately reached the huge bottle, and after drinking a hearty draught from it placed it within reach, saying, as he did so-- 'I'm nooan freetunt o' thee, as heaw it is! Thaart not Belsybub, are ta?' Before long he bowed his head upon his hands, and gazing into the fire gave way to a pleasant train of reflections, in which the miller's daughter played a by-no-means unimportant part. In a little while he, too, began to doze and nod, and the ideas and thronging fancies soon gave way to equally delightful dreams. Day was breaking when the pair awoke; the fire was out, and the noisy birds were chirping their welcome to the sun. For a while the watchers stared at each other with well-acted surprise. 'I'm freetunt tha's o'erslept thysel',' said the young fellow; 'and rayly I do think as I've bin noddin' a bit mysen.' And then, as he turned round, 'Why, it's gone ageean! Jacob, owd lad! th' foundation, an' th' wo's, an' o th' lots o' stooans are off t' Leyland ageean!' The field was again clear, grass and meadow flowers covering its expanse, and after a long conference the pair determined that the best course for them to pursue would be that of immediately confessing to Father Ambrose that they had been asleep. Accordingly they wended their way to his house, and having succeeded in arousing him, and getting him to the door, the young man informed him that once more the foundations were missing. 'What took them?' asked the priest. To which awkward query the old man replied, that they did not see anything. 'Then ye slept, did ye?' asked the Father. 'Well,' said the young man, 'we did nod a minnit or two; but we wir toired wi' watchin' so closely; an', yo' see, that as con carry th' foundations ov a church away connot hev mich trouble i' sendin' unlarnt chaps loike Jacob an' me to sleep agen eaur will.' This ended the colloquy, for Father Ambrose laughed heartily at the ready answer. Shortly afterwards, as on the preceding day, the messenger from Leyland arrived with tidings that the walls had again appeared in Adam's field. Again they were carted back, and placed in their original position, and once more was a watch set, the priest taking the precaution of remaining with the men until near upon midnight. Almost directly after he had left the field one of the watchers suddenly started from his seat, and cried-- 'See yo', yonder, there's summat wick!' Both men gazed intently, and saw a huge cat, with great unearthly-looking eyes, and a tail with a barbed end. Without any seeming difficulty this terrible animal took up a large stone, and hopped off with it, returning almost immediately for another. This strange performance went on for some time, the two observers being nearly petrified by terror; but at length the younger one said-- 'I'm like to put a stop to yon wark, or hee'll say win bin asleep ageean,' and seizing a large piece of wood he crept down the field, the old man following closely behind. When he reached the cat, which took no notice of his approach, he lifted his cudgel, and struck the animal a heavy blow on its head. Before he had time to repeat it, however, the cat, with a piercing scream, sprang upon him, flung him to the ground, and fixed its teeth in his throat. The old man at once fled for the priest. When he returned with him, cat, foundations, and materials were gone; but the dead body of the poor watcher was there, with glazed eyes, gazing at the pitiless stars. After this terrible example of the power of the fiendish labourer it was not considered advisable to attempt a third removal, and the building was proceeded with upon the site at Leyland chosen by the spectre. The present parish church covers the place long occupied by the original building; and although all the actors in this story passed away centuries ago, a correct likeness of the cat has been preserved, and may be seen by the sceptical.{7} THE CAPTURED FAIRIES. There once lived in the little village of Hoghton two idle, good-for-nothing fellows, who, somehow or other, managed to exist without spending the day, from morn to dewy eve, at the loom. When their more respectable neighbours were hard at work they generally were to be seen either hanging about the doorway of the little ale-house or playing at dominoes inside the old-fashioned hostelry; and many a time in broad daylight their lusty voices might be heard as they trolled forth the hearty poaching ditty, 'It's my delight, on a shiny night.' It was understood that they had reason to sympathise with the sentiments expressed in the old ballad. Each was followed by a ragged, suspicious-looking lurcher; and as the four lounged about the place steady-going people shook their heads, and prophesied all sorts of unpleasant terminations to so unsatisfactory a career. So far as the dogs were concerned the dismal forebodings were verified, for from poaching in the society of their masters the clever lurchers took to doing a little on their own account, and both were shot in the pursuit of game by keepers, who were only too glad of an opportunity of ridding the neighbourhood of such misdirected intelligence. Soon after this unfortunate event, the two men, who themselves had a narrow escape, had their nets taken; and, as they were too poor to purchase others, and going about to borrow such articles was equivalent to accusing their friends of poaching habits, they were reduced to the necessity of using sacks whenever they visited the squire's fields. One night, after climbing the fence and making their way to a well-stocked warren, they put in a solitary ferret and rapidly fixed the sacks over the burrows. They did not wait long in anxious expectation of an exodus before there was a frantic rush, and after hastily grasping the sacks tightly round the necks, and tempting their missionary from the hole, they crept through the hedgerow, and at a sharp pace started for home. For some time they remained unaware of the nature of their load, and they were congratulating themselves upon the success which had crowned their industry, when suddenly there came a cry from one of the prisoners, 'Dick, wheer art ta?' The poachers stood petrified with alarm; and almost immediately a voice from the other bag piped out-- 'In a sack, On a back, Riding up Hoghton Brow.'{8} The terrified men at once let their loads fall, and fled at the top of their speed, leaving behind them the bags full of fairies, who had been driven from their homes by the intruding ferret. Next morning, however, the two poachers ventured to the spot where they had heard the supernatural voices. The sacks neatly folded were lying at the side of the road, and the men took them up very tenderly, as though in expectation of another mysterious utterance, and crept off with them. Need it be said that those bags were not afterwards used for any purpose more exciting than the carriage of potatoes from the previously neglected bit of garden, the adventure having quite cured the men of any desire to 'pick up' rabbits. Like most sudden conversions, however, that of the two poachers into hard-working weavers was regarded with suspicion by the inhabitants of the old-world village, and in self-defence the whilom wastrels were forced to tell the story of the imprisonment of the fairies. The wonderful narrative soon got noised abroad; and as the changed characters, on many a summer evening afterwards, sat hard at work in their loom-house, and, perhaps almost instinctively, hummed the old ditty, 'It's my delight, on a shiny night,' the shock head of a lad would be protruded through the honeysuckle which almost covered the casement, as the grinning youngster, who had been patiently waiting for the weaver to commence his song and give an opportunity for the oft-repeated repartee, cried, 'Nay, it isn't thi delight; "Dick, wheer art ta?"' THE PILLION LADY. It was on a beautiful night in the middle of summer that Humphrey Dobson, after having transacted a day's business at Garstang market, and passed some mirthful hours with a number of jovial young fellows in the best parlour of the Ffrances Arms, with its oak furniture and peacock feathers, mounted his steady-going mare, and set off for home. He had got some distance from the little town, and was rapidly nearing a point where the road crossed a stream said to be haunted by the spirit of a female who had been murdered many years back; and although the moon was shining brightly, and the lonely rider could see far before him, there was one dark spot overshadowed by trees a little in advance which Humphrey feared to reach. He felt a thrill of terror as he suddenly remembered the many strange stories told of the headless woman whose sole occupation and delight seemed to be that of terrifying travellers; but, with a brave endeavour to laugh off his fears, he urged his horse forward, and attempted to troll forth the burden of an old song:-- 'He rode and he rode till he came to the dooar, And Nell came t' oppen it, as she'd done afooar: "Come, get off thy horse," she to him did say, "An' put it i'th' stable, an' give it some hay."' It would not do, however; and suddenly he put spurs to the mare and galloped towards the little bridge. No sooner did the horse's hoofs ring upon the stones than Humphrey heard a weird and unearthly laugh from beneath the arch, and, as the animal snorted and bounded forward, the young fellow felt an icy arm glide round his waist and a light pressure against his back. Drops of perspiration fell from his brow, and his heart throbbed wildly, but he did not dare to look behind lest his worst fears should be verified, and he should behold 'th' boggart o'th' bruk.' As though conscious of its ghastly burden, the old mare ran as she never had run before; the hedgerows and trees seemed to fly past, while sparks streamed from the flints in the road, and in an incredibly short space of time the farm-house was reached. Instinctively, Humphrey tried to guide the mare into the yard, but his efforts were powerless, for the terrified animal had got the bit in her teeth, and away she sped past the gateway. As the rider was thus borne away, another sepulchral laugh broke the silence, but this time it sounded so close to the horseman's ear that he involuntarily looked round. He found that the figure, one of whose arms was twined round his waist, was not the headless being of whom he had heard so many fearful narratives, but another and a still more terrible one, for, grinning in a dainty little hood, and almost touching his face, there was a ghastly skull, with eyeless sockets, and teeth gleaming white in the clear moonlight. Petrified by fear, he could not turn his head away, and, as the mare bore him rapidly along, ever and anon a horrid derisive laugh sounded in his ears as for a moment the teeth parted and then closed with a sudden snap. Terrified as he was, however, he noticed that the arm which encircled his body gradually tightened around him, and putting down his hand to grasp it he found it was that of a fleshless skeleton. How long he rode thus embraced by a spectre he knew not, but it seemed an age. Suddenly, however, as at a turn in the road the horse stumbled and fell, Humphrey, utterly unprepared for any such occurrence, was thrown over the animal's head and stunned by the fall. When he recovered full consciousness it was daybreak. The sun was rising, the birds were singing in the branching foliage overhead, and the old mare was quietly grazing at a distance. With great difficulty, for he was faint through loss of blood, and lame, he got home and told his story. There were several stout men about the farm who professed to disbelieve it, and pretended to laugh at the idea of a skeleton horsewoman, who, without saying with your leave or by your leave, had ridden pillion with the young master, but it was somewhat remarkable that none of them afterwards could be induced to cross the bridge over the haunted stream after 'th' edge o' dark.' THE FAIRY FUNERAL. There are few spots in Lancashire more likely to have been peopled by fairies than that portion of the highway which runs along the end of Penwortham wood. At all times the locality is very beautiful, but it is especially so in summer, when the thin line of trees on the one side of the road and the rustling wood upon the other cast a welcome shade upon the traveller, who can rest against the old railings, and look down upon a rich expanse of meadow-land and corn-fields, bounded in the distance by dim, solemn-looking hills, and over the white farm-houses, snugly set in the midst of luxurious vegetation. From this vantage-ground a flight of steps leads down to the well of St. Mary, the water of which, once renowned for its miraculous efficacy, is as clear as crystal and of never-ceasing flow. To this sacred neighbourhood thousands of pilgrims have wended their way; and although the legend of the holy well has been lost, it is easy to understand with what superstitious reverence the place would be approached by those whose faith was of a devout and unquestioning kind, and what feelings would influence those whose hearts were heavy with the weight of a great sorrow as they descended the steps worn by the feet of their countless predecessors. From the little spring a pathway winds across meadows and through corn-fields to the sheltered village, and a little further along the highway a beautiful avenue winds from the old lodge gates to the ancient church and priory. Wide as is this road it is more than shaded by the tall trees which tower on each side, their topmost branches almost interlaced, the sunbeams passing through the green network, and throwing fantastic gleams of light upon the pathway, along which so many have been carried to the quiet God's Acre. At the end of this long and beautiful walk stands the old priory, no longer occupied by the Benedictines from Evesham, the silvery sound of whose voices at eventide used to swell across the rippling Ribble; and, a little to the right of the pile, the Church of St. Mary, with its background of the Castle Hill. By the foot of this Ancient British and Roman outlook there is a little farm-house, with meadow land stretching away to the broad river; and one night, fifty or sixty years ago, two men, one of whom was a local 'cow-doctor,' whose duties had compelled him to remain until a late hour, set out from this dwelling to walk home to the straggling village of Longton. It was near upon midnight when they stepped forth, but it was as light as mid-day, the moon shining in all her beauty, and casting her glamour upon the peaceful scene. So quiet was it that it seemed as though even the Zephyrs were asleep. There was not a breath of wind, and not a leaf rustled or a blade of grass stirred, and had it not been for the sounds of the footsteps of the two men, who were rapidly ascending the rough cart-track winding up the side of the hill, all would have been as still as death. The sweet silence was a fitting one, for in the graveyard by the side of the lane through which the travellers were passing, and over the low moss-covered wall of which might be seen the old-fashioned tombstones, erect like so many sentinels marking the confines of the battle-field of life, hundreds were sleeping the sleep with which only the music of the leaves, the sough of the wind, and the sigh of the sea seem in harmony. As the two men opened the gate at the corner of the churchyard, the old clock sounded the first stroke of midnight. 'That's twelve on 'em,' said the oldest of the two. 'Ay, Adam,' said the other, a taller and much younger man. 'Another day's passin' away, an' it con't dee wi'eaut tellin' everybody; yet ther's bod few on us as tez onny notice on't, for we connot do to be towd as wer toime's growin' bod short. I should think as tha dusn't care to hear th' clock strike, Adam, to judge bith' colour o' thi toppin', for tha 'rt gerrin' varra wintry lookin'.' The old man chuckled at this sally, and then said, slowly and drily:-- 'Speyk for thisen, Robin--speyk for thisen; an' yet why should ta speyk at o? Choilt as tha are--an' tha art nobbut a choilt, clivver as tha fancies thisen--tha 'rt owd enough to mind as it's nod olus th' grey-heeoded uns as dees th' fost. Th' chickins fo' off th' peeark mooar oftener nor th' owd brids. Ther's monny an owd tree wi' nobbud a twothree buds o' green abaat it, to show as it wur yung wonst, as tha'd hev herd wark to delve up, th' roots bein' so deep i'th' graand; an' ther's monny a rook o' young-lukkin' uns as tha met poo up as yezzy as a hondful o' sallet. It teks leetnin' to kill th' owd oak, but th' fost nippin' woint off th' Martch yon soon puts th' bonnie spring posies out o' seet. If I'm growin' owd, let's hope I'm roipnin' as weel. Tha'rt not th' fost bit of a lad as thowt heer baan to last o th' tothers aat, an' as hed hardly toime to finish his crowin' afoor th' sexton clapt o honful o' sond i' his meauth.' This conversation brought the two beyond the gate and some distance along the avenue, in which the moonlight was somewhat toned by the thickness of the foliage above, and they were rapidly nearing the lodge gates, when suddenly the solemn sound of a deep-toned bell broke the silence. Both men stopped and listened intently. 'That's th' passin'-bell,'{9} said Adam. 'Wodever con be up? I never knew it rung at this toime o'th' neet afooar.' 'Mek less racket, will ta,' said Robin. 'Led's keep count an' see heaw owd it is.' Whilst the bell chimed six-and-twenty both listeners stood almost breathless, and then Adam said:-- 'He's thy age, Robin, chuz who he is.' 'Ther wer no leet i 'th' belfry as wi come by, as I see on,' said the young man, 'I'd rayther be i' bed nor up theer towlin' ad this toime, wudn't tha?' 'Yoi,' said Adam. 'But owd Jemmy dusn't care, an' why should he? Hee's bin amung th' deeod to' long to be freet'nt on 'em neet or day, wake an' fable as he is. I dar' say hee's fun aat afoor neaw as they'r not varra rough to dale wi'. Ther's nod mich feightin i'th' bury-hoyle, beaut ids wi' th' resurrectioners. Bud led's get to'art whoam, lad; we're loikely enough to larn o abaat it to-morn.' Without more words they approached the lodge, but to their great terror, when they were within a few yards from the little dwelling, the gates noiselessly swung open, the doleful tolling of the passing-bell being the only sound to be heard. Both men stepped back affrighted as a little figure clad in raiment of a dark hue, but wearing a bright red cap, and chanting some mysterious words in a low musical voice as he walked, stepped into the avenue. 'Ston back, mon,' cried Adam, in a terrified voice--'ston back; it's th' feeorin; bud they'll not hort tha if tha dusna meddle wi' um.' The young man forthwith obeyed his aged companion, and standing together against the trunk of a large tree, they gazed at the miniature being stepping so lightly over the road, mottled by the stray moonbeams. It was a dainty little object; but although neither Adam nor Robin could comprehend the burden of the song it sang, the unmistakable croon of grief with which each stave ended told the listeners that the fairy was singing a requiem. The men kept perfectly silent, and in a little while the figure paused and turned round, as though in expectation, continuing, however, its mournful notes. By-and-by the voices of other singers were distinguished, and as they grew louder the fairy standing in the roadway ceased to render the verse, and sang only the refrain, and a few minutes afterwards Adam and Robin saw a marvellous cavalcade pass through the gateway. A number of figures, closely resembling the one to which their attention had first been drawn, walked two by two, and behind them others with their caps in their hands, bore a little black coffin, the lid of which was drawn down so as to leave a portion of the contents uncovered. Behind these again others, walking in pairs, completed the procession. All were singing in inexpressibly mournful tones, pausing at regular intervals to allow the voice of the one in advance to be heard, as it chanted the refrain of the song, and when the last couple had passed into the avenue, the gates closed as noiselessly as they had opened. As the bearers of the burden marched past the two watchers, Adam bent down, and, by the help of a stray gleam of moonlight, saw that there was a little corpse in the coffin. 'Robin, mi lad,' said he, in a trembling voice and with a scared look, 'it's th' pictur o' thee as they hev i' th' coffin!' With a gasp of terror the young man also stooped towards the bearers, and saw clearly enough that the face of the figure borne by the fairies indeed closely resembled his own, save that it was ghastly with the pallor and dews of death. The procession had passed ere he was able to speak, for, already much affrighted by the appearance of the fairies, the sight of the little corpse had quite unnerved him. Clinging in a terrified manner to the old man, he said, in a broken voice-- 'It raley wor me, Adam! Dust think it's a warnin', an' I'm abaat to dee?' The old man stepped out into the road as he replied-- 'It wur a quare seet, Robin, no daat; bud I've sin monny sich i' mi toime, an' theyne come to nowt i' th' end. Warnin' or not, haaever,' he added, with strong common sense, 'ther'll be no harm done bi thee livin' as if it wur one.' The mournful music of the strange singers and the solemn sound of the passing bell could still be heard, and the two awe-struck men stood gazing after the cavalcade. 'It mon be a warnin', again said Robin, 'an' I wish I'd axed um haa soon I've to dee. Mebbee they'n a towd me.' 'I don't think they wod,' said Adam. 'I've olus heeard as they'r rare and vext if they'r spokken to. Theyn happen a done tha some lumberment if tha 'ad axed owt.' 'They could but a kilt mi,' replied Robin, adding, with that grim humour which so often accompanies despair, 'an' they're buryin' mi neaw, ar'nod they?' Then in a calm and firm voice he said--'I'm baan to ax 'em, come wod will. If tha 'rt freetent tha con goo on whoam.' 'Nay, nay,' said Adam warmly, 'I'm nooan scaret. If tha'rt for catechoizing um, I'll see th' end on it.' Without further parley the men followed after and soon overtook the procession, which was just about to enter the old churchyard, the gates of which, like those of the lodge, swung open apparently of their own accord, and no sooner did Robin come up with the bearers than, in a trembling voice, he cried-- 'Winnot yo' tell mi haaw lung I've to live?' There was not any answer to this appeal, the little figure in front continuing to chant its refrain with even deepened mournfulness. Imagining that he was the leader of the band, Robin stretched out his hand and touched him. No sooner had he done this than, with startling suddenness, the whole cavalcade vanished, the gates banged to with a loud clang, deep darkness fell upon everything, the wind howled and moaned round the church and the tombstones in the graveyard, the branches creaked and groaned overhead, drops of rain pattered upon the leaves, mutterings of thunder were heard, and a lurid flash of lightning quivered down the gloomy avenue. 'I towd tha haa it ud be,' said Adam, and Robin simply answered-- 'I'm no worse off than befooar. Let's mak' toart whoam; bud say nowt to aar fowk--it ud nobbut freeten th' wimmin.' Before the two men reached the lodge gates a terrible storm burst over them, and through it they made their way to the distant village. A great change came over Robin, and from being the foremost in every countryside marlock he became serious and reserved, invariably at the close of the day's work rambling away, as though anxious to shun mankind, or else spending the evening at Adam's talking over 'th' warnin'.' Strange to say, about a month afterwards he fell from a stack, and after lingering some time, during which he often deliriously rambled about the events of the dreadful night, he dozed away, Old Jemmy, the sexton, had another grave to open, and the grey-headed Adam was one of the bearers who carried Robin's corpse along the avenue in which they had so short a time before seen the fairy funeral.{10} THE CHIVALROUS DEVIL. About half-a-century ago there lived, in a lane leading away from a little village near Garstang, a poor idiot named Gregory. He was at once the sport and the terror of the young folks. Uniformly kind to them, carefully convoying them to the spots where, in his lonely rambles, he had noticed birds' nests, or pressing upon them the wild flowers he had gathered in the neighbouring woods and thickets, he received at their ungrateful hands all kinds of ill treatment, not always stopping short of personal violence. In this respect, however, the thoughtless children only followed the example set them by their elders, for seldom did poor Gregory pass along the row of cottages, dignified by the name of street, which constituted the village, without an unhandsome head being projected from the blacksmith's or cobbler's shop, or from a doorway, and a cruel taunt being sent after the idiot, who, in his ragged clothing, with his handful of harebells and primroses, and a wreath of green leaves round his battered, old hat, jogged along towards his mother's cottage, singing as he went, in a pathetic monotone, a snatch of an old Lancashire ballad. In accordance with that holy law which, under such circumstances, influences woman's heart, the mother loved this demented lad with passionate fondness, all the tenderness with which her nature had been endowed having been called forth by the needs of the afflicted child, whose only haven of refuge from the harshness of his surroundings and the cruelty of those who, had not they been as ignorant as the hogs they fed, would have pitied and protected him, was her breast. Lavishing all her affection upon the poor lad, she had no kindness to spare for those who tormented him; and abstaining from any of those melodramatic and vulgar curses with which a person of less education would have followed those who abused her child, she studiously held herself aloof from her neighbours, and avoided meeting them, except when she was compelled to purchase food or other articles for her little household. This conduct gave an excuse for much ill feeling, and as the woman had no need to toil for her daily bread, and as her cottage was the neatest in the district, there was much jealousy. One night, at a jovial gathering, it was arranged that a practical joke, of what was considered a very humorous kind, should be played upon the idiot. The boors selected one of their party, whose task it should be to attire himself in a white sheet, and to emerge into the lane when the poor lad should make his appearance. In accordance with this plan the pack of hobbledehoys watched the cottage night after night, in the hope of seeing the idiot leave the dwelling, and at length their patience was rewarded. They immediately hid themselves in the ditch, while the mock ghost concealed himself behind the trunk of a tree. The lad, not suspecting any evil, came along, humming, in his melancholy monotone, the usual fragment, and just before he reached the tree the sheeted figure slowly stepped forth to the accompaniment of the groanings and bellowings of his associates. They had expected to see the idiot flee in terror; but instead of so doing, he laughed loudly at the white figure, and then suddenly, as the expression of his face changed to one of intense interest, he shouted, 'Oh, oh! a black one! a black one!' Sure enough, a dark and terrible figure stood in the middle of the road. The mock ghost fled, with his companions at his heels, the real spectre chasing them hotly, and the idiot bringing up the rear, shouting at the top of his voice, 'Run, black devil! catch white devil!' They were not long in reaching the village, down the street of which they ran faster than they ever had run before. Several of them darted into the smithy, where the blacksmith was scattering the sparks right and left as he hammered away at the witch-resisting horseshoes, and others fled into the inn, where they startled the gathered company of idle gossips; but the mock ghost kept on wildly, looking neither to the left nor to the right. The idiot had kept close behind the phantom at the heels of the mock ghost, and when at the end of the village the spectre vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, the lad ran a little faster and took its place. Of this, however, the white-sheeted young fellow was not aware, and, fearing every moment that the shadow would catch him in its awful embrace, he dashed down a by lane. Before he got very far, however, the idiot, who had gradually been lessening the distance between them, overtook and seized him by the neck. With a terrible cry the rustic fell headlong into the ditch, dragging Gregory with him as he fell. The latter was soon upon his feet, and dancing about the lane as he cried, 'Catch white devil! catch white devil!' The mock ghost, however, lay quiet enough among the nettles. Roused by the story told by the affrighted ones who had rushed so unceremoniously into their presence, as well as by the startling cry of 'Run, black devil! catch white devil!' which the idiot had shouted as he sped past the door, several of the topers emerged from their abiding place; and as nothing could be seen of either mock ghost, spectre, or idiot, they bravely determined to go in search of them. As they passed along the road from the village, their attention was attracted by the cries which seemed to come from the lonely lane, and somewhat nervously making their way along it, they soon saw the idiot dancing about the side of the ditch. With a sudden access of courage, due to the presence of anything human, however weak, they hurried along, and as they drew nearer, the idiot paused in his gambols, and pointed to the mock ghost, who lay stretched in the shadow of the hedgerow. He was soon carried away to the village, where he lay ill for weeks. The kindness of Gregory's mother to the sick lad's parents, who were very poor and could ill afford to provide the necessary comforts his condition required, caused public feeling to turn in her favour, and those who formerly had been loudest in defaming her became her warmest eulogists. Between the idiot and the young fellow, too, a strange friendship sprang up, and the pair might often be seen passing along the lanes, the idiot chanting his melancholy fragments to the companion whose cap he had adorned with wreaths of wild flowers. With such a protector the idiot was quite safe, and, indeed, had the village children been wishful to torment Gregory, if the presence of this companion had not sufficed to restrain them, they had only to remember that it was in defence of poor Gregory the Evil One himself had raced through the village.{11} THE ENCHANTED FISHERMAN. There are few views in the north of England more beautiful than that which is seen from Morecambe, as the spectator looks over the beautiful bay, with its crescent coast-line of nearly fifty miles in extent. At low water the dazzling sands, streaked by silvery deceptive channels, stretch to the distant glimmering sea, the music of whose heavings comes but faintly on the gentle breeze; but at tide-time a magnificent expanse of rolling waves sweeps away to Peel, and is dotted over with red-sailed fishing boats and coasters. Far to the north the huge heather-covered Furness Fells stand sentinel-like over the waters, and above them, dimly seen through the faint blue haze, tower the grand mountains of the magic lake country. The scene is full of a sweet dream-like beauty; but there are times when the beautiful is swallowed in the majestic, as the mists come creeping over the sea, obscuring the coasts, and hiding everything save the white caps of the waves gleaming in the darkness, through which the muttering diapasons of the wind, as though in deep distress, sound mysteriously; or when, in winter, the moon is hidden by scudding clouds, and the huge rollers, driven before the breeze, dash themselves to death, as upon the blast come the solemn boom of a signal gun, and the faint cries of those in danger on the deep. Years ago, however, before the little village of Poulton changed its name, and began to dream of becoming a watering-place, with terraces and hotels, instead of the picturesque, tumble-down huts of the fishermen, against which, from time immemorial, the spray had been dashed by the salt breezes, the only people who gazed upon the lovely prospect were, with the exception of an occasional traveller, the families of the toilers of the sea, and the rough-looking men themselves. These hardy fellows, accustomed to a wild life, and whose days from childhood had been spent on or by the sea, loved the deep with as much tenderness as a strong man feels towards a weak and wayward maiden, for they were familiar with its every mood, with the soothing wash of its wavelets when the sunbeams kissed the foam-bells, as they died on the white sands, and with the noise of the thunder of the breakers chased up the beach by the roaring gales. One evening a number of these men were seated in the cosy kitchen of the John-o'-Gaunt, listening to 'Owd England' as he narrated some of his strange experiences. 'I moind,' said he, 'when I was nobbut a bit of a lad, Tum Grisdale bein' dreawnt; an' now as we're tawkin' abeaut th' dangers o' th' sonds, yo'll mebbi hearken to th' tale. Poor Tum was th' best cockler i' Hest Bank, an' as ust to th' sands as a choilt is to th' face o' its mother; but for o that he wir dreawnt on 'em after o. I can co to moind yet--for young as I wor I're owd enough to think a bit when owt quare happent, an' th' seet o' th' deead bodies th' next ebb wir wi' me day an' neet fur lung afterwart--th' day when Tum an' his missis an' th' two lasses seet eawt o' seein' some relations o' th' missis's soide, as livt i' th' Furness country yon, th' owd mon an' th' dowters i' th' shandray, an' th' missis ridin' upo' th' cowt at th' soide. It wir a gradely bonnie afternoon, at th' back eend o' th' year. Th' day as they should o come back wir varra misty; an' abaat th' edge o' dark, just as here an' theear a leet wir beginnin' to twinkle i' th' windows, an' th' stars to peep aat, th' noise ov a cart comin' crunchin' o'er th' beach tuk mi feyther to th' door. "Why, yon's owd Tum Grisdale cart back ageean," he cried eaut. An' he dartit eawt o' th' dur, an' me after, as fast as I could. A creawd o' folk an' childer soon gathert reawnt, wonderin' what wir up; but neawt could bi larnt, for though th' lasses as seet eawt, as breet an' bonnie as posies o gillivers, wir theear i' th' shandray, they wir too freetent an' dazed, an' too wake wi' th' weet an' cowd, to say a whord. One thing, however, wir sewer enough, th' owd folk hedn't come back; an' altho' th' toide then hed covert th' track, an' wir shinin' i' th' moonleet, wheear th' mist could bi sin through, just as if it hedn't mony a Hest Bank mon's life to answer for, a lot o' young cocklers wir for startin' off theear an' then i' search on 'em. Th' owder an' mooar expayrienced, heawiver, wodn't hear on it. Two lives i' one day wir quoite enough, they said; so they o waitit till th' ebb, an' then startit, me, loile as i'wir, among th' rest, for mi feyther wir too tekken up i' talking to send me whoam. It wir a sad outin', but it wir loively compaart wi' t' comin' back, for when we tornt toart Hest Bank, th' strungest o' th' lads carriet owd Tum an' his missis, for we hedn't getten far o'er th' sonds afooar we feawnt th' poor owd lass, an' not far off, i' th' deep channel, owd Tum hissel. They wir buriet i' th' owd church-yart, an' one o' th' lasses wir laid aside on 'em, th' freet hevin' bin too mich for her. When t' tother sister recovert a bit, an' could bide to talk abaat it, hoo said as they geet lost i' th' mist, an' th' owd mon left 'em i' th' shandray while he walkt a bit to foind th' channel. When he didn't come back they geet freetent, but t' owd woman wodn't stir fray th' spot till they heeart t' watters comin', an' then they went a bit fur, but could find nowt o' Tum, though they thowt neaw an' then they could heear him sheautin' to 'em. Th' sheawts, heawiver, geet fainter an' fainter, an' at last stopt o' together. Givin' thersels up for lost, they left th' reins to th' mare an' t' cowt. Th' poor owd lass wir quoite daz't at th' absence o' Tum; an' as th' cowt wir swimmin' across th' channel hoo lost her howd, an' wir carriet away. Th' lasses knew neawt no mooar, th' wench olus said, till th' fowk run deawn to th' cart uppo' th' beach. Hor as wir left, hoo wir olus quare at after; an' hoo uset to walk alung t' bay at o heawers just at th' toide toime, yo' known, an' it wir pitiful t' heear her when th' woint wir a bit sriller nor usal, sayin' as hoo could heear her owd fayther's voice as he sheauted when hee'd wander't fray 'em an' couldn't foint way to 'em through t' mist. Hoo afterwarts went to sarvice at Lankister, to a place as th' paason fun' for her, i' th' idea o' th' change dooin' her good; but it worn't lung afooar th' news come as hoo wir i' th' 'sylum, an' I heeart as hoo deed theear some toime after.' No sooner had the grey-headed old fisherman finished his story than one of the auditors said, 'Hoo met weel fancy hoo heeart th' voice ov her fayther, for monnie a neet, an' monnie another hev I heeart that cry mysen. Yo' may stare, bud theear's mooar saands to be heeard i' th' bay nor some o' yo' lads known on; an' I'm no choilt to be freetent o' bein' i' th' dark. Why nobbut th' neet afooar last I heeart a peal o' bells ringin' under th' watter.'{12} There was a moment of surprise, for Roger Heathcote was not a likely man to be a victim to his own fancies, or to be influenced by the superstitions which clung to his fellows. Like the rest of his companions, he had spent the greatest portion of his life away from land; and either because he possessed keener powers of observation than they, or loved nature more, and therefore watched her more closely, he had gradually added to his store of knowledge, until he had become the recognised authority on all matters connected with the dangerous calling by which the men-folk of the little colony earned daily bread for their families. As he was by no means addicted to yarns, looks of wonder came over the faces of the listeners; and in deference to the wishes of Old England, who pressed him as to what he had heard and seen, Roger narrated the adventure embodied in this story.{13} * * * * * The fisherman's little boat was dancing lightly on the rippling waters of the bay. The night was perfectly calm, the moon shining faintly through a thin mist which rested on the face of the deep. It was nearly midnight, and Roger was thinking of making for home, when he heard the sweet sounds of a peal of bells. Not without astonishment, he endeavoured to ascertain from what quarter the noises came, and, strange and unlikely as it seemed, it appeared that the chimes rang up through the water, upon which, with dreamy motion, his boat was gliding. Bending over the side of the skiff he again heard with singular distinctness the music of the bells pealing in weird beauty. For some time he remained in this attitude, intently listening to the magical music, and when he arose, the mist had cleared off, and the moon was throwing her lovely light upon the waters, and over the distant fells. Instead, however, of beholding a coast with every inch of which he was acquainted, Roger gazed upon a district of which he knew nothing. There were mountains, but they were not those whose rugged outlines were so vividly impressed upon his memory. There was a beach, but it was not the one where his little cottage stood with its light in the window and its background of wind-bent trees. The estuary into which his boat was gliding was not that of the Kent, with its ash and oak-covered crags. Everything seemed unreal, even the streaming moonlight having an unusual whiteness, and Roger rapidly hoisted his little sails, but they only flapped idly against the mast, as the boat, in obedience to an invisible and unknown agency, drifted along the mysterious looking river. As the fisherman gazed in helpless wonder, gradually the water narrowed, and in a short time a cove was gained, the boat grating upon the gleaming sand. Roger at once jumped upon the bank, and no sooner had he done so, than a number of little figures clad in green ran towards him from beneath a clump of trees, the foremost of them singing-- To the home of elf and fay, To the land of nodding flowers, To the land of Ever Day Where all things own the Fay Queen's powers, Mortal come away! and the remainder dancing in circles on the grass, and joining in the refrain-- To the home of elf and fay, To the land of Ever Day, Mortal come away! The song finished, the little fellow who had taken the solo, tripped daintily to Roger, and, with a mock bow, grasped one of the fingers of the fisherman's hand, and stepped away as though anxious to lead him from the water. Assuming that he had come upon a colony of Greenies, and feeling assured that such tiny beings could not injure him, even if anxious to do so, Roger walked on with his conductor, the band dancing in a progressing circle in front of them, until a wood was reached, when the dancers broke up the ring and advanced in single file between the trees. The light grew more and more dim, and when the cavalcade reached the entrance to a cavern, Roger could hardly discern the Greenies. Clinging to the little hand of his guide, however, the undaunted fisherman entered the cave, and groped his way down a flight of mossy steps. Suddenly he found himself in a beautiful glade, in which hundreds of little figures closely resembling his escort, and wearing dainty red caps, were disporting themselves and singing-- Moonbeams kissing odorous bowers Light our home amid the flowers; While our beauteous King and Queen Watch us dance on rings of green. Rings of green, rings of green, Dance, dance, dance, on rings of green. No sooner had the fisherman entered the glade than the whole party crowded round him, but as they did so a strain of enchanting music was heard, and the little beings hopped away again, and whirled round in a fantastic waltz. Roger himself was so powerfully influenced by the melody that he flung himself into the midst of the dancers, who welcomed him with musical cries, and he capered about until sheer fatigue forced him to sink to rest upon a flowery bank. Here, after watching for a while the graceful gambols of the Greenies, and soothed by the weird music, the sensuous odours, and the dreamy light, he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke from his slumber the fairies had vanished, and the fisherman felt very hungry. No sooner, however, had he wished for something to eat than on the ground before him there appeared a goodly array of delicacies, of which, without more ado, Roger partook. 'I'm in luck's way here,' he said to himself; 'It's not every day of the week I see a full table like this. I should like to know where I am, though.' As the wish passed his lips he saw before him a beautiful little being, who said in a sweet low voice-- In the land of nodding flowers, Where all things own the Fay Queen's powers! The fisherman no sooner saw the exquisite face of the dainty Greenie than he forgot altogether the rosy-cheeked wife at home, and fell hopelessly over head and ears in love with the sweet vision. Gazing into her beautiful eyes he blurted out, 'I don't care where it is if you are there.' With a smile the queen, for it was indeed the queen, seated herself at his side. 'Dost thou, Mortal, bow to my power?' asked she. 'Ay, indeed, do I to the forgetfulness of everything but thy bonny face,' answered Roger; upon which the queen burst into a hearty fit of laughter, so musical, however, that for the life of him the fisherman could not feel angry with her. 'If the king were to hear thee talking thus thou wouldst pay dearly for thy presumption,' said the Fay, as she rose and tripped away to the shadow of the trees. The enraptured Roger endeavoured to overtake her before she reached the oaks, but without success; and though he wandered through the wood for hours, he did not again catch a glimpse of her. He gained an appetite by the freak however, and no sooner had he wished for food again than dishes of rich viands appeared before him. 'I wish I could get money at this rate,' said the fisherman, and the words had hardly left his lips when piles of gold ranged themselves within his reach. Roger rapidly filled his pockets with the glittering coins, and even took the shoes from off his feet, and filled them also, and then slung them round his neck by the strings. 'Now, if I could but get to my boat,' thought he, 'my fortune would be made,' and accordingly he began to make his way in what he believed to be the direction of the river. He had not proceeded very far, however, when he emerged upon an open space surrounded by tall foxgloves,{14} in all the beautiful bells of which dreamy-eyed little beings were swinging lazily as the quiet zephyr rocked their perfumed dwellings. Some of the Greenies were quite baby fairies not so large as Roger's hand, but none of them seemed alarmed at the presence of a mortal. A score of larger ones were hard at work upon the sward stitching together moth and butterfly wings for a cloak for their Queen, who, seated upon a mushroom, was smiling approvingly as she witnessed the industry of her subjects. Roger felt a sudden pang as he observed her, for although he was glad once more to behold the marvellous beauty of her face, he was jealous of a dainty dwarf in a burnished suit of beetles' wing cases and with a fantastic peaked cap in which a red feather was coquettishly stuck, for this personage he suspected was the King, and forgetting his desire to escape with the gold, and at once yielding to his feelings, he flung himself on the luxuriant grass near the little being whose weird loveliness had thrown so strange a glamour over him, and without any thought or fear as to the consequences he at once bent himself and kissed one of her dainty sandalled feet. No sooner had he performed this rash act of devotion than numberless blows fell upon him from all sides, but he was unable to see any of the beings by whom he was struck. Instinctively the fisherman flung his huge fists about wildly, but without hitting any of the invisible Greenies, whose tantalising blows continued to fall upon him. At length, however, wearying of the fruitless contest, he roared out, 'I wish I were safe in my boat in the bay,' and almost instantaneously he found himself in the little skiff, which was stranded high and dry upon the Poulton beach. The shoes which he had so recently filled with glittering pieces of gold and suspended round his neck were again upon his feet, his pockets were as empty as they were when he had put out to sea some hours before, and somewhat dubious and very disgusted, in a few minutes he had crept off to bed. * * * * * When the strange tale of the fisherman's wonderful adventure with the hill folk was ended, the unbelievers did not hesitate to insinuate that Roger had not been out in the bay at all, and that the land of nodding flowers might be found by anyone who stayed as long and chalked up as large a score at the John-o'-Gaunt as he had done on the night when he heard the submerged bells and had so unusual a catch. Others, however, being less sceptical, many were the little boats that afterwards went on unsuccessful voyages in search of the mysterious estuary and the colony of Greenies, and a year afterwards, when a sudden gale swept over the restless face of the deep and cast Roger's boat bottom upwards upon the sandy beach, many believed that the fisherman had again found the land of Ever Day. THE SANDS OF COCKER. The quiet little village of Cockerham is hardly the spot one would expect to find selected as a place of residence by a gentleman of decidedly fast habits, and to whom a latch-key is indispensable; yet once upon a time the Evil One himself, it is said, took up his quarters in the go-to-bed-early hamlet. It hardly need be stated that the undesirable resident caused no small stir in the hitherto drowsy little place. Night after night he prowled about with clanking chains, and shed an unpleasantly-suggestive odour of sulphur, that rose to the diamond-paned windows and crept through cracks and chinks to the nasal organs of the horrified villagers, who had been disturbed by the ringing of the Satanic bracelets, and, fearing to sleep whilst there was so strong a smell of brimstone about, lay awake, thinking of the sins they had committed, or intended to commit if they escaped 'Old Skrat.' Before the wandering perfumer had thus, above a score of times, gratuitously fumigated the villagers, a number of the more daring ones, whose courage rose when they found that after all they were not flown away with, resolved that they would have a meeting, at which the unjustifiable conduct of a certain individual should be discussed, and means be devised of ridding the village of his odoriferous presence. In accordance with this determination, a gathering was announced for noonday, for the promoters of the movement did not dare to assemble after sunset to discuss such a subject. After a few cursory remarks from the chairman, and a long and desultory discussion as to the best way of getting rid of the self-appointed night watchman, it was settled that the schoolmaster, as the most learned man in the place, should be the deputation, and have all the honour and profit of an interview with the nocturnal rambler. Strange as it may appear, the pedagogue was nothing loath to accept the office, for if there was one thing more than another for which he had longed, it was an opportunity of immortalising himself; the daily round of life in the village certainly affording but few chances of winning deathless fame. He therefore at once agreed to take all the risks if he might also have all the glory. Not that he purposed to go to the Devil; no, the mountain should come to Mahomet; the Evil One should have the trouble of coming to him. His determination was loudly applauded by the assembled villagers, each of whom congratulated himself upon an escape from the dangerous, if noble, task of ridding the place of an intolerable nuisance. There was no time to be lost, and a night or two afterwards, no sooner had the clock struck twelve, than the schoolmaster, who held a branch of ash and a bunch of vervain in his hand, chalked the conventional circle{15} upon the floor of his dwelling, stepped within it, and in a trembling voice began to repeat the Lord's Prayer backwards. When he had muttered about half of the spell thunder began to roar in the distance; rain splashed on the roof, and ran in streams from the eaves; a gust of wind moaned round the house, rattling the loose leaded panes, shaking the doors, and scattering the embers upon the hearth. At the same time the solitary light, which had begun to burn a pale and ghastly blue, was suddenly extinguished, as though by an invisible hand; but the terrified schoolmaster was not long left in darkness, for a vivid flash of lightning illuminated the little chamber, and almost blinded the would-be necromancer, who tried to gabble a prayer in the orthodox manner, but his tongue refused to perform its office, and clave to the roof of his mouth. At that moment, could he have made his escape, he would willingly have given to the first comer all the glory he had panted to achieve; but even had he dared to leave the magic circle, there was not time to do so, for almost immediately there was a second blast of wind, before which the trees bent like blades of grass, a second flash lighted up the room, a terrible crash of thunder shook the house to its foundations, and, as a number of evil birds, uttering doleful cries, dashed themselves through the window, the door burst open, and the schoolmaster felt that he was no longer alone. An instantaneous silence, dreadful by reason of the contrast, followed, and the moon peeped out between the driving clouds and threw its light into the chamber. The birds perched themselves upon the window sill and ceased to cry, and with fiery-looking eyes peered into the room, and suddenly the trembling amateur saw the face of the dark gentleman whose presence only a few minutes before he had so eagerly desired. Overpowered by the sight, his knees refused to bear him up, what little hair had not been removed from his head by the stupidity of the rising generation stood on end, and with a miserable groan he sank upon his hands and knees, but, fortunately for himself, within the magic ring, round which the Evil One was running rapidly. How long this gratuitous gymnastic entertainment continued he knew not, for he was not in a state of mind to judge of the duration of time, but it seemed an age to the unwilling observer, who, afraid of having the Devil behind him, and yielding to a mysterious mesmeric influence, endeavoured, by crawling round backward, to keep the enemy's face in front. At length, however, the saltatory fiend asked in a shrill and unpleasant voice, 'Rash fool, what wantest thou with me? Couldst thou not wait until in the ultimate and proper course of things we had met?' Terrified beyond measure not only at the nature of the pertinent question, but also by the insinuation and the piercing and horrible tone in which it was spoken, the tenant of the circle knew not what reply to make, and merely stammered and stuttered-- 'Good Old Nick,{16} go away for ever, and'-- 'Take thee with me,' interrupted the Satanic one quickly. 'Even so; such is my intent.' Upon this the poor wretch cried aloud in terror, and again the Evil One began to hop round and round and round the ring, evidently in the hope of catching a part of the body of the occupant projecting over the chalk mark. 'Is there no escape,' plaintively asked the victim in his extremity, 'is there no escape?' Upon this Old Nick suddenly stopped his gambols and quietly said, 'Three chances of escape shalt thou have,{17} but if thou failest, then there is no appeal. Set me three tasks, and if I cannot perform any one of them, then art thou free.' There was a glimmer of hope in this, and the shivering necromancer brightened up a little, actually rising from his ignoble position and once more standing erect, as he gleefully said, 'I agree.' 'Ah, ah,' said the Evil One _sotto voce_. 'Count the raindrops on the hedgerows from here to Ellel,' cried the schoolmaster. 'Thirteen,' immediately answered Satan, 'the wind I raised when I came shook all the others off.' 'One chance gone,' said the wizard, whose knees again began to manifest signs of weakness. There was a short pause, the schoolmaster evidently taking time to consider, for, after all, life, even in a place like Cockerham, was sweet in comparison with what might be expected in the society of the odoriferous one whose mirth was so decidedly ill-timed and unmusical. The silence was not of long continuance, however, for the Evil One began to fear that a detestably early cock might crow, and thereby rescue the trembling one from his clutches. In his impatience, therefore, he knocked upon the floor with his cloven hoof and whistled loudly, after the manner followed now-a-days by dirty little patrons of the drama, perched high in the gallery of a twopenny theatre, and again danced rapidly round the ring in what the tenant deemed unnecessary proximity to the chalk mark. 'Count the ears of corn in old Tithepig's field,' suddenly cried the schoolmaster. 'Three millions and twenty-six,' at once answered Satan. 'I have no way of checking it,' moaned the pedagogue. 'Ah, ah,' bellowed the fiend, who now, instead of hopping round the ring, capered in high glee about the chamber. 'Ho, ho!' laughed the schoolmaster, 'I have it! Here it is! Ho, ho! Twist a rope of sand{18} and wash it in the river Cocker without losing a grain.' The Evil One stepped out of the house, to the great relief of its occupier, who at once felt that the atmosphere was purer; but in a few minutes he returned with the required rope of sand. 'Come along,' said he, 'and see it washed.' And he swung it over his shoulder, and stepped into the lane. In the excitement of the moment the wizard had almost involuntarily stepped out of the magic circle, when suddenly he bethought himself of the danger, and drily said-- 'Thank you; I'll wait here. By the light of the moon I can see you wash it.' The baffled fiend, without more ado, stepped across to the rippling streamlet, and dipped the rope into the water, but when he drew it out he gave utterance to a shout of rage and disappointment, for half of it had been washed away. 'Hurrah!' shouted the schoolmaster. 'Cockerham against the world!' And as in his joy he jumped out of the ring, the Evil One, instead of seizing him, in one stride crossed Pilling Moss and Broadfleet, and vanished, and from that night to the present day Cockerham has been quite free from Satanic visits.{19} THE SILVER TOKEN. Believe i' Fairies? 'Ay, that I do, though I never clapped mi een on 'em,' said old Nancy to a group of gaping listeners seated by the farm-house kitchen fire. 'That's quare,' remarked a sceptical young woman in the ingle nook. Old Nancy gave her a scornful glance, and then went on:-- 'I never see'd a fairy as I know on, but I used to sarve one on 'em wi' milk. Yo' mon stare; but th' way on it wir this. I wir at mi wark i' th' dairy one day, abaat th' edge o' dark, when o ov a suddent a loile jug clapt itsel daan afooar mi on th' stooan. Yo' may be sure I wir fair capt, for wheear it come fray, or heaw it geet theear, I couldn't mek aat. I stoopt mi daan to pike howd on it, and it met a' bin silver, it wir that breet and bonnie; but it wir as leet as a feather, an' I couldn't tell what it wir med on. I wir baan to set it o' th' stooan again, when I seed at a new sixpenny bit hed bin put theer wi' it, so it struck mi as milk wir wantit. Accordingly I fillt th' jug and seet it daan again, an' welly as soon as I'd clapt it wheear I fun' it, it up an' whipt eaut o' seet. Well I thowt it meeterly quare, bud I'd heeard mi feyther say, monny an' monny a toime, as thuse as geet fairy brass gin 'em should tell nubry, so I kept it to mysen, though I'd hard wark, yo' may be sure. Every neet th' jug an' th' sixpenny bit clapt theirsens o' th' stooan as reglar as milkin' toime, an' I fillt th' jug and piked up th' brass. At last, ha'ever, I thowt happen no lumber could come on it if I towd nobbut one, so when Roger theear and me settlet a beein wed I towd him what sooart ov a nest-egg I'd getten so quarely. Mi feyther wir reet, ha'ever, for th' next neet nayther jug nor th' sixpenny bit showed thersels, an' fray that day to this I've sin no mooar on 'em, an' it's ower forty year sin I piked up th' last brass.{3} THE HEADLESS WOMAN. (BEAWT HEEOD.) It was near upon twelve when Gabriel Fisher bade good night to the assembled roysterers who were singing and shouting in the kitchen of the White Bull, at Longridge, and, turning his back to the cosy hearth, upon which a huge log was burning, emerged into the moonlit road. With his dog Trotty close at his heels, he struck out manfully towards Tootal Height and Thornley, for he had a long and lonely walk before him. It was a clear and frosty night, but occasionally a light cloud sailed across the heavens, and obscured the moon. Rapidly passing between the two rows of cottages which constituted the little straggling village, his footsteps ringing upon the frozen ground, Gabriel made for the fells, and, as he hurried along, he hummed to himself a line of the last song he had heard, and now and again burst into a fit of laughter as he remembered a humorous story told by 'Owd Shuffler.' When he reached the highest point of the road whence he could see the beautiful Chipping valley, a soft breeze was whispering among the fir-trees, with that faint rustle suggestive of the gentle fall of waves upon a beach. Here and there a little white farm-house or labourer's cottage was gleaming in the moonlight, but the inmates had been asleep for hours. There was an air of loneliness and mystery over everything; and though Gabriel would have scorned to admit that he was afraid of anything living or dead, before he had passed out of the shadow of the weird-looking melodious branches he found himself wishing for other company than that of his dog. He suddenly remembered, too, with no access of pleasurable feelings, that on the previous day he had seen a solitary magpie, and all sorts of stories of 'Banister Dolls' and 'Jinny Greenteeths,' with which his youthful soul had been carefully harrowed, came across his mind. He tried to laugh at these recollections, but the attempt was by no means a successful one, and he gave expression to a hearty wish that Kemple End were not quite so far off. Just then a sharp shrill cry fell upon his ear, and then another and another. 'Th' Gabriel Ratchets,'{33} he shouted, 'what's abaat to happen?' The cries were not repeated, however, and he went on, but when he reached the peak of the fell, and gazed before him into the deep shade of a plantation, he could not repress a slight shudder, for he fancied that he saw something moving at a distance. He paused for a moment or two to assure himself, and then went on again slowly, his heart throbbing violently as he lessened the space between the moving object and himself. The dog, as though equally influenced by similar feelings, crept behind him in a suspicious and terrified manner. 'It's nobbut a woman,' said he, somewhat re-assured; 'it's a woman sewerly. Mebbee someburry's badly, an' hoo's gooin' for help. Come on, Trotty, mon.' So saying, he quickened his pace, the dog hanging behind, until he approached almost close to the figure, when, with a wild howl, away Trotty fled down the hillside. As Gabriel drew still closer, he saw that the object wore a long light cloak and hood, and a large coal-scuttle bonnet; and surprised to find that the sound of his footsteps did not cause her to turn to see who was following, he called out: 'It's a bonny neet, Missis; bud yo're aat rayther late, arn't yo'?' 'It is very fine,' answered the woman, in a voice which Gabriel thought was the sweetest he had ever heard, but without turning towards him as she spoke. 'Summat wrong at your fowk's, happen?' he asked, anxious to prolong the talk. There was no reply to this, though, and Gabriel knew not what to think, for the silent dame, although she declined to reply, continued to keep pace with him, and to walk at his side. Was it some one who had no business to be out at that hour, and who did not wish to be recognised, he wondered? But if so, thought he, why did she continue to march in a line with him? The voice, certainly, was that of one of a different rank to his own; but, on the other hand, he reflected, if she were one of the gentle folks, why the cottager's cloak and bonnet, and the huge market basket? These conjectures crossed his brain in rapid succession; and influenced by the last one--that as to his companion's clothing--he determined again to address her. 'Yo' met a left yir tung at whoam, Missis,' said he, 'sin' yo' connot answer a civil mon.' This taunt, however, like the direct query, failed to provoke an answer, although the startled Gabriel could have sworn that a smothered laugh came from beneath the white cloth which covered the contents of the basket 'Let me carry yer baskit,' said he; 'it's heavy for yo'.' Without a word, the woman held it out to him; but, as Gabriel grasped the handle, a voice, which sounded as though the mouth of the speaker were close to his hand, slowly said: 'You're very kind, I'm sure;' and then there came from the same quarter a silvery peal of laughter. 'What i' th' warld can it be?' said Gabriel, as without more ado he let the basket fall to the ground. He did not remain in ignorance very long, however, for, as the white cloth slipped off, a human head, with fixed eyes, rolled out 'Th' yedless boggart!' cried he, as the figure turned to pick up the head, and revealed to him an empty bonnet, and away he fled down the hill, fear lending him speed. He had not run far, however, before he heard a clatter of feet on the hard road behind him; but Gabriel was one of the fleetest lads about the fells, and the sight he had just seen was calculated to bring out all his powers; so the sound did not grow louder, but just as he turned into the old Chaighley Road, the head, thrown by the boggart, came whizzing past in unpleasant proximity to his own, and went rolling along in front of him. For a second or two Gabriel hesitated what to do, the headless woman behind and the equally terrible head in front; but it did not take long to decide, and he went forward with renewed vigour, thinking to pass the dreadful thing rapidly rolling along in advance of him. No sooner was he near to it, however, than, with an impish laugh, which rang in his ears for days afterwards, the ghastly object diverged from its course and rolled in his way. With a sudden and instinctive bound, he leaped over it; and as he did so the head jumped from the ground and snapped at his feet, the teeth striking together with a dreadfully suggestive clash. Gabriel was too quick for it, however, but for some distance he heard with horrible distinctness the clattering of the woman's feet and the banging of the head upon the road behind him. Gradually the sounds grew fainter as he speeded along, and at length, after he had crossed a little stream of water which trickled across the lane from a fern-covered spring in the fell side, the sounds ceased altogether. The runner, however, did not pause to take breath until he had reached his home and had crept beneath the blankets, the trembling Trotty, whom he found crouched in terror at the door of the cottage, skulking upstairs at his heels and taking refuge under the bed. 'I olus said as tha'd be seein' a feeorin wi' thi stoppin' aat o' neets,' remarked his spouse after he had narrated his adventure; 'bud if it nobbut meks tha fain o' thi own haath-stooan I'se be some glad on it, for it's moor nor a woman wi' a heead on her shoothers hes bin able to do.'{20} THE RESCUE OF MOONBEAM. From one corner of Ribbleton Moor, the scene of Cromwell's victory over Langdale, there is as lovely a view as ever painter dreamed of. Far below the spectator the Ribble sweeps almost in a circle beneath the scars which, by the action of years of this washing, have been scooped out so as to form a large precipice, under which the waters flow, marking out in their course the great 'horse-shoe meadow,' with its fringe of shining sand. The peaceful valley through which the river, reflecting in its moving bosom the overhanging many-tinted woods and cliffs, meanders on its way to the sea, is bounded afar-off by noble hills, the whale-like Pendle towering in majestic grandeur above the rest. From the moor a rough and stony lane winds down the wooded hillside, past a beautiful old half-timbered house down to the dusty highway and the bridge over the Belisamia of the Romans. The beautiful river, with its tremulous earth and sky pictures, the meadows and corn-fields whence come now and again the laugh and song of the red-faced mowers and reapers, the clearly-defined roads and white farm-houses, the spires of distant hillside churches, and the rich green of the waving woods, make up an enchanting picture. When night comes, however, and the lovely stars peep out, and the crescent moon casts her glamour over the dreaming earth, and half-hidden in a dimly transparent veil of shimmering mist the Ribble glides as gently as though it had paused to listen to its own melody, a still deeper loveliness falls upon the dreaming landscape, over which the very genius of beauty seems to hover silently with outspread wings. At such a time, when moon and stars threw a faint and mysterious light over the sleeping woods, and not a sound, save the cry of a restless bird, broke the silence, a young countryman made his way rapidly across the horse-shoe meadow to the bend of the stream under Red Scar. It was not to admire the beautiful scenery, however, that Reuben Oswaldwistle was crossing the dew-besprinkled field, over which faint odours of hay were wafted by a gentle breeze. The sturdy young fellow was too practical to yield entirely to such an influence, and although he was by no means unlearned in the traditions and stories of the neighbourhood, long familiarity had taught him to look upon the landscape with the eye of a farmer. He was simply about to practise the gentle art in the hope of beguiling a few stray 'snigs' for dinner on the following day. Still the scene in all its glamour of moonlight and peace was not powerless even upon his rude nature; so, after setting his lines, he took out a little black pipe, filled it from a capacious moleskin pouch, and after lighting the fragrant weed, gave way to a train of disconnected fancies--past, present, and future mingling strangely in his reverie. What with the rustling of the leaves overhead, the musical rippling of the river as it danced over the stones on its way to the sea, and the soothing effect of the tobacco, Reuben was beginning to doze, when suddenly he fancied he heard the sound of a light footstep in the grass behind him. Turning round somewhat drowsily, he beheld a little figure of about a span high, clad in green, and wearing a dainty red cap, struggling along under the load of a flat-topped mushroom much larger than itself. After having more than once fallen with its load, the dwarf cried out in a sweet, faint voice, 'Dewdrop, Dewdrop!' and no sooner had the sound died into silence than another little fellow, who evidently answered to the pretty name, came tripping from the shadow of a hawthorn. 'What's the matter, Moonbeam?' said the new-comer, cheerily. 'This table is too much for me,' answered the labourer whom Reuben had seen first, 'and if the king's dinner is not ready to a minute he will have me stung. Help me with this load, there's a good sort.' Without any more ado Dewdrop came forward and the tiny pair put their shoulders beneath the load and marched off. They did not bear it very far, however, for the astonished Reuben simply stretched himself at full length on the grass and again was quite close to them. The two dots stopped when they came to a hole, into which they at once stuck the stem of the mushroom. Moonbeam then took from his pocket a butterfly's wing, which served him as a handkerchief, and wiping his forehead as he spoke, he said:-- 'I'm about tired of this. Every night the table is stolen, Dewdrop, and I've to find a new one for each dinner, and no thanks for it either. What has come of late over the king I am at a loss to imagine, for he has done nothing but have me stung. I shall emigrate if this continues, that's all.' 'So would I,' answered the other little fellow, 'if Blue-eyes would go also, but I can't leave her.' After a hearty peal of laughter, during which he had held his shaking sides, Moonbeam shouted-- 'Why, my dear innocent, if you went she would be after you in a trice. I remember that when I was as guileless as you I fell in love with Ravenhair, the daughter of old Pigear. She treated me just as Blue-eyes uses you, but when, in a fit of jealous rage, I began to pay delicate attentions to Jasmine, the tables soon were turned, and one evening, as I was dozing in a flower cup, I heard some one call me, and peeping out of my chamber, I saw the once scornful Ravenhair weeping at the foot of the stalk. No sooner did she catch a glimpse of the tip of my nightcap than in piteous tones, that went straight to my heart, she cried out, "Dearest Moony, let me come up and"--. But, hush! wasn't that the dinner gong?' The pair listened intently as over the grass came the solemn hum of a bee. 'I'm in for it,' said the fairy whose tale had been so suddenly interrupted; 'there's the first bell, and I haven't got even the table set.' The pair darted off, and tripping away into the shade of the hawthorn, they were for a moment or two lost to the sight of the wondering Reuben, but they soon returned, each bearing a dish and cover made of a little pearl shell. These they placed upon the mushroom, and away they scudded, again to return in a minute with another load. In an incredibly short space of time the table was set out with a goodly array of tiny dishes and plates. Once more the hum of the bee was heard booming over the grass, and from the shadow of the tree there emerged a dainty being whose attire glittered in the moonlight, and whose step was like that of a proud monarch. He was clad in a many-hued coat made of wings of dragon flies, a green vest cut from a downy mouse-ear leaf, and with buttons of buttercup buds; little knee-breeches of fine-spun silk dyed in the juice of a whinberry, stockings of cobweb, and shoes of shining beetle case; his shirt, which was as white as falling snow, had been cut from convolvulus flowers ere they had opened to the light; and his hat, a gem of a thing fit only for a fairy, was of red poppy, with a waving white feather, and a band of fur from a caterpillar. He led by the hand another personage, equally daintily dressed, but of a higher order of loveliness, with a pale oval face, and dreamy-looking eyes, gleaming like the sea when the moon and stars are bending over its bosom, and the wind is whispering its sad secrets. Her hair was golden, and rippled almost to her exquisite feet, and over it she wore a blue cornflower wreath, with diamond dewdrops here and there amid the leaves. Her dress was of damask rose leaves looped up with myosotis. The grass hardly bent beneath her, so daintily did she trip along, just touching the tips of the fingers of the hand the king extended to her. Following this royal pair came a group of gaily-clad attendants, and a band discoursing sweet sounds, the deep bass of bees harmonising happily with the barytone of a beetle and the crescendo chirp of a cricket. With a loud flourish from the musicians all took their places at the festive mushroom, and the banquet began. The dishes were sufficiently various to tempt even an anchorite to excess, for all the delicacies of the season were there. Ladybird soup, baked stickleback, roasted leg of nightingale, boiled shoulder of frog with cranberry sauce, wild strawberry tarts, and numerous kinds of fruits and juices, made up a dainty repast, of which king, queen, and courtiers partook heartily. The band, the members of which were perched in the swinging flowers of a foxglove close by, played lustily during the feast. 'For once,' said the king, 'for once--and let the circumstance be remembered when the annals of our reign are written--a day hath passed without anything having annoyed our royal self, without anything unpleasant having happened in our royal presence, and without anything having disagreed with our royal stomach.' No sooner had these words passed the royal lips, however, than the queen gave a faint shriek, and cried out-- 'My love, there is not a drop of my chickweed wine on the table.' A dark cloud passed over the monarch's face as he angrily shouted-- 'Methinks we were congratulating our royal self somewhat too early in the day. Bring hither the rascally Moonbeam and bid the executioners attend for orders.' One of the courtiers, with an alacrity marvellously resembling that of beings of a larger growth, rushed out, and speedily returned with the unfortunate dependant, who at once flung himself on the ground before the angry king and begged to be forgiven. What result might have followed these prayers is uncertain, for, unfortunately, the suppliant's tears fell upon one of the monarch's shoes and dimmed its lustre. 'Bring hither the executioners and their instruments,' roared the infuriated king, and almost immediately a couple of sturdy little fellows appeared leading by a chain two large wasps. 'Do your disreputable work!' shouted the monarch. The executioners seized Moonbeam, fastened him to a stake, and pressed a wasp against him. The insect instantly stung him, and the miserable little fellow howled with pain. 'Take him away,' cried the queen; 'we don't want _whine_ of that kind.' 'What a wretched pun!' involuntarily said Moonbeam, as they were dragging him from the royal presence. 'Bring the villain back,' roared the King; 'bring him back, and sting him until he is less critical.' 'If tha hez him stung ageeon,' interrupted the indignant Reuben, who in his excitement had gradually crept nearer to the royal table, 'I'll knock thi proud little heeod off, chuz who tha art.' Neither the king or the executioners, however, took the slightest notice of the warning, so, as the latter were once more forcing the unhappy Moonbeam against the other wasp, down came a huge fist upon the royal head. 'Theer,' said the fisherman, exultingly, 'I towd tha, didn't I, bud tha wouldn't tek wernin'. Tha 'rt on 't' penitent form bi this time, I daat.' Lifting up his hand, however, what was the surprise of the wondering Reuben to find only a little crushed grass under it. King, Queen, courtiers, Moonbeam, executioners, and wasps, all had vanished, and even the band, whose humming and droning he had heard so distinctly during the whole banquet, no longer broke the silence. 'Well,' said the fisherman, 'that's a capper, in o mi born days. I see 'em as plain as a pikestaff. Th' last day connot be far off, I'm sewer. Bud I'll hev th' tabble, at onny rate, beawt axin.' And, so saying, he took possession of the huge mushroom, and after hurriedly gathering up his lines, he wended his way across the meadow to his little cottage by the high road, and arrived there, he narrated to his drowsy wife the story of the banquet. 'Drat th' fairies, an' thee, too, wi' thi gawmless tales,' said his sceptical helpmate, 'I wondered what hed getten tha. Tha's bin asleep for hours i' th' meadow istid a lookin' after th' fish. Tha never seed a fairy i' thi life. Tha'rt nod hauve sharp enough, clivver as tha art i' owt as is awkurt.' There was a short pause after this sally, and then the sly Reuben drily answered-- 'Yoy, I 've sin a fairy monny an' monny a time. Olus when I used to come a cooartin' to thi moather's. Bud tha 'r nod mich like a fairy neaw, tha 'st autert terbly. Tha 'rt too thrivin' lookin'.' 'Be off wi' thi fawseness,' said the pleased woman; 'tha 'd ollus a desayvin tung i' thi heead;' and then after a drowsy pause as she was dosing to sleep; 'but for o that I'll mek a soop o' good catsup out o' thi fairy tabble.' THE WHITE DOBBIE. Many years ago, long before the lovely Furness district was invaded by the genius of steam, the villagers along the coast from Bardsea to Rampside were haunted by a wandering being whose errand, the purpose of which could never be learned, used to bring him at night along the lonely roads and past the straggling cottages. This pilgrim was a wearied, emaciated-looking man, on whose worn and wan face the sorrows of life had left deep traces, and in whose feverish, hungry-looking eyes, mystery and terror seemed to lurk. Nobody knew the order of his coming or going, for he neither addressed anyone, nor replied if spoken to, but disregarded alike the 'good neet' of the tramp who knew him not, and the startled cry of the belated villager who came suddenly upon him at a turn of the road. Never stopping even for a minute to gaze through the panes whence streamed the ruddy glow of the wood fires, and to envy the dwellers in the cosy cottages, he kept on his way, as though his mission was one of life and death, and, therefore, would not brook delay. On wild wintry nights, however, when the salt wind whirled the foam across the bay, and dashed the blinding snow into heaps upon the window-sills and against the cottage doors, and darkness and storm spread their sombre wings over the coast, then was it certain that the mysterious being would be seen, for observation had taught the villagers and the dwellers in solitary houses along the lonely roads between the fishing hamlets that in storm and darkness the weird voyager was most likely to appear. At such times, when the sound of footsteps, muffled by the snow, was heard between the soughs and moans of the wailing wind, the women cried, 'Heaven save us; 'tis th' White Dobbie,' as, convulsively clutching their little ones closer to their broad bosoms, they crept nearer to the blazing log upon the hearth, and gazed furtively and nervously at the little diamond-paned window, past which the restless wanderer was making his way, his companion running along a little way in advance, for not of the mysterious man alone were the honest people afraid. In front of him there invariably ran a ghastly-looking, scraggy white hare,{21} with bloodshot eyes. No sooner however did anyone look at this spectral animal than it fled to the wanderer, and jumping into his capacious pocket, was lost to sight. Verily of an unearthly stock was this white hare, for upon its approach and long before it neared a village, the chained dogs, by some strange instinct conscious of its coming, trembled in terror, and frantically endeavoured to snap their bonds; unfastened ones fled no man knew whither; and if one happened to be trotting alongside its belated master as he trudged homeward and chanced to meet the ghastly Dobbie with its blood-red eyes, with a scream of pain almost human in its keen intensity, away home scampered the terrified animal, madly dashing over hedge and ditch as though bewitched and fiend-chased. For many years the lonely wanderer had traversed the roads, and for many years had the hare trotted in front of him; lads who were cradled upon their mother's knee when first they heard the awe-inspiring footfalls had grown up into hearty wide-chested men, and men who were ruddy fishers when the pilgrim first startled the dwellers in Furness had long passed away into the silent land; but none of them ever had known the wayfarer to utter a syllable. At length, however, the time came when the solemn silence was to be broken. One night when the breeze, tired of whispering its weird messages to the bare branches, and chasing the withered leaves along the lanes, had begun to moan a hushed prelude to the music of a storm, through the mist that had crept over the bay, and which obscured even the white-crested wavelets at the foot of the hill on which stood the sacred old church, there came at measured intervals the melancholy monotone of the Bardsea passing bell{9} for the dead. Dismally upon the ears of the dwellers in the straggling hamlet fell the announcement of the presence of death, and even the woman who had for years been bell-ringer and sexton, felt a thrill of fear as she stood in the tower but dimly lighted by a candle in a horn lantern, and high above her head the message of warning rang out; for, although accustomed to the task, it was not often that her services were required at night. Now and again she gazed slowly round the chamber, upon the mouldering walls of which fantastic shadows danced, and she muttered broken fragments of prayers in a loud and terrified voice, for as the door had been closed in order that the feeble light in the lantern might not be extinguished by the gusts of wind, isolated as she was from the little world upon the hillside, she felt in an unwonted manner the utter loneliness of the place and its dread surroundings. Suddenly she uttered a shrill shriek, for she heard a hissing whisper at her ear and felt an icy breath upon her cheek. She dared not turn round, for she saw that the door opening upon the churchyard remained closed as before, and that occasionally passing within the range of her fixed stare, a white hare with blood-red eyes gambolled round the belfry. 'T' Dobbie!' sighed she, as the dim light began to flicker and the hare suddenly vanished. As she stood almost paralysed, again came the terrible whisper, and this time she heard the question-- 'Who for this time?' The horrified woman was unable to answer, and yet powerless to resist the strange fascination which forced her to follow the direction of the sound; and when the question was put a second time, in an agony of fear she gazed into the wild eyes of the being at her elbow, her parched tongue cleaving to her open mouth. From the pocket of the dread visitor the ghastly animal gazed at the ringer, who mechanically jerked the bell-rope, and the poor woman was fast losing her senses, when suddenly the door was burst open, and a couple of villagers, who had been alarmed by the irregular ringing, entered the tower. They at once started back as they saw the strange group--the wanderer with sad, inquiring look, and pallid face, the phantom hare with its firelit eyes, and the old ringer standing as though in a trance. No sooner, however, did one of the intruders gaze at the animal than it slipped out of sight down into the pocket of its companion and keeper, and the wanderer himself hastily glided between the astonished men, and out into the darkness of the graveyard. On many other gloomy nights afterwards the ringer was accosted in the same manner, but although the unnatural being and the spectral hare continued for some winters to pass from village to village and from graveyard to graveyard, a thick cloud of mystery always hung over and about them, and no one ever knew what terrible sin the never-resting man had been doomed to expiate by so lonely and lasting a pilgrimage. Whence he came and whither he went remained unknown; but long as he continued to patrol the coast the hollow sound of his hasty footsteps never lost its terror to the cottagers; and even after years had passed over without the usual visits, allusions to the weird pilgrim and his dread companion failed not to cause a shudder, for it was believed that the hare was the spirit of a basely-murdered friend, and that the restless voyager was the miserable assassin doomed to a wearisome, lifelong wandering.{22} THE LITTLE MAN'S GIFT. Many are the wells in Lancashire that once were supposed to be the homes of good or evil spirits--of demons or of beneficent fairies--and, despite the injunctions of the Church against the customs of praying at and waking wells, down to a comparatively recent period they were resorted to by pilgrims of all grades who were in search of health. One such spring near Blackpool, known as the Fairies' Well, had its daily crowds of the ailing and the sorrowful, for its water was credited with virtues as wonderful as they were manifold, and from far and near people brought vessels to be filled with the miraculous fluid. One day at noon, a poor woman who had journeyed many a weary mile in order to obtain a supply of the water with which to bathe the eyes of her child, whose sight was fast failing, and upon whom all the usual remedies had been tried without success, on rising from her knees at the well side, was surprised to find standing near her a handsome little man clad in green, who certainly was not in sight when she bent to fill her bottle. As she stood gazing at the dainty object, the visitor, without having previously asked her any questions, handed to her a beautiful box filled with ointment, and directed her to apply the salve to the eyes of her child, whose sight it would restore. Surprised beyond measure at the little man's knowledge of her family affairs, the woman mechanically accepted the gift, but when, after carefully placing the box in her pocket, she turned to thank the giver, he was no longer to be seen; and satisfied that she had had an interview with one of the beings after whom the well was named, she started on her journey to her distant home. The strangeness of the present, given as she trusted it was by a fairy who was conversant with the painful circumstances under which she had made her pilgrimage, caused her to hope that the ointment would prove efficacious in removing the disorder under which her child was labouring; but this vague feeling, based as it was upon the mysterious nature of the gift, was accompanied by a perfectly natural fear that, after all, the giver might have been one of those mischievous beings whose delight it was to wreak harm and wrong upon humanity. When she reached home and told the strange story to her wondering husband, the nervous pair decided that the ointment should not be used unless a further mark of fairy interest in the child's welfare were vouchsafed to them; but when a few days had passed, and the child continued to grow worse, the anxious mother, in the absence of her husband, determined to test the salve upon one of her own eyes. She did so, and after a few minutes of dreadful suspense, finding that evil results did not follow, and saying to herself that surely the fairy could not be desirous of harming her child, she anointed the little girl's eyes. She refrained, however, from making her helpmate acquainted with what she had done, until in the course of a few days the child's eyesight was so nearly restored that it was no longer necessary or possible to keep the matter from him. Great were the rejoicings of the worthy pair over their little one's recovery; but there was not for a very long time any opportunity afforded them of expressing their gratitude. Some years had passed,--and, as the girl had never had a relapse, the strange gift was almost forgotten,--when one day, in the market-place at Preston, the woman, who was haggling about the price of a load of potatoes, saw before her the identical little fellow in green attire from whom, long before, she had received the box of wonder-working ointment. Although he was busily engaged in a pursuit in which, perhaps, few gentlemen would care to be interrupted, that of stealing corn from an open sack, the thoughtless woman, regardless of etiquette, and yielding to the sudden impulse which prompted her to thank him, stepped forward, and, grasping the fairy's hand, gave utterance to her gratitude. To her surprise, however, the little fellow seemed very angry with her, and, instead of acknowledging her thanks, hastily asked if she could see him with both eyes, and if she had used the ointment intended for her child. The frightened woman at once said that she saw him with only one eye, and was entering into a long account of the circumstances under which, with maternal instinct, she had tested the value of the gift, when, without more ado, the irritated fairy struck her a violent blow and vanished, and from that time forward the poor woman, instead of being able to see better than her neighbours, was blind of one eye. The daughter, however, often saw the fairies, but, profiting by her mother's painful experience, she was wise enough to refrain from speaking to them either when they gathered by moonlight beneath the trees or in broad daylight broke the Eighth Commandment, utterly unconscious that they were observed by a mortal to whom had been given the wondrous gift of fairy vision.{23} SATAN'S SUPPER.{24} I. Ye Evil One The 'Old Lad' sat upon his throne, giveth unto Beneath a blasted oak, them a stayve. And fiddled to the mandrake's groan, The marsh-frog's lonely croak; II. Ye corpses Whilst winds they hissed, and shrieked, and moaned dashe their About the branches bare, wigges. And all around the corpses groaned, And shook their mould'ring hair; III. Ye hagges As witches gathered one by one, crowde to ye And knelt at Satan's feet, _levee_. With faces some all worn and wan, And some with features sweet, IV. Ye power The earth did ope and imps upsprang of Of every shape and shade, Musicke. Who 'gan to dance as th' welkin rang With tunes the 'Old Lad' played; V. Ye poetrie At which the witches clapped their hands, of And laughed and screamed in glee; motion. Or jumped about in whirling bands, And hopped in revelry, VI. Ye delicacies Till Satan ceased, when all did rest, of ye And swarmed unto the meat: season, The flesh of infants from the breast, The toes from dead men's feet, VII. Ye ditto, With sand for salt, and brimstone cates, With blood for old wine red; On glittering dish and golden plates The dainty food was spread. VIII. Ye From heavy cups, with jewels rough, coolinge The witches quenched their thirst; drinkes. Yet not before the ruddie stuff Had been by Satan cursed. IX. Ye barde But one lank fiend of skin and bone, telleth of With hungry-looking eyne, an outcaste Gazed at the food with dreary moans, impe. And many a mournful whine; X. Of hys For Satan would not let him feed unparalleled Upon the toothsome cheer, wickednesse; (He had not done all day a deed To cause a human tear); XI. Of hys And so he hopped from side to side, gamboles To beg a bit of 'toke,' and praieres, And, vagrant-like, his plea denied, He prayed that they might choke XII. And of Themselves with morsels rich and fat hys Or die upon the floor, revylyngs of Like paupers (grieving much thereat goode menne. The guardians of the poor). XIII. Ye earlie byrde A cock then flapped his wings and crew, prepareth for ye Announcing coming light; 'Diet of When, seizing on a jar of stew, Wormes.' The snubbed imp took his flight. XIV. _Les Adieux._ And at the solemn sound of doom The witches flew away, While Satan slunk off through the gloom, Afraid of break of day; XV. Ye fruitlesse And in the darkness drear he cried-- remorse of His voice a trifle gruff, Beelzebubbe. 'Those omelettes were nicely fried; I have not had enough!' XVI. Ye resulte A blight fell on the trembling flowers of ye meetynge And on the quivering trees-- uponne ye No buds there drink the passing showers, Or leaves wave in the breeze; XVII. Agryculture For Satan's presence withered all of ye The daisies and the grass, dystricte. And all things over which like pall His sulphurous tail did pass. THE EARTHENWARE GOOSE. Once upon a time, which somewhat vague reference in this instance means long before it was considered a compliment by the fair dames of Lancashire to be termed witches, there lived in the Fylde country village of Singleton a toothless, hooknosed old woman, whose ill fortune it was to be credited with the friendship of the Evil One. Perhaps had the ancient dame been somewhat better looking she might have borne a better character. In those distant days to be poor was considered decidedly discreditable, but to be ugly also was to add insult to injury. The old woman knew only too well that she was poor and that she was plain, for the urchins and hobbledehoys of the locality lost no opportunity of reminding her of the facts, whenever, on frugal mind intent, she emerged from her rude cottage to expend a few pence upon articles of food. Ugliness and poverty, however, Mag Shelton persisted in considering misfortunes and not crimes, and when anybody to whom she was an eyesore, with gallantry peculiar to the time and place let us hope, wished that she would die and rid the village of her objectionable presence, the old woman took no notice of the polite expression. To die by particular desire was not in Mag's line. What harm could a toothless old woman do, that the world, by which term the half-dazed creature meant the village in which she had spent her life, should evince so much anxiety to be rid of her?--argued Mag. True, if toothless, she had her tongue; but without a visiting circle, and with no benefactors to belie, that valuable weapon in the service of spite might just as well have been in the mouth of an uneducated heathen. Harmless, however, as the old dame thought herself, the villagers held a different opinion, and the children, afraid of disturbing the witch, invariably removed their wooden-soled clogs before they ran past the hut in which Mag lived,{25} while the older folk, if they did not literally take the coverings from their feet as they passed the lonely dwelling, crept by on tiptoe, and glanced furtively at the unsuspecting inhabitant of the cottage, who, by the aid of the fitful firelight, might be seen dozing near the dying embers, and now and again stroking a suspiciously bright-eyed cat, nestled snugly upon her knee. The old woman's solitary way of life favoured the growth of superstitions regarding her, for the Singletonians were not without their share of that comforting vanity which impresses the provincial mind with a sense of the high importance of its society, parish, and creed; and they could not imagine anyone preferring to keep away from them and to sit alone, without at once believing, as a necessary consequence, that the unappreciative ones must have dealings with Satan. It soon was found convenient to attribute anything and everything of an unpleasant nature to the denizen of the lonely cottage, 'th' Owd Witch,' as she was termed. Was a cow or a child ailing? Mag had done it! Had the housewife omitted to mark with the sign of the cross the baking of dough left in the mug on the hearth, and the bread had turned out 'heavy,' Mag Shelton had taken advantage of the overworked woman's negligence! Was there but a poor field of wheat? 'Twas the fault of old Mag, swore the farmer. In short, whatever went wrong throughout the entire country-side was judged to be clearly traceable to the spite and malevolence of the toothless old woman and her suspicious-looking cat. This state of things might, however, have continued without any interruption, until Nature had interposed and released Mag from her attendance upon such a world, had it not begun to be noticed that almost every farmer in the neighbourhood was complaining of the mysterious disappearance of milk, not only from the dairies, but also from the udders of the cows grazing in the pastures. A bucolic genius immediately proclaimed that in this case, too, the culprit must be Mag, for had not she her familiars to feed, and what could be more agreeable to the palate of a parched fiend or perspiring imp, than a beaker of milk fresh from the cow and redolent of meadow-flowers? With such a gaping family to satisfy, what regard could the old lady retain for the Eighth Commandment? This logic was deemed unanswerable, and a number of the farmers determined to conceal themselves one night about the witch's cottage, in the hope of something confirmatory turning up. It was late when they took their places, and they barely had settled themselves comfortably behind the hedgerow before a noise was heard, and the old woman emerged from the house,--the cat, and, of all things else in the world, a stately goose solemnly paddling behind her. The men in ambush remained silent until Mag and her attendants had passed out of sight and hearing, when one of them said, 'Keep still, chaps, till hoo comes back. Hoo's gone a milkin', I daat.' The watchers therefore kept perfectly quiet, and in a little while their patience was rewarded; for the old woman reappeared, walking slowly and unattended by her former companions. As she paused to unfasten the cottage door, the men pounced out of their hiding-place, seized her roughly, and at once tore off her cloak. To the surprise of the rude assailants, however, no sign of milkjugs could be observed; and, as they stood aghast, Mag cried, in a shrill and angry voice, 'Will ye never learn to respect grey hair, ye knaves?' 'We'll respect tha' into th' pit yon, mi lady,' immediately responded one of the roughest of the men. 'What hes ta done with th' milk to-neet?' In vain were the old woman's protestations,--that, driven from the roads and lanes in the daytime by the children and the hobbledehoys who persecuted her, she had of late taken her exercise by night; the judicial mind was made up, and rude hands were outstretched to drag her to the horsepond, when, fortunately for Mag, the appearance of the goose, waddling in a hurried and agitated manner, created a timely diversion in her favour. 'I thowt it quare,' said one of the would-be executioners--'varra quare, that th' goose worn't somewheer abaat, for hoo an' it's as thick as Darby an' Jooan.' As though conscious that all was not well with its mistress, the ungainly and excited bird, stretching its neck towards the bystanders, and hissing loudly, placed itself by the old woman's side. 'We want no hissin' heear,' said the leader of the band, as he lifted a heavy stick and struck the sibilant fowl a sharp rap on its head. No sooner had the sound of the blow fallen upon the ears of the assembled rustics than the goose vanished, not a solitary feather being left behind, and in its place there stood a large broken pitcher, from which milk, warm from the cow, was streaming. Here was proof to satisfy even the most credulous, and, as a consequence, in a moment the old woman was floundering in the pond, from which she barely escaped with her life. A few days afterwards, however, upon the interposition of the Vicar, she was permitted to leave the inhospitable village, and away she tramped in search of 'fresh woods and pastures new,' her cat and the revivified goose bearing her company.{26} She had left the inhospitable place, when the landlord of the Blue Pig discovered that the jug in which the witch-watchers had conveyed their 'allowance' to the place of ambush had not been returned. It was not again seen in its entirety, and the sarcastic host often vowed that it was here and there in the village in the shape of cherished fragments of the broken one into which the watchers declared that they had seen Mag's goose transformed. THE PHANTOM OF THE FELL. On a beautiful night late in summer a solitary man, who was returning from some wedding festivities, was rapidly crossing Fair Snape. The moon was at the full, and threw her glamour upon the lovely fell, as a breeze sighed among the tall ferns which waved gently to and fro under the sweet invisible influence, and the only sounds which fell upon the wayfarer's ear were the almost inaudible rustling of the bracken, and the occasional faint bark of a distant watch-dog. Giles Roper, however, was not thinking of the beauty of the night, or of the scenery, but, naturally enough, was congratulating himself upon being ever so much nearer to the stocking of that farm without which he could not hope for the hand of the miller's rosy daughter. Thoughts of a chubby, good-hearted little woman like Liza were calculated to drive out all other and less pleasant ones; but Giles was rapidly approaching a part of the hillside said to be haunted. Many tales had he heard by the winter's fire of the doings of the nameless appearance, the narrators speaking in hushed voices, and the hearers instinctively drawing closer together on the old settle; and these narratives crowded into his recollection as he left the cheerful moonlight and stepped into the shade of the little clough. Before he had got very far down he was prepared to see or hear anything; but, making allowance for the fear which somehow or other had taken possession of him, he knew that there was something more than fancy in a melancholy wail which broke upon his ears as he reached a bend in the ravine. There was nothing however in the sad note of lamentation calculated to terrify, save the consciousness that such sweet music could not be that of a mortal. Instinctively Giles looked in the direction whence the sound had come, and in the dim light he saw the figure of a woman with a pallid face of singular and unearthly beauty, her hair falling behind her like a sheet of gold, and her eyes emitting a strange lustre, which, however, was not sufficiently intense to conceal their beautiful azure hue. The bewildered spectator gazed in rapt worship, for though his limbs still trembled he no longer felt any fear, but rather a wild delirious longing to speak to, and to be addressed by, the beautiful being before him. He was sufficiently near to the appearance to be able to distinguish the features clearly, and when he saw a movement of the lips his heart throbbed violently under the expectation that he was about to receive a mysterious commission. He was, however, doomed to be disappointed, for the only sound emitted by the phantom was another low melodious cry, even more pathetic and mournful than that by which his attention had first been attracted to the lovely object. At the same time Giles saw that the figure was more distant than before, and that it was slowly gliding away, but beckoning to him, as though anxious that he should follow. The young man, spell-bound and fascinated by the enchanting eyes, which were beautiful enough to turn the head of one wiser than the raw country lad upon whom they were fixed, followed eagerly, but at the end of the clough, where the moonlight was brilliant, the figure vanished, leaving Giles, not with that feeling of relief said to follow the disappearance of a mysterious visitant, but, on the contrary, anxious to behold the vision again. He therefore turned and retraced his steps to the undulating summit of the fell, where the wind was sighing over the many-flowered heather, but there was nothing to be seen of the blue-eyed phantom, and only for the faint wash of the rustling ferns all would have been silent. Unwilling to leave the spot, although he was conscious that the task was a fruitless one, he continued to wander from one point to another, and it was not until daybreak that he finally gave up the search and descended the fell. Not caring to allude to his adventure and vain search upon the pike, Giles accounted for his lateness by asserting that he had remained until midnight at the distant farmhouse where the rejoicings had taken place, and had afterwards lost his way on the fells. With this excuse, however, his relatives were quite content, one sarcastic farm-servant drily remarking that after wedding festivities it was wonderful he had been able to find his way home at all. The extraordinary thoughtfulness which Giles evinced during the day was of too marked a nature to remain unobserved; but the old father attributed it merely to that natural dislike to settled labour which generally follows boisterous relaxation, and the mother thought it was due to a desire to be off again to see the chubby daughter of the miller. The old dame, therefore, was not surprised when her son announced his intention to leave home for a few hours, and she congratulated herself on her foresight and discernment, finishing her soliloquy by saying--'Well, hoo's a bonny wench as he's after; an', what's mooar, hoo's as good as hoo's pratty.' It was not, however, to the far-off dwelling of the miller that Giles was making his way. On the contrary, he was leisurely pacing in quite an opposite direction, his back turned to the old mill, and his eyes fixed upon the distant fells, which he did not care to reach until the gloaming had given way to moonlight. Not that he was afraid of being seen, the road he trod was too lonely for that; but he thought it was unlikely his watchings would be rewarded before the night had properly set in. If the beautiful object was a spirit--and what else could it have been?--it would come at its own time, and who ever heard of spirits appearing before midnight? The young fellow, therefore, waited until the moon rose and bathed the hills in her golden flood, when he at once began to climb the fell, making his way up the ravine in which on the previous night he had heard the mysterious voice. It was some time from midnight, and he stopped to rest, taking his seat upon a moss-covered stone. Here he waited patiently; but he had begun to fear that his visit was to be a fruitless one, when once more he heard the peculiar mournful wail, and rapidly turning round, he saw that he was not alone. Again the weird eyes, in all their unearthly beauty, were fixed upon him, and the long white arms were extended as though to beckon him to draw nigh. Instinctively Giles rose in obedience to the pleading attitude of the fair vision; but as he approached the phantom it grew less and less distinct, and at length vanished. As on the previous night, the young fellow wandered about in the hope of again seeing the lovely being, and once more he was obliged to return to the farm unsuccessful. Possessed by a maddening and irresistible desire to gaze upon the wondrous face which had bewitched him, the approach of nightfall invariably found Giles on his way to the fell, and it can easily be imagined to what unpleasantness in his family circle this course of conduct gave rise. On the one hand the parents gave the rein to all sorts of vague suspicions as to the cause of the night rambles; and the lad's disinclination to give any explanations did not help the old people to think more kindly of him. The father of the girl whom he had asked in marriage also did not fail to expostulate with him, in the idea that he had fallen into evil ways, and that his pilgrimages were to a distant town; while the girl herself, loving him as she did with all the vigour of her simple and earnest nature, and uninfluenced by any foolish feeling of false shame, came to his parents' house in the hope of obtaining a promise of better things. Her pleadings and her womanly threats, however, were unavailing, the whilom lover in a shamefaced manner refusing to make any promise of different behaviour. The interview was a painful one; for the girl, feeling certain that her father's interpretation was correct, used all her powers to induce Giles to abandon his evil courses; but at length, finding that her prayers were ineffectual, she bitterly reproached him with his want of honesty. 'It's no evil as I'm after, lass! Don't think that on mi,' said the young man, in an appealing tone; but the girl was not to be convinced by mere assertion. 'It's no good as teks tha away o'er t' pike neet after neet,' said she, with a sudden access of grief, 'it'ull come by tha in some way or another, Giles.' And in tears she turned away from him. 'Whisht, lass, whisht! If tha nobbut knew, O tha'd pity i'stid o' blaming mi.' The girl heeded not these words, but kept on her way. When she got to a turn in the road, however, she looked back mournfully, as though in doubt whether to return and cast herself upon his breast, and bid him trust in her; but pride overcame her, and she resisted the impulse. That night, as two of the miller's men were poaching, they were startled by the unexpected sound of a human voice, and hastily hiding themselves beneath the tall ferns, they saw Giles emerge from the clough and run towards the place where they were concealed. He seemed to be half mad with excitement, and as he ran he was crying aloud some words they could not catch. When he drew nearer, however, they were able to hear more distinctly, and to their surprise they found that he was appealing to an invisible being to appear to him. For some time they remained in their place of concealment, Giles hovering about the spot; but when the young fellow ran to a distance, they emerged from their hiding-place and rapidly made their way to the mill. For obvious reasons, however, they agreed to keep silence as to what they had seen and heard. The day after this episode Giles was in a fever and delirious, raving continually about the bonny face and 'breet een' of the being he had seen in the ravine. His afflicted parents found in the wild utterances sad confirmation of their worst fears, and, half broken-hearted, they hovered sorrowfully about his bed. For weeks he battled with the disorder, and at nightfall frequently endeavoured to leave the house, and vainly struggled with the friends who prevented him, to whom he frantically cried that she of the blue eyes was calling him. A cloud fell over the hitherto happy household. Night and day the old people watched over their sick lad, each of them feeling that the task would have been a comparatively easy one had not the patient's delirious ravings revealed to them so terrible a background to the round of their primitive and innocent daily life. Not that they loved their child any less because of the revelations he had unconsciously made to them, but they brooded and fretted over his supposed wickedness, and bowed their heads in grief and shame as they unwillingly heard his impassioned cries. By-and-by the story of these ravings got noised about, and the miller's daughter, who hitherto had been suffering bravely, broke down altogether when she knew that she was an object of pity to the gossips. It fortunately happened, however, that the miller's men who had seen Giles at the pike got into conversation with their master about the matter, and it struck one of them that the woman about whom Giles was supposed to be raving, and of whom tales of all sorts were being circulated, was a feeorin of some kind that the young fellow had seen on the lonely fell. No sooner was this idea arrived at than off they started to see the distressed parents, the miller's daughter hastening with them. They found no difficulty in gaining credence for their narrative, and with a burst of thankfulness the old people felt that the gulf which had yawned between them and their eldest born was for ever closed; while, as for the girl, her transports of joy were almost painful in their intensity. So great a weight was lifted from all hearts that the illness of the patient was for the time almost forgotten. Giles, however, still remained in a very critical condition, but he soon had an additional nurse, who, despite the watchings and the toil of which she relieved the old people, was rapidly becoming more and more like the ruddy-faced damsel to whom the young fellow had plighted his troth, for she could listen to and disregard the ravings of her lover and look forward to the time when happiness should again smile upon them. A few weeks passed. The violence of the disorder abated, and the patient recovered so far as to be able to bear removal to a large chair by the kitchen fire. As he sat quietly dreaming the short autumn days away, without any allusions to the beauty about whom he had so constantly raved during his delirium, the old people and the miller's daughter began to congratulate themselves that the dream-madness had passed away with the worst phase of the illness. The girl, however, although she did not utter any complaint, suffered deeply from the coolness with which Giles treated her. Not that he was ungrateful, for, on the contrary, it was impossible to do anything for him, however slight the service might be, without a thankful acknowledgment; but there was a visible constraint in his manner which could not escape the keen sight of love. Fearing to distress him by any remonstrances, the patient girl refrained from referring to the past or showing that she was observant of any change in his behaviour towards her, but she brooded over her grief when she was alone. The young fellow knew that the poor girl was suffering, but for the life of him he could not assume that which he did not feel. Much as he had loved her before the night of his adventure on the pike, from the moment when he had first seen the face of the mysterious being his affection for her had faded away, consumed by the intense longing which filled his soul night and day whenever he thought of the eyes illumined by a fire that was not human, and of the features and hair so exquisitely beautiful in the faint moonlight. Calm and quiet as he looked, seated propped with cushions in the old chair by the fire, he was inwardly fretting against the weakness that kept him from the fells, and his longing soul came into his eyes as he gazed through the little diamond-paned window, and saw the pike, in all the beauty of many-tinted autumn, kissed by the setting sun as the blushing day sank into the swarthy arms of night. Slowly winter came, bringing snow and storm, and as though influenced by a feeling that even Nature had interposed her barriers between him and the lovely being, one afternoon, as the mists crept slowly over the white landscape, and hid in their shimmering folds the distant fells where he had first seen the sweet face so seldom absent from his feverish dreams, he could not resist the desire which seized him to visit once more the haunted ravine. The various members of the little household were away from the house engaged in their labours about the farm, and taking advantage of this, Giles fled from the dwelling, and made his way through the dim light to the hills. It was not long, however, before his absence was discovered, but some time elapsed before the men-folk could be gathered, and the shades of night had fallen before the anxious pursuers reached the foot of the pike. The thick mist had enveloped everything, and as the lanterns, choked as they were by the damp, threw but a fitful light, it was with the utmost difficulty that the men found the footmarks of the wanderer in the snow up the fell side. The searchers were led by the father of Giles, who spoke not, but glanced at the track as though in dread of discovering that which he had come to find. Suddenly the old man gave a startled cry, for he had followed the marks to the edge of a little cliff, over which he had almost fallen in his eagerness. It was forthwith determined to follow the ravine to its commencement, and although nothing was said by any of the party, each man felt certain that the missing young fellow would be found at the bottom. It did not take long to reach the entrance, and with careful steps the old man led the way over the boulders. He had not gone far before the light from his lantern fell upon the upturned face of his son, whose body lay across the course of a little frozen stream. The features were set in the sleep of death, for Giles had fallen from the level above, the creeping mists having obscured the gorge where he first saw the lovely phantom, in search of which he had met an untimely end. ALLHALLOW'S NIGHT. To many a beautiful landscape the majestic Pendle adds a nameless charm, and the traveller who gazes upon it from any of the points whence a view of the whalelike mass is to be obtained, would hardly dream that the moss and fern-covered hill, smiling through the dim haze, once was the headquarters of witchcraft and devilry. Readers of the quaint and sad trials of the witchmania period, and of Harrison Ainsworth's celebrated novel based thereon, will, however, remember what dread scenes were said to have transpired in the dim light of its cloughs and upon its wild sides, when Chattox, Mouldheels, and the other poor wretches whose 'devilish practices and hellish means,' as they were termed in the old indictments, made the neighbourhood of the mountain so unsafe a locality. In a lonely little house some distance from the foot of Pendle, there dwelt a farmer and his family, together with a labourer whom he employed. Entirely illiterate, and living in a wild and weird district, with but few houses nearer than a mile away, the household believed firmly in all the dreadful boggart, witch, and feeorin stories current in the district. For a long time, however, the farmer had not any personal experience of the power of either witch or boggart; but at length his turn came. After a tempestuous night, when the windows and doors rattled in their frames, and the wind, dashing the big rain drops against the little diamond-shaped panes, moaned and shrieked round the lonely dwelling, three of the beasts were found dead in the shippon. A few days afterwards two of the children sickened, and when 'th' edge o' dark' was creeping up the hill-side one of them died. As though this trouble was not enough, the crops were blighted. With reluctance the farmer saw in these things proof that he had in some unknown manner incurred the displeasure of the invisible powers, and that the horse-shoe over his door, the branches of ash over the entrance to the shippon, and the hag stones hung up at the head of his own and of the children's bed, had lost their power of protection. The family council, at which the unprotected condition of the house was discussed, was of the saddest kind, for even the rough labourer missed the prattle of the little one whose untimely end had cast a shadow over the dwelling, and he thoroughly sympathised with his master in his losses; while, as for the farmer and his wife, dread of what the future might have in store for them mingled with their sorrow, and added to the heaviness of their hearts. 'Isaac, yo' may as weel tek' th' wiggin{27} an' th' horse shoes deawn, for onny use they seem to be on. We'en nowt to keep th' feorin' off fra' us, an' I deawt we'es come off bud badly till November,' said the farmer, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe. 'An' why nobbut till November, Ralph,' asked the wife in a terrified voice, as she gazed anxiously towards the little window through which Pendle could be dimly seen looming against the evening sky. 'Because on O'Hallow neet, mi lass, I meean to leet th' witches{28} on Pendle.' 'Heaven save us!' cried the woman. 'Tha'll be lost as sewer as th' whorld.' There was a short silence, and then old Isaac spoke-- 'If th' mestur goes, Isik guz too. Wis be company, at onny rate.' The farmer gratefully accepted this offer of fellowship, and the appeals of his wife, who implored him to abandon the notion, were of no avail. Others had lighted the witches, and thereby secured a twelvemonth's immunity from harm, and why should not he go and do likewise? Ruin was staring him in the face if things did not improve, thought he, and his determination to 'leet' his unseen enemies grew stronger and stronger. At length the last day of October came, bringing with it huge clouds and a misty rain, which quite obscured the weird hill; but at nightfall the wind rose, the rain ceased, the stars began to appear, and the huge outline of Pendle became visible. When the day's work was over, the farmer and Isaac sat in the kitchen, waiting for the hour at which they were to start for the haunted mountain, and the dread and lonesome building where the witches from all parts gathered in mysterious and infernal conclave. Neither of the men looked forward to the excursion with pleasurable feelings, for, as the emotion caused by the losses had somewhat subsided, terror of the beings who were supposed to assemble in the Malkin Tower resumed its sway; but soon after the old clock had chimed ten they rose from the settle and began their preparations for the lighting. Each man grasped a branch of mountain ash, to which several sprigs of bay were tied as a double protection against thunder and lightning, and any stray fiends that might happen to be lurking about, and each carried in the other hand an unlighted candle. As they passed from the house the tearful goodwife cried a blessing upon them, and a massive old bulldog crept from a corner of the yard and took its place at their heels. The three stepped along bravely, and before long they had crossed the brook and reached the foot of Pendle. Rapidly making their way to a well-known ravine they paused to light the candles. This operation, performed by means of a flint and steel and a box of tinder, occupied some time; and while they were so engaged clouds obscured the moon, a few heavy drops of rain fell, the wind ceased to whisper, and an ominous silence reigned, and the dog, as though terrified, crept closer to its master and uttered a low whine. 'We's hev' a storm, I daat, Isik,' said the farmer. 'Ise think mysen weel off an' win nowt else bud a storm,' drily replied the old man, as, lighted candle in hand, he began to climb the hill-side, his master and the dog following closely behind. When they had almost reached the top of the ravine a flash of lightning suddenly pierced the darkness, and a peal of thunder seemed to shake the earth beneath them; while a weird and unearthly shriek of laughter rang in their ears as a black figure flew slowly past them, almost brushing against their faces in its flight. The dog immediately turned and fled, howling terribly as it ran down the hill-side; but the men went on, each one carefully shading his light with the hand in which the branch of ash was grasped. The road gradually became rougher, and occasionally Isaac stumbled over a stone, and almost fell, the farmer frantically shouting to him to be careful of his candle, but without any serious mishap the pair managed to get within sight of the tower. Evidently some infernal revelry was going on, for light streamed from the window-openings, and above the crash of the thunder came shrieks of discordant laughter. Every now and again a dark figure floated over their heads and whirled in at one of the windows, and the noise became louder, by the addition of another shrill voice. 'It mon be drawin' nee midneet,' said the farmer. 'If we con but pass th' hour wis be reet for a twelvemonth. Let's mek for whoam neaw.' Both men readily turned their backs to the building, but no sooner had they done so than a Satanic face, with gleaming eyes, was visible for a moment, and instantaneously both lights were extinguished. 'God bless us!' immediately cried both men. Almost before the words had left their lips the tower was plunged in total darkness, the shrieks of unholy laughter were suddenly stilled, and sounds were heard as of the rapid flight of the hags and their familiars, for the ejaculations had broken up the gathering. Terrified beyond measure at the extinction of their lights, but still clinging tenaciously to the branches, which apparently had proved so ineffectual to preserve them against the power of the witches, the men hurried away. They had not proceeded far in the direction in which they supposed the farm lay, when, with a cry, the farmer, who was a little in advance of his aged companion, fell and vanished. He had slipped down the cleft, on the brink of which Isaac stood, tremblingly endeavouring to pierce the darkness below. Not a sound came up to tell the old man that his master had escaped with his life; and, as no response came to his shouts, at length he turned away, feeling sure that he was masterless, and hoping to be able to reach the farm, and obtain assistance. After wandering about for some time, however, half-blinded by the lightning, and terrified beyond measure at the result of their mutual boldness, Isaac crept under a large stone, to wait for the dawn. Influenced by the cold and by fatigue, the old man fell asleep; but no sooner had the first faint rays of coming day kissed the hill-summit, than he was aroused by the old bulldog licking his face, and as he gazed around in sleepy astonishment some men appeared. The farmer's wife, terrified by the arrival of the howling dog, and the non-arrival of the 'leeters,' had made her way to a distant farm-house and alarmed the inmates, and a party of sturdy fellows had started off to find the missing men. Isaac's story was soon told; and when the searchers reached the gorge the farmer was found nursing a broken leg. Great were the rejoicings of the goodwife when the cavalcade reached the farm, for, bad as matters were, she had expected even a worse ending; and afterwards, when unwonted prosperity had blessed the household, she used to say, drily, 'Yo' met ha' kept th' candles in to leet yo' whoam, for it mon ha' bin after midneet when _he_ blew 'em aat,' a joke which invariably caused the farmer and old Isaac to smile grimly. THE CHRISTMAS-EVE VIGIL. Many years have passed since the living of Walton-le-Dale was held by a gentleman of singularly-reserved and studious habits, who, from noon till night, pored over dusty black-letter folios. Although he was by no means forgetful of the few duties which pertained to his sacred office, and never failed to attend to the wants of those of his parishioners who were in trouble and had need of kind words of sympathy and advice, or even of assistance of a more substantial nature, the length of time he devoted to his mysterious-looking volumes, and a habit he had of talking to himself, as, late at night, with head bent down, he passed along the village street, and vanished into the darkness of a lonely lane, gave rise to cruel rumours that he was a professor of the black art; and it was even whispered that his night walks were pilgrimages to unholy scenes of Satanic revelry. These suspicions deepened almost into certainty when the old people who had charge of his house informed the gossips that the contents of a large package, since the arrival of which the women in the village had been unable to sleep for curiosity, were strange-looking bottles, of a weird shape, with awful signs and figures upon them; and that, during the evening, after the carrier had brought them, noises were heard in the clergyman's room, and the house was filled with sulphurous smoke. Passing from one gossip to another, the story did not fail to receive additions as usual, until when it reached the last house in the straggling village the narrator told how the student had raised the Evil One, who, after filling the house with brimstone, vanished in a ball of fire, not, however, without first having imprinted the mark of his claws upon the study table. Had the unconscious clergyman lived more in the everyday world around him, and less in that of black-letter books, he would not have failed to perceive the averted looks with which his parishioners acknowledged his greetings, or, what would have pained him even more deeply, the frightened manner in which the children either fled at his approach, if they were playing in the lanes, or crept close to their parents when he entered the dwellings of the cottagers. Ignorant alike of the absurd rumours, and unobservant of the change which had come over his flock, or at least acting as though unaware of them, the clergyman continued to perform the duties of his sacred office, and to fly from them to his beloved volumes and experiments, growing more and more reserved in his habits, and visibly paling under his close application. After matters had gone on in this way for some time, the villagers were surprised to see a friendship spring up and ripen between their pastor and an old resident in the village, of almost equally strange habits. There was, however, in reality but little to wonder at in this, for the similarity between the pursuits and tastes of the two students was sufficiently great to bridge over the gulf of widely-different social positions. Abraham, or 'Owd Abrum,' as he was generally named, was a herb doctor, whose knowledge of out-of-the-way plants which possessed mysterious medicinal virtues, and of still more wonderful charms and spells, was the theme of conversation by every farmhouse fireside for miles round. At that day, and in that locality, the possession of a few books sufficed to make a man a wonder to his neighbours; and Abraham had a little shelf full of volumes upon his favourite subjects of botany and astrology. The old man lived by himself in a little cottage, some distance along a lane leading from the village across the meadows; and, despite the absence of female supervision, the place always was as clean and bright as a new pin. Had he needed any assistance in his household duties, Abraham would not have asked in vain for it, for he was feared as well as respected. If he was able to charm away evil and sickness, could he not also bring sickness and evil? So reasoned the simple villagers; and those who were not, even unconsciously, influenced by the guileless everyday life of the old man, were impressed by the idea that he had the power to cast trouble upon them if they failed to maintain an outward show of reverence. However early the villagers might be astir, as they passed along the lanes on their way to their labour in the fields, they were certain to find 'Owd Abrum' searching by the hedgerows or in the plantations for herbs, to be gathered with the dew upon them; and at night the belated cottager, returning from a distant farm, was equally certain of finding Abraham gazing at the heavens, 'finding things aat abaat fowk,' as the superstitious country people said and believed. Addicted to such nocturnal studies, it was not likely that the old herb doctor and the pale student would remain unknown to each other. The acquaintance however, owing to the reserved habits of both, began in a somewhat singular manner. Returning from a long and late walk about midnight, the minister was still some distance from his abode, when he heard a clear voice say: 'Now is the time, if I can find any: Jupiter is angular, the moon's applied to him, and his aspect is good.' The night was somewhat cloudy--the stars being visible only at intervals--and it was not until the clergyman had advanced a little way that he was able to perceive the person who had spoken. He saw that it was the old herbalist, and immediately accosted him. An animated conversation followed, Abraham expatiating on the virtues of the plants he had been gathering under the dominion of their respective planets, and astonishing the pale student by the extent of his information. In his turn, the old man was delighted to find in the clergyman a fellow-enthusiast in the forbidden ways of science; and as the student was no less charmed to discover in the 'yarb doctor' a scholar who could sympathise with him and understand his yearnings after the invisible, late as was the hour, the pair adjourned to Abraham's cottage. The visitor did not emerge until the labourers were going to their toil, the time having been spent in conversation upon the powers exercised by the planets upon plants and men, the old man growing eloquent as to the wonderful virtue of the Bay Tree, which, he said, could resist all the evil Saturn could do to the human body, and in the neighbourhood of which neither wizard nor devil, thunder or lightning, could hurt man; of Moonwort, with the leaves of which locks might be opened, and the shoes be removed from horses' feet; of Celandine, with which, if a young swallow loseth an eye, the parent birds will renew it; of Hound's Tongue, a leaf of which laid under the foot will save the bearer from the attacks of dogs; of Bugloss, the leaf of which maketh man poison-proof; of Sweet Basil, from which (quoting Miraldus) venomous beasts spring--the man who smelleth it having a scorpion bred in his brain; and of a score of other herbs under the dominion of the Moon and Cancer, and of the cures wrought by them through antipathy to Saturn. From that time the pair became intimate friends, the clergyman yielding, with all the ardour of youth, to the attraction which drew him towards the learned old man; and Abraham gradually growing to love the pale-faced student, whose thirst after knowledge was as intense as his own. Seldom a day passed on which one of them might not have been observed on his way to the abode of the other; and often at night the pair walked together, their earnest voices disturbing the slumbering echoes, as at unholy hours they passed up the hill, and through the old churchyard, with its moss-covered stones and its rank vegetation. Upon one of these occasions they had talked about supernatural appearances; and as they were coming through the somewhat neglected God's Acre, the clergyman said he had read, in an old volume, that to anyone who dared, after the performance of certain ghastly ceremonies, wait in the church porch on Christmas-eve, the features of those who were to die during the following year would be revealed, and that he intended upon the night before the coming festival to try the spell. The old man at once expressed a wish to take part in the trial, and before the two parted it was agreed that both should go through the preliminary charms, and keep the vigil. In due time the winter came, with its sweet anodyne of snow, and as Christmas approached everything was got in readiness. Soon after sunset on Christmas-eve the old herb doctor wended his way to the dwelling of his friend, taking with him St. John's Wort, Mountain Ash, Bay leaves, and Holly. The enthusiasts passed the evening in conversation upon the mysterious qualities of graveyard plants; but shortly after the clock struck eleven they arose, and began to prepare for the vigil, by taking precautions against the inclemency of the weather, for the night was very cold, large flakes of snow falling silently and thickly upon the frozen ground. When both were ready the old man stepped to the door to see that the road was clear, for, in order to go through the form of incantation, a small fire was requisite; and as they were about to convey it in a can, they were anxious that the strange proceeding should not be noticed by the villagers. Late as it was, however, lights shone here and there in the windows, and even from the doorways, for, although it was near midnight, many of the cottage doors were wide open, it being believed that if, on Christmas-eve, the way was thus left clear, and a member of the family read the Gospel according to St. Luke, the saint himself would pass through the house. As the two men, after carefully closing the door behind them, stepped into the road, a distant singer trolled forth a seasonable old hymn. This was the only noise, however, the village street being deserted. They reached the churchyard without having been observed, and at once made their way round the sacred building, so as not to be exposed to the view of any chance reveller returning to his home. It was well that they did so, for they had hardly deposited the can of burning charcoal upon a tombstone ere sounds of footsteps, somewhat muffled by the snow, were heard, and several men passed through the wicket. They were, however, only the ringers, on their way to the belfry, and in a few minutes they had entered the building, and all was still again for a few moments, when, upon the ears of the somewhat nervous men there fell the voices of choristers singing under the window of a neighbouring house the old Lancashire carol-- 'As I sat anonder yon green tree, Yon green tree, yon green tree-- As I sat anonder yon green tree A Christmas day in the morning.'{29} The words could be heard distinctly, and almost unconsciously the two men stood to listen; but directly the voices ceased the student asked if they had not better begin, as the time was passing rapidly. 'Ay,' replied Abraham, 'we han it to do, an' we'd better ger it ower.' Without any more words they entered the porch, and at once made a circle around them with leaves of Vervain, Bay, and Holly. The old man gave to his companion a branch of Wiggintree,{27} and firmly held another little bough, as with his disengaged hand he scattered a powder upon the embers. A faint odour floated around them, as they chanted a singular Latin prayer; and no sooner was the last word uttered than a strain of sweet sad music, too inexpressibly soft and mournful to be of earth, was heard. Every moment it seemed to be dying away in a delicious cadence, but again and again was the weird melody taken up by the invisible singers, as the listeners sank to their knees spell-bound. An icy breath of wind hissed round the porch, however, and called the entranced men to their senses, and suddenly the student grasped the arm of his aged companion, and cried, in a terrified voice-- 'Abraham, the spell works. Behold!' The old man gazed in the direction pointed out, and, to his inexpressible horror, saw a procession wending its way towards the porch. It consisted of a stream of figures wrapped up in grave-clothes, gleaming white in the dim light. With solemn and noiseless steps the ghastly objects approached the circle in which stood the venturesome men, and, as they drew nearer, the faces of the first two could be seen distinctly, for the blazing powder cast a lurid glow upon them, and made them even more ghastly. Both spectators had almost unconsciously recognised the features of several of the villagers, when they were aroused from their lethargy of terror by the appearance of one face, which seemed to linger longer than its predecessors had done. Abraham at once saw that the likeness was that of the man by his side, and the clergyman sank to the ground in a swoon. For some time the old man was too much affected by the lingering face to think of restoring the unconscious man at his feet; but at length the clashing of the bells over his head, as they rang forth a Christmas greeting, called him to himself, and he bent over the prostrate form of his friend. The minister soon recovered, but as he was too weak to walk, the old man ran to the belfry to beg the ringers to come to his assistance. When these men came round to the porch the fire was still burning, the flickering flames of various colours casting dancing shadows upon the walls. 'Abraham,' said one of the ringers, 'there's bin some wizzard wark goin' on here, an' yo' sin what yo'n getten by it.' 'Han yo' bin awsin to raise th' devul, an' Kesmus-eve an' o'?' asked another, in a low and terrified voice. With a satirical smile, Abraham answered the last speaker: 'It dusn't need o' this mak' o' things to raise th' devul, lad. He's nare so far fra' thuse as wants him.' Bearing the clergyman in their arms, the men walked through the village, but they did not separate without having, in return for the confidence Abraham reposed in them by confiding to them the secret of the vigil, promised strict secrecy as to what they had witnessed. Abraham's companion soon recovered from the shock, but not before the story of the night-watch had gone the round of the village. Many were the appeals made to the old herbalist to reveal his strangely-acquired knowledge, but Abraham remained sternly obdurate, remarking to each of his questioners-- 'Yo'll know soon enough, mebbi.' The clergyman, however, was in a more awkward position, and his parishioners soon made him aware how unwise he had been in giving way to the desire to pry into futurity; for, when any of them were ill and he expressed a kindly wish for their recovery, it was by no means unusual for the sick person to reply-- 'Yo could tell me heaw it will end iv yo' loiked.' This oftentimes being followed by a petition from the assembled relatives-- 'Will yo tell us if he wir one o' th' processioners?' Ultimately Abraham's companion went away, in the hope of returning when the memory of the watch should have become less keen, but, before a few months had passed away, news came of his death, after a violent attack of fever caught during a visit to a wretched hovel in the fishing village where he was staying. By the next December, all the people whose features the old herbalist had recognised during the procession had been carried to the churchyard; but, although several men offered to accompany Abraham to the porch on the forthcoming Christmas-eve, he dared not again go through the spells and undergo the terrors of a church-porch vigil.{30} THE CRIER OF CLAIFE. Upon a wild winter night, some centuries ago, the old man who plied the ferry-boat on Windermere, and who lived in a lonely cottage on the Lancashire side of the Lake, was awakened from his sleep by an exceedingly shrill and terrible shriek, which seemed to come from the opposite shore. The wind was whistling and moaning round the house, and for a little while the ferryman and his family fancied that the cry by which they had been disturbed was nothing more than one of the mournful voices of the storm; but soon again came another shriek, even more awe-inspiring than the former one, and this was followed by smothered shouts and groans of a most unearthly nature. Against the wishes of his terrified relatives, who clung to him, and besought him to remain indoors, the old fellow bravely determined to cross the water, and heeding not the prayers of his wife and daughter, he unfastened his boat, and rowed away. The two women, clasped in each other's arms, trembling with fear, stood at the little door, and endeavoured to make out the form of their protector; but the darkness was too deep for them to see anything upon the lake. At intervals, however, the terrible cry rang out through the gloom, and shrieks and moans were heard loud above the mysterious noises of the night. In a state of dreadful suspense and terror the women stood for some time, but at length they saw the boat suddenly emerge from the darkness, and shoot into the little cove. To their great surprise, however, the ferryman, who could be seen sitting alone, made no effort to land, and make his way to the cottage; so, fearing that something dreadful had happened to him, and, impelled by love, they rushed to the side of the lake. They found the old man speechless, his face as white and blanched as the snow upon the Nab, and his whole body trembling under the influence of terror, and they immediately led him to the cottage, but though appealed to, to say what terrible object he had seen, he made no other response than an occasional subdued moan. For several days he remained in that state, deaf to their piteous entreaties, and staring at them with wild-looking eyes; but at length the end came, and, during the gloaming of a beautiful day, he died, without having revealed to those around him what he had seen when, in answer to the midnight cry, he had rowed the ferry-boat across the storm-ruffled lake. After the funeral had taken place the women left the house, its associations being too painful to permit of their stay, and went to live at Hawkshead, whence two sturdy men, with their respective families, removed to the ferry. The day following that of the arrival of the new-comers was rough and wild, and, soon after darkness had hidden everything in its sable folds, across the lake came the fearful cry, followed by a faint shout for a boat, and screams and moans. The men, hardy as they were, and often as they had laughed at the story told by the widow of the dead man, no sooner heard the first shriek ring through the cottage than they were smitten with terror. Profiting, however, by the experience of their predecessor, and influenced by fear, they did not make any attempt to cross the lake, and the cries continued until some time after midnight. Afterwards, whenever the day closed gloomily, and ushered in a stormy night, and the wind lashed the water of the lake into fury, the terrible noises were heard with startling distinctness, until at length the dwellers in the cottage became so accustomed to the noises as not to be disturbed by them, or, if disturbed, to fall asleep again after an ejaculation of 't' crier!' Pedlars and others who had to cross the lake, however, were not so hardened, and after a time the ferry-boat was almost disused, for the superstitious people did not dare to cross the haunted water, save in the broad daylight of summer. It therefore struck the two individuals who were most concerned in the maintenance of the ferry that if they intended to live they must do something to rid the place of its bad name, and of the unseen being who had driven away all their patrons. In their extremity they asked each other who should help them, if not the holy monks, who had come over the sea to the abbey in the Valley of Deadly Night Shade; and one of the ferrymen at once set out for Furness. No sooner had he set eyes upon the stately pile erected by the Savignian and his companions than his heart felt lighter, for he had a simple faith in the marvellous power of the white-robed men, whose voices were seldom if ever heard, save when lifted in worship during one of their seven daily services. Knocking at the massive door, he was received by a ruddy-looking servitor, who ushered him into the presence of the abbot. The ferryman soon told his story, and begged that a monk might return with him to lay the troubled spirit, and after hearing the particulars of the visitation, the abbot granted the request, making a proviso, however, that the abbey coffers should not be forgotten when the lake was freed from the fiend. No sooner had the visitor finished the meal set before him by the hospitable monks than, in company with one of the holy men, he set out homeward. As, by a rule of his order, the monk was not permitted to converse, the journey was not an enlivening one, and the ferryman was heartily glad when they reached his cottage. The first night passed without any alarm, the monk and his hosts spending the dreary hours in watching and waiting. The following day, however, was as stormy as the worst enemy of the ferry could have wished, and, when night fell, all the dwellers in the cottage, as well as the silent monk, gathered together again to wait for the cries, but some hours passed without any other sounds having been heard than those caused by the restless wind, as it swept over the lake and among the trees. The Cistercian was beginning to imagine himself the victim of an irreverent practical joke, and that the stories of the spectral crier which had reached the distant abbey long before the ferryman's visit were a pack of falsehoods, when about midnight, he suddenly jumped from the chair upon which he was dozing by the wood fire, hastily made the sign of the cross, and hurriedly commended himself to the protection of his patron saint, for sharp and clear came the dread cry, followed rapidly by a number of shrieks and groans and a smothered appeal for a boat. In an instant one of the men, with courage doubtless inspired by the presence of the holy man, shouldered the oars and opened the door, and the monk at once stepped into the open air and hurried to the lake, the men following at a respectful distance. The white-robed father was the first to get into the boat, and the ferrymen hoped that he intended to go alone, but he called upon them to propel the boat to the middle of the lake, and much as they disliked the task, as it was on their behalf that the monk was about to combat the evil spirit, they could not well refuse to accompany him. When they were about half-way across the lake the wind suddenly lulled, and once more they heard the awful scream, and this time it sounded as though the crier was quite close to them. The occupants of the boat were terribly frightened, and one of them, after suddenly shrieking 'he's here,' fainted, and lay still at the bottom of the boat, while the monk and the other man stared straight before them, as though petrified. There was a fourth person present, a grim and ghastly figure, with the trappings of this life still dangling about its withered and shrunken limbs, and a gaping wound in its pallid throat. For a few minutes there was a dead silence, but at last it was broken by the monk, who rapidly muttered a prayer for protection against evil spirits, and then took a bottle from a pocket of his robe, and sprinkled a few drops of holy water upon himself and the ferryman, who remained in the same statuesque attitude, and upon the unconscious occupant of the bottom of the boat. After this ceremony, he opened a little book, and, in a sonorous voice, intoned the form for the exorcism of a wandering soul, concluding with _Vade ad Gehennam!_ when to the infinite relief of the ferryman, and probably of the monk also, the ghastly figure forthwith vanished. The Cistercian asked to be immediately taken to the shore, and when he neared the house, the little book was again brought into requisition, and the spirit's visits, should it ever again put in an appearance, limited to an old and disused quarry, a distance from the cottage.{31} From that time to this, the wild, lonely place has indeed been desolate and deserted, the boldest people of the district not having sufficient courage to venture near it at nightfall, and the more timid ones shunning the locality even at noonday. These folks aver that even yet, despite the prayers and exorcisms of the white-robed Cistercian from Furness, whenever a storm descends upon the lake, the Crier escapes from his temporary prison house, and revisits the scene of his first and second appearance to men, and that on such nights, loud above the echoed rumble of the thunder, and the lonely sough of the wind, the benighted wayfarer still hears the wild shrieks and the muffled cry for a boat. THE DEMON OF THE OAK. Once a fortress and a mansion, but now, unfortunately, little more than a noble ruin, Hoghton Tower stands on one of the most commanding sites in Lancashire. From the fine old entrance-gate a beautiful expanse of highly-cultivated land slopes down and stretches away to the distant sea, glimmering like a strip of molten silver; and on either hand there are beautiful woods, in the old times 'so full of tymber that a man passing through could scarce have seen the sun shine in the middle of the day.' At the foot of these wooded heights a little river ripples through a wild ravine, and meanders through the rich meadows to the proud Ribble. From the building itself, however, the glory has departed. Over the noble gateway, with its embattled towers, and in one of the fast-decaying wainscots, the old family arms, with the motto, _Mal Gre le Tort_, still remain; but these things, and a few mouldering portraits, are all that are left there to tell of the stately women who, from the time of Elizabeth down to comparatively modern days, pensively watched the setting sun gild the waters of the far-off Irish Sea, and dreamed of lovers away in the wars--trifling things to be the only unwritten records of the noble men who buckled on their weapons, and climbed into the turrets to gaze over the road along which would come the expected besieging parties. Gone are the gallants and their ladies, the roystering Cavalier and the patient but none the less brave Puritan, for, as Isaac Ambrose has recorded, during the troublous times of the Restoration, the place, with its grand banqueting chamber, its fine old staircases, and quaint little windows, was 'a colledge for religion.' The old Tower resounds no more with the gay song of the one or the solemn hymn of the other, 'Men may come, and men may go,' and an old tradition outlives them all. To this once charming mansion there came, long ago, a young man, named Edgar Astley. His sable garments told that he mourned the loss of a relative or friend; and he had not been long at the Tower before it began to be whispered in the servants'-hall that 'the trappings and the suits of woe' were worn in memory of a girl who had been false to him, and who had died soon after her marriage to his rival. This story in itself was sufficient to throw a halo of romance around the young visitor; but when it was rumoured that domestics, who had been returning to the Tower late at night, had seen strange-coloured lights burning in Edgar's room, and that, even at daybreak, the early risers had seen the lights still unextinguished, and the shadow of the watcher pass across the curtains, an element of fear mingled with the feelings with which he was regarded. There was much in the visitor calculated to deepen the impressions by which the superstitious domestics were influenced, for, surrounded by an atmosphere of gloom, out of which he seemed to start when any of them addressed him, and appearing studiously to shun all the society which it was possible for him to avoid, he spent most of his time alone, seated beneath the spreading branches of the giant oak tree at the end of the garden, reading black-letter volumes, and plunged in meditation. Not that he was in any way rude to his hosts; on the contrary, he was almost chivalrous in his attention to the younger members of the family and to the ladies of the house, who, in their turn, regarded him with affectionate pity, and did their utmost to wean him from his lonely pursuits. Yet, although he would willingly accompany them through the woods, or to the distant town, the approach of the gloaming invariably found him in his usual place beneath the shadow of the gnarled old boughs, either poring over his favourite books, or, with eyes fixed upon vacancy, lost in a reverie. Time would, the kind people thought, bring balm to his wounds, and in the meanwhile they were glad to have their grief-stricken friend with them; and fully appreciating their sympathy, Edgar came and went about the place and grounds just as the whim of the moment took him. This absence of curiosity on the part of the members of the family was, however, amply compensated for by the open wonder with which many of the domestics regarded the young stranger; and before he had been many months in the house his nightly vigils were the theme of many a serious conversation in the kitchen, where, in front of a cosy fire, the gossips gathered to compare notes. Unable to repress their vulgar curiosity, or to gratify it in any more honourable or less dangerous manner, it was determined that one of the domestics should, at the hour of twelve, creep to the door of the visitor's chamber, and endeavour to discover what was the nature of those pursuits which rendered lights necessary during the whole of the night. The selection was soon made, and after a little demur the chosen one agreed to perform the unpleasant task. At midnight, therefore, the trembling ambassador made his way to the distant door, and after a little hesitation, natural enough under the circumstances, he stooped, and gazed through a hole in the dried oak whence a knot had fallen. Edgar Astley was seated at a little table, an old black-looking book with huge clasps open before him. With one hand he shaded his eyes from the light which fell upon his face from the flames of many colours dancing in a tall brazen cup. Suddenly, however, he turned from his book, and put a few pinches of a bright-looking powder to the burning matter in the stand. A searching and sickly odour immediately filled the room, and the quivering flames blazed upwards with increased life and vigour as the student turned once more to the ponderous tome, and, after hastily glancing down its pages, muttered: 'Strange that I cannot yet work the spell. All things named here have I sought for and found, even blood of bat, dead man's hand, venom of viper, root of gallows mandrake, and flesh of unbaptized and strangled babe. Am I, then, not to succeed until I try the charm of charms at the risk of life itself? And yet,' said he, unconscious of the presence of the terrified listener, 'what should I fear? So far have I gone uninjured, and now will I proceed to the triumphant or the bitter end. Once I would have given the future happiness of my soul to have called her by my name, and now what is this paltry life to me that I should hesitate to risk it in this quest, and perhaps win one glimpse of her face?' There was a moment of silence as the student bent his head over the book, but though no other person was visible, the listener, to his horror, quickly heard a sharp hissing voice ask, 'And wouldst thou not even yet give thy soul in exchange for speech with thy once betrothed?' The student hastily stood erect, and rapidly cried: 'Let me not be deceived! Whatever thou art, if thou canst bring her to me my soul shall be thine now and for ever!' There was a dead hush for a minute or two, during which the lout at the door heard the beating of his own heart, and then the invisible being again spoke: 'Be it so. Thou hast but one spell left untried. When that has been done thou shalt have thy reward. Beneath the oak at midnight she shall be brought to thee. Darest thou first behold me?' 'I have no fear,' calmly replied the student, but such was not the state of the petrified listener, for no sooner had the lights commenced to burn a weird blue than he sank fainting against the door. When he came to consciousness he was within the awful room, the student having dragged him in when he fell. 'What art thou, wherefore dost thou watch me at this hour, and what hast thou seen?' sternly demanded Edgar, addressing the terrified boor, and in few and trembling words the unhappy domestic briefly answered the queries; but the student did not permit him to leave the chamber, through the little window of which the dawn was streaming, before he had sworn that not a word as to anything he had seen or heard should pass his lips. The solemnity of the vow was deepened by the mysterious and awful threats with which it was accompanied, and the servant, therefore, loudly protested to his fellows that he had not seen or heard anything, but that, overcome by his patient watching, he had fallen asleep at the door; and many were the congratulations which followed when it was imagined what the consequences would have been had he been discovered in his strange resting-place. The day following that of the adventure passed over without anything remarkable beyond the absence of Edgar from his usual seat under the shade of the giant oak, but the night set in stormily, dark clouds scudded before the wind, which swept up from the distant sea, and moaned around the old tower, whirling the fallen leaves in fantastic dances about the garden and the green, and shaking in its rage even the iron boughs of the oak. The household had retired early, and at eleven o'clock only Edgar and another were awake. In the student's chamber the little lamp was burning and the book lay open as usual, and Edgar pored over the pages, but at times he glanced impatiently at the quaint clock. At length, with a sigh of relief, he said, sternly and sadly, 'The time draws nigh, and once more we shall meet!' He then gathered together a few articles from different corners of the room and stepped out upon the broad landing, passed down the noble old staircase, and out from the hall. Here he was met by a cold blast of wind, which shrieked round him, as though rejoicing over its prey; and as Edgar was battling with it, a man emerged from a recess and joined him. The night was quite dark, not a star or a rift in the sky visible, and the two men could hardly pick their way along the well-known path. They reached the oak tree, however, and Edgar placed the materials at its foot, and at once, with a short wand, drew a large circle around the domestic and himself. This done, he placed a little cauldron on the grass, and filled it with a red powder, which, although the wind was roaring through the branches above, immediately blazed up with a steady flame. The old mastiffs chained under the gateway began to howl dismally; but, regardless of the omen,{32} Edgar struck the ground three times with his hazel stick, and cried in a loud voice: 'Spirit of my love, I conjure thee obey my words, and verily and truly come to me this night!' Hardly had he spoken when a shadowy figure of a beautiful child appeared, as though floating around the magic ring. The servant sank upon his knees, but the student regarded it not, and it vanished, and the terrified listener again heard Edgar's voice as he uttered another conjuration. No sooner had he begun this than terrible claps of thunder were heard, lightning flashed round the tree, flocks of birds flew across the garden and dashed themselves against the window of the student's chamber, where a light still flickered; and, loud above the noises of the storm, cocks could be heard shrilly crowing, and owls uttering their mournful cries. In the midst of this hubbub the necromancer calmly went on with his incantation, concluding with the dread words: 'Spirit of my love, I conjure thee to fulfil my will without deceit or tarrying, and without power over my soul or body earthly or ghostly! If thou comest not, then let the shadow and the darkness of death be upon thee for ever and ever!' As the last word left his lips the storm abated its violence, and comparative silence followed. Suddenly the little flame in the cauldron flared up some yards in height, and sweet voices chanting melodiously could be heard. 'Art thou prepared to behold the dead?' asked an invisible being. 'I am!' undauntedly answered Edgar. An appearance as of a thick mist gathered opposite him, and slowly, in the midst of it, the outlines of a beautiful human face, with mournful eyes, in which earthly love still lingered, could be discerned. Clad in the garments of the grave, the betrothed of Edgar Astley appeared before him. For some time the young man gazed upon her as though entranced, but at length he slowly extended his arms as though to embrace the beautiful phantom. The domestic fell upon his face like one stricken by death, the spectre vanished, and again the pealing thunder broke forth. 'Thou art for ever mine,' cried a hissing voice; but as the words broke upon the ears of the two men, the door of the mansion was flung open, and the old baronet and a number of the servants, who had been disturbed by the violence of the storm, the howling of the dogs, and the shrill cries of the birds, rushed forth. 'Come not near me if ye would save yourselves,' cried the necromancer. 'We would save thee,' shouted the old man, still advancing. '_In nomine Patris_,' said he, solemnly, as he neared the magic circle; and no sooner had the words left his lips than sudden stillness fell upon the scene; the lightning no longer flashed round the oak; and, as the flame in the cauldron sank down, the moon broke through a cloud, and threw her soft light over the old garden. Edgar was leaning against the oak tree, his eyes fixed in the direction where the image of his betrothed had appeared; and when they led him away, it was as one leads a trusting child, for the light of reason had left him. The unfortunate domestic, being less sensitive, retained his faculties; but he ever afterwards bore upon his wrist, as if deeply burned into the flesh, the marks of a broad thumb and fingers. This strange appearance he was wont to explain to stray visitors, by saying that when, terrified almost out of his wits, he fell to the ground, his hand was outside the magic circle, and 'summat' seized him; which lucid explanation was generally followed up by an old and privileged servitor, who remarked, 'Tha'll t'hev mooar marks nor thuse on tha' next toime as _He_ grabs tha', mi lad.' THE BLACK COCK. 'Ay,' said Old 'Lijah, 'I mind one time when they said th' Owd Lad hissel appear't i' broad dayleet, an' wir seen bi hunderts o' fowk, owd an' yung.' There was a dead silence for a little while as the listeners gathered nearer the blazing fire, two or three of them getting a little further away from the door, against which the wind was dashing the snow, and then 'Lijah resumed: 'When I wir a lad, me an' mi mestur wer ast to a berryin. Ther wer a deeol o' drink stirrin, th' coffee pot, wi th' lemon peel hangin aat, gooin abaat fray one side to th' tother fast enough, and at last o' wer ready, but just as they wer baan to lift th' coffin a clap o' thunder shuke th' varra glasses o' th' table. 'Th' chaps as hed howd stopped a bit an' lukt raand, but th' deead chap's feythur shouted, "Come on, lads, or wist be late, an' th' paason waynt berry;" so they piked off, but no sooner hed they getten' i' th' street nor a lad i' th' craad cried out, "Heigh, chaps, luk at th' black cock {34} on th' top o' th' coffin," an' sure enough theer it wor. One o' th' beerers said directly as they'd enough to carry wi'out ony passingers, an' up wi' his fist an' knockt it off, but it wer on ageean in a minit, an one bi' one they o' hed a slap at it, but every time it wer knockt off back it flew to it' place at th' deead mon's feet, so at last th' owd mon give th' word of command, an' off they startit wi' th' looad. Th' craad geet bigger afooar they reached th' owd country church wheer he hed to be berried, an' th' fowk geet a throwin stooans at th' black bird, an' hittin it wi' sticks an' shaatin at it, but it stuck theer like a fixter. 'After a while we reached th' graveyart, an' th' paason come deawn th' road fray th' church door to meet th' coffin, an' he wer just baan to start th' service when he see th' bird an' stopped. '"What han yo' got theere?" he says, lukin varra vext, for he thowt some marlock wer gooin on. "What han yo' theere, men?" 'Th' owd feythur stepped forrut an' towd him what hed happent, an' as nooan on 'em could freetun it off it peeark naythur wi' sticks or stooans or sweearin. '"It's a strange tale," said th' vicar, "but we moant hev no brids here! Yo' fowk keep eaut o' th' graveyart nobbut thuse as is invitet to th' funeral! I'll settle him for yo!" an' so sayin he grabbed howd o' th' cock, an' walked o'er th' graves wi' it to a place wheer th' bruk run under th' hedges, an' then he bent deawn o' th' floor an' dipped th' bird i'th' watter, an' held it theer for abaat a quarter ov an hour. 'No sooner had he getten up, heawever, nor th' brid flew up eaut o' th' watter quite unhort, an' hopped o'er th' grass to th' coffin an' peearkt ageean as if nowt hed happent. 'Th' vicar lukt varra consarnt for a while, an' skrat his yed as he staret at th' fowk. 'Theer's summat not reet abaat that brid,' he said, 'but that's no rayson why we shouldn't bury th' deead!' an' he pottert off toart th' grave, an' th' beerers carriet th' coffin to th' side, an' th' sarvice wer gone through, wi' th' bird harkenin every word like a Christian. 'Th' chaps then startit o' lowerin th' coffin into th' grave, an' th' brid still stuck o' th' peeark, an' it wer nobbut when th' hole wer filled, as it came above graand ageean, an' theer it set on th' maand. 'A craad o' fowk waited abaat an' hung on th' graveyart wo' till th' edge o' dark, an' then they piket off whoam, for they begun to think as mebbi it were th' Owd Lad hissel, but a twothree on us stopped till it wer neet afooar we went after 'em, th' cock sittin theear just th' same as it hed done i' th' dayleet. 'It were usual i' thuse days to watch th' graves for a few neets, for ther wer a deeal o' resurrectionin' gooin on i'o' directions, th' body-snatchers hevin mooar orders than they could attend to; but though th' deead chap's feythur offert brass an' plenty o' drink an' meyt to anybody as ud keep a look aat, not one dar do it, an' th' deead mon wer laft to tek care o' hissel, or for th' brid to mind him. 'Soon after dayleet th' next mornin I went wi' a twothree moor young chaps to see heaw th' place lukt, an' th' grave hedn't bin brokken into, but th' brid had flown, and fray that day to this I could never find aat ayther wheer it coom fray or went to, but I heeart as th' vicar said it met be th' Owd Lad claimin' his own.' THE INVISIBLE BURDEN. At the junction of the four cross roads, gleaming white in the hot sunshine and hawthorn-bounded, and marked by the parallel ruts made by the broad wheels of the country carts, the old public house of the _Wyresdale Arms_ was scarcely ever without a number of timber wagons or hay carts about its open door, the horses quietly munching from the nose-bags and patiently waiting until their owners or drivers should emerge from the sanded kitchen. Nathan Peel's hostelry was the half-way house for all the farmers and cart-drivers in the district, and generally quiet enough at night time, but from its capacious kitchen roars of laughter rang out many a summer afternoon, as the carters and yeomen told their droll stories. On one of these occasions, when the sun was blazing outside, and shimmering upon the sands and the distant sea, and through the open window the perfume of the may-blossom stole gently, a quaint looking old fellow, whose face had been bronzed by three-score summers and winters, happened to mention an occurrence as having taken place about the time of 'th' quare weddin',' and a chorus of voices at once called upon him for the story. 'It's quite forty year sin,' he said thoughtfully, 'an' I wir quite a young chap then, an' ready for any marlock. I could dance too wi' hear an' thear one, an' no weddin' wir reet wi'aat axin' me. This one I'm baan to tell abaat heawivir wir Mester Singleton's owdest son o' th' Dyke Farm, an' as he wir weddin' th' prattiest lass i' o' th' country side, varra nigh everybody wir theear, 'specially as Mester Singleton hed given it aat ther'd be a welcome for onnybody. A string o' nearly twenty conveyances, milk carts, an' shandrys, an' gigs, went to th' church wi' fowk o' seein' 'em wed; but comin' back, young Adam started off wi' his young wife as if he wir mad, an' isted o' gooin' th' owd road across th' Stone Brig, an' through th' Holme meadow he pelted off through th' Ingleton Road an' th' Owd Horse Lane. Th' mare seemed to know what th' young chap wir up to, an' to enter into th' spirit o't' thing an' off hoo went like th' woint, th' string o' shandrys an' milk carts an' gigs peltin' on at after abaat a mile behint, an' th' fowk laughin' an' shaatin' at th' fun. Th' gate into th' Owd Horse Lane wir wide open, so th' fowk wir disappointed as expected to gain a minnit or two wi' Adam hevin' to get daan theer to oppen it, an' into th' lane th' mare dashed, an' on hoo went as if th' shandry an' Adam an' his wife wir nowt behint her. Abaat midway i'th' lane heawever th' road dipped a bit, an' th' watter fra a spring i'th' bank ran o'er it, an' just afoor th' shandry reyched it th 'mare stopped o' of a sudden, an' Adam flew aat o'er th' horse's back an' pitched into th' hedge like leetnin'. Th' wife shaated as if he wir kilt, but he'd no bones brokken, an' when we geet up to him he crept aat o'th' prickles wi' a shame-faced look as if he'd bin catcht thievin'. Ther wir some rare jokin' as he climbed up to th' side of his wife an' lasht the mare for another start, but it wir no use, th' mare couldn't stir th' conveyance. Adam lasht away at her, but stir it hoo couldn't, an' at last eight or ten on us set to an' turned th' wheels for twenty or thirty yards an' it wir th' same as if it wir a timber-wagon, it wir that heavy. It wir th' same wi' every one o'th' conveyances, not one could be got o'er th' watter only wi' eight or ten on us toilin' an' slavin' at th' wheels, no matter heaw th' horse strained an' pulled. Nobody could make aat what it wir, an' th' Vicar came an' look't abaat but could find nowt. He said, heawever, th' Owd Lad had some hand in it, an' he warned th' fowk not to use th' road when they could help it. Many an' many a time heawivir, I see carts stuck theear bi' th' day together, for some chaps wouldn't be persuaded not to go through th' lane, for it wir a short cut, an' other chaps went i' nowt but darin' when they'd hed a sup o' drink. It went on for some years like that, an' fowk came fray far an' near to see it. I'd gettin' wed mysen and hed a farm on the Holme, but I used to go raand to it bi'th' owd road across the Brig, but one day, a breet hot day, I'd mi little lad i'th cart an' he bothert mi to go through th' lane, he wantit to see th' Owd Lad he said, an' as he started o' cryin' abaat it, I went. Well, the cart stuck i'th' owd place bi th' runnin' watter, an' th' little lad wir deleeted. I geet daan an' took howd o'th' wheel, for I knew it wir no use usin' the whip, an' th' horse wir sweatin' as if it wir rare an' 'freetont, when little Will shaated aat o' ov a sudden 'Feythar, I con see him!' 'See what?' I sang aat, an' broad dayleet as it wir, mi knees wir quakin'. 'A little chap i'th' cart,' he said, 'a fat little chap wi' a red neet cap on.' 'Wheer is he?' I shaated, for I couldn't see owt. 'Theer on th' cart tail,' he said, an' then he shaated 'Why, he's gone,' an' no sooner hed he spokken than th' horse started off wi' th' cart as if it hed nowt behint it. Thir never wir a cart stuck theer at after that, an' th' Vicar said it wir because little Will hed persayved th' Feeorin, an' as Will hed th' gift o' seein' feeorin an' sich like because he wir born at midneet. APPENDIX. _COMPARATIVE NOTES._ 1. Belief in the appearance of the Skriker, Trash, or Padfoot, as the apparition is named in Lancashire, or Padfooit, as it is designated in Yorkshire, is still very prevalent in certain parts of the two counties. This boggart is invariably looked upon as the forerunner of death, and it is supposed that only the relatives of persons about to die, or the unfortunate doomed persons themselves, ever see the apparition. Of quite a distinct class to that of the 'Skrikin' Woman,' an appearance which, at a but recent period, obtained for a lane at Warrington the reputation of being haunted, the Padfoot seems to be peculiar to Lancashire and Yorkshire, unless, indeed, the Welsh Gwyllgi or Dog of Darkness, and the Shock of the Norfolk seaboard, are of the same family. In Norfolk, the spectre, as it does in Lancashire, portends death, but I have been unable to find any Welsh story of the apparition with a more tragic ending than fright and illness. As the Trash generally takes the form of a large shaggy dog or small bear, can the superstition be an offshoot from that old Aryan belief which gave so important an office to the dog as a messenger from the world of the dead, and an attendant upon the dying, or has the grim idea come down to us from the ancient times, when, as the Rev. S. Baring Gould says, 'It was the custom to bury a dog or a boar alive under the corner-stone of a church, that its ghost might haunt the neighbourhood, and drive off any who would profane it--_i.e._ witches or warlocks'? 2. In most of these stories of compacts with the Evil One it is singular how little is received in exchange for the soul. In a few instances poverty bargains for untold wealth, or ugliness and age for youth and loveliness, but generally it is for the bare means of prolonging or supporting life that the daring and despairing one enters into the everlasting agreement. In fact, as a French authoress has said, it is 'for a mouthful of bread to nourish their debilitated stomachs, and the bundle of sticks which warms again their benumbed limbs.' In Sussex it would appear, from what a country-lad told the Rev. S. Baring Gould, that half-a-crown is the price Satan pays for a soul,--a letter addressed to the Evil One, and containing an offer of the soul, bringing a response in that practical form, if placed under the pillow at night. In Normandy it is considered sufficient to make the compact binding for the acceptance to be simply a verbal one; but in Lancashire the formal parchment deed, with its signatures in blood, is indispensable. 3. Old Isaac, it would seem, was not disappointed when he came to make use of his handful of money, and probably, therefore, he had spent it before he told the story, for in all instances where the fairies are recorded as rewarding mortals with money, any revelation as to its source is invariably followed by the gift being turned to bits of paper or leaves. 4. Although there appears to have been some little confusion in the mind of the old farmer as to the rank in the world of faerie held by his little benefactor, he seems to have designated him correctly, for although the general idea of Puck is that of a mere mischief-loving and mischief-working sprite, such as is painted by Drayton, Shakspere credits Puck not only with wanton playfulness, but also with industry, for in the second act of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' the fairy, addressing the sprite, says: 'Those that hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, _You do their work_.' Shakspere and Ben Jonson, however, agree in making Oberon King of the Fairies--a king, too, with a stately presence, and far above showing an interest in a farmer's fields. Under any circumstances one is not prepared to find Puck of royal estate, and doubtless the labouring spirit of our story was simply one of those goblins who, according to the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, would 'grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of nursery work'--a Robin Goodfellow merely, the 'lubber fiend' of Milton, the Bwbach or household fairy of Wales. Lancashire had many such. Stories of beings rejoicing in the name of Hobthrust or Throbthrush, but in all other respects closely resembling the fairy king of the foregoing tradition, still are told by the farm-house fires in Furness, in South-East Lancashire, and in the Fylde country. Rewarded night after night with a supply of oatmeal porridge--strange relic, probably, of the old libations to the gods--they toiled at the churn till daybreak. A Furness legend chronicles how a farmer, whose house was the favourite resting-place of one of these visitors, one evening, when threatening clouds were gathering, wished that he had the harvest carted. Next morning the work was found done, but a horse was found dead in the stable, Hob having been unsparing. As the day was a beautiful one, the farmer did not appreciate the housing as he ought to have done, and testily wished that Hob was in the mill-dam. A few hours afterwards, not Hob, but the grain was found there. 'Crawshaws in Berwickshire,' says the author of the _Popular Rhymes of Berwickshire_, 'was once the abode of an industrious Brownie, who both saved the corn and thrashed it for several seasons. At length, after one harvest, some person thoughtlessly remarked that the corn was not well mowed or piled up in the barn. The sprite took offence at this, and the next night threw the whole of the corn over the Raven Crag, a precipice about two miles off, muttering-- "It's no weel mowed! It's no weel mowed! Then it's ne'er be mowed by me again. I'll scatter it o'er the Raven stone, And they'll hae some wark ere it's mowed again."' The North Lancashire Hobthrusts, however, do not seem to have been made to disappear by man's ingratitude, but, like the Irish Cluricaun and the Scotch Brownie, were to be driven away by kindness. In one instance, a tailor, for whom a Hobthrust had done some work, gratefully made him a coat and hood for winter wear, and in the night the workman was heard bidding farewell to his old quarters-- 'Throb-thrush has got a new coat and new hood, And he'll never do no more good.' Readers of the Brothers Grimm and lovers of George Cruikshank will not need to be reminded how the grateful shoemaker deprived himself of the assistance of the elves. In the German story, however, as in Breton ones, although the elves depart, prosperity continues to bless the labours of the people whose practical gratitude has driven the little beings away. The Hob which, according to Harrison Ainsworth, haunted the Gorge of Cliviger, does not appear to have been at all domesticated, the novelist, in the only allusion he makes to it, characterising it as 'a frightful hirsute demon, yclept Hobthrust.' In the Fylde country, however, the lubber fiends seem to have been as industrious as was that of our legend. Tradition tells of one at Rayscar which not only housed the grain but also got the horses ready for the journey to the distant market. At Hackensall Hall one took the Celtic form of a great horse, and required only a pie in reward for its toil. The Hobs of the neighbouring county of Yorkshire are credited with greater powers than those required for the rapid performance of household duties. One of these beings is still said to haunt a cave in the vicinity of the old-world hamlet of Runswick. To this place anxious and superstitious mothers brought their ailing little ones, and as they stood at the mouth of the cavity, cried, 'Hob, my bairn's gettent kinkcough (whooping-cough?), takkt off, takkt off!' In the same district there is a haunted tumulus called 'Obtrash Roque,' rendered by Walcott 'the Heap of Hob-o'-the-Hurst.' Of the bogle denizen of this mound a story similar to that told by Mr. Crofton Croker, in Roby's _Traditions (Clegg Hall Boggart)_, is current in the district. A farmer who was bothered by the spirit, determined to remove to a quieter locality, and as the carts were leaving with the goods and implements a neighbour cried out, 'It's flittin yo' are,' when the Hob at once replied, from a churn, 'Ay, we're flitting;' upon which the farmer thought he might as well remain where he was. Similar flitting stories, however, are told of the Scandinavian _Nis_, the Irish _Cluricaun_, the Welsh _Bwbach_, and the Polish _Ickrzycki_. 5. Why the expression of a wish like this should have offended Puck is not very evident. There is in Sweden a lubber fiend named the _Tomte_, and of this being the peasantry believe that only by unrewarded toil can it work out its salvation. Can the Lancashire King of the Fairies have been one of the same order, and have considered the utterance of a good wish as a reward, or even as a sarcastic allusion to his 'lost condition'? The belief is by no means uncommon that the fairies are the angels who were neutral during the Satanic rebellion. In Brittany, however (_Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_, par Th. Hersart de la Villemarqué), they are the Princesses who, in the days of the Apostles, would not embrace Christianity. The traditions of most countries agree, however, in attributing to the fairies extreme sensitiveness on the subject of their condition. Mr. Campbell has recorded that when the elves, who had grown weary of crossing the Dornoch Frith in cockle-shells, were engaged in building a bridge of gold across its mouth, a passer-by lifted his hands and blessed the tiny workmen, who immediately vanished, the bridge sinking with them beneath the waves, and its place being at once taken by quicksands. Almost every district haunted by 'greenies' or 'hill folk' has its story of a piteous appeal on the subject of their future state made by visible or invisible fairies. In a Highland story it is an old man reading the Bible who is accosted, the inquirer screaming and plunging into the sea upon being answered that the sacred pages did not contain any allusion to the salvation of any but the sons of Adam. My friend, Mr. Kennedy, in his valuable _Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts_, gives a charming traditionary story of a priest who was benighted and lost upon a moor, and who was similarly accosted, and implored to declare that at the last day the lot of the fairies would not be with Satan. After the appeal had been somewhat ambiguously answered, 'a weak light was shed around where he stood, and he distinguished the path and an opening in the fence.' In Cornwall they are supposed to be the spirits of the people who inhabited the country long before the birth of Christ, and who, although not good enough to partake of the joys of Heaven, yet are too good for Hell. In Wales there is a somewhat similar belief, but it is said that their probation will end at the day of judgment, when they will be admitted to Paradise. It is commonly believed by the Cornish peasants that they are gradually growing smaller, and that at length they will change into ants. Few people in Cornwall, therefore, are sufficiently venturesome to destroy a colony of those insects. 6. Many are the old sacred piles in Lancashire with the building of which it is believed that goblins had something to do. The parish church of Rochdale, the old church of Samlesbury, that of St. Oswald's at Winwick, near Warrington, and the parish church of Burnley, may be instanced as a few of those which are popularly supposed to have been interfered with by superhuman labourers. At Rochdale the unexpected workpeople took the form of 'strange-looking men;' in other cases, as in those of Winwick and Burnley, pigs removed the materials, it being traditional that their cry of 'we-week' gave its name to the former place; while at Newchurch, in Rossendale, although the interloping builders were invisible, a little old woman with a bottle was not only seen, but was fraternised with by the thirsty watchers who had been appointed to guard the foundations. Similar stories of changed site are told of numerous churches throughout Britain. The legend of Gadshill church, near Ventnor, like that of Hinderwell, Yorkshire, attributes the removal of the foundations to supernatural means, the stones having hopped after each other from their original place at the foot of the hill to that in which they were afterwards found, the shins of the watchers having been 'barked' in the most unceremonious manner by certain little blocks of somewhat erratic tendencies. It is, however, by no means improbable that at Gadshill, as at Rochdale, the fact of the building having been erected in a position so difficult of access, and so trying to aged and infirm parishioners, may have caused a testy and irreverent, and perhaps asthmatic, worshipper to invent the Satanic theory. In one case, that of Bredon, in Leicestershire, the objectors appear to have taken the form of doves. Loth as one may be to think harm of such sweet messengers, Mr. Kennedy, after telling the story of the building of the cathedral of Ardfert, in Kerry, by St. Brendain, and the trouble caused by a large crow, which took the measuring line in its bill and flew across the valley with it, adds, 'The bird was a fairy in disguise. If the messenger had been _from another quarter_, he would have made his appearance under snowy plumes.'[B] [B] The foundations of the priory church of Christchurch, Hampshire, were, tradition says, removed by unseen hands, down from the lonely St. Catherine's Hill to the present site in the valley. The beams and rafters, too short on the hill, were too long in the vale. In the valley, too, an extra workman, Christ, always came on the pay-night. 7. This work of art was one of the gargoyles of the old building, and was purchased by Mr. Ffarington, the father of the present lady of the manor, when the church was rebuilt. It bore the name of 'the Cat Stone.' Another version of this tradition, of but limited circulation, and little known even in the immediate locality, credits an angel with the removal of the foundations and with the utterance of the following anything but angelic strain:-- Here I have placed thee, And here shalt thou stand; And thou shalt be called The church of Leyland! 8. This legend appears to have had a Teutonic origin. Mr. Kelly, in his chapter on the 'Wild Hunt,' quotes a somewhat similar story from a German source: 'The wild huntsman's hounds can talk like men. A peasant caught one of them, a little one, and hid it in his pack. Up came the wild huntsman and missed it. "Where are you, Waldmann?" he cried. "In Heineguggeli's sack," was the answer.' 9. 'The passing bell,' says Harland, 'according to Grose, was anciently rung for two purposes, one to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing, the other to drive away the evil spirits who stood at the bed's foot ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the soul on its passage.' Mr. Sikes says that in Wales, before the Reformation, 'there was kept in all Welsh churches, a handbell which was taken by the Sexton to the house where a funeral was to be held, and rung at the head of the procession,' and that 'the custom survived long after the Reformation in many places, as at Caerleon, the little Monmouthshire village, which was a bustling Roman city when London was a hamlet. The bell, called the _bangu_, was still preserved in the parish of Llanfair Duffryn Clwyd half a dozen years ago.' The bell might now with greater propriety be called the _passéd_ bell, as it is tolled only after a death, the ringing concluding with a number of distinct knells to announce the years and sex of the deceased, which the authority alluded to above considers 'a vestige of an ancient Roman Catholic injunction.' Until a comparatively recent period it was customary at Walton-le-Dale, Lancashire, to inter Protestants in the afternoon, a bell being tolled at intervals prior to the funeral; Catholics, however, were buried in the evening, a full peal being rung upon the bells immediately before the procession started. Mr. Thornber, writing in 1844, says that at the beginning of this century, at Poulton, the more respectable portion of the inhabitants were buried by candle-light, and that it was considered a sacred duty to expose a lighted candle in the windows of every house as the corpse was carried through the streets. He speaks of the custom as a mark of respect to the dead, but possibly there was something more than this in it. In Ireland even to-day it is usual to leave lighted candles in the room where a corpse is laid out. This belief in the power of bells over not only demons and evil spirits of every kind, but also over the elves and 'good people,' appears to have been held in all countries ever inhabited by fairies and hill folk. The Danish trolls are said to have been driven out of the country by the hanging of bells in the churches, the noise reminding them forcibly of the time when Thor used to fling his hammer after them. It is recorded in a bit of local doggrel from the pen of a dead and forgotten rhymester, that the fairies remained at Saddleworth, on the confines of Lancashire and Yorkshire, until 'The steeple rose, And bells began to play;' when the Queen wandered away to the wild district 'Where Todmore's kingdom lay;' and the less important plebeians of fairy land 'disperséd, went.' Mr. Henderson says that 'at Horbury, near Wakefield, and at Dewsbury, on Christmas Eve, is rung the "devil's knell," a hundred strokes, then a pause, then three strokes, three strokes, and three strokes again.' In Iceland it is believed that at daybreak or upon the ringing of a bell the trolls flee. 10. Fairy funerals, according to tradition, have been seen in other counties beside Lancashire, for an old Welsh writer alludes to such sights as having been witnessed in his day. Mr. Wirt Sikes, in his _British Goblins_, a recent and most valuable contribution to the folk lore and mythology of South Wales, says that the bell of Blaenporth, Cardiganshire, was noted for tolling thrice at midnight, unrung by human hands, to foretell death, and that when the 'Tolaeth before the burying,' the sound of an unseen funeral-procession passing by, is heard, the voices sing the 'Old Hundredth,' and the tramping of feet and the sobbing and groaning of mourners can be heard. In Normandy, says P. Le Fillastre, _Annuaire de la Manche_, 1832, the large white coffins, _les bières_, which the belated voyager sees along the roads, or placed on the churchyard fences, are unaccompanied by either bearers or mourners, and the cemetery bell is silent. Readers of Professor Hunt's volumes of Cornish Drolls and Romances will remember the beautiful legend of the fisherman who, gazing by night through the window of a lonely church, saw a procession passing along the aisle, and witnessed the interment, near the sacramental table, of the fairy queen. The only point of resemblance, however, between the Southern and Northern traditions is to be found in the solemn tolling of the church-bell. The Cornish story is unique in one respect, inasmuch as, although we have plenty of legends in which the fairies evince a desire to peer into their future state, and even some in which their deaths are alluded to, it is extremely rare to find one in which the burial of a fairy is narrated; and this fact would seem to point to a defect in the 'Finn theory,' so plausibly advocated by Mr. Campbell; for, surely, if once upon a time 'the fairies were a real people, like the Lapps,' tradition would not be so silent, as it almost universally is, with reference to the outward and visible signs of their mortality.[C] [C] Only since these notes were in type have I seen the excellent paper from the pen of Mr. Grant Allen (_Cornhill Magazine_, March 1881), on the Genesis of the Myth of the Fairies. See also the same charming writer's _Vignettes from Nature_, p. 206, and papers by B. Melle and F. A. Allen, in _Science Gossip_ for 1866, 'The Track of the Pigmies.' 11. My friend, Mr. W. E. A. Axon, in his interesting _Black Knight of Ashton_, tells a story of a 'Race with the Devil,' the hero of which was one of a party of _pace-eggers_, who, waking up after a doze by a farm-house fire, beside which the party had been permitted to sleep on a wild night, and, feeling cold, had put on his Beelzebub dress, to the terror of another member of the company, who awoke afterwards, and seeing, as he supposed, the Devil seated airing himself by the fire, fled into the darkness and the storm, his equally terrified companions following him, and the no-less-frightened Beelzebub bringing up the rear. The Mid and South Lancashire stories, as will at once be seen, do not resemble each other in any way, however; and I refer to Mr. Axon's legend for the sake of directing my readers' attention to a valuable note appended to it, in which Mr. Axon points out that there is a similar old Hindoo story of such a chase, which was translated from the Sanscrit into Chinese not later than the year 800. It seems hardly probable that the Lancashire pace-egging story, so exquisitely narrated by my friend, could have had an Aryan origin, yet the resemblance is a striking and remarkable one. 12. Many are the traditions of submerged bells told along the Lancashire coast. 'Here,' says the Rev. W. Thornber in the scarce _History of Blackpool_ (1844), 'or out at sea opposite this spot, once stood the cemetery of Kilgrimol, mentioned in the above-quoted chapter of the Priory of Lytham. Of this fact, tradition is not silent, and the rustic who dwells in the neighbourhood relates tales of fearful sights, and how many a benighted wanderer has been terrified with the sounds of bells pealing dismal chimes.' In Wales, too, the superstition is a common one. It is by no means improbable that there may be more in these faint whispers than would at first appear, and that underneath these dim traditions of churches swallowed by the sea there may rest a faint stratum of the old Scandinavian superstition that sweet singing and beautiful music could be heard by any who stood to listen on an Elf hill; for, although the idea of submerged cities may be found floating in the lore of all Celtic peoples, and in some places the submersion is a matter even of history,[D] in others, as at Kilgrimol, it is doubtful whether the sounds come from the sea or the earth. It is, therefore, more than likely that the traditions of submersion have received the addition of pealing bells from natural causes. There is an Indian superstition which in another way illustrates this theory. Manitobah Lake, in the Red River region, derives its name from a small island, upon which is heard, whenever the gales blow from the north, a sound resembling the pealing of distant church-bells, and which is caused by the waves beating on the shore at the foot of the cliffs and the rubbing of the fallen fragments against each other. This island the Ojibeways suppose to be the home of Manitobah, 'the speaking god,' and upon it they dare not land. [D] _Vide_ Lyell's _Principles of Geology_, Chapter on _Encroachments of the Sea_, for many instances of submerged villages and churches along the English coast. There is in Normandy a singular tradition of a submerged bell, dating back to the time of the English occupation, along with others of buried and hidden treasure. It is said that, as the English soldiers were abandoning the country, they destroyed the abbey of Corneville, and were taking away with them the principal bell, when the barge capsized. As they were trying to recover the prize, the French came upon them, and they were obliged to hurry away, leaving the bell behind. Since that time, whenever the bells of the churches in the district ring out their joyous peals upon solemn festival days, the submerged bell also can be heard joining in the carillon. (_Essai sur l'arrondissement de Pont-Audemer_.) A story somewhat similar to this is told of a bell from St. David's, Pembrokeshire, carried off by Cromwellian troops whose vessel afterwards was wrecked in Ramsay Sound, from the moving waters of which the pealing can be heard when a storm is rising. 13. For the sake of those who are not 'native and to the manner born,' Roger's story is not given in his vernacular, a mixture of the Mid-Lancashire and the Furness dialects, trying even to those who are acquainted with the expressive Doric of other parts of the County Palatine. 14. Mr. Henderson, in his _Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders_, states that Mr. Wilkie maintains that the _Digitalis purpurea_ was in high favour with the witches, who used to decorate their fingers with its largest bells; hence called Witches' Thimbles. Mr. Hartley Coleridge has more pleasing associations with this gay wild-flower. He writes of 'the fays That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells;' and adds in a note, 'popular fancy has generally conceived a connection between the foxglove and the good people.' In Ireland, where it is called _lusmore_, or the great herb, and also Fairy Cup, the bending of its stalks is believed to denote the unseen presence of supernatural beings. The Shefro, or gregarious fairy, is represented as wearing the corona of the foxglove on his head, and no unbecoming head-dress either. In Wales, that the elves wear gloves of the bells of _Digitalis_ is a common fancy. 15. This conventional circle seems to be universally common to such stories of summoning the Evil One. Even in China, as Mr. Dennys has stated, the ring is drawn round the summoner, and the incantation uttered, as in our own stories. 16. In Lancashire, Old Nick (afterwards St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors) is considered the patron saint of the wind, just as in the Scandinavian mythology it is Odin, also termed Nick and Hold Neckar, who raises storms. In Normandy, near Aigle, there is a superstition respecting a Mother _Nique_, doubtless, says Vaugeois, of Scandinavian origin. 17. Instances of generous treatment of opponents on the part of the Evil One are by no means rare. Readers of Mr. Roby will remember that Satan gave a loophole of escape to Michael Waddington, the hero of 'Th' Dule upo' Dun' legend, by granting him an extra wish, although the poor wretch's time was up. 18. The Cockerham schoolmaster appears to have lacked originality, for in the Scottish legend of 'Michael Scott' it is recorded that when the fairies crowded round his dwelling crying for work, he bade them twine ropes of sand to reach the moon, and tradition has it that traces of their unsuccessful attempts may yet be found. A more recent instance is told in a sketch of Dr. Linkbarrow, a Westmoreland wizard, who lived about a hundred years ago, quoted from the _Kendal Mercury_ by Mr. Sullivan, in his _Cumberland and Westmoreland, Ancient and Modern_. The Doctor, who was disturbed at church by a terrible storm, hurried home, and on the way met the devil, who asked for work. He immediately set him to make 'thumb symes' of river sand. Imitating the Israelites, perhaps not unconsciously--for Satan's knowledge of Scripture is proverbial--the Evil One asked for straw, which was refused him. On his arrival at home, the Doctor found his servant prying into his black-letter book, which imprudence had caused the storm and Satan's pilgrimage. Several similar stories, illustrating the danger of tampering with books of magic, are told in Normandy. In one of them it is recorded that the servant of a village curé, moved by curiosity, read a page or two of one of his master's volumes, when suddenly Satan appeared. The domestic fled, but the Evil One captured him, and was making away with him when the curé arrived and simply read a few other words from the book, upon which Satan dropped his prey. In another one Satan keeps his victim three years, but at length is obliged to let him go. In the last story of this kind, however, which has come under my notice--a French one by the way--the incautious student has scarcely read a line of the open book when Satan appears and strangles him. The sorcerer, quietly returning home, sees devils perched on the house, and, surprised, beckons them to approach. One does so, and tells him the story, and he thereupon rushes to his study and finds the student stretched dead upon the floor. Afraid of being accused of murder, he orders the devil who had assassinated the scholar to pass into the body of his victim. The demon obeys, and goes to promenade in the street at the point most frequented by the students, but suddenly, upon another order, he quits the body, and the corpse falls in the midst of the terrified promenaders. In Cornwall, instead of the devil, it is the ghost of Tregeagle, the wizard, that is doomed to make trusses of sand in Genvor Cove, and to bear them to the top of Escol's Cliff. Having once succeeded in carrying a truss, after having first brought water from a neighbouring stream and frozen the sand, he is now condemned to make the trusses without water. 19. Another version of this story, which is still told in the lonely farm-houses of the district, gives the scholars the credit of having raised the devil during the absence of their master. Similar tasks were given to the infernal visitor by a sharp-witted lad, who feared lest his should be the soul the Evil One threatened to take back with him; and not many years ago a flag, said to have been broken by the outwitted Satan in his passage across the floor, used to be triumphantly exhibited to any daring and irreverent sceptic who expressed doubts as to the truthfulness of the narrative. At Burnley Grammar School a black mark on a stone was at one time exhibited in proof of a state visit of the same kind, and a similar ignominious flight. The Grammar School of Middleton, near Manchester, also can boast of the patronage of the Evil One; and Samuel Bamford has recorded that in his youth a hole in the school flags was shown as an impression of the Satanic hoof. The Middleton legend credits the lads with the unenviable honour of having called up the fiend and afterwards innocently wishing him to withdraw, which he sternly declined to do without having received his usual fee of a soul. As at Cockerham, he was requested to make a rope of sand; and he was rapidly completing the task, when, to the joy of the urchins, the schoolmaster came upon the scene, and quickly exorcised the visitor, who, in his disgusted and disordered flight, broke down nearly half of the building. 20. Stories of headless beings may be found in the lore of most countries of Europe, and are of the same class as those of the men, women and horses 'beawt yeds,' common to the hilly districts of both North and South Lancashire. As a general rule, in South Lancashire, the head is not seen at all, whereas in the northern part of the county the spectre almost invariably carries it under the left arm, as is done by the wandering beings in similar Danish stories. A Scotch legend, alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, credits the ghost of a Duchess of Queensberry with an innovation, as the spectre is said to wheel its head in a barrow through the galleries of Drumlanrick Castle. In Glamorganshire there is a tradition of a headless woman, who appears every sixty years, and many are the terrible stories told of her dreadful visitations. Although tales of headless horses are not rare in Lancashire, there does not appear to be any tradition of hearses, or other conveyances drawn by them, similar to the Northumberland legend of the midnight cavalcade along the subterraneous passage between Tarset and Dalby Castles, or to the stories told by the Irish peasants. It is more than probable that many of the legends and stories of headless beings of both sexes had their origin in the old Saxon belief that if a person who was guilty of a crime for which he deserved to lose his head, died without having paid the penalty, he was condemned after death to travel over the earth with his head under his arm. 21. Not very long ago it was commonly believed at Warrington, on the authority of many persons who declared they had seen the apparition, that a spectral white rabbit haunted Bank Quay, its appearance invariably foretelling the early death of a relative of the person whose misfortune it was to behold the animal. 'In Cornwall,' says Mr. Hunt, 'it is a very popular fancy that when a maiden who has loved not wisely but too well, dies forsaken and broken-hearted, she comes back in the shape of a white hare to haunt her deceiver. The phantom follows the false one everywhere, mostly invisible to all else. It sometimes saves him from danger, but invariably the white hare causes the death of the betrayer in the end.' 22. Can this tradition be an offshoot of the legend of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, the man who, standing at his door, refused the cup of water for which the Saviour, bowed down beneath the burden of the cross, begged, but who bade the Lord walk quicker, and was answered, 'I go, but thou shalt thirst and tarry till I come'? In one shape or another most European countries have the weird myth of this restless being. In none of the stories, however, have I found any reference to an animal accompanying the wanderer. 23. The belief in the efficacy of fairy ointment appears to have been somewhat generally held in England. A Northumberland tradition tells of a midwife who was fetched to attend a lady, and who received a box of ointment with which to anoint the infant. By accident the woman touched one of her eyes with the mixture, and at once saw that she was in a fairy palace. She had the good sense, however, to conceal her astonishment, and reached her home in safety. Some time afterwards she saw the lady stealing bits of butter in the market-place, and thoughtlessly accosted her, when, after an inquiry similar to that of the Lancashire legend, the fairy breathed upon the offending eye and destroyed the sight. Other versions still current in Northumberland make the thief a fairy stealing corn. Similar stories are told in Devonshire and in both the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland. In Scotland, however, the fairy spits into the woman's eye. The Irish fairy (Co. Wexford), a vindictive being, uses a switch. In Cornwall a fairy bantling has to be put out to nurse, and has to be washed regularly in water and carried to its room by its invisible relatives. The nurse receives the marvellous sight after some of the liquid has splashed upon her eyes, and the usual result follows. She sees a thief in the market-place--that of St. Ives; and after he has muttered-- 'Water for elf, not water for self! You've lost your eye, your child, and yourself!' she becomes blind. In another Cornish legend a green ointment, made with four-leaved clover, gathered at a certain time of the moon, confers the wondrous gift. In Lancashire the four-leaved clover does not require any preparation; the mere possession of it being supposed to render fairies visible. The Scandinavian belief appears to have been that, although the hill folk could bestow the gift of this sight upon whom they chose, all children born on Sunday possessed the faculty. This superstition seems to survive in a slightly altered form in the Lancashire one that children born during twilight can see spirits and foretell deaths, the latter faculty, probably, having been substituted for the prophetic power of the chosen of the elves in the Northern mythology. It is more than probable that these ointment stories came from the East. Who does not remember the charming history of the blind man, Baba Abdalla, whose sight was destroyed by a little miraculous ointment, and afterwards as wonderfully restored by a box on the ear? 24. An old farm-labourer pointed out to me a place where the Evil One used to meet the witches, and gambol with them until cock-crow. It was at the junction of four cross-roads, between Stonyhurst and Ribchester; and as I stood there at 'th' edge o' dark,' when the wind was whispering through the fir woods on either hand, with that mysterious sound so like the gentle wash of waves upon a sandy shore, the spot seemed indeed a suitable one for such gatherings. My informant, however, although very circumstantial in his account of what had transpired at the nocturnal assemblies, scouted the idea of anything of the sort taking place in these times, and remarked drily: 'Ther's too mich leet neaw-a-days, Mesthur, fur eawt o' that mak'. Wi' should hev' th' caanty police after um afooar they'd time to torn raand!' 25. Until recently, there was an ancient British tumulus by the side of the highway from Darwen to Bolton, where the road passes through the domains of White Hall and Low Hill. This spot, long before the urns of bones were disinterred, was looked upon by the country people as being haunted by various boggarts, and Mr. Charles Hardwick says that children were in the habit of taking off their clogs and shoes, and walking past the heap barefooted when compelled to traverse the road after nightfall.[E] [E] _Vide_ Footnote [C] 26. Mag did not wander far, for her grave is shown in the churchyard at Woodplumpton, in which village her memory still is green. But few people venture to rest themselves upon the huge stone which marks the spot where her spirit was laid. A strangely jumbled tradition tells how a priest managed to 'catch' her and 'lay her spirit.' In Cornwall and other counties a clergyman of the Establishment was considered qualified to 'lay' a ghost; but in Lancashire it was believed that only a Roman Catholic priest had the wondrous power. In Wales the magical number three is brought in, for three clergymen are necessary to exorcise a spirit. In Normandy, as a matter of course, only the priests have the power. 27. Witchen or quicken, old English names of the rowan or mountain ash. Mr. Kelly (_Indo-European Tradition and Folklore_) accounts for the reputation of the 'wiggin' by connecting it with the Indian Palasa, the tree that, according to the Vedas, sprang from the feather which, together with a claw, fell from the falcon bringing the heavenly _soma_ to earth. The same writer also compares it with the Mimosa, and quotes a singular passage from Bishop Heber, to the effect that the natives of Upper India are in the habit of wearing sprigs of it in their turbans, and of suspending pieces of it over their beds, as security against wizards, spells, the Evil Eye, etc. Naturally enough the Bishop expresses his surprise at finding the superstitions, which in England and Scotland attach to the rowan, applied in India to a tree of similar form, and he asks, 'From what common centre are these common notions derived?' The Mimosa is popularly supposed to have sprung from the claw alluded to above. On account of its reputed power against the 'feorin,' a rowan tree was almost invariably planted near the moorland or mountain side farm-house. 'Rowan, ash, and red thread Keep the devils from their speed,' says the old distich. In some parts of Scotland ash sap still is given to infants as a preservative against fairies. 28. It was firmly believed in Lancashire, says Mr. Harland, that a great gathering of witches assembled on this night at their general rendezvous in the Forest of Pendle--a ruined and desolate farm-house called the _Malkin Tower_ (Malkin being the name of a familiar demon in Middleton's old play of _The Witch_, derived from _maca_, an equal, a companion). This superstition led to another, that of _lighting_, _lating_, or _leeting_ the witches (from _leoht_, A.-S., light). It was believed that if a lighted candle were carried about the fells or hills from eleven to twelve o'clock at night, and it burned all the time steadily, it had so far triumphed over the evil power of the witches, who, as they passed to the Malkin Tower, would employ their utmost efforts to extinguish the light, that the person whom it represented might safely defy their malice during the season; but if by any accident the light went out, it was an omen of evil to the luckless wight for whom the experiment was made. It was also deemed inauspicious to cross the threshold of that person until after the return from leeting, and not then unless the candle had preserved its light. Mr. Milner describes the ceremony as having been recently performed. 29. Mr. Sullivan quotes this quaint old carol at length in his _Cumberland and Westmoreland, Ancient and Modern_; and adds, 'This song is still sung at Penrith, having replaced one called "Joseph and Mary," in the early part of the century. Yet its antiquity is undoubted, and it has probably come here from Lancashire, where it is well known.' As, however, it is by no means so widely known as Mr. Sullivan supposes, we may be pardoned if we reproduce it here. The second and remaining verses are as follows:-- 'I met three ships come sailing by, Come sailing by, etc. Who do you think was in one of them? In one of them? etc. The Virgin Mary and her Son, And her Son, etc. She combed His hair with an ivory comb, An ivory comb, etc. She washed His face in a silver bowl, A silver bowl, etc. She sent Him up to heaven to school, To heaven to school, etc. All the angels began to sing, Began to sing, etc. The bells of heaven began to ring, Began to ring, etc.' 30. Mr. Samuel Bamford says that Middleton Parish Church was the scene of a procession similar to that described in the above legend, the observer being an avaricious old sexton who was anxious to know what fees he should receive in the following year. This worthy, on All Souls' night, stationed himself in the sacred building, and counted the spirits he saw enter and walk about, until he observed a double of himself. Of course, soon afterwards there was a vacancy for a gravedigger at Middleton, the sight having been too much for 'Old Johnny.' A similar superstition reigns in various parts of England and in Wales, where, at Christmas-time, says Mr. Croker, quoting from a Welsh authority, the relatives of the deceased listen at the church door in the dark, 'when they sometimes fancy they hear the names called over in church of those who are destined shortly to join their lost relatives in the tomb.' In Cornwall, strange to say, it is a young unmarried woman who, standing in the church porch at midnight on Midsummer's-eve, sees the strange gathering. 'This is so serious an affair,' says Professor Hunt, 'that it is not, I believe, often tried. I have, however, heard of young women who have made the experiment. But every one of the stories relate that they have seen shadows of themselves coming last in the procession; that pining away from that day forward, ere Midsummer has again come round they have been laid to rest in the village graveyard.' Mr. Sikes says that it is a Hallow-Een custom in some parts of Wales to listen at the church door in the dark to hear shouted by a ghostly voice in the edifice the names of those who are shortly to be buried in the adjoining churchyard. In other parts, he says, 'the window serves the same purpose,' and, he adds, 'there are said to be still extant outside some village churches steps which were constructed in order to enable the superstitious peasantry to climb to the window to listen.' These steps in several places seemed to me to be merely old mounting blocks, but they may have been made use of for the less practical purpose in question. 31. It is asserted that at the present day dogs cannot be induced to go near this quarry, and that even closely hunted animals will permit themselves to be captured rather than enter its recesses. 32. Few superstitions have a wider circle of believers in Lancashire than that which attributes to dogs the power of foretelling death and disaster. There are few people, however well educated, who would be able to resist a foreboding of coming woe if they heard the howling of a strange dog under the window of a sick person's room; and, absurd as the dread so inspired may seem to the sceptic, there is more ground for it than can easily be explained away. It has frequently been urged that the animals are attracted by the lighted window, and that their howlings are nothing more than unpleasant appeals for admittance; and that often, by reason of the awe with which tradition has surrounded the noises, they terrify the invalid, and produce the end they are supposed to foretell. This plausible theory, however, does not account in any way for the similar visitations made in the daytime, when there is no artificial light to attract; or for the singular facts, that generally the dog is a stranger to the locality--that it does not loiter about, but makes its way direct to the particular house--that it will wait until a gate is opened, so that it may get near to the window--that it cannot be driven away before its mission has been performed--and that, in all cases, the howling is alike, invariably terminating in three peculiar yelping barks, which are no sooner uttered than the animal runs off, and is no more seen in the neighbourhood. In Normandy the noise is considered an infallible presage of death. Mr. Kelly says that this superstition obtains credence in France and Germany; and that in Westphalia, a dog howling along a road is considered a sure sign that a funeral soon will pass that way. In the Scandinavian mythology, Hel, Goddess of Death, is visible only to dogs. The superstition has, at any rate, antiquity to recommend it, and it seems evident from Exodus xi. 5-7, that even in the days of the captivity of the Children of Israel in Egypt, the omen was firmly believed in. I was seated one summer evening in the drawing-room of a house in one of the large London squares. The conversation was of the ordinary after-dinner nature, but enlivened by the remarks of more than one gifted guest. It was, however, suddenly interrupted in a very startling manner by the howling of a dog, which had placed itself in the roadway facing the house, regardless alike of the wheels of the numerous passing carriages and cabs, and of the whips of the drivers. The lady of the house, a north-country woman, said at once, as she rose from her seat at the open window, 'That means death. I shall hear of some sad trouble.' The dog would not be driven away by the angry coachmen and cabmen, but finished the howling with three peculiar yelps, and then trotted off rapidly; and there was much jesting during the rest of the evening about the strange occurrence. A few days afterwards, however, I was informed that on the evening of the dinner-party the brother of the hostess had died in North Lancashire. 33. 'Th' Gabriel Ratchets' strike terror into the heart of many a moorland dweller in Lancashire and Yorkshire still, presaging, as they are believed to do, death or sorrow to every one who is so unfortunate as to hear them. In the popular idea they are a pack of dogs yelping through the air. Our old literature has many references to the superstition. In more recent days, Wordsworth has introduced it in one of his sonnets:-- 'And oftentimes will start-- For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS.' Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, in a poem dated 1849, in his _Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems_, which he has kindly given me permission to quote here, says of them,-- 'Faintly sounds the airy note, And the deepest bay from the staghound's throat, Like the yelp of a cur, on the air doth float, And hardly heard is the wild halloo.' and-- 'They fly on the blast of the forest That whistles round the withered tree, But where they go we may not go, Nor see them as they fly.' Mr. Hamerton, however, goes beyond the Lancashire peasant, at any rate so far as I have been able to ascertain, for I never met any one in the hill country or on the moorlands of the North who fancied that the throng included anything but _Ratchets_, _i.e._ dogs, for the poet goes on to sing-- 'Hark! 'tis the goblin of the wood Rushing down the dark hill-side, With steeds that neigh and hounds that bay.' Mr. Henderson has recorded that, about Leeds, the flight is supposed to be that of 'the souls of unbaptized children doomed to flit restlessly above their parents' abode.' In Germany, certainly the Wild Hunt or Furious Host is accompanied by unbaptized children, and it has been recorded that a woman, about the year 1800, died of grief upon learning that the Furious Host had passed over the village where her still-born child had died just before. Mr. Kelly (_Indo-European Tradition_) very ably and poetically resolves all the various superstitions of this Wild Hunt into figurative descriptions of natural phenomena, but Mr. Yarrell, the distinguished naturalist, reduces the cries of the Gabriel Hounds into the whistling of the Bean Goose, _Anser Segetum_, as the flocks are flying southward in the night, migrating from Scandinavia. In Wales 'The Whistlers,' the cry of the golden-plover, is considered an omen of death, but it seems to be a quite distinct superstition from that of the _Cwn Annwn_, or Dogs of Hell, which latter is a Wild Hunt. I have heard the weird cry of the Gabriel Ratchets at night in several of the northern countries, and in the loneliness and gloom of early winter in the heart of the hills, or upon a wild bleak moorland, it was difficult to overcome a sudden feeling of dread when the yelps rang forth, even with Mr. Yarrell's scientific explanation fresh in my mind. To sketch the ramifications of the superstition of the Wild Hunt, however, would require a volume, so numerous and various are they. 34. In the old witch-mania records it is not unusual to find a cock sacrificed to the Evil One, and Satan's dislike of cock-crow has become proverbial. Brand has pointed out that the Christian poet Prudentius (fourth century) mentions that antipathy as a tradition of common belief. In an old German story Satan builds a house for a peasant who agrees to pay his soul for the work. A condition is made, however, that this house must be completed before cock-crow, and the wily peasant, just before the last tile is put on the roof, imitates the bird of morn, upon which all the cocks in the locality crow, and Satan, baffled, flees. The Evil One's appearance in the form of a cat, a goat, a pig, an old woman, a black dog, a stylish gentleman, and the conventional shape, with hoof and horns, have been testified to, and Calmet (_Traité sur les apparitions des Esprits et sur les Vampires_, 1751) alludes to his taking the shape of a raven, but I have not met with any record of his appearance as a cock. In this case, however, that was insisted upon, although it was suggested that it might have been some other fowl. EDINBURGH: T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. ADVERTISEMENTS THE ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY OF The Fairy Tales of all Nations. 'The Boys and Girls of to-day owe a deep debt of gratitude to Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co. for the treat here prepared for them.'--_School Board Chronicle._ 'The idea is a good one, and in addition to the intrinsic interest of the stories, the volumes will be convenient for Students of comparative Folk-lore.'--_British Quarterly Review._ 'The idea is an excellent one. The paper, print, binding and illustrations, are all that could be desired.'--_School Guardian._ _SERIES I.--ORIGINAL FAIRY TALES._ =Germany: Hauff's Longnose the Dwarf and other Fairy Tales. 5s.= 'Hauff as a story-teller is inimitable.... We have never known this book to fail with a child audience.'--_Journal of Education._ =Scandinavia: Gustafsson's Tea-time Tales for Young Little Folks and Young Old Folks.= 4_s._ 6_d._ 'Gustafsson will doubtless succeed in continually increasing his retinue of readers.'--_Academy._ =The New Arabian Nights: Select Tales omitted from the Editions of GALLAND and of LANE.= Edited by W. F. KIRBY. 4_s._ 6_d._ _Just published._ _In preparation._ =Clemens Brentano's Fairy Tales.--Topelius' Finland Idyls.= _SERIES II.--FOLK TALES._ =America: Hiawatha and other Legends of the Wigwams of the Red American Indians,= compiled by C. MATHEWS. 5_s._ _Just published._ =Ireland: Fairy Legends and Traditions of Ireland, Collected from the People,= by T. CROFTON CROKER. 5_s._ _Just published._ =Lancashire: Goblin Tales of Lancashire,= Collected by JAMES BOWKER. 4_s._ 6_d._ _Just published._ =Scandinavia: Old Norse Fairy Tales,= Gleaned from the Swedish Folk, by STEPHENS and CAVALLIUS. 4_s._ 6_d._ _Just published._ =Spain: The Bird of Truth, and other Fairy Tales,= Collected by FERNAN CABALLERO. 4_s._ 6_d._ _In preparation._ Volumes for =Brittany, Basque Provinces, Portugal, Modern Greece.= _EXTRA SERIES._ =Old Norse Sagas,= Selected and Translated by EMILY S. CAPPEL. 4_s._ 6_d._ _Just published_ =Gesta Romanorum: The Ancient Moral Tales of the Old Story-tellers,= Selected and Adapted. 4_s._ 6_d._ _Just published._ _In preparation._ =Popular Books of the Middle Ages.--Tales of Enchantment from all Lands.= Transcriber's Note: Archaic and inconsistent spelling, dialect, and punctuation retained. Advertisements were moved from the front of the book to the end. Numbers in braces {} refer to sections of the appendix. Letters in brackets [] refer to footnotes at the end of the paragraph. 
39782	----	[Illustration: THE LITTLE "NECK" IN THE SWEDISH RIVER.] BROWNIES AND BOGLES BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY Author of Songs at the Start Goose-Quill Papers The White Sail _Fifty Illustrations by Edmund H Garrett_ BOSTON D LOTHROP COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY. PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH, BOSTON. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. WHAT FAIRIES WERE AND WHAT THEY DID 11 CHAPTER II. FAIRY RULERS 22 CHAPTER III. THE BLACK ELVES 33 CHAPTER IV. THE LIGHT ELVES 46 CHAPTER V. DEAR BROWNIE 63 CHAPTER VI. OTHER HOUSE-HELPERS 79 CHAPTER VII. WATER-FOLK 96 CHAPTER VIII. MISCHIEF-MAKERS 109 CHAPTER IX. PUCK; AND POETS' FAIRIES 123 CHAPTER X. CHANGELINGS 133 CHAPTER XI. FAIRYLAND 146 CHAPTER XII. THE PASSING OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE 159 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The little river-neck of Sweden _Frontis._ "God speed you, gentlemen!" 16 The Neapolitan fairy 25 The elf-monarch who was made court-fool 29 The Isle of Rügen Dwarfs that give presents to children 31 The Dwarf that borrowed the silk gown 35 The Black Dwarfs of Rügen planning mischief 38 The Troll's children 40 A Coblynau 42 "I can't stay any longer!" 45 An elle-maid of Denmark 48 Bertha, the White Lady 49 Some Greek fairies 51 An elf-traveller 58 Brownie's delight was to do domestic service 65 Brownie relishes his bowl of cream 70 All that Pück demanded 73 "Wag-at-the-Wa'" 75 An Irish Cluricaune 84 Japanese children and Brownies 86 A little Fir-Darrig 87 The persistent Kobold of Köpenick 93 Mer-folk 98 The old Nix near Ghent 100 The work of the Nickel 101 Hob in Hobhole 106 The Irish Pooka was a horse too 111 Will o'-the-Wisp 113 Pisky also chased the farmers' cows 118 Red Comb was a tyrant 119 The Welsh Puck 126 A merry night-wanderer 127 "By the moon we sport and play" 129 The elves whose little eyes glow 132 There was an Irish changeling 137 "The acorn before the oak have I seen" 139 She heard a faint voice singing under a leaf 143 "Ainsel" 144 Gitto Bach and the fairies 148 Kaguyahime, the moon-maid 149 The little hunchback 152 Taknakanx Kan 156 "Al was this loud fulfilled of faeries" 161 Fairy stories 163 The capture of Skillywidden 165 Good-bye 171 BROWNIES AND BOGLES. "BROWNIES AND BOGLES." CHAPTER I. WHAT FAIRIES WERE AND WHAT THEY DID. A FAIRY is a humorous person sadly out of fashion at present, who has had, nevertheless, in the actors' phrase, a long and prosperous run on this planet. When we speak of fairies nowadays, we think only of small sprites who live in a kingdom of their own, with manners, laws, and privileges very different from ours. But there was a time when "fairy" suggested also the knights and ladies of romance, about whom fine spirited tales were told when the world was younger. Spenser's Faery Queen, for instance, deals with dream-people, beautiful and brave, as do the old stories of Arthur and Roland; people who either never lived, or who, having lived, were glorified and magnified by tradition out of all kinship with common men. Our fairies are fairies in the modern sense. We will make it a rule, from the beginning, that they must be small, and we will put out any who are above the regulation height. Such as the charming famous Melusina, who wails upon her tower at the death of a Lusignan, we may as well skip; for she is a tall young lady, with a serpent's tail, to boot, and thus, alas! half-monster; for if we should accept any like her in our plan, there is no reason why we should not get confused among mermaids and dryads, and perhaps end by scoring down great Juno herself as a fairy! Many a dwarf and goblin, whom we shall meet anon, is as big as a child. Again, there are rumors in nearly every country of finding hundreds of them on a square inch of oak-leaf, or beneath the thin shadow of a blade of grass. The fairies of popular belief are little and somewhat shrivelled, and quite as apt to be malignant as to be frolicsome and gentle. We shall find that they were divided into several classes and families; but there is much analogy and vagueness among these divisions. By and by you may care to study them for yourselves; at present, we shall be very high-handed with the science of folk-lore, and pay no attention whatever to learned gentlemen, who quarrel so foolishly about these things that it is not helpful, nor even funny, to listen to them. A widely-spread notion is that when our crusading forefathers went to the Holy Land, they heard the Paynim soldiers, whom they fought, speaking much of the Peri, the loveliest beings imaginable, who dwelt in the East. Now, the Arabian language, which these swarthy warriors used, has no letter P, and therefore they called their spirits Feri, as did the Crusaders after them; and the word went back with them to Europe, and slipped into general use. "Elf" and "goblin," too, are interesting to trace. There was a great Italian feud, in the twelfth century, between the German Emperor and the Pope, whose separate partisans were known as the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. As time went on, and the memory of that long strife was still fresh, a descendant of the Guelfs would put upon anybody he disliked the odious name of Ghibelline; and the latter, generation after generation, would return the compliment ardently, in his own fashion. Both terms, finally, came to be mere catch-words for abuse and reproach. And the fairies, falling into disfavor with some bold mortals, were angrily nicknamed "elf" and "goblin"; in which shape you will recognize the last threadbare reminder of the once bitter and historic faction of Guelf and Ghibelline. It is likely that the tribe were designated as fairies because they were, for the most part, fair to see, and full of grace and charm, especially among the Celtic branches; and people, at all times, had too much desire to keep their good-will, and too much shrinking from their rancor and spite, to give them any but the most flattering titles. They were seldom addressed otherwise than "the little folk," "the kind folk," "the gentry," "the fair family," "the blessings of their mothers," and "the dear wives"; just as, thousands of years back, the noblest and cleverest nation the world has ever seen, called the dreaded Three "Eumenides," the gracious ones. It is a sure and fast maxim that wheedling human nature puts on its best manners when it is afraid. In Goldsmith's racy play, She Stoops to Conquer, old Mistress Hardcastle meets what she takes to be a robber. She hates robbers, of course, and is scared half out of her five wits; but she implores mercy with a cowering politeness at which nobody can choose but laugh, of her "good Mr. Highwayman." Now, fairies, who knew how to be bountiful and tender, and who made slaves of themselves to serve men and women, as we shall see, were easily offended, and wrought great mischief and revenge if they were not treated handsomely; all of which kept people in the habit of courtesy toward them. A whirlwind of dust is a very annoying thing, and makes one splutter, and feel absurdly resentful; but in Ireland, exactly as in modern Greece, the peasantry thought that it betokened the presence of fairies going a journey; so they lifted their hats gallantly, and said: "God speed you, gentlemen!" [Illustration: "GOD SPEED YOU, GENTLEMEN!"] Fairies had their followers and votaries from early times. Nothing in the Bible hints that they were known among the heathens with whom the Israelites warred; nothing in classic mythology has any approach to them, except the beautiful wood and water-nymphs. Yet poet Homer, Pliny the scientist, and Aristotle the philosopher, had some notion of them, and of their influence. In old China, whole mountains were peopled with them, and the coriander-seeds grown in their gardens gave long life to those who ate of them. The Persians had a hierarchy of elves, and were the first to set aside Fairyland as their dwelling-place. Saxons, in their wild forests, believed in tiny dwarves or demons called Duergar. Celtic countries, Scotland, Brittany, Ireland, Wales, were always crowded with them. In the "uttermost mountains of India, under a merry part of heaven," or by the hoary Nile, according to other writers, were the Pigmeos, one cubit high, full-grown at three years, and old at seven, who fought with cranes for a livelihood. And the Swiss alchemist, Paracelsus (a most pompous and amusing old bigwig), wrote that in his day all Germany was filled with fairies two feet long, walking about in little coats! Their favorite color, noticeably in Great Britain, was green; the majority of them wore it, and grudged its adoption by a mortal. Sir Walter Scott tells us that it was a fatal hue to several families in his country, to the entire gallant race of Grahames in particular; for in battle a Grahame was almost always shot through the green check of his plaid. French fairies went in white; the Nis of Jutland, and many other house-sprites, in red and gray, or red and brown; and the plump Welsh goblins, whose holiday dress was also white, in the gayest and most varied tints of all. In North Wales were "the old elves of the blue petticoat"; in Cardiganshire was the familiar green again, though it was never seen save in the month of May; and in Pembrokeshire, a uniform of jolly scarlet gowns and caps. The fairy gentlemen were quite as much given to finery as the ladies, and their general air was one of extreme cheerful dandyism. Only the mine and ground-fairies were attired in sombre colors. Indeed, their idea of clothes was delightfully liberal; an elf bespoke himself by what he chose to wear; and fashions ranged all the way from the sprites of the Orkney Islands, who strutted about in armor, to the little Heinzelmänchen of Cologne, who scorned to be burdened with so much as a hat! People accounted in strange ways for their origin. A legend, firmly held in Iceland, says that once upon a time Eve was washing a number of her children at a spring, and when the Lord appeared suddenly before her, she hustled and hid away those who were not already clean and presentable; and that they being made forever invisible after, became the ancestors of the "little folk," who pervade the hills and caves and ruins to this day. In Ireland and Scotland fairies were spoken of as a wandering remnant of the fallen angels. The Christian world over, they were deemed either for a while, or perpetually, to be locked out from the happiness of the blessed in the next world. The Bretons thought their Korrigans had been great Gallic princesses, who refused the new faith, and clung to their pagan gods, and fell under a curse because of their stubbornness. The Small People of Cornwall, too, were imagined to be the ancient inhabitants of that country, long before Christ was born, not good enough for Heaven, and yet too good to be condemned altogether, whose fate it is to stray about, growing smaller and smaller, until by and by they vanish from the face of the earth. Therefore the poor fairy-folk, with whom theology deals so rudely, were supposed to be tired waiting, and anxious to know how they might fare everlastingly; and they waylaid many mortals, who, of course, really could tell them nothing, to ask whether they might not get into Heaven, by chance, at the end. It was their chief cause of doubt and melancholy, and ran in their little minds from year to year. And since we shall revert no more to the sad side of fairy-life, let us close with a most sweet story of something which happened in Sweden, centuries ago. Two boys were gambolling by a river, when a Neck rose up to the air, smiling, and twanging his harp. The elder child watched him, and cried mockingly: "Neck! what is the good of your sitting there and playing? You will never be saved!" And the Neck's sensitive eyes filled with tears, and, dropping his harp, he sank forlornly to the bottom. But when the brothers had gone home, and told their wise and saintly father, he said they had been thoughtlessly unkind; and he bade them hurry back to the river, and comfort the little water-spirit. From afar off they saw him again on the surface, weeping bitterly. And they called to him: "Dear Neck! do not grieve; for our father says that your Redeemer liveth also." Then he threw back his bright head, and, taking his harp, sang and played with exceeding gladness until sunset was long past, and the first star sent down its benediction from the sky. CHAPTER II. FAIRY RULERS. THE forming of character among the fairy-folk was a very simple and sensible matter. You will imagine that the Pagan, Druid and Christian elves varied greatly. And they did; still their morals had nothing to do with it, nor pride, nor patriotism, nor descent, nor education; nor would all the philosophy you might crowd into a thimble have made one bee-big resident of Japan different from a man of his own size in Spain. They saved themselves no end of trouble by setting up the local barometer as their standard. The only Bible they knew was the weather, and they followed it stoutly. Whatever the climate was, whatever it had helped to make the grown-up nation who lived under it, that, every time, were the "brownies and bogles." Where the land was rocky and grim, and subject to wild storms and sudden darknesses, the fairies were grim and wild too, and full of wicked tricks. Where the landscape was level and green, and the crops grew peacefully, they were tame, as in central England, and inclined to be sentimental. And they copied the distinguishing traits of the race among whom they dwelt. A frugal Breton fairy spoke the Breton dialect; the Neapolitan had a tooth for fruits and macaroni; the Chinese was ceremonious and stern; a true Provençal fée was as vain as a peacock, flirting a mirror before her, and an Irish elf, bless his little red feathered caubeen! was never the man to run away from a fight. If you look on the map, and see a section of coast-line like that of Cornwall or Norway, a sunshiny, perilous, foamy place, make up your mind that the fairies thereabouts were fellows worth knowing; that you would have needed all your wit and pluck to get the better of them, and that they would have made live, hearty playmates, too, while in good humor, for any brave boy or girl. We do not know nearly so much about the genuine fairies as we should like. They must have been, at one time or another, in every European country. Most of the Oriental spirits were taller, and of another brood; they figured either as demons, or as what we should now call angels. But in the Germanic colonies, from very old days, fairy-lore was finely developed, and we count up tribe on tribe of necks, nixies, stromkarls and mermaids, who were water-sprites; of bergmännchen (little men of the mountain), and lovely wild-women in hilly places; of trolls around the woods and rocks; of elves in the air, and gnomes or duergars in caverns or mines. Yet from Portugal, and Russia, and Hungary, and from our own North American Indians, we learn so little that it is not worth counting. If the good dear peasants who were acquainted with the fairies had made more rhymes about them, and handed them down more attentively; if it had occurred to the knowing scholar-monks to keep diaries of elfin doings, as it would have done had they but known how soon their little friends were to be extinct, like the glyptodon and the dodo, how wise should we not be! [Illustration: THE NEAPOLITAN FAIRY.] But again, though there were hosts of supernatural beings in the beliefs of every old land, we have no business with any but the wee ones. And as these were settled most thickly in the Teutonic, Celtic and Cymric countries, we will turn our curiosity thither, without farther grumbling, and be glad to get so much authentic news of them as we may. Fairies, as a whole, seem at bottom rather weak and disconsolate. For all of their magic and cunning, for all of their high station, and its feasting and glory, they could not keep from seeking human sympathy. They did, indeed, hurt men, resent intrusions, foretell the future, and call down disease and storm, but they stood in awe of the weakest mortal because of his superior strength and size; they came to him to borrow food and medicine, and even to ask the loan of his house for their revels. They rendered themselves invisible, but he had always at his feet the fern-seed, the talisman of four-leaved clover (or, as in Scotland, the leaf of the ash or rowan-tree), with which he could defeat their design, and protect himself against the attacks of any witch, imp, or fairy whatsoever. Their government was a happy-go-lucky affair. The various tribes of fairies had no common interests which would make them sigh for post-offices, or cables, or general synods. Each set of them got along, independent of the rest. Once in a while a mine-man would live alone with his wife, pegging away at his daily work, without any idea of hurrahing for his King or, more likely, his Queen; or even of hunting up his own cousins in the next county. If we had elves in the United States nowadays, they would no doubt be American enough to elect a President and have him as honest, and steady, and sound-hearted as needs be. But dwelling as they did in feudal days, they set up thrones and sceptres all over Fairydom. According to the poets, Mab and Oberon are the crowned rulers of the little people. In reality, they had no supreme head. Among many parties and factions, each small agreeing community had its own chief, the tallest of his race, who was no chief at all, mind you, to the fairy neighbors a mile east. The delicate yellow Chinese fairy-mother was Si Wang Mu; and in the Netherlands, the elf-queen, who was also queen of the witches, was called Wanne Thekla. We snatch an item here and there of the royal histories. We find that the sweet-natured Elberich in the Niebelungen is the same as Oberon. In Germany was a dwarf-king named Goldemar, who lived with a knight, shared his bed, played at dice with him, gave him good advice, called him Brother-in-law very fondly, and comforted him with the music of his harp. But Goldemar, though the knight loved him and could touch and feel him, was unseen. He was like a wreath of blue smoke, or a fragment of moonlight, and you could run a sword through him, and never change his kind smile. His royal hands were lean, and soft, and cold as a frog's. After three years, perhaps when Brother-in-law was dead, or when he was married, and needed him no longer, the gentle dwarf-king disappeared. Sinnels, Gübich, and Heiling were other dwarf-princes, probably rivals of Goldemar, and ready to have at him till their breath gave out. Their little majesties were quarrelsome as cock-sparrows. The elf-monarch Laurîn was once conquered by Theodoric; and because he had been treacherous in war (which was not "fair" at all, despite the proverb), he got a very sad rebuff to his dignity, in being made fool or buffoon at the court of Bern. [Illustration: THE ELF-MONARCH WHO WAS MADE COURT-FOOL.] We are told in the Mabinogion how the daughter of Llud Llaw Ereint was "the most splendid maiden in the three islands of the mighty," and how for her Gwyn ap Nudd, the Welsh fairy-king, battles every May-day from dawn until sunset. Gwyn once carried her off from Gwythyr, her true lord; and both lovers were so furious and cruel against each other that blessed King Arthur condemned them to wage bitter fight on each first-of-May till the world's end; and to whomsoever is victorious the greatest number of times, the fair lady shall then be given. Let us hope the reward will not fall to thieving Gwyn. We have said that we should do pretty much as we pleased in ranging the myriad fairy-folk into ranks and species. If, as we prowl about, we see a baby in the house of the Elfsmiths, who has a look of the Elfbrowns, we will immediately kidnap him from his fond parents, and add him to the family he resembles. Now that might make wailing and confusion, and bring down vengeance on our heads, if there were any Queen Mab left to rap us to order; but as things go, we shall find it a very neat way of smoothing difficulties. [Illustration: THE ISLE OF RÜGEN DWARVES THAT GIVE PRESENTS TO CHILDREN.] Of course there are certain pigwidgeons too accomplished, too slippery, too many things in one, to be ticketed and tied down like the rest; such versatile fellows as the Brown Dwarves of the Isle of Rügen, for instance. They lived in what were called the Vine-hills, and were not quite eighteen inches high. They wore little snuff-brown jackets and a brown cap (which made them invisible, and allowed them to pass through the smallest keyhole), with one wee silver bell at its peak, not to be lost for any money. But they did some roguish things; and children who fell into their hands had to serve them for fifty years! With caprice usual to their kin, they will, on other occasions, befriend and protect children, and give them presents; or plague untidy servants, like Brownie, or lead travellers astray by night into bogs and marshes, like the Ellydan and the Fir-Darrig, and mischievous double-faced Robin Goodfellow himself. An ancient tradition says that while the grass-blades are sprouting at the root, the earth-elves water and nourish them; and the moment the growth pierces the soil, affectionate air-elves take it in charge. Therefore we borrow a hint from the grass; and after first going down among the swarthy fairies who burrow underground, we shall pass up to companionship with little beings so beautiful that wherever they flock there is starlight and song. CHAPTER III. THE BLACK ELVES. ACCORDING to the very old Scandinavian notion, land-fairies were of two sorts; the Light or Good Elves who dwelt in air, or out-of-doors on the earth, and the Black or Evil Elves who dwelt beneath it. We will follow the Norse folk. If we were required to group human beings under two headings, we should choose that same Good and Evil, because the division occurs to one naturally, because it saves time, and because everybody comprehends it, and sees that it is based upon law; and so do we deal with our wonder-friends, who have the strange moral sorcery belonging to each of us their masters, to help or to harm. The evil fairies, then, were the scowling underground tribes, who hid themselves from the frank daylight, and the open reaches of the fields. Yet just as the good fairies had many a sad failing to offset their grace and charm, the grim, dark-skinned manikins had sudden impulses towards honor and kindness. In fact, as we noted before, they were astonishingly like our fellow-creatures, of whom scarce any is entirely faultless, or entirely warped and ruined. For instance, the Hill-men, in Switzerland, were very generous-minded; they drove home stray lambs at night, and put berry-bushes in the way of poor children. And the more modern Dwarves of Germany, frequenting the clefts of rocks, were silent, mild, and well-disposed, and apt to bring presents to those who took their fancy. Like others of the elf-kingdom, they loved to borrow from mortals. Once a little bowing Dwarf came to a lady for the loan of her silk gown for a fairy-bride. (You can imagine that, at the ceremony, the groom must have had a pretty hunt among the wilderness of finery to get at her ring-finger!) Of course the lady gave it; but worrying over its tardy return, she went to the Dwarves' hill and asked for it aloud. A messenger with a sorrowful countenance brought it to her at once, spotted over and over with wax. But he told her that had she been less impatient every stain would have been a diamond! [Illustration: THE DWARF THAT BORROWED THE SILK GOWN.] The huge, terrible, ogre-like Hindoo Rakshas, the weird Divs and Jinns of Persia, and the ancient demon-dwarves of the south called Panis, may be considered the foster-parents of our dwindled minims, as the glorious Peris on the other hand gave their name, and some of their qualities, to a little European family of very different ancestry. The Black Elves will serve as our general name for dwarves and mine-fairies. These are closely connected in all legends, live in the same neighborhoods, and therefore claim a mention together. They have four points in common: dark skin; short, bulky bodies; fickle and irritable natures; and occupations as miners, misers, or metalsmiths. And because of their exceeding industry, on the old maxim's authority, where all work and no play made Jack a dull boy, they are curiously heavy-headed and preposterous jacks; and, waiving their plain faces, not in any wise engaging. Yet perhaps, being largely German, they may be philosophers, and so vastly superior to any little gabbling, somersaulting ragamuffin over in Ireland. In the Middle Ages, they were described as withered and leering, with small, sharp, snapping black eyes, bright as gems; with cracked voices, and matted hair, and horns peering from it! and as if that were not enough adornment, they had claws, which must have been filched from the ghosts of mediæval pussy-cats, on their fingers and toes. The first Duergars belonging to the Gotho-German mythology, were muscular and strong-legged; and when they stood erect, their arms reached to the ground. They were clever and expert handlers of metal, and made of gold, silver and iron, the finest armor in the world. They wrought for Odin his great spear, and for Thor his hammer, and for Frey the wondrous ship _Skidbladnir_. Long ago, too, armor-making Elves, black as pitch, lived in Svart-Alfheim, in the bowels of the earth, and were able, by their glance or touch or breath, to cause sickness and death wheresoever they wished. [Illustration: THE BLACK DWARVES OF RÜGEN PLANNING MISCHIEF.] Still uglier were the Black Dwarves of the mysterious Isle of Rügen; nor had they any frolicsome or cordial ways which should bring up our opinion of them. Their pale eyes ran water, and every midnight they mewed and screeched horribly from their holes. In idle summer-hours they sat under the elder-trees, planning by twos and threes to wreak mischief on mankind. They, as well, were once useful, if not beautiful; for in the days when heroes wore a panoply of steel, the Black Dwarves wrought fair helmets and corselets of cobwebby mail which no lance could pierce, and swords flexible as silk which could unhorse the mightiest foe. The little blackamoors frequented mining districts, and dug for ore on their own account. They were said to be very rich, owning unnumbered chests stored underground. The most exciting tales about gnomes of all nations were founded on the efforts of daring mortals to get possession of their wealth. To the mining division belong the dwarf-Trolls of Denmark and Sweden (for there were giant-Trolls as well), and the whimsical Spriggans of Cornwall. The Trolls burrowed in mounds and hills, and were called also Bjerg-folk or Hill-folk; they lived in societies or families, baking and brewing, marrying and visiting, in the old humdrum way. They made fortunes, and hoarded up heaps of money. But they were often obliging and benevolent; it gave them pleasure to bestow gifts, to lend and borrow, and sometimes, alas! to steal. They played prettily on musical instruments, and were very jolly. People used to see the stumpy little children of the genteel Troll who lived at Kund in Jutland, climbing up the knoll which was the roof of their own house, and rolling down one after the other with shouts of laughter. The Trolls were famous gymnasts, and very plump and round. Our word "droll" is left to us in merry remembrance of them. [Illustration: THE TROLL'S CHILDREN.] They were tractable creatures, as you may know from the tale of the farmer, who, ploughing an angry Troll's land, agreed, for the sake of peace, to go halves in the crops sown upon it, so that one year the Troll should have what grew above ground, and the next year what grew under. But the sly farmer planted radishes and carrots, and the Troll took the tops; and the following season he planted corn; and his queer partner gathered up the roots and marched off in triumph. Indeed, it was so easy to outwit the simple Troll that a generous farmer would never have played the game out, and we should have lost our little story. It was mean to take advantage of the sweet fellow's trustfulness. There was an English schoolmaster once, a man wise, firm, and kind, and of vast influence, of whom one of his boys said to another: "It's a shame to tell a lie to Arnold; he always believes it." That was a ray of real chivalry. The Spriggans were fond of dwelling near walls and loose stones, with which it was unlucky to tamper, and where they slipped in and out with suspicious eyes, guarding their buried treasure. If a house was robbed, or the cattle were carried away, or a hurricane swooped down on a Cornish village, the neighbors attributed their trouble to the Spriggans; whereby you may believe they had fine reputations for meddlesomeness. Their cousins, the Buccas, Bockles or Knockers, were gentlemen who went about thumping and rapping wherever there was a vein of ore for the weary workmen, cheating, occasionally, to break the monotony. [Illustration: A 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 Bohemians named 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 peasant on 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 flood The 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 much as 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. [Illustration: "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!" CHAPTER IV. THE LIGHT ELVES. Over the beautiful Light Elves of the _Edda_, 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; and in 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 disagreeable person; for if any one came near him while he was bathing in the sun, he opened his mouth and breathed pestilence upon them. [Illustration: AN ELLE-MAID, OF DENMARK.] [Illustration: BERTHA, 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 of Germany, 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 almost always 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 returning spring, 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. [Illustration: SOME 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 never danced. 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 deserve homage 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 him through. 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 to reward 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 James I. of England mentions in his _Dæmonology_ a "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 nightingale O'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. [Illustration: AN 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 charm to 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. CHAPTER V. 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 Highlands and 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. [Illustration: BROWNIE'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, and led 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 wake I do them take, And on the key-cold floor them throw! If out they cry Then 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-cleaning for 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 of the 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. [Illustration: BROWNIE 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 completely turned 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 cap or 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 German house-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. [Illustration: "_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 tree That's to grow the wood that's to make the cradle That's to rock the bairn that's to grow to the man That'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 cough virtuously, 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. [Illustration: "WAG-AT-THE-WA'."] Scotch fairies called Powries and Dunters haunted 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. CHAPTER VI. OTHER HOUSE-HELPERS. IN modern Greece the Brownie was known as the Stoechia. 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 Stoechia, 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-meaning rascal, 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 knotty braids, 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, Ef You Don't Watch Out! 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 a knowing 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 that the 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. [Illustration: AN 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 Friday she 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 up to mean "bad," as you see in Japanese artists' pictures. [Illustration: JAPANESE 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 name seemed 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. [Illustration: A LITTLE FIR-DARRIG.] In Ireland lived the mocking, whimsical little Fir-Darrig, Robin Goodfellow's own twin. He dressed in tight-fitting red; Fir-Darrig itself meant "the red man." He had big humorous ears, and the softest and most flexible voice in the world, which could mimic any sound at will. He sat by the fire, and smoked a pipe, big as himself, belonging to the man of the house. He loved cleanliness, brought good-luck to his abode, and, like a cat, generally preferred places to people. Puck and Robin Goodfellow were the names best known and cherished. There is no doubt that Shakespeare, from whom we have now our prevailing idea of Puck, got the idea of him, in his turn, from the popular superstitions of his day. But Puck's very identity was all but forgotten, and since Shakespeare was, therefore, his poetical creator, we will forego mention of him here, and entitle Robin Goodfellow, the same "shrewd and meddling elf," under another nickname, the true Brownie of England. He was both House-Helper and Mischief-Maker, "the most active and extraordinary fellow of a fairy," says Ritson, "that we anywhere meet with." He was said to have had a supplementary brother called Robin Badfellow; but there was no need of that, because he was Robin Badfellow in himself, and united in his whimsical little character so many opposite qualities, that he may be considered the representative elf the world over; for the old Saxon Hudkin, the Niss of Scandinavia, and Knecht Ruprecht, the Robin of Germany, are nothing but our masquerading goblin-friend on continental soil. And in the red-capped smiling Mikumwess among the Passamaquoddy Indians, there he is again! By this name of Robin he was known earlier than the thirteenth century, and "famosed in everie olde wives' chronicle for his mad merrie prankes," two hundred years later. His biography was put forth in a black-letter tract in 1628, and in a yet better-known ballad which recited his jests, and was in free circulation while Queen Bess was reigning. The forgotten annalist says very heartily, alluding to his string of aliases: But call him by what name you list; I have studied on my pillow, And think the name he best deserves Is Robin, the Good Fellow! We class him rightly as a Brownie, because he skimmed milk, knew all about domestic life, and was the delight or terror of servants, as the case might be. He was fond of making a noise and clatter on the stairs, of playing harps, ringing bells, and misleading passing travellers; and despite his knavery, he came to be much beloved by his house-mates. Very like him was the German Hempelman, who laughed a great deal. But the laugh of Master Robin sometimes foreboded trouble and death to people, which Hempelman's never did. The jolly German Kobold had a laugh which filled his throat, and could be heard a mile away. Bu he was a gnome malignant enough if he was neglected or insulted. He very seldom made a mine-sprite of himself, but stayed at home, Brownie-like, and "ran" the house pretty much as he saw fit. To the Dwarves he was, however, closely related, and dressed after their fashion, except that sometimes he wore a coat of as many colors as the rainbow, with tinkling bells fastened to it. He objected to any chopping or spinning done on a Thursday. Change of servants, while he held his throne in the kitchen, affected him not in the least; for the maid going away recommended her successor to treat him civilly, at her peril. A very remarkable Kobold was Hinzelmann, who called himself a Christian, and came to the old castle of Hüdemühlen in 1584; whose history, too long to add here, is given charmingly in Mr. Keightley's Fairy Mythology. A certain bearded little Kobold lived with some fishermen in a hut, and tried a trick which was quite classic, and reminds one of the Greek story of Procrustes, which all of you have met with, or will meet with, some day. Says Mr. Benjamin Thorpe: "His chief amusement, when the fishermen were lying asleep at night, was to lay them even. For this purpose he would first draw them up until their heads all lay in a straight line, but then their legs would be out of the line! and he had to go to their feet and pull them up until the tips of their toes were all in a row. This game he would continue till broad daylight." Now all Brownies, Nissen, Kobolds and the rest, were very much of a piece, and when you know the virtues and faults of one of them, you know the habits of the race. So that you can understand, despite the slight but steady help given in household matters, that a person so variable and exacting and high-tempered as this curious little sprite might happen sometimes to be a great bore, and might inspire his master or mistress with the sighing wish to be rid of him. It was a tradition in Normandy that to shake off the Lutin or Gobelin, it was merely necessary to scatter flax-seed where he was wont to pass; for he was too neat to let it lie there, and yet tired so soon of picking it up, that he left it in disgust, and went away for good. And there was a sprite named Flerus who lived in a farm-house near Ostend, and worked so hard, sweeping and drawing water, and turning himself into a plough-horse that he might replace the old horse who was sick, for no reward, either, save a little fresh sugared milk--that soon his master was the wealthiest man in the neighborhood. But a giddy young servant-maid once offended him, at the day's end, by giving him garlic in his milk; and as soon as poor Flerus tasted it, he departed, very wrathful and hurt, from the premises, forever. There were few such successful instances on record. Though Brownie was ready, in every land under the sun, to leave home when he took the fancy, or when he was puffed up with gifts of lace and velvet, so that no mortal residence was gorgeous enough for him, yet he would take no hint, nor obey any command, when either pointed to a banishment. [Illustration: THE PERSISTENT KOBOLD OF KÖPENICK.] Near Köpenick once, a man thought of buying a new house, and turning his back on a vexatious Kobold. The morning before he meant to change quarters, he saw his Kobold sitting by a pool, and asked him what he was doing. "I am doing my washing!" said the sharp rogue, "because we move to-morrow." And the man saw very well that as he could not avoid him, he had better take the little nuisance along. The same thing happened in the capital Polish anecdote of Iskrzycki (make your respects to his excruciating name!) and over Northern Europe the sarcastic joke "Yes, we're flitting!" prevails in folk-song and story. There is many and many an example of families selling the old house, and going off in great glee with the furniture, thinking the elf-rascal cheated and left behind; and lo! there he was, perched on a rope, or peering from a hole in the cart itself, on his congratulated master. The funniest hap of all befell an ungrateful farmer who fired his barn to burn the poor Kobold in it. As he was driving off, he turned to look at the blaze, and what should he see on the seat behind him but the same excited Kobold, chattering, monkey-like, and shrieking sympathizingly: "It was about time for us to get out of that, wasn't it?" The dark-skinned little house-sprites came to stay; and as for being snubbed, they were quite above it. They were the sort of callers to whom you could never show the door, with any dignity; for if you had done so, the grinning goblin would have examined knob and panels with a squinted eye, and gone back whistling to your easy-chair. CHAPTER VII. WATER-FOLK. OF old, there were Oreads and Naiads to people the rivers and the sea, but they were not fairies; and in after-years the beautiful, bright water-life of Greece, with its shells and dolphins, its palaces, its subaqueous music, and its happy-hearted maids and men, faded wholly out of memory. No one dominant race came to replace them. Merpeople, Tritons and Sirens we meet now and then, as did Hendrik Hudson's crew, and the Moruachs of Ireland, the Morverch (sea-daughters) of Brittainy; but they, too, were grown, and half-human. They were beautiful and swift, and usually sat combing their long hair, with a mirror in one hand, and their glossy tails tapering from the waist. The Danish Mermaid was gold-haired, cunning and treacherous; the Havmand or Merman was handsome, too, with black hair and beard, but kind and beneficent. The Swedish pair offered presents to those on shore, or passing in boats, in hopes to sink them beneath the waves. England and Ireland had no water-sprites which answered to the Nix and the Kelpie, only the Merrow, who was a Mermaid. She was a fair woman, with white, webbed fingers. She carried upon her head a little diving-cap, and when she came up to the rocks or the beach, she laid it by; but if it were stolen from her, she lost the power of returning to the sea. So that if her cap were taken by a young man, she very often could do nothing better than to marry him, and spend her time hunting for it up and down over his house. And once she had found it, she forgot all else but her desire to go home to "the kind sea-caves," and despite the calling of her neighbors and husband and children, she flitted to the shore, and plunged into the first oncoming billow, and walked the earth no longer. [Illustration: MER-FOLK.] Tales of these spirit-brides who suddenly deserted the green earth for their dear native waters, are common in Arabian and European folk-lore. And this characteristic was noted also in the Sea-trows of the Shetland Islands, who divested themselves of a shining fish-skin, and could not find the way to their ocean-beds if it were kept out of their reach. It was the Danish sailor's belief that seals laid by their skins every ninth night, and took maiden's forms wherewith to sport and sleep on the reefs. And for their capture as they were, warm, living and human, one had only to snatch and hide away their talisman-skin. The strange German Water-man wore a green hat, and when he opened his mouth, his teeth as well were green; he appeared to girls who passed his lake, and measured out ribbon, and flung it to them. But we must search for smaller sprites than these. The little water-fairies who devoted themselves to drawing under whomsoever encroached on their pools and brooks, were called Nixies in Germany, Korrigans (for this was part of their office) in Brittainy; Ondins about Magdebourg, and Roussalkis, the long-haired, smiling ones, among the Slavic people. [Illustration: THE LITTLE OLD NIX NEAR GHENT.] The engaging Nixies were very minute and mischievous, and abounded in the Shetland Isles and Cornwall, as did, moreover, the Kelpies, who were like tiny horses, known even in China; sporting on the margin, and foreboding death by drowning, to any who beheld them; or tempting passers-by to mount, and plunging, with their victims, headlong into the deep. The Nix-lady was recognized when she came on shore by the edges of her dress or apron being perpetually wet. The dark-eyed Nix-man with his seaweed hair and his wide hat, was known by his slit ears and feet, which he was very careful to conceal. Once in a while he was observed to be half-fish. The naked Nixen were draped with moss and kelp; but when they were clothed, they seemed merely little men and women, save that the borders of their garments, dripping water, betrayed them. They did their marketing ashore, wheresoever they were, and, according to all accounts, with a sharp eye to economy. Like the land-elves, they loved to dance and sing. Nix did not favor divers, fishermen, and other intruders on his territory, and he did his best to harm them. He was altogether a fierce, grudging, covetous little creature. His comelier wife was much better-natured, and befriended human beings to the utmost of her power. [Illustration: THE WORK OF THE NICKEL.] Near Ghent was a little old Nix who lived in the Scheldt; he cried and sighed much, and did mischief to no one. It grieved him when children ran away from him, yet if they asked what troubled his conscience, he only sighed heavily, and disappeared. The modern Greeks believed in a black sprite haunting wells and springs, who was fond of beckoning to strangers. If they came to him, he bestowed gifts upon them; if not, he never seemed angry, but turned patiently to wait for the next passer-by. There was a curious sea-creature in Norway, who swam about as a thin little old man with no head. About the magical Isle of Rügen lived the Nickel. His favorite game was to astonish the fishers, by hauling their boats up among the trees. At Arles and other towns near the Spanish border in France, were the Dracs, who inhabited clear pools and streams, and floated along in the shape of gold rings and cups, so that women and children bathing should grasp them, and be lured under. The Indian water-manittos, the Nibanaba, were winning in appearance, and wicked in disposition. They, joining the Pukwudjinies, helped to kill Kwasind. In Wales were the Gwragedd Annwn, elves who loved the stillness of lonely mountain-lakes, and who seldom ventured into the upper world. They had their own submerged towns and battlements; and from their little sunken city the fairy-bells sent out, ever and anon, muffled silver voices. The Gwragedd Annwn were not fishy-finned, nor were they ever dwellers in the sea; for in Wales were no mermaid-traditions, nor any tales of those who beguiled mortals-- Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave. The Neck and the Strömkarl of Swedish rivers were two little chaps with hardly a hair's breadth of difference. Either appeared under various shapes; now as a green-hatted old man with a long beard, out of which he wrung water as he sat on the cliffs; now loitering of a summer night on the surface, like a chip of wood or a leaf, he seemed a fair child, harping, with yellow ringlets falling from beneath a high red cap to his shoulders. Both fairies had a genius for music; and the Strömkarl, especially, had one most marvellous tune to which he put eleven variations. Now, to ten of them any one might dance decorously, and with safety; but at the eleventh, which was the enchanted one, all the world went mad; and tables, belfries, benches, houses, windmills, trees, horses, cripples, babies, ghosts, and whole towns full of sedate citizens began capering on the banks about the invisible player, and kept it up in furious fashion until the last note died away. You know that the wren was hunted in certain countries on a certain day. Well, here is one legend about her. There was a malicious fairy once in the Isle of Man, very winsome to look at, who worked a sorry Kelpie-trick, on the young men of the town, and inveigled them into the sea, where they perished. At last the inhabitants rose in vengeance, and suspecting her of causing their loss and sorrow, gave her chase so hard and fast by land, that to save herself, she changed her shape into that of an innocent brown wren. And because she had been so treacherous, a spell was cast upon her, inasmuch as she was obliged every New Year's Day to fly about as that same bird, until she should be killed by a human hand. And from sunrise to sunset, therefore, on the first bleak day of January, all the men and boys of the island fired at the poor wrens, and stoned them, and entrapped them, in the hope of reaching the one guilty fairy among them. And as they could never be sure that they had captured the right one, they kept on year by year, chasing and persecuting the whole flock. But every dead wren's feather they preserved carefully, and believed that it hindered them from drowning and shipwreck for that twelvemonth; and they took the feathers with them on voyages great and small, in order that the bad fairy's magic may never be able to prevail, as it had prevailed of yore with their unhappy brothers. The presence of the sea-fairies had a terror in it, and against their arts only the strongest and most watchful could hope to be victorious. Their sport was to desolate peaceful homes, and bring destruction on gallant ships. They, dwelling in streams and in the ocean, the world over, were like the waters they loved: gracious and noble in aspect, and meaning danger and death to the unwary. We fear that, like the earth-fairies, they were heartless quite. [Illustration: HOB IN HOBHOLE] But it may be that the gentle Nixies had only a blind longing for human society, and would not willingly have wrought harm to the creatures of another element. We are more willing to urge excuses for their wrong-doing than for the like fault in our frowzly under-ground folk; for ugliness seems, somehow, not so shocking when allied with evil as does beauty, which was destined for all men's delight and uplifting. As the air-elves had their Fairyland whither mortal children wandered, and whence they returned after an unmeasured lapse of time, still children, to the ivy-grown ruins of their homes, so the water-elves had a reward for those they snatched from earth; and legends assure us the wave-rocked prisoners a hundred fathoms down, never grew old, but kept the flush of their last morning rosy ever on their brows. Among a little community full of guile, there is great comfort in spotting one honest, kind water-boy, who, not content with being harmless, as were the Flemish and Grecian Nixies, put himself to work to do good, and charm away some of the worries and ills that burdened the upper world. His name was Hob, and he lived in Hobhole, which was a cave scooped out by the beating tides in old Northumbria. The lean pockets of the neighboring doctors were partly attributed to this benignant little person; for he set up an opposition, and his specialty was the cure of whooping-cough. Many a Scotch mother took her lad or lass to the spray-covered mouth of the wise goblin's cave, and sang in a low voice: Hobhole Hob! Ma bairn's gotten t' kink-cough: Tak't off! tak't off! And so he did, sitting there with his toes in the sea. For Hobhole Hob's small sake, we can afford to part friends with the whole naughty race of water-folk. CHAPTER VIII. MISCHIEF-MAKERS. THE fairy-fellows who made a regular business of mischief-making seemed to have two favorite ways of setting to work. They either saddled themselves with little boys and spilled them, sooner or later, into the water, or else they danced along holding a twinkling light, and led any one so foolish as to follow them a pretty march into chasms and quagmires. Their jokes were grim and hurtful, and not merely funny, like Brownie's; for Brownie usually gave his victims (except in Molly Jones's case) nothing much worse than a pinch. So people came to have great awe and horror of the heartless goblins who waylaid travellers, and left them broken-limbed or dead. Very often quarrelsome, disobedient or vicious folk fell into the snare of a Kelpie, or a Will-o'-the-Wisp; for the little whipper-snappers had a fine eye for poetical justice, and dealt out punishments with the nicest discrimination. We never hear that they troubled good, steady mortals; but only that sometimes they beguiled them, for sheer love, into Fairyland. We know that all "ouphes and elves" could change their shapes at will; therefore when we spy fairy-horses, fairy-lambs, and such quadrupeds, we guess at once that they are only roguish small gentlemen masquerading. Never for the innocent fun of it, either; but alas! to bring silly persons to grief. In Hampshire, in England, was a spirit known as Coltpixy, which, itself shaped like a miniature neighing horse, beguiled other horses into bogs and morasses. The Irish Pooka or Phooka was a horse too, and a famous rascal. He lived on land, and was something like the Welsh Gwyll: a tiny, black, wicked-faced wild colt, with chains dangling about him. Again, he frisked around in the shape of a goat or a bat. Spenser has him: "Ne let the Pouke, ne other evill spright, . . . Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not." "Fray," as you are likely to guess, means to frighten or to scare. [Illustration: THE IRISH POOKA WAS A HORSE TOO.] Kelpies, who were Scotch, haunted fords and ferries, especially in storms; allured bystanders into the water, or swelled the river so that it broke the roads, and overwhelmed travellers. Very like them were the Brag, the little Shoopil-tree of the Shetland Islands, and the Nick, who was the Icelandic Nykkur-horse; gamesome deceivers all, who enticed children and others to bestride them, and who were treacherous as a quicksand, every time. And there were many more of the Kelpie kingdom, of whom we can hunt up no clews. A man who saw a Kelpie gave himself up for lost; for he was sure, by hook or crook, to meet his death by drowning. Kelpie, familiar so far away as China, never stayed in the next-door countries, Ireland or England, long enough to be recognized. They knew nothing of him by sight, nor of the Nix his cousin, nor of anything resembling them. In Ireland lived the merrow; but she was only an amiable mermaid. [Illustration: WILL-O'-THE-WISP.] The Japanese had a water-dragon called Kappa, "whose office it was to swallow bad boys who went to swim in disobedience to their parents' commands, and at improper times and places." In the River Tees was a green-haired lady named Peg Powler, and in some streams in Lancashire one christened Jenny Greenteeth; two hungry goblins whose only delight was to drown and devour unlucky travellers. But we know already that the water-sprites were more than likely so to behave. In Provence there is a tale told of seven little boys who went out at night against their grandmother's wishes. A little dark pony came prancing up to them, and the youngest clambered on his sleek back, and after him, the whole seven, one after the other, which was quite a wonderful weight for the wee creature; but his back meanwhile kept growing longer and larger to accommodate them. As they galloped along, the children called such of their playmates as were out of doors, to join them, the obliging nag stretching and stretching until thirty pairs of young legs dangled at his sides! when he made straight for the sea, and plunged in, and drowned them all. The Piskies, or Pigseys, of Cornwall, were naughty and unsociable. Their great trick was to entice people into marshes, by making themselves look like a light held in a man's hand, or a light in a friendly cottage window. Pisky also rode the farmers' colts hard, and chased the farmers' cows. For all his diabolics, you had to excuse him in part, when you heard his hearty fearless laugh; it was so merry and sweet. "To laugh like a Pisky," passed into a proverb. The Barguest of Yorkshire, like the Osschaert of the Netherlands, was an open-air bugaboo whose presence always portended disaster. Sometimes he appeared as a horse or dog, merely to play the old trick with a false light, and to vanish, laughing. The Tückebold was a very malicious chap, carrying a candle, who lived in Hanover; his blood-relation in Scandinavia was the Lyktgubhe. Over in Flanders and Brabant was one Kludde, a fellow whisking here and there as a half-starved little mare, or a cat, or a frog, or a bat; but who was always accompanied by two dancing blue flames, and who could overtake any one as swiftly as a snake. The Ellydan (dan is a Welsh word meaning fire, and also a lure or a snare: a luring elf-fire) was a rogue with wings, wide ears, a tall cap and two huge torches, who precisely resembled the English Will-o'-the-Wisp, the Scandinavian Lyktgubhe and the Breton Sand Yan y Tad. Our American negroes make him out Jack-muh-Lantern: a vast, hairy, goggle-eyed, big-mouthed ogre, leaping like a giant grasshopper, and forcing his victims into a swamp, where they died. The gentlemen of this tribe preferred to walk abroad at night, like any other torchlight procession. Their little bodies were invisible, and the traveller who hurried towards the pleasant lamp ahead, never knew that he was being tricked by a grinning fairy, until he stumbled on the brink of a precipice, or found himself knee-deep in a bog. Then the brazen little guide shouted outright with glee, put out his mysterious flame, and somersaulted off, leaving the poor tourist to help himself. The only way to escape his arts was to turn your coat inside out. You may guess that the ungodly wights had plenty of fun in them, by this anecdote: A great many Scotch Jack-o'-Lanterns, as they are often called, were once bothering the horse belonging to a clergyman, who with his servant, was returning home late at night. The horse reared and whinnied, and the clergyman was alarmed, for a thousand impish fires were waltzing before the wheels. Like a good man, he began to pray aloud, to no avail. But the servant just roared: "Wull ye be aff noo, in the deil's name!" and sure enough, in a wink, there was not a goblin within gunshot. [Illustration: PISKY ALSO CHASED THE FARMERS' COWS.] There were some freakish fairies in old England, whose names were Puckerel, Hob Howland, Bygorn, Bogleboe, Rawhead or Bloodybones; the last two were certainly scarers of nurseries. The Boggart was a little spectre who haunted farms and houses, like Brownie or Nis; but he was usually a sorry busybody, tearing the bed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through the keyholes, snatching his bread-and-butter from the baby, playing pranks upon the servants, and doing all manner of mischief. [Illustration: RED COMB WAS A TYRANT.] The Dunnie, in Northumberland, was fond of annoying farmers. When night came, he gave them and himself a rest, and hung his long legs over the crags, whistling and banging his idle heels. Red Comb or Bloody Cap was a tyrant who lived in every Border castle, dungeon and tower. He was short and thickset long-toothed and skinny-fingered, with big red eyes, grisly flowing hair, and iron boots; a pikestaff in his left hand, and a red cap on his ugly head. The village of Hedley, near Ebchester, in England, was haunted by a churlish imp known far and wide as the Hedley Gow. He took the form of a cow, and amused himself at milking-time with kicking over the pails, scaring the maids, and calling the cats, of whom he was fond, to lick up the cream. Then he slipped the ropes and vanished, with a great laugh. In Northern Germany we find the Hedley Gow's next-of-kin, and there, too, were little underground beings who accompanied maids and men to the milking, and drank up what was spilt; but if nothing happened to be spilt in measuring out the quarts, they got angry, overturned the pails, and ran away. These jackanapes were a foot and a half high, and dressed in black, with red caps. Many ominous fairies, such as the Banshee, portended misfortune and death. The Banshee had a high shrill voice, and long hair. Once in a while she seemed to be as tall as an ordinary woman, very thin, with head uncovered, and a floating white cloak, wringing her hands and wailing. She attached herself only to certain ancient Irish families, and cried under their windows when one of their race was sick, and doomed to die. But she scorned families who had a dash of Saxon and Norman ancestry, and would have nothing to do with them. Every single fairy that ever was known to the annals of this world was, at times, a mischief-maker. He could no more keep out of mischief than a trout out of water. What lives the dandiprats led our poor great-great-great-great grand-sires! As a very clever living writer put it: "A man could not ride out without risking an encounter with a Puck or a Will-o'-the Wisp. He could not approach a stream in safety unless he closed his ears to the sirens' songs, and his eyes to the fair form of the mermaid. In the hillside were the dwarfs, in the forest Queen Mab and her court. Brownie ruled over him in his house, and Robin Goodfellow in his walks and wanderings. From the moment a Christian came into the world until his departure therefrom, he was at the mercy of the fairy-folk, and his devices to elude them were many. Unhappy was the mother who neglected to lay a pair of scissors or of tongs, a knife or her husband's breeches, in the cradle of her new-born infant; for if she forgot, then was she sure to receive a changeling in its place. Great was the loss of the child to whose baptism the fairies were not invited, or the bride to whose wedding the Nix, or water-spirit, was not bidden. If the inhabitants of Thale did not throw a black cock annually into the Bode, one of them was claimed as his lawful victim by the Nickelmann dwelling in that stream. The Russian peasant who failed to present the Rusalka or water-sprite he met at Whitsuntide, with a handkerchief, or a piece torn from his or her clothing, was doomed to death." One had to be ever on the lookout to escape the sharp little immortals, whose very kindness to men and women was a species of coquetry, and who never spared their friends' feelings at the expense of their own saucy delight. CHAPTER IX. PUCK; AND POETS' FAIRIES. PUCK, as we said, is Shakespeare's fairy. There is some probability that he found in Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glens of Clydach, in Breconshire, the original scenes of his fanciful _Midsummer Night's Dream_. This glen used to be crammed with goblins. There, and in many like-named Welsh places, Puck's pranks were well-remembered by old inhabitants. This Welsh Puck was a queer little figure, long and grotesque, and looked something like a chicken half out of his shell; at least, so a peasant drew him, from memory, with a bit of coal. Pwcca, or Pooka, in Wales, was but another name for Ellydan; and his favorite joke was also to travel along before a wayfarer, with a lantern held over his head, leading miles and miles, until he got to the brink of a precipice. Then the little wretch sprang over the chasm, shouted with wicked glee, blew out his lantern, and left the startled traveller to reach home as best he could. Old Reginald Scott must have had this sort of a Puck in mind when he put Kitt-with-the-Candlestick, whose identity troubled the critics much, in his catalogue of "bugbears." The very old word Pouke meant the devil, horns, tail, and all; from that word, as it grew more human and serviceable, came the Pixy of Devonshire, the Irish Phooka, the Scottish Bogle, and the Boggart in Yorkshire; and even one nursery-tale title of Bugaboo. Oddest of all, the name Pug, which we give now to an amusing race of small dogs, is an every-day reminder of poor lost Puck, and of the queer changes which, through a century or two, may befall a word. Puck was considered court-jester, a mild, comic, playful creature: A little random elf Born in the sport of Nature, like a weed, For simple sweet enjoyment of myself, But for no other purpose, worth or need; And yet withal of a most happy breed. But he kept to the last his character of practical joker, and his alliance with his grim little cousins, the Lyktgubhe and the Kludde. Glorious old Michael Drayton made a verse of his naughty tricks, which you shall hear: This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bush doth bolt On purpose to deceive us; And leading us, makes us to stray Long winter nights out of the way: And when we stick in mire and clay, He doth with laughter leave us. Shakespeare, who calls him a "merry wanderer of the night," and allows him to fly "swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow," was the first to make Puck into a house spirit. The poets were especially attentive to the offices of these house-spirits. According to them, Mab and Puck do everything in-doors which we think characteristic of a Brownie. William Browne, born in Tavistock, in the county of Devon, where the Pixies lived, prettily puts it how the fairy-queen did-- ----command her elves To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves; And further, if by maiden's oversight, Within doors water was not brought at night, Or if they spread no table, set no bread, They should have nips from toe unto the head! And for the maid who had performed each thing She in the water-pail bade leave a ring. [Illustration: THE WELSH PUCK.] Herrick confirms what we have just heard: If ye will with Mab find grace, Set each platter in its place; Rake the fire up, and get Water in ere the sun be set; Wash your pails, and cleanse your dairies; Sluts are loathsome to the fairies! Sweep your house: who doth not so, Mab will pinch her by the toe. John Lyly, in his very beautiful _Mayde's Metamorphosis_ has this charming fairy song, which takes us out to the grass, and the soft night air, and the softer starshine: By the moon we sport and play; With the night begins our day; As we dance, the dew doth fall. Trip it, little urchins all! Lightly as the little bee, Two by two, and three by three, And about go we, and about go we. [Illustration: A MERRY NIGHT-WANDERER.] What a picture of the wee tribe at their revels! Here is another, from Ben Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_: Span-long elves that dance about a pool, With each a little changeling in her arms. In what is thought to be Lyly's play, just mentioned, Mopso, Joculo, and Prisio have something in the way of a pun for each fairy they address: _Mop._: I pray you, what might I call you? _1st Fairy_: My name is Penny. _Mop._: I am sorry I cannot purse you! _Pris._: I pray you, sir, what might I call you? _2nd Fairy_: My name is Cricket. (Mr. Keightley says that the Crickets were a family of great note in Fairyland: many poets celebrated them.) _Pris._: I would I were a chimney for your sake! _Joc._: I pray you, you pretty little fellow, what's your name? _3rd Fairy_: My name is Little Little Prick. _Joc._: Little Little Prick! O you are a dangerous fairy, and fright all the little wenches in the country out of their beds. I care not whose hand I were in, so I were out of yours. Drayton, again, gives us a list of tinkling elfin-ladies' names, which are pleasant to hear as the drip of an icicle: Hop and Mop and Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab their sovereign ever dear, Her special maids-of-honor: Pib and Tib and Pinck and Pin, Tick and Quick, and Jil and Jin, Tit and Nit, and Wap and Win, The train that wait upon her! [Illustration: "BY THE MOON WE SPORT AND PLAY."] Young Randolph has an equally delightful account in the pastoral drama of _Amyntas_, of his wee folk orchard-robbing; whose chorused Latin Leigh Hunt thus translates, roguishly enough: We the fairies blithe and antic, Of dimensions not gigantic, Tho' the moonshine mostly keep us, Oft in orchard frisk and peep us. Stolen sweets are always sweeter; Stolen kisses much completer; Stolen looks are nice in chapels; Stolen, stolen, be our apples! When to bed the world is bobbing, Then's the time for orchard-robbing: Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling, Were it not for stealing, stealing! You will notice that Shakespeare places his Gothic goblins in the woods about Athens, a place where real fairies never set their rose-leaf feet, but where once sported yet lovelier Dryads and Naiads. These dainty British Greeks are very small indeed: Titania orders them to make war on the rear-mice, and make coats of their leathern wings. Mercutio's Queen Mab is scarce bigger than a snowflake. Prospero, in _The Tempest_, commands, besides his "delicate Ariel," all --elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves. The make-believe fairies in _The Merry Wives_ know how to pinch offenders black and blue. The shepherd, in the _Winter's Tale_, takes the baby Perdita for a changeling. So that all the Shakespeare people seem wise in goblin-lore. You see that we have looked for the literature of our pretty friends only among the old poets, and only English poets at that; but the foreign fairies are no less charming. Chaucer and Spenser loved the brood especially. Robert Herrick knew all about --the elves also, Whose little eyes glow; Sidney smiled on them once or twice, and great Milton could spare them a line out of his majestic verse. But the high-tide of their praise was ebbing already when Dryden and Pope were writing. Lesser poets than any of these, Parnell and Tickell, wrote fairy tales, but they lack the relish of the honeyed rhymes Drayton, Lyly, and supreme Shakespeare, give us. Keats was drawn to them, though he has left us but sweet and brief proof of it; and Thomas Hood, of all gentle modern poets, has done most for the "small foresters and gay." In prose the fairies are "famoused" east and west; for which they may sing their loudest canticle to the good Brothers Grimm, in Fairyland. The arts have been their handmaids; and some of this world's most lovable spirits have delighted to do them merry honor: Mendelssohn in his quicksilver orchestral music, and dear Richard Doyle in the quaintest drawings that ever fell, laughing, from a pencil-point. [Illustration: THE ELVES WHOSE LITTLE EYES GLOW.] CHAPTER X. CHANGELINGS. KIDNAPPING was a favorite pastime with our small friends, and a great many reasons concurred to make it a necessary and thriving trade. We are told that both the Tylwyth Teg and the Korrigans had a fear that their frail race was dying out, and sought to steal hearty young children, and leave the wee, bright, sickly "changeling," or ex-changeling, in its place. That sounds like a quibble; for we know that fairies were free from the shadow of death, and could not possibly dread any lessening of their numbers from the old, old cause. Yet we saw that the air-elves held pitched battles, and murdered one another like gallant soldiers, from the world's beginning; and again comes a straggling little proof to make us suspect that they had not quite the immortality they boasted. However, we pass it by, sure at least that the philosopher who first observed the merry goblins to be at bottom wavering and disconsolate, recognized an instance of it in this pathetic eagerness to adopt babies not their own. Fairy-folk were believed, in general, to have power over none but unbaptized children. A tradition older and wider than the Tylwyth Teg's runs that a yearly tribute was due from Fairyland to the prince of the infernal regions, as poor King Ægeus had once to pay Minos of Crete with the seven fair boys and girls; and that, for the sake of sparing their own dear ones, the little beings, in their fantastic dress, flew east and west on an anxious hunt for human children, who might be captured and delivered over to bondage instead. And they crept cautiously to many a cradle, and having secured the sleeping innocent, "plucked the nodding nurse by the nose," as Ben Jonson said, and vanished with a scream of triumphant laughter. Welsh fairies have been caught in the very act of the theft, and a pretty fight they made, every time, to keep their booty; but the strength of a man or a woman, was, of course, too much for them to resist long. Now, whenever a mother, who, you may count upon it, thought her own urchin most beautiful of all under the moon, found him growing cross and homely, in despite of herself, she suddenly awoke to this view of the case: that the dwindled babe was her babe no longer, but a miserable young gosling from Fairyland slipped into its place. A miserable young foreign gosling it was from that hour, though it had her own grandfather's special kind of a nose on its unmistakable face. The discovery always made a great sensation; people came from the surrounding villages to wonder at the lean, gaping, knowing-eyed small stranger in the crib, and to propose all sorts of charms which should rid the house of his presence, and restore the rightful heir again. They were not especially polite to the poor changeling. In Denmark, and in Ireland as well, they dandled him on a hot shovel! If he were really a changeling, the fairies, rather than see him singed, were sure to appear in a violent fluster and whisk him away, and at the same minute to drop its former owner plump into the cradle. And if it were not a changeling, how did those queer by-gone mammas know when to stop the broiling and baking? Mr. George Waldron, who in 1726 wrote an entertaining _Description of the Isle of Man_, recorded it that he once went to see a baby supposed to be a changeling; that it seemed to be four or five years old, but smaller than an infant of six months, pale, and silky-haired, and (what was unusual) with the fairest face under heaven; that it was not able to walk nor to move a joint, seldom smiled, ate scarcely anything, and never spoke nor cried; but that if you called it a fairy-elf, it fixed its gaze on you as if it would look you through. If it were left alone, it was overheard laughing and frolicking, and when it was taken up after, limp as cloth, its hair was found prettily combed, and there were signs that it had been washed and dressed by its unseen playfellows. The main point to put the family mind at rest on the matter, was to make the changeling "own up," force him to do something which no tender mortal in socks and bibs ever was able to do, such as dance, prophesy, or manage a musical instrument. There was an Irish changeling, the youngest of five sons, who, being teased, snatched a bagpipe from a visitor, and played upon it in the most accomplished and melting manner, sitting up in his wooden chair, his big goggle-eyes fixed on the company. And when he knew he was found out, he sprang, bagpipe and all, into the river; which leads one to suspect that he was a sort of stray Strömkarl. [Illustration: THERE 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. [Illustration: "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 hame That 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. [Illustration: SHE HEARD A FAINT VOICE SINGING UNDER A LEAF.] Fairy-folk young and old were coquettish enough about 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 been put 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. [Illustration: "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 "_My_ Ainsel," 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. CHAPTER XI. 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 and maid 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-children gave 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. [Illustration: GITTO BACH AND THE FAIRIES.] [Illustration: KAGUYAHIME, 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 his little 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 his wife; 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 as one 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. [Illustration: THE 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 middle of 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. [Illustration: TAKNAKANX 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 adventures spring 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"? CHAPTER XII. 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. Or perhaps 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! [Illustration: "AL WAS THIS LOND FULFILLED OF FAERIE."] Sir Walter Scott related that the last Brownie was 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 the _Frairies_, 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 the _Drolls 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: [Illustration: FAIRY STORIES.] "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. Near the 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 the house, 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." [Illustration: THE 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 a sudden 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 cooing baby 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 after a 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. ----"Still Doth 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 the surface 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 the sources of 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? [Illustration: GOOD-BYE] 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 People were 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. 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) 
34339	----	THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN _Illustrations especially engraved and printed by the Beck Engraving Company, Philadelphia_ THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN _By_ George MacDonald [Illustration] ILLUSTRATED BY JESSIE WILLCOX SMITH DAVID MCKAY COMPANY _Publishers_ Philadelphia, MCMXX. Copyright, 1920, by David McKay Company ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be afraid 14 She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a flapping of wings 22 "Never mind, Princess Irene," he said. "You mustn't kiss me to-night. But you shan't break your word. I will come another time" 42 In an instant she was on the saddle, and clasped in his great strong arms 68 "Come," and she still held out her arms 96 The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme 118 Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about 138 There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms lay the princess fast asleep 184 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. WHY THE PRINCESS HAS A STORY ABOUT HER 9 II. THE PRINCESS LOSES HERSELF 13 III. THE PRINCESS AND--WE SHALL SEE WHO 16 IV. WHAT THE NURSE THOUGHT OF IT 24 V. THE PRINCESS LETS WELL ALONE 29 VI. THE LITTLE MINER 32 VII. THE MINES 45 VIII. THE GOBLINS 50 IX. THE HALL OF THE GOBLIN PALACE 59 X. THE PRINCESS'S KING-PAPA 68 XI. THE OLD LADY'S BEDROOM 73 XII. A SHORT CHAPTER ABOUT CURDIE 82 XIII. THE COBS' CREATURES 85 XIV. THAT NIGHT WEEK 90 XV. WOVEN AND THEN SPUN 95 XVI. THE RING 106 XVII. SPRING-TIME 109 XVIII. CURDIE'S CLUE 112 XIX. GOBLIN COUNSELS 122 XX. IRENE'S CLUE 128 XXI. THE ESCAPE 134 XXII. THE OLD LADY AND CURDIE 147 XXIII. CURDIE AND HIS MOTHER 155 XXIV. IRENE BEHAVES LIKE A PRINCESS 165 XXV. CURDIE COMES TO GRIEF 168 XXVI. THE GOBLIN-MINERS 174 XXVII. THE GOBLINS IN THE KING'S HOUSE 177 XXVIII. CURDIE'S GUIDE 184 XXIX. MASON-WORK 189 XXX. THE KING AND THE KISS 192 XXXI. THE SUBTERRANEAN WATERS 196 XXXII. THE LAST CHAPTER 202 THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN CHAPTER I WHY THE PRINCESS HAS A STORY ABOUT HER THERE was once a little princess who-- "_But, Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?_" "_Because every little girl is a princess._" "_You will make them vain if you tell them that._" "_Not if they understand what I mean._" "_Then what do you mean?_" "_What_ do you _mean by a princess?_" "_The daughter of a king._" "_Very well, then every little girl is a princess, and there would be no need to say anything about it, except that she is always in danger of forgetting her rank, and behaving as if she had grown out of the mud. I have seen little princesses behave like the children of thieves and lying beggars, and that is why they need to be told they are princesses. And that is why, when I tell a story of this kind, I like to tell it about a princess. Then I can say better what I mean, because I can then give her every beautiful thing I want her to have._" "_Please go on._" There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farm-house, on the side of another mountain, about halfway between its base and its peak. The princess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story begins was about eight years old. I think, but she got older very fast. Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night-sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in that direction. The ceiling of her nursery was blue, with stars in it, as like the sky as they could make it. But I doubt if ever she saw the real sky with the stars in it, for a reason which I had better mention at once. These mountains were full of hollow places underneath; huge caverns, and winding ways, some with water running through them, and some shining with all colors of the rainbow when a light was taken in. There would not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there, great deep pits, with long galleries and passages running off from them, which had been dug to get at the ore of which the mountains were full. In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a mountain, or into a ravine. Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. And as they grew mis-shapen in body, they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air-story above them. They had enough of affection left for each other, to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former possession, and especially against the descendants of the king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and although dwarfed and mis-shapen, they had strength equal to their cunning. In the process of time they had got a king, and a government of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to devise trouble for their neighbors. It will now be pretty evident why the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in company with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as we shall see by-and-by. CHAPTER II THE PRINCESS LOSES HERSELF I HAVE said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story begins. And this is how it begins. One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was constantly gathering itself together into rain-drops, and pouring down on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of water from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of course go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one half of the toys she had. But then you wouldn't have the toys themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't get tired of a thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing--the princess sitting in the nursery with the sky-ceiling over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can't, but I don't think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the princess herself than he could, though--leaning with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap, very miserable as she would say herself, not even knowing what she would like, except to go out and get very wet, catch a particularly nice cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you see her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room. [Illustration: She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be afraid.] Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks about her. Then she tumbles off her chair, and runs out of the door, not the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot of a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never any one had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps, and that was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out what was at the top of it. Up and up she ran--such a long way it seemed to her! until she came to the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end of a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side. There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on to the end, where she turned into another passage, also full of doors. When she had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors about her, she began to get frightened. It was so silent! And all those doors must hide rooms with nobody in them! That was dreadful. Also the rain made a great trampling noise on the roof. She turned and started at full speed, her little footsteps echoing through the sounds of the rain--back for the stairs and her safe nursery. So she thought, but she had lost herself long ago. It doesn't follow that she _was_ lost, because she had lost herself though. She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms everywhere, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little feet ran, and a lump of tears was growing in her throat. But she was too eager and perhaps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her hope failed her. Nothing but passages and doors everywhere! She threw herself on the floor, and began to wail and cry. She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected of a princess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and brushed the dust from her frock. Oh what old dust it was! Then she wiped her eyes with her hands, for princesses don't always have their handkerchiefs in their pockets any more than some other little girls I know of. Next, like a true princess, she resolved on going wisely to work to find her way back: she would walk through the passages, and look in every direction for the stair. This she did, but without success. She went over the same ground again and again without knowing it, for the passages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner, through a half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the wrong way: instead of going down, it went up. Frightened as she was, however, she could not help wishing to see where yet further the stair could lead. It was very narrow, and so steep that she went up like a four-legged creature on her hands and feet. CHAPTER III THE PRINCESS AND--WE SHALL SEE WHO WHEN she came to the top, she found herself in a little square place, with three doors, two opposite each other, and one opposite the top of the stair. She stood for a moment, without an idea in her little head what to do next. But as she stood, she began to hear a curious humming sound. Could it be the rain? No. It was much more gentle, and even monotonous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The low sweet humming sound went on, sometimes stopping for a little while and then beginning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee that had found a rich well of honey in some globular flower, than anything else I can think of at this moment. Where could it come from? She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was there--then to another. When she laid her ear against the third door, there could be no doubt where it came from: it must be from something in that room. What could it be? She was rather afraid, but her curiosity was stronger than her fear, and she opened the door very gently and peeped in. What do you think she saw? A very old lady who sat spinning. "_Oh, Mr. Editor! I know the story you are going to tell: it's The Sleeping Beauty; only you're spinning too, and making it longer._" "_No, indeed, it is not that story. Why should I tell one that every properly educated child knows already? More old ladies than one have sat spinning in a garret. Besides, the old lady in that story was only spinning with a spindle, and this one was spinning with a spinning wheel, else how could the princess have heard the sweet noise through the door? Do you know the difference? Did you ever see a spindle or a spinning wheel? I daresay you never did. Well, ask your mamma to explain to you the difference. Between ourselves, however, I shouldn't wonder if she didn't know much better than you. Another thing is, that this is not a fairy story; but a goblin story. And one thing more, this old lady spinning was not an old nurse--but--you shall see who. I think I have now made it quite plain that this is not that lovely story of The Sleeping Beauty. It is quite a new one, I assure you, and I will try to tell it as prettily as I can._" Perhaps you will wonder how the princess could tell that the old lady was an old lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth and white. I will tell you more. Her hair was combed back from her forehead and face, and hung loose far down and all over her back. That is not much like an old lady--is it? Ah! but it was white almost as snow. And although her face was so smooth, her eyes looked so wise that you could not have helped seeing she must be old. The princess, though she could not have told you why, did think her very old indeed--quite fifty--she said to herself. But she was rather older than that, as you shall hear. While the princess stared bewildered, with her head just inside the door, the old lady lifted hers, and said in a sweet, but old and rather shaky voice, which mingled very pleasantly with the continued hum of her wheel: "Come in, my dear; come in. I am glad to see you." That the princess was a real princess, you might see now quite plainly; for she didn't hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without moving, as I have known some do who ought to have been princesses, but were only rather vulgar little girls. She did as she was told, stepped inside the door at once, and shut it gently behind her. "Come to me, my dear," said the old lady. And again the princess did as she was told. She approached the old lady--rather slowly, I confess, but did not stop until she stood by her side, and looked up in her face with her blue eyes and the two melted stars in them. "Why, what have you been doing with your eyes, child?" asked the old lady. "Crying," answered the princess. "Why, child?" "Because I couldn't find my way down again." "But you could find your way up." "Not at first--not for a long time." "But your face is streaked like the back of a zebra. Hadn't you a handkerchief to wipe your eyes with?" "No." "Then why didn't you come to me to wipe them for you?" "Please I didn't know you were here. I will next time." "There's a good child!" said the old lady. Then she stopped her wheel, and rose, and, going out of the room, returned with a little silver basin and a soft white towel, with which she washed and wiped the bright little face. And the princess thought her hands were so smooth and nice! When she carried away the basin and towel, the little princess wondered to see how straight and tall she was, for, although she was so old, she didn't stoop a bit. She was dressed in black velvet with thick white heavy-looking lace about it; and on the black dress her hair shone like silver. There was hardly any more furniture in the room than there might have been in that of the poorest old woman who made her bread by her spinning. There was no carpet on the floor--no table anywhere--nothing but the spinning-wheel and the chair beside it. When she came back, she sat down again, and without a word began her spinning once more, while Irene, who had never seen a spinning-wheel, stood by her side and looked on. When the old lady had succeeded in getting her thread fairly in operation again, she said to the princess, but without looking at her: "Do you know my name, child?" "No, I don't know it," answered the princess. "My name is Irene." "That's _my_ name!" cried the princess. "I know that. I let you have mine. I haven't got your name. You've got mine." "How can that be?" asked the princess, bewildered. "I've always had my name." "Your papa, the king, asked me if I had any objection to your having it; and of course I hadn't. I let you have it with pleasure." "It was very kind of you to give me your name--and such a pretty one," said the princess. "Oh, not so _very_ kind!" said the old lady. "A name is one of those things one can give away and keep all the same. I have a good many such things. Wouldn't you like to know who I am, child?" "Yes, that I should--very much." "I'm your great-great-grandmother," said the lady. "What's that?" asked the princess. "I'm your father's mother's father's mother." "Oh, dear! I can't understand that," said the princess. "I daresay not. I didn't expect you would. But that's no reason why I shouldn't say it." "Oh no!" answered the princess. "I will explain it all to you when you are older," the lady went on. "But you will be able to understand this much now: I came here to take care of you." "Is it long since you came? Was it yesterday? Or was it to-day, because it was so wet that I couldn't get out?" "I've been here ever since you came yourself." "What a long time!" said the princess. "I don't remember it at all." "No. I suppose not." "But I never saw you before." "No. But you shall see me again." "Do you live in this room always?" "I don't sleep in it. I sleep on the opposite side of the landing. I sit here most of the day." "I shouldn't like it. My nursery is much prettier. You must be a queen too, if you are my great big grandmother." "Yes, I am a queen." "Where is your crown then?" "In my bedroom." "I _should_ like to see it." "You shall some day--not to-day." "I wonder why nursie never told me." "Nursie doesn't know. She never saw me." "But somebody knows that you are in the house?" "No; nobody." "How do you get your dinner then?" "I keep poultry--of a sort." "Where do you keep them?" "I will show you." "And who makes the chicken broth for you?" "I never kill any of my chickens." "Then I can't understand." "What did you have for breakfast this morning?" "Oh! I had bread and milk, and an egg.--I daresay you eat their eggs." "Yes, that's it. I eat their eggs." "Is that what makes your hair so white?" "No, my dear. It's old age. I am very old." "I thought so. Are you fifty?" "Yes--more than that." "Are you a hundred?" "Yes--more than that. I am too old for you to guess. Come and see my chickens." [Illustration: She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a flapping of wings.] Again she stopped her spinning. She rose, took the princess by the hand, led her out of the room, and opened the door opposite the stair. The princess expected to see a lot of hens and chickens, but instead of that, she saw the blue sky first, and then the roofs of the house, with a multitude of the loveliest pigeons, mostly white, but of all colors, walking about, making bows to each other, and talking a language she could not understand. She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a flapping of wings, that she in her turn was startled. "You've frightened my poultry," said the old lady, smiling. "And they've frightened me," said the princess, smiling too. "But what very nice poultry! Are the eggs nice?" "Yes, very nice." "What a small egg-spoon you must have! Wouldn't it be better to keep hens, and get bigger eggs?" "How should I feed them, though?" "I see," said the princess. "The pigeons feed themselves. They've got wings." "Just so. If they couldn't fly, I couldn't eat their eggs." "But how do you get at the eggs? Where are their nests?" The lady took hold of a little loop of string in the wall at the side of the door, and lifting a shutter showed a great many pigeon-holes with nests, some with young ones and some with eggs in them. The birds came in at the other side, and she took out the eggs on this side. She closed it again quickly, lest the young ones should be frightened. "Oh what a nice way!" cried the princess. "Will you give me an egg to eat? I'm rather hungry." "I will some day, but now you must go back, or nursie will be miserable about you. I daresay she's looking for you everywhere." "Except here," answered the princess. "Oh how surprised she _will_ be when I tell her about my great big grand-grandmother!" "Yes, that she will!" said the old lady with a curious smile. "Mind you tell her all about it exactly." "That I will. Please will you take me back to her?" "I can't go all the way, but I will take you to the top of the stair, and then you must run down quite fast into your own room." The little princess put her hand in the old lady's, who, looking this way and that, brought her to the top of the first stair, and thence to the bottom of the second, and did not leave her till she saw her half way down the third. When she heard the cry of her nurse's pleasure at finding her, she turned and walked up the stairs again, very fast indeed for such a very great grandmother, and sat down to her spinning with another strange smile on her sweet old face. About this spinning of hers I will tell you more next time. Guess what she was spinning. CHAPTER IV WHAT THE NURSE THOUGHT OF IT "WHY, where can you have been, princess?" asked the nurse, taking her in her arms. "It's very unkind of you to hide away so long. I began to be afraid--" Here she checked herself. "What were you afraid of, nursie?" asked the princess. "Never mind," she answered. "Perhaps I will tell you another day. Now tell me where you have been?" "I've been up a long way to see my very great, huge, old grandmother," said the princess. "What do you mean by that?" asked the nurse, who thought she was making fun. "I mean that I've been a long way up and up to see my great grandmother. Ah, nursie, you don't know what a beautiful mother of grandmothers I've got upstairs. She is _such_ an old lady! with such lovely white hair!--as white as my silver cup. Now, when I think of it, I think her hair must be silver." "What nonsense you are talking, princess!" said the nurse. "I'm not talking nonsense," returned Irene, rather offended. "I will tell you all about her. She's much taller than you, and much prettier." "Oh, I daresay!" remarked the nurse. "And she lives upon pigeon's eggs." "Most likely," said the nurse. "And she sits in an empty room, spin-spinning all day long." "Not a doubt of it," said the nurse. "And she keeps her crown in her bedroom." "Of course--quite the proper place to keep her crown in. She wears it in bed, I'll be bound." "She didn't say that. And I don't think she does. That wouldn't be comfortable--would it? I don't think my papa wears his crown for a night-cap. Does he, nursie?" "I never asked him. I daresay he does." "And she's been there ever since I came here--ever so many years." "Anybody could have told you that," said the nurse, who did not believe a word Irene was saying. "Why didn't you tell me then?" "There was no necessity. You could make it all up for yourself." "You don't believe me then!" exclaimed the princess, astonished and angry, as well she might be. "Did you expect me to believe you, princess?" asked the nurse coldly. "I know princesses are in the habit of telling make-believes, but you are the first I ever heard of who expected to have them believed," she added, seeing that the child was strangely in earnest. The princess burst into tears. "Well, I must say," remarked the nurse, now thoroughly vexed with her for crying, "it is not at all becoming in a princess to tell stories _and_ expect to be believed just because she is a princess." "But it's quite true, I tell you, nursie." "You've dreamt it, then, child." "No, I didn't dream it. I went up-stairs, and I lost myself, and if I hadn't found the beautiful lady, I should never have found myself." "Oh, I daresay!" "Well, you just come up with me, and see if I'm not telling the truth." "Indeed I have other work to do. It's your dinner-time, and I won't have any more such nonsense." The princess wiped her eyes, and her face grew so hot that they were soon quite dry. She sat down to her dinner, but ate next to nothing. Not to be believed does not at all agree with princesses; for a real princess cannot tell a lie. So all the afternoon she did not speak a word. Only when the nurse spoke to her, she answered her, for a real princess is never rude--even when she does well to be offended. Of course the nurse was not comfortable in her mind--not that she suspected the least truth in Irene's story, but that she loved her dearly, and was vexed with herself for having been cross to her. She thought her crossness was the cause of the princess' unhappiness, and had no idea that she was really and deeply hurt at not being believed. But, as it became more and more plain during the evening in every motion and look, that, although she tried to amuse herself with her toys, her heart was too vexed and troubled to enjoy them, her nurse's discomfort grew and grew. When bedtime came, she undressed and laid her down, but the child, instead of holding up her little mouth to be kissed, turned away from her and lay still. Then nursie's heart gave way altogether, and she began to cry. At the sound of her first sob, the princess turned again, and held her face to kiss her as usual. But the nurse had her handkerchief to her eyes, and did not see the movement. "Nursie," said the princess, "why won't you believe me?" "Because I can't believe you," said the nurse, getting angry again. "Ah! then you can't help it," said Irene, "and I will not be vexed with you any more. I will give you a kiss and go to sleep." "You little angel!" cried the nurse, and caught her out of bed, and walked about the room with her in her arms, kissing and hugging her. "You _will_ let me take you to see my dear old great big grandmother, won't you?" said the princess, as she laid her down again. "And _you_ won't say I'm ugly, any more--will you, princess?" "Nursie! I never said you were ugly. What can you mean?" "Well, if you didn't say it, you meant it." "Indeed, I never did." "You said I wasn't so pretty as that--" "As my beautiful grandmother--yes, I did say that; and I say it again, for it's quite true." "Then I _do_ think you _are_ unkind!" said the nurse, and put her handkerchief to her eyes again. "Nursie, dear, everybody can't be as beautiful as every other body, you know. You are _very_ nice-looking, but if you had been as beautiful as my grandmother--" "Bother your grandmother!" said the nurse. "Nurse, that's very rude. You are not fit to be spoken to--till you can behave better." The princess turned away once more, and again the nurse was ashamed of herself. "I'm sure I beg your pardon, princess," she said, though still in an offended tone. But the princess let the tone pass, and heeded only the words. "You won't say it again, I am sure," she answered, once more turning toward her nurse. "I was only going to say that if you had been twice as nice-looking as you are, some king or other would have married you, and then what would have become of me?" "You are an angel!" repeated the nurse, again embracing her. "Now," insisted Irene, "you _will_ come and see my grandmother--won't you?" "I will go with you anywhere you like, my cherub," she answered; and in two minutes the weary little princess was fast asleep. CHAPTER V THE PRINCESS LETS WELL ALONE WHEN she woke the next morning, the first thing she heard was the rain still falling. Indeed, this day was so like the last, that it would have been difficult to tell where was the use of it. The first thing she thought of, however, was not the rain, but the lady in the tower; and the first question that occupied her thoughts was whether she should not ask the nurse to fulfill her promise this very morning, and go with her to find her grandmother as soon as she had had her breakfast. But she came to the conclusion that perhaps the lady would not be pleased if she took anyone to see her without first asking leave; especially as it was pretty evident, seeing she lived on pigeons' eggs, and cooked them herself, that she did not want the household to know she was there. So the princess resolved to take the first opportunity of running up alone and asking whether she might bring her nurse. She believed the fact that she could not otherwise convince her she was telling the truth, would have much weight with her grandmother. The princess and her nurse were the best of friends all dressing time, and the princess in consequence ate an enormous little breakfast. "I wonder, Lootie"--that was her pet-name for her nurse--"what pigeons' eggs taste like?" she said, as she was eating her egg--not quite a common one, for they always picked out the pinky ones for her. "We'll get you a pigeon's egg, and you shall judge for yourself," said the nurse. "Oh, no, no!" returned Irene, suddenly reflecting they might disturb the old lady in getting it, and that even if they did not, she would have one less in consequence. "What a strange creature you are," said the nurse--"first to want a thing and then to refuse it!" But she did not say it crossly, and the princess never minded any remarks that were not unfriendly. "Well, you see, Lootie, there are reasons," she returned, and said no more, for she did not want to bring up the subject of their former strife, lest her nurse should offer to go before she had had her grandmother's permission to bring her. Of course she could refuse to take her, but then she would believe her less than ever. Now the nurse, as she said herself afterward, could not be every moment in the room, and as never before yesterday had the princess given her the smallest reason for anxiety, it had not yet come into her head to watch her more closely. So she soon gave her a chance, and the very first that offered, Irene was off and up the stairs again. This day's adventure, however, did not turn out like yesterday's, although it began like it; and indeed to-day is very seldom like yesterday, if people would note the differences--even when it rains. The princess ran through passage after passage, and could not find the stair of the tower. My own suspicion is that she had not gone up high enough, and was searching on the second instead of the third floor. When she turned to go back, she failed equally in her search after the stair. She was lost once more. Something made it even worse to bear this time, and it was no wonder that she cried again. Suddenly it occurred to her that it was after having cried before that she had found her grandmother's stair. She got up at once, wiped her eyes, and started upon a fresh quest. This time, although she did not find what she hoped, she found what was next best: she did not come on a stair that went up, but she came upon one that went down. It was evidently not the stair she had come up, yet it was a good deal better than none; so down she went, and was singing merrily before she reached the bottom. There, to her surprise, she found herself in the kitchen. Although she was not allowed to go there alone, her nurse had often taken her, and she was a great favorite with the servants. So there was a general rush at her the moment she appeared, for every one wanted to have her; and the report of where she was soon reached the nurse's ears. She came at once to fetch her; but she never suspected how she had got there, and the princess kept her own counsel. Her failure to find the old lady not only disappointed her, but made her very thoughtful. Sometimes she came almost to the nurse's opinion that she had dreamed all about her; but that fancy never lasted very long. She wondered much whether she should ever see her again, and thought it very sad not to have been able to find her when she particularly wanted her. She resolved to say nothing more to her nurse on the subject, seeing it was so little in her power to prove her words. CHAPTER VI THE LITTLE MINER THE next day the great cloud still hung over the mountain, and the rain poured like water from a full sponge. The princess was very fond of being out of doors, and she nearly cried when she saw that the weather was no better. But the mist was not of such a dark dingy gray; there was light in it; and as the hours went on, it grew brighter and brighter, until it was almost too brilliant to look at; and late in the afternoon, the sun broke out so gloriously that Irene clapped her hands, crying, "See, see, Lootie! The sun has had his face washed. Look how bright he is! Do get my hat, and let us go out for a walk. Oh dear! oh dear! how happy I am!" Lootie was very glad to please the princess. She got her hat and cloak, and they set out together for a walk up the mountain; for the road was so hard and steep that the water could not rest upon it, and it was always dry enough for walking a few minutes after the rain ceased. The clouds were rolling away in broken pieces, like great, overwoolly sheep, whose wool the sun had bleached till it was almost too white for the eyes to bear. Between them the sky shone with a deeper and purer blue, because of the rain. The trees on the road-side were hung all over with drops, which sparkled in the sun like jewels. The only things that were no brighter for the rain, were the brooks that ran down the mountain; they had changed from the clearness of crystal to a muddy brown; but what they lost in color they gained in sound--or at least in noise, for a brook when it is swollen is not so musical as before. But Irene was in raptures with the great brown streams tumbling down everywhere; and Lootie shared in her delight, for she too had been confined to the house for three days. At length she observed that the sun was getting low, and said it was time to be going back. She made the remark again and again, but, every time, the princess begged her to go on just a little farther and a little farther; reminding her that it was much easier to go down hill, and saying that when they did turn, they would be at home in a moment. So on and on they did go, now to look at a group of ferns over whose tops a stream was pouring in a watery arch, now to pick a shining stone from a rock by the wayside, now to watch the flight of some bird. Suddenly the shadow of a great mountain peak came up from behind, and shot in front of them. When the nurse saw it, she started and shook, and tremulously grasping the hand of the princess turned and began to run down the hill. "What's all the haste, nursie?" asked Irene, running alongside of her. "We must not be out a moment longer." "But we can't help being out a good many moments longer." It was too true. The nurse almost cried. They were much too far from home. It was against express orders to be out with the princess one moment after the sun was down; and they were nearly a mile up the mountain! If his Majesty, Irene's papa, were to hear of it, Lootie would certainly be dismissed; and to leave the princess would break her heart. It was no wonder she ran. But Irene was not in the least frightened, not knowing anything to be frightened at. She kept on chattering as well as she could, but it was not easy. "Lootie! Lootie! why do you run so fast? It shakes my teeth when I talk." "Then don't talk," said Lootie. But the princess went on talking. She was always saying, "Look, look, Lootie," but Lootie paid no more heed to anything she said, only ran on. "Look, look, Lootie! Don't you see that funny man peeping over the rock?" Lootie only ran the faster. They had to pass the rock and when they came nearer, the princess clearly saw that it was only a large fragment of the rock itself that she had mistaken for a man. "Look, look, Lootie! There's _such_ a curious creature at the foot of that old tree. Look at it, Lootie! It's making faces at us, I do think." Lootie gave a stifled cry, and ran faster still--so fast, that Irene's little legs could not keep up with her, and she fell with a clash. It was a hard down-hill road, and she had been running very fast--so it was no wonder she began to cry. This put the nurse nearly beside herself; but all she could do was to run on, the moment she got the princess on her feet again. "Who's that laughing at me?" said the princess, trying to keep in her sobs, and running too fast for her grazed knees. "Nobody, child," said the nurse, almost angrily. But that instant there came a burst of coarse tittering from somewhere near, and a hoarse indistinct voice that seemed to say, "Lies! lies! lies!" "Oh!" cried the nurse with a sigh that was almost a scream, and ran on faster than ever. "Nursie! Lootie! I can't run any more. Do let us walk a bit." "What _am_ I to do?" said the nurse. "Here, I will carry you." She caught her up; but found her much too heavy to run with, and had to set her down again. Then she looked wildly about her, gave a great cry, and said-- "We've taken the wrong turning somewhere, and I don't know where we are. We are lost, lost!" The terror she was in had quite bewildered her. It was true enough they had lost the way. They had been running down into a little valley in which there was no house to be seen. Now Irene did not know what good reason there was for her nurse's terror, for the servants had all strict orders never to mention the goblins to her, but it was very discomposing to see her nurse in such a fright. Before, however, she had time to grow thoroughly alarmed like her, she heard the sound of whistling, and that revived her. Presently she saw a boy coming up the road from the valley to meet them. He was the whistler; but before they met, his whistling changed to singing. And this is something like what he sang: "Ring! dod! bang! Go the hammers' clang! Hit and turn and bore! Whizz and puff and roar! Thus we rive the rocks. Force the goblin locks. See the shining ore! One, two, three-- Bright as gold can be! Four, five, six-- Shovels, mattocks, picks! Seven, eight, nine-- Light your lamp at mine. Ten, eleven, twelve-- Loosely hold the helve. We're the merry miner-boys, Make the goblins hold their noise." "I wish you would hold _your_ noise," said the nurse rudely, for the very word goblin at such a time and in such a place made her tremble. It would bring the goblins upon them to a certainty, she thought, to defy them in that way. But whether the boy heard her or not, he did not stop his singing. "Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen-- This is worth the siftin'; Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-- There's the match, and lay't in. Nineteen, twenty-- Goblins in a plenty." "Do be quiet," cried the nurse, in a whispered shriek. But the boy, who was now close at hand, still went on. "Hush! scush! scurry! There you go in a hurry! Gobble! gobble! gobblin'! There you go a wobblin'; Hobble, hobble, hobblin'! Cobble! cobble! cobblin'! Hob-bob-goblin--Huuuuuh!" "There!" said the boy, as he stood still opposite them. "There! that'll do for them. They can't bear singing, and they can't stand that song. They can't sing themselves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and they don't like other people to sing." The boy was dressed in a miner's dress, with a curious cap on his head. He was a very nice-looking boy, with eyes as dark as the mines in which he worked, and as sparkling as the crystals in their rocks. He was about twelve years old. His face was almost too pale for beauty, which came of his being so little in the open air and the sunlight--for even vegetables grown in the dark are white; but he looked happy, merry indeed--perhaps at the thought of having routed the goblins; and his bearing as he stood before them had nothing clownish or rude about it. "I saw them," he went on, "as I came up; and I'm very glad I did. I knew they were after somebody, but I couldn't see who it was. They won't touch you so long as I'm with you." "Why, who are you?" asked the nurse, offended at the freedom with which he spoke to them. "I'm Peter's son." "Who's Peter?" "Peter the miner." "I don't know him." "I'm his son, though." "And why should the goblins mind _you_, pray?" "Because I don't mind them. I'm used to them." "What difference does that make?" "If you're not afraid of them, they're afraid of you. I'm not afraid of them. That's all. But it's all that's wanted--up here, that is. It's a different thing down there. They won't always mind that song even, down there. And if anyone sings it, they stand grinning at him awfully; and if he gets frightened, and misses a word, or says a wrong one, they--oh! don't they give it him!" "What do they do to him?" asked Irene, with a trembling voice. "Don't go frightening the princess," said the nurse. "The princess!" repeated the little miner, taking off his curious cap. "I beg your pardon; but you oughtn't to be out so late. Everybody knows that's against the law." "Yes, indeed it is!" said the nurse, beginning to cry again. "And I shall have to suffer for it." "What does that matter?" said the boy. "It must be your fault. It is the princess who will suffer for it. I hope they didn't hear you call her the princess. If they did, they're sure to know her again: they're awfully sharp." "Lootie! Lootie!" cried the princess. "Take me home." "Don't go on like that," said the nurse to the boy, almost fiercely. "How could I help it? I lost my way." "You shouldn't have been out so late. You wouldn't have lost your way if you hadn't been frightened," said the boy. "Come along. I'll soon set you right again. Shall I carry your little Highness?" "Impertinence!" murmured the nurse, but she did not say it aloud, for she thought if she made him angry, he might take his revenge by telling some one belonging to the house, and then it would be sure to come to the king's ears. "No, thank you," said Irene. "I can walk very well, though I can't run so fast as nursie. If you will give me one hand, Lootie will give me another, and then I shall get on famously." They soon had her between them, holding a hand of each. "Now let's run," said the nurse. "No, no," said the little miner. "That's the worst thing you can do. If you hadn't run before, you would not have lost your way. And if you run now, they will be after you in a moment." "I don't want to run," said Irene. "You don't think of _me_," said the nurse. "Yes, I do, Lootie. The boy says they won't touch us if we don't run." "Yes; but if they know at the house that I've kept you out so late, I shall be turned away, and that would break my heart." "Turned away, Lootie. Who would turn you away?" "Your papa, child." "But I'll tell him it was all my fault. And you know it was, Lootie." "He won't mind that. I'm sure he won't." "Then I'll cry, and go down on my knees to him, and beg him not to take away my own dear Lootie." The nurse was comforted at hearing this, and said no more. They went on, walking pretty fast, but taking care not to run a step. "I want to talk to you," said Irene to the little miner; "but it's so awkward! I don't know your name." "My name's Curdie, little princess." "What a funny name! Curdie! What more?" "Curdie Peterson. What's your name, please?" "Irene." "What more?" "I don't know what more.--What more is my name, Lootie?" "Princesses haven't got more than one name. They don't want it." "Oh then, Curdie, you must call me just Irene, and no more." "No, indeed," said the nurse indignantly. "He shall do no such thing." "What shall he call me, then, Lootie?" "Your royal Highness." "My royal Highness! What's that? No, no, Lootie, I will not be called names. I don't like them. You said to me once yourself that it's only rude children that call names; and I'm sure Curdie wouldn't be rude.--Curdie, my name's Irene." "Well, Irene," said Curdie, with a glance at the nurse which showed he enjoyed teasing her, "it's very kind of you to let me call you anything. I like your name very much." He expected the nurse to interfere again; but he soon saw that she was too frightened to speak. She was staring at something a few yards before them, in the middle of the path, where it narrowed between rocks so that only one could pass at a time. "It's very much kinder of you to go out of your way to take us home," said Irene. "I'm not going out of my way yet," said Curdie. "It's on the other side those rocks the path turns off to my father's." "You wouldn't think of leaving us till we're safe home, I'm sure," gasped the nurse. "Of course not," said Curdie. "You dear, good, kind Curdie! I'll give you a kiss when we get home," said the princess. The nurse gave her a great pull by the hand she held. But at that instant the something in the middle of the way, which had looked like a great lump of earth brought down by the rain, began to move. One after another it shot out four long things, like two arms and two legs, but it was now too dark to tell what they were. The nurse began to tremble from head to foot. Irene clasped Curdie's hand yet faster, and Curdie began to sing again. "One, two-- Hit and hew! Three, four-- Blast and bore! Five, six-- There's a fix! Seven, eight-- Hold it straight. Nine, ten-- Hit again! Hurry! scurry! Bother! smother! There's a toad In the road! Smash it! Squash it! Fry it! Dry it! You're another! Up and off! There's enough!--Huuuuuh!" As he uttered the last words, Curdie let go his hold of his companion, and rushed at the thing in the road, as if he would trample it under his feet. It gave a great spring, and ran straight up one of the rocks like a huge spider. Curdie turned back laughing, and took Irene's hand again. She grasped his very tight, but said nothing till they had passed the rocks. A few yards more and she found herself on a part of the road she knew, and was able to speak again. [Illustration: "Never mind, Princess Irene," he said. "You mustn't kiss me to-night. But you sha'n't break your word. I will come another time."] "Do you know, Curdie, I don't quite like your song; it sounds to me rather rude," she said. "Well, perhaps it is," answered Curdie. "I never thought of that; it's a way we have. We do it because they don't like it." "Who don't like it?" "The cobs, as we call them." "Don't!" said the nurse. "Why not?" said Curdie. "I beg you won't. Please don't." "Oh, if you ask me that way, of course I won't; though I don't a bit know why. Look! there are the lights of your great house down below. You'll be at home in five minutes now." Nothing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed them, or even known they had gone out; and they arrived at the door belonging to their part of the house without anyone seeing them. The nurse was rushing in with a hurried and not over-gracious good-night to Curdie; but the princess pulled her hand from hers, and was just throwing her arms around Curdie's neck, when she caught her again and dragged her away. "Lootie, Lootie, I promised Curdie a kiss," cried Irene. "A princess mustn't give kisses. It's not at all proper," said Lootie. "But I promised," said the princess. "There's no occasion; he's only a miner-boy." "He is a good boy, and a brave boy, and he has been very kind to us. Lootie! Lootie! I promised." "Then you shouldn't have promised." "Lootie, I promised him a kiss." "Your royal Highness," said Lootie, suddenly growing very respectful, "must come in directly." "Nurse, a princess must _not_ break her word," said Irene, drawing herself up and standing stockstill. Lootie did not know which the king might count the worst--to let the princess be out after sunset, or to let her kiss a miner-boy. She did not know that, being a gentleman, as many kings have been, he would have counted neither of them the worse. However much he might have disliked his daughter to kiss the miner-boy, he would not have had her break her word for all the goblins in creation. But, as I say, the nurse was not lady enough to understand this, and so she was in a great difficulty, for, if she insisted, some one might hear the princess cry and run to see, and then all would come out. But here Curdie came again to the rescue. "Never mind, Princess Irene," he said. "You mustn't kiss me to-night. But you sha'n't break your word. I will come another time. You may be sure I will." "Oh, thank you, Curdie!" said the princess, and stopped crying. "Good night, Irene; good night, Lootie," said Curdie, and turned and was out of sight in a moment. "I should like to see him!" muttered the nurse, as she carried the princess to the nursery. "You _will_ see him," said Irene. "You may be sure Curdie will keep his word. He's _sure_ to come again." "I should like to see him!" repeated the nurse, and said no more. She did not want to open a new cause of strife with the princess by saying more plainly what she meant. Glad enough that she had succeeded both in getting home unseen, and in keeping the princess from kissing the miner's boy, she resolved to watch her far better in future. Her carelessness had already doubled the danger she was in. Formerly the goblins were her only fear; now she had to protect her charge from Curdie as well. CHAPTER VII THE MINES CURDIE went home whistling. He resolved to say nothing about the princess for fear of getting the nurse into trouble, for while he enjoyed teasing her because of her absurdity, he was careful not to do her any harm. He saw no more of the goblins, and was soon fast asleep in his bed. He woke in the middle of the night, and thought he heard curious noises outside. He sat up and listened; then got up, and, opening the door very quietly, went out. When he peeped round the corner, he saw, under his own window, a group of stumpy creatures, whom he at once recognized by their shape. Hardly, however, had he begun his "One, two, three!" when they broke asunder, scurried away, and were out of sight. He returned laughing, got into bed again, and was fast asleep in a moment. Reflecting a little over the matter in the morning, he came to the conclusion that, as nothing of the kind had ever happened before, they must be annoyed with him for interfering to protect the princess. By the time he was dressed, however, he was thinking of something quite different, for he did not value the enmity of the goblins in the least. As soon as they had had breakfast, he set off with his father for the mine. They entered the hill by a natural opening under a huge rock, where a little stream rushed out. They followed its course for a few yards, when the passage took a turn, and sloped steeply into the heart of the hill. With many angles and windings and branchings off, and sometimes with steps where it came upon a natural gulf, it led them deep into the hill before they arrived at the place where they were at present digging out the precious ore. This was of various kinds, for the mountain was very rich with the better sorts of metals. With flint and steel, and tinder box, they lighted their lamps, then fixed them on their heads, and were soon hard at work with their pickaxes and shovels and hammers. Father and son were at work near each other, but not in the same _gang_--the passages out of which the ore was dug, they called _gangs_--for when the _lode_, or vein of ore, was small, one miner would have to dig away alone in a passage no bigger than gave him just room to work--sometimes in uncomfortable cramped positions. If they stopped for a moment they could hear everywhere around them, some nearer, some farther off, the sounds of their companions burrowing away in all directions in the inside of the great mountain--some boring holes in the rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder, others shoveling the broken ore into baskets to be carried to the mouth of the mine, others hitting away with their pickaxes. Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely part, he would hear only a tap-tapping, no louder than that of a woodpecker, for the sound would come from a great distance off through the solid mountain rock. The work was hard at best, for it is very warm underground; but it was not particularly unpleasant, and some of the miners, when they wanted to earn a little more money for a particular purpose, would stop behind the rest, and work all night. But you could not tell night from day down there, except from feeling tired and sleepy; for no light of the sun ever came into those gloomy regions. Some who had thus remained behind during the night, although certain there were none of their companions at work, would declare the next morning that they heard, every time they halted for a moment to take breath, a tap-tapping all about them, as if the mountain were then more full of miners than ever it was during the day; and some in consequence would never stay over night, for all knew those were the sounds of the goblins. They worked only at night, for the miners' night was the goblins' day. Indeed, the greater number of the miners were afraid of the goblins: for there were strange stories well known amongst them of the treatment some had received whom the goblins had surprised at their work during the night. The more courageous of them, however, amongst them Peter Peterson and Curdie, who in this took after his father, had stayed in the mine all night again and again, and although they had several times encountered a few stray goblins, had never yet failed in driving them away. As I have indicated already, the chief defence against them was verse, for they hated verse of every kind, and some kinds they could not endure at all. I suspect they could not make any themselves, and that was why they disliked it so much. At all events, those who were most afraid of them were those who could neither make verses themselves, nor remember the verses that other people made for them; while those who were never afraid were those who could make verses for themselves; for although there were certain old rhymes which were very effectual, yet it was well known that a new rhyme, if of the right sort, was even more distasteful to them, and therefore more effectual in putting them to flight. Perhaps my readers may be wondering what the goblins could be about, working all night long, seeing they never carried up the ore and sold it; but when I have informed them concerning what Curdie learned the very next night, they will be able to understand. For Curdie had determined, if his father would permit him, to remain there alone this night--and that for two reasons: first, he wanted to get extra wages in order that he might buy a very warm red petticoat for his mother, who had begun to complain of the cold of the mountain air sooner than usual this autumn; and second, he had just a faint glimmering of hope of finding out what the goblins were about under his window the night before. When he told his father, he made no objection, for he had great confidence in his boy's courage and resources. "I'm sorry I can't stay with you," said Peter; "but I want to go and pay the parson a visit this evening, and besides I've had a bit of a headache all day." "I'm sorry for that, father," said Curdie. "Oh! it's not much. You'll be sure to take care of yourself, won't you?" "Yes, father; I will. I'll keep a sharp lookout, I promise you." Curdie was the only one who remained in the mine. About six o'clock the rest went away, every one bidding him good night, and telling him to take care of himself; for he was a great favorite with them all. "Don't forget your rhymes," said one. "No, no," answered Curdie. "It's no matter if he does," said another, "for he'll only have to make a new one." "Yes, but he mightn't be able to make it fast enough," said another; "and while it was cooking in his head, they might take a mean advantage and set upon him." "I'll do my best," said Curdie. "I'm not afraid." "We all know that," they returned, and left him. CHAPTER VIII THE GOBLINS FOR some time Curdie worked away briskly, throwing all the ore he had disengaged on one side behind him, to be ready for carrying out in the morning. He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded far away in the hill, and he paid it little heed. Toward midnight he began to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got a lump of bread which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the rock. He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his ears. It sounded like a voice inside the rock. After a while he heard it again. It was a goblin-voice--there could be no doubt about that--and this time he could make out the words. "Hadn't we better be moving?" it said. A rougher and deeper voice replied: "There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't be through to-night, if he work ever so hard. He's by no means at the thinnest place." "But you still think the lode does come through into our house?" said the first voice. "Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to yet. If he had struck a stroke more to the side just here," said the goblin, tapping the very stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, "he would have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if he follow the lode it will be a week before it leads him in. You see it back there--a long way. Still, perhaps, in case of accident, it would be as well to be getting out of this. Helfer, you'll take the great chest. That's your business, you know." "Yes, dad," said a third voice. "But you must help me to get it on my back. It's awfully heavy, you know." "Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But you're as strong as a mountain, Helfer." "You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn't for my feet." "That is your weak point, I confess, my boy." "Ain't it yours, too, father?" "Well, to be honest, it is a goblin-weakness. Why they come so soft, I declare I haven't an idea." "Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father." "Yes, my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting. Ha! ha!" "But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I should like it--specially when I've got a chest like that on my head." "Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king never wears shoes." "The queen does." "Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen, you see--I mean the king's first wife--wore shoes of course, because she came from upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride. She is the hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women." "I'm sure I wouldn't wear them--no, not for--that I wouldn't!" said the first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the family. "I can't think why either of them should." "Didn't I tell you the first was from upstairs?" said the other. "That was the only silly thing I ever knew his Majesty guilty of. Why should he marry an outlandish woman like that--one of our natural enemies too?" "I suppose he fell in love with her." "Pooh! pooh! He's just as happy now with one of his own people." "Did she die _very_ soon? They didn't tease her to death, did they?" "Oh dear no! The king worshipped her very footmarks." "What made her die, then? Didn't the air agree with her?" "She died when the young prince was born." "How silly of her! _We_ never do that. It must have been because she wore shoes." "I don't know that." "Why do they wear shoes up there?" "Ah! now that's a sensible question, and I will answer it. But in order to do so, I must first tell you a secret. I once saw the queen's feet." "Without her shoes?" "Yes--without her shoes." "No! Did you? How was it?" "Never you mind how it was. _She_ didn't know I saw them. And what do you think!--they had _toes_!" "Toes! What's that?" "You may well ask! I should never have known if I had not seen the queen's feet. Just imagine! the ends of her feet were split up into five or six thin pieces!" "Oh, horrid! How _could_ the king have fallen in love with her?" "You forget that she wore shoes. That is just why she wore them. That is why all the men, and women too, upstairs wear shoes. They can't bear the sight of their own feet without them." "Ah! now I understand. If ever you wish for shoes again, Helfer, I'll hit your feet--I will." "No, no, mother; pray don't." "Then don't you." "But with such a big box on my head--" A horrid scream followed, which Curdie interpreted as in reply to a blow from his mother upon the feet of her eldest goblin. "Well, I never knew so much before!" remarked a fourth voice. "Your knowledge is not universal quite yet," said the father. "You were only fifty last month. Mind you see to the bed and bedding. As soon as we've finished our supper, we'll be up and going. Ha! ha! ha!" "What are you laughing at, husband?" "I'm laughing to think what a mess the miners will find themselves in--somewhere before this day ten years." "Why, what do you mean?" "Oh, nothing." "Oh yes, you do mean something. You always do mean something." "It's more than you do, then, wife." "That may be; but it's not more than I find out, you know." "Ha! ha! You're a sharp one. What a mother you've got, Helfer!" "Yes, father." "Well, I suppose I must tell you. They're all at the palace consulting about it to-night; and as soon as we've got away from this thin place, I'm going there to hear what night they fix upon. I should like to see that young ruffian there on the other side, struggling in the agonies of--" He dropped his voice so low that Curdie could hear only a growl. The growl went on in a low bass for a good while, as inarticulate as if the goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until his wife spoke again that it rose to its former pitch. "But what shall we do when you are at the palace?" she asked. "I will see you safe in the new house I've been digging for you for the last two months. Podge, you mind the table and chairs. I commit them to your care. The table has seven legs--each chair three. I shall require them all at your hands." After this arose a confused conversation about the various household goods and their transport; and Curdie heard nothing more that was of any importance. He now knew at least one of the reasons for the constant sound of the goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was--the one weak point of a goblin's body: he had not known that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard it said that they had no toes: he had never had opportunity of inspecting them closely enough in the dusk in which they always appeared, to satisfy himself whether it was a correct report. Indeed, he had not been able even to satisfy himself as to whether they had no fingers, although that also was commonly said to be the fact. One of the miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont to argue that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity, and that education and handicraft had developed both toes and fingers--with which proposition Curdie had once heard his father sarcastically agree, alleging in support of it the probability that babies' gloves were a traditional remnant of the old state of things; while the stockings of all ages, no regard being paid in them to the toes, pointed in the same direction. But what was of importance was the fact concerning the softness of the goblin-feet, which he foresaw might be useful to all miners. What he had to do in the mean time, however, was to discover, if possible, the special evil design the goblins had now in their heads. Although he knew all the gangs and all the natural galleries with which they communicated in the mined part of the mountain, he had not the least idea where the palace of the king of the gnomes was; otherwise he would have set out at once on the enterprise of discovering what the said design was. He judged, and rightly, that it must lie in a farther part of the mountain, between which and the mine there was as yet no communication. There must be one nearly completed, however; for it could be but a thin partition which now separated them. If only he could get through in time to follow the goblins as they retreated! A few blows would doubtless be sufficient--just where his ear now lay; but if he attempted to strike there with his pickaxe, he would only hasten the departure of the family, put them on their guard, and perhaps lose their involuntary guidance. He therefore began to feel the wall with his hands, and soon found that some of the stones were loose enough to be drawn out with little noise. Laying hold of a large one with both his hands, he drew it gently out, and let it down softly. "What was that noise?" said the goblin father. Curdie blew out his light, lest it should shine through. "It must be that one miner that stayed behind the rest," said the mother. "No; he's been gone a good while. I haven't heard a blow for an hour. Besides, it wasn't like that." "Then I suppose it must have been a stone carried down the brook inside." "Perhaps. It will have more room by and by." Curdie kept quite still. After a little while, hearing nothing but the sounds of their preparations for departure, mingled with an occasional word of direction, and anxious to know whether the removal of the stone had made an opening into the goblins' house, he put in his hand to feel. It went in a good way, and then came in contact with something soft. He had but a moment to feel it over, it was so quickly withdrawn: it was one of the toeless goblin-feet. The owner of it gave a cry of fright. "What's the matter, Helfer?" asked his mother. "A beast came out of the wall, and licked my foot." "Nonsense! There are no wild beasts in our country," said his father. "But it was, father. I felt it." "Nonsense, I say. Will you malign your native realms and reduce them to a level with the country up-stairs? That is swarming with wild beasts of every description." "But I did feel it, father." "I tell you to hold your tongue. You are no patriot." Curdie suppressed his laughter, and lay still as a mouse--but no stiller, for every moment he kept nibbling away with his fingers at the edges of the hole. He was slowly making it bigger, for here the rock had been very much shattered with the blasting. There seemed to be a good many in the family, to judge from the mass of confused talk which now and then came through the hole; but when all were speaking together, and just as if they had bottle-brushes--each at least one--in their throats, it was not easy to make out much that was said. At length he heard once more what the father-goblin was saying. "Now then," he said, "get your bundles on your backs. Here, Helfer, I'll help you up with your chest." "I wish it _was_ my chest, father." "Your turn will come in good time enough! Make haste. I _must_ go to the meeting at the palace to-night. When that's over, we can come back and clear out the last of the things before our enemies return in the morning. Now light your torches, and come along. What a distinction it is to provide our own light, instead of being dependent on a thing hung up in the air--a most disagreeable contrivance--intended no doubt to blind us when we venture out under its baleful influence! Quite glaring and vulgar, I call it, though no doubt useful to poor creatures who haven't the wit to make light for themselves!" Curdie could hardly keep himself from calling through to know whether they made the fire to light their torches by. But a moment's reflection showed him that they would have said they did, inasmuch as they struck two stones together, and the fire came. CHAPTER IX THE HALL OF THE GOBLIN PALACE A SOUND of many soft feet followed, but soon ceased. Then Curdie flew at the hole like a tiger, and tore and pulled. The sides gave way, and it was soon large enough for him to crawl through. He would not betray himself by rekindling his lamp, but the torches of the retreating company, departing in a straight line up a long avenue from the door of their cave, threw back light enough to afford him a glance round the deserted home of the goblins. To his surprise, he could discover nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary cave in the rock, upon many of which he had come with the rest of the miners in the progress of their excavations. The goblins had talked of coming back for the rest of their household gear: he saw nothing that would have made him suspect a family had taken shelter there for a single night. The floor was rough and stony; the walls full of projecting corners; the roof in one place twenty feet high, in another endangering his forehead; while on one side a stream, no thicker than a needle, it is true, but still sufficient to spread a wide dampness over the wall, flowed down the face of the rock. But the troop in front of him was toiling under heavy burdens. He could distinguish Helfer now and then, in the flickering light and shade, with his heavy chest on his bending shoulders; while the second brother was almost buried in what looked like a great feather-bed. "Where do they get the feathers?" thought Curdie; but in a moment the troop disappeared at a turn of the way, and it was now both safe and necessary for Curdie to follow them, lest they should be round the next turning before he saw them again, for so he might lose them altogether. He darted after them like a grayhound. When he reached the corner and looked cautiously round, he saw them again at some distance down another long passage. None of the galleries he saw that night bore signs of the work of man--or of goblin either. Stalactites far older than the mines hung from their roofs; and their floors were rough with boulders and large round stones, showing that there water must have once run. He waited again at this corner till they had disappeared round the next, and so followed them a long way through one passage after another. The passages grew more and more lofty, and were more and more covered in the roof with shining stalactites. It was a strange enough procession which he followed. But the strangest part of it was the household animals which crowded amongst the feet of the goblins. It was true they had no wild animals down there--at least they did not know of any; but they had a wonderful number of tame ones. I must, however, reserve any contributions toward the natural history of these for a later position in my story. At length, turning a corner too abruptly, he had almost rushed into the middle of the goblin family; for there they had already set down all their burdens on the floor of a cave considerably larger than that which they had left. They were as yet too breathless to speak, else he would have had warning of their arrest. He started back, however, before any one saw him, and retreating a good way, stood watching till the father should come out to go to the palace. Before very long, both he and his son Helfer appeared and kept on in the same direction as before, while Curdie followed them again with renewed precaution. For a long time he heard no sound except something like the rush of a river inside the rock; but at length what seemed the far-off noise of a great shouting reached his ears, which however presently ceased. After advancing a good way farther, he thought he heard a single voice. It sounded clearer and clearer as he went on, until at last he could almost distinguish the words. In a moment or two, keeping after the goblins round another corner, he once more started back--this time in amazement. He was at the entrance of a magnificent cavern, of an oval shape, once probably a huge natural reservoir of water, now the great palace hall of the goblins. It rose to a tremendous height, but the roof was composed of such shining materials, and the multitude of torches carried by the goblins who crowded the floor lighted up the place so brilliantly, that Curdie could see to the top quite well. But he had no idea how immense the place was, until his eyes had got accustomed to it, which was not for a good many minutes. The rough projections on the walls, and the shadows thrown upward from them by the torches, made the sides of the chamber look as if they were crowded with statues upon brackets and pedestals, reaching in irregular tiers from floor to roof. The walls themselves were, in many parts, of gloriously shining substances, some of them gorgeously colored besides, which powerfully contrasted with the shadows. Curdie could not help wondering whether his rhymes would be of any use against such a multitude of goblins as filled the floor of the hall, and indeed felt considerably tempted to begin his shout of _One, two, three!_ but as there was no reason for routing them, and much for endeavoring to discover their designs, he kept himself perfectly quiet, and peeping round the edge of the doorway, listened with both his sharp ears. At the other end of the hall, high above the heads of the multitude, was a terrace-like ledge of considerable height, caused by the receding of the upper part of the cavern wall. Upon this sat the king and his court, the king on a throne hollowed out of a huge block of green copper ore, and his court upon lower seats around it. The king had been making them a speech, and the applause which followed it was what Curdie had heard. One of the court was now addressing the multitude. What he heard him say was to the following effect: "Hence it appears that two plans have been for some time together working in the strong head of his Majesty for the deliverance of his people. Regardless of the fact that we were the first possessors of the regions they now inhabit, regardless equally of the fact that we abandoned that region from the loftiest motives; regardless also of the self-evident fact that we excel them as far in mental ability as they excel us in stature, they look upon us as a degraded race, and make a mockery of all our finer feelings. But the time has almost arrived when--thanks to his Majesty's inventive genius--it will be in our power to take a thorough revenge upon them once for all, in respect of their unfriendly behavior." "May it please your Majesty--" cried a voice close by the door, which Curdie recognized as that of the goblin he had followed. "Who is he that interrupts the Chancellor?" cried another from near the throne. "Glump," answered several voices. "He is our trusty subject," said the king himself, in a slow and stately voice: "let him come forward and speak." A lane was parted through the crowd, and Glump having ascended the platform and bowed to the king, spoke as follows: "Sire, I would have held my peace, had I not known that I only knew how near was the moment to which the Chancellor had just referred. In all probability, before another day is past, the enemy will have broken through into my house--the partition between being even now not more than a foot in thickness." "Not quite so much," thought Curdie to himself. "This very evening I have had to remove my household effects; therefore the sooner we are ready to carry out the plan, for the execution of which his Majesty has been making such magnificent preparations, the better. I may just add, that within the last few days I have perceived a small outbreak in my dining-room, which combined with observations upon the course of the river escaping where the evil men enter, has convinced me that close to the spot must lie a deep gulf in its channel. This discovery will, I trust, add considerably to the otherwise immense forces at his Majesty's disposal." He ceased, and the king graciously acknowledged his speech with a bend of his head; whereupon Glump, after a bow to his Majesty, slid down amongst the rest of the undistinguished multitude. Then the Chancellor rose and resumed. "The information which the worthy Glump has given us," he said, "might have been of considerable import at the present moment, but for that other design already referred to, which naturally takes precedence. His Majesty, unwilling to proceed to extremities, and well aware that such measures sooner or later result in violent reactions, has excogitated a more fundamental and comprehensive measure, of which I need say no more. Should his Majesty be successful--as who dares to doubt?--then a peace, all to the advantage of the goblin kingdom, will be established for a generation at least, rendered absolutely secure by the pledge which his royal Highness the prince will have and hold for the good behavior of his relatives. Should his Majesty fail--which who shall dare even to imagine in his most secret thoughts?--then will be the time for carrying out with rigor the design to which Glump referred, and for which our preparations are even now all but completed. The failure of the former will render the latter imperative." Curdie perceiving that the assembly was drawing to a close, and that there was little chance of either plan being more fully discovered, now thought it prudent to make his escape before the goblins began to disperse, and slipped quietly away. There was not much danger of meeting any goblins, for all the men at least were left behind him in the palace; but there was considerable danger of his taking a wrong turning, for he had now no light, and had therefore to depend upon his memory and his hands. After he had left behind him the glow that issued from the door of Glump's new abode, he was utterly without guide, so far as his eyes were concerned. He was most anxious to get back through the hole before the goblins should return to fetch the remains of their furniture. It was not that he was in the least afraid of them, but, as it was of the utmost importance that he should thoroughly discover what the plans they were cherishing were, he must not occasion the slightest suspicion that they were watched by a miner. He hurried on, feeling his way along the walls of rock. Had he not been very courageous, he must have been very anxious, for he could not but know that if he lost his way it would be the most difficult thing in the world to find it again. Morning would bring no light into these regions; and toward him least of all, who was known as a special rhymster and persecutor, could goblins be expected to exercise courtesy? Well might he wish that he had brought his lamp and tinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running down the face of the rock. "What a stupid I am!" he said to himself. "I am actually at the end of my journey!--and there are the goblins coming back to fetch their things!" he added, as the red glimmer of their torches appeared at the end of the long avenue that led up to the cave. In a moment he had thrown himself on the floor, and wriggled backward through the hole. The floor on the other side was several feet lower, which made it easier to get back. It was all he could do to lift the largest stone he had taken out of the hole, but he did manage to shove it in again. He sat down on the ore-heap and thought. He was pretty sure that the latter plan of the goblins was to inundate the mine by breaking outlets for the water accumulated in the natural reservoirs of the mountain, as well as running through portions of it. While the part hollowed by the miners remained shut off from that inhabited by the goblins, they had had no opportunity of injuring them thus; but now that a passage was broken through, and the goblins' part proved the higher in the mountain, it was clear to Curdie that the mine could be destroyed in an hour. Water was always the chief danger to which the miners were exposed. They met with a little choke-damp sometimes, but never with the explosive fire-damp so common in coal mines. Hence they were careful as soon as they saw any appearance of water. As the result of his reflections while the goblins were busy in their old home, it seemed to Curdie that it would be best to build up the whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lime, so that there should be no smallest channel for the water to get into. There was not, however, any immediate danger, for the execution of the goblins' plan was contingent upon the failure of that unknown design which was to take precedence of it; and he was most anxious to keep the door of communication open, that he might if possible discover what that former plan was. At the same time they could not then resume their intermitted labors for the inundation without his finding it out; when by putting all hands to the work, the one existing outlet might in a single night be rendered impenetrable to any weight of water; for by filling the gang entirely up, their embankment would be buttressed by the sides of the mountain itself. As soon as he found that the goblins had again retired, he lighted his lamp, and proceeded to fill the hole he had made with such stones as he could withdraw when he pleased. He then thought it better, as he might have occasion to be up a good many nights after this, to go home and have some sleep. How pleasant the night-air felt upon the outside of the mountain after what he had gone through in the inside of it! He hurried up the hill, without meeting a single goblin on the way, and called and tapped at the window until he woke his father, who soon rose and let him in. He told him the whole story, and, just as he had expected, his father thought it best to work that lode no farther, but at the same time to pretend occasionally to be at work there still, in order that the goblins might have no suspicions. Both father and son then went to bed, and slept soundly until the morning. CHAPTER X THE PRINCESS'S KING-PAPA THE weather continued fine for weeks, and the little princess went out every day. So long a period of fine weather had indeed never been known upon that mountain. The only uncomfortable thing was that her nurse was so nervous and particular about being in before the sun was down, that often she would take to her heels when nothing worse than a fleecy cloud crossing the sun threw a shadow on the hillside; and many an evening they were home a full hour before the sunlight had left the weathercock on the stables. If it had not been for such behavior, Irene would by this time have almost forgotten the goblins. She never forgot Curdie, but him she remembered for his own sake, and indeed would have remembered him if only because a princess never forgets her debts until they are paid. [Illustration: In an instant she was on the saddle, and clasped in his great strong arms.] One splendid sunshiny day, about an hour after noon, Irene, who was playing on a lawn in the garden, heard the distant blast of a bugle. She jumped up with a cry of joy, for she knew by that particular blast that her father was on his way to see her. This part of the garden lay on the slope of the hill, and allowed a full view of the country below. So she shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked far away to catch the first glimpse of shining armor. In a few moments a little troop came glittering round the shoulder of a hill. Spears and helmets were sparkling and gleaming, banners were flying, horses prancing, and again came the bugle-blast, which was to her like the voice of her father calling across the distance, "Irene, I'm coming." On and on they came, until she could clearly distinguish the king. He rode a white horse, and was taller than any of the men with him. He wore a narrow circle of gold set with jewels around his helmet, and as he came still nearer, Irene could discern the flashing of the stones in the sun. It was a long time since he had been to see her, and her little heart beat faster and faster as the shining troop approached, for she loved her king-papa very dearly, and was nowhere so happy as in his arms. When they reached a certain point, after which she could see them no more from the garden, she ran to the gate, and there stood till up they came clanging and stamping, with one more bright bugle-blast which said, "Irene, I am come." By this time the people of the house were all gathered at the gate, but Irene stood alone in front of them. When the horseman pulled up, she ran to the side of the white horse, and held up her arms. The king stooped, and took her hands. In an instant she was on the saddle, and clasped in his great strong arms. I wish I could describe the king, so that you could see him in your mind. He had gentle blue eyes, but a nose that made him look like an eagle. A long dark beard, streaked with silvery lines, flowed from his mouth almost to his waist, and as Irene sat on the saddle and hid her glad face upon his bosom, it mingled with the golden hair which her mother had given her, and the two together were like a cloud with streaks of the sun woven through it. After he had held her to his heart for a minute, he spoke to his white horse, and the great beautiful creature, which had been prancing so proudly a little while before, walked as gently as a lady--for he knew he had a little lady on his back--through the gate and up to the door of the house. Then the king set her on the ground, and, dismounting, took her hand and walked with her into the great hall, which was hardly ever entered except when he came to see his little princess. There he sat down with two of his councillors who had accompanied him, to have some refreshment, and Irene bestowed herself on his right hand, and drank her milk out of a wooden bowl curiously carved. After the king had eaten and drunk, he turned to the princess and said, stroking her hair-- "Now, my child, what shall we do next?" This was the question he almost always put to her first after their meal together; and Irene had been waiting for it with some impatience, for now, she thought, she should be able to settle a question which constantly perplexed her. "I should like you to take me to see my great old grandmother." The king looked grave, and said-- "What does my little daughter mean?" "I mean the Queen Irene that lives up in the tower--the very old lady, you know, with the long hair of silver." The king only gazed at his little princess with a look which she could not understand. "She's got her crown in her bedroom," she went on; "but I've not been in there yet. You know she's here, don't you?" "No," said the king very quietly. "Then it must be all a dream," said Irene. "I half thought it was; but I couldn't be sure. Now I _am_ sure of it. Besides, I couldn't find her the next time I went up." At that moment a snow-white pigeon flew in at an open window and, with a flutter, settled upon Irene's head. She broke into a merry laugh, cowered a little and put up her hands to her head, saying-- "Dear dovey, don't peck me. You'll pull out my hair with your long claws, if you don't have a care." The king stretched out his hand to take the pigeon, but it spread its wings and flew again through the open window, when its whiteness made one flash in the sun and vanished. The king laid his hand on the princess's head, held it back a little, gazed in her face, smiled half a smile and sighed half a sigh. "Come, my child; we'll have a walk in the garden together," he said. "You won't come up and see my huge, great, beautiful grandmother, then, king-papa?" said the princess. "Not this time," said the king very gently. "She has not invited me, you know, and great old ladies like her do not choose to be visited without leave asked and given." The garden was a very lovely place. Being upon a mountain side, there were parts in it where the rocks came through in great masses, and all immediately about them remained quite wild. Tufts of heather grew upon them, and other hardy mountain plants and flowers, while near them would be lovely roses and lilies, and all pleasant garden flowers. This mingling of the wild mountain with the civilized garden was very quaint, and it was impossible for any number of gardeners to make such a garden look formal and stiff. Against one of these rocks was a garden-seat, shadowed, from the afternoon sun by the overhanging of the rock itself. There was a little winding path up to the top of the rock, and on the top another seat; but they sat on the seat at its foot, because the sun was hot; and there they talked together of many things. At length the king said: "You were out late one evening, Irene." "Yes, papa. It was my fault; and Lootie was very sorry." "I must talk to Lootie about it," said the king. "Don't speak loud to her, please, papa," said Irene. "She's been so afraid of being late ever since! Indeed she has not been naughty. It was only a mistake for once." "Once might be too often," murmured the king to himself, as he stroked his child's head. I cannot tell you how he had come to know. I am sure Curdie had not told him. Some one about the palace must have seen them, after all. He sat for a good while thinking. There was no sound to be heard except that of a little stream which ran merrily out of an opening in the rock by where they sat, and sped away down the hill through the garden. Then he rose, and leaving Irene where she was, went into the house and sent for Lootie, with whom he had a talk that made her cry. When in the evening he rode away upon his great white horse, he left six of his attendants behind him, with orders that three of them should watch outside the house every night, walking round and round it from sunset to sunrise. It was clear he was not quite comfortable about the princess. CHAPTER XI THE OLD LADY'S BEDROOM NOTHING more happened worth telling for some time. The autumn came and went by. There were no more flowers in the garden. The winds blew strong, and howled among the rocks. The rain fell, and drenched the few yellow and red leaves that could not get off the bare branches. Again and again there would be a glorious morning followed by a pouring afternoon, and sometimes, for a week together, there would be rain, nothing but rain, all day, and then the most lovely cloudless night, with the sky all out in full-blown stars--not one missing. But the princess could not see much of them, for she went to bed early. The winter drew on, and she found things growing dreary. When it was too stormy to go out, and she had got tired of her toys, Lootie would take her about the house, sometimes to the housekeeper's room, where the housekeeper, who was a good, kind old woman, made much of her--sometimes to the servants' hall or the kitchen, where she was not princess merely, but absolute queen, and ran a great risk of being spoiled. Sometimes she would run of herself to the room where the men-at-arms whom the king had left, sat, and they showed her their arms and accoutrements, and did what they could to amuse her. Still at times she found it very dreary, and often and often wished that her huge great grandmother had not been a dream. One morning the nurse left her with the housekeeper for a while. To amuse her, she turned out the contents of an old cabinet upon the table. The little princess found her treasures, queer ancient ornaments and many things the uses of which she could not imagine, far more interesting than her own toys, and sat playing with them for two hours or more. But at length, in handling a curious old-fashioned brooch, she ran the pin of it into her thumb, and gave a little scream with the sharpness of the pain, but would have thought little more of it, had not the pain increased and her thumb begun to swell. This alarmed the housekeeper greatly. The nurse was fetched; the doctor was sent for; her hand was poulticed, and long before her usual time she was put to bed. The pain still continued, and although she fell asleep and dreamed a good many dreams, there was the pain always in every dream. At last it woke her up. The moon was shining brightly into the room. The poultice had fallen off her hand, and it was burning hot. She fancied if she could hold it into the moonlight, that would cool it. So she got out of bed, without waking the nurse who lay at the other end of the room, and went to the window. When she looked out, she saw one of the men-at-arms walking in the garden, with the moonlight glancing on his armor. She was just going to tap on the window and call him, for she wanted to tell him all about it, when she bethought herself that that might wake Lootie, and she would put her into bed again. So she resolved to go to the window of another room, and call him from there. It was so much nicer to have somebody to talk to than to lie awake in bed with the burning pain in her hand. She opened the door very gently and went through the nursery, which did not look into the garden, to go to the other window. But when she came to the foot of the old staircase, there was the moon shining down from some window high up, and making the worm-eaten oak look very strange and delicate and lovely. In a moment she was putting her little feet one after the other in the silvery path up the stair, looking behind as she went, to see the shadow they made in the middle of the silver. Some little girls would have been afraid to find themselves thus alone in the middle of the night, but Irene was a princess. As she went slowly up the stairs, not quite sure that she was not dreaming, suddenly a great longing woke up in her heart to try once more whether she could not find the old, old lady with the silvery hair. "If she is a dream," she said to herself, "then I am the likelier to find her, if I am dreaming." So up and up she went, stair after stair, until she came to the many rooms--all just as she had seen them before. Through passage after passage she softly sped, comforting herself that if she should lose her way it would not matter much, because when she woke she would find herself in her own bed, with Lootie not far off. But as if she had known every step of the way, she walked straight to the door at the foot of the narrow stair that led to the tower. "What if I should realliality-really find my beautiful old grandmother up there!" she said to herself, as she crept up the steep steps. When she reached the top, she stood a moment listening in the dark, for there was no moon there. Yes! it was! it was the hum of the spinning-wheel! What a diligent grandmother to work both day and night! She tapped gently at the door. "Come in, Irene," said the sweet voice. The princess opened the door, and entered. There was the moonlight streaming in at the window, and in the middle of the moonlight sat the old lady in her black dress with the white lace, and her silvery hair mingling with the moonlight, so that you could not have distinguished one from the other. "Come in, Irene," she said again. "Can you tell me what I am spinning?" "She speaks," thought Irene, "just as if she had seen me five minutes ago, or yesterday at the farthest.--No," she answered; "I don't know what you are spinning. Please, I thought you were a dream. Why couldn't I find you before, great-great-grandmother?" "That you are hardly old enough to understand. But you would have found me sooner if you hadn't come to think I was a dream. I will give you one reason, though, why you couldn't find me. I didn't want you to find me." "Why, please?" "Because I did not want Lootie to know I was here." "But you told me to tell Lootie." "Yes. But I knew Lootie would not believe you. If she were to see me sitting spinning here, she wouldn't believe me either." "Why." "Because she couldn't. She would rub her eyes, and go away and say she felt queer, and forget half of it and more, and then say it had been all a dream." "Just like me," said Irene, feeling very much ashamed of herself. "Yes, a good deal like you, but not just like you; for you've come again; and Lootie wouldn't have come again. She would have said, No, no--she had had enough of such nonsense." "Is it naughty of Lootie then?" "It would be naughty of you. I've never done anything for Lootie." "And you did wash my face and hands for me," said Irene, beginning to cry. The old lady smiled a sweet smile and said-- "I'm not vexed with you, my child--nor with Lootie either. But I don't want you to say anything more to Lootie about me. If she should ask you, you must just be silent. But I do not think she will ask you." All the time they talked, the old lady kept on spinning. "You haven't told me yet what I am spinning," she said. "Because I don't know. It's very pretty stuff." It was indeed very pretty stuff. There was a good bunch of it on the distaff attached to the spinning-wheel, and in the moonlight it shone like--what shall I say it was like? It was not white enough for silver--yes, it was like silver, but shone gray rather than white, and glittered only a little. And the thread the old lady drew out from it was so fine that Irene could hardly see it. "I am spinning this for you, my child." "For me! What am I to do with it, please?" "I will tell you by and by. But first I will tell you what it is. It is spider-webs--of a particular kind. My pigeons bring it me from over the great sea. There is only one forest where the spiders live who make this particular kind--the finest and strongest of any. I have nearly finished my present job. What is on the rock now will be quite sufficient. I have a week's work there yet, though," she added, looking at the bunch. "Do you work all day and night too, great-great-great-great grandmother?" said the princess, thinking to be very polite with so many _greats_. "I am not quite so great as all that," she answered, smiling almost merrily. "If you call me grandmother, that will do.--No. I don't work every night--only moonlit nights, and then no longer than the moon shines upon my wheel. I sha'n't work much longer to-night." "And what will you do next, grandmother?" "Go to bed. Would you like to see my bedroom?" "Yes, that I should." "Then I think I won't work any longer to-night. I shall be in good time." The old lady rose, and left her wheel standing just as it was. You see there was no good in putting it away, for where there was not any furniture, there was no danger of being untidy. Then she took Irene by the hand, but it was her bad hand, and Irene gave a little cry of pain. "My child!" said, her grandmother, "what is the matter?" Irene held her hand into the moonlight, that the old lady might see it, and told her all about it, at which she looked grave. But she only said--"Give me your other hand"; and, having led her out upon the little dark landing, opened the door on the opposite side of it. What was Irene's surprise to see the loveliest room she had ever seen in her life! It was large and lofty, and dome-shaped. From the centre hung a lamp as round as a ball, shining as if with the brightest moonlight, which made everything visible in the room, though not so clearly that the princess could tell what many of the things were. A large oval bed stood in the middle, with a coverlid of rose-color, and velvet curtains all round it of a lovely pale blue. The walls were also blue--spangled all over with what looked like stars of silver. The old lady left her, and going to a strange-looking cabinet, opened it and took out a curious silver casket. Then she sat down on a low chair, and calling Irene, made her kneel before her, while she looked at her hand. Having examined it, she opened the casket, and took from it a little ointment. The sweetest odor filled the room--like that of roses and lilies--as she rubbed the ointment gently all over the hot swollen hand. Her touch was so pleasant and cool, that it seemed to drive away the pain and heat wherever it came. "Oh, grandmother! it is _so_ nice!" said Irene. "Thank you; thank you." Then the old lady went to a chest of drawers, and took out a large handkerchief of gossamer-like cambric, which she tied around her hand. "I don't think that I can let you go away to-night," she said. "Do you think you would like to sleep with me?" "Oh, yes, yes, dear grandmother!" said Irene, and would have clapped her hands, forgetting that she could not. "You won't be afraid then to go to bed with such an old woman?" "No. You are so beautiful, grandmother." "But I am _very_ old." "And I suppose I am very young. You won't mind sleeping with such a _very_ young woman, grandmother?" "You sweet little pertness!" said the old lady, and drew her toward her, and kissed her on the forehead and the cheek and the mouth. Then she got a large silver basin, and having poured some water into it, made Irene sit on the chair, and washed her feet. This done, she was ready for bed. And oh, what a delicious bed it was into which her grandmother laid her! She hardly could have told she was lying upon anything: she felt nothing but the softness. The old lady having undressed herself, lay down beside her. "Why don't you put out your moon?" asked the princess. "That never goes out, night or day," she answered. "In the darkest night, if any of my pigeons are out on a message, they always see my moon, and know where to fly to." "But if somebody besides the pigeons were to see it--somebody about the house, I mean--they would come to look what it was, and find you." "The better for them then," said the old lady. "But it does not happen above five times in a hundred years that any one does see it. The greater part of those who do, take it for a meteor, wink their eyes, and forget it again. Besides, nobody could find the room except I pleased. Besides again--I will tell you a secret--if that light were to go out, you would fancy yourself lying in a bare garret, on a heap of old straw, and would not see one of the pleasant things round about you all the time." "I hope it will never go out," said the princess. "I hope not. But it is time we both went to sleep. Shall I take you in my arms?" The little princess nestled close up to the old lady, who took her in both her arms, and held her close to her bosom. "Oh dear! this is so nice!" said the princess. "I didn't know anything in the whole world could be so comfortable. I should like to lie here for ever." "You may if you will," said the old lady. "But I must put you to one trial--not a very hard one, I hope.--This night week you must come back to me. If you don't, I do not know when you may find me again, and you will soon want me very much." "Oh! please, don't let me forget." "You shall not forget. The only question is whether you will believe I am anywhere--whether you will believe I am anything but a dream. You may be sure I will do all I can to help you to come. But it will rest with yourself after all. On the night of next Friday, you must come to me. Mind now." "I will try," said the princess. "Then good night," said the old lady, and kissed the forehead which lay in her bosom. In a moment more the little princess was dreaming in the midst of the loveliest dreams--of summer seas and moonlight and mossy springs and great murmuring trees, and beds of wild flowers with such odors as she had never smelled before. But after all, no dream could be more lovely than what she had left behind when she fell asleep. In the morning she found herself in her own bed. There was no handkerchief or anything else on her hand, only a sweet odor lingering about it. The swelling had all gone down; the prick of the brooch had vanished:--in fact her hand was perfectly well. CHAPTER XII A SHORT CHAPTER ABOUT CURDIE CURDIE spent many nights in the mine. His father and he had taken Mrs. Peterson into the secret, for they knew mother could hold her tongue, which was more than could be said of all the miners' wives. But Curdie did not tell her that every night he spent in the mine, part of it went in earning a new red petticoat for her. Mrs. Peterson was such a nice good mother! All mothers are more or less, but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all _more_ and no _less_. She made a little heaven in that poor cottage on the hillside--for her husband and son to go home to out of the dreary earth in which they worked. I doubt if the princess was very much happier even in the arms of her huge great-grandmother than Peter and Curdie were in the arms of Mrs. Peterson. True, her hands were hard, and chapped, and large, but it was with work for them; and therefore in the sight of the angels, her hands were so much the more beautiful. And if Curdie worked hard to get her a petticoat, she worked hard every day to get him comforts which he would have missed much more than she would a new petticoat even in winter. Not that she and Curdie ever thought of how much they worked for each other: that would have spoiled everything. When left alone in the mine, Curdie always worked on for an hour or two first, following the lode which, according to Glump, would lead at last into the deserted habitation. After that, he would set out on a reconnoitering expedition. In order to manage this, or rather the return from it, better than the first time, he had bought a huge ball of fine string, having learned the trick from Hop-o'-my-Thumb, whose history his mother had often told him. Not that Hop-o'-my-Thumb had ever used a ball of string--I should be sorry to be supposed so far out in my classics--but the principle was the same as that of the pebbles. The end of this string he fastened to his pickaxe, which figured no bad anchor, and then, with the ball in his hand, unrolling as he went, set out in the dark through the natural gangs of the goblins' territory. The first night or two he came upon nothing worth remembering; saw only a little of the home-life of the _cobs_ in the various caves they called houses; failed in coming upon anything to cast light upon the foregoing design which kept the inundation for the present in the background. But at length, I think on the third or fourth night, he found, partly guided by the noise of their implements, a company of evidently the best sappers and miners amongst them, hard at work. What were they about? It could not well be the inundation, seeing that had in the meantime been postponed to something else. Then what was it? He lurked and watched, every now and then in the greatest risk of being detected, but without success. He had again and again to retreat in haste, a proceeding rendered the more difficult that he had to gather up his string as he returned upon its course. It was not that he was afraid of the goblins, but that he was afraid of their finding out that they were watched, which might have prevented the discovery at which he aimed. Sometimes his haste had to be such that, when he reached home toward morning, his string for lack of time to wind it up as he "dodged the cobs," would be in what seemed the most hopeless entanglement; but after a good sleep though a short one, he always found his mother had got it right again. There it was, wound in a most respectable ball, ready for use the moment he should want it! "I can't think how you do it, mother," he would say. "I follow the thread," she would answer--"just as you do in the mine." She never had more to say about it; but the less clever she was with her words, the more clever she was with her hands; and the less his mother said, the more, Curdie believed, she had to say. But still he had made no discovery as to what the goblin miners were about. CHAPTER XIII THE COBS' CREATURES ABOUT this time, the gentlemen whom the king had left behind him to watch over the princess, had each occasion to doubt the testimony of his own eyes, for more than strange were the objects to which they would bear witness. They were of one sort--creatures--but so grotesque and misshapen as to be more like a child's drawings upon his slate than anything natural. They saw them only at night, while on guard about the house. The testimony of the man who first reported having seen one of them was that, as he was walking slowly round the house, while yet in the shadow, he caught sight of a creature standing on its hind legs in the moonlight, with its fore feet upon a window-ledge, staring in at the window. Its body might have been that of a dog or wolf--he thought, but he declared on his honor that its head was twice the size it ought to have been for the size of its body, and as round as a ball, while the face, which it turned upon him as it fled, was more like one carved by a boy upon the turnip inside which he is going to put a candle, than anything else he could think of. It rushed into the garden. He sent an arrow after it, and thought he must have struck it; for it gave an unearthly howl, and he could not find his arrow any more than the beast, although he searched all about the place where it vanished. They laughed at him until he was driven to hold his tongue; and said he must have taken too long a pull at the ale-jug. But before two nights were over, he had one to side with him; for he too had seen something strange, only quite different from that reported by the other. The description the second man gave of the creature he had seen was yet more grotesque and unlikely. They were both laughed at by the rest; but night after night another came over to their side, until at last there was only one left to laugh at all his companions. Two nights more passed, and he saw nothing; but on the third, he came rushing from the garden to the other two before the house, in such an agitation that they declared--for it was their turn now--that the band of his helmet was cracking under his chin with the rising of his hair inside it. Running with him into that part of the garden which I have already described, they saw a score of creatures, to not one of which they could give a name, and not one of which was like another, hideous and ludicrous at once, gamboling on the lawn in the moonlight. The supernatural or rather subnatural ugliness of their faces, the length of legs and necks in some, and the apparent absence of both or either in others, made the spectators, although in one consent as to what they saw, yet doubtful, as I have said, of the evidence of their own eyes--and ears as well; for the noises they made, although not loud, were as uncouth and varied as their forms, and could be described neither as grunts nor squeaks nor roars nor howls nor barks nor yells nor screams nor croaks nor hisses nor mews nor shrieks, but only as something like all of them mingled in one horrible dissonance. Keeping in the shade, the watchers had a few moments to recover themselves before the hideous assembly suspected their presence; but all at once, as if by common consent, they scampered off in the direction of a great rock, and vanished before the men had come to sufficiently to think of following them. My readers will suspect what these were; but I will now give them full information concerning them. They were of course household animals belonging to the goblins, whose ancestors had taken their ancestors many centuries before from the upper regions of light into the lower regions of darkness. The original stocks of these horrible creatures were very much the same as the animals now seen about farms and homes in the country, with the exception of a few of them, which had been wild creatures, such as foxes, and indeed wolves and small bears, which the goblins, from their proclivity toward the animal creation, had caught when cubs and tamed. But in the course of time, all had undergone even greater changes than had passed upon their owners. They had altered--that is, their descendants had altered--into such creatures as I have not attempted to describe except in the vaguest manner--the various parts of their bodies assuming, in an apparently arbitrary and self-willed manner, the most abnormal developments. Indeed, so little did any distinct type predominate in some of the bewildering results, that you could only have guessed at any known animal as the original, and even then, what likeness remained would be more one of general expression than of definable conformation. But what increased the gruesomeness tenfold, was that, from constant domestic, or indeed rather family association with the goblins, their countenances had grown in grotesque resemblance to the human. No one understands animals who does not see that every one of them, even amongst the fishes, it may be with a dimness and vagueness infinitely remote, yet shadows the human: in the case of these the human resemblance had greatly increased: while their owners had sunk toward them, they hod risen toward their owners. But the conditions of subterranean life being equally unnatural for both, while the goblins were worse, the creatures had not improved by the approximation, and its result would have appeared far more ludicrous than consoling to the warmest lover of animal nature. I shall now explain how it was that just then these animals began to show themselves about the king's country house. The goblins, as Curdie had discovered, were mining on--at work both day and night, in divisions, urging the scheme after which he lay in wait. In the course of their tunneling, they had broken into the channel of a small stream, but the break being in the top of it, no water had escaped to interfere with their work. Some of the creatures, hovering as they often did about their masters, had found the hole, and had, with the curiosity which had grown to a passion from the restraints of their unnatural circumstances, proceeded to explore the channel. The stream was the same which ran out by the seat on which Irene and her king-papa had sat as I have told, and the goblin-creatures found it jolly fun to get out for a romp on a smooth lawn such as they had never seen in all their poor miserable lives. But although they had partaken enough of the nature of their owners to delight in annoying and alarming any of the people whom they met on the mountain, they were of course incapable of designs of their own, or of intentionally furthering those of their masters. For several nights after the men-at-arms were at length of one mind as to the facts of the visits of some horrible creatures, whether bodily or spectral they could not yet say, they watched with special attention that part of the garden where they had last seen them. Perhaps indeed they gave in consequence too little attention to the house. But the creatures were too cunning to be easily caught; nor were the watchers quick-eyed enough to descry the head, or the keen eyes in it, which, from the opening whence the stream issued, would watch them in turn, ready, the moment they left the lawn to report the place clear. CHAPTER XIV THAT NIGHT WEEK DURING the whole of the week, Irene had been thinking every other moment of her promise to the old lady, although even now she could not feel quite sure that she had not been dreaming. Could it really be that an old lady lived up in the top of the house with pigeons and a spinning-wheel, and a lamp that never went out? She was, however, none the less determined, on the coming Friday, to ascend the three stairs, walk through the passages with the many doors, and try to find the tower in which she had either seen or dreamed her grandmother. Her nurse could not help wondering what had come to the child--she would sit so thoughtfully silent, and even in the midst of a game with her, would so suddenly fall into a dreamy mood. But Irene took care to betray nothing, whatever efforts Lootie might make to get at her thoughts. And Lootie had to say to herself, "What an odd child she is!" and give it up. At length the long looked-for Friday arrived, and lest Lootie should be moved to watch her, Irene endeavored to keep herself as quiet as possible. In the afternoon she asked for her doll's house, and went on arranging and rearranging the various rooms and their inhabitants for a whole hour. Then she gave a sigh and threw herself back in her chair. One of the dolls would not sit, and another would not stand, and they were all very tiresome. Indeed there was one that would not even lie down, which was too bad. But it was now getting dark, and the darker it got the more exited Irene became, and the more she felt it necessary to be composed. "I see you want your tea, princess," said the nurse: "I will go and get it. The room feels close: I will open the window a little. The evening is mild: it won't hurt you." "There's no fear of that, Lootie," said Irene, wishing she had put off going for the tea till it was darker, when she might have made her attempt with every advantage. I fancy Lootie was longer in returning than she had intended; for when Irene, who had been lost in thought, looked up, she saw it was nearly dark, and at the same moment caught sight of a pair of eyes, bright with a green light, glowering at her through the open window. The next instant something leaped into the room. It was like a cat, with legs as long as a horse's, Irene said, but its body no bigger and its legs no thicker than those of a cat. She was too frightened to cry out, but not too frightened to jump from her chair and run from the room. It is plain enough to every one of my readers what she ought to have done--and indeed Irene thought of it herself; but when she came to the foot of the old stair, just outside the nursery door, she imagined the creature running up those long ascents after her, and pursuing her through the dark passages--_which, after all, might lead to no tower!_ That thought was too much. Her heart failed her, and turning from the stair, she rushed along to the hall, whence, finding the front-door open, she darted into the court, pursued--at least she thought so--by the creature. No one happening to see her, on she ran, unable to think for fear, and ready to run anywhere to elude the awful creature with the stilt-legs. Not daring to look behind her, she rushed straight out of the gate, and up the mountain. It was foolish indeed--thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin-creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always takes the side of the thing that we are afraid of. The princess was soon out of breath with running up hill; but she ran on, for she fancied the horrible creature just behind her, forgetting that, had it been after her, such legs as those must have overtaken her long ago. At last she could run no longer, and fell, unable even to scream, by the roadside, where she lay for sometime, half dead with terror. But finding nothing lay hold of her, and her breath beginning to come back, she ventured at length to get half up, and peer anxiously about her. It was now so dark that she could see nothing. Not a single star was out. She could not even tell in what direction the house lay, and between her and home she fancied the dreadful creature lying ready to pounce upon her. She saw now that she ought to have run up the stairs at once. It was well she did not scream; for, although very few of the goblins had come out for weeks, a stray idler or two might have heard her. She sat down upon a stone, and nobody but one who had done something wrong could have been more miserable. She had quite forgotten her promise to visit her grandmother. A rain-drop fell on her face. She looked up, and for a moment her terror was lost in astonishment. At first she thought the rising moon had left her place, and drawn nigh to see what could be the matter with the little girl, sitting alone, without hat or cloak, on the dark bare mountain; but she soon saw she was mistaken, for there was no light on the ground at her feet, and no shadow anywhere. But a great silvery globe was hanging in the air; and as she gazed at the lovely thing, her courage revived. If she were but indoors again she would fear nothing, not even the terrible creature with the long legs! But how was she to find her way back? What could that light be? Could it be--? No, it couldn't. But what if it should be--yes--it must be--her great-great-grandmother's lamp, which guided her pigeons home through the darkest night! She jumped up: she had but to keep that light in view, and she must find the house. Her heart grew strong. Speedily, yet softly, she walked down the hill, hoping to pass the watching creature unseen. Dark as it was, there was little danger now of choosing the wrong road. And--which was most strange--the light that filled her eyes from the lamp, instead of blinding them for a moment to the object upon which they next fell, enabled her for a moment to see it, despite the darkness. By looking at the lamp and then dropping her eyes, she could see the road for a yard or two in front of her, and this saved her from several falls, for the road was very rough. But all at once, to her dismay, it vanished, and the terror of the beast, which had left her the moment she began to return, again laid hold of her heart. The same instant, however, she caught the light of the windows, and knew exactly where she was. It was too dark to run, but she made what haste she could, and reached the gate in safety. She found the house door still open, ran through the hall, and, without even looking into the nursery, bounded straight up the stair, and the next, and the next; then turning to the right, ran through the long avenue of silent rooms, and found her way at once to the door at the foot of the tower stair. When first the nurse missed her, she fancied she was playing her a trick, and for some time took no trouble about her; but at last, getting frightened, she had begun to search; and when the princess entered, the whole household was hither and thither, over the house, hunting for her. A few seconds after she reached the stair of the tower, they had even begun to search the neglected rooms, in which they would never have thought of looking had they not already searched every other place they could think of in vain. But by this time she was knocking at the old lady's door. CHAPTER XV WOVEN AND THEN SPUN "COME in, Irene," said the silvery voice of her grandmother. The princess opened the door, and peeped in. But the room was quite dark, and there was no sound of the spinning-wheel. She grew frightened once more, thinking that, although the room was there, the old lady might be a dream after all. Every little girl knows how dreadful it is to find a room empty where she thought somebody was; but Irene had to fancy for a moment that the person she came to find was nowhere at all. She remembered however that at night she spun only in the moonlight, and concluded that must be why there was no sweet, bee-like humming: the old lady might be somewhere in the darkness. Before she had time to think another thought, she heard her voice again, saying as before-- "Come in, Irene." From the sound, she understood at once that she was not in the room beside her. Perhaps she was in her bedroom. She turned across the passage, feeling her way to the other door. When her hand fell on the lock, again the old lady spoke-- "Shut the other door behind you, Irene. I always close the door of my workroom when I go to my chamber." Irene wondered to hear her voice so plainly through the door; having shut the other, she opened it and went in. Oh, what a lovely haven to reach from the darkness and fear through which she had come! The soft light made her feel as if she were going into the heart of the milkiest pearl; while the blue walls and their silver stars for a moment perplexed her with the fancy that they were in reality the sky which she had left outside a minute ago covered with rainclouds. [Illustration: "Come," and she still held out her arms.] "I've lighted a fire for you, Irene: you're cold and wet," said her grandmother. Then Irene looked again, and saw that what she had taken for a huge bouquet of red roses on a low stand against the wall, was in fact a fire which burned in the shapes of the loveliest and reddest roses, glowing gorgeously between the heads and wings of two cherubs of shining silver. And when she came nearer, she found that the smell of roses with which the room was filled, came from the fire-roses on the hearth. Her grandmother was dressed in the loveliest pale-blue velvet, over which her hair, no longer white, but of a rich gold color, streamed like a cataract, here falling in dull gathered heaps, there rushing away in smooth shining falls. And even as she looked, the hair seemed pouring down from her head, and vanishing in a golden mist ere it reached the floor. It flowed from under the edge of a circle of shining silver, set with alternated pearls and opals. On her dress was no ornament whatever, neither was there a ring on her hand, or a necklace or carcanet about her neck. But her slippers glimmered with the light of the Milky-way, for they were covered with seed-pearls and opals in one mass. Her face was that of a woman of three-and-twenty. The princess was so bewildered with astonishment and admiration that she could hardly thank her, and drew nigh with timidity, feeling dirty and uncomfortable. The lady was seated on a low chair by the side of the fire, with hands outstretched to take her, but the princess hung back with a troubled smile. "Why, what's the matter?" asked her grandmother. "You haven't been doing anything wrong--I know that by your face, though it _is_ rather miserable. What's the matter, my dear?" And still she held out her arms. "Dear grandmother," said Irene, "I'm not so sure that I haven't done something wrong. I ought to have run up to you at once when the long-legged cat came in at the window, instead of running out on the mountain, and making myself such a fright." "You were taken by surprise, my child, and are not so likely to do it again. It is when people do wrong things willfully that they are the more likely to do them again. Come." And still she held out her arms. "But, grandmother, you're so beautiful and grand with your crown on! and I am so dirty with mud and rain!--I should quite spoil your beautiful blue dress." With a merry little laugh, the lady sprang from her chair, more lightly far than Irene herself could, caught the child to her bosom, and kissing the tear-stained face over and over, sat down with her in her lap. "Oh, grandmother! you'll make yourself such a mess!" cried Irene, clinging to her. "You darling! do you think I care more for my dress than for my little girl? Beside--look here!" As she spoke she set her down, and Irene saw to her dismay that the lovely dress was covered with the mud of her fall on the mountain road. But the lady stooped to the fire, and taking from it, by the stalk in her fingers, one of the burning roses, passed it once and again and a third time over the front of her dress; and when Irene looked, not a single stain was to be discovered. "There!" said her grandmother, "you won't mind coming to me now?" But Irene again hung back, eyeing the flaming rose which the lady held in her hand. "You're not afraid of the rose--are you?" she said, and she was about to throw it on the hearth again. "Oh! don't, please!" cried Irene. "Won't you hold it to my frock and my hands and my face? And I'm afraid my feet and my knees want it too!" "No," answered her grandmother, smiling a little sadly, as she threw the rose from her; "it is too hot for you yet. It would set your frock in a flame. Besides, I don't want to make you clean to-night. I want your nurse and the rest of the people to see you as you are, for you will have to tell them how you ran away for fear of the long-legged cat. I should like to wash you, but they would not believe you then. Do you see that bath behind you?" The princess looked, and saw a large oval tub of silver, shining brilliantly in the light of the wonderful lamp. "Go and look into it," said the lady. Irene went, and came back very silently, with her eyes shining. "What did you see?" asked her grandmother. "The sky and the moon and the stars," she answered. "It looked as if there was no bottom to it." The lady smiled a pleased, satisfied smile, and was silent also for a few moments. Then she said-- "Any time you want a bath, come to me. I know you have a bath every morning, but sometimes you want one at night too." "Thank you, grandmother; I will--I will indeed," answered Irene, and was again silent for some moments thinking. Then she said, "How was it, grandmother, that I saw your beautiful lamp--not the light of it only--but the great round silver lamp itself, hanging alone in the great open air high up? It was your lamp I saw--wasn't it?" "Yes, my child; it was my lamp." "Then how was it? I don't see a window all round." "When I please, I can make the lamp shine through the walls--shine so strong that it melts them away from before the sight, and shows itself as you saw it. But, as I told you, it is not everybody can see it." "How is it that I can then? I'm sure I don't know." "It is a gift born with you. And one day I hope everybody will have it." "But how do you make it shine through the walls?" "Ah! that you would not understand if I were to try ever so much to make you--not yet--not yet. But," added the lady rising, "you must sit in my chair while I get you the present I have been preparing for you. I told you my spinning was for you. It is finished now, and I am going to fetch it. I have been keeping it warm under one of my brooding pigeons." Irene sat down in the low chair, and her grandmother left her, shutting the door behind her. The child sat gazing, now at the rose-fire, now at the starry walls, now at the silvery light; and a great quietness came over her heart. If all the long-legged cats in the world had come rushing helter-skelter at her then, she would not have been afraid of them for a single moment. How this was, however, she could not tell;--she only knew there was no fear in her, and everything was so right and safe that it could not get in. She had been gazing at the lovely lamp for some minutes fixedly: turning her eyes, she found the wall had vanished, for she was looking out on the dark cloudy night. But though she heard the wind blowing, none of it blew upon her. In a moment more, the clouds themselves parted, or rather vanished like the wall, and she looked straight into the starry herds, flashing gloriously in the dark blue. It was but for a moment. The clouds gathered again and shut out the stars; the wall gathered again and shut out the clouds; and there stood the lady beside her with the loveliest smile on her face, and a shimmering ball in her hand, about the size of a pigeon's egg. "There, Irene; there is my work for you!" she said, holding out the ball to the princess. She took it in her hand, and looked at it all over. It sparkled a little, and shone here and shone there, but not much. It was of a sort of gray whiteness, something like spun glass. "Is this _all_ your spinning, grandmother?" she asked. "All since you came to the house. There is more there than you think." "How pretty it is! What am I to do with it?" "That I will now explain to you," answered the lady, turning from her, and going to her cabinet. She came back with a small ring in her hand. Then she took the ball from Irene's, and did something with the two--Irene could not tell what. "Give me your hand," she said. Irene held up her right hand. "Yes, that is the hand I want," said the lady, and put the ring on the forefinger of it. "What a beautiful ring!" said Irene. "What is the stone called?" "It is a fire-opal." "Please, am I to keep it?" "Always." "Oh, thank you, grandmother! It's prettier than anything I ever saw, except those--of all colors--in your--Please, is that your crown?" "Yes, it is my crown. The stone in your ring is of the same sort--only not so good. It has only red, but mine have all colors, you see." "Yes, grandmother. I will take such care of it!--But--" she added, hesitating. "But what?" asked her grandmother. "What am I to say when Lootie asks me where I got it?" "_You_ will ask _her_ where you got it," answered the lady smiling. "I don't see how I can do that." "You will though." "Of course I will if you say so. But you know I can't pretend not to know." "Of course not. But don't trouble yourself about it. You will see when the time comes." So saying, the lady turned, and threw the little ball into the rose-fire. "Oh, grandmother!" exclaimed Irene; "I thought you had spun it for me." "So I did, my child. And you've got it." "No; it's burnt in the fire." The lady put her hand in the fire, brought out the ball, glimmering as before, and held it toward her. Irene stretched out her hand to take it, but the lady turned, and going to her cabinet, opened a drawer, and laid the ball in it. "Have I done anything to vex you, grandmother?" said Irene pitifully. "No, my darling. But you must understand that no one ever gives anything to another properly and really without keeping it. That ball is yours." "Oh! I'm not to take it with me! You are going to keep it for me!" "You are to take it with you. I've fastened the end of it to the ring on your finger." Irene looked at the ring. "I can't see it there, grandmother," she said. "Feel--a little way from the ring--toward the cabinet," said the lady. "Oh! I do feel it!" exclaimed the princess. "But I can't see it," she added, looking close to her outstretched hand. "No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it. Now you can fancy how much spinning that took, although it does seem such a little ball." "But what use can I make of it, if it lies in your cabinet?" "That is what I will explain to you. It would be of no use to you--it wouldn't be yours at all if it did not lie in my cabinet. Now listen. If ever you find yourself in any danger--such, for example, as you were in this evening--you must take off your ring, and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay your forefinger, the same that wore the ring, upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you." "Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!" "Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not double the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too." "It is very wonderful!" said Irene thoughtfully. Then suddenly becoming aware, she jumped up, crying--"Oh, grandmother! here I have been sitting all this time in your chair, and you standing! I _beg_ your pardon." The lady laid her hand on her shoulder and said: "Sit down again, Irene. Nothing pleases me better than to see any one sit in my chair. I am only too glad to stand so long as any one will sit in it." "How kind of you!" said the princess, and sat down again. "It makes me happy," said the lady. "But," said Irene, still puzzled, "won't the thread get in somebody's way and be broken, if the one end is fast to my ring and the other laid in your cabinet?" "You will find all that arranges itself. I am afraid it is time for you to go." "Mightn't I stay and sleep with you to-night, grandmother?" "No, not to-night. If I had meant you to stay to-night, I should have given you a bath; but you know everybody in the house is miserable about you, and it would be cruel to keep them so all night. You must go down stairs." "I'm so glad, grandmother, you didn't say--_go home_--for this is my home. Mayn't I call this my home?" "You may, my child. And I trust you will always think it your home. Now come. I must take you back without any one seeing you." "Please, I want to ask you one question more," said Irene. "Is it because you have your crown on that you look so young?" "No, child," answered her grandmother; "it is because I felt so young this evening, that I put my crown on. And it occurred to me that you would like to see your old grandmother in her best." "Why do you call yourself old? You're not old, grandmother." "I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people--I don't mean you, for you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better--but it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs. I am older than you are able to think, and--" "And look at you, grandmother!" cried Irene, jumping up, and flinging her arms about her neck. "I won't be so silly again, I promise you. At least--I'm rather afraid to promise--but if I am, I promise to be sorry for it--I do. I wish I were as old as you, grandmother. I don't think you are ever afraid of anything." "Not for long, at least, my child. Perhaps by the time I am two thousand years of age, I shall, indeed, never be afraid of anything. But I must confess that I have sometimes been afraid about my children--sometimes about you, Irene." "Oh, I'm so sorry, grandmother!--To-night, I suppose, you mean." "Yes--a little to-night; but a good deal when you had all but made up your mind that I was a dream, and no real great-great-grandmother. You must not suppose that I am blaming you for that, I daresay it was out of your power to help it." "I don't know, grandmother," said the princess, beginning to cry. "I can't always do myself as I should like. And I don't always try. I'm very sorry anyhow." The lady stooped, lifted her in her arms, and sat down with her in her chair, holding her close to her bosom. In a few minutes the princess had sobbed herself to sleep. How long she slept, I do not know. When she came to herself she was sitting in her own high chair at the nursery table, with her doll's-house before her. CHAPTER XVI THE RING THE same moment her nurse came into the room, sobbing. When she saw her sitting there, she started back with a loud cry of amazement and joy. Then running to her, she caught her up in her arms and covered her dear little face with kisses. "My precious darling princess! where have you been? What has happened to you? We've all been crying our eyes out, and searching the house from top to bottom for you." "Not quite from the top," thought Irene to herself; and she might have added--"not quite to the bottom," perhaps, if she had known all. But the one she would not, and the other she could not say. "Oh, Lootie! I've had such a dreadful adventure!" she replied, and told her all about the cat with the long legs, and how she ran out upon the mountain, and came back again. But she said nothing of her grandmother or her lamp. "And there we've been searching for you all over the house for more than an hour and a half!" exclaimed the nurse. "But that's no matter, now we've got you! Only, princess, I must say," she added, her mood changing, "what you ought to have done was to call for your own Lootie to come and help you, instead of running out of the house, and up the mountain, in that wild--I must say, foolish fashion." "Well, Lootie," said Irene quietly, "perhaps if you had a big cat, all legs, running at you, you mightn't exactly know which was the wisest thing to do at the moment." "I wouldn't run up the mountain, anyhow," returned Lootie. "Not if you had time to think about it. But when those creatures came at you that night on the mountain, you were so frightened yourself that you lost your way home." This put a stop to Lootie's reproaches. She had been on the point of saying that the long-legged cat must have been a twilight fancy of the princess's, but the memory of the horrors of that night, and of the talking-to which the king had given her in consequence, prevented her from saying that which after all she did not half believe--having a strong suspicion that the cat was a goblin; for the fact was that she knew nothing of the difference between the goblins and their creatures: she counted them all just goblins. Without another word she went and got some fresh tea and bread and butter for the princess. Before she returned, the whole household, headed by the housekeeper, burst into the nursery to exult over their darling. The gentlemen-at-arms followed, and were ready enough to believe all she told them about the long-legged cat. Indeed, though wise enough to say nothing about it, they remembered with no little horror, just such a creature amongst those they had surprised at their gambols upon the princess's lawn. In their own hearts they blamed themselves for not having kept better watch. And their captain gave order that from this night the front door and all the windows on the ground floor should be locked immediately the sun set, and opened after upon no pretence whatever. The men-at-arms redoubled their vigilance, and for some time there was no further cause of alarm. When the princess woke the next morning, her nurse was bending over her. "How your ring does glow this morning, princess!--just like a fiery rose!" she said. "Does it, Lootie?" returned Irene. "Who gave me the ring, Lootie? I know I've had it a long time, but where did I get it? I don't remember." "I think it must have been your mother gave it you, princess; but really, for as long as you have worn it, I don't remember that ever I heard," answered her nurse. "I will ask my king-papa the next time he comes," said Irene. CHAPTER XVII SPRING-TIME THE spring, so dear to all creatures, young and old, came at last, and before the first few days of it had gone, the king rode through its budding valleys to see his little daughter. He had been in a distant part of his dominions all the winter, for he was not in the habit of stopping in one great city, or of visiting only his favorite country houses, but he moved from place to place, that all his people might know him. Wherever he journeyed, he kept a constant lookout for the ablest and best men to put into office, and wherever he found himself mistaken, and those he had appointed incapable or unjust, he removed them at once. Hence you see it was his care of the people that kept him from seeing his princess so often as he would have liked. You may wonder why he did not take her about with him; but there were several reasons against his doing so, and I suspect her great-great-grandmother had had a principal hand in preventing it. Once more Irene heard the bugle-blast, and once more she was at the gate to meet her father as he rode up on his great white horse. After they had been alone for a little while, she thought of what she had resolved to ask him. "Please, king-papa," she said, "will you tell me where I got this pretty ring? I can't remember." The king looked at it. A strange, beautiful smile spread like sunshine over his face, and an answering smile, but at the same time a questioning one, spread like moonlight over Irene's. "It was your queen-mamma's once," he said. "And why isn't it hers now?" asked Irene. "She does not want it now," said the king, looking grave. "Why doesn't she want it now?" "Because she's gone where all those rings are made." "And when shall I see her?" asked the princess. "Not for some time yet," answered the king, and the tears came in his eyes. Irene did not remember her mother, and did not know why her father looked so, and why the tears came in his eyes; but she put her arms round his neck and kissed him, and asked no more questions. The king was much disturbed on hearing the report of the gentlemen-at-arms concerning the creatures they had seen; and I presume would have taken Irene with him that very day, but for what the presence of the ring on her finger assured him of. About an hour before he left, Irene saw him go up the old stair; and he did not come down again till they were just ready to start; and she thought with herself that he had been up to see the old lady. When he went away, he left the other six gentlemen behind him, that there might be six of them always on guard. And now, in the lovely spring-weather, Irene was out on the mountain the greater part of the day. In the warmer hollows there were lovely primroses, and not so many that she ever got tired of them. As often as she saw a new one opening an eye of light in the blind earth, she would clap her hands with gladness, and, unlike some children I know, instead of pulling it, would touch it as tenderly as if it had been a new baby, and, having made its acquaintance, would leave it as happy as she found it. She treated the plants on which they grew like birds' nests; every fresh flower was like a new little bird to her. She would pay a visit to all the flower-nests she knew, remembering each by itself. She would go down on her hands and knees beside one and say "Good morning! Are you all smelling very sweet this morning? Good-bye!" And then she would go to another nest, and say the same. It was a favorite amusement with her. There were many flowers up and down, and she loved them all, but the primroses were her favorites. "They're not too shy, and they're not a bit forward," she would say to Lootie. There were goats too about, over the mountain, and when the little kids came, she was as pleased with them as with the flowers. The goats belonged to the miners mostly--a few of them to Curdie's mother; but there were a good many wild ones that seemed to belong to nobody. These the goblins counted theirs, and it was upon them partly that they lived. They set snares and dug pits for them; and did not scruple to take what tame ones happened to be caught; but they did not try to steal them in any other manner, because they were afraid of the dogs the hill-people kept to watch them, for the knowing dogs always tried to bite their feet. But the goblins had a kind of sheep of their own--very queer creatures, which they drove out to feed at night, and the other goblin-creatures were wise enough to keep good watch over them, for they knew they should have their bones by and by. CHAPTER XVIII CURDIE'S CLUE CURDIE was as watchful as ever, but was almost getting tired of his ill-success. Every other night or so he followed the goblins about, as they went on digging and boring, and getting as near them as he could, watched them from behind stones and rocks; but as yet he seemed no nearer finding out what they had in view. As at first, he always kept hold of the end of his string, while his pickaxe left just outside the hole by which he entered the goblins' country from the mine, continued to serve as an anchor and hold fast the other end. The goblins hearing no more noise in that quarter, had ceased to apprehend an immediate invasion, and kept no watch. One night, after dodging about and listening till he was nearly falling asleep with weariness, he began to roll up his ball, for he had resolved to go home to bed. It was not long, however, before he began to feel bewildered. One after another he passed goblin-houses, caves that is, occupied by goblin families, and at length was sure they were many more than he had passed as he came. He had to use great caution to pass unseen--they lay so close together. Could his string have led him wrong? He still followed winding it, and still it led him into more thickly populated quarters, until he became quite uneasy, and indeed apprehensive; for although he was not afraid of the _cobs_, he was afraid of not finding his way out. But what could he do? It was of no use to sit down and wait for the morning--the morning made no difference here. It was all dark, and always dark; and if his string failed him he was helpless. He might even arrive within a yard of the mine, and never know it. Seeing he could do nothing better, he would at least find where the end of the string was, and if possible how it had come to play him such a trick. He knew by the size of the ball that he was getting pretty near the last of it, when he began to feel a tugging and pulling at it. What could it mean? Turning a sharp corner, he thought he heard strange sounds. These grew, as he went on, to a scuffling and growling and squeaking; and the noise increased, until, turning a second sharp corner, he found himself in the midst of it, and the same moment tumbled over a wallowing mass, which he knew must be a knot of the cobs' creatures. Before he could recover his feet, he had caught some great scratches on his face, and several severe bites on his legs and arms. But as he scrambled to get up, his hand fell upon his pickaxe, and before the horrid beasts could do him any serious harm, he was laying about with it right and left in the dark. The hideous cries which followed gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he had punished some of them pretty smartly for their rudeness, and by their scampering and their retreating howls, he perceived that he had routed them. He stood a little, weighing his battle-axe in his hand as if it had been the most precious lump of metal--but indeed no lump of gold itself could have been so precious at that time as that common tool--then untied the end of the string from it, put the ball in his pocket, and still stood thinking. It was clear that the cobs' creatures had found his axe, had between them carried it off, and had so led him he knew not where. But for all his thinking he could not tell what he ought to do, until suddenly he became aware of a glimmer of light in the distance. Without a moment's hesitation he set out for it, as fast as the unknown and rugged way would permit. Yet again turning a corner, led by the dim light, he spied something quite new in his experience of the underground regions--a small irregular shape of something shining. Going up to it, he found it was a piece of mica, or Muscovy glass, called sheep-silver in Scotland, and the light flickering as if from a fire behind it. After trying in vain for some time to discover an entrance to the place where it was burning, he came at length to a small chamber in which an opening high in the wall revealed a glow beyond. To this opening he managed to scramble up, and then he saw a strange sight. Below sat a little group of goblins around a fire, the smoke of which vanished in the darkness far aloft. The sides of the cave were full of shining minerals like those of the palace-hall; and the company was evidently of a superior order, for every one wore stones about head, or arms, or waist, shining, dull, gorgeous colors in the light of the fire. Nor had Curdie looked long before he recognized the king himself, and found that he had made his way into the inner apartment of the royal family. He had never had such a good chance of hearing something! He crept through the hole as softly as he could, scrambled a good way down the wall toward them without attracting attention, and then sat down and listened. The king, evidently the queen, and probably the crown-prince and the prime minister were talking together. He was sure of the queen by her shoes, for as she warmed her feet at the fire, he saw them quite plainly. "That _will_ be fun!" said the one he took for the crown-prince. It was the first whole sentence he heard. "I don't see why you should think it such a grand affair!" said his stepmother, tossing her head backward. "You must remember, my spouse," interposed his Majesty, as if making excuse for his son, "he has got the same blood in him. His mother--" "Don't talk to me of his mother! You positively encourage his unnatural fancies. Whatever belongs to _that_ mother, ought to be cut out of him." "You forget yourself, my dear!" said the king. "I don't," said the queen, "nor you either. If you expect _me_ to approve of such coarse tastes, you will find yourself mistaken. _I_ don't wear shoes for nothing." "You must acknowledge, however," the king said, with a little groan, "that this at least is no whim of Harelip's, but a matter of state-policy. You are well aware that his gratification comes purely from the pleasure of sacrificing himself to the public good. Does it not, Harelip?" "Yes, father; of course it does. Only it _will_ be nice to make her cry. I'll have the skin taken off between her toes, and tie them up till they grow together. Then her feet will be like other people's, and there will be no occasion for her to wear shoes." "Do you mean to insinuate _I've_ got toes, you unnatural wretch?" cried the queen; and she moved angrily toward Harelip. The councilor, however, who was betwixt them, leaned forward so as to prevent her touching him, but only as if to address the prince. "Your royal Highness," he said, "possibly requires to be reminded that you have got three toes yourself--one on one foot, two on the other." "Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the queen triumphantly. The councilor, encouraged by this mark of favor, went on. "It seems to me, your royal Highness, it would greatly endear you to your future people, proving to them that you are not the less one of themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, if you were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight operation which, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate with regard to your future princess." "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the queen, louder than before, and the king and the minister joined in the laugh. It was anything but a laughing matter to Harelip. He growled, and for a few moments the others continued to express their enjoyment of his discomfiture. The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness. She sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon her face. He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was certainly broader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead of being horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular eggs, one on the broad, the other on the small, end. Her mouth was no bigger than a small buttonhole until she laughed, when it stretched from ear to ear--only to be sure her ears were very nearly in the middle of her cheeks. Anxious to hear everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slide down a smooth part of the rock just under him, to a projection below, upon which he thought to rest. But whether he was not careful enough, or the projection gave way, down he came with a rush on the floor of the cavern, bringing with him a great rumbling shower of stones. The goblins jumped from their seats in more anger than consternation, for they had never yet seen anything to be afraid of in the palace. But when they saw Curdie with his pick in his hand, their rage was mingled with fear, for they took him for the first of an invasion of miners. The king notwithstanding drew himself up to his full height of four feet, spread himself to his full breadth of three and a half, for he was the handsomest and squarest of all the goblins, and strutting up to Curdie, planted himself with outspread feet before him, and said with dignity-- "Pray what right have you in my palace?" "The right of necessity, your majesty," answered Curdie. "I lost my way, and did not know where I was wandering to." "How did you get in?" "By a hole in the mountain." "But you are a miner! Look at your pickaxe!" Curdie did look at it, answering, "I came upon it, lying on the ground, a little way from here. I tumbled over some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, your majesty." And Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten. [Illustration: The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme.] The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he had expected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, for he attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did not therefore feel friendly to the intruder. "You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions at once," he said, well knowing what a mockery lay in the words. "With pleasure, if your majesty will give me a guide," said Curdie. "I will give you a thousand," said the king, with a scoffing air of magnificent liberality. "One will be quite sufficient," said Curdie. But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and in rushed goblins till the cave was swarming. He said something to the first of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from one to another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently heard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he did not relish, and he retreated toward the wall. They pressed upon him. "Stand back," said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee. They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself, and began to rhyme. "Ten, twenty, thirty-- You're all so very dirty! Twenty, thirty, forty-- You're all so thick and snorty! "Thirty, forty, fifty-- You're all so puff-and-snifty! Forty, fifty, sixty-- Beast and man so mixty! "Fifty, sixty, seventy-- Mixty, maxty, leaventy-- Sixty, seventy, eighty-- All your cheeks so slaty. "Seventy, eighty, ninety, All your hands so flinty! Eighty, ninety, hundred, Altogether dundred!" The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeable that it set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whether it was that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for a new rhyme being considered more efficacious, Curdie had made it on the spur of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the king and queen gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhyme was over, they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms, with a multitude of thick nailless fingers at the end of them, to lay hold upon him. Then Curdie heaved up his axe. But being as gentle as courageous and not wishing to kill any of them, he turned the end which was square and blunt like a hammer, and with that came down a great blow on the head of the goblin nearest him. Hard as the heads of all goblins are, he thought he must feel that. And so he did, no doubt; but he only gave a horrible cry, and sprung at Curdie's throat. Curdie however drew back in time, and just at that critical moment, remembered the vulnerable part of the goblin-body. He made a sudden rush at the king, and stamped with all his might on his Majesty's feet. The king gave a most unkingly howl, and almost fell into the fire. Curdie then rushed into the crowd, stamping right and left. The goblins drew back howling on every side as he approached, but they were so crowded that few of those he attacked could escape his tread; and the shrieking and roaring that filled the cave would have appalled Curdie, but for the good hope it gave him. They were tumbling over each other in heaps in their eagerness to rush from the cave, when a new assailant suddenly faced him:--the queen, with flaming eyes and expanded nostrils, her hair standing half up from her head, rushed at him. She trusted in her shoes; they were of granite--hollowed like French _sabots_. Curdie would have endured much rather than hurt a woman, even if she was a goblin; but here was an affair of life and death: forgetting her shoes, he made a great stamp on one of her feet. But she instantly returned it with very different effect, causing him frightful pain and almost disabling him. His only chance with her would have been to attack the granite shoes with his pickaxe, but before he could think of that, she had caught him up in her arms, and was rushing with him across the cave. She dashed him into a hole in the wall, with a force that almost stunned him. But although he could not move, he was not too far gone to hear her great cry, and the rush of multitudes of soft feet, followed by the sounds of something heaved up against the rock; after which came a multitudinous patter of stones falling near him. The last had not ceased when he grew very faint, for his head had been badly cut, and at last insensible. When he came to himself, there was perfect silence about him, and utter darkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled to it, and found that they had heaved a slab against the mouth of the hole, past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from the fire. He could not move it a hair's breadth, for they had piled a great heap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe. But after a vain search, he was at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down and tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep. CHAPTER XIX GOBLIN COUNSELS HE must have slept a long time, for when he awoke, he felt wonderfully restored--indeed he felt almost well, and he was also very hungry. There were voices in the outer cave. Once more then, it was night; for the goblins slept during the day, and went about their affairs during the night. In the universal and constant darkness of their dwelling, they had no reason to prefer the one arrangement to the other; but from aversion to the sun-people, they chose to be busy when there was least chance of their being met either by the miners below, when they were burrowing, or by the people of the mountain above, when they were feeding their sheep or catching their goats. And indeed it was only when the sun was away that the outside of the mountain was sufficiently like their own dismal regions to be endurable to their mole-eyes, so thoroughly had they become disused to any light beyond that of their own fires and torches. Curdie listened, and soon found that they were talking of himself. "How long will it take?" asked Harelip. "Not many days, I should think," answered the king. "They are poor feeble creatures, those sun-people, and want to be always eating. _We_ can go a week at a time without food, and be all the better for it; but I've been told _they_ eat two or three times every day! Can you believe it?--They must be quite hollow inside--not at all like us, nine-tenths of whose bulk is solid flesh and bone. Yes--I judge a week of starvation will do for him." "If I may be allowed a word," interposed the queen, "--and I think I ought to have some voice in the matter--" "The wretch is entirely at your disposal, my spouse," interrupted the king. "He is your property. You caught him yourself. We should never have done it." The queen laughed. She seemed in far better humor than the night before. "I was about to say," she resumed, "that it does seem a pity to waste so much fresh meat." "What are you thinking of, my love?" said the king. "The very notion of starving him implies that we are not going to give him any meat, either salt or fresh." "I'm not such a stupid as that comes to," returned her Majesty. "What I mean is, that by the time he is starved, there will hardly be a picking upon his bones." The king gave a great laugh. "Well, my spouse, you may have him when you like," he said. "I don't fancy him for my part. I am pretty sure he is tough eating." "That would be to honor instead of punish his insolence," returned the queen. "But why should our poor creatures be deprived of so much nourishment? Our little dogs and cats and pigs and small bears would enjoy him very much." "You are the best of housekeepers, my lovely queen!" said her husband. "Let it be so by all means. Let us have our people in, and get him out and kill him at once. He deserves it. The mischief he might have brought upon us, now that he had penetrated so far as our most retired citadel, is incalculable. Or rather let us tie him hand and foot, and have the pleasure of seeing him torn to pieces by full torchlight in the great hall." "Better and better!" cried the queen and prince together, both of them clapping their hands. And the prince made an ugly noise with his hare-lip, just as if he had intended to be one at the feast. "But," added the queen, bethinking herself, "he is so troublesome. For as poor creatures as they are, there is something about those sun-people that is _very_ troublesome. I cannot imagine how it is that with such superior strength and skill and understanding as ours, we permit them to exist at all. Why do we not destroy them entirely, and use their cattle and grazing lands at our pleasure? Of course, we don't want to live in their horrid country! It is far too glaring for our quieter and more refined tastes. But we might use it for a sort of outhouse, you know. Even our creatures' eyes might get used to it, and if they did grow blind, that would be of no consequence, provided they grew fat as well. But we might even keep their great cows and other creatures, and then we should have a few more luxuries, such as cream and cheese, which at present we only taste occasionally, when our brave men have succeeded in carrying some off from their farms." "It is worth thinking of," said the king; "and I don't know why you should be the first to suggest it, except that you have a positive genius for conquest. But still, as you say, there is something very troublesome about them; and it would be better, as I understand you to suggest, that we should starve him for a day or two first, so that he may be a little less frisky when we take him out." "Once there was a goblin Living in a hole; Busy he was cobblin' A shoe without a sole. "By came a birdie: 'Goblin, what do you do?' 'Cobble at a sturdie Upper leather shoe.' "'What's the good o' that, sir?' Said the little bird, 'Why it's very pat, sir-- Plain without a word. "'Where 'tis all a hill, sir, Never can be holes: Why should their shoes have soles, sir, When they've got no souls?'" "What's that horrible noise?" cried the queen, shuddering from pot-metal head to granite shoes. "I declare," said the king with solemn indignation, "it's the sun-creature in the hole!" "Stop that disgusting noise!" cried the crown-prince valiantly, getting up and standing in front of the heap of stones, with his face toward Curdie's prison.--"Do now, or I'll break your head." "Break away," shouted Curdie, and began singing again-- "Once there was a goblin Living in a hole,--" "I really cannot bear it," said the queen. "If I could only get at his horrid toes with my slippers again!" "I think we had better go to bed," said the king. "It's not time to go to bed," said the queen. "I would if I was you," said Curdie. "Impertinent wretch!" said the queen, with the utmost scorn in her voice. "An impossible _if_," said his Majesty with dignity. "Quite," returned Curdie, and began singing again-- "Go to bed, Goblin, do. Help the queen Take off her shoe. "If you do, It will disclose A horrid set Of sprouting toes." "What a lie!" roared the queen in a rage. "By the way, that reminds me," said the king, "that, for as long as we have been married, I have never seen your feet, queen. I think you might take off your shoes when you go to bed! They positively hurt me sometimes." "I will do just as I like," retorted the queen sulkily. "You ought to do as your hubby wishes you," said the king. "I will not," said the queen. "Then I insist upon it," said the king. Apparently his Majesty approached the queen for the purpose of following the advice given by Curdie, for the latter heard a scuffle, and then a great roar from the king. "Will you be quiet then?" said the queen wickedly. "Yes, yes, queen. I only meant to coax you." "Hands off!" cried the queen triumphantly. "I'm going to bed. You may come when you like. But as long as I am queen, I will sleep in my shoes. It is my royal privilege. Harelip, go to bed." "I'm going," said Harelip sleepily. "So am I," said the king. "Come along then," said the queen; "and mind you are good, or I'll--" "Oh, no, no, no!" screamed the king, in the most supplicating of tones. Curdie heard only a muttered reply in the distance; and then the cave was quite still. They had left the fire burning, and the light came through brighter than before. Curdie thought it was time to try again if anything could be done. But he found he could not get even a finger through the chink between the slab and the rock. He gave a great rush with his shoulder against the slab, but it yielded no more than if it had been part of the rock. All he could do was to sit down and think again. By and by he came to the resolution to pretend to be dying, in the hope they might take him out before his strength was too much exhausted to let him have a chance. Then, for the creatures, if he could but find his axe again, he would have no fear of them; and if it were not for the queen's horrid shoes, he would have no fear at all. Meantime, until they should come again at night, there was nothing for him to do but forge new rhymes, now his only weapons. He had no intention of using them at present, of course; but it was well to have a stock, for he might live to want them, and the manufacture of them would help to while away the time. CHAPTER XX IRENE'S CLUE THAT same morning, early, the princess woke in a terrible fright. There was a hideous noise in her room--of creatures snarling and hissing and racketing about as if they were fighting. The moment she came to herself, she remembered something she had never thought of again--what her grandmother told her to do when she was frightened. She immediately took off her ring and put it under her pillow. As she did so, she fancied she felt a finger and thumb take it gently from under her palm. "It must be my grandmother!" she said to herself, and the thought gave her such courage that she stopped to put on her dainty little slippers before running from the room. While doing this, she caught sight of a long cloak of sky-blue, thrown over the back of a chair by her bedside. She had never seen it before, but it was evidently waiting for her. She put it on, and then, feeling with the forefinger of her right hand, soon found her grandmother's thread, which she proceeded at once to follow, expecting it would lead her straight up the old stair. When she reached the door, she found it went down and ran along the floor, so that she had almost to crawl in order to keep a hold of it. Then, to her surprise, and somewhat to her dismay, she found that instead of leading her toward the stair it turned in quite the opposite direction. It led her through certain narrow passages toward the kitchen, turning aside ere she reached it, and guiding her to a door which communicated with a small back yard. Some of the maids were already up, and this door was standing open. Across the yard the thread still ran along the ground, until it brought her to a door in the wall which opened upon the mountain side. When she had passed through, the thread rose to about half her height, and she could hold it with ease as she walked. It led her straight up the mountain. The cause of her alarm was less frightful than she supposed. The cook's great black cat, pursued by the housekeeper's terrier, had bounced against her bedroom door, which had not been properly fastened, and the two had burst into her room together and commenced a battle royal. How the nurse came to sleep through it, was a mystery, but I suspect the old lady had something to do with it. It was a clear warm morning. The wind blew deliciously over the mountain-side. Here and there she saw a late primrose, but she did not stop to call on them. The sky was mottled with small clouds. The sun was not yet up, but some of their fluffy edges had caught his light and hung out orange and gold-colored fringes upon the air. The dew lay in round drops upon the leaves, and hung like tiny diamonds from the blades of grass about her path. "How lovely that bit of gossamer is!" thought the princess, looking at a long undulating line that shone at some distance from her up the hill. It was not the time for gossamers though; and Irene soon discovered that it was her own thread she saw shining on before her in the light of the morning. It was leading her she knew not whither; but she had never in her life been out before sunrise, and everything was so fresh and cool and lively and full of something coming, that she felt too happy to be afraid of anything. After leading her up a good distance, the thread turned to the left, and down the path upon which she and Lootie had met Curdie. But she never thought of that, for now in the morning light, with its far outlook over the country, no path could have been more open and airy and cheerful. She could see the road almost to the horizon, along which she had so often watched her king-papa and his troop come shining, with the bugle-blast cleaving the air before them; and it was like a companion to her. Down and down the path went, then up, and then down, and then up again, getting rugged and more rugged as it went; still along the path went the silvery thread, and still along the thread went Irene's little rosy-tipped forefinger. By and by she came to a little stream that jabbered and prattled down the hill, and up the side of the stream went both path and thread. And still the path grew rougher and steeper, and the mountain grew wilder, till Irene began to think she was going a very long way from home; and when she turned to look back, she saw that the level country had vanished and the rough bare mountain had closed in about her. But still on went the thread, and on went the princess. Everything around her was getting brighter and brighter as the sun came nearer; till at length his first rays all at once alighted on the top of a rock before her, like some golden creature fresh from the sky. Then she saw that the little stream ran out of a hole in that rock, that the path did not go past the rock, and that the thread was leading her straight up to it. A shudder ran through her from head to foot when she found that the thread was actually taking her into the hole out of which the stream ran. It ran out babbling joyously, but she had to go in. She did not hesitate. Right into the hole she went, which was high enough to let her walk without stooping. For a little way there was a brown glimmer, but at the first turn it all but ceased, and before she had gone many paces she was in total darkness. Then she began to be frightened indeed. Every moment she kept feeling the thread backward, and as she went farther and farther into the darkness of the great hollow mountain, she kept thinking more and more about her grandmother, and all that she had said to her, and how kind she had been, and how beautiful she was, and all about her lovely room, and the fire of roses, and the great lamp that sent its light through stone walls. And she became more and more sure that the thread could not have gone there of itself, and that her grandmother must have sent it. But it tried her dreadfully when the path went down very steep, and especially when she came to places where she had to go down rough stairs, and even sometimes a ladder. Through one narrow passage after another, over lumps of rock and sand and clay, the thread guided her, until she came to a small hole through which she had to creep. Finding no change on the other side--"Shall I ever get back?" she thought, over and over again, wondering at herself that she was not ten times more frightened, and often feeling as if she were only walking in the story of a dream. Sometimes she heard the noise of water, a dull gurgling inside the rock. By and by she heard the sounds of blows, which came nearer and nearer; but again they grew duller and almost died away. In a hundred directions she turned, obedient to the guiding thread. At last she spied a dull red shine, and came up to the mica-window, and thence away and round about, and right into a cavern, where glowed the red embers of a fire. Here the thread began to rise. It rose as high as her head, and higher still. What _should_ she do if she lost her hold? She was pulling it down! She might break it! She could see it far up, glowing as red as her fire-opal in the light of the embers. But presently she came to a huge heap of stones, piled in a slope against the wall of the cavern. On these she climbed, and soon recovered the level of the thread--only however to find, the next moment, that it vanished through the heap of stones, and left her standing on it, with her face to the solid rock. For one terrible moment, she felt as if her grandmother had forsaken her. The thread which the spiders had spun far over the seas, which her grandmother had sat in the moonlight and spun again for her, which she had tempered in the rose-fire, and tied to her opal ring, had left her--had gone where she could no longer follow it--had brought her into a horrible cavern, and there left her! She was forsaken indeed! "When _shall_ I wake?" she said to herself in an agony, but the same moment knew that it was no dream. She threw herself upon the heap, and began to cry. It was well she did not know what creatures, one of them with stone shoes on her feet, were lying in the next cave. But neither did she know who was on the other side of the slab. At length the thought struck her, that at least she could follow the thread backward, and thus get out of the mountain, and home. She rose at once, and found the thread. But the instant she tried to feel it backward, it vanished from her touch. Forward, it led her hand up to the heap of stones--backward, it seemed nowhere. Neither could she see it as before in the light of the fire. She burst into a wailing cry, and again threw herself down on the stones. CHAPTER XXI THE ESCAPE AS the princess lay and sobbed, she kept feeling the thread mechanically, following it with her finger many times up the stones in which it disappeared. By and by she began, still mechanically, to poke her finger in after it between the stones as far as she could. All at once it came into her head that she might remove some of the stones and see where the thread went next. Almost laughing at herself for never having thought of this before, she jumped to her feet. Her fear vanished: once more she was certain her grandmother's thread could not have brought her there just to leave her there; and she began to throw away the stones from the top as fast as she could, sometimes two or three at a handful, sometimes taking both hands to lift one. After clearing them away a little, she found that the thread turned and went straight downward. Hence, as the heap sloped a good deal, growing of course wider toward its base, she had to throw away a multitude of stones to follow the thread. But this was not all, for she soon found that the thread, after going straight down for a little way, turned first sideways in one direction, then sideways in another, and then shot, at various angles, hither and thither inside the heap, so that she began to be afraid that to clear the thread, she must remove the whole huge gathering. She was dismayed at the very idea, but, losing no time, set to work with a will; and with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands, she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing the heap slowly diminish, and begin to show itself on the opposite side of the fire. Another thing which helped to keep up her courage was, that as often as she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying loose upon the stones, it tightened up; this made her sure that her grandmother was at the end of it somewhere. She had got about half way down when she started, and nearly fell with fright. Close to her ear as it seemed, a voice broke out singing-- "Jabber, bother, smash! You'll have it all in a crash. Jabber, smash, bother! You'll have the worst of the pother. Smash, bother, jabber!--" Here Curdie stopped, either because he could not find a rhyme to _jabber_, or because he remembered what he had forgotten when he woke up at the sound of Irene's labors, that his plan was to make the goblins think he was getting weak. But he had uttered enough to let Irene know who he was. "It's Curdie!" she cried joyfully. "Hush, hush!" came Curdie's voice again from somewhere. "Speak softly." "Why, you were singing loud!" said Irene. "Yes. But they know I am here, and they don't know you are. Who are you?" "I'm Irene," answered the princess. "I know who you are quite well. You're Curdie." "Why, how ever did you come here, Irene?" "My great-great-grandmother sent me; and I think I've found out why. You can't get out, I suppose?" "No, I can't. What are you doing?" "Clearing away a huge heap of stones." "There's a princess!" exclaimed Curdie, in a tone of delight, but still speaking in little more than a whisper. "I can't think how you got here, though." "My grandmother sent me after her thread." "I don't know what you mean," said Curdie; "but so you're there, it doesn't much matter." "Oh, yes it does!" returned Irene. "I should never have been here but for her." "You can tell me all about it when we get out, then. There's no time to lose now," said Curdie. And Irene went to work, as fresh as when she began. "There's such a lot of stones!" she said. "It will take me a long time to get them all away." "How far on have you got?" asked Curdie. "I've got about the half way, but the other half is ever so much bigger." "I don't think you will have to move the lower half. Do you see a slab laid up against the wall?" Irene looked and felt about with her hands, and soon perceived the outlines of the slab. "Yes," she answered, "I do." "Then, I think," rejoined Curdie, "when you have cleared the slab about half way down, or a little more, I shall be able to push it over." "I must follow my thread," returned Irene, "whatever I do." "What _do_ you mean?" exclaimed Curdie. "You will see when you get out of here," answered the princess, and then she went on harder than ever. But she was soon satisfied that what Curdie wanted done, and what the thread wanted done, were one and the same thing. For she not only saw that by following the turns of the thread she had been clearing the face of the slab, but that, a little more than half way down, the thread went through the chink between the slab and the wall into the place where Curdie was confined, so that she could not follow it any farther until the slab was out of her way. As soon as she found this, she said in a right joyous whisper-- "Now, Curdie! I think if you were to give a great push, the slab would tumble over." "Stand quite clear of it then," said Curdie, "and let me know when you are ready." Irene got off the heap, and stood on one side of it. "Now, Curdie!" she cried. Curdie gave a great rush with his shoulder against it. Out tumbled the slab on the heap, and out crept Curdie over the top of it. "You've saved my life, Irene!" he whispered. "Oh, Curdie! I'm so glad! Let's get out of this horrid place as fast as we can." "That's easier said than done," returned he. "Oh, no! it's quite easy," said Irene. "We have only to follow my thread. I am sure that it's going to take us out now." She had already begun to follow it over the fallen slab into the hole, while Curdie was searching the floor of the cavern for his pickaxe. [Illustration: Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about.] "Here it is!" he cried. "No, it is not!" he added, in a disappointed tone. "What can it be then?--I declare it's a torch. That _is_ jolly! It's better almost than my pickaxe. Much better if it weren't for those stone shoes!" he went on, as he lighted the torch by blowing the last embers of the expiring fire. When he looked up, with the lighted torch casting a glare into the great darkness of the huge cavern, he caught sight of Irene disappearing in the hole out of which he had himself just come. "Where are you going there?" he cried. "That's not the way out. That's where I couldn't get out." "I know that," whispered Irene. "But this is the way my thread goes, and I must follow it." "What nonsense the child talks!" said Curdie to himself. "I must follow her, though, and see that she comes to no harm. She will soon find she can't get out that way, and then she will come with me." So he crept once more over the slab into the hole with his torch in his hand. But when he looked about in it, he could see her nowhere. And now he discovered that although the hole was narrow, it was much larger than he had supposed; for in one direction the roof came down very low, and the hole went off in a narrow passage, of which he could not see the end. The princess must have crept in there. He got on his knees and one hand, holding the torch with the other, and crept after her. The hole twisted about, in some parts so low that he could hardly get through, in others so high that he could not see the roof, but everywhere it was narrow--far too narrow for a goblin to get through, and so I presume they never thought that Curdie might. He was beginning to feel very uncomfortable lest he could not see the end. The princess when he heard her voice almost close to his ear, whispering-- "Aren't you coming, Curdie?" And when he turned the next corner, there she stood waiting for him. "I knew you couldn't go wrong in that narrow hole, but now you must keep by me, for here is a great wide place," she said. "I can't understand it," said Curdie, half to himself, half to Irene. "Never mind," she returned. "Wait till we get out." Curdie, utterly astonished that she had already got so far, and by a path he had known nothing of, thought it better to let her do as she pleased. "At all events," he said again to himself, "I know nothing about the way, miner as I am; and she seems to think she does know something about it, though how she should, passes my comprehension. So she's just as likely to find her way as I am, and as she insists on taking the lead, I must follow. We can't be much worse off than we are, anyhow." Reasoning thus, he followed her a few steps, and came out in another great cavern, across which Irene walked in a straight line, as confidently as if she knew every step of the way. Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about, and trying to see something of what lay around them. Suddenly he started back a pace as the light fell upon something close by which Irene was passing. It was a platform of rock raised a few feet from the floor and covered with sheep skins, upon which lay two horrible figures asleep, at once recognized by Curdie as the king and queen of the goblins. He lowered his torch instantly lest the light should awake them. As he did so, it flashed upon his pickaxe, lying by the side of the queen, whose hand lay close by the handle of it. "Stop one moment," he whispered. "Hold my torch, and don't let the light on their faces." Irene shuddered when she saw the frightful creatures whom she had passed without observing them, but she did as he requested, and turning her back, held the torch low in front of her. Curdie drew his pickaxe carefully away, and as he did so, spied one of her feet, projecting from under the skins. The great clumsy granite shoe, exposed thus to his hand, was a temptation not to be resisted. He laid hold of it, and with cautious efforts, drew it off. The moment he succeeded, he saw to his astonishment that what he had sung in ignorance, to annoy the queen, was actually true: she had six horrible toes. Overjoyed at his success, and seeing by the huge bump in the sheep skins where the other foot was, he proceeded to lift them gently, for, if he could only succeed in carrying away the other shoe as well, he would be no more afraid of the goblins than of so many flies. But as he pulled at the second shoe, the queen gave a growl and sat up in bed. The same instant the king awoke also, and sat up beside her. "Run, Irene!" cried Curdie, for though he was not now in the least afraid for himself, he was for the princess. Irene looked once round, saw the fearful creatures awake, and like the wise princess she was, dashed the torch on the ground and extinguished it, crying out-- "Here, Curdie, take my hand." He darted to her side, forgetting neither the queen's shoe nor his pickaxe, and caught hold of her hand, as she sped fearlessly where her thread guided her. They heard the queen give a great bellow; but they had a good start, for it would be some time before they could get torches lighted to pursue them. Just as they thought they saw a gleam behind them, the thread brought them to a very narrow opening, through which Irene crept easily, and Curdie with difficulty. "Now," said Curdie; "I think we shall be safe." "Of course we shall," returned Irene. "Why do you think so?" asked Curdie. "Because my grandmother is taking care of us." "That's all nonsense," said Curdie. "I don't know what you mean." "Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?" asked the princess, a little offended. "I beg your pardon, Irene," said Curdie; "I did not mean to vex you." "Of course not," returned the princess. "But why do _you_ think we shall be safe?" "Because the king and queen are far too stout to get through that hole." "There may be ways round," said the other. "To be sure there might; we are not out of it yet," acknowledged Curdie. "But what do you mean by the king and queen?" asked the princess. "I should never call such creatures as those a king and a queen." "Their own people do, though," answered Curdie. The princess asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked leisurely along, gave her a full account, not only of the character and habits of the goblins, so far as he knew them, but of his own adventures with them, beginning from the very night after that in which he had met her and Lootie upon the mountain. When he had finished, he begged Irene to tell him how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene too had to tell a long story, which she did in rather a roundabout manner, interrupted by many questions concerning things she had not explained. But her tale, as he did not believe more than half of it, left everything as unaccountable to him as before, and he was nearly as much perplexed as to what he must think of the princess. He could not believe that she was deliberately telling stories, and the only conclusion he could come to was that Lootie had been playing the child tricks, inventing no end of lies to frighten her for her own purposes. "But how ever did Lootie come to let you go into the mountain alone?" he asked. "Lootie knows nothing about it. I left her fast asleep--at least I think so. I hope my grandmother won't let her get into trouble, for it wasn't her fault at all, as my grandmother very well knows." "But how did you find your way to me?" persisted Curdie. "I told you already," answered Irene;--"by keeping my finger upon my grandmother's thread, as I am doing now." "You don't mean you've got the thread there?" "Of course I do. I have told you so ten times already. I have hardly--except when I was removing the stones--taken my finger off it. There!" she added, guiding Curdie's hand to the thread, "you feel it yourself--don't you?" "I feel nothing at all," replied Curdie. "Then what can be the matter with your finger? I feel it perfectly. To be sure it is very thin, and in the sunlight looks just like the thread of a spider, though there are many of them twisted together to make it--but for all that I can't think why you shouldn't feel it as well as I do." Curdie was too polite to say he did not believe there was any thread there at all. What he did say was-- "Well, I can make nothing of it." "I can though, and you must be glad of that, for it will do for both of us." "We're not out yet," said Curdie. "We soon shall be," returned Irene confidently. And now the thread went downward, and led Irene's hand to a hole in the floor of the cavern, whence came a sound of running water which they had been hearing for some time. "It goes into the ground now, Curdie," she said, stopping. He had been listening to another sound, which his practised ear had caught long ago, and which also had been growing louder. It was the noise the goblin miners made at their work, and they seemed to be at no great distance now. Irene heard it the moment she stopped. "What is that noise?" she asked. "Do you know, Curdie?" "Yes. It is the goblins digging and burrowing," he answered. "And don't you know for what purpose they do it?" "No; I haven't the least idea. Would you like to see them?" he asked, wishing to have another try after their secret. "If my thread took me there, I shouldn't much mind; but I don't want to see them, and I can't leave my thread. It leads me down into the hole, and we had better go at once." "Very well. Shall I go in first?" said Curdie. "No; better not. You can't feel the thread," she answered, stepping down through a narrow break in the floor of the cavern. "Oh!" she cried, "I am in the water. It is running strong--but it is not deep, and there is just room to walk. Make haste, Curdie." He tried, but the hole was too small for him to get in. "Go on a little bit," he said, shouldering his pickaxe. In a few moments he had cleared a large opening and followed her. They went on, down and down with the running water, Curdie getting more and more afraid it was leading them to some terrible gulf in the heart of the mountain. In one or two places he had to break away the rock to make room before even Irene could get through--at least without hurting herself. But at length they spied a glimmer of light, and in a minute more, they were almost blinded by the full sunlight into which they emerged. It was some little time before the princess could see well enough to discover that they stood in her own garden, close by the seat on which she and her king-papa had sat that afternoon. They had come out by the channel of the little stream. She danced and clapped her hands with delight. "Now, Curdie!" she cried, "won't you believe what I told you about my grandmother and her thread?" For she had felt all the time that Curdie was not believing what she had told him. "There!--don't you see it shining on before us?" she added. "I don't see anything," persisted Curdie. "Then you must believe without seeing," said the princess; "for you can't deny it has brought me out of the mountain." "I can't deny we _are_ out of the mountain, and I should be very ungrateful indeed to deny that _you_ had brought _me_ out of it." "I couldn't have done it but for the thread," persisted Irene. "That's the part I don't understand." "Well, come along, and Lootie will get you something to eat. I am sure you must want it very much." "Indeed I do. But my father and mother will be so anxious about me, I must make haste--first up the mountain to tell my mother, and then down into the mine again to acquaint my father." "Very well, Curdie; but you can't get out without coming this way, and I will take you through the house, for that is nearest." They met no one by the way, for indeed, as before, the people were here and there and everywhere searching for the princess. When they got in, Irene found that the thread, as she had half expected, went up the old staircase, and a new thought struck her. She turned to Curdie and said-- "My grandmother wants me. Do come up with me, and see her. Then you will know that I have been telling you the truth. Do come--to please me, Curdie. I can't bear you should think I say what is not true." "I never doubted you believed what you said," returned Curdie. "I only thought you had some fancy in your head that was not correct." "But do come, dear Curdie." The little miner could not withstand this appeal, and though he felt shy in what seemed to him such a huge grand house, he yielded, and followed her up the stair. CHAPTER XXII THE OLD LADY AND CURDIE UP the stair then they went, and the next and the next, and through the long rows of empty rooms, and up the little tower stairs, Irene growing happier and happier as she ascended. There was no answer when she knocked at length at the door of the workroom, nor could she hear any sound of the spinning-wheel, and once more her heart sank within her--but only for one moment, as she turned and knocked at the other door. "Come in," answered the sweet voice of her grandmother, and Irene opened the door and entered, followed by Curdie. "You darling!" cried the lady, who was seated by a fire of red roses mingled with white--"I've been waiting for you, and indeed getting a little anxious about you, and beginning to think whether I had not better go and fetch you myself." As she spoke she took the little princess in her arms and placed her upon her lap. She was dressed in white now, and looking if possible more lovely than ever. "I've brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn't believe what I told him, and so I've brought him." "Yes--I see him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy. Aren't you glad you have got him out?" "Yes, grandmother. But it wasn't very good of him not to believe me when I was telling him the truth." "People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it." "Ah! yes, grandmother, I daresay. I'm sure you are right. But he'll believe now." "I don't know that," replied her grandmother. "Won't you, Curdie?" said Irene, looking round at him as she asked the question. He was standing in the middle of the floor, staring, and looking strangely bewildered. This she thought came of his astonishment at the beauty of the lady. "Make a bow to my grandmother, Curdie," she said. "I don't see any grandmother," answered Curdie, rather gruffly. "Don't see my grandmother when I'm sitting in her lap!" exclaimed the princess. "No I don't," said Curdie, almost sulkily. "Don't you see the lovely fire of roses--white ones amongst them this time?" asked Irene almost as bewildered as he. "No I don't," answered Curdie, almost sulkily. "Nor the blue bed? Nor the rose-colored counterpane? Nor the beautiful light, like the moon, hanging from the roof?" "You're making game of me, your royal Highness; and after what we have come through together this day, I don't think it is kind of you," said Curdie, feeling very much hurt. "Then what _do_ you see?" asked Irene, who perceived at once that for her not to believe him was at least as bad as for him not to believe her. "I see a big, bare garret-room--like the one in mother's cottage, only big enough to take the cottage itself in, and leave a good margin all round," answered Curdie. "And what more do you see?" "I see a tub, and a heap of musty straw, and a withered apple and a ray of sunlight coming through a hole in the middle of the roof, and shining on your head, and making all the place look a curious dusky brown. I think you had better drop it, princess, and go down to the nursery, like a good girl." "But don't you hear my grandmother talking to me?" asked Irene, almost crying. "No. I hear the cooing of a lot of pigeons. If you won't come down, I will go without you. I think that will be better anyhow, for I'm sure nobody who met us would believe a word we said to them. They would think we made it all up. I don't expect anybody but my own father and mother to believe me. They _know_ I wouldn't tell a story." "And yet _you_ won't believe _me_, Curdie?" expostulated the princess, now fairly crying with vexation, and sorrow at the gulf between her and Curdie. "No. I _can't_, and I can't help it," said Curdie, turning to leave the room. "What _shall_ I do, grandmother?" sobbed the princess, turning her face round upon the lady's bosom, and shaking with suppressed sobs. "You must give him time," said her grandmother; "and you must be content not to be believed for a while. It is very hard to bear; but I have had to bear it, and shall have to bear it many a time yet. I will take care of what Curdie thinks of you in the end. You must let him go now." "You are not coming, are you?" asked Curdie. "No, Curdie; my grandmother says I must let you go. Turn to the right when you get to the bottom of all the stairs, and in that way you will arrive safely at the hall where the great door is." "Oh! I don't doubt I can find my way--without you, princess, or your old grannie's thread either," said Curdie, quite rudely. "Oh, Curdie! Curdie!" "I wish I had gone home at once. I'm very much obliged to you, Irene, for getting me out of that hole, but I wish you hadn't made a fool of me afterward." He said this as he opened the door, which he left open, and, without another word, went down the stairs. Irene listened with dismay to his departing footsteps. Then turning again to the lady-- "What does it all mean, grandmother?" she sobbed, and burst into fresh tears. "It means, my love, that I did not mean to show myself. Curdie is not yet able to believe some things. Seeing is not believing--it is only seeing. You remember I told you that if Lootie were to see me, she would rub her eyes, forget the half she saw, and call the other half nonsense." "Yes; but I should have thought Curdie--" "You are right. Curdie is much farther on than Lootie, and you will see what will come of it. But in the meantime, you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary." "What is that, grandmother?" "To understand other people." "Yes, grandmother. I must be fair--for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself I see. So as Curdie can't help it, I will not be vexed with him, but just wait." "There's my own dear child," said her grandmother, and pressed her close to her bosom. "Why weren't you in your workroom, when we came up, grandmother?" asked Irene, after a few moments' silence. "If I had been there, Curdie would have seen me well enough. But why should I be there rather than in this beautiful room?" "I thought you would be spinning." "I've nobody to spin for just at present. I never spin without knowing for whom I am spinning." "That reminds me--there is one thing that puzzles me," said the princess: "how are you to get the thread out of the mountain again? Surely you won't have to make another for me! That would be such a trouble!" The lady set her down, and rose, and went to the fire. Putting in her hand, she drew it out again, and held up the shining ball between her finger and thumb. "I've got it now, you see," she said, coming back to the princess, "all ready for you when you want it." Going to her cabinet, she laid it in the same drawer as before. "And here is your ring," she added, taking it from the little finger of her left hand, and putting it on the forefinger of Irene's right hand. "Oh, thank you, grandmother. I feel so safe now!" "You are very tired, my child," the lady went on. "Your hands are hurt with the stones, and I have counted nine bruises on you. Just look what you are like." And she held up to her a little mirror which she had brought from the cabinet. The princess burst into a merry laugh at the sight. She was so draggled with the stream, and dirty with creeping through narrow places, that if she had seen the reflection without knowing it was a reflection, she would have taken herself for some gypsy-child whose face was washed and hair combed about once in a month. The lady laughed too, and lifting her again upon her knee, took off her cloak and night-gown. Then she carried her to the side of the room. Irene wondered what she was going to do with her, but asked no questions--only starting a little when she found that she was going to lay her in the large silver bath; for as she looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the stars shining miles away as it seemed in a great blue gulf. Her hands closed involuntarily on the beautiful arms that held her, and that was all. The lady pressed her once more to her bosom, saying-- "Do not be afraid, my child." "No, grandmother," answered the princess, with a little gasp; and the next instant she sank in the clear cool water. When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a strange lovely blue over and beneath and all about her. The lady and the beautiful room had vanished from her sight, and she seemed utterly alone. But instead of being afraid, she felt more than happy--perfectly blissful. And from somewhere came the voice of the lady, singing a strange sweet song, of which she could distinguish every word; but of the sense she had only a feeling--no understanding. Nor could she remember a single line after it was gone. It vanished, like the poetry in a dream, as fast as it came. In after years, however, she would sometimes fancy that snatches of melody suddenly rising in her brain, must be little phrases and fragments of the air of that song; and the very fancy would make her happier, and abler to do her duty. How long she lay in the water she did not know. It seemed a long time--not from weariness, but from pleasure. But at last she felt the beautiful hands lay hold of her, and through the gurgling waters she was lifted out into the lovely room. The lady carried her to the fire, and sat down with her in her lap, and dried her tenderly with the softest towel. It was so different from Lootie's drying! When the lady had done, she stooped to the fire, and drew from it her night-gown, as white as snow. "How delicious!" exclaimed the princess. "It smells of all the roses in the world, I think." When she stood up on the floor, she felt as if she had been made over again. Every bruise and all weariness were gone, and her hands were soft and whole as ever. "Now I am going to put you to bed for a good sleep," said her grandmother. "But what will Lootie be thinking? And what am I to say to her when she asks me where I have been?" "Don't trouble yourself about it. You will find it all come right," said her grandmother, and laid her into the blue bed, under the rosy counterpane. "There is just one thing more," said Irene. "I am a little anxious about Curdie. As I brought him into the house, I ought to have seen him safe on his way home." "I took care of all that," answered the lady. "I told you to let him go, and therefore I was bound to look after him. Nobody saw him, and he is now eating a good dinner in his mother's cottage, far up the mountain." "Then I will go to sleep," said Irene, and in a few minutes, she was fast asleep. CHAPTER XXIII CURDIE AND HIS MOTHER CURDIE went up the mountain neither whistling nor singing, for he was vexed with Irene for taking him in, as he called it; and he was vexed with himself for having spoken to her so angrily. His mother gave a cry of joy when she saw him, and at once set about getting him something to eat, asking him questions all the time, which he did not answer so cheerfully as usual. When his meal was ready, she left him to eat it, and hurried to the mine to let his father know he was safe. When she came back, she found him fast asleep upon her bed; nor did he wake until the arrival home of his father in the evening. "Now, Curdie," his mother said, as they sat at supper, "tell us the whole story from beginning to end, just as it all happened." Curdie obeyed, and told everything to the point where they came out upon the lawn in the garden of the king's house. "And what happened after that?" asked his mother. "You haven't told us all. You ought to be very happy at having got away from those demons, and instead of that, I never saw you so gloomy. There must be something more. Besides, you do not speak of that lovely child as I should like to hear you. She saved your life at the risk of her own, and yet somehow you don't seem to think much of it." "She talked such nonsense!" answered Curdie, "and told me a pack of things that weren't a bit true; and I can't get over it." "What were they?" asked his father. "Your mother may be able to throw some light upon them." Then Curdie made a clean breast of it, and told them everything. They all sat silent for some time, pondering the strange tale. At last Curdie's mother spoke. "You confess, my boy," she said, "there is something about the whole affair you do not understand?" "Yes, of course, mother," he answered, "I cannot understand how a child knowing nothing about the mountain, or even that I was shut up in it, should come all that way alone, straight to where I was; and then, after getting me out of the hole, lead me out of the mountain, too, where I should not have known a step of the way if it had been as light as in the open air." "Then you have no right to say that what she told you was not true. She did take you out, and she must have had something to guide her: why not a thread as well as a rope, or anything else? There is something you cannot explain, and her explanation may be the right one." "It's no explanation at all, mother; and I can't believe it." "That may be only because you do not understand it. If you did, you would probably find it was an explanation, and believe it thoroughly. I don't blame you for not being able to believe it, but I do blame you for fancying such a child would try to deceive you. Why should she? Depend upon it, she told you all she knew. Until you had found a better way of accounting for it all, you might at least have been more sparing of your judgment." "That is what something inside me has been saying all the time," said Curdie, hanging down his head. "But what do you make of the grandmother? That is what I can't get over. To take me up to an old garret, and try to persuade me against the sight of my own eyes that it was a beautiful room, with blue walls and silver stars, and no end of things in it, when there was nothing there but an old tub and a withered apple and a heap of straw and a sunbeam! It was too bad! She _might_ have had some old woman there at least who could pass for her precious grandmother!" "Didn't she speak as if she saw those other things herself, Curdie?" "Yes. That's what bothers me. You would have thought she really meant and believed that she saw every one of the things she talked about. And not one of them there! It was too bad, I say." "Perhaps some people can see things other people can't see, Curdie," said his mother very gravely. "I think I will tell you something I saw myself once--only perhaps you won't believe me either!" "Oh, mother, mother!" cried Curdie, bursting into tears; "I don't deserve that, surely!" "But what I am going to tell you is very strange," persisted his mother; "and if having heard it, you were to say I must have been dreaming, I don't know that I should have any right to be vexed with you, though I know at least that I was not asleep." "Do tell me, mother. Perhaps it will help me to think better of the princess." "That's why I am tempted to tell you," replied his mother. "But first, I may as well mention, that according to old whispers, there is something more than common about the king's family; and the queen was of the same blood, for they were cousins of some degree. There were strange stories told concerning them--all good stories--but strange, very strange. What they were I cannot tell, for I only remember the faces of my grandmother and my mother as they talked together about them. There was wonder and awe--not fear, in their eyes, and they whispered, and never spoke aloud. But what I saw myself, was this: Your father was going to work in the mine, one night, and I had been down with his supper. It was soon after we were married, and not very long before you were born. He came with me to the mouth of the mine, and left me to go home alone, for I knew the way almost as well as the floor of our own cottage. It was pretty dark, and in some parts of the road where the rocks overhung, nearly quite dark. But I got along perfectly well, never thinking of being afraid, until I reached a spot you know well enough, Curdie, where the path has to make a sharp turn out of the way of a great rock on the left-hand side. When I got there, I was suddenly surrounded by about half-a-dozen of the cobs, the first I had ever seen, although I had heard tell of them often enough. One of them blocked up the path, and they all began tormenting and teasing me in a way it makes me shudder to think of even now." "If I had only been with you!" cried father and son in a breath. The mother gave a funny little smile, and went on. "They had some of their horrible creatures with them too, and I must confess I was dreadfully frightened. They had torn my clothes very much, and I was afraid they were going to tear myself to pieces, when suddenly a great white soft light shone upon me. I looked up. A broad ray, like a shining road, came down from a large globe of silvery light, not very high up, indeed not quite so high as the horizon--so it could not have been a new star or another moon or anything of that sort. The cobs dropped persecuting me, and looked dazed, and I thought they were going to run away, but presently they began again. The same moment, however, down the path from the globe of light came a bird, shining like silver in the sun. It gave a few rapid flaps first, and then, with its wings straight out, shot sliding down the slope of the light. It looked to me just like a white pigeon. But whatever it was, when the cobs caught sight of it coming straight down upon them, they took to their heels and scampered away across the mountain, leaving me safe, only much frightened. As soon as it had sent them off, the bird went gliding again up the light, and just at the moment it reached the globe, the light disappeared, just the same as if a shutter had been closed over a window, and I saw it no more. But I had no more trouble with the cobs that night, or at any time afterward." "How strange!" exclaimed Curdie. "Yes, it is strange; but I can't help believing it, whether you do or not," said his mother. "It's exactly as your mother told it to me the very next morning," said his father. "You don't think I'm doubting my own mother!" cried Curdie. "There are other people in the world quite as well worth believing as your own mother," said his mother. "I don't know that she's so much the fitter to be believed that she happens to be _your_ mother, Mr. Curdie. There are mothers far more likely to tell lies than that little girl I saw talking to the primroses a few weeks ago. If she were to lie I should begin to doubt my own word." "But princesses _have_ told lies as well as other people," said Curdie. "Yes, but not princesses like that child. She's a good girl, I am certain, and that's more than being a princess. Depend upon it you will have to be sorry for behaving so to her, Curdie. You ought at least to have held your tongue." "I am sorry now," answered Curdie. "You ought to go and tell her so, then." "I don't see how I could manage that. They wouldn't let a miner boy like me have a word with her alone; and I couldn't tell her before that nurse of hers. She'd be asking ever so many questions, and I don't know how many of them the little princess would like me to answer. She told me that Lootie didn't know anything about her coming to get me out of the mountain. I am certain she would have prevented her somehow if she had known it. But I may have a chance before long, and meantime I must try to do something for her. I think, father, I have got on the track at last." "Have you, indeed, my boy?" said Peter. "I am sure you deserve some success; you have worked very hard for it. What have you found out?" "It's difficult you know, father, inside the mountain, especially in the dark, and not knowing what turns you have taken, to tell the lie of things outside." "Impossible, my boy, without a chart, or at least a compass," returned his father. "Well, I think I have nearly discovered in what direction the cobs are mining. If I am right, I know something else that I can put to it, and then one and one will make three." "They very often do, Curdie, as we miners ought to be well aware. Now tell us, my boy, what the two things are, and see whether we guess at the same third as you." "I don't see what that has to do with the princess," interposed his mother. "I will soon let you see that, mother. Perhaps you may think me foolish, but until I am sure there is nothing in my present fancy, I am more determined than ever to go on with my observations. Just as we came to the channel by which we got out, I heard the miners at work somewhere near--I think down below us. Now since I began to watch them, they have mined a good half mile, in a straight line; and so far as I am aware, they are working in no other part of the mountain. But I never could tell in what direction they were going. When we came out in the king's garden, however, I thought at once whether it was possible they were working toward the king's house; and what I want to do to-night is to make sure whether they are or not. I will take a light with me--" "Oh, Curdie," cried his mother, "then they will see you." "I'm no more afraid of them now than I was before," rejoined Curdie,--"now that I've got this precious shoe. They can't make another such in a hurry, and one bare foot will do for my purpose. Woman as she may be, I won't spare her next time. But I shall be careful with my light, for I don't want them to see me. I won't stick it in my hat." "Go on, then, and tell us what you mean to do." "I mean to take a bit of paper with me and a pencil, and go in at the mouth of the stream by which we came out. I shall mark on the paper as near as I can the angle of every turning I take until I find the cobs at work, and so get a good idea in what direction they are going. If it should prove to be nearly parallel with the stream, I shall know it is toward the king's house they are working." "And what if you should. How much wiser will you be then?" "Wait a minute, mother, dear. I told you that when I came upon the royal family in the cave, they were talking of their prince--Harelip, they called him--marrying a sun-woman--that means one of us--one with toes to her feet. Now in the speech one of them made that night at their great gathering, of which I heard only a part, he said that peace would be secured for a generation at least by the pledge the prince would hold for the good behavior of _her_ relatives: that's what he said, and he must have meant the sun-woman the prince was to marry. I am quite sure the king is much too proud to wish his son to marry any but a princess, and much too knowing to fancy that his having a peasant woman for a wife would be of any material advantage to them." "I see what you are driving at now," said his mother. "But," said his father, "the king would dig the mountain to the plain before he would have his princess the wife of a cob, if he were ten times a prince." "Yes; but they think so much of themselves!" said his mother. "Small creatures always do. The bantam is the proudest cock in my little yard." "And I fancy," said Curdie, "if they once get her, they would tell the king they would kill her except, he consented to the marriage." "They might say so," said his father, "but they wouldn't kill her; they would keep her alive for the sake of the hold it gave them over our king. Whatever he did to them, they would threaten to do the same to the princess." "And they are bad enough to torment her just for their own amusement--I know that," said his mother. "Anyhow, I will keep a watch on them, and see what they are up to," said Curdie. "It's too horrible to think of. I daren't let myself do it. But they sha'n't have her--at least if I can help it. So, mother dear--my clue is all right--will you get me a bit of paper and a pencil and a lump of pease-pudding, and I will set out at once. I saw a place where I can climb over the wall of the garden quite easily." "You must mind and keep out of the way of the men on the watch," said his mother. "That I will. I don't want them to know anything about it. They would spoil it all. The cobs would only try some other plan--they are such obstinate creatures! I shall take good care, mother. They won't kill and eat me either, if they should come upon me. So you needn't mind them." His mother got him what he asked for, and Curdie set out. Close beside the door by which the princess left the garden for the mountain, stood a great rock, and by climbing it Curdie got over the wall. He tied his clue to a stone just inside the channel of the stream, and took his pickaxe with him. He had not gone far before he encountered a horrid creature coming toward the mouth. The spot was too narrow for two of almost any size or shape, and besides Curdie had no wish to let the creature pass. Not being able to use his pickaxe, however, he had a severe struggle with him, and it was only after receiving many bites, some of them bad, that he succeeded in killing him with his pocket knife. Having dragged him out, he made haste to get in again before another should stop up the way. I need not follow him farther in this night's adventures. He returned to his breakfast, satisfied that the goblins were mining in the direction of the palace--on so low a level that their intention must, he thought, be to burrow under the walls of the king's house, and rise up inside it--in order, he fully believed, to lay hands on the little princess, and carry her off for a wife to their horrid Harelip. CHAPTER XXIV IRENE BEHAVES LIKE A PRINCESS WHEN the princess awoke from the sweetest of sleeps, she found her nurse bending above her, the housekeeper looking over the nurse's shoulder, and the laundry-maid looking over the housekeeper's. The room was full of women-servants; and the gentlemen-at-arms, with a long column of men-servants behind them, were peeping, or trying to peep in at the door of the nursery. "Are those horrid creatures gone?" asked the princess, remembering first what had terrified her in the morning. "You naughty little princess!" cried Lootie. Her face was very pale, with red streaks in it, and she looked as if she were going to shake her; but Irene said nothing--only waited to hear what should come next. "How _could_ you get under the clothes like that, and make us all fancy you were lost! And keep it up all day too! You _are_ the most obstinate child! It's anything but fun to us, I can tell you!" It was the only way the nurse could account for her disappearance. "I didn't do that, Lootie," said Irene, very quietly. "Don't tell stories!" cried her nurse quite rudely. "I shall tell you nothing at all," said Irene. "That's just as bad," said the nurse. "Just as bad to say nothing at all as to tell stories!" exclaimed the princess. "I will ask my papa about that. He won't say so. And I don't think he will like you to say so." "Tell me directly what you mean by it!" screamed the nurse, half wild with anger at the princess, and fright at the possible consequences to herself. "When I tell you the truth, Lootie," said the princess, who somehow did not feel at all angry, "you say to me _Don't tell stories_: it would appear that I must tell stories before you will believe me." "You are very rude, my dear princess," said the nurse. "You are so rude, Lootie, that I will not speak to you again till you are sorry. Why should I, when I know you will not believe me?" returned the princess. For she did know perfectly well that if she were to tell Lootie what she had been about, the more she went on to tell her, the less would she believe her. "You are the most provoking child!" cried her nurse. "You deserve to be well punished for your wicked behavior." "Please, Mrs. Housekeeper," said the princess, "will you take me to your room and keep me till my king-papa comes? I will ask him to come as soon as he can." Every one stared at these words. Up to this moment, they had all regarded her as little more than a baby. But the housekeeper was afraid of the nurse, and sought to patch matters up, saying-- "I am sure, princess, nursey did not mean to be rude to you." "I do not think my papa would wish me to have a nurse who spoke to me as Lootie does. If she thinks I tell lies, she had better either say so to my papa, or go away. Sir Walter, will you take charge of me?" "With the greatest of pleasure, princess," answered the captain of the gentlemen-at-arms, walking with his great stride into the room. The crowd of servants made eager way for him, and he bowed low before the little princess's bed. "I shall send my servant at once, on the fastest horse in the stable, to tell your king-papa that your royal Highness desires his presence. When you have chosen one of these under-servants to wait upon you, I shall order the room to be cleared." "Thank you very much, Sir Walter," said the princess, and her eye glanced toward a rosy-cheeked girl who had lately come to the house as a scullery-maid. But when Lootie saw the eyes of her dear princess going in search of another instead of her, she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and burst into a great cry of distress. "I think, Sir Walter," said the princess, "I will keep Lootie. But I put myself under your care; and you need not trouble my king-papa until I speak to you again. Will you all please to go away? I am quite safe and well, and I did not hide myself for the sake either of amusing myself, or of troubling my people. Lootie, will you please to dress me?" CHAPTER XXV CURDIE COMES TO GRIEF EVERYTHING was for some time quiet above ground. The king was still away in a distant part of his dominions. The men-at-arms kept watching about the house. They had been considerably astonished by finding at the foot of the rock in the garden, the hideous body of the goblin-creature killed by Curdie; but they came to the conclusion that it had been slain in the mines, and had crept out there to die; and except an occasional glimpse of a live one they saw nothing to cause alarm. Curdie kept watching in the mountain, and the goblins kept burrowing deeper into the earth. As long as they went deeper, there was, Curdie judged, no immediate danger. To Irene, the summer was as full of pleasure as ever, and for a long time, although she often thought of her grandmother during the day, and often dreamed about her at night, she did not see her. The kids and the flowers were as much her delight as ever, and she made as much friendship with the miners' children she met on the mountain as Lootie would permit; but Lootie had very foolish notions concerning the dignity of a princess, not understanding that the truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble toward them. At the same time she was considerably altered for the better in her behavior to the princess. She could not help seeing that she was no longer a mere child, but wiser than her age would account for. She kept foolishly whispering to the servants, however--sometimes that the princess was not right in her mind, sometimes that she was too good to live, and other nonsense of the same sort. All this time, Curdie had to be sorry, without a chance of confessing, that he had behaved so unkindly to the princess. This perhaps made him the more diligent in his endeavors to serve her. His mother and he often talked on the subject, and she comforted him, and told him she was sure he would some day have the opportunity he so much desired. Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying, "I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it." So you see there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have been known in the world's history. At length, however, he began to see signs of a change in the proceedings of the goblin excavators: they were going no deeper, but had commenced running on a level; and he watched them, therefore, more closely than ever. All at once, one night, coming to a slope of very hard rock, they began to ascend along the inclined plane of its surface. Having reached its top, they went again on a level for a night or two, after which they began to ascend once more, and kept on at a pretty steep angle. At length Curdie judged it time to transfer his observation to another quarter, and the next night, he did not go to the mine at all; but, leaving his pickaxe and clue at home, and taking only his usual lumps of bread and pease-pudding, went down the mountain to the king's house. He climbed over the wall, and remained in the garden the whole night, creeping on hands and knees from one spot to the other, and lying at full length with his ear to the ground, listening. But he heard nothing except the tread of the men-at-arms as they marched about, whose observation, as the night was cloudy and there was no moon, he had little difficulty in avoiding. For several following nights, he continued to haunt the garden and listen, but with no success. At length, early one evening, whether it was that he had got careless of his own safety, or that the growing moon had become strong enough to expose him, his watching came to a sudden end. He was creeping from behind the rock where the stream ran out, for he had been listening all round it in the hope it might convey to his ear some indication of the whereabouts of the goblin miners, when just as he came into the moonlight on the lawn, a whizz in his ear and a blow upon his leg startled him. He instantly squatted in the hope of eluding further notice. But when he heard the sound of running feet, he jumped up to take the chance of escape by flight. He fell, however, with a keen shoot of pain, for the bolt of a cross-bow had wounded his leg, and the blood was now streaming from it. He was instantly laid hold of by two or three of the men-at-arms. It was useless to struggle, and he submitted in silence. "It's a boy!" cried several of them together, in a tone of amazement. "I thought it was one of those demons." "What are you about here?" "Going to have a little rough usage apparently," said Curdie laughing, as the men shook him. "Impertinence will do you no good. You have no business here in the king's grounds, and if you don't give a true account of yourself, you shall fare as a thief." "Why, what else could he be?" said one. "He might have been after a lost kid, you know," suggested another. "I see no good in trying to excuse him. He has no business here anyhow." "Let me go away then, if you please," said Curdie. "But we don't please--not except you give a good account of yourself." "I don't feel quite sure whether I can trust you," said Curdie. "We are the king's own men-at-arms," said the captain, courteously, for he was taken with Curdie's appearance and courage. "Well, I will tell you all about it--if you will promise to listen to me and not do anything rash." "I call that cool!" said one of the party laughing. "He will tell us what mischief he was about, if we promise to do as pleases him." "I was about no mischief," said Curdie. But ere he could say more he turned faint, and fell senseless on the grass. Then first they discovered that the bolt they had shot, taking him for one of the goblin creatures, had wounded him. They carried him into the house, and laid him down in the hall. The report spread that they had caught a robber, and the servants crowded in to see the villain. Amongst the rest came the nurse. The moment she saw him she exclaimed with indignation: "I declare it's the same young rascal of a miner that was rude to me and the princess on the mountain. He actually wanted to kiss the princess. _I_ took good care of that--the wretch! And _he_ was prowling about--was he? Just like his impudence!" The princess being fast asleep, and Curdie in a faint, she could misrepresent at her pleasure. When he heard this, the captain, although he had considerable doubt of its truth, resolved to keep Curdie a prisoner until they could search into the affair. So, after they had brought him round a little, and attended to his wound, which was rather a bad one, they laid him, still exhausted from the loss of blood, upon a mattress in a disused room--one of those already so often mentioned--and locked the door, and left him. He passed a troubled night, and in the morning they found him talking wildly. In the evening he came to himself, but felt very weak, and his leg was exceedingly painful. Wondering where he was, and seeing one of the men-at-arms in the room, he began to question him, and soon recalled the events of the preceding night. As he was himself unable to watch any more, he told the soldier all he knew about the goblins, and begged him to tell his companions, and stir them up to watch with tenfold vigilance; but whether it was that he did not talk quite coherently, or that the whole thing appeared incredible, certainly the man concluded that Curdie was only raving still, and tried to coax him into holding his tongue. This, of course, annoyed Curdie dreadfully, who now felt in his turn what it was not to be believed, and the consequence was that his fever returned, and by the time when, at his persistent entreaties, the captain was called, there could be no doubt that he was raving. They did for him what they could, and promised everything he wanted, but with no intention of fulfilment. At last he went to sleep, and when at length his sleep grew profound and peaceful, they left him, locked the door again, and withdrew, intending to revisit him early in the morning. CHAPTER XXVI THE GOBLIN MINERS THAT same night several of the servants were having a chat together before going to bed. "What can that noise be?" said one of the housemaids, who had been listening for a moment or two. "I've heard it the last two nights," said the cook. "If there were any about the place, I should have taken it for rats, but my Tom keeps them far enough." "I've heard though," said the scullery-maid, "that rats move about in great companies sometimes. There may be an army of them invading us. I heard the noises yesterday and to-day too." "It'll be grand fun then for my Tom and Mrs. Housekeeper's Bob," said the cook. "They'll be friends for once in their lives, and fight on the same side. I'll engage Tom and Bob together will put to flight any number of rats." "It seems to me," said the nurse, "that the noises are much too loud for that. I have heard them all day, and my princess has asked me several times what they could be. Sometimes they sound like distant thunder, and sometimes like the noises you hear in the mountain from those horrid miners underneath." "I shouldn't wonder," said the cook, "if it was the miners after all. They may have come on some hole in the mountain through which the noises reach to us. They are always boring and blasting and breaking, you know." As he spoke there came a great rolling rumble beneath them, and the house quivered. They all started up in affright, and rushing to the hall found the gentlemen-at-arms in consternation also. They had sent to wake their captain, who said from their description that it must have been an earthquake, an occurrence which, although very rare in that country, had taken place almost within the century; and then went to bed again, strange to say, and fell fast asleep without once thinking of Curdie, or associating the noises they had heard with what he had told them. He had not believed Curdie. If he had, he would at once have thought of what he had said, and would have taken precautions. As they heard nothing more, they concluded that Sir Walter was right, and that the danger was over for perhaps another hundred years. The fact, as discovered afterward, was that the goblins had, in working up a second sloping face of stone, arrived at a huge block which lay under the cellars of the house, within the line of the foundations. It was so round that when they succeeded, after hard work, in dislodging it without blasting, it rolled thundering down the slope with a bounding, jarring roll, which shook the foundations of the house. The goblins were themselves dismayed at the noise, for they knew, by careful spying and measuring, that they must now be very near, if not under, the king's house, and they feared giving an alarm. They, therefore, remained quiet for awhile, and when they began to work again, they no doubt thought themselves very fortunate in coming upon a vein of sand which filled a winding fissure in the rock on which the house was built. By scooping this away they soon came out in the king's wine-cellar. No sooner did they and where they were, than they scurried back again, like rats into their holes, and running at full speed to the goblin palace, announced their success to the king and queen with shouts of triumph. In a moment the goblin royal family and the whole goblin people were on their way in hot haste to the king's house, each eager to have a share in the glory of carrying off that same night the Princess Irene. The queen went stumping along in one shoe of stone and one of skin. This could not have been pleasant, and my readers may wonder that, with such skillful workmen about her, she had not yet replaced the shoe carried off by Curdie. As the king however had more than one ground of objection to her stone shoes, he no doubt took advantage of the discovery of her toes, and threatened to expose her deformity if she had another made. I presume he insisted on her being content with skin-shoes, and allowed her to wear the remaining granite one on the present occasion only because she was going out to war. They soon arrived in the king's wine-cellar, and regardless of its huge vessels, of which they did not know the use, began as quietly as they could to force the door that led upward. CHAPTER XXVII THE GOBLINS IN THE KING'S HOUSE WHEN Curdie fell asleep he began at once to dream. He thought he was ascending the mountain-side from the mouth of the mine, whistling and singing "_Ring, dod, bang!_" when he came upon a woman and child who were lost; and from that point he went on dreaming all that had happened since he met the princess and Lootie; how he had watched the goblins, and been taken by them, how he had been rescued by the princess; everything indeed, until he was wounded, and imprisoned by the men-at-arms. And now he thought he was lying wide awake where they had laid him, when suddenly he heard a great thundering sound. "The cobs are coming!" he said. "They didn't believe a word I told them! The cobs'll be carrying off the princess from under their stupid noses! But they sha'n't! that they sha'n't!" He jumped up, as he thought, and began to dress, but, to his dismay, found that he was still lying in bed. "Now then I will!" he said. "Here goes! I _am_ up now!" But yet again he found himself snug in bed. Twenty times he tried, and twenty times he failed; for in fact he was not awake, only dreaming that he was. At length in an agony of despair, fancying he heard the goblins all over the house, he gave a great cry. Then there came, as he thought, a hand upon the lock of the door. It opened, and, looking up, he saw a lady with white hair, carrying a silver box in her hand, enter the room. She came to his bed, he thought, stroked his head and face with cool, soft hands, took the dressing from his leg, rubbed it with something that smelled like roses, and then waved her hands over him three times. At the last wave of her hands everything vanished, he felt himself sinking into the profoundest slumber, and remembered nothing more until he awoke in earnest. The setting moon was throwing a feeble light through the casement, and the house was full of uproar. There was soft heavy multitudinous stamping, a clashing and clanging of weapons, the voices of men and the cries of women, mixed with a hideous bellowing, which sounded victorious. The cobs were in the house! He sprang from his bed, hurried on some of his clothes, not forgetting his shoes, which were armed with nails; then spying an old hunting-knife, or short sword, hanging on the wall, he caught it, and rushed down the stairs, guided by the sounds of strife, which grew louder and louder. When he reached the ground floor he found the whole place swarming. All the goblins of the mountain seemed gathered there. He rushed amongst them, shouting-- "One, two, Hit and hew! Three, four, Blast and bore!" and with every rhyme he came down a great stamp upon a foot, cutting at the same time at their faces--executing, indeed, a sword dance of the wildest description. Away scattered the goblins in every direction,--into closets, upstairs, into chimneys, up on rafters, and down to the cellars. Curdie went on stamping and slashing and singing, but saw nothing of the people of the house until he came to the great hall, in which, the moment he entered it, arose a great goblin shout. The last of the men-at-arms, the captain himself, was on the floor, buried beneath a wallowing crowd of goblins. For, while each knight was busy defending himself as well as he could, by stabs in the thick bodies of the goblins, for he had soon found their heads all but invulnerable, the queen had attacked his legs and feet with her horrible granite shoe, and he was soon down; but the captain had got his back to the wall and stood out longer. The goblins would have torn them all to pieces, but the king had given orders to carry them away alive, and over each of them, in twelve groups, was standing a knot of goblins, while as many as could find room were sitting upon their prostrate bodies. Curdie burst in dancing and gyrating and stamping and singing like a small incarnate whirlwind, "Where 'tis all a hole, sir, Never can be holes: Why should their shoes have soles, sir, When they've got no souls? "But she upon her foot, sir, Has a granite shoe: The strongest leather boot, sir, Six would soon be through." The queen gave a howl of rage and dismay; and before she recovered her presence of mind, Curdie, having begun with the group nearest him, had eleven of the knights on their legs again. "Stamp on their feet!" he cried, as each man rose, and in a few minutes the hall was nearly empty, the goblins running from it as fast as they could, howling and shrieking and limping, and cowering every now and then as they ran to cuddle their wounded feet in their hard hands, or to protect them from the frightful stamp-stamp of the armed men. And now Curdie approached the group which, trusting in the queen and her shoe, kept their guard over the prostrate captain. The king sat on the captain's head, but the queen stood in front, like an infuriated cat, with her perpendicular eyes gleaming green, and her hair standing half up from her horrid head. Her heart was quaking, however, and she kept moving about her skin-shod foot with nervous apprehension. When Curdie was within a few paces, she rushed at him, made one tremendous stamp at his opposing foot, which happily he withdrew in time, and caught him round the waist, to dash him on the marble floor. But just as she caught him, he came down with all the weight of his iron-shod shoe upon her skin-shod foot, and with a hideous howl she dropped him, squatted on the floor and took her foot in both her hands. Meanwhile the rest rushed on the king and the bodyguard sent them flying, and lifted the prostrate captain, who was all but pressed to death. It was some moments before he recovered breath and consciousness. "Where's the princess?" cried Curdie again and again. No one knew, and off they all rushed in search of her. Through every room in the house they went, but nowhere was she to be found. Neither was one of the servants to be seen. But Curdie, who had kept to the lower part of the house, which was now quiet enough, began to hear a confused sound as of a distant hubbub, and set out to find where it came from. The noise grew as his sharp ears guided him to a stair and so to the wine cellar. It was full of goblins, whom the butler was supplying with wine as fast as he could draw it. While the queen and her party had encountered the men-at-arms, Harelip with another company had gone off to search the house. They captured every one they met, and when they could find no more, they hurried away to carry them safe to the caverns below. But when the butler, who was amongst them, found that their path lay through the wine cellar, he bethought himself of persuading them to taste the wine, and, as he had hoped, they no sooner tasted than they wanted more. The routed goblins, on their way below, joined them, and when Curdie entered, they were all, with outstretched hands, in which were vessels of every description, from sauce-pan to silver cup, pressing around the butler, who sat at the tap of a huge cask, filling and filling. Curdie cast one glance around the place before commencing his attack, and saw in the farthest corner a terrified group of the domestics unwatched, but cowering without courage to attempt their escape. Amongst them was the terror-stricken face of Lootie; but nowhere could he see the princess. Seized with the horrible conviction that Harelip had already carried her off, he rushed amongst them, unable for wrath to sing any more, but stamping and cutting with greater fury than ever. "Stamp on their feet; stamp on their feet!" he shouted, and in a moment the goblins were disappearing through the hole in the floor like rats and mice. They could not vanish so fast, however, but that many more goblin feet had to go limping back over the underground ways of the mountain that morning. Presently however they were reinforced from above by the king and his party, with the redoubtable queen at their head. Finding Curdie again busy amongst her unfortunate subjects, she rushed at him once more with the rage of despair, and this time gave him a bad bruise on the foot. Then a regular stamping fight got up between them, Curdie with the point of his hunting knife keeping her from clasping her mighty arms about him, as he watched his opportunity of getting once more a good stamp at her skin-shod foot. But the queen was more wary as well as more agile than hitherto. The rest meantime, finding their adversary thus matched for the moment, paused in their headlong hurry, and turned to the shivering group of women in the corner. As if determined to emulate his father and have a sun-woman of some sort to share his future throne. Harelip rushed at them, caught up Lootie and sped with her to the hole. She gave a great shriek, and Curdie heard her, and saw the plight she was in. Gathering all his strength, he gave the queen a sudden cut across the face with his weapon, came down, as she started back, with all his weight on the proper foot, and sprang to Lootie's rescue. The prince had two defenceless feet, and on both of them Curdie stamped just as he reached the hole. He dropped his burden and rolled shrieking into the earth. Curdie made one stab at him as he disappeared, caught hold of the senseless Lootie, and having dragged her back to the corner, there mounted guard over her, preparing once more to encounter the queen. Her face streaming with blood, and her eyes flashing green lightning through it, she came on with her mouth open and her teeth grinning like a tiger's, followed by the king and her bodyguard of the thickest goblins. But the same moment in rushed the captain and his men, and ran at them stamping furiously. They dared not encounter such an onset. Away they scurried, the queen foremost. Of course the right thing would have been to take the king and queen prisoners, and hold them hostages for the princess, but they were so anxious to find her that no one thought of detaining them until it was too late. Having thus rescued the servants, they set about searching the house once more. None of them could give the least information concerning the princess. Lootie was almost silly with terror, and although scarcely able to walk, would not leave Curdie's side for a single moment. Again he allowed the others to search the rest of the house--where, except a dismayed goblin lurking here and there, they found no one--while he requested Lootie to take him to the princess's room. She was as submissive and obedient as if he had been the king. He found the bed-clothes tossed about, and most of them on the floor, while the princess's garments were scattered all over the room, which was in the greatest confusion. It was only too evident that the goblins had been there, and Curdie had no longer any doubt that she had been carried off at the very first of the inroad. With a pang of despair he saw how wrong they had been in not securing the king and queen and prince; but he determined to find and rescue the princess as she had found and rescued him, or meet the worst fate to which the goblins could doom him. CHAPTER XXVIII CURDIE'S GUIDE [Illustration: There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms lay the princess fast asleep.] JUST as the consolation of this resolve dawned upon his mind, and he was turning away for the cellar to follow the goblins into their hole, something touched his hand. It was the slightest touch, and when he looked he could see nothing. Feeling and peering about in the gray of the dawn, his fingers came upon a tight thread. He looked again, and narrowly, but still could see nothing. It flashed upon him that this must be the princess's thread. Without saying a word, for he knew no one would believe him any more than he had believed the princess, he followed the thread with his finger, contrived to give Lootie the slip, and was soon out of the house, and on the mountain-side--surprised that, if the thread were indeed her grandmother's messenger, it should have led the princess, as he supposed it must, into the mountain, where she would be certain to meet the goblins rushing back enraged from their defeat. But he hurried on in the hope of overtaking her first. When he arrived however at the place where the path turned off for the mine, he found that the thread did not turn with it, but went straight up the mountain. Could it be that the thread was leading him home to his mother's cottage? Could the princess be there? He bounded up the mountain like one of its own goats, and before the sun was up, the thread had brought him indeed to his mother's door. There it vanished from his fingers, and he could not find it, search as he might. The door was on the latch, and he entered. There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms lay the princess fast asleep. "Hush, Curdie!" said his mother. "Do not wake her. I'm so glad you're come! I thought the cobs must have got you again!" With a heart full of delight, Curdie sat down at a corner of the hearth, on a stool opposite his mother's chair, and gazed at the princess, who slept as peacefully as if she had been in her own bed. All at once she opened her eyes and fixed them on him. "Oh, Curdie! you're come!" she said quietly. "I thought you would!" Curdie rose and stood before her with downcast eyes. "Irene," he said, "I am very sorry I did not believe you." "Oh, never mind, Curdie!" answered the princess. "You couldn't, you know. You do believe me now, don't you?" "I can't help it now. I ought to have helped it before." "Why can't you help it now?" "Because, just as I was going into the mountain to look for you, I got hold of your thread, and it brought me here." "Then you've come from my house, have you?" "Yes, I have." "I didn't know you were there." "I've been there two or three days, I believe." "And I never knew it!--Then perhaps you can tell me why my grandmother has brought me here? I can't think. Something woke me--I didn't know what, but I was frightened, and I felt for the thread, and there it was! I was more frightened still when it brought me out on the mountain, for I thought it was going to take me into it again, and I like the outside of it best. I supposed you were in trouble again, and I had to get you out, but it brought me here instead; and, oh, Curdie! your mother has been so kind to me--just like my own grandmother!" Here Curdie's mother gave the princess a hug, and the princess turned and gave her a sweet smile, and held up her mouth to kiss her. "Then you didn't see the cobs?" asked Curdie. "No; I haven't been into the mountain, I told you, Curdie." "But the cobs have been into your house--all over it--and into your bedroom making such a row!" "What did they want there? It was very rude of them." "They wanted you--to carry you off into the mountain with them, for a wife to their Prince Harelip." "Oh, how dreadful!" cried the princess, shuddering. "But you needn't be afraid, you know. Your grandmother takes care of you." "Ah! you do believe in my grandmother then? I'm so glad! She made me think you would some day." All at once Curdie remembered his dream, and was silent, thinking. "But how did you come to be in my house, and me not know it?" asked the princess. Then Curdie had to explain everything--how he had watched for her sake, how he had been wounded and shut up by the soldiers, how he heard the noises and could not rise, and how the beautiful old lady had come to him, and all that followed. "Poor Curdie! to lie there hurt and ill, and me never to know it!" exclaimed the princess, stroking his rough hand. "I would not have hesitated to come and nurse you, if they had told me." "I didn't see you were lame," said his mother. "Am I, mother? Oh--yes--I suppose I ought to be. I declare I've never thought of it since I got up to go down amongst the cobs!" "Let me see the wound," said his mother. He pulled down his stocking--when behold, except a great scar, his leg was perfectly sound! Curdie and his mother gazed in each other's eyes, full of wonder, but Irene called out-- "I thought so, Curdie! I was sure it wasn't a dream. I was sure my grandmother had been to see you.--Don't you smell the roses? It was my grandmother healed your leg, and sent you to help me." "No, Princess Irene," said Curdie; "I wasn't good enough to be allowed to help you: I didn't believe you. Your grandmother took care of you without me." "She sent you to help my people, anyhow. I wish my king-papa would come. I do want so to tell him how good you have been!" "But," said the mother, "we are forgetting how frightened your people must be.--You must take the princess home at once, Curdie--or at least go and tell them where she is." "Yes, mother. Only I'm dreadfully hungry. Do let me have some breakfast first. They ought to have listened to me, and then they wouldn't have been taken by surprise as they were." "That is true, Curdie; but it is not for you to blame them much. You remember?" "Yes, mother, I do. Only I must really have something to eat." "You shall, my boy--as fast as I can get it," said his mother, rising and setting the princess on her chair. But before his breakfast was ready, Curdie jumped up so suddenly as to startle both his companions. "Mother, mother!" he cried, "I was forgetting. You must take the princess home yourself. I must go and wake my father." Without a word of explanation, he rushed to the place where his father was sleeping. Having thoroughly roused him with what he told him, he darted out of the cottage. CHAPTER XXIX MASON-WORK HE had all at once remembered the resolution of the goblins to carry out their second plan upon the failure of the first. No doubt they were already busy, and the mine was therefore in the greatest danger of being flooded and rendered useless--not to speak of the lives of the miners. When he reached the mouth of the mine, after rousing all the miners within reach, he found his father and a good many more just entering. They all hurried to the gang by which he had found a way into the goblin country. There the foresight of Peter had already collected a great many blocks of stone, with cement, ready for building up the weak place--well enough known to the goblins. Although there was not room for more than two to be actually building at once, they managed, by setting all the rest to work in preparing the cement, and passing the stones, to finish in the course of the day a huge buttress filling the whole gang, and supported everywhere by the live rock. Before the hour when they usually dropped work, they were satisfied that the mine was secure. They had heard goblin hammers and pickaxes busy all the time, and at length fancied they heard sounds of water they had never heard before. But that was otherwise accounted for when they left the mine; for they stepped out into a tremendous storm which was raging all over the mountain. The thunder was bellowing, and the lightning lancing out of a huge black cloud which lay above it, and hung down its edges of thick mist over its sides. The lightning was breaking out of the mountain, too, and flashing up into the cloud. From the state of the brooks, now swollen into raging torrents, it was evident that the storm had been storming all day. The wind was blowing as if it would blow him off the mountain, but, anxious about his mother and the princess, Curdie darted up through the thick of the tempest. Even if they had not set out before the storm came on, he did not judge them safe, for, in such a storm even their poor little house was in danger. Indeed he soon found that but for a huge rock against which it was built, and which protected it both from the blasts and the waters, it must have been swept if it was not blown away; for the two torrents into which this rock parted the rush of water behind it united again in front of the cottage--two roaring and dangerous streams, which his mother and the princess could not possibly have passed. It was with great difficulty that he forced his way through one of them, and up to the door. The moment his hand fell on the latch, through all the uproar of winds and waters came the joyous cry of the princess:-- "There's Curdie! Curdie! Curdie!" She was sitting wrapped in blankets on the bed, his mother trying for the hundredth time to light the fire which had been drowned by the rain that came down the chimney. The clay floor was one mass of mud, and the whole place looked wretched. But the faces of the mother and the princess shone as if their troubles only made them merrier. Curdie laughed at sight of them. "I never _had_ such fun!" said the princess, her eyes twinkling and her pretty teeth shining. "How nice it must be to live in a cottage on the mountain!" "It all depends on what kind your inside house is," said the mother. "I know what you mean," said Irene. "That's the kind of thing my grandmother says." By the time Peter returned, the storm was nearly over, but the streams were so fierce and so swollen, that it was not only out of the question for the princess to go down the mountain, but most dangerous for Peter even or Curdie to make the attempt in the gathering darkness. "They will be dreadfully frightened about you," said Peter to the princess, "but we cannot help it. We must wait till the morning." With Curdie's help, the fire was lighted at last, and the mother set about making their supper; and after supper they all told the princess stories till she grew sleepy. Then Curdie's mother laid her in Curdie's bed, which was in a tiny little garret-room. As soon as she was in bed, through a little window low down in the roof she caught sight of her grandmother's lamp shining far away beneath, and she gazed at the beautiful silvery globe until she fell fast asleep. CHAPTER XXX THE KING AND THE KISS THE next morning the sun rose so bright that Irene said the rain had washed his face and let the light out clean. The torrents were still roaring down the side of the mountain, but they were so much smaller as not to be dangerous in the daylight. After an early breakfast, Peter went to his work, and Curdie and his mother set out to take the princess home. They had difficulty in getting her dry across the streams, and Curdie had again and again to carry her, but at last they got safe on the broader part of the road, and walked gently down toward the king's house. And what should they see as they turned the last corner, but the last of the king's troop riding through the gate! "Oh, Curdie!" cried Irene, clapping her hands right joyfully, "my king-papa is come." The moment Curdie heard that, he caught her up in his arms, and set off at full speed, crying-- "Come on, mother dear! The king may break his heart before he knows that she is safe." Irene clung round his neck, and he ran with her like a deer. When he entered the gate into the court, there sat the king on his horse, with all the people of the house about him, weeping and hanging their heads. The king was not weeping, but his face was white as a dead man's, and he looked as if the life had gone out of him. The men-at-arms he had brought with him, sat with horror-stricken faces, but eyes flashing with rage, waiting only for the word of the king to do something--they did not know what, and nobody knew what. The day before the men-at-arms belonging to the house, as soon as they were satisfied the princess had been carried away, rushed after the goblins into the hole, but found that they had already so skilfully blockaded the narrowest part, not many feet below the cellar, that without miners and their tools they could do nothing. Not one of them knew where the mouth of the mine lay, and some of those who had set out to find it had been overtaken by the storm and had not even yet returned. Poor Sir Walter was especially filled with shame, and almost entertained the hope that the king would order him to be decapitated, for the very thought of that sweet little face down amongst the goblins was unendurable. When Curdie ran in at the gate with the princess in his arms, they were all so absorbed in their own misery and awed by the king's presence and grief, that no one observed his arrival. He went straight up to the king, where he sat on his horse. "Papa! papa!" the princess cried, stretching out her arms to him; "here I am!" The king started. The color rushed to his face. He gave an inarticulate cry. Curdie held up the princess, and the king bent down and took her from his arms. As he clasped her to his bosom, the big tears went dropping down his cheeks and his beard. And such a shout arose from all the bystanders, that the startled horses pranced and capered, and the armor rang and clattered, and the rocks of the mountain echoed back the noises. The princess greeted them all as she nestled in her father's bosom, and the king did not set her down until she had told them all the story. But she had more to tell about Curdie than about herself, and what she did tell about herself none of them could understand except the king and Curdie, who stood by the king's knee stroking the neck of the great white horse. And still as she told what Curdie had done, Sir Walter and others added to what she told, even Lootie joining in the praises of his courage and energy. Curdie held his peace, looking quietly up in the king's face. And his mother stood on the outskirts of the crowd listening with delight, for her son's deeds were pleasant in her ears, until the princess caught sight of her. "And there is his mother, king-papa!" she said. "See--there. She is such a nice mother, and has been so kind to me!" They all parted asunder as the king made a sign to her to come forward. She obeyed, and he gave her his hand, but could not speak. "And now, king-papa," the princess went on, "I must tell you another thing. One night long ago Curdie drove the goblins away and brought Lootie and me safe from the mountain. And I promised him a kiss when we got home, but Lootie wouldn't let me give it to him. I would not have you scold Lootie, but I want you to impress upon her that a princess _must_ do as she promises." "Indeed she must, my child--except it be wrong," said the king. "There, give Curdie a kiss." And as he spoke he held her toward him. The princess reached down, threw her arms round Curdie's neck, and kissed him on the mouth, saying-- "There, Curdie! There's the kiss I promised you!" Then they all went into the house, and the cook rushed to the kitchen, and the servants to their work. Lootie dressed Irene in her shiningest clothes, and the king put off his armor, and put on purple and gold; and a messenger was sent for Peter and all the miners, and there was a great and grand feast, which continued long after the princess was put to bed. CHAPTER XXXI THE SUBTERRANEAN WATERS THE king's harper, who always formed a part of his escort, was chanting a ballad which he made as he went on playing on his instrument--about the princess and the goblins, and the prowess of Curdie, when all at once he ceased, with his eyes on one of the doors of the hall. Thereupon the eyes of the king and his guests turned thitherward also. The next moment, through the open doorway came the princess Irene. She went straight up to her father, with her right hand stretched out a little sideways, and her forefinger, as her father and Curdie understood, feeling its way along the invisible thread. The king took her on his knee, and she said in his ear-- "King-papa, do you hear that noise?" "I hear nothing," said the king. "Listen," she said, holding up her forefinger. The king listened, and a great stillness fell upon the company. Each man, seeing that the king listened, listened also, and the harper sat with his harp between his arms, and his fingers silent upon the strings. "I do hear a noise," said the king at length--"a noise as of distant thunder. It is coming nearer and nearer. What can it be?" They all heard it now, and each seemed ready to start to his feet as he listened. Yet all sat perfectly still. The noise came rapidly nearer. "What can it be?" said the king again. "I think it must be another storm coming over the mountain," said Sir Walter. Then Curdie, who at the first word of the king had slipped from his seat, and laid his ear to the ground, rose up quickly, and approaching the king said, speaking very fast-- "Please your Majesty, I think I know what it is. I have no time to explain, for that might make it too late for some of us. Will your Majesty order that everybody leave the house as quickly as possible, and get up the mountain?" The king, who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well there was a time when things must be done, and questions left till afterward. He had faith in Curdie, and rose instantly, with Irene in his arms. "Every man and woman follow me," he said, and strode out into the darkness. Before he had reached the gate, the noise had grown to a great thundering roar, and the ground trembled beneath their feet, and before the last of them had crossed the court, out after them from the great hall-door came a huge rush of turbid water, and almost swept them away. But they got safe out of the gate and up the mountain, while the torrent went roaring down the road into the valley beneath. Curdie had left the king and the princess to look after his mother, whom he and his father, one on each side, caught up when the stream overtook them and carried safe and dry. When the king had got out of the way of the water, a little up the mountain, he stood with the princess in his arms, looking back with amazement on the issuing torrent, which glimmered fierce and foamy through the night. There Curdie rejoined them. "Now, Curdie," said the king, "what does it mean! Is this what you expected?" "It is, your Majesty," said Curdie; and proceeded to tell him about the second scheme of the goblins, who, fancying the miners of more importance to the upper world than they were, had resolved, if they should fail in carrying off the king's daughter, to flood the mine and drown the miners. Then he explained what the miners had done to prevent it. The goblins had, in pursuance of their design, let loose all the underground reservoirs and streams, expecting the water to run down into the mine, which was lower than their part of the mountain, for they had, as they supposed, not knowing of the solid wall close behind, broken a passage through into it. But the readiest outlet the water could find had turned out to be the tunnel they had made to the king's house, the possibility of which catastrophe had not occurred to the mind of the young miner until he placed his ear close to the floor of the hall. What was then to be done? The house appeared in danger of falling, and every moment the torrent was increasing. "We must set out at once," said the king. "But how to get at the horses!" "Shall I see if we can manage that?" said Curdie. "Do," said the king. Curdie gathered the men-at-arms, and took them over the garden wall, and so to the stables. They found their horses in terror; the water was rising fast around them, and it was quite time they were got out. But there was no way to get them out, except by riding them through the stream, which was now pouring from the lower windows as well as the door. As one horse was quite enough for any man to manage through such a torrent, Curdie got on the king's white charger, and leading the way, brought them all in safety to the rising ground. "Look, look, Curdie!" cried Irene, the moment that, having dismounted, he led the horse up to the king. Curdie did look, and saw, high in the air, somewhere about the top of the king's house, a great globe of light, shining like the purest silver. "Oh!" he cried in some consternation, "that is your grandmother's lamp! We _must_ get her out. I will go and find her. The house may fall, you know." "My grandmother is in no danger," said Irene, smiling. "Here, Curdie, take the princess while I get on my horse," said the king. Curdie took the princess again, and both turned their eyes to the globe of light. The same moment there shot from it a white bird, which, descending with outstretched wings, made one circle round the king and Curdie and the princess, and then glided up again. The light and the pigeon vanished together. "Now, Curdie," said the princess, as he lifted her to her father's arms, "you see my grandmother knows all about it, and isn't frightened. I believe she could walk through that water and it wouldn't wet her a bit." "But, my child," said the king, "you will be cold if you haven't something more on. Run, Curdie, my boy, and fetch anything you can lay your hands on, to keep the princess warm. We have a long ride before us." Curdie was gone in a moment, and soon returned with a great rich fur, and the news that dead goblins were tossing about in the current through the house. They had been caught in their own snare; instead of the mine they had flooded their own country, whence they were now swept up drowned. Irene shuddered, but the king held her close to his bosom. Then he turned to Sir Walter, and said-- "Bring Curdie's father and mother here." "I wish," said the king, when they stood before him, "to take your son with me. He shall enter my bodyguard at once, and wait further promotion." Peter and his wife, overcome, only murmured almost inaudible thanks. But Curdie spoke aloud. "Please your Majesty," he said, "I cannot leave my father and mother." "That's right, Curdie!" cried the princess. "_I_ wouldn't if I was you." The king looked at the princess and then at Curdie with a glow of satisfaction on his countenance. "I too think you are right, Curdie," he said, "and I will not ask you again. But I shall have a chance of doing something for you some time." "Your Majesty has already allowed me to serve you," said Curdie. "But, Curdie," said his mother, "why shouldn't you go with the king? We can get on very well without you." "But I can't get on very well without you," said Curdie. "The king is very kind, but I could not be half the use to him that I am to you. Please your Majesty, if you wouldn't mind giving my mother a red petticoat! I should have got her one long ago, but for the goblins." "As soon as we get home," said the king, "Irene and I will search out the warmest one to be found, and send it by one of the gentlemen." "Yes, that we will, Curdie!" said the princess. "And next summer we'll come back and see you wear it, Curdie's mother," she added. "Sha'n't we, king-papa?" "Yes, my love; I hope so," said the king. Then turning to the miners, he said---- "Will you do the best you can for my servants to-night? I hope they will be able to return to the house to-morrow." The miners with one voice promised their hospitality. Then the king commanded his servants to mind whatever Curdie should say to them, and after shaking hands with him and his father and mother, the king and the princess and all their company rode away down the side of the new stream which had already devoured half the road, into the starry night. CHAPTER XXXII THE LAST CHAPTER ALL the rest went up the mountain, and separated in groups to the homes of the miners. Curdie and his father and mother took Lootie with them. And the whole way, a light, of which all but Lootie understood the origin, shone upon their path. But when they looked round they could see nothing of the silvery globe. For days and days the water continued to rush from the doors and windows of the king's house, and a few goblin bodies were swept out into the road. Curdie saw that something must be done. He spoke to his father and the rest of the miners, and they at once proceeded to make another outlet for the waters. By setting all hands to the work, tunneling here and building there, they soon succeeded; and having also made a little tunnel to drain the water away from under the king's house, they were soon able to get into the wine cellar, where they found a multitude of dead goblins--among the rest the queen, with the skin-shoe gone, and the stone one fast to her ankle--for the water had swept away the barricade which prevented the men-at-arms from following the goblins, and had greatly widened the passage. They built it securely up, and then went back to their labors in the mine. A good many of the goblins with their creatures escaped from the inundation out upon the mountain. But most of them soon left that part of the country, and most of those who remained grew milder in character, and indeed became very much like the Scotch Brownies. Their skulls became softer as well as their hearts, and their feet grew harder, and by degrees they became friendly with the inhabitants of the mountain and even with the miners. But the latter were merciless to any of the _cobs' creatures_ that came their way, until at length they all but disappeared. Still-- "_But, Mr. Author, we would rather hear more about the Princess and Curdie. We don't care about the goblins and their nasty creatures. They frighten us--rather._" "_But you know if you once get rid of the goblins there is no fear of the princess or of Curdie._" "_But we want to know more about them._" "_Some day, perhaps, I may tell you the further history of both of them; how Curdie came to visit Irene's grandmother, and what she did for him; and how the princess and he met again after they were older--and how--But there! I don't mean to go any farther at present._" "_Then you're leaving the story unfinished, Mr. Author!_" "_Not more unfinished than a story ought to be, I hope. If you ever knew a story finished, all I can say is, I never did. Somehow, stories won't finish. I think I know why, but I won't say that either, now._" THE END * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 11, "clevernesss" changed to "cleverness" (knowledge and cleverness) Page 68, "gleamimg" changed to "gleaming" (were sparkling and gleaming) Page 77, "would'nt" changed to "wouldn't" (wouldn't have come) Page 103, "arrange" changed to "arranges" (all that arranges itself) Page 191, "of thing" added to text (the kind of thing) 
40502	----	Transcriber's notes For this txt-version text in italics was surrounded with _underscores_, and text in small caps was changed to all caps. A few punctuation errors have been corrected, and on page 142 "is" was changed to "as" (make it as hard as you can). Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent hyphenation. [Illustration: Presented to ... By ...] THE BROWNIES AND PRINCE FLORIMEL THE BROWNIES AND PRINCE FLORIMEL OR Brownieland, Fairyland, and Demonland BY PALMER COX Author of The Brownies: Their Book; Another Brownie Book; The Brownies Around the World; The Brownies at Home; The Brownies Through the Union; The Brownies Abroad; The Brownies in the Philippines; The Brownies' Latest Adventures; The Brownies' Many More Nights; The Brownie Clown in Brownie Town; The Brownie Primer, etc., etc., etc. [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. Copyright, 1918, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, September, 1918_ PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE [Illustration] THE FLIGHT OF PRINCE FLORIMEL 3 [Illustration] TITANIA COMES TO REIGN OVER THE FAIRIES 14 [Illustration] FLORIMEL REACHES THE ENCHANTED COUNTRY 25 [Illustration] THE HUMAN OCTOPUS STARTS ON A MISSION 37 [Illustration] FLORIMEL MEETS THE BROWNIES 49 [Illustration] THE HUMAN OCTOPUS SNOOPS AROUND 58 [Illustration] FLORIMEL IS ADOPTED BY KING STANISLAUS 68 [Illustration] QUEEN TITANIA'S GREAT PERIL 80 [Illustration] THE COMPACT WITH VULCAN 92 [Illustration] THE STRANGE WEDDING-GUESTS 103 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES BUILD A RAFT 119 [Illustration] WHAT HAPPENED IN THE THRONE-ROOM 133 [Illustration] NEPTUNE STILLS THE WAVES 145 [Illustration] WHAT THE POLICEMAN DISCOVERED 157 [Illustration] THE GERMAN BAND 166 [Illustration] THE EARTHQUAKE AND VOLCANO 177 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES FIGHT THE FLAMES 189 [Illustration] THE FLIGHT TO THE MINES 201 [Illustration] THE MISSION OF THE DOVE 212 [Illustration] DISASTER TO DRAGONFEL 223 [Illustration] AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER 233 BOOKS BY PALMER COX: PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. [Illustration] THE BROWNIES: THEIR BOOK Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] ANOTHER BROWNIE BOOK Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES AT HOME Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES AROUND THE WORLD Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES THROUGH THE UNION Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES ABROAD Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES IN THE PHILIPPINES Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES LATEST ADVENTURES Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIES MANY MORE NIGHTS Quarto, 150 pages. Price, in boards, $1.50 [Illustration] THE BROWNIE CLOWN OF BROWNIETOWN Oblong, 103 pages. Price, in boards, $1.00 [Illustration] THE BROWNIE PRIMER 12 mo, 108 pages. Price, in cloth, $ .40 net. THE BROWNIES AND PRINCE FLORIMEL CHAPTER I THE FLIGHT OF PRINCE FLORIMEL [Illustration] All that is here set down happened in a wonderful country where wonderful things are always happening. In a certain kingdom there was a young prince named Florimel. His father, the king, had lately passed away, but, though Florimel was his only son, and of age, he had not succeeded to the throne that by right of birth was his. The reason was that his father had a brother, a very cruel, crafty duke, high in the councils of the state, who had designs upon the throne himself. In a covetous frame of mind he had once taken a photograph of the crown and ermine robe, and the intelligent palace parrot had made a remark thereat: "'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,'" croaked the bird. It was a wise quotation, and yet it was not wise to make it, for right after that something happened to the unlucky parrot. The duke with his evil influence swayed the opinions of the royal cabinet which made the laws. In his wicked old heart he wished Florimel out of the way. [Illustration] If Florimel had been like other princes one reads about his people no doubt would have insisted upon his occupying the throne. But the throne was of ordinary size, so that he never could have occupied it. Like other princes he was all that was fair and handsome, but he was very small indeed. He was no larger than the average-sized boy of twelve, and the people who should have proved his loyal subjects were well-grown men and women. In their talks among themselves they showed a shame that anyone so small should rule them. [Illustration] "Why, he's no bigger than a Brownie!" was a remark they very often made. "It would look foolish to have such a mite for a king." For they were well informed about the Brownies, and knew how they perched on fences, or hid adroitly whenever danger threatened. But they were guided by appearances, as too often people wrongly are, and they failed to realize that sometimes the best goods are done up in the smallest packages, and that even a mite may be mighty. The fact that Florimel was so small had been a great grief to his late parents who had never been able to understand it. He had been a fine, healthy baby who had won the hearty approval of his doctors and nurses. His mother always had an uneasy fear that the godmother who assisted at his christening might have been concerned in his diminutive size, but the king invariably poo-poohed at her suspicions. This godmother was an ex-fairy, but advancing age had interfered with her work of magic. Her joints had become stiff and cramped, and she had contracted rheumatism from sleeping in damp, dewy flowers. She did not get around in the lively fashion she used to. "Nonsense!" said the king. "Would she have bestowed on him the gift of second sight and at the same time taken away his size? Depend upon it, my dear, her intentions were perfectly straightforward and honorable." "But it may have been this second sight has interfered with his growth," said the queen. "His vision is simply wonderful." This was indeed so. Prince Florimel could see things no one else could. Furthermore he could see them at night. Some wise old soothsayer declared that he was gifted with supernatural powers. One other gift had his ex-fairy godmother presented to him, a bow and quiver of arrows which she averred were priceless. "I charge you," she said most impressively to the king, "never to let your dear son have the bow and arrows unless there comes to him some moment of great danger. Then let him place one of these arrows to the bow, and shoot it where he will. The result will be miraculous." [Illustration] After she had gone back to the old-ex-fairy-ladies' home the king was strongly tempted to shoot one of the arrows from the bow just to see what would happen. With great difficulty he repressed his curiosity, and placed the bow and arrows in the family safe whose combinations was known only to himself. So time passed happily, and one year added its joys to those of others, until there came the sad day when Florimel lost his dear mother. There was much sorrow throughout the entire kingdom, for the queen was a gentle, gracious one whose kind words and good deeds had endeared her to the hearts of all. So great was her loss to the king that he did not survive her long. Ere he joined her he called his brother, the duke, to his bed, and said to him: "You are my only kin outside of Florimel, so to your keeping I entrust him. He is such a little chap you must be very careful of him. After I am gone he will be king, and I am sure he will rule well and wisely. He is a true king at heart if not of stature. Promise me to be his councilor and guide, and to incline him ever to the side of mercy, charity, and goodness." The false duke promised with great earnestness, but all the while he was thinking of many wicked things. With Florimel removed he would ascend to the throne himself. Yet so well did he hide his guilty feelings that his brother had no suspicion of any perfidy or wrong-doing, and passed away in the peace befitting the righteous king he was. After the king's death the duke through one pretext or another delayed the coronation of the new. He incited his nephew to feats and deeds of great danger and daring with the evil hope that some terrible accident would befall him. But in all the risks and hazards that he took, and none was too great, it almost seemed that Prince Florimel bore a charmed life. Like other young people he had his dreams, and saw much that was unreal, but with all these there had come lasting impressions. When the duke failed to accomplish his evil designs, he determined upon even more desperate methods in his game. The people were beginning to chafe at the delay in the coronation, and were clamoring for a new ruler. So the cabinet met to decide this most important matter, and the duke presided over the council. [Illustration] "This is a most embarrassing situation," he said. "Ordinarily we would place the only son of our late king on the throne without question and amid great rejoicing. But we are confronted by a most perplexing question. Prince Florimel is what might be termed a freak. The point is, could he represent his kingdom with the proper dignity?" "Prince Florimel may be a freak as you say," remarked a member of the cabinet, "but at the same time I have never seen a handsomer, manlier young fellow. His symmetry is perfect, and he is all that is chivalrous and brave. He is the stuff true kings are made of. The only thing against him is his size." "That I fear is an objection which cannot be overcome," said the wily duke. "Can we, a race of big men and women, be governed by a pygmy king--a hop-o'-my-thumb? We would be the laughing stock of other kingdoms. Think, when the rulers of all these met, and ours came among them, of the mortification we would feel that we did not have a full-grown man to represent us. His insignificance would make this country insignificant to others. Those who did not know us, and judged us by him, would look upon us as a country of dwarfs." "But Florimel is the late king's son, and heir to the throne," said another member of the cabinet. "Who else could reign in his stead?" "I am the next of kin," said the duke. "Yes, if it were not for Florimel you would be the logical king." "Let us postpone our deliberations until tomorrow, by which time I think I can find a way out of the difficulty," said the duke, with deadly meaning. The members of the cabinet looked at each other, and the meeting silently adjourned. It had been conducted with the utmost secrecy, and no one else was present but an old factotum named Gando who was there to lock the doors. And Gando, who was passionately attached to Florimel, heard the duke's word, and was very uneasy in his mind. "So that is why," the old man said to himself, "the duke was sharpening his knife on the grind-stone!" When the duke had retired to his apartment Gando tiptoed noiselessly after him, and placed his feeble, dim eye close to the key-hole of the door. What he saw froze the blood in his veins, and caused the few white hairs on his head to stand stiffly up with his great fright. The duke was seated at his window, and the moonlight played and glittered on a long, slender knife that he held in his hand. Old Gando's knees knocked together, and he fled the spot. Of one thing he was very sure. Florimel without loss of time should place himself far beyond the reach of his wicked uncle. Each added moment increased the prince's danger. Soon escape might be too late. Before he went to warn the sleeping prince he secured the bow and quiver of arrows that had been intrusted to his care by the late king. He hastily provided himself with a smock, loose cap, and long trousers of coarse cloth such as children of poor peasants wear. [Illustration] With these in his trembling arms, breathless from his exertions and the great excitement under which he labored, he entered Florimel's bedchamber, and closed the door noiselessly behind him. With his fair head resting on his curved arm, Florimel slept. Gando gave a great sigh of relief when he heard his gentle breathing. He flew to the bedside, and straightway roused the slumbering prince from his dreams. [Illustration] "Oh, master, my dear young master!" he cried with his voice broken by sobs. "Rouse yourself, I beg of you, and go hence! Do not delay, or you may be too late. Your cruel uncle this very moment is plotting your death!" Florimel sprang up in bed, and tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. "But where shall I go, good Gando?" he asked. "That I know not," said the old man. "The further you go the better. You must leave behind you the boundaries of the kingdom. See, I have brought these peasant's clothes for you to wear." "Nay, I still have my prince's attire," said Florimel. "That will not serve," said Gando. "If you donned it you would be quickly recognized, and your uncle would gain knowledge of you to your swift undoing." He assisted the bewildered Florimel to dress, swung across his back the quiver of arrows, and handed him the bow. "This was your godmother's gift," he said, "and it might aid you." But, though Gando urged Florimel not to take the time, the latter printed something on a card which he tacked upon the outside of the door before they left the place. As they fled toward a secret exit they heard down the corridor the stealthy tread of feet. The duke snarled like a wild beast as he read the lines: "FAREWELL, DEAR UNCLE! KEEP YOUR EDGED TOOL FOR FATTED SWINE!" "Fly!" old Gando cried, as he thrust Florimel out into the lonely, starlit night. "Oh, my dear young master, fly for your life!" It was a sad and sudden change indeed for the youth, from the pleasant dreams of guardian Brownies surrounding his bed, to the uncertainty of an unknown way before, and the certainty of a cruel enemy behind. Snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance had a forbidding look and, as though in league with his old uncle, seemed to extend to him but a cool welcome. The wakeful and observing beasts of the wood and wild saw in him a new character never before met in the open country, and were shaken with wonder and agitation while they watched the hastening little traveller striding along the lonely road, his only burden the bow and supply of arrows. [Illustration] CHAPTER II TITANIA COMES TO REIGN OVER THE FAIRIES [Illustration] Now in another part of the same country there was a race of fairies who never grew old and always remained beautiful. Their loveliness of face and form was beyond all description. Just try to think of the prettiest young girl you ever saw. Well, even the plainest of these fairies were ever so much prettier. That is to say, all were very beautiful with one exception. In her case the fairy charm was an utter failure. She was little and old, with a queer, wrinkled face like a dried-up crab-apple. But, because no one else looked like her, she was firmly convinced she was the most beautiful of them all. They wore clinging gowns made of the texture of roses, lilies, and other flowers. She who wore fragrant rose-petals called herself Rose, she who called herself Lily one of lilies, and so on. There were Violet, Daffodil, Bluebell, Daisy, Jassamine, Hyacinth, and ever so many others. You could find the names of all the rest in a seed-catalogue--that is, all but the little old wrinkled one who was known as Dame Drusilda. The fairies had a republic. Because they were all so very much alike, and equally beautiful, gifted, and clever, it would have been an extremely awkward matter to select a queen from among them. If any one had been chosen, all the others would have felt greatly slighted. Dame Drusilda believed she should be the queen, simply because no one else looked like her, but she was quite alone in her opinion. [Illustration] They were very up-to-date, and they had a palace of great magnificence that had every modern convenience, with sanitary plumbing. There was a very gorgeous throne-room, wisely arranged in the event that they might some day have a queen, with a portcullis at the entrance that could be raised or lowered at will. This, of course, was to keep out unwelcome visitors. [Illustration] The republic was most beautifully situated where a river joined the sea, and upon a cliff one day the fairies beheld a most unusual sight. While they were smiling and nodding a greeting to some lovely mermaids who were down among the rocks combing their long tresses with the aid of hand-mirrors, a golden shallop heaped with flowers came drifting down the placid stream. The fairies signalled to the mermaids who, when their attention was attracted to the shallop, swam to it, and guided it to the shore. As it drew near all grew very much excited when they observed a most exquisite little creature nestling asleep in the fragrant bed of flowers. When the shallop grounded gently on the pebbly beach her eyes opened, and she gazed up at them with the most enchanting smile imaginable. "I am Queen Titania," she announced, as they bent over her, "and I have come to reign over you!" With tender hands they raised her from her couch, and knelt before her in silent adoration. Never before had they seen anyone so beautiful, as she stood before them in her long trailing gown, with a gem-crusted crown upon her brow, and in her hand a slender wand from whose tip shone the scintillating rays of a diamond. [Illustration] "Your Majesty," said queer little Dame Drusilda, "we are all your loyal subjects. Let us conduct you to the palace, where affairs of state await you." Amid great rejoicing they conducted Queen Titania to the palace. Wee-winged Cupids bore her long train. The portcullis was raised, and in triumph they entered. The new queen was conducted with much pomp to the throne-room. When she was placed upon the throne, two dogs, two frogs, and an ostrich were brought before her. "What have they done?" asked Queen Titania. [Illustration] "Your Majesty," said the fairy named Hyacinth, "these two dogs were fighting, and one bit off a piece of the other's ear." "Which was the one who did it?" "Why, this one!" "Bind him over to keep the peace!" said Queen Titania promptly. The fairies all nodded their approval as the dogs were led away. "Your Majesty," then spoke up one of the frogs, "will you be kind enough to listen to the complaint of one who has always tried to conduct himself like a perfect gentleman? I am a confirmed bachelor-frog. This young lady-frog is continually pestering me with her attentions. She keeps on proposing marriage, although it is not leap-year." "With frogs every year is leap-year," said Queen Titania. The ostrich looked very guilty as a fairy named Eglantine explained: "Your Majesty, he deliberately swallowed a half-dozen of the palace spoons." "Why did you do it?" asked Queen Titania of the culprit. "I don't know," he said shamefacedly. "But I do," said Queen Titania. "You did it to stir up things. Have you a sweetheart?" "Yes, I've got a bird!" "Well, now you can go and spoon with her!" [Illustration] All were quite delighted with the wisdom shown by their tiny sovereign in dispensing justice. But before other important matters could be disposed of a fairy messenger named Pink with her petalled attire all flecked with dust dashed in great excitement into the throne-room. She had ridden many leagues upon a winged steed, and in its terrific speed which was far greater than that of the swiftest aeroplane it had used both wings and feet. Pink ran toward the throne to impart the news that had brought her in such hot haste, but the unexpected sight of Queen Titania stilled the words upon her frightened lips, and caused them to part instead with wonder and surprise. "This is Queen Titania," hastily explained Dame Drusilda, "who henceforth is to reign over us." Pink knelt low before Titania and kissed her royal robe. "Your Majesty," she said, "I am the bearer of bad news. Dragonfel the wicked enchanter across the sea has declared his intention of making trouble for the fairies." "Who told you this?" asked Queen Titania. "A little bird," was Pink's reply. [Illustration] "This is very serious," said Queen Titania gravely, "for little birds never tell fibs." There was a clamor of dismayed, excited voices, but the queen raised her wand for silence, and continued: "Though it may only be an idle threat, I will still appeal to Euphrosyne. Should we ever need her help right gladly she will give it." Her hearers all looked puzzled, and Dame Drusilda made bold to ask: "Who is Euphrosyne of whom you speak?" "Have you not heard of her?" Queen Titania asked, with much surprise. "She is the Goddess of Mirth, who tries to make the whole world happy--a most gigantic task. Come with me, and I will send her an invisible summons." With the Cupids bearing her train she passed with the fairies out to the palace courtyard where fountains played and flowers bloomed. There she raised her wand, and told them to look up. And doing so they beheld a most marvelous sight--a radiant, smiling-faced, gloriously beautiful young woman in classical white robes, with her sandalled feet resting ever so lightly upon one of the pearl-tinged clouds. [Illustration] Around her circled snowy doves, cooing, fluttering, and settling on her head, bare shoulders and arms. While Titania waved her wand, she suddenly gazed downward, as though something by means of an electric current had been transmitted to her through the air. She stroked a dove that had found its way trustingly to her hand, and as the others flew from her she herself seemed plumed for flight. The fairies watched her with a suspense that was almost painful, but to their great disappointment the passing clouds blotted her from sight. But even the fairies who all the time are witnessing the most wonderful things were quite astounded when Euphrosyne in what seemed to be the very next moment appeared with the dove right in their very midst. [Illustration] "What is your wish?" she said to Queen Titania. "Oh, beautiful Euphrosyne," said the little queen, "we are much concerned over the wicked Dragonfel." [Illustration] "The enchanter across the sea?" said Euphrosyne. "And what about him?" "He threatens harm to the fairies." "Do not borrow trouble," said Euphrosyne. [Illustration] "Sometimes people make foolish threats, and when others heed them they have a good deal of needless worry." All looked very much relieved, and Queen Titania said: "Your encouraging words comfort us greatly." "If I were you," advised Euphrosyne, "I'd always keep the portcullis down, and be very careful about admitting strangers. Don't let anyone in without a first-class reference. If Dragonfel annoys you, let me know." "But how?" asked Queen Titania. "You can send this magic dove to me!" They looked at her, but she was gone, and no one knew whither. She seemed to have just melted away. Where her hand had been there was a dove, and, as it started to flutter off, with some difficulty they caught it. Though she was very much encouraged by all Euphrosyne had said, Queen Titania still thought it prudent to post on one of the palace walls a warning placard so that those who ran might read. And, it proved a task that was sufficient to interest some of the fairies the rest of the afternoon, and, by the time they got through, they were able to make some show at hitting the nail on the head. [Illustration] CHAPTER III FLORIMEL REACHES THE ENCHANTED COUNTRY [Illustration] On and on flew Prince Florimel from the wicked uncle who meant to do him harm. The friendly stars shone down to guide him on his way, but just what that way was he did not know. His only thought to put the palace as far behind him as he could, and at times he turned his head to look back at its frowning, shadowy walls that finally disappeared from sight. Florimel gave a deep sigh of relief, but did not relax his speed in the slightest. The words of the faithful old Gando were strongly impressed upon his mind, and he realized that the duke had designs on his life. When it was discovered that he was missing, a search would be made for him, and once in the power of the duke it would go hard with him. So on he ran, and the few people whom he met paid little or no heed to him, thinking perhaps that he was some frightened peasant-child hastening to or from home upon some urgent night-errand. And as he went, always further and further away from the palace, the houses grew fewer and still fewer, till finally he found himself out in the open country. [Illustration] The stars were paling out, and by this time Florimel was very tired, so that when he saw a hay-stack in a field he quickly sought it, and burrowing from sight down into the sweet-smelling mass was soon asleep. The sun was up when he awoke refreshed. He heard the cooling trickle of a brook hard by, and drank thirstily, and laved his face and hands. Some distance off upon a dew-spangled hillside thin smoke curled lazily up from the thatched roof of a farmer's cottage. Florimel who felt the qualms of hunger drew nigh to it resolved to ask for food. As he approached the cottage a dog stretched out in the doorway to enjoy the first genial rays of the sun jumped up and started to bark, but almost instantly his barks ceased, and he wagged his tail instead with friendly violence. A stout, middle-aged woman with a kerchief on her head came to the open door and eyed him questioningly. "Good mother," he said, with a winning smile, "may I trespass upon your hospitality? I would fain break my fast, and this coin will pay my way." "Food have we a-plenty, and to spare," said the kind-hearted woman, "so that you are welcome to it. But who are you, and whence came you? You do not speak like a peasant's child." "Nay, I have some knowledge of fair speech," said Florimel. "Yet do I count myself one of the people. And I fare from the city in quest of adventure. See, I have brought this bow and quiver of arrows with me!" [Illustration] "Then most surely you will find it," said the dame, "for we live almost on the edge of the kingdom, and beyond that line of deep woods there is a strange country with adventure enough, I warrant you. But come with me, and sit you at the board. My good man has gone to loose the sheep from the fold, and will be back very soon." So Florimel followed his hostess into the plain kitchen, and took his place at a bare wooden table while she busied herself in the preparation of the meal. And, as he sat there, and she was occupied with her task, there rose from outside a sudden hub-bub, made up of the gallop of many horses' hoofs, the clank and rattle of swords and uniforms, and the jargon of excited human voices. The woman in great curiosity rushed from the oven to the door, and Florimel jumped down from his chair, running after her, and peering out from behind her. "Soldiers!" she cried, astounded beyond measure. "What are they doing here, I wonder?" [Illustration: LOOKING FOR BROWNIES] The farmer with cap in hand looked up at them, awed and confused by their fine airs and magnificence, and while they volleyed questions at him silently and stupidly shook his head, until at last in their impatience and disgust they put spurs to their horses' flanks and galloped off in clouds of dust. Then the good man ran toward the house, suddenly finding voice, and shouting at his wife: "Here's a great to do! The young Prince Florimel has disappeared in the night, and the whole kingdom is aroused!" Then noticing Florimel for the first time he asked: "But who is this?" "A chance guest to break his fast with us," said his wife. "But let us eat before the food grows cold." So Florimel partook heartily of the plain fare of the farmer and his wife, and throughout the meal the talk of his hosts was of the missing prince. "Poor lad!" said the woman with a sigh. [Illustration] "I hope that all is well with him. Yet much I fear this search for him is vain. His uncle, the duke, could tell, I warrant, what has happened to him. But he will never be heard of more, and the wicked duke will now be king." "You who have come from the city," said the farmer to Florimel, "no doubt some time have seen the poor prince. What kind of a young lad was he? A likely one, so I have heard." "He had his faults," admitted Florimel. "He was very small of build--no taller than I. When last I saw him he looked not unlike me. I doubt if he weighed a penny weight more." [Illustration] "Was he handsome?" asked the woman. "Am I handsome?" asked Florimel in return. "Candor compels me to tell you you are not," she frankly said, "though you are not ill-favored, either." "Still if I wore the prince's attire," said Florimel, "I would be as handsome as he. But let us change the subject. You spoke but a while ago of that strange country which lies adjacent to this. In what manner is it strange?" "But little is known of it," said the woman, "for, in truth, it is a place to be avoided. There are few humans bold enough to penetrate its mysteries, for in the forests and dense undergrowth are savage beasts that wreak harm. Often we can hear their wild cries at night, and our hearts are chilled. And, even if one escape the beasts, there are Brownies and fairies to weave their mystic charm." "Are the Brownies there too?" asked Florimel, with interest. [Illustration] "Aye, that they are!" said the woman. "But it is not the Brownies that would hurt you. They are kind little creatures who would help instead of harm you." "I would like to see them," said Florimel reflectively. "Many a night as I lay in my bed have I dreamed of the Brownies." "See them you cannot," said the woman decidedly, "since you have not second sight. Many have tried to see the Brownies, but they have failed through lack of supernatural vision. But there are Brownies nevertheless, and they go everywhere. Of that we have abundant proof, have we not, husband?" "Aye!" said the farmer. "Once when I lay flat upon my back, and the grain in the field was in danger of rot, the Brownies came one night and harvested it. In the morning it was all cut and stacked." "Yes," the good wife hastened to add, "and that very same night they churned the cream to butter." [Illustration] "Are you sure the Brownies did it?" asked Florimel, in surprise. "Who else but the Brownies?" said the farmer positively. "We had set a bowl of cream for that is all they ask, and next morning the cream was gone. Wife, show him the bowl!" The woman thereupon exhibited an empty blue delf bowl, and Florimel was convinced. He rose with his hosts from the table, and went to the doorway from which he gazed to the far line of woods that now held such charm for him. "Let me pay you my faring, good people," he said, "for I would be on my way." "Nay, there is naught you owe us," said the farmer, "for you have been a welcome guest. You are a fine young lad, and I have a fancy for you. You had better bide here with us. There is work for you to do for your board and lodging. I need someone to tend the sheep." "I thank you, my good man," said Florimel, "but I must leave you." "Whither would you go?" "To that strange country of which your good wife spoke." "Say not so, young master," implored the woman earnestly. "There are wild beasts there waiting to devour you." "And there are wild beasts of men sometimes even more terrible," said Florimel. "I will take my chances with the beasts. All that I have loved I have lost, so there is naught to keep me. Each moment I tarry but adds to the danger that encompasses me." "Master, can it be?--yes, it must be!" cried the man, with a great light breaking upon him. "You are the prince!" "Yes, I am indeed he!" said Florimel. "Convey word to my uncle that I am gone, and that the child of the brother who trusted in him will never trouble him again. If the people choose him for their ruler, let the consequences be on their own heads. And now farewell!" With this last word on his lips he broke into a run. The man with the best of intentions tried to follow in the hope of dissuading him from his rash purpose, while his wife frantically shouted for the young prince to come back. [Illustration] But with the bow and arrows that might mean so much to him Florimel only increased his pace, so that the other was soon distanced. Finally the man in despair gave up the chase, and stood watching until Florimel turned, waved his hand, and disappeared into the heavy growth of forest. And on and on he went, though nothing extraordinary befell him. So for three days he continued, suffering neither from hunger nor from thirst, for there were plenty of pure brooks at which he could lave and drink, and it was the time of the delicious tomtom, a juicy fruit everywhere in great abundance, which tasted like a banana flavored with vanilla ice cream, and which had all the sustaining qualities of beefsteak. Of this Florimel partook heartily and at will, as well as of berries and nuts, and when weary slept for precaution's sake in the forked branches of trees, with his rest broken only by the crashing of some skulking animal through thick, tangled underbrush in quest of prey or a long, drawn-out, shuddering night-cry that would chill his blood and cause his heart for a moment to cease its beat. Still there were trees growing thickly together, and retarding and making difficult one's advance. But, just when he was growing discouraged, they began to thin out, and he came into more open spaces. Finally he reached a tiny lake that shone like a turquoise in a bowl-like formation at the base of a steep hill. [Illustration] A path ran up the hillside, and this evidently had been much in use, for the grass was worn and trodden by many feet. On a ledge there was an old, decaying, leafless tree, and on one of its gaunt, top-branches that jutted over the lake a pair of intrepid eagles had built their nest. Florimel looked up and spied the young eaglets who were just old enough to essay flight, selfishly trying to crowd each other out of their airy structure of sticks and straws. Far overhead their parents described invisible circles in the sky, emitting as they did so harsh shrieks of pride. While he gazed upward, thinking meanwhile that it was a strange abode for eagles to choose, in place of the customary mountain-crag, he was suddenly startled by the savage roar of beasts. Quick as a flash he turned, and saw a wild, fierce, snarling pack--a confused, horrifying vision of lions, tigers, and leopards--their red tongues lolling from their watering mouths--their nostrils dilated at the scent of human blood--flying with leaps and bounds to rend and tear him apart and devour him. Desperately he seized an arrow from the quiver, and placing it in the bow pointed it at them and pulled back the cord. But the cord snapped in twain, and the arrow fell harmlessly to the ground. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV THE HUMAN OCTOPUS STARTS UPON A MISSION [Illustration] Across the minor sea whose blue, sparkling waters kissed the fair shores of Queen Titania's fairy kingdom, about a hundred leagues as flies the crow, there was another country where lived the notorious enchanter Dragonfel. A fairy messenger on a winged steed had conveyed information that Dragonfel intended to make trouble. But this was nothing new for Dragonfel. As a matter of fact, he was always trying to make trouble for everybody. Trouble was his specialty. Dragonfel was not a nice man, and, if you had known him, you would not have liked him. He cheated when he played croquet, and he was always claiming wickets that he never made. He did not go to Sunday School, either. If he had gone, he would not have put a penny in the plate for the heathen. That was the kind of man he was. Yet he was the possessor of fabulous riches, and he never would have missed what he might have given away had he been charitably inclined, which he was not in the least. No one else in the whole world was as wealthy as he. He owned a combination mine in which were diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and other precious gems galore, some of them as big as cobblestones. [Illustration] It may be said with safety that Dragonfel was inclined to have his own way, and carry out his own ideas. He was very rich, and had money to burn. When in the mood of celebrating some great event, such as the Burial of Good Intentions, or the Failure in Eden, instead of climbing on some rock to set off firecrackers, burn Roman candles, or discharge toy cannon, he delighted in burning Bank Bonds, Legal Tenders, or Government Securities of large denominations, until the ashes of them were declared a nuisance by his Board of Health, and with reluctance he would discontinue his celebration. As is usual in all such great operations there were panics at times, through alarms of fire, explosions, or escaping gas, when everybody tried to get out at once and but few could escape. One day it would be the danger of being smothered, the next of being roasted, the third of a cave-in where all would be buried alive, and so from hour to hour fear was in the way. [Illustration: Distress in the Mine.] There were mine-sprites whom he kept steadily at work, without regard for Union hours, digging the gems out with their fingers. The poor mine-sprites were greatly over-worked, and not the least regard was paid to life or limb. The hours were long as they struggled at the wheelbarrows or mine-carts, either pushing or pulling, with their unreasonable loads piled high in the air, and with gems that in the market would have brought enough to pay the debt of a Principality slipping off, and rolling in the dust. [Illustration] The palace of Dragonfel was a sight, and it would have made your eyes blink to see it. It was constructed entirely of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds all stuck together with cement. There were no opals, because Dragonfel thought they were unlucky. If you could have pried off any one of them you would have had enough to keep you in the greatest luxury all your life. The famous Kohinoor was but a grain of sand compared to any of them. Back of the palace, and casting a frowning shadow over it, was a single towering mountain whose top was an extinct volcano. No one could recall the exact date of its last eruption, for Dragonfel stubbornly insisted upon running his business without an almanac. There were those scientifically inclined who leaned to the theory that the volcano had been the cause of all the gems in Dragonfel's mine. [Illustration] Though it must have been a very long time since the volcano had celebrated with home-made fireworks, the enchanter had always anticipated a further display, so he had taken the precaution to buy an old-fashioned fire-engine which was installed conveniently at hand in a building over whose doors was the caption: NEPTUNE HOOK AND LADDER CO. NO 1. In the building were plenty of rubber coats, boots, and red helmets. Everything was ready for an emergency. There were some who declared that Dragonfel had some business connection with Beelzebub, but, whether this was true or not, he had the bad taste to get himself up after the authentic portraits of that disreputable person. He was very tall indeed, with almost a scarlet countenance, and he wore a long, flowing cloak that was a perfect match for his complexion. He kept his hair rather long, and brushed it stiffly up, to convey the impression that he had a natural horn. [Illustration] He boasted a host of followers, all big, hulking black-guards of giant-like stature, with repulsive names such as Boundingbore, Mandrake, Wolfinger, Grouthead, Snoutpimple, and the like, and whenever they did something mean he rewarded them. The consequence was that they were trying to do mean things all the time. They were in charge of the mine, and the way they treated the poor mine-sprites was awful. It was a good thing for them that the officers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children were unable to get around. So on a certain day, following his usual custom, Dragonfel was making an inspection of the mine. He had descended through a secret passage, and walked about the dark chambers lit here and there by gloomy flares of light. [Illustration] Guarded by the enchanter's cruel followers, the mine-sprites, poor little, emaciated, witch-like creatures in tattered clothes, were digging away with their raw, bruised fingers at the sides of earth and exhuming precious stones. They were not allowed to use picks, for that would have made the work easy. Diamonds, rubies, pearls, amethysts, emeralds, and other gems, every one of them worth a king's ransom, lay piled about carelessly in heaps. The opals when they were discovered were thrown away. Sprites kept staggering off with heavy loads in wheelbarrows. Dragonfel surveyed the work with great satisfaction, and asked Grouthead who was in general charge: "When were they fed last?" "Three days ago, kind master!" Everyone called him "kind master," though whether this was in sarcasm or not no one knew. "See that they don't get anything to eat before the full week is up," ordered Dragonfel. "And that reminds me of my own dinner. Boundingbore, tell the cook I want turtle soup, spiced venison pastries, apple dumplings, strawberry shortcake, and iced lemonade with plenty of crushed raspberries in it." The mouths of the poor little mine-sprites watered, and they smacked their lips, but Grouthead snapped his long snake-whip so that it sounded like a pistol-shot, and they frantically continued digging away in the earth with their fingers. Boundingbore flew to do Dragonfel's bidding, and Snoutpimple observed, rather timidly: "The air down here is very bad, kind master!" "That's good," said Dragonfel, with hearty unction. "It might make me ill if I were obliged to remain, so as I have a proper regard for my health I think I will get right out into the open." Attended by Mandrake, Snoutpimple, Wolfinger, and some of the rest, he went on his way, while Grouthead snapped his whip to incite the frightened, gasping, exhausted mine-sprites to further effort. [Illustration: HELPLESSNESS IN THE MINE.] When he came up out of the shaft Dragonfel gave a deep breath of relief as his nostrils sucked in the bracing air that had a salt tang of the sea in it. Out in the harbor there tossed a galleon on the lazy swell--a craft built low amid-ship, and with both bow and stern curving high into the air. Dragonfel gazed off at it with interest, and remarked: "It may come in handy soon if these Brownies and fairies continue longer. They are getting altogether too good, and must be stopped. But let us go back to the palace to see if anything has happened in our absence." Nothing else was to be seen on the wide water to draw his attention, except some mermaids who were above the waves, engaged in combing their hair, who, to most people, are very interesting. [Illustration] A little bird with very acute hearing listened intently to his words as it lightly balanced on the twig of a gumdrop tree, and then flew straight across the sea to tell a fairy, who told the other fairies. Dragonfel with his big, clumsy, lumbering cohorts strode on to the palace that was guarded by a Demon Usher--a queer, comical-looking chap who with his wings much resembled a human grasshopper, and who half flew, half walked. He had thin little wisps of hair sticking out from each side of his nose, like the scanty whiskers of a cat. The Demon Usher with hops and jumps escorted him to a magnificent throne, and grovelled with smirks before him, while Dragonfel with what he thought to be the quintessence of grace sank upon it, and then arranged himself in what he imagined was a kingly posture. "Well," he gruffly said, "has anyone been here since I've been gone?" "No, kind master!" the Demon Usher hastened to assure him. "No one has been here since the band and you remember them." "Ah, that band!" repeated Dragonfel, with a shudder. "I can't get their notes out of my ears yet. But what have we here?" [Illustration] A huge creature resembling an octopus, with great, staring eyes popping from his head, and hundreds of fuzzy tentacles protruding in all directions from his grotesque body, came crawling toward him. Straightway Dragonfel sprang up from the throne, while Wolfinger, Mandrake, Boundingbore, and Snoutpimple, who had assumed respectful positions at his sides, drew back in alarm. But the Demon Usher gave a cackle of a laugh, and gleefully rubbed his hands together as though he were washing them with invisible soap. "Have no fear, kind master!" said a thin, piping voice from somewhere within the horrid creature's hulk. "Is not this a pretty disguise?" "The Red Spirit, as I live!" cried Dragonfel, in a tone of admiration not unmixed with relief. "You rascal, why have you chosen this masquerade?" "But is it not a clever one?" persisted the Red Spirit. "See, kind master, I can either compress or expand myself at will." As he spoke he shrank to practical insignificance, and then almost immediately afterward swelled out until it seemed that he would burst. "Capital!" said Dragonfel encouragingly. "You can be of great assistance to me. I have a mean task for you to do." "The meaner the better, kind master!" Dragonfel raised his arm, and pointed toward a window that gave a vista of the far-off, smiling sea. "Go, Human Octopus," he commanded, "and spy upon the Brownies and fairies!" Without another word the hideous object started to crawl off by means of his myriad tentacles, and all who were present watched his convulsive, eccentric movements with malicious satisfaction. [Illustration] CHAPTER V PRINCE FLORIMEL MEETS THE BROWNIES [Illustration] Prince Florimel gave a great shudder of fright when the gift of his ex-fairy godmother so utterly failed him in that moment of terrible danger. As the savage beasts, screaming for his blood, came toward him, he turned and fled, without relaxing his hold upon the treacherous bow. He made a frantic leap for the trunk of the tree, and grasping one of the low branches pulled himself up with desperate haste as far as he could. The beasts with thunderous roars and sharp teeth showing sprang up at him, and a lion with knife-like claws just grazed the skin of one of his legs, and tore off a portion of his garment. Florimel climbed up further, and still further, for safety, while the animals roaring their defeat continued to hurl themselves at the tree until it shook and shook again. [Illustration] Finally they took to fighting among themselves, with outcries that were terrible, and finished by slinking or limping away discomfited. [Illustration] The eaglets disturbed by all this clamor perched on the edges of their nest as though deliberating upon the hazard of trying for the first time their wings in the dizzy space of blue. High overhead their angry parents soared screaming their protests at what seemed to them an unwarrantable intrusion. Still retaining the bow, Florimel climbed out toward the nest, intending to usurp possession of it, and with timid flaps of their untried wings the eaglets essayed flight. Finding they could fly, they soon gained confidence, and joined the parent-birds who led them a mad aerial chase. Soon Florimel was the sole tenant of the nest, and, after he had established himself comfortably in his new quarters, he set about to repair the damage to the bow. He tied the broken cord securely, and drew it taut, pulling it back as far as he could repeatedly, but he did not waste in a trial one of the remaining arrows in his quiver. For, though it had already brought to him one grievous disappointment, he still had faith in his ex-fairy godmother's gift. [Illustration] The eagles resenting his possession of their home kept flying threateningly at him, but every time they came near he menaced them with the bow and drove them away. Finally they alighted on another limb of the tree, where they all sat in a row viewing him with silent moody protest. Worn by fatigue and excitement Florimel closed his eyes in sleep, with an arm bared to the elbow hanging from the nest. When at last he was awakened by a confused babel of voices from below, dusk had fallen, and a crescent moon hung low in the sky. The eagles young and old in agitated manner once more were circling the darkening sky, and leaning over the nest and looking down Florimel was astounded by what he saw. And no less astounded than he was were a band of little people who had caught a glimpse of that rounded human arm sticking from an eagles' nest with consequent and complete mystification to all. In a ring and with characteristic postures they stood gabbling among themselves and pointing up--a queer, very queer race, all males, with round fat little pot-bellies, thin, spindling shanks, long, tapering feet, and babyish-looking heads set on their shoulders apparently without connecting necks. And these heads had large ears, wide mouths, and pop eyes--a combination that ordinarily would make the possessor of them ugly, but which in their case contributed general results that made them unusually winning and attractive. As Florimel looked down he could note that there were many of one type--tiny fellows who wore the same kinds of caps and jackets. But there were others too--one of each kind--a Policeman with a club, a Sailor with a spy-glass, an Indian, a Cowboy, and a single representative from every country of importance in the world. England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal, China, Japan, the United States, Canada, and other lands had their delegates whom Florimel could distinguish by means of a strange human picture-book in the museum of the kingdom from which he had flown, and which often he had been permitted to see. And, while he marveled and wondered thereat, his keen eye alighted on another too--a tiny chap with high-topped, bell-crowned hat, black clothes with swallow-tail, a wide expanse of spotless white shirt-bosom, spats, and glistening patent-leather shoes--a pompous, vain, conceited, immaculate-looking little fellow who carried a cane that seemed a part of him, and who wore a round piece of glass over one of his eyes. [Illustration] In order to obtain a better view Florimel leaned further over, and so disturbed the architecture of the nest, from which the sticks began to fall, until he felt the whole foundation going. But so suddenly did this occur that he did not have a chance to grasp a saving branch, and in a trice plunged through the bottomless structure down--down--down-- He closed his dizzy frightened eyes, struck the waters of the lake, then disappeared from sight. The curious band watching him were quick to realize his predicament. Without loss of time they ran to a shelf of rock that over-hung the lake, and one and all jumped in after him. Ker-splash! ker-splash! resounded on all sides until the water was dotted with bobbing heads. [Illustration] As Florimel came to the surface, blinded and choking, someone quickly grasped him, and, while the rest formed a living chain, he was passed on from one to another, until the last dragged him safely to shore. Soon they were all gathered about in a ring, with Florimel in the centre, and, while the soft wind dried their dripping clothes, they looked at him, and he at them, with wonder and surprise on all their faces. [Illustration] "Avast there, messmates!" said the Sailor to the rest. "What did I tell you? He can see us!" And the cry was taken up all around the ring: "He can see us! He can see us!" "Why shouldn't I be able to see you?" said Florimel, rather impatiently. "I have eyes." "Yes," said one who wore a long black gown, and who had a tasseled mortarboard on his head, "but so have other people. It takes second sight to see the Brownies." The Brownies! Florimel's heart gave a sudden bound. "Much am I beholden to you all," he said, "for having rescued me. If you had not saved me I should have been obliged to save myself." "Can you swim?" asked the Sailor, while all looked much chagrined. "Like any duck!" was Florimel's response. "But are you mortal?" questioned the Uncle Sam Brownie. "No mortal eye has ever yet beheld us." "My ex-fairy godmother at my christening bestowed on me the gift of second sight," explained Florimel, "so that I have always been able to see things no one else could." "Ah, that accounts for it," said the Irish Brownie, while the faces of all the others showed that a great mystery had suddenly been cleared away. "You must have supernatural powers." "Of that I am not sure," said Florimel, "but of this much I am, that right gladly would I be one of you, to work and toil while weary households sleep, to delight in harmless pranks and helpful deeds, and never be seen by mortal eye." They looked at each other, evidently embarrassed by so bold a hint, and the Brownie Dude voiced the thought that was in all minds when he fervently remarked: "I wish King Stanislaus were here!" "But you are not a Brownie!" said the Chinaman to Florimel in a most decided tone. "How could you join the band? You don't look like a Brownie. What have you ever done?" "Nothing, I fear," confessed Florimel. "It is not what I have not done, but what I hope to do, that makes me so presumptuous as to beg the honor to be one of you. And, if I were fortunate enough to be taken in by you, I would ever strive to be helpful, faithful, and true, like a Brownie." These words, delivered with earnest, manly spirit, created their impression. "It may be you have supernatural powers, as the Irishman remarked," said the Student Brownie doubtfully. "Have you ever tried to put them to a test?" Prince Florimel sighed. What could he do to gain the confidence and esteem of these little people whom already he was beginning to love? How could he make them all his friends? In his doubt and uncertainty his eye strayed to the bow in his hand. A sudden thought came to him. In this extremity it might be of aid. But it had failed him once--would it fail him again? Without a word he took an arrow from the quiver and placed it to the bow. The Brownies watched his every movement with the keenest interest. He gazed about seeking some difficult target at which to aim. With their pop eyes the Brownies gazed where he did. He saw the crescent moon hanging low in the deepening sky, like a hunter's horn, and pointed the arrow at it. He pulled back the cord with all his strength, and to his great relief it held. The arrow whistled away in its swift flight, and was lost in the violet atmosphere. But almost the next moment a great cry of surprise went up from all the Brownies. The arrow that Florimel had shot was sticking through the moon! [Illustration] CHAPTER VI THE HUMAN OCTOPUS SNOOPS AROUND [Illustration] Watched by the admiring eyes of Dragonfel and his followers the Human Octopus wriggled and squirmed his way out of the enchanter's palace. And, whether he flew through the air, or swam through the waters, to Queen Titania's fairy kingdom, using his tentacles as propellers, is a matter for conjecture. But, at any rate, he got there with all tentacles. Whenever his suspicions were aroused, or there was the slightest doubt, he would hastily secrete himself among shrubbery or weeds, with which his mottled green sides proved a perfect match, so that as a whole he blended in admirably with the vegetation. He did not have a heart, a rather sluggish liver performing for him instead the necessary functions of the other organ, and, as he approached Queen Titania's palace with due caution, it thumped with torpid pleasure. [Illustration] If there was anything he liked above all others it was sneaking, and the job which Dragonfel had given him presented most attractive possibilities. Noting a gurgling brook in the proximity of the portcullis, he took great pains to soak the round pad-like ends of his tentacles in water so that when they were applied to a flat surface they would adhere through atmospheric pressure sufficiently to bear his weight. In such a manner, when no one was looking, did the wily rascal climb up the high garden-wall and down the other side, wriggling and squirming with ill-concealed chuckles toward the palace. Only the magic dove that Euphrosyne had left, which was preening itself on the edge of a fountain's basin, saw him, with the result that it was strongly tempted to fly back to the Goddess of Mirth forthwith. At the fountain the Human Octopus took the precaution to again soak his multifarious pads in water, after which with his goggle eyes he cocked his head in a professional survey of the palace. Then he began to ascend one of its towering walls. Higher and higher, and still higher, he went in perfect safety until at last he gained the roof and squatted on the top of a chimney. [Illustration] There he skillfully compressed himself to fit the dimensions of the flue, after which he began to let himself gently down like an elevator-car. A great volume of black, greasy smoke from the kitchen suddenly belched forth and hid him from sight. [Illustration] It was not so long afterward that, all covered with soot, he crawled out of the big open fireplace in the throne-room. Before he did so he made sure to satisfy himself that no one was there. But there was no telling when someone might come, and he knew it behooved him to secrete himself and instantly. His goggle eyes oscillated in all directions around the room, and he craftily selected for his hiding-place a great tall clock that stood up close against the wall in a corner by itself. [Illustration] It was not a grandfather's clock, for there were no grandfathers in Queen Titania's kingdom. It was what might more properly be termed a grandmother's clock. The villain opened the door, and projected himself into the clock's interior, being obliged in order to accomplish this to make his proportions squarish and oblong. His queer-looking head showed at the top instead of the clock's face. Then with one of his tentacles glued to the door he pulled it back in its place. "Now we shall see what we shall see," he snorted. "I must be patient and bide my time." The big brass pendulum swaying rhythmically to and fro with its measured tick-tock! tick-tock! kept hitting his stomach, and it tickled him so that it was all he could do to keep from laughing. But he knew that he must not do so. If he even snickered he might betray himself. So he put a number of his tentacles over his mouth and tried hard to keep a straight face. Now, though every month was a fair month, a rare month, for the murmur of the little streams was never hushed, and the fruits and flowers always were in bloom, with the skies mostly blue above them, and the winds soft and kind, May to the fairies' way of thinking was the sweetest of all the happy year, and whenever it came round it was tendered a becoming ceremony. The Eve o' May was a holiday, though it might truthfully be said that every day was a holiday. But at this particular time when all nature was at its best there were special observances that sprang from the gladness and exultation in all hearts, the very joy of existence, and the happiness that was manifested by every living thing. Queen Titania and her fairies prepared for the innocent revels and dances that were to occur on a velvet sward some distance from the palace grounds, and their hearts were pleasantly thrilled by a notice with some pictures of Brownies that had been mysteriously tacked up in the neighborhood. Marvelous was the flower-texture of the gowns donned for this gala occasion, and in her robes of blush-pink mossrose petals which swept away in a long, fragrant train Titania never looked more beautiful and charming. Little old Dame Drusilda who resembled a human morning-glory, with hat, bodice, and dress all like cornucopias, fumed, fretted, and ordered all the other fairies around. "As I live," the fussy dame declared, "we've forgotten to wind the big clock, and it's almost run down. Violet and Daffodil, go to the throne-room, and attend to this before we start." The two good-naturedly ran to do her bidding, and when he saw them coming the Human Octopus had an uneasy qualm. He hastily tried to distort his ugly face into a resemblance of the Roman numerals, and stuck up two tentacles for the hour and minute hands, but the deception was a poor one, and would not work. Violet and Daffodil set about to wind the clock, but, on looking up to note the time, they were confronted by a face twisted in an expression that the Human Octopus very foolishly thought invited confidence, but which instead sent them scurrying and hurrying with gathered-up flower skirts and ear-splitting shrieks from the room. [Illustration] "I wonder what they're scared of," said the stupid fellow to himself. "Well, it isn't the first time I've given folks a start in life. And now it behooves me to remove myself from here forthwith, if not sooner, for if they come back and catch me the jig is up!" The tick-tock! tick-tock! of the pendulum reminded him that every moment was precious, so he scrambled out of the clock, and wig-wagged his way out of the room. When he came to a fountain he lumberingly clambered up into the basin, and puddled around in the water to get the soot off, and once more as the dove watched him perform his ablutions it found it difficult to refrain from flying back to Euphrosyne. [Illustration] The Human Octopus peered through a lattice, but none of the fairies was in sight. Then he hustled up the garden-wall, and down the other side, finally secreting himself in a big floral urn by the portcullis, where he awaited further developments. No one would have guessed he was there, for he seemed to be a part of the luxuriant green growth, and he even let his tentacles droop gracefully over with the branches and stalks of the palms and ferns to heighten the illusion. Meanwhile Violet and Daffodil were telling a most harrowing story to Queen Titania and the rest of the fairies, but so frightened were they still that it was hardly intelligible. Finally they were all prevailed upon to accompany the two to the throne-room to see for themselves. Nothing was inside the clock, of course, but the brass works. "It seems to me you both have very vivid imaginations, young ladies," chided Dame Drusilda. "After this I would let Welsh rabbits alone." "It's not there now, but it was there," persisted Violet stoutly, "and it was the most dreadful looking thing you ever saw." "It was worse than that," added Daffodil. "It was the most dreadful looking thing you never saw." [Illustration] "Well, even if there was such a horrid creature, it's gone," said Queen Titania comfortingly, "so why should we trouble ourselves about it any longer? It's time for our revels to begin, and if we don't hurry up the ice cream will all melt, and remember there's angel-cake, charlotte russe, and lemonade besides!" The tiny Cupids, whose hearts were going pit-a-pat, for they believed implicitly every word that Violet and Daffodil had said, hastily gathered up Her Majesty's train. All started from the palace, the portcullis being raised to let them pass, and from his hiding-place in the urn the Human Octopus with his big, gloating, goggle eyes noted every movement that they made. But they had no suspicion that he lurked among the palms and ferns. [Illustration] After they had disappeared from sight he flopped down, and keeping his eyes close to the earth followed the wee footprints that they made. His sleuth-like, sneaky search led him straight to where the fairies sported on the green, and as he drew nearer to them he exercised more caution. He compressed himself more closely to the ground, and picking out a luxuriant clump of peculiar rainbow roses whose leaves afforded a most effective screen he crawled to it to wait and bide his time. As he watched the innocent, happy fays garlanded with fragrant, many-hued flowers pose and pirouette he could not deny to them with a certain grace that many enthusiasts would have pronounced most exquisite. But he had never been to dancing school, and he did not trip the light, fantastic tentacle himself. He was greatly interested in all he saw, however, and even more so when at last he noticed Queen Titania, the Cupids, and several of the fairies leave the lithe, flushed, happy group. For Queen Titania had spied the rainbow roses, different from all the rest, and ran with eager, sparkling eyes to fill her arms with them. Little she dreamed of the danger that lurked in all their perfumed radiance. Swiftly she came, outdistancing the others, and as she bent over in sweet, innocent pillage the mean, contemptible nature of the Human Octopus manifested itself. Forgetful of his diplomatic mission, he wound his tentacles around her until she looked like a mesh-bag. When she began almost instantly to scream he grimly increased the pressure. The fairies and Cupids, horrified beyond measure by what they beheld, and helpless to aid their beloved queen, fled with wild cries. The Human Octopus tightened his cruel grip. Titania's head fell back, her golden hair streamed over her shoulders, her eyes distended, and she could not get her breath. Slowly but surely the Human Octopus was strangling her! [Illustration] CHAPTER VII FLORIMEL IS ADOPTED BY KING STANISLAUS [Illustration] Delighted beyond measure were all the Brownies with Prince Florimel's most amazing feat, and their pleasure manifested itself in broad smiles upon smug faces, the nodding of round little heads, the slapping of hands on each other's backs, and the good-natured poking of fists in each other's stomachs. They pressed close to Florimel and kept wringing his hand in congratulation. Not even a Brownie could do what he had done. All wanted to examine the bow that had accomplished a result so wonderful. But it was just like the ordinary bow of any archer, and its wood and gut presented no solution of the remarkable happening; it was no story, they saw it themselves. Then, noting that Florimel's attire was torn in many places, and that here and there his fair flesh showed, they stripped him of his garments, replacing them with skin-tight trousers that with the greatest difficulty they drew over his legs, long, tapering shoes, a jacket with big buttons, and a pinnacle-shaped cap whose top could not sustain itself but fell over on his head. Many nimble hands attended to his valeting, and though Florimel observed that he was garbed as an ordinary Brownie, of which there were a large number, he was rejoiced at the eagerness they now displayed to transform him to a Brownie, and make him one of themselves. Yet he could not help thinking, as he glanced first at them, and then at himself, how different he was from them all. [Illustration] Try as they might they could not bestow on him the pop eyes, big ears, and broad, distended mouth that parted in a smile so evident of inward satisfaction. He was as fair and sightly as one could wish to be, yet he would rather have looked like a Brownie. Only in size did he resemble one. Some such thought must have been in the minds of the Brownies too, for they seemed puzzled as they inspected their new comrade. While they were making their first awkward overtures of friendship the attention of all was suddenly diverted to two ordinary Brownies rolling a watermelon up the steep hill. The melon was perhaps thrice their size, and they puffed and grunted over what to them was a herculean task. [Illustration] Just when their labor promised to be light, with the crest of the hill almost reached, they stopped to take their breath, and in doing so relinquished their hold on the melon. [Illustration] Bumpety-bumpety! it started rolling down the hill. Both ran after it in pursuit, then realizing that they were being distanced stood stock-still with horror on their faces. Bumpety-bumpety! came the big melon, with ever increasing momentum, while the eyes of Florimel and all the rest followed its erratic course down the hill--bumpety-bumpety!--with leaps and bounds--bumpety-bumpety!--first to one side, then to another, bumpety-bumpety!--till it finished with an extra high bound and squashed all to pieces right in their very midst. Little jets of sweet water shot in all directions from its sides as though projected from a syphon, and out from the juicy, luscious, red pulp exposed to view there crawled sheepishly on his hands and knees a little weazened old fellow who wore an ermine cape and gold crown. [Illustration] "Hail, Your Majesty!" shouted all the Brownies, and the little old fellow stood up, rubbed himself, and said, rather ruefully: "No, I'd rather reign!" Then the Brownies, under the leadership of the Dude, yelled, in perfect unison: "'Rah! 'rah! 'rah! Stan-is-laus! Siss-boom-ah!" "Thanks!" graciously acknowledged His Majesty, adding by way of explanation: "I chose this watermelon green To shun the treacherous submarine!" Then a puzzled expression came to his face as his eye suddenly observed Florimel. "Why, who's this fellow?" he demanded. "You're not trying to make a Brownie of him, are you?" Florimel's heart sank, for he realized that here was the king himself, whose word was absolute law to all these little people. If he frowned down on any plans they had made in his behalf, all the hopes that had sprung up in his breast would be ruthlessly shattered. The Brownies seemed troubled too, for they would not have brought displeasure to King Stanislaus for all the world. While the new-comer stood looking timidly down, without daring to meet the questioning gaze of that kindly but august monarch, his little companions made bold to extol his virtues real and imaginary till their tongues were all wagging at such a great rate that Florimel could not help but furiously blush. First they pointed to the crescent moon, still pierced by the arrow, averring earnestly that it was Florimel's accomplishment, and the sudden start King Stanislaus gave when he beheld this marvel showed that he was properly impressed. Then they called his attention to the eagles' nest high up in the tree, explaining that it was there they first saw the stranger, after which they waited anxiously as did Florimel to hear what His Majesty would say. King Stanislaus looked not displeased, and one and all took heart. "If Moses was found among the frogs, and Romulus among the wolves," said the monarch, with great deliberation, "then an eagles' nest is a fitting cradle for a Brownie prince!" This speech caused the Brownies to burst into a sudden wild cheer that made the welkin ring, for they realized that not only had King Stanislaus set approval on what they had done, but he had gone much further. [Illustration] He had made Florimel his heir by adoption, and successor to the Brownie throne! "See that he is properly attired," was the royal command, and once more Florimel's appearance underwent a swift and startling change. From some invisible source fresh wardrobe was supplied, and from a plain, ordinary Brownie he was transformed into a handsome, dashing little prince as pert and pretty a sprig of royalty as one could see in many a long journey over lands where there were kings and queens with large, flourishing families--in trunks, doublet, and cape, with a cap that perched jauntily upon his roguish curls. Filled with gratitude was he over this great, this unexpected honor that had befallen him and he expressed his thanks as best he could feeling that the words he used were poor at best, but vowing loyalty and obedience in all things evermore to his gracious foster-parent. "It will not be so very long, my son, before you occupy the throne," said King Stanislaus, and his voice took on a rather pensive tone. "A few short years--a couple of thousands or so--and I shall have passed away. When I am gone I shall leave to you all-out-doors and the love of children, a priceless heritage which you must treasure tenderly and never lose." Then came the Brownies with pledges of fealty to their prince, and Florimel smiled back into their smiling faces, while all were glad. The Policeman limping slightly came and offered him his club, but Florimel good-humoredly refused it, and waved him aside. The Sailor came next with his spy-glass, but Florimel laughingly declined it also. Each of the band in a free-hearted way evinced a desire to surrender to him his most cherished possession, and much touched was he by their expressions of good will. But the most he would accept was an eagle's feather which had been dropped by one of the birds to the ground, and which the Dude stuck in his cap. Soon matters took on their usual routine, and, noticing that the Policeman limped, King Stanislaus asked: "Officer, what's the matter?" [Illustration] "I fell off the palace-wall last night, Your Majesty, when I was tacking up the placard." "What did you fall against?" "I fell against my will. One of the fairy guards mistook me for an enemy, and fired a charge of shot at me." "Did you press a complaint?" "No, I withdrew the charge." Into an admiring group some distance off the well-informed Dude was instilling the first principles of etiquette. "It is not good form to try to eat your peas with a knife," he told them. "You should spear them with a fork." And the Sailor was growling to the German: "Avast there, you lubber! A dog-watch isn't a chronometer." The Indian with a flourish of his tomahawk came running to King Stanislaus, and imparted the surprising intelligence: "The dromedary's swallowed all the door-knobs, and the knobs are in his stomachs." "Which one of his stomachs?" "I don't know, Your Majesty." "Can't you see which looks the knobbiest?" Florimel could not but admire the shrewdness of King Stanislaus in disposing of all matters great and small, and he did not feel that he could ever reign and be as wise as he. The little monarch held his subjects under most admirable control, and in arguments that sometimes rose between them one word from his lips would effectually settle all dispute. And so they wandered on and on, hiding away from sight ere the first rays of the morning sun could strike them, and sallying forth again when the stars began to shine at night. Many a harmless prank they played, and helpful deed they did, in which Florimel took hearty part, and he grew to love them more and more, as they did him. One thing was a source of great surprise to him, yet, after he considered, it was not surprising, which was that all dumb creatures, whether of the fields or air, were the Brownies' friends, and loved them. In countless ways they all evinced delight whenever these good-natured little goblings were at hand, for they knew that they would help instead of harm them. Even the savage animals that had so lately thirsted for Florimel's blood proved tractable, and neither they nor the Brownies showed the slightest fear of each other. The beasts grovelled and rolled over with pleasure when the Brownies playfully yanked and pulled their tails. All was harmony between them, and the industrious animals went on with their task of gathering bones without caring whether the Brownies were near or far. [Illustration] So on they fared with light hearts that had never a care. The country grew less wild and mountainous, till there were emerald fields, green copses, and flowers blooming everywhere. The sweet, caressing air had just a soft reminder of the sea in it. And, while they hid away one day in a leafy covert, while the birds in the branches round them were pouring their hearts out in gladness, piercing screams suddenly rent the air, and caused all great alarm. "Let us make haste!" cried Florimel, springing to his feet. "There is danger in that cry!" But when he started King Stanislaus tried to hold him back. "Have a care, Florimel!" he warned. "It may be a decoy to entrap us!" "Let me go!" said Florimel, struggling. He broke from King Stanislaus's kindly, well-meant grasp, and ran with might and main in the direction from which the terrifying sounds still came. The Brownies looked at each other in great dismay. Into what danger had their beloved Prince Florimel so recklessly plunged, and would they ever see his face again? [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII QUEEN TITANIA'S GREAT PERIL [Illustration] Prince Florimel sped with the fleetness of a deer in the direction from which had come those agonizing cries for help. As he fairly flew over the ground he saw the fairies and Cupids who had been Titania's companions, and they pointed in a frenzy of alarm to the clump of rainbow roses in the midst of which their unfortunate queen was in the clutches of the dreadful Human Octopus. The monster was still tightening his vise-like grip, and tortured by the pain of his loathsome embrace, Titania was fast relapsing into unconsciousness. [Illustration] Florimel drew near, and was aghast at what he beheld. As his eye took in the frightening spectacle he realized that there was not a moment to lose. Quick as a flash he whipped an arrow from his quiver and placed it to the bow. He aimed the arrow straight at the Human Octopus, and back to its greatest tension pulled the cord. Once again the cord proved true, and the speeding arrow cleft the Human Octopus in twain. His shell fell instantly apart, and from the interior there flew away into space a vapory-looking object with a long, trailing red cloak that had all the lightness and airiness of gauze. Dumfounded was Florimel by this most unexpected and amazing sight, but there were other matters more urgent and pressing to demand his immediate attention. [Illustration] With her strength almost spent Titania reeled and seemed about to faint, but Florimel sprang to her aid, and sustained her in his arms. He strove to assure her that there was nothing further to fear until at last she began to recover her composure. "Noble prince," she murmured, in tones that thrilled him, "you have saved my life, so henceforth it is yours!" Florimel sank upon one knee before her, and kissed the pink finger-tips of the dainty hand she extended to him. Looking up into her face, he thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful as she, while her tiny heart throbbed faster at the sight of him in all his gallant trappings, and she was very sure she had never seen anyone so handsome. [Illustration] Then came in the greatest excitement all the fairies and Brownies, for these latter little people when Florimel left them had followed close upon his heels to aid him if need be, since, in spite of mystic power that had temporarily passed with night, they were too brave to desert a comrade when danger threatened. [Illustration] The horror and fear of what they had just witnessed was too much for many of the fairies, and the kind-hearted Brownies had the interesting task of conveying some to places of safety, where they could receive proper treatment. In this work even the Chinaman willingly assisted. [Illustration] A group of curious sprites with much interest inspected several of the creature's tentacles, while Queen Titania's overjoyed subjects crowded around Florimel with such profuse expressions of gratitude that he was much embarrassed. "What did I tell you?" cried Violet, and "What did I tell you?" echoed Daffodil, while all with much timidity examined the green, mottled shell that lay in halves upon the ground. "That was the horrid thing we saw in the clock." "Well, never mind now," said Queen Titania, with a sigh of relief. "The monster will not trouble us again." In spite of what the queen said, Florimel was not so sure that they would have no more trouble, since he had seen the wraith-like Red Spirit fly from the shell of the Human Octopus off into the air. [Illustration] Somewhere he feared this strange, evil being lurked to wreak further harm. Not wishing to cause uneasiness to Queen Titania, however, he said never a word. Then Brownies and fairies mingled together in happy, joyous mood. But Florimel and Titania withdrew from all the rest, and had eyes only for each other. "I think I can guess how all this is going to end," said the Policeman to the Sailor, in a voice that showed great resentment. "Avast, you lubber!" sharply reproved the Sailor. "Now what d'ye mean?" "I mean that Florimel has fallen in love with the queen, and will marry her." "How can he? Florimel is a Brownie, and Brownies never marry." "But Florimel is not a real Brownie. He's only been taken into the band. Just look at them now!" The Sailor cocked his eye to where Florimel was bending over Titania, with his head very close to hers. "Shiver my timbers!" he cried. "They do look orange-blossomy!" [Illustration] Noting the impression Queen Titania was making upon Prince Florimel, Dame Drusilda determined to exercise her arts upon the immaculate little Dude, with whom she was very much taken. "I hear," she remarked to the Student, "that he is connected with the best families." "Yes," he replied, rather enviously, "he sometimes is by telephone." But as soon as she could do so she joined the group in which the Dude held forth vivaciously, and when opportunity presented itself contrived to say: "Ah, sir, in your pretty ways you remind me of the gallants of old times!" "You must be able to remember quite far back," he said, as he looked at her through his monocle. "Forsooth, kind sir," she hastened to say, "I only speak through hearsay. What I know my great-grandmother told my grandmother, who told my mother, who in turn told me. As you can plainly see I am different from other fairies. They call me a beauty of the old school." "Hasn't school been out a good many years?" he asked. "I fail to comprehend you," she said, with a blush. "Mayhap you are not susceptible to beauty. Yet I have heard it often remarked that a beautiful woman can make the strongest man go down on his knees." The Dude gave his cuffs an admiring glance. "So can a collar-button!" he said. The day passed in sports and merry-making, followed by other days in which the Brownies remained in close proximity to the palace. During all this time Florimel and Titania were much together, and their attachment for each other was remarked by all. [Illustration] The Brownies, growing uneasy over the thought that they might lose their new companion to whom they had become so friendly, were eager to move on in quest of fresh scenes and adventures. King Stanislaus, with the belief that this might be a passing fancy on the part of Florimel, humored his wishes, and ordered the band to remain. When he reached the definite conclusion that it was not, he said: "My son, we have been here now quite a long time. Do you not think we had better seek some other place where we can do good?" Florimel's face showed his disappointment. "No matter where one may be," he said, "there are always plenty of opportunities to do good. Why not continue here, where we are all so happy?" "I hope to make Titania my wife," said Florimel simply. "And where you are happiest of all," said His Majesty, with a knowing wink. "Ah, Florimel, my boy, your whole life-story, like nearly every other man's, may be summed up in just these three words: hatched, matched, dispatched! Tell me how far matters have gone." He looked anxiously at King Stanislaus's face, as though he feared to see displeasure written there, but the genial, encouraging smile upon the royal countenance caused him to take heart. "I shall be sorry to lose a son," said the kindly monarch, "but I shall be rejoiced to gain a daughter. Frankly it has always been my great desire to have an alliance of the Brownies and fairies, for together we can do more good than if we worked alone. But until you came I never knew how this could be effected, for Brownies can never marry." "Much pleased am I by those words, Your Majesty," said Florimel. "I do not deny that I wish to be with Titania, for my feelings as far as she is concerned are too plain to be disguised. Still it is not alone the joy of being near her that causes me to wish this, but the thought that harm may come to her at any time, in which case I might be able to be of service to her." [Illustration] King Stanislaus seemed very much surprised. "Harm!" he repeated. "What harm can befall her?" "You forget the great danger she was in from the Human Octopus," reminded Florimel. "But the Human Octopus is no more," said the king. "There is nothing to fear on that score, drop him from memory." "Still Dragonfel the enchanter has made his threats," said Florimel. "They may be wild, foolish threats, yet they cause me great uneasiness. I fear for the queen because of him." Then he told the king for the first time how the Red Spirit, after the Human Octopus had been cleft in twain by the magic arrow, had flown away into the air, to bide his time, perhaps for further mischief and wrong-doing. His Majesty's little weazened face turned very grave at the recital. "Still, Florimel, I would not worry," he said. "I will caution all the band to keep a sharp look-out for the rascal. And do you, my son, woo and win, Titania, for my blessing will fall upon you both." [Illustration] To that end Florimel exerted himself, but it was an easy task, since Titania loved him fully as dearly as he her. So when they were seated once at twilight on a stone bench in the palace-garden, very close to each other, he asked the question ever trembling on his lips, and she did not say him nay. Then Florimel took a slender circlet of gold and placed it on her tiny engagement finger. But, while she first looked at it, then pressed it very tenderly to her little red pouting lips, the Red Spirit suddenly darted from behind the bench, where he had been eavesdropping all the while. Before Florimel could reach for an arrow the other flew off in the air and disappeared. "What was that?" Titania cried, in great alarm. Florimel strove to ease her mind, though he was much alarmed himself. He felt that the Red Spirit was going to make trouble. [Illustration] CHAPTER IX THE COMPACT WITH VULCAN [Illustration] Over the sea Dragonfel the enchanter waited with increasing impatience for the Human Octopus to return with whatever information he might glean in his prowling, sneaking manner. When his grotesque emissary did not put in a prompt appearance he grew more surly and ill-humored than ever. He vented his rage upon the poor little mine-sprites by increasing their working-hours and decreasing their allowance of carrot-tops and potato-skins. Whenever he spoke to his followers their knees knocked together with fright. At no time was he gentle, but when he was particularly violent, which was nearly always, he was a very bad person who could be well avoided. So he became even crankier and crosser-grained than ever, till all around him quaked with fear. He wondered why the Human Octopus did not come back, and his inexplicable delay filled him with ungovernable fury. "He's not attending to business," he said, grinding his teeth with rage. "Instead of snooping he's just going around, and having a good time. But wait till he gets back, and I'll show him!" As he spoke these words he happened to be in his throne room, and he went to the open window to look out. It was a wild, terrible night, but the worse the weather was the more Dragonfel liked it. [Illustration] The lightning zig-zagged all over the inky black sky, the thunder roared, the wind howled, and the rain beat down in slanting torrents. "Vulcan must have some little job on hand," Dragonfel pondered, as he returned to his throne. Scarcely had he done so when there came a sudden fierce gust of wind that blew the Red Spirit through the window right to his very feet where he cringed and grovelled and fawned in the most abject manner. "How now, you rogue?" roared Dragonfel above the storm. "Where have you been, and what has kept you? Why have you not returned as you went? Answer, villain, or it will go hard with you! I will have you strung up by the finger-tips till your toes barely touch the ground and beaten by a thousand and one whips!" "Oh, master, kind master," gasped the Red Spirit, trying to catch his breath, "wonderful things have I seen, and wonderful things have I to tell you. So incredible are they that you may not believe me, yet I do assure you most positively that what I am about to relate is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I would never have believed them myself had I not seen them with my own eyes." "Omit all this long, unnecessary preamble," growled Dragonfel, in great disgust, "and get down to hard facts. What have you discovered?" "The Brownie prince is to wed the fairy queen!" Dragonfel's face went from scarlet to white, then from white to scarlet, then back to white, and then to scarlet again, just like the flashing of a vari-colored electric sign. "How do you know?" he asked, trying to control his temper. "Who told you?" "No one," said the trembling Red Spirit. "I saw him place an engagement-ring on her finger." "Well," declared Dragonfel, in a tone of the utmost brutality, "if they are planning to get married all I've got to say is they've got another guess coming!" "Who will prevent the marriage, kind master?" "I will prevent it!" irascibly shouted the enchanter, and he clapped his hands together in an imperious way. "What ho, without there! Here's a pretty kettle of fish! Come hither instantly!" Grouthead, Mandrake, Boundingbore, Wolfinger, Snoutpimple, and others were out in an ante-room, and they almost tumbled over each other in their frantic haste to answer the peremptory summons. [Illustration] "Put on your storm-cloaks immediately," ordered Dragonfel. "I want you to come with me to Vulcan's." "It's a terrible night to be out, kind master," ventured Grouthead, with a shudder. There came a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder more terrifying than any that had gone before. "What's the matter with the night?" snapped Dragonfel. "I don't see anything wrong with it. I call this particularly pleasant weather." "Yes, it's all right now," Grouthead hastened to say. So in their long, flowing cloaks they all sloshed out in the wind and rain, while the hearts of those who followed after the enchanter quaked and quailed as they plunged on through the pitch-black darkness of the night. The wind howled and shrieked with increasing fury, the lightning grew sharper, and the peals of thunder more deafening, so that their eyes were nearly blinded, and their ear-drums rang. Now not so very far from Dragonfel's palace Vulcan whom they had set forth to see had his cavern. It was a very modest establishment indeed, considering the prodigious results that he achieved, and the wonder was that in such cramped quarters, and with so few to aid him in his work, he could do as much as he did. The cavern was down by the sea, in among huge rocks and boulders, and over the door, in very modest lettering, was the business sign: VULCAN GOD OF FIRE. Inside was a forge with bellows such as any country blacksmith has, and here Vulcan manufactured earthquakes and volcanos at will. He could create seismic disturbances all over the world, in a trice throw Vesuvius into hysterical contraptions, or make things suddenly red-hot in Mexico or the British Honduras. His wares were known in every quarter of the globe, and he didn't even so much as advertise. On this particular night he stood as usual at his forge--a great big, husky, bearded fellow in a red flannel undershirt bared at his brawny, hairy chest, and with sleeves rolled almost up to his shoulders to give the tremendous muscles of his arms full play. [Illustration: Vulcan threatening his imps with a hot poker.] He wore a round leather cap and had on a leather apron tied to his burly waist by leather thongs. Things needed touching up a bit, and he was getting busy. "Where are those lazy 'prentices of mine?" he roared, in rumbling tones, as he pumped the bellows, while the flames in the forge leaped higher and higher. "Spry, Flash, Nimble, Twist, and the rest of you--where are you, I say? Has my voice grown so weak, you rogues, that you cannot hear me? Come hither this instant!" From all directions in response to the angry summons came imps in red attire that fitted their lithe, supple bodies as snugly as the skins of eels. They somersaulted down the chimney, popped up like jack-in-th'-boxes from the earthen floor, and described parabolas through the air from the cavern's ceiling, grouping themselves humbly on their knees before their irate master, with their arms supplicatingly extended. "Here at last, are you?" again roared Vulcan. "And none too soon, either! Where have you been, imps? Idling your time away? Quick! heap coals on, all of you, or the fire will be out!" Forthwith they flung balls of living fire into the forge, and, as Vulcan pumped away at the bellows, he burst out in lusty song: "When the flames leap high From the crater to the sky I roll up my sleeves with delight; When the strongest buildings rock To the awful earthquake's shock The trembling millions all confess my might!" The lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and over all the storm was heard a voice calling: "Vul-can! Vul-can!" Vulcan stopped work while his imps crept stealthily toward the door to listen. "Is Vulcan at his forge?" was shouted in the wind and rain outside, with the accompaniment of a terrific knock on the door. "Who dares disturb me on my busy night?" cried Vulcan, in a towering passion. [Illustration: DRAGONFEL KNOCKING ON VULCAN'S DOOR.] "It is I, Dragonfel, the enchanter," said the voice placatingly. "What brings you here?" asked Vulcan. "I come on business of great import, mighty Vulcan!" "Enter, then, and be brief," said Vulcan, with scant hospitality. "Remember I have work to do." Dragonfel and his followers thereupon appeared in the doorway, and came forward escorted by the imps who evinced the greatest curiosity in the strange, rain-soaked visitors. When they were within respectful distance of Vulcan the enchanter sank on one knee before him, and the rest immediately followed his example. "Why have you sought me out?" demanded Vulcan, with distrust and suspicion on his seamed, rugged face as he sharply eyed them. "Oh, Vulcan," spoke Dragonfel, in smooth, oily tones, "powerful as I am, I acknowledge you my master. Who else can match you in your wondrous strength?" "You've come for a favor!" grunted the other. "Well, out with it!" "I wish to tell you about the Brownies." "What about the Brownies?" "There is to be a marriage in Fairyland. The Brownie prince is to wed the fairy queen!" "Bah! How does this concern me?" "It should concern you. Listen, Vulcan! There is no authority for such a marriage in all the annals of mythology." The words created a deep impression upon Vulcan. "No authority?" he repeated slowly, as though he were mentally digesting what he had just heard. "Are you sure of this?" "There is none, I tell you," insisted Dragonfel emphatically. "It is enough to arouse the anger of the high and mighty gods. My own power will be diminished, if not lost, should this union take place." "Are you using any measures to prevent it?" asked Vulcan thoughtfully. "Aye!" was Dragonfel's decided response. "I am going across the sea with these followers of mine to interfere. Can I rely upon your powerful aid should I need it?" "How can I help you?" "If I call upon you will you convulse the earth, and rouse to fury the slumbering volcano?" [Illustration] "Trust me for that!" cried Vulcan, beginning to pump the bellows. "The element of fire is still my own, to use at will." A lightning-bolt hurled itself right in their very midst, and the resultant thunder-clap brought Dragonfel and his followers to their feet in sudden alarm. "Enough!" cried Dragonfel exultingly. "It is a compact, then!" "Here is my hand on it!" said Vulcan, and he crushed that of the enchanter in his grimy fist. "Spry, Flash, Nimble, and Twist, my crafty imps, shall go with you. Through them appeal to me. But what do you propose to do?" "I have a plan, and a good one too!" said Dragonfel, in a confidential manner. "You can depend upon it, rats will eat the wedding-cake!" Vulcan's fancy was so tickled that he laughed hilariously, and Dragonfel made bold to slap him in a familiar way upon the back. "Ho! ho!" Vulcan chuckled. "So rats will eat the wedding-cake, eh?" [Illustration] "Yes," Dragonfel went on. "We're going to the wedding, gain their confidence with fine presents, and then--" "Yes," said Vulcan, very much interested. "And then--?" Dragonfel leaned over and whispered something in Vulcan's ear which caused him to start back in surprise. "No!" he involuntarily exclaimed. "Do you think you can do it?" If Florimel and Titania could have heard the diabolical plan of the enchanter all the happiness would have vanished from their hearts. CHAPTER X THE STRANGE WEDDING-GUESTS [Illustration] Bright and fair dawned the wedding-day of Prince Florimel and Queen Titania. Though all the days vied in beauty with each other, this one seemed to be more radiant with grace and loveliness than usual, for every living thing loved the happy little lovers and all Nature rejoiced with them. The skies put on their tenderest blue, the sun scattered even more of its golden treasure, the winds grew more balmy and caressing, while the flowers were prodigal with perfume, and the birds were tireless with their joyous serenades. Though the ceremony was not to be performed till eve, still the fairies were busy with their preparations at sun-up, and the palace fairly hummed with their activities. Long banquet-tables had been arranged in the throne-room, and on snowy napery were dishes, cups, and saucers fashioned with quaint exquisiteness from flowers, and there were lily chalices of sparkling dew with which to pledge the health of the happy bride and groom. In the kitchen a host of willing workers were being directed by little Dame Drusilda, and their conscientious efforts showed in ice cream with fruits of all flavors, charlotte russe, mince pies, plum puddings, all kinds of berry tarts, old-fashioned strawberry short-cake, peach cobblers, and apple dumplings. For the menu of the fairies was composed almost entirely of the most delicious desserts imaginable, and they ate what they wished, and as much as they liked, without ever getting the indigestion. [Illustration] So the day wore on toward dusk, and, though to all the others, each hour seemed a minute, and each minute a second, Florimel and Titania in their impatience thought that it would never end, the very sun seemed to stand still, as upon Gibeon. He had left the Brownies to their own devices to be with her, and while they talked of their union now so close at hand both were arrayed in their fine wedding-garb. [Illustration] "Are you happy, Florimel?" she asked him, for the thousandth time. "Happier than words can say," was his fervent response. "And you're sure you'll never regret it?" "Yes, positive, Titania. I wonder what's keeping King Stanislaus and the band. They ought to be here by this time." "Oh, Florimel, my happiness would be complete were it not for the thought of Dragonfel." At the mention of the wicked enchanter's name he gave an involuntary start. "We mustn't borrow trouble on his account," he said, trying to speak lightly. "He's across the sea where he can't hurt us. Let us think instead of our approaching happiness." Then fairies came skipping and running from the palace, clapping their hands in sheer delight, cheering, and waving tiny handkerchiefs at a great rate. And windows gay with flags and bunting filled with flushed, eager, excited faces all looking out, while the Cupids were lifted up in arms so they could better see. [Illustration] "The Brownies must be coming!" cried Florimel to Titania. "Let us go up on the palace-steps where we can get a view of them." He gallantly offered her his arm, and escorted her to a position with the rest, from which they could obtain a glimpse of the road as it wound curving away, with the blue, dimpling sea beyond. Down the road came the joyous band, with hearts attuned to merry-making, and never was a jollier procession. Beasts and birds alike had freely offered their services toward making this grand entree as triumphantly imposing as possible, and in the long frisking, frolicking, cavorting line of march were lions, tigers, elephants, camels, zebras, ostriches, emus, cassowaries, and many other creatures of field, forest, and jungle, four-footed and two, whose backs bore willingly the burden of the gay, laughing sprites. [Illustration] But Florimel could not see King Stanislaus among them, and was much puzzled thereat. When later they were gathered together, within the garden-walls, and the beasts and birds had gone away, after eating all the charlotte russe they could, he inquired the cause of His Majesty's absence. "He'll be here later," the Student explained. "He had some pressing engagement with the Policeman, and they went away together." Suddenly there came a banging on the portcullis so loud that it seemed to be made with big wooden mallets. Brownies and fairies looked at each other in consternation and surprise, while many a tiny heart began a vigorous thumping. "What's that?" cried Queen Titania. "There are strangers outside the portcullis, Your Majesty," said the fairy guard, as she squinted with one eye through the peek-hole. The banging continued with greater insistence, and, advancing close to the portcullis, Prince Florimel shouted: "Who are you, and what do you want?" "We are friends who have come to the wedding," said a mild, gentle voice from outside, "who have come to the wedding." "Well, I like that!" exclaimed the Dude, in great disgust. "Whoever gave them an invitation?" "We have brought you some fine presents," the voice hastened to add. Florimel seemed undecided. "Shall we admit them?" he asked the rest. "Avast, messmate!" growled the Sailor. "You'd better have a look at the presents first!" "There's nothing to fear," said Titania sweetly. "Bid the strangers welcome." The portcullis was straightway raised, and in trooped a queer, motley crowd. They were attended by four grinning imps in red who varied their walk with somersaulting antics, and the arms of all but the leader were full of presents. These evidently had been selected with much care and thought for the wedding, and the same taste and judgment were shown that can be found in nearly all weddings. One of them had a gigantic pair of scissors which would have taken as many as a half-dozen Brownies or fairies to cut with. Another held a cradle big enough to hold the offspring of a giant. [Illustration] A third in a cage carried a hen which was alleged to lay three strictly guaranteed fresh eggs a day. From each hand of a fourth dangled an immense round clock, and the faces of them were lettered: FALSE ALARM. MADE IN DEMONLAND. A fifth had a pair of abnormal candle-snuffers. Others had gifts equally absurd and useless. [Illustration] [Illustration] At the instigation of the leader all grouped themselves in a semi-circle humbly before the bride and groom to-be, and Florimel, who was still somewhat suspicious, asked: "What do you want?" "We are friends," said the leader, in his gentle voice, "most anxious to pay homage to you." "If you are friends," said Florimel, "we shall be glad to have you join in our festivities. Do you dance?" All shook their heads in unison. "Don't you tango or do the fox-trot?" Again they shook their heads. "Or sing?" They still shook their heads. "But just you wait till you see them at the supper-table!" said the Dude decidedly. [Illustration] "Nevertheless," said Florimel kindly, "I trust we shall find some means for your enjoyment. Have you come far?" "Yes," said the leader, "many leagues to do you honor. We crave your acceptance of these few, simple, unpretentious gifts as a trifling evidence of the distinguished consideration and esteem in which we hold your fair bride and yourself." It was plain that he had first carefully prepared and then committed to memory such a flowery speech. [Illustration] In their curiosity to examine the presents the Brownies began to circulate among the strangers. When in doing so the Chinaman thoughtlessly put his head between the open scissors-blades the big, hulking fellow who held them could not repress an evil inclination, and snapped them together almost instantly so that the head was held between them in a vise-like grip. Taking note of this another who had the snuffers clapped the hood forthwith over an ordinary Brownie so it looked as though he did not have a head. [Illustration] The leader angrily stamped his foot for them to desist from such rude, ill-mannered antics, whereupon the one reluctantly released the frightened Chinaman, while the other removed the snuffers from Brownie's head. [Illustration] "You must be weary and travel-stained from your long journey," said Florimel, not knowing what to think. "If you will come with me," said Titania hospitably, "I will see that your wants are provided for." The new guests at a signal from their leader rose, and when he bowed his acknowledgment of the proffered courtesy they clumsily followed his example, while the imps gloatingly patted their stomachs. Titania motioned to Dame Drusilda, Violet, Daffodil, and some other fairies to accompany her, and they led the strangers up the steps into the palace. Florimel was strongly tempted to follow, but just then King Stanislaus and the Policeman arrived very much out of breath. They had come singly, and from opposite directions. Just outside the portcullis the Policeman had overtaken His Majesty, and they entered the palace-garden together. "Officer," said King Stanislaus, "have you anything to report?" "Yes, sire," said the Policeman, twirling his club. "The path I took didn't keep straight. My footsteps got so crooked that I had to arrest them." "What did you discover?" "Nothing." "What was it?" "I said nothing, sire." "But nothing's something." "No, it's nothing." "If it wasn't something then it wouldn't be in the dictionary. But it's no use to argue with you. Did you find a clue?" "Yes, a good one." "What is it?" "He wasn't in any of the places I gum-shoed to, so consequently they're eliminated. The deduction I've arrived at is that he's in some other place. As he can only be in one place there's only one place to find. That's easy." [Illustration] "Of whom are you both talking?" asked Florimel curiously. "The Red Spirit," said King Stanislaus. "We'll catch him yet. But the lovely bride--where is she?" "In the palace, Your Majesty, providing for some newly arrived wedding-guests." "Well, after you're married, Florimel," said King Stanislaus seriously, "you must be careful your wife doesn't lose her mind." "Nonsense!" "No nonsense about it. It often happens to a married woman." "How so?" "Sometimes she keeps on giving her husband a piece of her mind till finally she hasn't any mind left." Suddenly Mignonette and Jassamine, ladies-in-waiting to the queen, ran shrieking from the palace. "What's wrong?" cried Florimel. "The queen!" gasped Mignonette. "Yes, the poor queen!" said Jassamine, almost in hysterics. "Speak!" urged Florimel. "Has anything happened to her?" "Alas!" wailed Mignonette. "She is gone!" "Gone!" echoed Florimel, distracted. "Gone where?" "We know not," said Jassamine. "We have searched the palace over, and cannot find her." "Where is Dame Drusilda?" asked Florimel quickly. "She is gone too," said Mignonette. "And Daffodil and Violet are missing," added Jassamine. "Our strange wedding-guests--where are they?" "They have flown!" cried Mignonette and Jassamine together. "Then it is they who have taken them," said Florimel, as he ran toward the palace-steps. "Quick--a search! They cannot have gone far." But the Brownies had reached the steps before him, and were already pointing off at the distant sea-line. "A sail! A sail!" they cried. "Too late!" said Florimel. "I see it all now. This is the work of Dragonfel!" "Dragonfel!" cried one and all together. "Yes," said Florimel. "Our unknown guests were Dragonfel and his wicked followers. He has abducted them, and flown with them to his country." He bowed his head in great despair. King Stanislaus came, and placed his hand upon his shoulder. "Be brave, Florimel!" he said. "The Brownies will go at once to the rescue of Queen Titania!" "Yes!" shouted the Brownies. "To the rescue of Queen Titania!" "But how?" asked the despondent Florimel. "We have no ship to take us." Quick as a wink King Stanislaus improvised: "We'll build a raft with magic sleight, And brave the sea ere morning's light!" [Illustration] CHAPTER XI THE BROWNIES BUILD A RAFT [Illustration] When King Stanislaus announced to the Brownies that they were to go at once to the rescue of Queen Titania he was confronted by a very serious problem. There was no craft of any kind whatever with which to embark upon so hazardous a voyage. "This comes of unpreparedness," growled the Sailor. "I've been trying to impress on His Majesty for years that we needed some battle-ships, cruisers, and submarines. Dash my top-lights if we've got even so much as an old mud-scow!" Far off faintly outlined in the gathering dusk was a galleon with all sails spread which the favoring gales were bearing to Dragonfel's enchanted country. King Stanislaus realized the utter futility of trying to overtake it with another sailing-vessel even if they had been the possessors of one. Dragonfel and his confederates had too much the start of them. The only recourse left was to follow as quickly as they could by whatever means were at hand, and, after they reached their destination, to try to wrest the unfortunate Titania and her companions from the cruel clutches of their abductors. King Stanislaus had pledged his word to Florimel that before morning they would be in hot pursuit. A raft to the monarch's shrewd, quick-thinking mind seemed to be the easiest kind of a craft to construct in the short space of time to do it in order to redeem the royal promise. The wind was right, so that it would waft them straight to Dragonfel's country, just as it was now taking the galleon which soon disappeared beyond the horizon. In crisp, curt tones which showed that he, if anyone, was able to cope with this most distressing situation His Majesty gave orders for the immediate building of the raft. [Illustration] Then came a hurrying and scurrying of Brownies. Each of the little fellows was eager to do his share of the gigantic task, and no one shirked. Hither and yon, and all about, they flew, a band of willing workers, and no one got in another's way, so no time was lost. Wisely enough the king assigned to each what he was best adapted to do, and there was no grumbling or cavilling at orders, but a strict obedience in all things. And, wherever such a spirit is manifested, it is surprising what results can be achieved. [Illustration] The axes rang out sharp and clear in forests, and big trees toppled down to be stripped in a trice of their leafy branches. Sweating, puffing, grunting Brownies pulled and tugged and strained at the logs into which they were cut, and pushed and shoved, or rolled them when they could, toward the sea-shore. Here, with their little jackets off, were many other Brownies hard at work, while the sound of big wooden mallets and iron sledges was heard unceasingly on all sides as in the busiest shipyard, while the logs were being nailed and spiked together. Yet the raft was not composed entirely of logs, but of whatever else besides that came in handy. [Illustration] Nimble, fleet-footed foragers at their monarch's instigation roamed the country over for anything that was in the nature of wood. Some of these brought back a gate on which was the sign: NO ADMITTANCE. Others came with shutters on which was tacked the placard: ROOMS TO LET. And one group triumphantly lugged a dog-house which they thought would serve as a pilot-house, and to this on an iron chain was attached a dog, which perforce was dragged along after it upon its back. So great was their excitement that they forgot all about the dog. [Illustration] Other members of the band were busy too in different ways. The Sailor came running with a long pole on his shoulder, and strung one after another on the pole were a number of round life-preservers that looked like huge doughnuts. Then off he sped again but only to return a few minutes later with a mariner's compass. [Illustration] [Illustration] The Dude stood by, offering advice, and all ready with cane in one and opera-hat box the other. [Illustration] Straining with the terrific weight the Twins together brought a ship's lead, and in stopping to put it down for needed rest one dropped it on the foot of his unfortunate brother, who held the injured foot up with his hand, and danced on the well one in great pain. But when his brother motioned for him to take up the lead with him again, he did so, and they labored on their way. Down on the beach quite a number had found a big anchor half-buried in the sand. They had dug it out and were slowly bearing it with the utmost difficulty toward the raft. [Illustration] Time and again they stopped for a brief breathing spell, standing meanwhile the anchor on its bow, until at last it suddenly fell over and pinioned a luckless sprite beneath its weight. He was extricated by his fellows, and, while they continued puffing with their burden he limped with effort after them, rubbing his bruised shank. [Illustration] [Illustration] The commissary department was active too, and Brownies came with ample supplies of provisions for the voyage. They brought sacks of hard-tack and ship-biscuit, and when they laid them down and sat on them audacious rats ran helter-skelter out and scampered wildly off in all directions. Nothing was left undone, and when in the judgment of the Sailor it was about four bells the raft had taken marvelous shape and was ready to launch. [Illustration] With the combined strength of all the band it was rolled down the sloping sand upon round logs until it slid gracefully into the water. Lanterns lit it at the corners, and in the centre on a long stick floated the Brownie flag. Then all the Brownies clambered on board, and King Stanislaus gave the order to cast off the hawsers. The fairies, weeping yet hopeful of the success of the expedition, watched them from the shore. But before some Brownies under the instructions of the Sailor could obey the mandate of the king Mignonette and Jassamine in wild disorder, and with their hair flying, came running toward them. "The dove!" cried Mignonette. "You've forgotten Euphrosyne's dove!" Jassamine at the same time held up a cage in which the dove was perched on a stick. "Euphrosyne told Queen Titania she was to send it to her if ever she was in danger from Dragonfel," Mignonette made haste to explain. "I don't know whether we've got room to take it," said King Stanislaus grudgingly. "Besides I think we're able to manage this little business affair ourselves." "Remember, sire," reminded the Policeman, "that Noah once sent out a dove." "Yes, I know," said His Majesty, "but he's hundreds of years behind the times." Still he did not interpose any objections when the Dude reached forth and grasped the cage, which he set upon the raft. Then off they floated without further interruption, the Sailor and others poling them out through shallow waters till they could no longer touch bottom. There were no cheers to mark the departure, for the hearts of all were set with a stern purpose. As they got farther and farther away the fairies still gazed at them, until someone said: "Don't watch them out of sight. It's unlucky." The tide was ebb, and the wind continued steady and true, so that they made good progress. Some took their little jackets off to catch each puff of air. The shore-line finally disappeared from sight, and then the lights twinkling in the windows of Queen Titania's palace. At last they were so many miles from land that the Twins took frequent soundings with their lead, and the Sailor, who consulted his compass very often, growled to the watch: "Keep a sharp look-out, you lubber!" And their plans all would have gone well, and they would have reached Dragonfel's enchanted country as they intended, if something entirely unexpected had not happened. About six bells, as the Sailor reckoned, a sudden storm came up. It was a terrible storm, the worst in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The Sailor who was most weather-wise of all could not understand it. But Dragonfel could have done so had he wished, for the storm had been manufactured at his request by Vulcan, and it was just as good a sample of what could be done in a hurry as the Brownies' raft. [Illustration] Suddenly the sky grew black, and the stars were blotted out. Then almost instantly came a mighty rush and roar of wind, and the seas ran mountain-high. "Avast, you lubbers!" roared the Sailor. "Take a reef in your shirts and jackets!" Lightning lit up almost incessantly gloomy, frowning caverns in the clouds, and the peals of thunder were deafening. The rain poured down on them in sheets, but still the wind howled and raged with unabating fury, and they tossed up and down like a cockleshell. [Illustration] In all the turmoil of alarm the frightened Chinaman lost his balance, and fell overboard, and a huge sea-serpent, with eyes of fire gleaming like electric lights above distended greedy, waiting jaws, rose up from out of the water, with its abnormally long body looking like a series of hoops. The Uncle Sam Brownie threw out a life-preserver, but the Sailor with rare presence of mind grasped a boat-hook, and, skillfully hooking the end of the despairing Chinaman's blouse, yanked him back on the raft before the monster could swallow him. No craft however staunch could withstand such a gale, which grew and grew in violence. [Illustration] The raft shivered and shook under its terrific strain, and there came pistol-like cracks at intervals as the wood splintered or broke apart, while nails and spikes flew up from the groaning, loosening timbers. Slowly but surely the raft upon which the Brownies had exercised such ingenuity and skill was disintegrating, and the great danger of the band increased with each passing moment. And in the flashes of lightning that illumined the rumbling skies a huge bird with flapping wings suddenly swooped down, and, seizing the frightened Dude by his breeches-seat, bore him, dangling face downward, with his cherished cane still clutched in his hand, up, up, still up, till he was out of sight. The others, all aghast, looked up at him until he disappeared, and wondered if they would ever see him again. And, while they wondered, with their own misfortune forgotten in this greater calamity that had come to their beloved companion, there was heard a crack louder than any that had gone before, and the raft went all at once to pieces. Struggling in the water, or clinging to broken spars, logs, and pieces of timber, the Brownies suddenly found themselves gasping and choking as relentless waves rolled over them, at times submerging them. This was the end, then, of their unfortunate adventure. There was nothing to cause even the slightest ray of hope. It looked as though all the Brownies would be lost. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII WHAT HAPPENED IN THE THRONE-ROOM [Illustration] Led by Queen Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil, the strange guests, who had come to the wedding without an invitation, mounted the spacious marble steps and passed into the palace. In spite of a meek, respectful demeanor that it was very hard for them to assume, they could not conceal the gloating satisfaction that was on their faces. In the meantime the Brownies and fairies were already beginning to enjoy themselves in different parts of the palace grounds. Introductions are hardly necessary when sprites meet, and many found ways of getting acquainted, and were warm friends on their first meeting. Having no suspicion of what was in the evil minds of those she was preparing so hospitably to entertain, Titania with her companions ushered them into the magnificent banquet-room. There upon one of the long tables were spread many delicacies to make one's mouth water, and, even before an invitation to partake of them could be extended, the four red imps seated themselves before it, and, smacking their lips, began to tuck napkins under their chins. [Illustration] Titania had thought that the guests would leave the presents they had brought out in the hall when they came in, but they still held on to them with a grip so tenacious that she wondered if they really meant to give them up, after all. Nevertheless in a free-hearted way she urged the visitors to refresh themselves. The imps were already engaged in trying to stuff whole plum puddings into their mouths at once, a greedy proceeding that Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil watched with considerable disgust. All but the leader started quickly to seat themselves, but he stamped his foot imperiously, and they came to an instant stop. Then he threw back the hood of his scarlet cloak, disclosing a wicked face, and transfixed Titania with his malicious gaze. "I am Dragonfel the enchanter, my fine little lady," he said, in fiendish tones, "and I have come to take you away with me!" [Illustration] Titania was so frightened that she could neither scream nor run away, and she allowed him to gather her up in his arms and hold her just as a little girl does a doll, making light of load. There she lay passive and trembling, with the realization that it would be useless to make any effort to escape. Almost immediately afterward Grouthead seized the biting, scratching, and clawing Dame Drusilda, whom he dumped in spite of fierce resistance into the baby's crib, and when Mandrake and Wolfinger put Violet and Daffodil in after her it was very plain why this particular gift had been selected. "Yes, and you're not going to get these presents, either," sneered Dragonfel to Titania, who said never a word. "You may call me an Injun-giver, if you like, but I mean to take them back, just the same!" With Titania helpless in his arms he started toward a rear door, while after him came Grouthead and Wolfinger bearing the crib in which Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil rattled about like dried peas in a pod. The others followed slowly and reluctantly in their wake, casting longing glances backward at the tempting-looking desserts on the table. The imps, however, did not budge, but continued eating. When Dragonfel called out to them in angry tones they sprang up and attempted at the same time to jam charlotte russe into their gaping mouths. In their frantic haste they smeared the charlotte or russe, whichever the white part is, all over their faces, so that as they hurried after the others with occasional frisky somersaults they looked as though they had just been lathered by a barber. Out by the rear all passed into the deserted back-garden where there was a small iron door locked and bolted from the inside, and with the key, fortunately for their nefarious plans, in the lock. Through this door Dragonfel and his followers effected their escape with their captives, and ran with all possible speed toward the sea-shore. [Illustration] The galleon tossed upon the lazy swell, not a great distance out, and in a small boat with Snoutpimple and Boundingbore at the oars they rowed to it, and soon were on board. Then the anchor was weighed, and with all sails filling they set their course for Dragonfel's enchanted country, which they reached without mishap of any kind. When they got to their journey's end, and all stood safe upon the shore, the full malignity of Dragonfel was shown. Realizing that the indomitable Brownies would not relinquish Titania without a struggle, but would follow as quickly as they could to wrest her if possible from him, he ordered Vulcan's imps to call upon their master to impede them with a storm. The imps thereupon cast balls of fire into the air, and, even as all bent their steps toward the palace, the enchanter noted with considerable satisfaction quite a change in the temperature. Clouds were already beginning to form on the horizon, and there came the distant rumble of continuous thunder. [Illustration] While they stood just outside the massive doors they heard the sounds of what appeared to be a violent altercation from within. In an agitated manner, as though he feared the worst, Dragonfel quickly threw them open, and was greatly relieved to see the Demon Usher and Red Spirit engaged in a friendly game of checkers. "You cheated!" the Red Spirit accused hotly. "You jumped three of my men when you should have only jumped two!" "Stop it!" snarled Dragonfel at them. "You don't know how to play checkers, anyhow!" They sprang in consternation to their feet, upsetting the board, and causing the checkers to roll all over the floor. While the Red Spirit stood gloating over the success of a venture in which he had played a modest part, the Demon Usher half skipped, half flew, to the throne, and with a display of much enthusiasm began dusting off the seat with a cloth. With swaggering stride Dragonfel went to the throne, and threw himself in it, while Queen Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil all came running toward him. "Oh, sir," cried Dame Drusilda, very much distressed, "why have you brought us poor, defenseless girls here?" "Us, my venerable fairy!" said Dragonfel, most insultingly. "Venerable!" repeated Dame Drusilda. "Oh, you nasty man!" "How do you keep your age?" he sneered. "Easy enough," she replied indignantly. "I never give it away." As she spoke she made for him as though she meant to scratch his eyes out, but Queen Titania pulled her back. "Don't touch him, Dame Drusilda!" she cried, and then turned pleadingly to Dragonfel. "Why have you made me a prisoner, and carried me away from home in this way?" "To prevent your marriage to the Brownie prince," he said coldly. "But we love each other, and would be so happy," she said, while tears filled her pretty eyes. "Why do you oppose the marriage?" "Because if this marriage were to take place," he said, with an ugly frown, "it would make you all so powerful as to result in my undoing." "You fear," she said reprovingly, "that we will frustrate all your wicked plans." "It must not, shall not be!" was his decided response. "The Brownies and fairies have long been my enemies." "If you did good," she reminded, gently, "we would be your friends. Tell me, must I stay here always?" "Yes, always!" he snapped out. "The sooner you forget your Brownie prince the better. You shall never see him again." Then Titania showed her spirit. "Oh, yes, I shall!" she contradicted. "The Brownies will rescue us!" "Bah!" he said contemptuously. "Those poor, weak creatures of the night? They could not do it." "The Brownies can do anything," she said, with perfect trust and confidence. "My pretty pet," said Dame Drusilda, "you waste words with him. Let us ask some of these other creatures to help us. Maybe they are not as bad as their master." So she coquettishly sidled up to Grouthead, Boundingbore, Mandrake, Wolfinger, and Snoutpimple who stood near by in a highly interested group. But before she could say even a word Grouthead gathered her up in his arms, and held her out in the air, while in her fright she kept kicking the turned-in toes of her tiny shoes together. "Don't be alarmed, my dear," he croaked, in tones that were meant to be reassuring. "There's a heart here that beats for you, and you alone!" "Where's the heart?" she gasped. "In this troubled breast," he roared. "I've half a mind to marry you." "Put me down!" she screamed. "I wouldn't marry anyone with half a mind!" [Illustration] Dragonfel rose, and stamped his foot angrily, at which silent rebuke Grouthead set Dame Drusilda hastily down. She gave a sigh of great relief, and, gathering up her skirts, flew toward the enchanter. "Oh, sir," she implored, "can nothing move you?" "Yes," he said, in sneering tones, "a ton of dynamite! You are a pippin, but you withered on the stem!" "You villain!" she screamed, shaking a tiny clenched fist at him. "I could annihilate you for that; you deserve worse!" And she made for him again, but the tactful Violet and Daffodil grasped each of her arms, and held her back. Dragonfel grinned most provokingly, and his myrmidons fairly shook with glee, while the Demon Usher cackled his exultation, and poked the Red Spirit on his elastic ribs. Titania took a little spider-web affair of a handkerchief from her bodice, for her eyes threatened to fill again. Noting the coming tears, the wicked enchanter hastened to say, in tones that were meant to be particularly comforting: "No harm shall befall you. When you have a wish you have but to name it." [Illustration] "I have one now," spoke up Titania quickly. "So have I," added Dame Drusilda. "I'll hear yours later," said Dragonfel to the latter gruffly, and then turned to Titania with what he thought was a most winning smile. "What is yours?" "I want my Brownie prince!" "Didn't I tell you you were never going to see him again?" said the enchanter, in disgust. "Ask me something else, and make it as hard as you can." But Titania had no other wish, and Dame Drusilda was given no opportunity to make hers known. The days dragged slowly by, and, though Dragonfel was not actually rough in the treatment of his captives, he still was most unkind in depriving them of the liberty for which they continually sighed. They were watched and spied upon continually, so there was little or no chance for escape. [Illustration] He endeavored to provide amusements for which they had no heart, and was a sorry host at best. In his crude efforts to entertain them he welcomed all ideas for sports and diversions, so when on one occasion they were all together, and his prisoners seemed unusually depressed, he sat upon his throne knitting his brows in trying to think of something that might cheer them up a bit. In the midst of his unsuccessful cogitations the Demon Usher half skipped, half flew, to him, and prostrated himself at his feet. "Kind master!" he cried, in a flutter of excitement. "What is it?" asked Dragonfel. "A band of wandering minstrels outside humbly crave permission to play before you." "What, another?" said Dragonfel. "Show them in!" The words he used were hospitable enough, but the tone of his voice boded little good for the daring musicians. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII NEPTUNE STILLS THE WAVES [Illustration] Up and down like corks bobbed the Brownies on the angry waves when their raft was so suddenly demolished by the storm. The blackness of the night was so intense that even with their supernatural vision they could not see each other save in those vivid streaks of lightning that came often and for a brief moment made all around as bright as day. The wild wind and waves bore them farther and farther apart from each other, so that it was every one for himself, which was against all principle in a band that delighted in mutual help. But in this case they could not give it. The water got in their noses and mouths, causing them to gasp, choke, and splutter, while their ears rang, and their eyes were nearly blinded. [Illustration] Desperately they clung to the splintered pieces of debris, to the dog-house that spun over and over, to the gate that turned upside down, or straddled logs that kept rolling with Brownies first up and then under like teetotums. [Illustration] And others, not so fortunate, with strength fast leaving them, still swam the waters seeking and groping in vain for some object to sustain them. Then, right in the midst of all their terrible danger, when hope was fast departing from all hearts, a wonderful thing happened. [Illustration] There came a sudden radiance that was not the lightning's flash, illuminating old Father Neptune and a bevy of lovely-faced dryads in a golden chariot that furiously galloping seahorses drew across the waves. In a brief space no longer than a second the God of the Sea and his beauteous attendants passed on out of sight, but almost with their disappearance the lightning and thunder ceased, as did the rain, the wind died down, the stars once more shone out, and the water grew as smooth as glass. When buffeted no longer by boisterous winds and waves the chance the Brownies had to save themselves increased immeasurably. [Illustration] They could now see and hear each other, and when some one swimming in the water called for help there were those on debris who reached over and pulled their exhausted comrade on board. They shouted at each other in the dark, and by using their feet as paddles contrived at last to bring whatever they floated on close together. Then King Stanislaus, who with Prince Florimel was a-straddle of a log, with much anxiety began to take an inventory of the band. To his infinite relief no one was missing but the Dude, but this misfortune in itself was enough to dampen their spirits, for the companion who had been carried off by the gigantic bird was very much beloved. "Aye, aye!" growled the Sailor, cocking his weather-eye out through the slats of the hen-coop. "We're all here, even to Euphrosyne's dove!" Thus on they went without further mishap, a queer-looking flotilla, keeping in as close proximity to each other as they could, using both hands and feet for paddles, and adopting many ingenious devices to complete the voyage so disastrously begun. And a day dawned, then another, but at nightfall of the second they glimpsed far off a shore-line with a single towering mountain which they knew to be Dragonfel's enchanted country. They were neither hungry nor thirsty, for Brownies if need be can go without food or water a long time. Much heartened by what they beheld, they redoubled their efforts to reach the shore, which grew plainer and plainer, until finally they could distinguish an immense glittering structure that looked more like a prison than a palace, built as it was in the gloomy shadow of the mountain. Though it gleamed and flashed and shone in a thousand and one different places, where its myriad jewels caught the light, it seemed a cheerless, inhospitable place, and they were depressed by the sight of it. The galleon that Dragonfel had used to convey his captives to his country was lying at anchor well in toward the shore, with no one evidently on board, but not feeling sure of this the Brownies made a wide detour, choosing for a landing a sheltered cove that would screen them from observing eyes. As they drew closer to the land some strange companions had they--queer creatures who had obtruded themselves upon the Brownies during the storm, and forced their society upon unwilling hosts--a motley gathering from air, sea, and undersea that occupied choice places upon the flotsam and jetsam to which the little fellows so precariously clung with amazing vim. There were comical-looking, long-legged, long-billed cranes and herons, and squat-flappered, web-footed penguins. The walrus and seal were there, as well as formidable members of the finny tribe, some of which had swords so sharp that the discreet Brownies kept a most respectful distance from them. Crustaceans too were represented, with here a lobster slyly nipping a sprite's toe with his claws, and there a turtle tweaking another's cap. [Illustration] But when the Brownies reached shoal water, and some began to wade toward shore, these false whilom friends deserted them, and dived into the deep, or flew off in the air. Then when they were safe at last on land they stretched their weary, stiff, cramped legs and arms, or raced about the sand to get the sluggish blood once more pulsing through their veins. King Stanislaus stood apart from all the rest, and watched their joyous antics with an expression of deep thought on his august countenance. It was plain to be seen that he was greatly troubled in his mind. Now that they had succeeded in reaching Dragonfel's country what steps should be taken in the effort to recover Queen Titania and her companions? It was not to be conceived that the wicked enchanter would give them up without a bitter struggle. The problem confronting the Brownie band was one that required the most careful consideration. A single false step might ruin all. While the monarch pondered over what was best to be done his eye abstractedly roved to the Brownies who now had gathered in a circle on the beach, and who were scanning with much interest something in the sky. The Policeman involuntarily had pointed his club toward it, and the Sailor was trying to get a better view through his spy-glass. The royal eye at once turned upward in the direction in which all the others were gazing, and like everyone else was held spellbound with surprise. Far overhead there was an immense bird slowly dropping with stationary wings outspread down toward them. It stood out clearly outlined in silhouette against the dark night-sky. But it was not this bird, remarkable in itself, that created such intense excitement on the part of all. Its great sharp talons held in a firm grip an object that they recognized at once, with the result that delight and consternation were mingled on their faces. [Illustration] Grasped firmly by the coat-tails, with face downward, and legs and arms spread out like a Maltese cross, was the immaculate Brownie Dude, and he still was clutching in his right hand the cane that was his most treasured possession outside of his monocle. The Brownies watched this most extraordinary spectacle as though they were fascinated, and their pop-eyes almost popped out of their heads. Lower and lower settled the great bird, and the anxious watchers now realized that its offices toward the Dude in time of danger had been of a most heroic nature. With great haste some secured a net, which they held outspread. When the bird was still some distance above, it cocked its eye as though it were making some nice calculation and suddenly let go of its burden. The Dude came hurtling through the air, landing safely in the net, while the bird sailed off, and was soon gone from sight. As soon as the Dude got on his feet he started to dust off his clothes with a tiny whisk-broom. "I shouldn't care to go up in an aeroplane!" he said. He looked infinitely relieved when one of the overjoyed Brownies who crowded around in congratulation handed him his opera-hat box. [Illustration] It may here be mentioned, that the Fairies, who had been left behind, made a desperate attempt to follow their Queen, and the Brownies, across the sea. But, after great difficulties, and dangers, they were glad to get back to their own shore in safety. [Illustration] But though Florimel, like all the rest, was delighted beyond measure that the Dude had been so miraculously restored to them, so they were now once more complete, he could not restrain his tortured feelings when he thought of Queen Titania, and he was in a fever of impatience to rush at once to her rescue. "We only waste time here while Titania may be in danger," he said, with a strong trace of irritation in his tone. "Is not that Dragonfel's palace over yonder?" King Stanislaus gazed at the highly expensive but forbidding-looking edifice toward which Florimel pointed. "Maybe so," was his guarded response. "Then let us storm it, and force him to surrender the queen and her companions!" "Yes, yes!" cried all the Brownies. But King Stanislaus shook his head in a very decided manner. "My son, you're too impulsive," he said kindly but reprovingly. "Judging from what you've told me, for I've never seen any of them, each of those fellows must stand full six times as high as one of us, and there may be six times as many besides. We must exercise caution." "Have you anything to propose?" "Nothing just now," said King Stanislaus. "We must reconnoitre a bit, and get the lay of the land, before considering any plan whatever. An open attack would be entirely out of the question. They'd have the advantage of us in size and maybe numbers. No, no, my boy, we must use Brownie cunning." Reluctantly Florimel was obliged to admit the force of the shrewd old monarch's reasoning. Concerned as he was in mind to rescue Titania as soon as he could, he had no desire by any rash act to imperil or, even worse still, destroy the entire band. King Stanislaus motioned to the Brownies, who drew closer to give respectful heed to what he might have to say to them. "I want each of you to go out and see what you can learn," he instructed. "But, as you value your life, and the lives of your fellows, you must not allow yourselves to be seen or heard by anyone. When a half-hour has elapsed we will assemble here." Following His Majesty's directions, the willing band immediately dispersed, Florimel choosing a way to take alone, as did each other, and so careful were they all that no one in the neighborhood would have suspected they were near. When the half-hour was up King Stanislaus was back on the same spot, and the Brownies began to pop up in the dark around him from all sides. "Well," His Majesty asked, "have you found out anything?" Then one after another was obliged to confess that he had not, and while he was questioning them in turn he ascertained that neither Florimel nor the Policeman had returned. The fact that both were missing worried him not a little, but, even while he was wondering what had kept them, he beheld the Policeman returning with incredible speed, leaping and bounding with his long, tapering feet over the sand. "Your Majesty," he panted, as he came up out of breath, "I have just made a remarkable discovery." "What is it, officer?" asked King Stanislaus, anxiously. "If I told you," said the Policeman, "I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me. I want you all to come and see for yourselves!" [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV WHAT THE POLICEMAN DISCOVERED [Illustration] Like a covey of startled quail the Brownies flew after the Policeman, for each was very curious to learn of the discovery that he had made. They knew that with his keen sense of dramatic values he wished to keep them in suspense as long as possible, so that only at the proper moment would the mystery be solved. His fleet little feet padded along the sand, followed by others equally so, and he led them a stiff pace for perhaps a mile down the beach. There lying behind a dune that offered a shelter from the creeping tides they viewed the cause of all his excitement. Scattered on the sand were some dingy old frayed uniforms, caps, and hob-nailed shoes, of which they counted five complete sets in all, while near by piled into a heap were some immense brass musical instruments, some bent and battered in places and all tarnished by the weather. [Illustration] Soon they were making a minute inspection of these objects which for some inexplicable reason had been abandoned by their owners. The uniforms and caps were of worn blue cloth, and the latter had visors and braids of gold around them. The sleeves of the coats likewise were braided with gold. With much interest in their work the Brownies began to separate the instruments that formed a heap. There were two cornets, a saxophone, a trombone, and a tremendous tuba that wound around and around and had a mouth so big that a Brownie could have easily crawled inside. While they were examining the outfit there was much speculation as to whom it belonged, and the only conclusion they could arrive at was that the original possessors had been some itinerant German band. It was not so strange to them that a German band should be in Dragonfel's enchanted country, for they knew that German bands go everywhere. Sometimes they can be found even at the North Pole. The only strange thing about it was that while the uniforms and instruments were there, the owners were missing. "I wonder what's become of the band?" said King Stanislaus, very much puzzled. "Perhaps someone heard them play," suggested the Dude. His Majesty gave a sudden start. "Humph!" he grunted. "What you have just hinted at rather unsettles an idea that suddenly occurred to me." "Maybe you were thinking of the same thing I was," said the Policeman. "That's very possible," said the monarch, "for great minds sometimes think alike. I was thinking that some of us could disguise ourselves as a German band and maybe gain admittance to the palace." "That's just what I was thinking," said the Policeman. "In that way," went on King Stanislaus, "we might be able to get some knowledge of Dragonfel's real strength, and find out just how we stood. The chance might come to us to spirit away Queen Titania and her companions." "Which of us would you choose, Your Majesty?" asked an eager Brownie. All of them crowded around, each with the hope that King Stanislaus would select him for this task which involved so great a risk. He looked them over, and finally, with his mind made up, spoke, in slow, measured tones. "Of course, I'll be the leader," he announced. "That will leave just four to go with me, and I'll take the Policeman, Sailor, German, and Irishman. The rest of you must hide just outside the palace, to be ready instantly in case you are needed." There was great delight on the part of the four who were to share with the king the danger, and keen disappointment among all the others. But no one thought of questioning the royal decision. "I didn't forget my tin box of disguises, sire," reminded the Policeman. "Good, officer!" said King Stanislaus, with an approving nod. "They'll all come in handy. You've got plenty of false noses and moustaches, I suppose." [Illustration] The Policeman gave a knowing wink. "You'll need a rehearsal, won't you?" said the Dude. "No," said King Stanislaus decidedly. "The worse we play the cleverer will be the deception." Then he and the four selected by him began to make preparations for their queer masquerade, and in these the whole band assisted. The coats and trousers had probably hung on their original wearers badly, but they fitted the Brownies who tried them on much worse. [Illustration] The general effect would have brought deep shame to any conscientious tailor who had made them, but nimble fingers soon accomplished wonders with a tuck here and there, and the deft use of an occasional pin. The ends of the trousers had to be rolled up a number of times, and the coats turned up on the inside. When they put on the big, hob-nailed shoes their long, tapering feet were lost in them, and the whole Brownie identity completely disappeared after they had donned the false noses and moustaches that the Policeman handed around. No one familiar with the Brownie band would have recognized these particular five, and their disguise was pronounced admirable by one and all. The breast of the coat that had fallen to the Sailor was all covered with medals, and it was the only one of the lot that was decorated in this manner. King Stanislaus thought that as the leader he was more properly fitted to wear this coat, but the Sailor seemed reluctant to give it up, so His Majesty good-naturedly did not press the matter. He chose a cornet and the Sailor the remaining one. The Policeman took the saxophone, and the German the slide trombone. That left only the tuba for the Irishman, and it was so big that he could hardly manage it. [Illustration] Thus fully equipped and with the whole band for an escort, the indomitable quintet set forth on their delicate mission. Dragonfel's palace was a good deal farther away than they had supposed, for the atmosphere was very clear, so that objects at a distance seemed much nearer than they really were. There was a fair road that led to it from the beach, and this took them over a rickety wooden bridge that spanned one of the numerous tide-water creeks in the vicinity. But before they reached the bridge they came to a small frame structure over whose arched doors was the sign: NEPTUNE HOOK AND LADDER CO. NO. 1, which caused remarks. "Evidently Dragonfel has a fire department," said King Stanislaus. "This is a most interesting discovery." "Why, I could have told you that," said a Brownie. "I saw it some time ago." "You should have done so," His Majesty reproved. "It may have a very important bearing on what we are about to try to do. But what was that?" Something dim and shadowy flitted past in the dark, with the whirring sound of a night-bat. "I saw it," the Policeman spoke up quickly. "There was a gleam of red, and I thought I could distinguish a bow and quiver." "A bow and quiver!" repeated King Stanislaus, and his face grew suddenly grave. "I hope they were not Prince Florimel's. I am greatly distressed by the fear that some dire mishap has come to him." His Majesty would have felt very much relieved in mind if he could have known that nothing serious had occurred to the prince. When like the rest of the Brownies Florimel had gone to seek what information he could he had strayed nearer to the palace than perhaps in prudence he should have done. With the impetuosity of youth he was ready to storm the palace single-handed, but he realized that such a rash, foolhardy attempt would only bring disaster to the whole band. So he gazed toward the lights that gleamed from the windows, wondering all the while what Titania was doing at the time, and if Dragonfel was very cruel to her. He was really helpless just then to exert himself in her behalf, and he turned with a sigh to go back. The rigors of the hardships through which he had passed pressed heavily, and excessive weariness overcame him. He felt a sudden faintness, and sank upon a grassy bank to rest. He did not dream that prying eyes for some time had been watching him from an open panel in a fence hard by. Those keen, malicious orbs followed every movement that Florimel made, and when they noticed him yawn, and rub his lids to keep the sleep from them, they glittered and gleamed with exultation. Then Florimel's eyes in spite of him closed, and his tired head sank back in the deep grass. From the fence the Red Spirit issued like a wraith. Noiselessly he advanced toward the unconscious prince, and bending down began with deft, adroit fingers to remove the quiver slung across his back. [Illustration] But light as the thieving touch was it aroused Florimel who sprang at once to his feet. Quick though he was he still was not quick enough. All that he heard was a whirring sound, and in a flash he noticed that his bow was missing. His hand involuntarily sought his back only to find that the quiver had been craftily taken from it. Wide awake and full of alarm now he ran with all speed back to the locality that King Stanislaus had designated for the reunion of the band. But the half-hour had elapsed, and the Brownies were not there. Then he noticed in the sand prints of narrow, tapering feet all leading down the beach, and he flew in the direction they pointed. But when he reached the spot where the Policeman had made his discovery the Brownies were not there, either. He felt convinced that they had started for Dragonfel's palace, and he ran as fast as he could to overtake them, passing the engine-house, and going over the bridge. When he was approaching the palace he saw five persons very small of stature, each with a big brass instrument, standing just outside the entrance. The doors swung suddenly open, they passed through them, and then the doors closed again. Florimel quickened his pace with the determination to follow them, but just when he was about to pound upon the doors for admittance tiny but strong hands grasped him, and held him back, and he heard the whispered warning: "Don't, or you will ruin all!" [Illustration] CHAPTER XV THE GERMAN BAND [Illustration] When the German band was announced by the Demon Usher in his queer, cackling voice Queen Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil happened to be seated on the steps of the throne, and all were feeling grumpy and out-of-sorts. Dragonfel had tried to prevail upon them to play dominoes or parchesi, but they had no heart for any game. Grouthead, Wolfinger, Mandrake, Boundingbore, Snoutpimple, and others of the enchanter's followers were present and some of them looked distinctly bored. Snoutpimple was even trying to repress a yawn. Things at the palace had been rather slow since the abduction of Queen Titania and her party, and nothing especially wicked had occurred. When it was known, however, that a number of strolling musicians were going to play for them, a thrill of genuine pleasure ran through the whole assemblage. Titania and her companions were glad, for they felt that some enlivening strains would greatly cheer their drooping spirits. Dragonfel's followers were equally delighted, though they did not care in the least for music. But knowing their master as they did they were very sure that the prospective concert would prove exceedingly interesting. [Illustration] Escorted by the smirking Demon Usher, who rubbed his hands together while he cackled joyously to himself, and who half skipped, half flew, before them, the members of the German band entered awkwardly, and clumsily arranged themselves in a semi-circle before the throne. There were five of them including the leader who stood at the end nearest Dragonfel and the others--all diminutive, moustached men with big noses, whose frayed, soiled uniforms fitted them very badly indeed. Their trousers at the ends were rolled up a number of times over, and their coats which hung on them like bags actually reached almost to their shoe-tops. Upon the chest of the one who stood next to the leader were pinned a great variety of medals, and he seemed to be very proud of them, since no one else boasted a decoration of any kind. [Illustration] The little audience grouped about the throne gazed at them expectantly, and Titania thought the leader winked at her. But apparently he did not notice anyone, and least of all Dragonfel. His whole attention seemed to be centred on his band. "Are ve all here alretty?" he asked. "Yah!" came in chorus. "Vell," said he, "I vill broceed der gall der roll-gall. 'Louie Knobloch!'" "I vass here," said the one with the medals next to him. "Peter Dinkelspeil!" "Here I vass." "Hermann Sweinskopf!" "He's peen here." "Jacob Schnittger!" "Bresend early." "Emil Muller!" There was no response, and all the rest turned and looked at the leader in surprise. "Emil Muller!" he repeated, and then, suddenly recollecting something, went on: "Oh, oxguse me! I vass here. Heinrich von Strauss! Heinrich von Strauss! Vere iss Heiny von Strauss?" "He vass py his bedt sick," said Louie Knobloch. "Vat's der madder mit der bedt?" demanded Emil Muller. "For vhy iss id sick?" "Nein, nein, keppelmeister," said Louie Knobloch. "Id iss Heiny vat iss sick. He iss sick by der inside off der bedt." "Vhy iss he sick?" asked Emil Muller. "Yestertay," explained Louie Knobloch, "he vend on der bicnig, und he eated four dozen charlotte roosters, und he gets der collywopples." He illustrated his remarks by significantly rubbing his stomach. "He vas not in goot contition to plow ven ve left." [Illustration] "Anyvone vot eadts charlotte roosters ought der be sick," said Emil Muller decidedly. "He shoult eat dem vhen dey iss a egg. Blay!" All raised their instruments to their mouths, but he held up a warning finger. "Anodder t'ing," he went on to Knobloch. "You dell Heinrich off he vass nod here dermorrow morning ad half basd four in der afdernoon, vhen I gall der rehearsal, arous mit him! Are you retty?" "Yah!" "Den plow yourselfs!" Then began a wild riot of discord, whereupon Emil Muller quickly took his own dented offending cornet from his mouth. "Ve vill nod blay dot biece," he announced. "Id iss no goot." "Vhy don'd you wride some musigs, keppelmeister?" suggested Peter Dinkelspeil. "I voult, bud I'm doo pusy," said Emil Muller. "Led us renter insteadt dot peaudiful biece fon Vawgner, 'Der Glock on der Rhine.'" "Vatch, keppelmeister," corrected Louie Knobloch. "Vatch vat?" inquired Emil Muller. "Id iss nod a glock," explained Louie Knobloch. "Id iss a vatch on der Rhine." "A glock all gan see iss besser," said Emil Muller, and in the midst of their second attempt Hermann Swinescopf raised his hand and shouted in the effort to make himself heard above the din: "Shtob der pandt! Shtob der pandt! I am shbeaking!" "Vot's der madder?" asked Emil Muller. "Vass iss der biece you say ve blay?" questioned Hermann Sweinskopf. "I say 'Der Glock on der Rhine' fon Vawgner," replied Emil Muller. They started once more, but again came the vigorous interruption from Hermann Sweinskopf: "Shtob der pandt! Shtob der pandt! I am shbeaking!" "Vhy don'd you shbeak your moud oud undt pe done mit it?" said Emil Muller angrily. "Vass iss dis here biece, 'Der Glock on der Rhine,' anyhow? Iss id a so-na-da?" "Yess--undt no!" said Emil Muller, reflecting. "Id iss a in-u-en-do! Are you all retty?" "Yah!" they chorused, setting themselves in proper shape. "Vell, altogedder den, und show de vorld vot you can do!" Then came a third attempt, but the leader again stopped them. "Who plew dot bum node?" he sternly demanded. Everyone looked at each other in surprise, and Louie Knobloch said: "Vell, I don'd dood id." "I didn'd did id," said Peter Dinkelspeil. "I didn'd done id," said Hermann Sweinskopf. "I didn'd did did id," said Jacob Schnittger. [Illustration: The controversy over the bum note.] "You're de von," Emil Muller accused Louie Knobloch. "You plew dot bum node, no madder vot oxguse you make!" "No, sir," said Louie Knobloch stoutly, "I don'd dood id." "You're de von," insisted Emil Muller. "You plew dot bum node, it vass near me." "No, sir," denied Louie Knobloch. "I don'd plow no bum nodes. I vass as goot a musiker as you pe, und maype vorse." "You dake dot bum node und bay yourself," said Emil Muller reminded him. "Oh, dot don'd make some ice!" said Louie Knobloch, accompanying the words with sarcastic shakes of his head. "I don'd see no medals on you." He looked complacently down at his own chest and regarded with satisfaction the big assortment there. Emil Muller was evidently taken aback, but he recovered himself sufficiently to say: "I am de leater, und you gan ged oudt off der pandt. Ve gan ged along mitout you." "Oh, vell," said Louie Knobloch, "I gan go." "Den vhy don'd you? Vat are you shtanding here for?" "I vass vaiding for my money." "How much do you owe me?" asked Emil Muller. "I owe you a veek's vages," said Louie Knobloch. "No, you owe me a veek's vages. You bay me my money und I go." "You dake dot bum node und bay yourself," said Muller. That settled the controversy, and Louis Knobloch made no effort to go, nor did Emil Muller urge him. They made another attempt, without any further interruption, and, while their cheeks puffed out, and they got red in their faces, no one could tell what tune they were playing. Dragonfel from the throne silently motioned to Grouthead who went out, and returned a few seconds later with a tray on which were four tiny glasses of ginger ale. [Illustration] Jacob Schnittger turned and saw him, and then rushed to help himself to one of the glasses of ginger ale. A moment later Hermann Sweinskopf followed his example, and then Peter Dinkelspeil. Louie Knobloch suddenly noticed his companions preparing to refresh themselves, and made a frantic dash to join them. That left only Emil Muller, the leader, playing. He looked around to find out what was the matter, and then sprinted toward Grouthead, but there was no ginger ale left on the tray. He stood with ill-concealed envy watching the other four who were clinking their glasses hilariously. Then the quartet began to sing: "'Halli, hallo, halli, hallo; Bei uns geht's immer, Je langer je schlimmer; Halli, hallo, halli, hallo, Bei uns geht's immer noch so!'" "Prosit, leater!" said Louie Knobloch mockingly, as he lifted his glass, with the other three facing around and following suit. Emil Muller was speechless. He kicked his heels together as he watched them drinking and smacking their lips. Dragonfel again signalled to Grouthead who went out, and came back bearing an immense glass of ginger ale upon the tray. [Illustration] Emil Muller swooped down upon it exultingly, and with great difficulty held it aloft. The others of the band gathered around in awe, while Louie Knobloch stood on tiptoe to obtain a better view of the glass. Emil Muller blew the froth into Louie's face, and the latter wiped it off with his fingers, afterwards putting them in his mouth, as though even small favors sometimes count. "Do you know vot dot man Vilhelm Shake-a-sbeare vonct saidt?" he asked. [Illustration: "THE BROWNIES!"] "No," replied Louie Knobloch, wiping the froth from his eyes. "Vot dit he say?" Emil Muller raised the glass to his lips, remarking with great emphasis: "Shake-a-sbeare vonct saidt, 'Dere iss odders!'" But before he could partake of the cooling drink all of a sudden the Red Spirit with the bow and quiver of arrows he had taken surreptitiously from Prince Florimel flew through the window into the room, shattering the glass all to pieces, and lit right at Dragonfel's feet. "Be not deceived, kind master!" he cried, in great excitement. "They are the Brownies!" CHAPTER XVI THE EARTHQUAKE AND VOLCANO [Illustration] The big glass with not so much as a single drop tasted by Emil Muller's lips fell from his hand with a loud crash, and its contents flowed like an amber-colored river along the floor. Almost instantly at the Red Spirit's startling announcement Dragonfel had sprung up from his throne stiff and rigid, and was regarding the embryo musicians with a glare of peculiar malevolence. "The Brownies!" he involuntarily ejaculated. "I thought they played too well for a German band!" Queen Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil had also risen as though they had received an electric shock. Their breath came fast in their sudden agitation. They started to go to the musicians, but Wolfinger, Mandrake, and Snoutpimple roughly grasped them, and held them back. Realizing the failure of a deception that might have achieved success had it not been for the sly spying of the malicious Red Spirit, Emil Muller, otherwise King Stanislaus, turned and faced Dragonfel, his very attitude hurling a strong challenge of defiance. Knowing that further subterfuge would be useless, the doughty monarch in a flash whisked off his false nose and moustache, and slipped from his baggy clothes. Likewise Louie Knobloch, Peter Dinkelspeil, Hermann Sweinskopf, and Jacob Schnittger removed their disguises, and the unmistakable features of the Sailor, Policeman, German, and Irishman were revealed. "Yes, we are the Brownies," cried King Stanislaus, "come to demand the instant surrender of Queen Titania and her companions." "Idiots!" snarled Dragonfel, in a fury. "You have rushed to your destruction!" And he clapped his hands together, and shouted to his followers around him: "What ho, there! Summon everyone in the palace! We'll see that these presumptuous sprites meet with fitting punishment." The Demon Usher half flew, and half ran, with even more celerity than usual, to do his bidding. With teeth showing, and fists clenched, the infuriated enchanter advanced threateningly toward the intrepid members of the band who looked at him without even so much as flinching. "Have a care!" warned King Stanislaus. "Beware of the Brownies' mystic power!" And, turning to the Sailor, he added: "Quick! the signal!" Instantly the Sailor blew a deafening blast upon his cornet, and in a trice there was the pounding of many fists upon the outer doors, with crashing sounds as though heavy logs were being directed with the force of many hands against them. [Illustration] Under the fierce, determined assault the doors gave way and toppled in, while through the opening swarmed and crowded the band of eager Brownies, with Prince Florimel in their lead. At almost the same instant, through other doors, poured Dragonfel's hosts, with Vulcan's red imps somersaulting and leaping among them, and there were so many of them, and all so big and powerful, they well might cause dismay to the stoutest heart. "So be it then!" cried Dragonfel, grandiloquently, for the sight of all these great, hulking fellows gave him renewed confidence. "It is power against power!" And, striking a pompous attitude, he cleared his throat, and placed his hand on his chest. "Stand back!" shouted King Stanislaus. "He's going to speak a piece!" Then Dragonfel poetically spouted: "Much rather than in spite of me, The union of these bands should be, From thy long rest, oh, Vulcan, wake; Let earth to its dark centre quake, And these strong walls that round us stand Come crumbling down in lime and sand!" This incantation, punctuated, as it were, by Vulcan's imps, who threw balls of fire into the air where the commas, semicolon, and exclamation point are above transcribed, was delivered with only fair elocutionary ability, but its effect was electrifying. Almost with the last word uttered by his vindictive lips a tremor ran through the earth that brought to all a sickening sensation of fear. The heavy walls and ornate supporting pillars shook, tottered, and then fell with a terrific crash, that might well horrify all, as the vibrations of the earth continued. In another instant the magnificent palace lay in ruins illumined by fierce flames that leaped wildly from the apex of the volcano and licked with fiery tongues the very sky. [Illustration] Shrieking and screaming with the horror of it all Dragonfel's followers and the Brownies alike ran hither and thither, their warfare temporarily forgotten in this more appalling danger that suddenly had come to them. In their fright some sought ridiculous places of refuge but it was a matter of speed. True to their nature to help in all times of distress, the Brownies worked well to save things from complete ruin, and if the proper implements had been at hand the havoc would not have been so severe. But Vulcan was in no mood to quit the quake that was felt in all parts of the palace. [Illustration] Even the State bed-chamber was not exempt, and things that had gone up with great care and cost came down with great crash and confusion. But more terrible danger menaced them. The shock of the earthquake was over, and had wrought utter ruin. Still, as far as could be learned, in all the confusion, uproar, and wild excitement no lives had been lost. Far greater peril, however, threatened from which there did not seem to be a possible way of escape, new horrors faced them on every side. Round and pear-shaped volcanic bombs shot up with tremendous velocity from the crater's boiling mouth, formed from the precious minerals stored for centuries deep in the treasury of the earth. And all of these in a molten red-hot liquid mass were flowing swiftly and irresistibly in a bubbling, hissing, steaming, seething, blood-red river straight on to where the unfortunate Brownies were among the ruins of the once proud and haughty palace. [Illustration] Before all this occurred Florimel's quick eye had noticed the audacious Red Spirit with his stolen bow and arrows, and he had sprung forward to wrest them from him. But the strange, repulsive creature evaded him mockingly, and flew off with his booty. [Illustration] The disappointment of the prince was transformed to delight when the next moment he beheld Titania running to him with arms extended. But they never met, for before she could reach his side the terrible catastrophe of the earthquake and volcano happened, and they were jostled and crowded apart by the throng, who in their great terror seemed to have lost all control of their senses. In all the turmoil careful watch was kept of the captives. Nearer and nearer came the molten stream of lava, and hotter and hotter grew its scorching breath, while huge trees in its remorseless path flared up and shriveled away in an instant. [Illustration] When the stunning shock to his nerves was exhausting itself, King Stanislaus in a dazed way began to think, with the full realization that whatever there was to be done had to be accomplished quickly. Suddenly he recalled the frame building they had passed in going to the palace. If it housed as he most fervently hoped it did a complete equipment for fighting fires it might prove the very means by which the Brownies could grapple with a situation that was becoming more and more intolerable. [Illustration] Promptly he communicated his plan to various members of the band, as he spied them, and the word was passed around from one to the other, until all were fully conversant with His Majesty's views. And very soon all these agile sprites, with King Stanislaus and Prince Florimel in the lead, were racing helter-skelter back to the wooden structure that bore the inscription: NEPTUNE HOOK AND LADDER CO. NO. 1. They broke in the doors, and soon were prying into every nook and corner of the place. And, while King Stanislaus forthwith seized a fire-trumpet that was hanging from a hook on the wall, Brownies were donning with the greatest haste fire helmets that even with paper stuffed in them came down over their ears, and putting on rubber boots and coats intended by Dragonfel for his followers, and which proved but sorry fits, for the boots came well up over their waists, and had to be turned back, and the coats trailed after them like the long trains of fashionable ladies' gowns. [Illustration] The energetic monarch was rather disappointed to find upon inspection that the machine instead of being one of the modern, up-to-date kind was of a very antiquated type, a brake-engine with man-handles that had to be worked by hand to throw a stream of water. But he was greatly relieved to discover that there was an abundant supply of hose, for in providing himself with this the enchanter evidently had made a nice calculation of the distance from the crater of the volcano to the stand-pipe connection in the palace, and he had allowed plenty to spare. [Illustration] In stentorian tones His Majesty shouted out his orders through the fire-trumpet, and the Brownies hauled out the engine and hose-carriage. Then they all took hold of the long ropes attached to them, and started on a run for Dragonfel's ruined palace, that now was little more than a tumbled heap. Brownies perched on the engine, and one kept clanging the bell furiously. Some who ran with the ropes tripped on the trailing tails of their rubber coats, but they never let go, and were dragged along by their surer-footed companions. After they had gone some distance the Policeman began shouting in remonstrance, and King Stanislaus ordered a halt to hear what he had to say. "What is it, officer?" asked His Majesty. "We've got to go back," panted the Policeman. "Some of us forgot to put on red shirts." [Illustration] Though King Stanislaus felt very much chagrined at such neglect, he realized that it was now too late to remedy this most important matter, for every passing moment was precious. So he bellowed through the trumpet instructions to continue, and pulling and straining at the ropes they flew on, with the engine and hose-carriage bumping, lurching, and swaying after them. On and on they went, pit-patting at last across the rickety old wooden bridge, but before they could drag the engine across it one of the planks snapped in two under its weight, and the wheels on one side went down through the opening almost as far as the water below. The engine was firmly stuck, and though the Brownies tugged and strained at the rope, puffing, panting, and exerting all their strength, they could not even so much as budge it. Nearer and nearer came the terrible river of fire, and the volcano seemed to be reaching even greater activity. It looked as though this effort of the Brownies was in vain. CHAPTER XVII THE BROWNIES FIGHT THE FLAMES [Illustration] But once more the indomitable spirit of King Stanislaus manifested itself. Though the fire-engine was jammed in between the joists and timbers of the bridge, and could not be extracted by pulling the rope, the plucky monarch would not allow himself to be vanquished without a struggle. He caused the Brownies to bring heavy planks, and farther directed them to wrench off the guard-rails of the bridge. The ends of these were placed under the engine, while at those opposite the sprites exerted as powerful a leverage as they could at the same time comrades were pulling with all their might and main at the rope. Finally their combined efforts resulted in raising the engine up on the bridge again, after which it was easily rolled upon the road. This unfortunate delay had seemed much longer than it really was, owing to the exigency of the situation, but they made up for lost time during the rest of the distance, and reached the site of the ruins without further mishap. [Illustration] The lava was almost upon them, and they were nearly suffocated by the intense heat. But, while King Stanislaus ran here and there directing the preparations, and shouting his orders through the fire-trumpet, they quickly unwound the coils of hose and effected a connection with the stand-pipe. The water was thereupon turned on, and while Brownies in helmets, rubber coats, and boots held grimly on to the hose and trained the big brass nozzle on the fast approaching lava, others manned the handles of the engine, a half dozen or more being required at each end, and flew hanging to them up and down through the air to furnish the necessary pressure. [Illustration] Though the engine was old and out of repair, it had one redeeming feature. It could throw two or three streams of water at once as well as one, and the Brownies in their great need forced it to the limit. Immense volumes of water gushed out at the lava, and their contact produced a hissing, boiling sound, while the air was almost immediately filled with steam which became so thick that it could almost be cut with a knife. In the thick vapors that arose their forms could only be distinguished dimly, and they seemed like shadows flitting to and fro. [Illustration] At times the hose burst in various places, and streams of water from them spouted high into the air involving waste, but King Stanislaus proved himself equal to all emergencies. "Stick your fingers in the holes to keep the water in," he shouted through the trumpet. Brownies either poked their fingers through the openings or held their hands against them to prevent the escape of water. The hose got away from those who were holding it, and the terrific stream drenched the Dude, Chinaman, and Indian who were directly in its path, sweeping them off their feet. In another moment the Brownies regained their mastery of it, and once more the water was directed full at the blazing lava. Such efforts were bound to achieve results, and these King Stanislaus noted with great satisfaction. "We're gaining on it!" he announced exultantly. "Just keep it up, boys, and we'll soon have the fire out." Thus encouraged, higher and higher flew the Brownies on the handles of the engine, while others continued to play the hose upon the descending lava, which hissed, steamed, and bubbled as the water struck it. [Illustration] As the lava cooled off it formed a composition resembling asphalt, and upon this the Brownies could walk, unwinding as they did so more and more hose, and all the while getting nearer and nearer to the volcano. Finally they were directing the stream down the crater's mouth, which gurgled, gasped, and then instead of flame began to emit smoldering smoke which grew less and less in volume. "I guess that settles Mr. Volcano!" triumphantly cried King Stanislaus, as he wiped beads of perspiration from his royal brow. [Illustration] "It's a pity the palace was destroyed," remarked the Student. "It's Dragonfel's own fault," said the king, "and he has only himself to blame. I wouldn't have that man's mean disposition, no, not for all the jewels and mines he possesses." "Even if he has lost his palace," said the Dude, "he's got a fine new macadamized road to the volcano. With a jitney-bus he can make a lot of money from tourists." The fire was practically extinguished, and all danger from it had passed. It was well that this was so, for the first rays of the sun were beginning to appear in the brightening east, and the mystic powers of the Brownies which come at night were fast being exhausted. When the valiant fire-fighters at last had the volcano under control, Prince Florimel gazed anxiously around for Queen Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil, but none of them was in sight. [Illustration] Neither could he observe Dragonfel nor any of his followers, for when they had become assured of safety these cravens had fled, leaving the Brownies to do all the work. Florimel ran hither and thither, searching among the ruins for those he was so eager to find, and calling aloud their names, but there was no response to his cries, nor could he discover the slightest trace of them anywhere, which alarmed him greatly. The Brownies were taking a much needed rest, but he got them all to join in the quest, and they hunted in every nook and corner thereabout without success. [Illustration] "This is indeed strange," said King Stanislaus, very much puzzled. "They were here just a little while ago, for I saw them myself. I didn't pay any particular attention to them at the time, for the volcano was keeping me pretty busy." "They have made their escape," said Florimel, "and have again carried off the queen and her companions. The question is, where have they gone?" "I do not think they have gone far," said the king, and his eye swept the harbor where the galleon was plainly visible. "Perhaps they are on the ship, but I very much doubt it. It may be they are hiding somewhere near." Suddenly the Policeman who was still prowling stealthily around poked his club in a dark, out-of-the-way corner into something flabby which at once emitted a queer, cackling shriek so uncanny that everyone jumped back in fright. The next moment he quickly reached in his arm and drew out by the ear the quaking, shaking Demon Usher who had no opportunity to practice his eccentric locomotion, but was obliged to crawl after his captor on his hands and knees. The Policeman led him by the ear to King Stanislaus who eyed him sternly. [Illustration] "Mercy, have mercy!" shrieked the Demon Usher, in abject terror, and he shook as though he had the dumb ague, chills and fever, and something else besides. "Oh, kind sir, I will be your slave for life, and obey your slightest wish. Only don't kill or torture me, I beg you!" "Tell the truth, or it will be the worse for you," said King Stanislaus. His words in no sense were a threat, for it is always the worse for anyone who does not tell the truth. But they only served to increase the fears of the poor, frightened wretch who shook as if he had added St. Vitus dance to all his other symptoms. "Spare my life!" he whined, with his teeth clicking against each other like castenets. "Oh, please, sir, spare my life! Ask me anything you like, and I will answer you. Yes, and though it is very hard for me to do so, I will speak the truth. Let me be your slave, and fan you, and black your boots!" "Where is your master?" "He is gone." "Yes, we know that already. Where has he gone?" The Demon Usher looked around timidly as though to assure himself that neither Dragonfel nor any of his followers was within hearing, and then said, with an air of great cunning: "If I tell you, will you let me go?" "Yes," said King Stanislaus. "I give you my promise." "Then I will tell you," said the Demon Usher. "He has flown with his captives to his mine." "His mine?" echoed His Majesty. "Have you not heard of it?" asked the Demon Usher in great surprise. "Why, it is the most wonderful mine in all the world. Every jewel known to a lapidary is there." "Where is it?" "Near by." "Lead us to it," broke in Florimel eagerly. "Come with me," said the Demon Usher. "I will show you the secret passage-way through which Dragonfel and the rest entered." Florimel made an impatient start to be off, and the Brownies showed their willingness to follow him through all dangers, but King Stanislaus, more careful, raised his hand to call a halt. "Stay!" he cautioned. "This may only be a ruse to trap us. How do we know this is the truth?" "It is the truth," averred the Demon Usher. "Follow me and I will soon prove it to you." He moved off with his queer half-skip and half-jump, cocking his eye behind at them as if he feared they would try to stop him. But no one made any attempt to do so, and he appeared very much relieved. Close at his heels came Florimel and the Brownies, with King Stanislaus among them, but the monarch looked ill at ease, as though he suspected treachery of some kind. The Demon Usher led them to a slight rise where there was a rocky formation, and stopped before a boulder so huge that it would have required the strength of many men to move it. [Illustration] Searching with his long, thin fingers for a certain place, he found it at length, and pressed against it as hard as he could. To the surprise of all the rest, the boulder began to slide easily away, disclosing the entrance to a dark, subterranean passage. [Illustration: "TRICKED!"] "Follow the passage," cried the Demon Usher triumphantly, "and it will lead you to Dragonfel and his captives!" Florimel and the Brownies at once entered, and King Stanislaus ran after them. "Stop!" came his warning. "Before we go any farther let us first consider." But when they were all inside it suddenly grew pitch-black, as the boulder quickly slid back into its place. From outside they heard the Demon Usher give a hoarse cackle of exultation. "Tricked!" ejaculated King Stanislaus. "We are caught like rats in a trap!" CHAPTER XVIII THE FLIGHT TO THE MINE [Illustration] In bringing about the destruction of his palace Dragonfel's only thought had been the destruction of the Brownies. He had hoped to crush the sprites by means of the falling walls and columns, and when he invoked Vulcan for the assistance he felt sure would be given to him he was very careful to keep out of harm's way himself. But like many another vindictive, revengeful person the wicked enchanter overreached himself. He had no idea when he called upon Vulcan to get busy that the latter would make such a good job of it. He fully expected the palace to topple down, for that was what he had asked for. But he did not want the volcano that had been thrown in for good measure. It made things too hot and uncomfortable. He was very much alarmed when he saw the volcano in violent eruption, for he realized that the downpour of lava boded ill for himself as well as for others over whose safety he was not at all concerned. [Illustration] Thinking only of himself, he was on the point of ordering out his volunteer fire department to subdue the flames in the crater when to his great relief he noticed that King Stanislaus had taken the matter out of his hands. From his place of safety Dragonfel watched the operations of the Brownies, and he breathed more freely when he noticed that they were getting the fire well under control, so that the prospect of all danger was fast being removed through their energetic efforts. He realized that after the volcano was subdued these indomitable little people would devote their attention to him, and in considering what the outcome would be he grew more and more uncertain. As a matter of fact, he was beginning to fear the mystic power of the Brownies, and he very much doubted if his big followers with all their boasted strength were a fit match for these sprites who had not only cunning but courage. He decided that in the clash which was bound to come it was best not to risk any chance of defeat in a fair, open fight, but by underhanded means to overpower them. Then the diabolical scheme of making the Brownies prisoners, and setting them to work in his mine, presented itself. If he fled there with his captives, they would undoubtedly follow in pursuit, and once in the mine they easily could be made helpless. The Demon Usher at his feet was going through all sorts of contortions of fear, and Dragonfel looked sneeringly down at him. "Stop your shaking, and listen to me," he commanded. "We are going to take the captives to the mine." "Let us start at once, kind master," said the Demon Usher, in a fever of impatience. "If it gets cool here it will be too hot to hold us." "You will be the only one to stay," said Dragonfel. "Oh, say not so, kind master!" cried the Demon Usher, shaking with even greater violence than before. "If they catch me they will kill me." "Then it will be good riddance to bad rubbish," was Dragonfel's unfeeling retort. "I said you were to stay, so that settles it. When the Brownies ask you where we've gone, you're to tell them to the mine. They'll probably make you lead them to it. When they do take them to the secret entrance, and after they are in close the boulder on them. Do you understand me?" "Yes, I grasp you perfectly," said the Demon Usher, "but, oh, kind master, I have a weak heart, and at times it fails me. Would it not be better to intrust a delicate matter like this to Snoutpimple?" [Illustration] "After they are imprisoned," went on Dragonfel, unheeding the suggestion, "you can come around by the main entrance, and let me know." Just as soon as he was fully convinced that all danger was over the enchanter passed the word around among his followers to decamp, and this was effected so insidiously that the Brownies did not notice it. They laid rough hands on Queen Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil, muffling the cries for help they tried to make, and bore them with great haste from the scene of excitement; the waving arms and kicking availed them nothing. [Illustration] With their struggling, protesting burdens in their arms they ran toward the mine, and descended into it by the main entrance. When they reached the great shaft where the mine-sprites were hard at work, Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil were released, and they looked around with wonder and surprise. The mine-sprites cast furtive glances of curiosity at these strange new faces that invited confidence, but so frightened were they when they saw their cruel master that they redoubled their efforts, and their fingers fairly flew as they dug them in the earth for precious stones. "Poor little things!" was Queen Titania's involuntary cry. "The work is too hard for them." "I've been thinking of that," said Dragonfel, with a chuckle, "and I've decided to put an extra force on." "Do you mean to set us to work?" asked Dame Drusilda indignantly. "Perhaps," said Dragonfel, with a horrid grin. "Just now, though, I'm going to take you all to another part of the mine where we'll await developments." As he spoke he seized Titania's hand, and began to drag her off down one of the dark passage-ways. In the same manner Mandrake followed with Dame Drusilda, while after him came Boundingbore with Violet and Daffodil. The mine-sprites watched their retreating forms, but they were too terrified to speak a word, and were helpless to aid them in any way. Dragonfel led the rest along the subterranean passage until at last they came to a square chamber that had been cut with much skill into the solid rock. When Mandrake lit a crystal lamp the great magnificence of the place was revealed. The floor and walls were inlaid with precious jewels in designs that were truly wonderful. Divans were built in at the sides, and the various creatures of the wild were represented everywhere. For all his short-comings, Dragonfel seemed to have a great respect for animals, and gave their skins at least a rest on his floors and walls where they could grin at spiders and moth-millers with some show of satisfaction. [Illustration] At the ceiling which was thickly crusted with diamonds there was a slender open shaft that evidently had been made to provide air and light but which was too small to provide a means of escape. "This is where you'll stay," announced Dragonfel. "The place isn't half-bad, as things go, so you ought to make yourselves fairly comfortable in it. You'll find both hot and cold water in the little ante-room screened off by those peacock-feather portières. Your meals will be brought to you. If you want to read there's the dictionary." "How long are you going to keep us here?" asked Titania, with a sinking of her heart. "Always, and maybe longer," was Dragonfel's gruff response. "Have you brought your knitting with you?" "If you think you can keep us here against our will," said Titania, in a decided tone, "you will find that you are very much mistaken." "How so?" said Dragonfel contemptuously. "It won't be long before the Brownies are here." "That's what I fully expect," said the enchanter, with a knowing wink, "and after they come there'll be something doing, BELIEVE ME!" He laid great emphasis upon the last two words, and in spite of all her confidence in Florimel and the Brownies Titania was filled with great uneasiness. But she knew that further words would be wasted on him, so she said nothing more. With Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil she retired to a corner of the room, as far removed from him as possible, where they discussed among themselves in whispers this new phase of the disagreeable situation. They hoped that Dragonfel and the rest would go, but still they lingered, and the enchanter at times looked up at the narrow opening cut into the ceiling. Finally he gave expression to a grunt of satisfaction as something he had been watching for met his gaze, and they noticed with him that a golden flood of sunshine was pouring through the opening. "Day at last!" he cried, and, almost with his words, the Demon Usher made his appearance with a hop, skip, and jump, while at his back stood a half-starved looking demon whose hair had not been cut for a long time, and who had a distinctly artistic appearance. "Master, kind master," the Demon Usher joyously cackled, "I bear good news. The little commission you intrusted me with I executed to the best of my ability. Oh, master, you should have seen how brave I was. I was with them single-handed, yet I was more than a match for them all. I had the whole band in terrible fear of me." [Illustration] "Stop throwing bouquets at yourself!" ordered Dragonfel. "Tell me where they are." "It's all easy now," went on the Demon Usher. "The dangerous part has been done by me. I've got them so cowed that now they'll eat out of your hand. I captured them all by myself, and drove them into the south lode, where they wait to do your bidding." "Will you permit me a word, kind master?" then spoke up the half-starved looking demon, as he unrolled a large sheet of paper. "He doesn't deserve a medal, or even honorable mention. I took a rough sketch of him when he had the Brownies at his mercy, and here it is." [Illustration] Dragonfel stared at the effort in astonishment. "You have missed your calling," he remarked. "You should be in the Academy of Design." Titania had listened with fast increasing alarm, and now with Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil she advanced quickly toward him. "Of whom is this creature speaking?" she asked, in evident distress. "Of the Brownies?" The Demon Usher uttered his disagreeable cackle as Dragonfel exultingly responded: [Illustration] "Yes, the Brownies! They are prisoners like yourselves. Their nights of adventure are over, and they'll never more delight in harmless pranks and helpful deeds. Those who seek their aid will henceforth look for them in vain. They are doomed to slave in this mine for the rest of their lives!" Then Grouthead came up running, and he cried in great excitement: "Master, kind master, we have captured all the Brownies, and they are helpless. What shall we do with them?" "Set them to work at once," spoke Dragonfel. "I will go back with you to gloat over them." He started immediately, and Titania and her companions attempted to follow, but Mandrake barred the way, and held them back. CHAPTER XIX THE MISSION OF THE DOVE [Illustration] After the huge boulder had shut in the unsuspecting Brownies their only alternative was to follow the winding passage-way of the mine wherever it might take them. They could not remain where they were to perish miserably of hunger and thirst, so they crept cautiously along in the dark with the faint hope that in some way they might gain the open. But the passage they were forced to travel led them direct to the main-shaft where the mine-sprites were at work. Nearly all of Dragonfel's followers were there waiting to receive them. For the Demon Usher after imprisoning them had descended by the main entrance and gleefully imparted the news, claiming high honors. Sheepishly the Brownies slunk in, with the Dude's white handkerchief fluttering at the end of his cane in token of the band's complete surrender, for King Stanislaus knew how useless it would be to offer any resistance. They were all huddled together in a body, and a sorry, crestfallen lot they were. Never before had such great misfortune overtaken them. [Illustration] At times the Student Brownie would discourse on Liberty, Justice, or Good Fellowship, and find appreciative listeners, and he lifted up their hearts by assuring them that history repeats itself, and that they would yet enjoy the freedom of the comets and wandering stars. While others of Dragonfel's followers guarded the Brownies so that they could not escape, and brandished sharp-pointed spikes, battle-axes, bludgeons, and other formidable-looking weapons significantly, Grouthead ran in hot haste to inform his master. [Illustration] Soon the wicked enchanter made his appearance, and his rubicund face showed high elation. "Put 'em all to work!" he shouted. "Don't let 'em stand here idle." "What do you want me to do?" asked King Stanislaus meekly. "Here, stop your talking, and get busy!" cried Snoutpimple, thrusting in the king's hand a pick. "I haven't any choice," said His Majesty, "so I'll have to take my pick!" The airy persiflage was lost upon Dragonfel, who frowned on him severely. "I'm a king in my own right," continued the monarch, pointing to his crown, "and never used a pick except to bury a dead dog, but I'll not make a scene in the presence of my subjects, so here goes for the jewels." His cheerfulness told on others. "If it was digging shedder-crabs or scallops," remarked the Sailor, "I'd soon fill a basket." [Illustration] "I've broken stones before," said the Irishman, "but this is the first chance I ever had to get a whack at diamonds." "Vell," said the German Brownie, "if I see somedings in dot blace shining like blitzen I bulls him oudt alretty yed und say noddings!" They were then hustled off to their new tasks. [Illustration] With the mine-sprites and Brownies the king started to dig away, and he tried not to shirk, but to do his stint with the rest of them. The sight of royalty reduced to hard labor affected all his subjects greatly, though they had little opportunity for sympathy so severely did their taskmasters press them. The heaps of precious stones piled up higher and higher, and their eyes fairly blinked at the sight of them. "I never saw so many jewels before in all my life," declared His Majesty, wincing as he felt a sudden crick in his back. "Whenever I look at them I feel just as though I were going to break out with carbuncles." "I wonder when they'll bring us something to eat," said Florimel, who was beginning to grow hungry. He was very much relieved when some time later Boundingbore appeared with a cauldron of lukewarm soup, which was served in skimpy little plates. "Here, take mine back," complained King Stanislaus. "Look what's in it! Just imagine what would have happened to me if I had swallowed it." As he spoke he held up a pin which he had found in his soup. "It wouldn't have hurt you, Your Majesty," said the Policeman. "It's a safety pin." Now and then some adventurous Brownies would discover a new dark passage, and with the hope that it might lead to liberty the more progressive would get their heads together and plan a break for freedom. [Illustration] For a time it looked as though one of these attempts would be crowned with success, and liberty itself seemed to beckon in the offing. But, just as promising enterprises in our own uncertain careers often end in disappointment, so would each noble effort only result in a punishment of heavier burdens and shorter rations. Mandrake with a tray of food went down one of the dark passages, and soon returned empty-handed. This Florimel noted, and he said to King Stanislaus: "Your Majesty, Titania and her companions must be over there. I am going to try to find them." He took from the Sailor, who had charge of it, Euphrosyne's dove, and, opening the bosom of his jacket, let it cuddle close against his breast, with just its head now and then showing. At a moment when the attention of all Dragonfel's followers was temporarily diverted by some remarkable discovery he made a sudden dash down the passage where he believed Queen Titania and the others were imprisoned. His companions grouped themselves together to screen his fleeing form as best they could, and he succeeded in getting away without detection. [Illustration] Florimel ran along the passage, and his supernatural vision guided him. So when he came to a gem-crusted door he was able to see stretched before it a form that he at once recognized as the Red Spirit. The lazy fellow had been left to guard the prisoners, but had neglected his duty, and was fast asleep. Florimel heard him snoring away so that he knew his slumber was a heavy one, and he tiptoed up to him with confidence. He was rejoiced to see lying beside him the bow and four arrows, and he noiselessly reached for the bow, and restored the arrows to his quiver. Then he turned the big diamond that served as a knob for the door, and stepping cautiously over the unconscious Red Spirit, entered. Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil were seated upon one of the divans, and they sprang up joyously when they saw him. "Florimel!" cried Titania, and ran toward him. "'Sh!" he warned, and closed the door softly after him. "The Red Spirit is supposed to be guarding you, but he has fallen asleep. We must be careful not to wake him." They embraced fondly, and Titania asked: "When will the Brownies take us away from here?" Florimel shook his head despondently as he answered: "I am sorry to say that we are all prisoners like yourselves. See, Titania, I have brought you this. I thought perhaps that it might help us." He took the little cooing creature from the bosom of his jacket and stroked its soft sides. "Euphrosyne's dove!" exclaimed Titania. "There is a shaft above through which it can escape. Let us send it with a message to her." Upon a scrap of paper she hastily wrote the words: "_Euphrosyne, Fair Goddess of Mirth:_ "Dragonfel the wicked enchanter holds us captive in his country. Help us, we beseech you, before it is too late. "QUEEN TITANIA." While she wrote Florimel noticed with some uneasiness that water was trickling down the walls and that in some places on the floor pools had already formed. "Tie the note to the dove's neck," he said. "Let us dispatch it immediately." They did so, and he flung the little creature upward toward the shaft. Its talons clutched a side precariously while it fluttered its wings to sustain itself in the frail, uncertain hold it had. [Illustration] "Poor little thing!" said Titania, when she noticed that it was in great danger of falling. "It cannot help us." "Look!" cried the excited Violet. "It is making for the opening." To the relief of all its watchers the bird crept through the shaft and disappeared. "Good luck go with it!" was Dame Drusilda's fervent ejaculation. "Oh, Titania, Titania," said Florimel, "it may be our happiness depends upon that bird!" Then almost immediately afterward to their utter horror and consternation water in immense volumes began to pour down through the shaft until blinded and drenched as they suddenly became it seemed to them as if all the flood-gates of the earth had been opened. "Quick!" shouted Florimel. "We must get out of here!" He flung open the door, fearing that the Red Spirit was still outside, but the terrified clamor of voices that rose from all sides had caused him to desert his post. [Illustration] The water which in an incredibly short time had risen nearly to their waists began racing down the passage, but still it did not appear to recede. "Let us go at once," urged Florimel, "for if we stay here we shall be lost." He gathered up the trembling Titania in his arms, and with his burden staggered through the water toward the door, while Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil followed close upon his heels. Down the passage that had now become a violent raceway of raging, foaming water they all fled, for Florimel realized that their only chance of escape, small as it might be, was to join those who were familiar with the entrances to the mine. [Illustration] But as they got closer to the main-shaft the confusion and uproar grew wilder, and with a sickening feeling he became aware that those whose help he had hoped for were quite as powerless as he. Ear-splitting shrieks of horror made a very pandemonium of awful sound, and over all was heard the despairing cry of Grouthead: "The mine is flooded, and the force-pumps can't save us. We shall all be drowned!" CHAPTER XX DISASTER TO DRAGONFEL [Illustration] Dragonfel's mine was flooded, and as the water kept pouring in from all sides, there was no escape for the unfortunates who were in its chambers. The passage which was mainly used in a descent to the mine had become a raging river impossible to withstand so deep was it and with a current so strong. The way by which the Brownies had entered the mine was blocked by the giant boulder which could only be removed by the pressure of a secret spring from the outside. The boulder had brought captivity to the band, and now it threatened even direr results, for those several tons of stone stubbornly barred the way to safety. It was evident that the violent disturbances deep down in the earth which had caused the earthquake and volcano were likewise responsible for the flood. [Illustration] The water came in streams from the entrances, cracks, and fissures until the main-shaft was transformed into a lake that constantly grew deeper, and through this with shrieks and screams all plunged, fleeing hither and thither, but with no definite point in their dazed minds. Dragonfel and his followers in particular lost their heads, and their fear and cowardice were indeed pitiable. All their bravado had deserted them, and from the blustering bullies they had been they became sorry, trembling wretches vainly beseeching help and voicing the terror at their hearts in wild, unearthly cries. But, though the Brownies were alarmed like all the rest, they still retained their presence of mind, and under the cool-headed direction of King Stanislaus they at once set about to do certain things, with the hope that a way would afterward be found to get them out of all danger, helping hands were busy. Prince Florimel assisted Titania, Dame Drusilda, Violet, and Daffodil to a ledge that was still out of the reach of the advancing waters, charging them most earnestly to remain there, after which he ran back, and added his efforts to those of his companions. [Illustration] The little mine-sprites were most in need of aid, and to them the Brownies devoted the work of rescue. They were all in great peril of drowning, and though it seemed that such a fate could only be delayed for a time, they started to remove the poor, frightened creatures to places as far beyond the rapidly encroaching waters as possible. Brownies scaled the walls and lodged themselves in a pocket up to which they hauled with great effort a number of mine-sprites in one of the large baskets that were used in loading the jewels before they were carted away. Others of the terrified sprites sought refuge by climbing over the Brownies' willing backs to a temporary refuge high among the rocks. [Illustration] The Irishman, Scotchman, and German put three in a wheelbarrow, and started to trundle them off, but to their great dismay it turned over, and spilled them out. Assistance, however, was quickly rendered, and with the mine-sprites back in the wheelbarrow they continued on their way. [Illustration] Still the waters rose, and the excitement increased. [Illustration] Dragonfel in the most abject terror stormed and shouted at his followers, issuing angry commands for them to exert themselves to do something, but they were all helpless, and his words were wasted on the air to no purpose. [Illustration] They were too frightened to be of assistance, even if it had been possible to render it, though in cases where one was overcome there were those who attempted the work of resuscitation. The wicked enchanter ran about like a maniac, with little or no thought of where he was going, until suddenly with a shriek of fright he plunged into a circular pit that had been dug deep into the earth for a distance of perhaps fifty feet. There was sufficient water at the bottom of the pit to break his severe fall, which was fortunate for him, as otherwise it would have resulted in his end. He was stunned and dazed, but in nowise injured beyond some bruises, and he frantically reached up and clutched a jagged point of rock by which he pulled himself out of the water that was nearly to his neck and promising him more. The horror of his situation was at once made plain to him. Beyond this rock there was nothing by which he could maintain even the slightest hold, and the waters which were steadily rising would soon submerge him and end all. His evil scheming had led to his own undoing, and in causing misfortune to so many he had brought upon himself the most terrible misfortune of all. Looking up helplessly he could see a number of the Brownies trying to peer down at him through the darkness. They lay flat on their stomachs, and leaned as far out over the hole as prudence would permit. "Help! help!" screamed Dragonfel, in a frenzy of fear. "Save me! save me!" His piteous cries were heard by all the Brownies, and they looked at each other in doubt and uncertainty. When the monster whom they had every reason to fear had met with the mishap which now made him powerless it was not to be gainsaid that a feeling of great relief was experienced by one and all. No matter what harm might come to them from other sources, certainly his power to injure them was gone. "Why should we help him?" said one of the Brownies. "He has harmed us all he could." "If he drowns," said another, "he will never have a chance to do so again." But King Stanislaus looked very grave. "No matter how much he has wronged us," he said decidedly, "he needs our help, so we must give it." "But he is our enemy," objected the Policeman. "That makes no difference," said His Majesty. "He will drown if we do not aid him." "If we save him," said Uncle Sam, "he will only make trouble for us again." "We must not think of that," said King Stanislaus. "He's in distress, and doesn't need to advertise it. That's where the Brownies step in." He gave his orders, and the Brownies with the realization that there was not a moment to be lost ran with all possible speed for the long rope which they had used in hauling up the mine-sprites in the basket. This they brought to the opening, tripping and sprawling over it in the eagerness and anxiety they displayed. They stood in a line, and lowered the rope down into the pit. "Slip the noose at the end of the rope under your arms," shouted King Stanislaus to Dragonfel, "and we will pull you up." [Illustration] The water was nearly over Dragonfel's head by this time, and he had ceased his cries for help, for whenever he opened his mouth he choked and strangled. He heard the welcome words of the king as in a dream, but half unconscious as he was he reached out, and caught the rope, tightened his grip upon it. He discovered the slip-noose at the end, and with his senses fast leaving him had just enough strength left to adjust this under both his arms. When the Brownies felt the rope grow taut they began to haul away with might and main. Around the pit now there were willing minds and itching fingers. Some fell over with their exertions, but in a trice they were up again to contribute all the strength they had to the work. "Pull away, boys!" shouted King Stanislaus encouragingly, with his own royal digits wound tightly around the rope. "A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together! That's the ticket! Hurray! We'll soon have him up." [Illustration] His words incited them so that through undue effort they suddenly lost their balance and sprawled over backward like ten-pins. Like a shot Dragonfel fell back into the water again, almost dragging after him a half-dozen Brownies who still clung to the rope. But others quickly grasped them by the legs, and prevented them from going over into the pit until a fresh hold of the rope was secured, and another attempt was made. "Avast there, messmates!" cried the Sailor. "Give an old salt a chance at the fore-clutch on the hawser, and the old pirate will soon come up from the bottom of the sea!" This time the Brownies were successful, and they pulled Dragonfel to the brink, and rolled him over to a place of temporary safety. Water poured from his drenched form, and with a groan he relapsed into unconsciousness. The Brownies looked first at him, and then at each other. Though no one said a word, all had the same thought. Soon Dragonfel would revive, and then what would happen? They had saved their foe, but to what purpose? If by any chance they should escape the present dreadful danger they were in they would still be in the wicked enchanter's power. How would he use it? [Illustration: NEARING A FINISH.] CHAPTER XXI AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER [Illustration] Dragonfel had been rescued by the Brownies at a crucial time when perhaps they might have been justified in trying to save themselves instead. The water kept on swiftly rising, and it forced them out of the positions they occupied to ledges and pockets higher up on the rocks. To these all were forced to retreat, and the still senseless enchanter was carried after them by some of his cowardly, frightened followers who would have left him behind if it had not been for the stern command of King Stanislaus. Still higher and higher rose the water till they were again threatened in their new places of refuge, and it soon became evident that something had to be done, and that quickly. There was but one passage-way through which the water was not pouring like that of a swift mill-race, and this was the one in which the Brownies had been trapped. As the water ascended they were forced into it, and they continued on through it well knowing from bitter experience that the huge boulder effectually blocked the exit, and would hold them powerless until finally they were submerged by the relentless flood. [Illustration] But still they went on, hoping against hope, until they came to the boulder. It was still in place, and though they exerted all their strength in trying to remove it they could not budge it to even the extent of a millionth of an inch. Brownies used sticks as levers, and the demons employed brute force, but all their efforts proved in vain. "It's no use," at last said King Stanislaus, wiping his perspiring brow. "It looks as though this would be the end." A sudden thought entered Florimel's head--a wild, foolish thought perhaps, but not any more so than when he had aimed his magic arrow at the crescent moon. "Stand back, all of you!" he shouted. [Illustration] He took one of the four arrows that were in the quiver, and placed it in the bow. Then he aimed it at the rock, and pulled the cord, making no particular attempt at a display of strength which he realized fully could not accomplish his purpose. But to the infinite delight and astonishment of all a strange thing happened, that made the eyes pop in from every head. The arrow struck the base of the rock, which at the moment of contact burst into hundreds of jagged pieces that flew up into the air. As these fell they formed a series of steps that were as good as any mason could have planned. [Illustration] They ascended these steps with all possible haste up into the open, where the blue sky was above them, and where they could breathe freely the air that never before had seemed so sweet and pure. Looking around they could note the ravages of the flood, for with it there had come a mighty tidal wave from the sea, with abnormally high water that had changed the low marshlands into lakes, and had swollen the small creeks to roaring, rushing rivers. [Illustration] Just then a vivacious little mine-sprite found an opportunity to whisper to the Policeman: "This is leap-year, officer, and, to speak freely, I loved you at first sight." "Well," said the Policeman, with his usual composure, "to speak even more freely, your love at second sight is not returned." "I would be willing," she said, "to fly with you to parts unknown." "That's the trouble," said the Policeman. "No parts are unknown to the Brownies. The world was our oyster, and we've opened it. We're just as well known in Timbuctoo as Tarrytown!" There was an angry swell that caused Dragonfel's galleon to toss violently up and down, but it still held secure to its anchor, and formed a picture inviting to a sailor's eye. The enchanter was laid upon the greensward by those who bore him, and he stirred uneasily, while his hand sought his forehead. Then he opened his eyes, and unsteadily tried to get on his feet, in which effort others sprang to his assistance. "Where am I?" he asked, as dazed and puzzled he looked around. "What has happened?" His gaze took in the Brownies, and, in spite of all they had just done for him, it was not a reassuring one. But somehow they feared him no longer, for they felt that no matter what further villainy he might attempt they were more than a match for him. But before some one could answer Dragonfel Euphrosyne, the Goddess of Mirth, suddenly appeared in their midst, though no one could tell just how or from whence she came. "Meddlesome spirit that you are," she said sternly, addressing her words to the crestfallen enchanter, "you can no longer trouble the Brownies. Your commission to do evil has expired." "How so?" he demanded. "I made application for a renewal." "Yes," she said, "but, through an error in the date, you were too late." "Too late?" he repeated blankly. "Yes, by thirteen seconds," she announced triumphantly, "and Beelzebub refuses to renew the policy." "Great Scott!" ejaculated Dragonfel, with much chagrin. "This comes of trying to run business without an almanac!" "Henceforth you will be compelled to be good," said Euphrosyne. "Yes," said Dragonfel, in a rather shamefaced manner. "It may come rather hard at first, but I suppose I will get used to it in time. As a matter of fact, I'm growing rather tired of being bad. There's nothing to it, after all. The only thing one gets from being bad is a lack of respect in the community." [Illustration] "I see you're somewhat repentant," said Euphrosyne encouragingly. "It's a little late, of course, but still it's better late than never. You understand, don't you, that after this you're to let the Brownies alone?" "I should say I will let them alone," coincided Dragonfel heartily. "The Brownies are too much for me. They have beaten me at every point. Even if I were disposed to do them further mischief I am placed in a rather delicate situation. I owe my life to the Brownies." "There is one thing on which I insist," spoke up King Stanislaus. "You must do something for these poor mine-sprites." "I will see that they are restored to their parents from whom they were stolen," asserted Dragonfel hastily. "Furthermore they shall all be given handsome dowries, with a beautiful solitaire diamond of a half-dozen karats more or less for each, so that when the right young man comes along the engagement-ring will be easy." Here the mine-sprite who had expressed her preference for the Policeman gave him a coy glance, but he twirled his club, and looked the other way. [Illustration] "It's too bad about your palace," said the Dude to Dragonfel. "Oh, don't trouble yourself about that," said the enchanter cheerfully. "I never did like its style of architecture, anyhow. I'll soon have it rebuilt, and give the Union scale for labor, with double pay for over-time. The palace was a rather tame affair anyway, I ran too much to the emerald, topaz, and turquoise in its composition. I'll make more use of the sapphire, the ruby and cornelian, in the makeup of the new structure; and those columns, I always felt a little weak over them, as they were only imitation chalcedony, the real thing goes in the next one, if I have to import it from Palestine." The glances the Brownies exchanged showed they felt that they had struck a master in his line. It is said, that some of the Brownies, to this day, annually celebrate their deliverance from the mine, and the reformation of Dragonfel, by proudly parading half the night, bearing the implements they had to use while in captivity. [Illustration] So delighted was King Stanislaus over the general outcome that his blithe spirits found expression in a jolly song that was a great favorite of his, and the Brownies all joined in the chorus. The words follow: I'M RULER OF THE BROWNIE BAND! KING STANISLAUS I'm ruler of the Brownie band, Most favored of personages; I sway my sceptre o'er a land Not found upon hist'ry's pages; I take my nightly promenade By anarchists unmolested; On me no bomb or hand grenade Has ever by them been tested! If you could only see me dine, You'd find me extremely placid; I never fear a dish of mine Is seasoned with prussic acid! BROWNIES Oh, you're all right! KING STANISLAUS Eh, I didn't catch it quite; Repeat it, please! I didn't understand. BROWNIES Why, you, you, you, you! You're all right! KING STANISLAUS And so is the Brownie band! KING STANISLAUS I need no sabre, lance, or spear To guard me whene'er I slumber; My people kneel, but not thro' fear; Love governs the entire number. My slightest wish they all obey; I never use any axes; I always let them have their way; They don't have to pay high taxes; No undertaker need apply; I'm not for embalmment crazy; My subjects cry as I pass by, "The Brownie king is a daisy!" BROWNIES Oh, you're all right, etc. The refrain was so rollicking and infectious that when it was repeated Dragonfel and his followers could not keep from joining in with the Brownies, and they lustily roared out the words with a right good will. The delayed wedding of Prince Florimel and Queen Titania was celebrated very soon after in the fairy-palace with all the joy and happiness that can come to such a momentous occasion. [Illustration] Brownies and fairies vied with each other in having a good time, and the walls rang with their innocent merry-making. Everyone said that King Stanislaus was the life of the party. Dragonfel and his followers participated in the festivities, this time unfeared, and to the strains of a Brownie orchestra they mingled with others in the dance. Dragonfel even tried to do the fox-trot with Dame Drusilda, which greatly delighted Euphrosyne who was among those present. [Illustration] In place of the useless, cumbersome presents he had first brought the enchanter gave the bride the more appropriate and useful gift of a dozen bushels of precious stones. [Illustration] So in this wonderful country King Florimel and his beautiful queen are still living and ruling wisely, and, to make their happiness complete, there are little children round them. To these King Florimel will leave the heritage of the magic bow and arrows, for life has glided smoothly on, and the time has never been so grave or distressing, as to necessitate their use. But should that time ever come the king has full confidence in his ex-fairy godmother's gift. [Illustration] To the palace the Brownies come frequently, and it is needless to say that they are welcome, just as they are welcome everywhere. But they cannot be there as often as King Florimel would like them to be because their kindly spirit takes them over the whole world to promote peace, good humor, and good will to all human kind. [Illustration: END] 
708	----	THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN by GEORGE MACDONALD CONTENTS 1. Why the Princess Has a Story About Her 2. The Princess Loses Herself 3. The Princess and--We Shall See Who 4. What the Nurse Thought of It 5. The Princess Lets Well Alone 6. The Little Miner 7. The Mines 8. The Goblins 9. The Hall of the Goblin Palace 10. The Princess's King-Papa 11. The Old Lady's Bedroom 12. A Short Chapter About Curdie 13. The Cobs' Creatures 14. That Night Week 15. Woven and then Spun 16. The Ring 17. Springtime 18. Curdie's Clue 19. Goblin Counsels 20. Irene's Clue 21. The Escape 22. The Old Lady and Curdie 23. Curdie and His Mother 24. Irene Behaves Like a Princess 25. Curdie Comes to Grief 26. The Goblin-Miners 27. The Goblins in the King's House 28. Curdie's Guide 29. Masonwork 30. The King and the Kiss 31. The Subterranean Waters 32. The Last Chapter CHAPTER 1 Why the Princess Has a Story About Her There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys. His palace was built upon one of the mountains, and was very grand and beautiful. The princess, whose name was Irene, was born there, but she was sent soon after her birth, because her mother was not very strong, to be brought up by country people in a large house, half castle, half farmhouse, on the side of another mountain, about half-way between its base and its peak. The princess was a sweet little creature, and at the time my story begins was about eight years old, I think, but she got older very fast. Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in that direction. The ceiling of her nursery was blue, with stars in it, as like the sky as they could make it. But I doubt if ever she saw the real sky with the stars in it, for a reason which I had better mention at once. These mountains were full of hollow places underneath; huge caverns, and winding ways, some with water running through them, and some shining with all colours of the rainbow when a light was taken in. There would not have been much known about them, had there not been mines there, great deep pits, with long galleries and passages running off from them, which had been dug to get at the ore of which the mountains were full. In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a mountain, or into a ravine. Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings, called by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances of them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity, in some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air. Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places. They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance. But I suspect those who said so had mistaken some of their animal companions for the goblins themselves--of which more by and by. The goblins themselves were not so far removed from the human as such a description would imply. And as they grew misshapen in body they had grown in knowledge and cleverness, and now were able to do things no mortal could see the possibility of. But as they grew in cunning, they grew in mischief, and their great delight was in every way they could think of to annoy the people who lived in the open-air storey above them. They had enough of affection left for each other to preserve them from being absolutely cruel for cruelty's sake to those that came in their way; but still they so heartily cherished the ancestral grudge against those who occupied their former possessions and especially against the descendants of the king who had caused their expulsion, that they sought every opportunity of tormenting them in ways that were as odd as their inventors; and although dwarfed and misshapen, they had strength equal to their cunning. In the process of time they had got a king and a government of their own, whose chief business, beyond their own simple affairs, was to devise trouble for their neighbours. It will now be pretty evident why the little princess had never seen the sky at night. They were much too afraid of the goblins to let her out of the house then, even in company with ever so many attendants; and they had good reason, as we shall see by and by. CHAPTER 2 The Princess Loses Herself I have said the Princess Irene was about eight years old when my story begins. And this is how it begins. One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was constantly gathering itself together into raindrops, and pouring down on the roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of water from the eaves all round about it, the princess could not of course go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one half of the toys she had. But then, you wouldn't have the toys themselves, and that makes all the difference: you can't get tired of a thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing--the princess sitting in the nursery with the sky ceiling over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I should advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I can't, but I don't think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the princess herself than he could, though--leaning with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head hanging down, and her hands in her lap, very miserable as she would say herself, not even knowing what she would like, except it were to go out and get thoroughly wet, and catch a particularly nice cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you see her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room. Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and looks about her. Then she tumbles off her chair and runs out of the door, not the same door the nurse went out of, but one which opened at the foot of a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which looked as if never anyone had set foot upon it. She had once before been up six steps, and that was sufficient reason, in such a day, for trying to find out what was at the top of it. Up and up she ran--such a long way it seemed to her!--until she came to the top of the third flight. There she found the landing was the end of a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of doors on each side. There were so many that she did not care to open any, but ran on to the end, where she turned into another passage, also full of doors. When she had turned twice more, and still saw doors and only doors about her, she began to get frightened. It was so silent! And all those doors must hide rooms with nobody in them! That was dreadful. Also the rain made a great trampling noise on the roof. She turned and started at full speed, her little footsteps echoing through the sounds of the rain--back for the stairs and her safe nursery. So she thought, but she had lost herself long ago. It doesn't follow that she was lost, because she had lost herself, though. She ran for some distance, turned several times, and then began to be afraid. Very soon she was sure that she had lost the way back. Rooms everywhere, and no stair! Her little heart beat as fast as her little feet ran, and a lump of tears was growing in her throat. But she was too eager and perhaps too frightened to cry for some time. At last her hope failed her. Nothing but passages and doors everywhere! She threw herself on the floor, and burst into a wailing cry broken by sobs. She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected of a princess of her age. After a good cry, she got up, and brushed the dust from her frock. Oh, what old dust it was! Then she wiped her eyes with her hands, for princesses don't always have their handkerchiefs in their pockets, any more than some other little girls I know of. Next, like a true princess, she resolved on going wisely to work to find her way back: she would walk through the passages, and look in every direction for the stair. This she did, but without success. She went over the same ground again an again without knowing it, for the passages and doors were all alike. At last, in a corner, through a half-open door, she did see a stair. But alas! it went the wrong way: instead of going down, it went up. Frightened as she was, however, she could not help wishing to see where yet further the stair could lead. It was very narrow, and so steep that she went on like a four-legged creature on her hands and feet. CHAPTER 3 The Princess and--We Shall See Who When she came to the top, she found herself in a little square place, with three doors, two opposite each other, and one opposite the top of the stair. She stood for a moment, without an idea in her little head what to do next. But as she stood, she began to hear a curious humming sound. Could it be the rain? No. It was much more gentle, and even monotonous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The low sweet humming sound went on, sometimes stopping for a little while and then beginning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee that had found a rich well of honey in some globular flower, than anything else I can think of at this moment. Where could it come from? She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was there--then to another. When she laid her ear against the third door, there could be no doubt where it came from: it must be from something in that room. What could it be? She was rather afraid, but her curiosity was stronger than her fear, and she opened the door very gently and peeped in. What do you think she saw? A very old lady who sat spinning. Perhaps you will wonder how the princess could tell that the old lady was an old lady, when I inform you that not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth and white. I will tell you more. Her hair was combed back from her forehead and face, and hung loose far down and all over her back. That is not much like an old lady--is it? Ah! but it was white almost as snow. And although her face was so smooth, her eyes looked so wise that you could not have helped seeing she must be old. The princess, though she could not have told you why, did think her very old indeed--quite fifty, she said to herself. But she was rather older than that, as you shall hear. While the princess stared bewildered, with her head just inside the door, the old lady lifted hers, and said, in a sweet, but old and rather shaky voice, which mingled very pleasantly with the continued hum of her wheel: 'Come in, my dear; come in. I am glad to see you.' That the princess was a real princess you might see now quite plainly; for she didn't hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without moving, as I have known some do who ought to have been princesses but were only rather vulgar little girls. She did as she was told, stepped inside the door at once, and shut it gently behind her. 'Come to me, my dear,' said the old lady. And again the princess did as she was told. She approached the old lady--rather slowly, I confess--but did not stop until she stood by her side, and looked up in her face with her blue eyes and the two melted stars in them. 'Why, what have you been doing with your eyes, child?' asked the old lady. 'Crying,' answered the princess. 'Why, child?' 'Because I couldn't find my way down again.' 'But you could find your way up.' 'Not at first--not for a long time.' 'But your face is streaked like the back of a zebra. Hadn't you a handkerchief to wipe your eyes with?' 'No.' 'Then why didn't you come to me to wipe them for you?' 'Please, I didn't know you were here. I will next time.' 'There's a good child!' said the old lady. Then she stopped her wheel, and rose, and, going out of the room, returned with a little silver basin and a soft white towel, with which she washed and wiped the bright little face. And the princess thought her hands were so smooth and nice! When she carried away the basin and towel, the little princess wondered to see how straight and tall she was, for, although she was so old, she didn't stoop a bit. She was dressed in black velvet with thick white heavy-looking lace about it; and on the black dress her hair shone like silver. There was hardly any more furniture in the room than there might have been in that of the poorest old woman who made her bread by her spinning. There was no carpet on the floor--no table anywhere--nothing but the spinning-wheel and the chair beside it. When she came back, she sat down and without a word began her spinning once more, while Irene, who had never seen a spinning-wheel, stood by her side and looked on. When the old lady had got her thread fairly going again, she said to the princess, but without looking at her: 'Do you know my name, child?' 'No, I don't know it,' answered the princess. 'My name is Irene.' 'That's my name!' cried the princess. 'I know that. I let you have mine. I haven't got your name. You've got mine.' 'How can that be?' asked the princess, bewildered. 'I've always had my name.' 'Your papa, the king, asked me if I had any objection to your having it; and, of course, I hadn't. I let you have it with pleasure.' 'It was very kind of you to give me your name--and such a pretty one,' said the princess. 'Oh, not so very kind!' said the old lady. 'A name is one of those things one can give away and keep all the same. I have a good many such things. Wouldn't you like to know who I am, child?' 'Yes, that I should--very much.' 'I'm your great-great-grandmother,' said the lady. 'What's that?' asked the princess. 'I'm your father's mother's father's mother.' 'Oh, dear! I can't understand that,' said the princess. 'I dare say not. I didn't expect you would. But that's no reason why I shouldn't say it.' 'Oh, no!' answered the princess. 'I will explain it all to you when you are older,' the lady went on. 'But you will be able to understand this much now: I came here to take care of you.' 'Is it long since you came? Was it yesterday? Or was it today, because it was so wet that I couldn't get out?' 'I've been here ever since you came yourself.' 'What a long time!' said the princess. 'I don't remember it at all.' 'No. I suppose not.' 'But I never saw you before.' 'No. But you shall see me again.' 'Do you live in this room always?' 'I don't sleep in it. I sleep on the opposite side of the landing. I sit here most of the day.' 'I shouldn't like it. My nursery is much prettier. You must be a queen too, if you are my great big grand-mother.' 'Yes, I am a queen.' 'Where is your crown, then?' 'In my bedroom.' 'I should like to see it.' 'You shall some day--not today.' 'I wonder why nursie never told me.' 'Nursie doesn't know. She never saw me.' 'But somebody knows that you are in the house?' 'No; nobody.' 'How do you get your dinner, then?' 'I keep poultry--of a sort.' 'Where do you keep them?' 'I will show you.' 'And who makes the chicken broth for you?' 'I never kill any of MY chickens.' 'Then I can't understand.' 'What did you have for breakfast this morning?' asked the lady. 'Oh! I had bread and milk, and an egg--I dare say you eat their eggs.' 'Yes, that's it. I eat their eggs.' 'Is that what makes your hair so white?' 'No, my dear. It's old age. I am very old.' 'I thought so. Are you fifty?' 'Yes--more than that.' 'Are you a hundred?' 'Yes--more than that. I am too old for you to guess. Come and see my chickens.' Again she stopped her spinning. She rose, took the princess by the hand, led her out of the room, and opened the door opposite the stair. The princess expected to see a lot of hens and chickens, but instead of that, she saw the blue sky first, and then the roofs of the house, with a multitude of the loveliest pigeons, mostly white, but of all colours, walking about, making bows to each other, and talking a language she could not understand. She clapped her hands with delight, and up rose such a flapping of wings that she in her turn was startled. 'You've frightened my poultry,' said the old lady, smiling. 'And they've frightened me,' said the princess, smiling too. 'But what very nice poultry! Are the eggs nice?' 'Yes, very nice.' 'What a small egg-spoon you must have! Wouldn't it be better to keep hens, and get bigger eggs?' 'How should I feed them, though?' 'I see,' said the princess. 'The pigeons feed themselves. They've got wings.' 'Just so. If they couldn't fly, I couldn't eat their eggs.' 'But how do you get at the eggs? Where are their nests?' The lady took hold of a little loop of string in the wall at the side of the door and, lifting a shutter, showed a great many pigeon-holes with nests, some with young ones and some with eggs in them. The birds came in at the other side, and she took out the eggs on this side. She closed it again quickly, lest the young ones should be frightened. 'Oh, what a nice way!' cried the princess. 'Will you give me an egg to eat? I'm rather hungry.' 'I will some day, but now you must go back, or nursie will be miserable about you. I dare say she's looking for you everywhere.' 'Except here,' answered the princess. 'Oh, how surprised she will be when I tell her about my great big grand-grand-mother!' 'Yes, that she will!' said the old lady with a curious smile. 'Mind you tell her all about it exactly.' 'That I will. Please will you take me back to her?' 'I can't go all the way, but I will take you to the top of the stair, and then you must run down quite fast into your own room.' The little princess put her hand in the old lady's, who, looking this way and that, brought her to the top of the first stair, and thence to the bottom of the second, and did not leave her till she saw her half-way down the third. When she heard the cry of her nurse's pleasure at finding her, she turned and walked up the stairs again, very fast indeed for such a very great grandmother, and sat down to her spinning with another strange smile on her sweet old face. About this spinning of hers I will tell you more another time. Guess what she was spinning. CHAPTER 4 What the Nurse Thought of It 'Why, where can you have been, princess?' asked the nurse, taking her in her arms. 'It's very unkind of you to hide away so long. I began to be afraid--' Here she checked herself. 'What were you afraid of, nursie?' asked the princess. 'Never mind,' she answered. 'Perhaps I will tell you another day. Now tell me where you have been.' 'I've been up a long way to see my very great, huge, old grandmother,' said the princess. 'What do you mean by that?' asked the nurse, who thought she was making fun. 'I mean that I've been a long way up and up to see My GREAT grandmother. Ah, nursie, you don't know what a beautiful mother of grandmothers I've got upstairs. She is such an old lady, with such lovely white hair--as white as my silver cup. Now, when I think of it, I think her hair must be silver.' 'What nonsense you are talking, princess!' said the nurse. 'I'm not talking nonsense,' returned Irene, rather offended. 'I will tell you all about her. She's much taller than you, and much prettier.' 'Oh, I dare say!' remarked the nurse. 'And she lives upon pigeons' eggs.' 'Most likely,' said the nurse. 'And she sits in an empty room, spin-spinning all day long.' 'Not a doubt of it,' said the nurse. 'And she keeps her crown in her bedroom.' 'Of course--quite the proper place to keep her crown in. She wears it in bed, I'll be bound.' 'She didn't say that. And I don't think she does. That wouldn't be comfortable--would it? I don't think my papa wears his crown for a night-cap. Does he, nursie?' 'I never asked him. I dare say he does.' 'And she's been there ever since I came here--ever so many years.' 'Anybody could have told you that,' said the nurse, who did not believe a word Irene was saying. 'Why didn't you tell me, then?' 'There was no necessity. You could make it all up for yourself.' 'You don't believe me, then!' exclaimed the princess, astonished and angry, as she well might be. 'Did you expect me to believe you, princess?' asked the nurse coldly. 'I know princesses are in the habit of telling make-believes, but you are the first I ever heard of who expected to have them believed,' she added, seeing that the child was strangely in earnest. The princess burst into tears. 'Well, I must say,' remarked the nurse, now thoroughly vexed with her for crying, 'it is not at all becoming in a princess to tell stories and expect to be believed just because she is a princess.' 'But it's quite true, I tell you.' 'You've dreamt it, then, child.' 'No, I didn't dream it. I went upstairs, and I lost myself, and if I hadn't found the beautiful lady, I should never have found myself.' 'Oh, I dare say!' 'Well, you just come up with me, and see if I'm not telling the truth.' 'Indeed I have other work to do. It's your dinnertime, and I won't have any more such nonsense.' The princess wiped her eyes, and her face grew so hot that they were soon quite dry. She sat down to her dinner, but ate next to nothing. Not to be believed does not at all agree with princesses: for a real princess cannot tell a lie. So all the afternoon she did not speak a word. Only when the nurse spoke to her, she answered her, for a real princess is never rude--even when she does well to be offended. Of course the nurse was not comfortable in her mind--not that she suspected the least truth in Irene's story, but that she loved her dearly, and was vexed with herself for having been cross to her. She thought her crossness was the cause of the princess's unhappiness, and had no idea that she was really and deeply hurt at not being believed. But, as it became more and more plain during the evening in her every motion and look, that, although she tried to amuse herself with her toys, her heart was too vexed and troubled to enjoy them, her nurse's discomfort grew and grew. When bedtime came, she undressed and laid her down, but the child, instead of holding up her little mouth to be kissed, turned away from her and lay still. Then nursie's heart gave way altogether, and she began to cry. At the sound of her first sob the princess turned again, and held her face to kiss her as usual. But the nurse had her handkerchief to her eyes, and did not see the movement. 'Nursie,' said the princess, 'why won't you believe me?' 'Because I can't believe you,' said the nurse, getting angry again. 'Ah! then, you can't help it,' said Irene, 'and I will not be vexed with you any more. I will give you a kiss and go to sleep.' 'You little angel!' cried the nurse, and caught her out of bed, and walked about the room with her in her arms, kissing and hugging her. 'You will let me take you to see my dear old great big grandmother, won't you?' said the princess, as she laid her down again. 'And you won't say I'm ugly, any more--will you, princess?' 'Nursie, I never said you were ugly. What can you mean?' 'Well, if you didn't say it, you meant it.' 'Indeed, I never did.' 'You said I wasn't so pretty as that--' 'As my beautiful grandmother--yes, I did say that; and I say it again, for it's quite true.' 'Then I do think you are unkind!' said the nurse, and put her handkerchief to her eyes again. 'Nursie, dear, everybody can't be as beautiful as every other body, you know. You are very nice-looking, but if you had been as beautiful as my grandmother--' 'Bother your grandmother!' said the nurse. 'Nurse, that's very rude. You are not fit to be spoken to till you can behave better.' The princess turned away once more, and again the nurse was ashamed of herself. 'I'm sure I beg your pardon, princess,' she said, though still in an offended tone. But the princess let the tone pass, and heeded only the words. 'You won't say it again, I am sure,' she answered, once more turning towards her nurse. 'I was only going to say that if you had been twice as nice-looking as you are, some king or other would have married you, and then what would have become of me?' 'You are an angel!' repeated the nurse, again embracing her. 'Now,' insisted Irene, 'you will come and see my grandmother--won't you?' 'I will go with you anywhere you like, my cherub,' she answered; and in two minutes the weary little princess was fast asleep. CHAPTER 5 The Princess Lets Well Alone When she woke the next morning, the first thing she heard was the rain still falling. Indeed, this day was so like the last that it would have been difficult to tell where was the use of It. The first thing she thought of, however, was not the rain, but the lady in the tower; and the first question that occupied her thoughts was whether she should not ask the nurse to fulfil her promise this very morning, and go with her to find her grandmother as soon as she had had her breakfast. But she came to the conclusion that perhaps the lady would not be pleased if she took anyone to see her without first asking leave; especially as it was pretty evident, seeing she lived on pigeons' eggs, and cooked them herself, that she did not want the household to know she was there. So the princess resolved to take the first opportunity of running up alone and asking whether she might bring her nurse. She believed the fact that she could not otherwise convince her she was telling the truth would have much weight with her grandmother. The princess and her nurse were the best of friends all dressing-time, and the princess in consequence ate an enormous little breakfast. 'I wonder, Lootie'--that was her pet name for her nurse--'what pigeons' eggs taste like?' she said, as she was eating her egg--not quite a common one, for they always picked out the pinky ones for her. 'We'll get you a pigeon's egg, and you shall judge for yourself,' said the nurse. 'Oh, no, no!' returned Irene, suddenly reflecting they might disturb the old lady in getting it, and that even if they did not, she would have one less in consequence. 'What a strange creature you are,' said the nurse--'first to want a thing and then to refuse it!' But she did not say it crossly, and the princess never minded any remarks that were not unfriendly. 'Well, you see, Lootie, there are reasons,' she returned, and said no more, for she did not want to bring up the subject of their former strife, lest her nurse should offer to go before she had had her grandmother's permission to bring her. Of course she could refuse to take her, but then she would believe her less than ever. Now the nurse, as she said herself afterwards, could not be every moment in the room; and as never before yesterday had the princess given her the smallest reason for anxiety, it had not yet come into her head to watch her more closely. So she soon gave her a chance, and, the very first that offered, Irene was off and up the stairs again. This day's adventure, however, did not turn out like yesterday's, although it began like it; and indeed to-day is very seldom like yesterday, if people would note the differences--even when it rains. The princess ran through passage after passage, and could not find the stair of the tower. My own suspicion is that she had not gone up high enough, and was searching on the second instead of the third floor. When she turned to go back, she failed equally in her search after the stair. She was lost once more. Something made it even worse to bear this time, and it was no wonder that she cried again. Suddenly it occurred to her that it was after having cried before that she had found her grandmother's stair. She got up at once, wiped her eyes, and started upon a fresh quest. This time, although she did not find what she hoped, she found what was next best: she did not come on a stair that went up, but she came upon one that went down. It was evidently not the stair she had come up, yet it was a good deal better than none; so down she went, and was singing merrily before she reached the bottom. There, to her surprise, she found herself in the kitchen. Although she was not allowed to go there alone, her nurse had often taken her, and she was a great favourite with the servants. So there was a general rush at her the moment she appeared, for every one wanted to have her; and the report of where she was soon reached the nurse's ears. She came at once to fetch her; but she never suspected how she had got there, and the princess kept her own counsel. Her failure to find the old lady not only disappointed her, but made her very thoughtful. Sometimes she came almost to the nurse's opinion that she had dreamed all about her; but that fancy never lasted very long. She wondered much whether she should ever see her again, and thought it very sad not to have been able to find her when she particularly wanted her. She resolved to say nothing more to her nurse on the subject, seeing it was so little in her power to prove her words. CHAPTER 6 The Little Miner The next day the great cloud still hung over the mountain, and the rain poured like water from a full sponge. The princess was very fond of being out of doors, and she nearly cried when she saw that the weather was no better. But the mist was not of such a dark dingy grey; there was light in it; and as the hours went on it grew brighter and brighter, until it was almost too brilliant to look at; and late in the afternoon the sun broke out so gloriously that Irene clapped her hands, crying: 'See, see, Lootie! The sun has had his face washed. Look how bright he is! Do get my hat, and let us go out for a walk. Oh, dear! oh, dear! how happy I am!' Lootie was very glad to please the princess. She got her hat and cloak, and they set out together for a walk up the mountain; for the road was so hard and steep that the water could not rest upon it, and it was always dry enough for walking a few minutes after the rain ceased. The clouds were rolling away in broken pieces, like great, overwoolly sheep, whose wool the sun had bleached till it was almost too white for the eyes to bear. Between them the sky shone with a deeper and purer blue, because of the rain. The trees on the roadside were hung all over with drops, which sparkled in the sun like jewels. The only things that were no brighter for the rain were the brooks that ran down the mountain; they had changed from the clearness of crystal to a muddy brown; but what they lost in colour they gained in sound--or at least in noise, for a brook when it is swollen is not so musical as before. But Irene was in raptures with the great brown streams tumbling down everywhere; and Lootie shared in her delight, for she too had been confined to the house for three days. At length she observed that the sun was getting low, and said it was time to be going back. She made the remark again and again, but, every time, the princess begged her to go on just a little farther and a little farther; reminding her that it was much easier to go downhill, and saying that when they did turn they would be at home in a moment. So on and on they did go, now to look at a group of ferns over whose tops a stream was pouring in a watery arch, now to pick a shining stone from a rock by the wayside, now to watch the flight of some bird. Suddenly the shadow of a great mountain peak came up from behind, and shot in front of them. When the nurse saw it, she started and shook, and catching hold of the princess's hand turned and began to run down the hill. 'What's all the haste, nursie?' asked Irene, running alongside of her. 'We must not be out a moment longer.' 'But we can't help being out a good many moments longer.' It was too true. The nurse almost cried. They were much too far from home. It was against express orders to be out with the princess one moment after the sun was down; and they were nearly a mile up the mountain! If His Majesty, Irene's papa, were to hear of it, Lootie would certainly be dismissed; and to leave the princess would break her heart. It was no wonder she ran. But Irene was not in the least frightened, not knowing anything to be frightened at. She kept on chattering as well as she could, but it was not easy. 'Lootie! Lootie! why do you run so fast? It shakes my teeth when I talk.' 'Then don't talk,' said Lootie. 'But the princess went on talking. She was always saying: 'Look, look, Lootie!' but Lootie paid no more heed to anything she said, only ran on. 'Look, look, Lootie! Don't you see that funny man peeping over the rock?' Lootie only ran the faster. They had to pass the rock, and when they came nearer, the princess saw it was only a lump of the rock itself that she had taken for a man. 'Look, look, Lootie! There's such a curious creature at the foot of that old tree. Look at it, Lootie! It's making faces at us, I do think.' Lootie gave a stifled cry, and ran faster still--so fast that Irene's little legs could not keep up with her, and she fell with a crash. It was a hard downhill road, and she had been running very fast--so it was no wonder she began to cry. This put the nurse nearly beside herself; but all she could do was to run on, the moment she got the princess on her feet again. 'Who's that laughing at me?' said the princess, trying to keep in her sobs, and running too fast for her grazed knees. 'Nobody, child,' said the nurse, almost angrily. But that instant there came a burst of coarse tittering from somewhere near, and a hoarse indistinct voice that seemed to say: 'Lies! lies! lies!' 'Oh!' cried the nurse with a sigh that was almost a scream, and ran on faster than ever. 'Nursie! Lootie! I can't run any more. Do let us walk a bit.' 'What am I to do?' said the nurse. 'Here, I will carry you.' She caught her up; but found her much too heavy to run with, and had to set her down again. Then she looked wildly about her, gave a great cry, and said: 'We've taken the wrong turning somewhere, and I don't know where we are. We are lost, lost!' The terror she was in had quite bewildered her. It was true enough they had lost the way. They had been running down into a little valley in which there was no house to be seen. Now Irene did not know what good reason there was for her nurse's terror, for the servants had all strict orders never to mention the goblins to her, but it was very discomposing to see her nurse in such a fright. Before, however, she had time to grow thoroughly alarmed like her, she heard the sound of whistling, and that revived her. Presently she saw a boy coming up the road from the valley to meet them. He was the whistler; but before they met his whistling changed to singing. And this is something like what he sang: 'Ring! dod! bang! Go the hammers' clang! Hit and turn and bore! Whizz and puff and roar! Thus we rive the rocks, Force the goblin locks.-- See the shining ore! One, two, three-- Bright as gold can be! Four, five, six-- Shovels, mattocks, picks! Seven, eight, nine-- Light your lamp at mine. Ten, eleven, twelve-- Loosely hold the helve. We're the merry miner-boys, Make the goblins hold their noise.' 'I wish YOU would hold your noise,' said the nurse rudely, for the very word GOBLIN at such a time and in such a place made her tremble. It would bring the goblins upon them to a certainty, she thought, to defy them in that way. But whether the boy heard her or not, he did not stop his singing. 'Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen-- This is worth the siftin'; Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-- There's the match, and lay't in. Nineteen, twenty-- Goblins in a plenty.' 'Do be quiet,' cried the nurse, in a whispered shriek. But the boy, who was now close at hand, still went on. 'Hush! scush! scurry! There you go in a hurry! Gobble! gobble! goblin! There you go a wobblin'; Hobble, hobble, hobblin'-- Cobble! cobble! cobblin'! Hob-bob-goblin!-- Huuuuuh!' 'There!' said the boy, as he stood still opposite them. 'There! that'll do for them. They can't bear singing, and they can't stand that song. They can't sing themselves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and they don't like other people to sing.' The boy was dressed in a miner's dress, with a curious cap on his head. He was a very nice-looking boy, with eyes as dark as the mines in which he worked and as sparkling as the crystals in their rocks. He was about twelve years old. His face was almost too pale for beauty, which came of his being so little in the open air and the sunlight--for even vegetables grown in the dark are white; but he looked happy, merry indeed--perhaps at the thought of having routed the goblins; and his bearing as he stood before them had nothing clownish or rude about it. 'I saw them,' he went on, 'as I came up; and I'm very glad I did. I knew they were after somebody, but I couldn't see who it was. They won't touch you so long as I'm with you.' 'Why, who are you?' asked the nurse, offended at the freedom with which he spoke to them. 'I'm Peter's son.' 'Who's Peter?' 'Peter the miner.' 'I don't know him.' 'I'm his son, though.' 'And why should the goblins mind you, pray?' 'Because I don't mind them. I'm used to them.' 'What difference does that make?' 'If you're not afraid of them, they're afraid of you. I'm not afraid of them. That's all. But it's all that's wanted--up here, that is. It's a different thing down there. They won't always mind that song even, down there. And if anyone sings it, they stand grinning at him awfully; and if he gets frightened, and misses a word, or says a wrong one, they--oh! don't they give it him!' 'What do they do to him?' asked Irene, with a trembling voice. 'Don't go frightening the princess,' said the nurse. 'The princess!' repeated the little miner, taking off his curious cap. 'I beg your pardon; but you oughtn't to be out so late. Everybody knows that's against the law.' 'Yes, indeed it is!' said the nurse, beginning to cry again. 'And I shall have to suffer for it.' 'What does that matter?' said the boy. 'It must be your fault. It is the princess who will suffer for it. I hope they didn't hear you call her the princess. If they did, they're sure to know her again: they're awfully sharp.' 'Lootie! Lootie!' cried the princess. 'Take me home.' 'Don't go on like that,' said the nurse to the boy, almost fiercely. 'How could I help it? I lost my way.' 'You shouldn't have been out so late. You wouldn't have lost your way if you hadn't been frightened,' said the boy. 'Come along. I'll soon set you right again. Shall I carry your little Highness?' 'Impertinence!' murmured the nurse, but she did not say it aloud, for she thought if she made him angry he might take his revenge by telling someone belonging to the house, and then it would be sure to come to the king's ears. 'No, thank you,' said Irene. 'I can walk very well, though I can't run so fast as nursie. If you will give me one hand, Lootie will give me another, and then I shall get on famously.' They soon had her between them, holding a hand of each. 'Now let's run,' said the nurse. 'No, no!' said the little miner. 'That's the worst thing you can do. If you hadn't run before, you would not have lost your way. And if you run now, they will be after you in a moment.' 'I don't want to run,' said Irene. 'You don't think of me,' said the nurse. 'Yes, I do, Lootie. The boy says they won't touch us if we don't run.' 'Yes, but if they know at the house that I've kept you out so late I shall be turned away, and that would break my heart.' 'Turned away, Lootie! Who would turn you away?' 'Your papa, child.' 'But I'll tell him it was all my fault. And you know it was, Lootie.' 'He won't mind that. I'm sure he won't.' 'Then I'll cry, and go down on my knees to him, and beg him not to take away my own dear Lootie.' The nurse was comforted at hearing this, and said no more. They went on, walking pretty fast, but taking care not to run a step. 'I want to talk to you,' said Irene to the little miner; 'but it's so awkward! I don't know your name.' 'My name's Curdie, little princess.' 'What a funny name! Curdie! What more?' 'Curdie Peterson. What's your name, please?' 'Irene.' 'What more?' 'I don't know what more. What more is my name, Lootie?' 'Princesses haven't got more than one name. They don't want it.' 'Oh, then, Curdie, you must call me just Irene and no more.' 'No, indeed,' said the nurse indignantly. 'He shall do no such thing.' 'What shall he call me, then, Lootie?' 'Your Royal Highness.' 'My Royal Highness! What's that? No, no, Lootie. I won't be called names. I don't like them. You told me once yourself it's only rude children that call names; and I'm sure Curdie wouldn't be rude. Curdie, my name's Irene.' 'Well, Irene,' said Curdie, with a glance at the nurse which showed he enjoyed teasing her; 'it is very kind of you to let me call you anything. I like your name very much.' He expected the nurse to interfere again; but he soon saw that she was too frightened to speak. She was staring at something a few yards before them in the middle of the path, where it narrowed between rocks so that only one could pass at a time. 'It is very much kinder of you to go out of your way to take us home,' said Irene. 'I'm not going out of my way yet,' said Curdie. 'It's on the other side of those rocks the path turns off to my father's.' 'You wouldn't think of leaving us till we're safe home, I'm sure,' gasped the nurse. 'Of course not,' said Curdie. 'You dear, good, kind Curdie! I'll give you a kiss when we get home,' said the princess. The nurse gave her a great pull by the hand she held. But at that instant the something in the middle of the way, which had looked like a great lump of earth brought down by the rain, began to move. One after another it shot out four long things, like two arms and two legs, but it was now too dark to tell what they were. The nurse began to tremble from head to foot. Irene clasped Curdie's hand yet faster, and Curdie began to sing again: 'One, two-- Hit and hew! Three, four-- Blast and bore! Five, six-- There's a fix! Seven, eight-- Hold it straight! Nine, ten-- Hit again! Hurry! scurry! Bother! smother! There's a toad In the road! Smash it! Squash it! Fry it! Dry it! You're another! Up and off! There's enough!-- Huuuuuh!' As he uttered the last words, Curdie let go his hold of his companion, and rushed at the thing in the road as if he would trample it under his feet. It gave a great spring, and ran straight up one of the rocks like a huge spider. Curdie turned back laughing, and took Irene's hand again. She grasped his very tight, but said nothing till they had passed the rocks. A few yards more and she found herself on a part of the road she knew, and was able to speak again. 'Do you know, Curdie, I don't quite like your song: it sounds to me rather rude,' she said. 'Well, perhaps it is,' answered Curdie. 'I never thought of that; it's a way we have. We do it because they don't like it.' 'Who don't like it?' 'The cobs, as we call them.' 'Don't!' said the nurse. 'Why not?' said Curdie. 'I beg you won't. Please don't.' 'Oh! if you ask me that way, of course, I won't; though I don't a bit know why. Look! there are the lights of your great house down below. You'll be at home in five minutes now.' Nothing more happened. They reached home in safety. Nobody had missed them, or even known they had gone out; and they arrived at the door belonging to their part of the house without anyone seeing them. The nurse was rushing in with a hurried and not over-gracious good night to Curdie; but the princess pulled her hand from hers, and was just throwing her arms round Curdie's neck, when she caught her again and dragged her away. 'Lootie! Lootie! I promised a kiss,' cried Irene. 'A princess mustn't give kisses. It's not at all proper,' said Lootie. 'But I promised,' said the princess. 'There's no occasion; he's only a miner-boy.' 'He's a good boy, and a brave boy, and he has been very kind to us. Lootie! Lootie! I promised.' 'Then you shouldn't have promised.' 'Lootie, I promised him a kiss.' 'Your Royal Highness,' said Lootie, suddenly grown very respectful, 'must come in directly.' 'Nurse, a princess must not break her word,' said Irene, drawing herself up and standing stock-still. Lootie did not know which the king might count the worst--to let the princess be out after sunset, or to let her kiss a miner-boy. She did not know that, being a gentleman, as many kings have been, he would have counted neither of them the worse. However much he might have disliked his daughter to kiss the miner-boy, he would not have had her break her word for all the goblins in creation. But, as I say, the nurse was not lady enough to understand this, and so she was in a great difficulty, for, if she insisted, someone might hear the princess cry and run to see, and then all would come out. But here Curdie came again to the rescue. 'Never mind, Princess Irene,' he said. 'You mustn't kiss me tonight. But you shan't break your word. I will come another time. You may be sure I will.' 'Oh, thank you, Curdie!' said the princess, and stopped crying. 'Good night, Irene; good night, Lootie,' said Curdie, and turned and was out of sight in a moment. 'I should like to see him!' muttered the nurse, as she carried the princess to the nursery. 'You will see him,' said Irene. 'You may be sure Curdie will keep his word. He's sure to come again.' 'I should like to see him!' repeated the nurse, and said no more. She did not want to open a new cause of strife with the princess by saying more plainly what she meant. Glad enough that she had succeeded both in getting home unseen, and in keeping the princess from kissing the miner's boy, she resolved to watch her far better in future. Her carelessness had already doubled the danger she was in. Formerly the goblins were her only fear; now she had to protect her charge from Curdie as well. CHAPTER 7 The Mines Curdie went home whistling. He resolved to say nothing about the princess for fear of getting the nurse into trouble, for while he enjoyed teasing her because of her absurdity, he was careful not to do her any harm. He saw no more of the goblins, and was soon fast asleep in his bed. He woke in the middle of the night, and thought he heard curious noises outside. He sat up and listened; then got up, and, opening the door very quietly, went out. When he peeped round the corner, he saw, under his own window, a group of stumpy creatures, whom he at once recognized by their shape. Hardly, however, had he begun his 'One, two, three!' when they broke asunder, scurried away, and were out of sight. He returned laughing, got into bed again, and was fast asleep in a moment. Reflecting a little over the matter in the morning, he came to the conclusion that, as nothing of the kind had ever happened before, they must be annoyed with him for interfering to protect the princess. By the time he was dressed, however, he was thinking of something quite different, for he did not value the enmity of the goblins in the least. As soon as they had had breakfast, he set off with his father for the mine. They entered the hill by a natural opening under a huge rock, where a little stream rushed out. They followed its course for a few yards, when the passage took a turn, and sloped steeply into the heart of the hill. With many angles and windings and branchings-off, and sometimes with steps where it came upon a natural gulf, it led them deep into the hill before they arrived at the place where they were at present digging out the precious ore. This was of various kinds, for the mountain was very rich in the better sorts of metals. With flint and steel, and tinder-box, they lighted their lamps, then fixed them on their heads, and were soon hard at work with their pickaxes and shovels and hammers. Father and son were at work near each other, but not in the same gang--the passages out of which the ore was dug, they called gangs--for when the lode, or vein of ore, was small, one miner would have to dig away alone in a passage no bigger than gave him just room to work--sometimes in uncomfortable cramped positions. If they stopped for a moment they could hear everywhere around them, some nearer, some farther off, the sounds of their companions burrowing away in all directions in the inside of the great mountain--some boring holes in the rock in order to blow it up with gunpowder, others shovelling the broken ore into baskets to be carried to the mouth of the mine, others hitting away with their pickaxes. Sometimes, if the miner was in a very lonely part, he would hear only a tap-tapping, no louder than that of a woodpecker, for the sound would come from a great distance off through the solid mountain rock. The work was hard at best, for it is very warm underground; but it was not particularly unpleasant, and some of the miners, when they wanted to earn a little more money for a particular purpose, would stop behind the rest and work all night. But you could not tell night from day down there, except from feeling tired and sleepy; for no light of the sun ever came into those gloomy regions. Some who had thus remained behind during the night, although certain there were none of their companions at work, would declare the next morning that they heard, every time they halted for a moment to take breath, a tap-tapping all about them, as if the mountain were then more full of miners than ever it was during the day; and some in consequence would never stay overnight, for all knew those were the sounds of the goblins. They worked only at night, for the miners' night was the goblins' day. Indeed, the greater number of the miners were afraid of the goblins; for there were strange stories well known amongst them of the treatment some had received whom the goblins had surprised at their work during the night. The more courageous of them, however, amongst them Peter Peterson and Curdie, who in this took after his father, had stayed in the mine all night again and again, and although they had several times encountered a few stray goblins, had never yet failed in driving them away. As I have indicated already, the chief defence against them was verse, for they hated verse of every kind, and some kinds they could not endure at all. I suspect they could not make any themselves, and that was why they disliked it so much. At all events, those who were most afraid of them were those who could neither make verses themselves nor remember the verses that other people made for them; while those who were never afraid were those who could make verses for themselves; for although there were certain old rhymes which were very effectual, yet it was well known that a new rhyme, if of the right sort, was even more distasteful to them, and therefore more effectual in putting them to flight. Perhaps my readers may be wondering what the goblins could be about, working all night long, seeing they never carried up the ore and sold it; but when I have informed them concerning what Curdie learned the very next night, they will be able to understand. For Curdie had determined, if his father would permit him, to remain there alone this night--and that for two reasons: first, he wanted to get extra wages that he might buy a very warm red petticoat for his mother, who had begun to complain of the cold of the mountain air sooner than usual this autumn; and second, he had just a faint hope of finding out what the goblins were about under his window the night before. When he told his father, he made no objection, for he had great confidence in his boy's courage and resources. 'I'm sorry I can't stay with you,' said Peter; 'but I want to go and pay the parson a visit this evening, and besides I've had a bit of a headache all day.' 'I'm sorry for that, father,' said Curdie. 'Oh, it's not much. You'll be sure to take care of yourself, won't you?' 'Yes, father; I will. I'll keep a sharp look-out, I promise you.' Curdie was the only one who remained in the mine. About six o'clock the rest went away, everyone bidding him good night, and telling him to take care of himself; for he was a great favourite with them all. 'Don't forget your rhymes,' said one. 'No, no,'answered Curdie. 'It's no matter if he does,' said another, 'for he'll only have to make a new one.' 'Yes: but he mightn't be able to make it fast enough,' said another; 'and while it was cooking in his head, they might take a mean advantage and set upon him.' 'I'll do my best,' said Curdie. 'I'm not afraid.' 'We all know that,' they returned, and left him. CHAPTER 8 The Goblins For some time Curdie worked away briskly, throwing all the ore he had disengaged on one side behind him, to be ready for carrying out in the morning. He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping, but it all sounded far away in the hill, and he paid it little heed. Towards midnight he began to feel rather hungry; so he dropped his pickaxe, got out a lump of bread which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock, sat down on a heap of ore, and ate his supper. Then he leaned back for five minutes' rest before beginning his work again, and laid his head against the rock. He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his ears. It sounded like a voice inside the rock. After a while he heard it again. It was a goblin voice--there could be no doubt about that--and this time he could make out the words. 'Hadn't we better be moving?'it said. A rougher and deeper voice replied: 'There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't be through tonight, if he work ever so hard. He's not by any means at the thinnest place.' 'But you still think the lode does come through into our house?' said the first voice. 'Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to yet. If he had struck a stroke more to the side just here,' said the goblin, tapping the very stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, 'he would have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if he follow the lode it will be a week before it leads him in. You see it back there--a long way. Still, perhaps, in case of accident it would be as well to be getting out of this. Helfer, you'll take the great chest. That's your business, you know.' 'Yes, dad,' said a third voice. 'But you must help me to get it on my back. It's awfully heavy, you know.' 'Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But you're as strong as a mountain, Helfer.' 'You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn't for my feet.' 'That is your weak point, I confess, my boy.' 'Ain't it yours too, father?' 'Well, to be honest, it's a goblin weakness. Why they come so soft, I declare I haven't an idea.' 'Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father.' 'Yes my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting! Ha! ha!' 'But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I should like it--especially when I've got a chest like that on my head.' 'Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king never wears shoes.' 'The queen does.' 'Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen, you see--I mean the king's first wife--wore shoes, of course, because she came from upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride. She is the hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women.' 'I'm sure I wouldn't wear them--no, not for--that I wouldn't!' said the first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the family. 'I can't think why either of them should.' 'Didn't I tell you the first was from upstairs?' said the other. 'That was the only silly thing I ever knew His Majesty guilty of. Why should he marry an outlandish woman like that-one of our natural enemies too?' 'I suppose he fell in love with her.' 'Pooh! pooh! He's just as happy now with one of his own people.' 'Did she die very soon? They didn't tease her to death, did they?' 'Oh, dear, no! The king worshipped her very footmarks.' 'What made her die, then? Didn't the air agree with her?' 'She died when the young prince was born.' 'How silly of her! We never do that. It must have been because she wore shoes.' 'I don't know that.' 'Why do they wear shoes up there?' 'Ah, now that's a sensible question, and I will answer it. But in order to do so, I must first tell you a secret. I once saw the queen's feet.' 'Without her shoes?' 'Yes--without her shoes.' 'No! Did you? How was it?' 'Never you mind how it was. She didn't know I saw them. And what do you think!--they had toes!' 'Toes! What's that?' 'You may well ask! I should never have known if I had not seen the queen's feet. Just imagine! the ends of her feet were split up into five or six thin pieces!' 'Oh, horrid! How could the king have fallen in love with her?' 'You forget that she wore shoes. That is just why she wore them. That is why all the men, and women too, upstairs wear shoes. They can't bear the sight of their own feet without them.' 'Ah! now I understand. If ever you wish for shoes again, Helfer, I'll hit your feet--I will.' 'No, no, mother; pray don't.' 'Then don't you.' 'But with such a big box on my head--' A horrid scream followed, which Curdie interpreted as in reply to a blow from his mother upon the feet of her eldest goblin. 'Well, I never knew so much before!' remarked a fourth voice. 'Your knowledge is not universal quite yet,' said the father. 'You were only fifty last month. Mind you see to the bed and bedding. As soon as we've finished our supper, we'll be up and going. Ha! ha! ha!' 'What are you laughing at, husband?' 'I'm laughing to think what a mess the miners will find themselves in--somewhere before this day ten years.' 'Why, what do you mean?' 'Oh, nothing.' 'Oh, yes, you do mean something. You always do mean something.' 'It's more than you do, then, wife.' 'That may be; but it's not more than I find out, you know.' 'Ha! ha! You're a sharp one. What a mother you've got, Helfer!' 'Yes, father.' 'Well, I suppose I must tell you. They're all at the palace consulting about it tonight; and as soon as we've got away from this thin place I'm going there to hear what night they fix upon. I should like to see that young ruffian there on the other side, struggling in the agonies of--' He dropped his voice so low that Curdie could hear only a growl. The growl went on in the low bass for a good while, as inarticulate as if the goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until his wife spoke again that it rose to its former pitch. 'But what shall we do when you are at the palace?' she asked. 'I will see you safe in the new house I've been digging for you for the last two months. Podge, you mind the table and chairs. I commit them to your care. The table has seven legs--each chair three. I shall require them all at your hands.' After this arose a confused conversation about the various household goods and their transport; and Curdie heard nothing more that was of any importance. He now knew at least one of the reasons for the constant sound of the goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was--the one weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard it said that they had no toes: he had never had opportunity of inspecting them closely enough, in the dusk in which they always appeared, to satisfy himself whether it was a correct report. Indeed, he had not been able even to satisfy himself as to whether they had no fingers, although that also was commonly said to be the fact. One of the miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont to argue that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity, and that education and handicraft had developed both toes and fingers--with which proposition Curdie had once heard his father sarcastically agree, alleging in support of it the probability that babies' gloves were a traditional remnant of the old state of things; while the stockings of all ages, no regard being paid in them to the toes, pointed in the same direction. But what was of importance was the fact concerning the softness of the goblin feet, which he foresaw might be useful to all miners. What he had to do in the meantime, however, was to discover, if possible, the special evil design the goblins had now in their heads. Although he knew all the gangs and all the natural galleries with which they communicated in the mined part of the mountain, he had not the least idea where the palace of the king of the gnomes was; otherwise he would have set out at once on the enterprise of discovering what the said design was. He judged, and rightly, that it must lie in a farther part of the mountain, between which and the mine there was as yet no communication. There must be one nearly completed, however; for it could be but a thin partition which now separated them. If only he could get through in time to follow the goblins as they retreated! A few blows would doubtless be sufficient--just where his ear now lay; but if he attempted to strike there with his pickaxe, he would only hasten the departure of the family, put them on their guard, and perhaps lose their involuntary guidance. He therefore began to feel the wall With his hands, and soon found that some of the stones were loose enough to be drawn out with little noise. Laying hold of a large one with both his hands, he drew it gently out, and let it down softly. 'What was that noise?' said the goblin father. Curdie blew out his light, lest it should shine through. 'It must be that one miner that stayed behind the rest,' said the mother. 'No; he's been gone a good while. I haven't heard a blow for an hour. Besides, it wasn't like that.' 'Then I suppose it must have been a stone carried down the brook inside.' 'Perhaps. It will have more room by and by.' Curdie kept quite still. After a little while, hearing nothing but the sounds of their preparations for departure, mingled with an occasional word of direction, and anxious to know whether the removal of the stone had made an opening into the goblins' house, he put in his hand to feel. It went in a good way, and then came in contact with something soft. He had but a moment to feel it over, it was so quickly withdrawn: it was one of the toeless goblin feet. The owner of it gave a cry of fright. 'What's the matter, Helfer?' asked his mother. 'A beast came out of the wall and licked my foot.' 'Nonsense! There are no wild beasts in our country,' said his father. 'But it was, father. I felt it.' 'Nonsense, I say. Will you malign your native realms and reduce them to a level with the country upstairs? That is swarming with wild beasts of every description.' 'But I did feel it, father.' 'I tell you to hold your tongue. You are no patriot.' Curdie suppressed his laughter, and lay still as a mouse--but no stiller, for every moment he kept nibbling away with his fingers at the edges of the hole. He was slowly making it bigger, for here the rock had been very much shattered with the blasting. There seemed to be a good many in the family, to judge from the mass of confused talk which now and then came through the hole; but when all were speaking together, and just as if they had bottle-brushes--each at least one--in their throats, it was not easy to make out much that was said. At length he heard once more what the father goblin was saying. 'Now, then,' he said, 'get your bundles on your backs. Here, Helfer, I'll help you up with your chest.' 'I wish it was my chest, father.' 'Your turn will come in good time enough! Make haste. I must go to the meeting at the palace tonight. When that's over, we can come back and clear out the last of the things before our enemies return in the morning. Now light your torches, and come along. What a distinction it is, to provide our own light, instead of being dependent on a thing hung up in the air--a most disagreeable contrivance--intended no doubt to blind us when we venture out under its baleful influence! Quite glaring and vulgar, I call it, though no doubt useful to poor creatures who haven't the wit to make light for themselves.' Curdie could hardly keep himself from calling through to know whether they made the fire to light their torches by. But a moment's reflection showed him that they would have said they did, inasmuch as they struck two stones together, and the fire came. CHAPTER 9 The Hall of the Goblin Palace A sound of many soft feet followed, but soon ceased. Then Curdie flew at the hole like a tiger, and tore and pulled. The sides gave way, and it was soon large enough for him to crawl through. He would not betray himself by rekindling his lamp, but the torches of the retreating company, which he found departing in a straight line up a long avenue from the door of their cave, threw back light enough to afford him a glance round the deserted home of the goblins. To his surprise, he could discover nothing to distinguish it from an ordinary natural cave in the rock, upon many of which he had come with the rest of the miners in the progress of their excavations. The goblins had talked of coming back for the rest of their household gear: he saw nothing that would have made him suspect a family had taken shelter there for a single night. The floor was rough and stony; the walls full of projecting corners; the roof in one place twenty feet high, in another endangering his forehead; while on one side a stream, no thicker than a needle, it is true, but still sufficient to spread a wide dampness over the wall, flowed down the face of the rock. But the troop in front of him was toiling under heavy burdens. He could distinguish Helfer now and then, in the flickering light and shade, with his heavy chest on his bending shoulders; while the second brother was almost buried in what looked like a great feather bed. 'Where do they get the feathers?' thought Curdie; but in a moment the troop disappeared at a turn of the way, and it was now both safe and necessary for Curdie to follow them, lest they should be round the next turning before he saw them again, for so he might lose them altogether. He darted after them like a greyhound. When he reached the corner and looked cautiously round, he saw them again at some distance down another long passage. None of the galleries he saw that night bore signs of the work of man--or of goblin either. Stalactites, far older than the mines, hung from their roofs; and their floors were rough with boulders and large round stones, showing that there water must have once run. He waited again at this corner till they had disappeared round the next, and so followed them a long way through one passage after another. The passages grew more and more lofty, and were more and more covered in the roof with shining stalactites. It was a strange enough procession which he followed. But the strangest part of it was the household animals which crowded amongst the feet of the goblins. It was true they had no wild animals down there--at least they did not know of any; but they had a wonderful number of tame ones. I must, however, reserve any contributions towards the natural history of these for a later position in my story. At length, turning a corner too abruptly, he had almost rushed into the middle of the goblin family; for there they had already set down all their burdens on the floor of a cave considerably larger than that which they had left. They were as yet too breathless to speak, else he would have had warning of their arrest. He started back, however, before anyone saw him, and retreating a good way, stood watching till the father should come out to go to the palace. Before very long, both he and his son Helfer appeared and kept on in the same direction as before, while Curdie followed them again with renewed precaution. For a long time he heard no sound except something like the rush of a river inside the rock; but at length what seemed the far-off noise of a great shouting reached his ears, which, however, presently ceased. After advancing a good way farther, he thought he heard a single voice. It sounded clearer and clearer as he went on, until at last he could almost distinguish the words. In a moment or two, keeping after the goblins round another corner, he once more started back--this time in amazement. He was at the entrance of a magnificent cavern, of an oval shape, once probably a huge natural reservoir of water, now the great palace hall of the goblins. It rose to a tremendous height, but the roof was composed of such shining materials, and the multitude of torches carried by the goblins who crowded the floor lighted up the place so brilliantly, that Curdie could see to the top quite well. But he had no idea how immense the place was until his eyes had got accustomed to it, which was not for a good many minutes. The rough projections on the walls, and the shadows thrown upwards from them by the torches, made the sides of the chamber look as if they were crowded with statues upon brackets and pedestals, reaching in irregular tiers from floor to roof. The walls themselves were, in many parts, of gloriously shining substances, some of them gorgeously coloured besides, which powerfully contrasted with the shadows. Curdie could not help wondering whether his rhymes would be of any use against such a multitude of goblins as filled the floor of the hall, and indeed felt considerably tempted to begin his shout of 'One, two, three!', but as there was no reason for routing them and much for endeavouring to discover their designs, he kept himself perfectly quiet, and peering round the edge of the doorway, listened with both his sharp ears. At the other end of the hall, high above the heads of the multitude, was a terrace-like ledge of considerable height, caused by the receding of the upper part of the cavern-wall. Upon this sat the king and his court: the king on a throne hollowed out of a huge block of green copper ore, and his court upon lower seats around it. The king had been making them a speech, and the applause which followed it was what Curdie had heard. One of the court was now addressing the multitude. What he heard him say was to the following effect: 'Hence it appears that two plans have been for some time together working in the strong head of His Majesty for the deliverance of his people. Regardless of the fact that we were the first possessors of the regions they now inhabit; regardless equally of the fact that we abandoned that region from the loftiest motives; regardless also of the self-evident fact that we excel them so far in mental ability as they excel us in stature, they look upon us as a degraded race and make a mockery of all our finer feelings. But, the time has almost arrived when--thanks to His Majesty's inventive genius--it will be in our power to take a thorough revenge upon them once for all, in respect of their unfriendly behaviour.' 'May it please Your Majesty--' cried a voice close by the door, which Curdie recognized as that of the goblin he had followed. 'Who is he that interrupts the Chancellor?' cried another from near the throne. 'Glump,' answered several voices. 'He is our trusty subject,' said the king himself, in a slow and stately voice: 'let him come forward and speak.' A lane was parted through the crowd, and Glump, having ascended the platform and bowed to the king, spoke as follows: 'Sire, I would have held my peace, had I not known that I only knew how near was the moment, to which the Chancellor had just referred. In all probability, before another day is past, the enemy will have broken through into my house--the partition between being even now not more than a foot in thickness.' 'Not quite so much,' thought Curdie to himself. 'This very evening I have had to remove my household effects; therefore the sooner we are ready to carry out the plan, for the execution of which His Majesty has been making such magnificent preparations, the better. I may just add, that within the last few days I have perceived a small outbreak in my dining-room, which, combined with observations upon the course of the river escaping where the evil men enter, has convinced me that close to the spot must be a deep gulf in its channel. This discovery will, I trust, add considerably to the otherwise immense forces at His Majesty's disposal.' He ceased, and the king graciously acknowledged his speech with a bend of his head; whereupon Glump, after a bow to His Majesty, slid down amongst the rest of the undistinguished multitude. Then the Chancellor rose and resumed. 'The information which the worthy Glump has given us,' he said, 'might have been of considerable import at the present moment, but for that other design already referred to, which naturally takes precedence. His Majesty, unwilling to proceed to extremities, and well aware that such measures sooner or later result in violent reactions, has excogitated a more fundamental and comprehensive measure, of which I need say no more. Should His Majesty be successful--as who dares to doubt?--then a peace, all to the advantage of the goblin kingdom, will be established for a generation at least, rendered absolutely secure by the pledge which His Royal Highness the prince will have and hold for the good behaviour of her relatives. Should His Majesty fail--which who shall dare even to imagine in his most secret thoughts?--then will be the time for carrying out with rigour the design to which Glump referred, and for which our preparations are even now all but completed. The failure of the former will render the latter imperative.' Curdie, perceiving that the assembly was drawing to a close and that there was little chance of either plan being more fully discovered, now thought it prudent to make his escape before the goblins began to disperse, and slipped quietly away. There was not much danger of meeting any goblins, for all the men at least were left behind him in the palace; but there was considerable danger of his taking a wrong turning, for he had now no light, and had therefore to depend upon his memory and his hands. After he had left behind him the glow that issued from the door of Glump's new abode, he was utterly without guide, so far as his eyes were concerned. He was most anxious to get back through the hole before the goblins should return to fetch the remains of their furniture. It was not that he was in the least afraid of them, but, as it was of the utmost importance that he should thoroughly discover what the plans they were cherishing were, he must not occasion the slightest suspicion that they were watched by a miner. He hurried on, feeling his way along the walls of rock. Had he not been very courageous, he must have been very anxious, for he could not but know that if he lost his way it would be the most difficult thing in the world to find it again. Morning would bring no light into these regions; and towards him least of all, who was known as a special rhymester and persecutor, could goblins be expected to exercise courtesy. Well might he wish that he had brought his lamp and tinder-box with him, of which he had not thought when he crept so eagerly after the goblins! He wished it all the more when, after a while, he found his way blocked up, and could get no farther. It was of no use to turn back, for he had not the least idea where he had begun to go wrong. Mechanically, however, he kept feeling about the walls that hemmed him in. His hand came upon a place where a tiny stream of water was running down the face of the rock. 'What a stupid I am!' he said to himself. 'I am actually at the end of my journey! And there are the goblins coming back to fetch their things!' he added, as the red glimmer of their torches appeared at the end of the long avenue that led up to the cave. In a moment he had thrown himself on the floor, and wriggled backwards through the hole. The floor on the other side was several feet lower, which made it easier to get back. It was all he could do to lift the largest stone he had taken out of the hole, but he did manage to shove it in again. He sat down on the ore-heap and thought. He was pretty sure that the latter plan of the goblins was to inundate the mine by breaking outlets for the water accumulated in the natural reservoirs of the mountain, as well as running through portions of it. While the part hollowed by the miners remained shut off from that inhabited by the goblins, they had had no opportunity of injuring them thus; but now that a passage was broken through, and the goblins' part proved the higher in the mountain, it was clear to Curdie that the mine could be destroyed in an hour. Water was always the chief danger to which the miners were exposed. They met with a little choke-damp sometimes, but never with the explosive firedamp so common in coal-mines. Hence they were careful as soon as they saw any appearance of water. As the result of his reflections while the goblins were busy in their old home, it seemed to Curdie that it would be best to build up the whole of this gang, filling it with stone, and clay or lie, so that there should be no smallest channel for the water to get into. There was not, however, any immediate danger, for the execution of the goblins' plan was contingent upon the failure of that unknown design which was to take precedence of it; and he was most anxious to keep the door of communication open, that he might if possible discover what the former plan was. At the same time they could not resume their intermitted labours for the inundation without his finding it out; when by putting all hands to the work, the one existing outlet might in a single night be rendered impenetrable to any weight of water; for by filling the gang entirely up, their embankment would be buttressed by the sides of the mountain itself. As soon as he found that the goblins had again retired, he lighted his lamp, and proceeded to fill the hole he had made with such stones as he could withdraw when he pleased. He then thought it better, as he might have occasion to be up a good many nights after this, to go home and have some sleep. How pleasant the night air felt upon the outside of the mountain after what he had gone through in the inside of it! He hurried up the hill without meeting a single goblin on the way, and called and tapped at the window until he woke his father, who soon rose and let him in. He told him the whole story; and, just as he had expected, his father thought it best to work that lode no farther, but at the same time to pretend occasionally to be at work there still in order that the goblins might have no suspicions. Both father and son then went to bed and slept soundly until the morning. CHAPTER 10 The Princess's King-Papa The weather continued fine for weeks, and the little princess went out every day. So long a period of fine weather had indeed never been known upon that mountain. The only uncomfortable thing was that her nurse was so nervous and particular about being in before the sun was down that often she would take to her heels when nothing worse than a fleecy cloud crossing the sun threw a shadow on the hillside; and many an evening they were home a full hour before the sunlight had left the weather-cock on the stables. If it had not been for such odd behaviour Irene would by this time have almost forgotten the goblins. She never forgot Curdie, but him she remembered for his own sake, and indeed would have remembered him if only because a princess never forgets her debts until they are paid. One splendid sunshiny day, about an hour after noon, Irene, who was playing on a lawn in the garden, heard the distant blast of a bugle. She jumped up with a cry of joy, for she knew by that particular blast that her father was on his way to see her. This part of the garden lay on the slope of the hill and allowed a full view of the country below. So she shaded her eyes with her hand and looked far away to catch the first glimpse of shining armour. In a few moments a little troop came glittering round the shoulder of a hill. Spears and helmets were sparkling and gleaming, banners were flying, horses prancing, and again came the bugle-blast which was to her like the voice of her father calling across the distance: 'Irene, I'm coming.' On and on they came until she could clearly distinguish the king. He rode a white horse and was taller than any of the men with him. He wore a narrow circle of gold set with jewels around his helmet, and as he came still nearer Irene could discern the flashing of the stones in the sun. It was a long time since he had been to see her, and her little heart beat faster and faster as the shining troop approached, for she loved her king-papa very dearly and was nowhere so happy as in his arms. When they reached a certain point, after which she could see them no more from the garden, she ran to the gate, and there stood till up they came, clanging and stamping, with one more bright bugle-blast which said: 'Irene, I am come.' By this time the people of the house were all gathered at the gate, but Irene stood alone in front of them. When the horsemen pulled up she ran to the side of the white horse and held up her arms. The king stopped and took her hands. In an instant she was on the saddle and clasped in his great strong arms. I wish I could describe the king so that you could see him in your mind. He had gentle, blue eyes, but a nose that made him look like an eagle. A long dark beard, streaked with silvery lines, flowed from his mouth almost to his waist, and as Irene sat on the saddle and hid her glad face upon his bosom it mingled with the golden hair which her mother had given her, and the two together were like a cloud with streaks of the sun woven through it. After he had held her to his heart for a minute he spoke to his white horse, and the great beautiful creature, which had been prancing so proudly a little while before, walked as gently as a lady--for he knew he had a little lady on his back--through the gate and up to the door of the house. Then the king set her on the ground and, dismounting, took her hand and walked with her into the great hall, which was hardly ever entered except when he came to see his little princess. There he sat down, with two of his counsellors who had accompanied him, to have some refreshment, and Irene sat on his right hand and drank her milk out of a wooden bowl curiously carved. After the king had eaten and drunk he turned to the princess and said, stroking her hair: 'Now, my child, what shall we do next?' This was the question he almost always put to her first after their meal together; and Irene had been waiting for it with some impatience, for now, she thought, she should be able to settle a question which constantly perplexed her. 'I should like you to take me to see my great old grandmother.' The king looked grave And said: 'What does my little daughter mean?' 'I mean the Queen Irene that lives up in the tower--the very old lady, you know, with the long hair of silver.' The king only gazed at his little princess with a look which she could not understand. 'She's got her crown in her bedroom,' she went on; 'but I've not been in there yet. You know she's there, don't you?' 'No,' said the king, very quietly. 'Then it must all be a dream,' said Irene. 'I half thought it was; but I couldn't be sure. Now I am sure of it. Besides, I couldn't find her the next time I went up.' At that moment a snow-white pigeon flew in at an open window and settled upon Irene's head. She broke into a merry laugh, cowered a little, and put up her hands to her head, saying: 'Dear dovey, don't peck me. You'll pull out my hair with your long claws if you don't mind.' The king stretched out his hand to take the pigeon, but it spread its wings and flew again through the open window, when its Whiteness made one flash in the sun and vanished. The king laid his hand on his princess's head, held it back a little, gazed in her face, smiled half a smile, and sighed half a sigh. 'Come, my child; we'll have a walk in the garden together,' he said. 'You won't come up and see my huge, great, beautiful grandmother, then, king-papa?' said the princess. 'Not this time,' said the king very gently. 'She has not invited me, you know, and great old ladies like her do not choose to be visited without leave asked and given.' The garden was a very lovely place. Being upon a Mountainside there were parts in it where the rocks came through in great masses, and all immediately about them remained quite wild. Tufts of heather grew upon them, and other hardy mountain plants and flowers, while near them would be lovely roses and lilies and all pleasant garden flowers. This mingling of the wild mountain with the civilized garden was very quaint, and it was impossible for any number of gardeners to make such a garden look formal and stiff. Against one of these rocks was a garden seat, shadowed from the afternoon sun by the overhanging of the rock itself. There was a little winding path up to the top of the rock, and on top another seat; but they sat on the seat at its foot because the sun was hot; and there they talked together of many things. At length the king said: 'You were out late one evening, Irene.' 'Yes, papa. It was my fault; and Lootie was very sorry.' 'I must talk to Lootie about it,' said the king. 'Don't speak loud to her, please, papa,' said Irene. 'She's been so afraid of being late ever since! Indeed she has not been naughty. It was only a mistake for once.' 'Once might be too often,' murmured the king to himself, as he stroked his child's head. I can't tell you how he had come to know. I am sure Curdie had not told him. Someone about the palace must have seen them, after all. He sat for a good while thinking. There was no sound to be heard except that of a little stream which ran merrily out of an opening in the rock by where they sat, and sped away down the hill through the garden. Then he rose and, leaving Irene where she was, went into the house and sent for Lootie, with whom he had a talk that made her cry. When in the evening he rode away upon his great white horse, he left six of his attendants behind him, with orders that three of them should watch outside the house every night, walking round and round it from sunset to sunrise. It was clear he was not quite comfortable about the princess. CHAPTER 11 The Old Lady's Bedroom Nothing more happened worth telling for some time. The autumn came and went by. There were no more flowers in the garden. The wind blew strong, and howled among the rocks. The rain fell, and drenched the few yellow and red leaves that could not get off the bare branches. Again and again there would be a glorious morning followed by a pouring afternoon, and sometimes, for a week together, there would be rain, nothing but rain, all day, and then the most lovely cloudless night, with the sky all out in full-blown stars--not one missing. But the princess could not see much of them, for she went to bed early. The winter drew on, and she found things growing dreary. When it was too stormy to go out, and she had got tired of her toys, Lootie would take her about the house, sometimes to the housekeeper's room, where the housekeeper, who was a good, kind old woman, made much of her--sometimes to the servants' hall or the kitchen, where she was not princess merely, but absolute queen, and ran a great risk of being spoiled. Sometimes she would run off herself to the room where the men-at-arms whom the king had left sat, and they showed her their arms and accoutrements and did what they could to amuse her. Still at times she found it very dreary, and often and often wished that her huge great grandmother had not been a dream. One morning the nurse left her with the housekeeper for a while. To amuse her she turned out the contents of an old cabinet upon the table. The little princess found her treasures, queer ancient ornaments, and many things the use of which she could not imagine, far more interesting than her own toys, and sat playing with them for two hours or more. But, at length, in handling a curious old-fashioned brooch, she ran the pin of it into her thumb, and gave a little scream with the sharpness of the pain, but would have thought little more of it had not the pain increased and her thumb begun to swell. This alarmed the housekeeper greatly. The nurse was fetched; the doctor was sent for; her hand was poulticed, and long before her usual time she was put to bed. The pain still continued, and although she fell asleep and dreamed a good many dreams, there was the pain always in every dream. At last it woke her UP. The moon was shining brightly into the room. The poultice had fallen off her hand and it was burning hot. She fancied if she could hold it into the moonlight that would cool it. So she got out of bed, without waking the nurse who lay at the other end of the room, and went to the window. When she looked out she saw one of the men-at-arms walking in the garden with the moonlight glancing on his armour. She was just going to tap on the window and call him, for she wanted to tell him all about it, when she bethought herself that that might wake Lootie, and she would put her into her bed again. So she resolved to go to the window of another room, and call him from there. It was so much nicer to have somebody to talk to than to lie awake in bed with the burning pain in her hand. She opened the door very gently and went through the nursery, which did not look into the garden, to go to the other window. But when she came to the foot of the old staircase there was the moon shining down from some window high up, and making the worm-eaten oak look very strange and delicate and lovely. In a moment she was putting her little feet one after the other in the silvery path up the stair, looking behind as she went, to see the shadow they made in the middle of the silver. Some little girls would have been afraid to find themselves thus alone in the middle of the night, but Irene was a princess. As she went slowly up the stair, not quite sure that she was not dreaming, suddenly a great longing woke up in her heart to try once more whether she could not find the old lady with the silvery hair. 'If she is a dream,' she said to herself, 'then I am the likelier to find her, if I am dreaming.' So up and up she went, stair after stair, until she Came to the many rooms--all just as she had seen them before. Through passage after passage she softly sped, comforting herself that if she should lose her way it would not matter much, because when she woke she would find herself in her own bed with Lootie not far off. But, as if she had known every step of the way, she walked straight to the door at the foot of the narrow stair that led to the tower. 'What if I should realreality-really find my beautiful old grandmother up there!' she said to herself as she crept up the steep steps. When she reached the top she stood a moment listening in the dark, for there was no moon there. Yes! it was! it was the hum of the spinning-wheel! What a diligent grandmother to work both day and night! She tapped gently at the door. 'Come in, Irene,'said the sweet voice. The princess opened the door and entered. There was the moonlight streaming in at the window, and in the middle of the moonlight sat the old lady in her black dress with the white lace, and her silvery hair mingling with the moonlight, so that you could not have told which was which. 'Come in, Irene,' she said again. 'Can you tell me what I am spinning?' 'She speaks,' thought Irene, 'just as if she had seen me five minutes ago, or yesterday at the farthest. --No,' she answered; 'I don't know what you are spinning. Please, I thought you were a dream. Why couldn't I find you before, great-great-grandmother?' 'That you are hardly old enough to understand. But you would have found me sooner if you hadn't come to think I was a dream. I will give you one reason though why you couldn't find me. I didn't want you to find me.' 'Why, please?' 'Because I did not want Lootie to know I was here.' 'But you told me to tell Lootie.' 'Yes. But I knew Lootie would not believe you. If she were to see me sitting spinning here, she wouldn't believe me, either.' 'Why?' 'Because she couldn't. She would rub her eyes, and go away and say she felt queer, and forget half of it and more, and then say it had been all a dream.' 'Just like me,' said Irene, feeling very much ashamed of herself. 'Yes, a good deal like you, but not just like you; for you've come again; and Lootie wouldn't have come again. She would have said, No, no--she had had enough of such nonsense.' 'Is it naughty of Lootie, then?' 'It would be naughty of you. I've never done anything for Lootie.' 'And you did wash my face and hands for me,' said Irene, beginning to cry. The old lady smiled a sweet smile and said: 'I'm not vexed with you, my child--nor with Lootie either. But I don't want you to say anything more to Lootie about me. If she should ask you, you must just be silent. But I do not think she will ask you.' All the time they talked the old lady kept on spinning. 'You haven't told me yet what I am spinning,' she said. 'Because I don't know. It's very pretty stuff.' It was indeed very pretty stuff. There was a good bunch of it on the distaff attached to the spinning-wheel, and in the moonlight it shone like--what shall I say it was like? It was not white enough for silver--yes, it was like silver, but shone grey rather than white, and glittered only a little. And the thread the old lady drew out from it was so fine that Irene could hardly see it. 'I am spinning this for you, my child.' 'For me! What am I to do with it, please?' 'I will tell you by and by. But first I will tell you what it is. It is spider-web--of a particular kind. My pigeons bring it me from over the great sea. There is only one forest where the spiders live who make this particular kind--the finest and strongest of any. I have nearly finished my present job. What is on the rock now will be enough. I have a week's work there yet, though,' she added, looking at the bunch. 'Do you work all day and all night, too, great-great-great-great-grandmother?' said the princess, thinking to be very polite with so many greats. 'I am not quite so great as all that,' she answered, smiling almost merrily. 'If you call me grandmother, that will do. No, I don't work every night--only moonlit nights, and then no longer than the moon shines upon my wheel. I shan't work much longer tonight.' 'And what will you do next, grandmother?' 'Go to bed. Would you like to see my bedroom?' 'Yes, that I should.' 'Then I think I won't work any longer tonight. I shall be in good time.' The old lady rose, and left her wheel standing just as it was. You see there was no good in putting it away, for where there was not any furniture there was no danger of being untidy. Then she took Irene by the hand, but it was her bad hand and Irene gave a little cry of pain. 'My child!' said her grandmother, 'what is the matter?' Irene held her hand into the moonlight, that the old lady might see it, and told her all about it, at which she looked grave. But she only said: 'Give me your other hand'; and, having led her out upon the little dark landing, opened the door on the opposite side of it. What was Irene's surprise to see the loveliest room she had ever seen in her life! It was large and lofty, and dome-shaped. From the centre hung a lamp as round as a ball, shining as if with the brightest moonlight, which made everything visible in the room, though not so clearly that the princess could tell what many of the things were. A large oval bed stood in the middle, with a coverlid of rose colour, and velvet curtains all round it of a lovely pale blue. The walls were also blue--spangled all over with what looked like stars of silver. The old lady left her and, going to a strange-looking cabinet, opened it and took out a curious silver casket. Then she sat down on a low chair and, calling Irene, made her kneel before her while she looked at her hand. Having examined it, she opened the casket, and took from it a little ointment. The sweetest odour filled the room--like that of roses and lilies--as she rubbed the ointment gently all over the hot swollen hand. Her touch was so pleasant and cool that it seemed to drive away the pain and heat wherever it came. 'Oh, grandmother! it is so nice!' said Irene. 'Thank you; thank you.' Then the old lady went to a chest of drawers, and took out a large handkerchief of gossamer-like cambric, which she tied round her hand. 'I don't think I can let you go away tonight,' she said. 'Would you like to sleep with me?' 'Oh, yes, yes, dear grandmother,' said Irene, and would have clapped her hands, forgetting that she could not. 'You won't be afraid, then, to go to bed with such an old woman?' 'No. You are so beautiful, grandmother.' 'But I am very old.' 'And I suppose I am very young. You won't mind sleeping with such a very young woman, grandmother?' 'You sweet little pertness!' said the old lady, and drew her towards her, and kissed her on the forehead and the cheek and the mouth. Then she got a large silver basin, and having poured some water into it made Irene sit on the chair, and washed her feet. This done, she was ready for bed. And oh, what a delicious bed it was into which her grandmother laid her! She hardly could have told she was lying upon anything: she felt nothing but the softness. The old lady having undressed herself lay down beside her. 'Why don't you put out your moon?' asked the princess. 'That never goes out, night or day,' she answered. 'In the darkest night, if any of my pigeons are out on a message, they always see my moon and know where to fly to.' 'But if somebody besides the pigeons were to see it--somebody about the house, I mean--they would come to look what it was and find you.' 'The better for them, then,' said the old lady. 'But it does not happen above five times in a hundred years that anyone does see it. The greater part of those who do take it for a meteor, wink their eyes, and forget it again. Besides, nobody could find the room except I pleased. Besides, again--I will tell you a secret--if that light were to go out you would fancy yourself lying in a bare garret, on a heap of old straw, and would not see one of the pleasant things round about you all the time.' 'I hope it will never go out,' said the princess. 'I hope not. But it is time we both went to sleep. Shall I take you in my arms?' The little princess nestled close up to the old lady, who took her in both her arms and held her close to her bosom. 'Oh, dear! this is so nice!' said the princess. 'I didn't know anything in the world could be so comfortable. I should like to lie here for ever.' 'You may if you will,' said the old lady. 'But I must put you to one trial-not a very hard one, I hope. This night week you must come back to me. If you don't, I do not know when you may find me again, and you will soon want me very much.' 'Oh! please, don't let me forget.' 'You shall not forget. The only question is whether you will believe I am anywhere--whether you will believe I am anything but a dream. You may be sure I will do all I can to help you to come. But it will rest with yourself, after all. On the night of next Friday, you must come to me. Mind now.' 'I will try,' said the princess. 'Then good night,' said the old lady, and kissed the forehead which lay in her bosom. In a moment more the little princess was dreaming in the midst of the loveliest dreams--of summer seas and moonlight and mossy springs and great murmuring trees, and beds of wild flowers with such odours as she had never smelled before. But, after all, no dream could be more lovely than what she had left behind when she fell asleep. In the morning she found herself in her own bed. There was no handkerchief or anything else on her hand, only a sweet odour lingered about it. The swelling had all gone down; the prick of the brooch had vanished--in fact, her hand was perfectly well. CHAPTER 12 A Short Chapter About Curdie Curdie spent many nights in the mine. His father and he had taken Mrs. Peterson into the secret, for they knew mother could hold her tongue, which was more than could be said of all the miners' wives. But Curdie did not tell her that every night he spent in the mine, part of it went in earning a new red petticoat for her. Mrs. Peterson was such a nice good mother! All mothers are nice and good more or less, but Mrs. Peterson was nice and good all more and no less. She made and kept a little heaven in that poor cottage on the high hillside for her husband and son to go home to out of the low and rather dreary earth in which they worked. I doubt if the princess was very much happier even in the arms of her huge great-grandmother than Peter and Curdie were in the arms of Mrs. Peterson. True, her hands were hard and chapped and large, but it was with work for them; and therefore, in the sight of the angels, her hands were so much the more beautiful. And if Curdie worked hard to get her a petticoat, she worked hard every day to get him comforts which he would have missed much more than she would a new petticoat even in winter. Not that she and Curdie ever thought of how much they worked for each other: that would have spoiled everything. When left alone in the mine Curdie always worked on for an hour or two at first, following the lode which, according to Glump, would lead at last into the deserted habitation. After that, he would set out on a reconnoitring expedition. In order to manage this, or rather the return from it, better than the first time, he had bought a huge ball of fine string, having learned the trick from Hop-o'-my-Thumb, whose history his mother had often told him. Not that Hop-o'-my-Thumb had ever used a ball of string--I should be sorry to be supposed so far out in my classics--but the principle was the same as that of the pebbles. The end of this string he fastened to his pickaxe, which figured no bad anchor, and then, with the ball in his hand, unrolling it as he went, set out in the dark through the natural gangs of the goblins' territory. The first night or two he came upon nothing worth remembering; saw only a little of the home-life of the cobs in the various caves they called houses; failed in coming upon anything to cast light upon the foregoing design which kept the inundation for the present in the background. But at length, I think on the third or fourth night, he found, partly guided by the noise of their implements, a company of evidently the best sappers and miners amongst them, hard at work. What were they about? It could not well be the inundation, seeing that had in the meantime been postponed to something else. Then what was it? He lurked and watched, every now and then in the greatest risk of being detected, but without success. He had again and again to retreat in haste, a proceeding rendered the more difficult that he had to gather up his string as he returned upon its course. It was not that he was afraid of the goblins, but that he was afraid of their finding out that they were watched, which might have prevented the discovery at which he aimed. Sometimes his haste had to be such that, when he reached home towards morning, his string, for lack of time to wind it up as he 'dodged the cobs', would be in what seemed most hopeless entanglement; but after a good sleep, though a short one, he always found his mother had got it right again. There it was, wound in a most respectable ball, ready for use the moment he should want it! 'I can't think how you do it, mother,' he would say. 'I follow the thread,' she would answer--'just as you do in the mine.' She never had more to say about it; but the less clever she was with her words, the more clever she was with her hands; and the less his mother said, the more Curdie believed she had to say. But still he had made no discovery as to what the goblin miners were about. CHAPTER 13 The Cobs' Creatures About this time the gentlemen whom the king had left behind him to watch over the princess had each occasion to doubt the testimony of his own eyes, for more than strange were the objects to which they would bear witness. They were of one sort--creatures--but so grotesque and misshapen as to be more like a child's drawings upon his slate than anything natural. They saw them only at night, while on guard about the house. The testimony of the man who first reported having seen one of them was that, as he was walking slowly round the house, while yet in the shadow, he caught sight of a creature standing on its hind legs in the moonlight, with its forefeet upon a window-ledge, staring in at the window. Its body might have been that of a dog or wolf, he thought, but he declared on his honour that its head was twice the size it ought to have been for the size of its body, and as round as a ball, while the face, which it turned upon him as it fled, was more like one carved by a boy upon the turnip inside which he is going to put a candle than anything else he could think of. It rushed into the garden. He sent an arrow after it, and thought he must have struck it; for it gave an unearthly howl, and he could not find his arrow any more than the beast, although he searched all about the place where it vanished. They laughed at him until he was driven to hold his tongue, and said he must have taken too long a pull at the ale-jug. But before two nights were over he had one to side with him, for he, too, had seen something strange, only quite different from that reported by the other. The description the second man gave of the creature he had seen was yet more grotesque and unlikely. They were both laughed at by the rest; but night after night another came over to their side, until at last there was only one left to laugh at all his companions. Two nights more passed, and he saw nothing; but on the third he came rushing from the garden to the other two before the house, in such an agitation that they declared--for it was their turn now--that the band of his helmet was cracking under his chin with the rising of his hair inside it. Running with him into that part of the garden which I have already described, they saw a score of creatures, to not one of which they could give a name, and not one of which was like another, hideous and ludicrous at once, gambolling on the lawn in the moonlight. The supernatural or rather subnatural ugliness of their faces, the length of legs and necks in some, the apparent absence of both or either in others, made the spectators, although in one consent as to what they saw, yet doubtful, as I have said, of the evidence of their own eyes--and ears as well; for the noises they made, although not loud, were as uncouth and varied as their forms, and could be described neither as grunts nor squeaks nor roars nor howls nor barks nor yells nor screams nor croaks nor hisses nor mews nor shrieks, but only as something like all of them mingled in one horrible dissonance. Keeping in the shade, the watchers had a few moments to recover themselves before the hideous assembly suspected their presence; but all at once, as if by common consent, they scampered off in the direction of a great rock, and vanished before the men had come to themselves sufficiently to think of following them. My readers will suspect what these were; but I will now give them full information concerning them. They were, of course, household animals belonging to the goblins, whose ancestors had taken their ancestors many centuries before from the upper regions of light into the lower regions of darkness. The original stocks of these horrible creatures were very much the same as the animals now seen about farms and homes in the country, with the exception of a few of them, which had been wild creatures, such as foxes, and indeed wolves and small bears, which the goblins, from their proclivity towards the animal creation, had caught when cubs and tamed. But in the course of time all had undergone even greater changes than had passed upon their owners. They had altered--that is, their descendants had altered--into such creatures as I have not attempted to describe except in the vaguest manner--the various parts of their bodies assuming, in an apparently arbitrary and self-willed manner, the most abnormal developments. Indeed, so little did any distinct type predominate in some of the bewildering results, that you could only have guessed at any known animal as the original, and even then, what likeness remained would be more one of general expression than of definable conformation. But what increased the gruesomeness tenfold was that, from constant domestic, or indeed rather family association with the goblins, their countenances had grown in grotesque resemblance to the human. No one understands animals who does not see that every one of them, even amongst the fishes, it may be with a dimness and vagueness infinitely remote, yet shadows the human: in the case of these the human resemblance had greatly increased: while their owners had sunk towards them, they had risen towards their owners. But the conditions of subterranean life being equally unnatural for both, while the goblins were worse, the creatures had not improved by the approximation, and its result would have appeared far more ludicrous than consoling to the warmest lover of animal nature. I shall now explain how it was that just then these animals began to show themselves about the king's country house. The goblins, as Curdie had discovered, were mining on--at work both day and night, in divisions, urging the scheme after which he lay in wait. In the course of their tunnelling they had broken into the channel of a small stream, but the break being in the top of it, no water had escaped to interfere with their work. Some of the creatures, hovering as they often did about their masters, had found the hole, and had, with the curiosity which had grown to a passion from the restraints of their unnatural circumstances, proceeded to explore the channel. The stream was the same which ran out by the seat on which Irene and her king-papa had sat as I have told, and the goblin creatures found it jolly fun to get out for a romp on a smooth lawn such as they had never seen in all their poor miserable lives. But although they had partaken enough of the nature of their owners to delight in annoying and alarming any of the people whom they met on the mountain, they were, of course, incapable of designs of their own, or of intentionally furthering those of their masters. For several nights after the men-at-arms were at length of one mind as to the fact of the visits of some horrible creatures, whether bodily or spectral they could not yet say, they watched with special attention that part of the garden where they had last seen them. Perhaps indeed they gave in consequence too little attention to the house. But the creatures were too cunning to be easily caught; nor were the watchers quick-eyed enough to descry the head, or the keen eyes in it, which, from the opening whence the stream issued, would watch them in turn, ready, the moment they should leave the lawn, to report the place clear. CHAPTER 14 That Night Week During the whole of the week Irene had been thinking every other moment of her promise to the old lady, although even now she could not feel quite sure that she had not been dreaming. Could it really be that an old lady lived up in the top of the house, with pigeons and a spinning-wheel, and a lamp that never went out? She was, however, none the less determined, on the coming Friday, to ascend the three stairs, walk through the passages with the many doors, and try to find the tower in which she had either seen or dreamed her grandmother. Her nurse could not help wondering what had come to the child--she would sit so thoughtfully silent, and even in the midst of a game with her would so suddenly fall into a dreamy mood. But Irene took care to betray nothing, whatever efforts Lootie might make to get at her thoughts. And Lootie had to say to herself: 'What an odd child she is!' and give it up. At length the longed-for Friday arrived, and lest Lootie should be moved to watch her, Irene endeavoured to keep herself as quiet as possible. In the afternoon she asked for her doll's house, and went on arranging and rearranging the various rooms and their inhabitants for a whole hour. Then she gave a sigh and threw herself back in her chair. One of the dolls would not sit, and another would not stand, and they were all very tiresome. Indeed, there was one would not even lie down, which was too bad. But it was now getting dark, and the darker it got the more excited Irene became, and the more she felt it necessary to be composed. 'I see you want your tea, princess,' said the nurse: 'I will go and get it. The room feels close: I will open the window a little. The evening is mild: it won't hurt you.' 'There's no fear of that, Lootie,' said Irene, wishing she had put off going for the tea till it was darker, when she might have made her attempt with every advantage. I fancy Lootie was longer in returning than she had intended; for when Irene, who had been lost in thought, looked up, she saw it was nearly dark, and at the same moment caught sight of a pair of eyes, bright with a green light, glowering at her through the open window. The next instant something leaped into the room. It was like a cat, with legs as long as a horse's, Irene said, but its body no bigger and its legs no thicker than those of a cat. She was too frightened to cry out, but not too frightened to jump from her chair and run from the room. It is plain enough to every one of my readers what she ought to have done--and indeed, Irene thought of it herself; but when she came to the foot of the old stair, just outside the nursery door, she imagined the creature running up those long ascents after her, and pursuing her through the dark passages--which, after all, might lead to no tower! That thought was too much. Her heart failed her, and, turning from the stair, she rushed along to the hall, whence, finding the front door open, she darted into the court pursued--at least she thought so--by the creature. No one happening to see her, on she ran, unable to think for fear, and ready to run anywhere to elude the awful creature with the stilt-legs. Not daring to look behind her, she rushed straight out of the gate and up the mountain. It was foolish indeed--thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of. The princess was soon out of breath with running uphill; but she ran on, for she fancied the horrible creature just behind her, forgetting that, had it been after her such long legs as those must have overtaken her long ago. At last she could run no longer, and fell, unable even to scream, by the roadside, where she lay for some time half dead with terror. But finding nothing lay hold of her, and her breath beginning to come back, she ventured at length to get half up and peer anxiously about her. It was now so dark she could see nothing. Not a single star was out. She could not even tell in what direction the house lay, and between her and home she fancied the dreadful creature lying ready to pounce upon her. She saw now that she ought to have run up the stairs at once. It was well she did not scream; for, although very few of the goblins had come out for weeks, a stray idler or two might have heard her. She sat down upon a stone, and nobody but one who had done something wrong could have been more miserable. She had quite forgotten her promise to visit her grandmother. A raindrop fell on her face. She looked up, and for a moment her terror was lost in astonishment. At first she thought the rising moon had left her place, and drawn nigh to see what could be the matter with the little girl, sitting alone, without hat or cloak, on the dark bare mountain; but she soon saw she was mistaken, for there was no light on the ground at her feet, and no shadow anywhere. But a great silver globe was hanging in the air; and as she gazed at the lovely thing, her courage revived. If she were but indoors again, she would fear nothing, not even the terrible creature with the long legs! But how was she to find her way back? What could that light be? Could it be--? No, it couldn't. But what if it should be--yes--it must be--her great-great-grandmother's lamp, which guided her pigeons home through the darkest night! She jumped up: she had but to keep that light in view and she must find the house. Her heart grew strong. Speedily, yet softly, she walked down the hill, hoping to pass the watching creature unseen. Dark as it was, there was little danger now of choosing the wrong road. And--which was most strange--the light that filled her eyes from the lamp, instead of blinding them for a moment to the object upon which they next fell, enabled her for a moment to see it, despite the darkness. By looking at the lamp and then dropping her eyes, she could see the road for a yard or two in front of her, and this saved her from several falls, for the road was very rough. But all at once, to her dismay, it vanished, and the terror of the beast, which had left her the moment she began to return, again laid hold of her heart. The same instant, however, she caught the light of the windows, and knew exactly where she was. It was too dark to run, but she made what haste she could, and reached the gate in safety. She found the house door still open, ran through the hall, and, without even looking into the nursery, bounded straight up the stair, and the next, and the next; then turning to the right, ran through the long avenue of silent rooms, and found her way at once to the door at the foot of the tower stair. When first the nurse missed her, she fancied she was playing her a trick, and for some time took no trouble about her; but at last, getting frightened, she had begun to search; and when the princess entered, the whole household was hither and thither over the house, hunting for her. A few seconds after she reached the stair of the tower they had even begun to search the neglected rooms, in which they would never have thought of looking had they not already searched every other place they could think of in vain. But by this time she was knocking at the old lady's door. CHAPTER 15 Woven and Then Spun 'Come in, Irene,' said the silvery voice of her grandmother. The princess opened the door and peeped in. But the room was quite dark and there was no sound of the spinning-wheel. She grew frightened once more, thinking that, although the room was there, the old lady might be a dream after all. Every little girl knows how dreadful it is to find a room empty where she thought somebody was; but Irene had to fancy for a moment that the person she came to find was nowhere at all. She remembered, however, that at night she spun only in the moonlight, and concluded that must be why there was no sweet, bee-like humming: the old lady might be somewhere in the darkness. Before she had time to think another thought, she heard her voice again, saying as before: 'Come in, Irene.' From the sound, she understood at once that she was not in the room beside her. Perhaps she was in her bedroom. She turned across the passage, feeling her way to the other door. When her hand fell on the lock, again the old lady spoke: 'Shut the other door behind you, Irene. I always close the door of my workroom when I go to my chamber.' Irene wondered to hear her voice so plainly through the door: having shut the other, she opened it and went in. Oh, what a lovely haven to reach from the darkness and fear through which she had come! The soft light made her feel as if she were going into the heart of the milkiest pearl; while the blue walls and their silver stars for a moment perplexed her with the fancy that they were in reality the sky which she had left outside a minute ago covered with rainclouds. 'I've lighted a fire for you, Irene: you're cold and wet,' said her grandmother. Then Irene looked again, and saw that what she had taken for a huge bouquet of red roses on a low stand against the wall was in fact a fire which burned in the shapes of the loveliest and reddest roses, glowing gorgeously between the heads and wings of two cherubs of shining silver. And when she came nearer, she found that the smell of roses with which the room was filled came from the fire-roses on the hearth. Her grandmother was dressed in the loveliest pale blue velvet, over which her hair, no longer white, but of a rich golden colour, streamed like a cataract, here falling in dull gathered heaps, there rushing away in smooth shining falls. And ever as she looked, the hair seemed pouring down from her head and vanishing in a golden mist ere it reached the floor. It flowed from under the edge of a circle of shining silver, set with alternated pearls and opals. On her dress was no ornament whatever, neither was there a ring on her hand, or a necklace or carcanet about her neck. But her slippers glimmered with the light of the Milky Way, for they were covered with seed-pearls and opals in one mass. Her face was that of a woman of three-and-twenty. The princess was so bewildered with astonishment and admiration that she could hardly thank her, and drew nigh with timidity, feeling dirty and uncomfortable. The lady was seated on a low chair by the side of the fire, with hands outstretched to take her, but the princess hung back with a troubled smile. 'Why, what's the matter?' asked her grandmother. 'You haven't been doing anything wrong--I know that by your face, though it is rather miserable. What's the matter, my dear?' And she still held out her arms. 'Dear grandmother,' said Irene, 'I'm not so sure that I haven't done something wrong. I ought to have run up to you at once when the long-legged cat came in at the window, instead of running out on the mountain and making myself such a fright.' 'You were taken by surprise, my child, and you are not so likely to do it again. It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again. Come.' And still she held out her arms. 'But, grandmother, you're so beautiful and grand with your crown on; and I am so dirty with mud and rain! I should quite spoil your beautiful blue dress.' With a merry little laugh the lady sprung from her chair, more lightly far than Irene herself could, caught the child to her bosom, and, kissing the tear-stained face over and over, sat down with her in her lap. 'Oh, grandmother! You'll make yourself such a mess!' cried Irene, clinging to her. 'You darling! do you think I care more for my dress than for my little girl? Besides--look here.' As she spoke she set her down, and Irene saw to her dismay that the lovely dress was covered with the mud of her fall on the mountain road. But the lady stooped to the fire, and taking from it, by the stalk in her fingers, one of the burning roses, passed it once and again and a third time over the front of her dress; and when Irene looked, not a single stain was to be discovered. 'There!' said her grandmother, 'you won't mind coming to me now?' But Irene again hung back, eying the flaming rose which the lady held in her hand. 'You're not afraid of the rose--are you?' she said, about to throw it on the hearth again. 'Oh! don't, please!' cried Irene. 'Won't you hold it to my frock and my hands and my face? And I'm afraid my feet and my knees want it too.' 'No, answered her grandmother, smiling a little sadly, as she threw the rose from her; 'it is too hot for you yet. It would set your frock in a flame. Besides, I don't want to make you clean tonight. I want your nurse and the rest of the people to see you as you are, for you will have to tell them how you ran away for fear of the long-legged cat. I should like to wash you, but they would not believe you then. Do you see that bath behind you?' The princess looked, and saw a large oval tub of silver, shining brilliantly in the light of the wonderful lamp. 'Go and look into it,' said the lady. Irene went, and came back very silent with her eyes shining. 'What did you see?' asked her grandmother. 'The sky, and the moon and the stars,' she answered. 'It looked as if there was no bottom to it.' The lady smiled a pleased satisfied smile, and was silent also for a few moments. Then she said: 'Any time you want a bath, come to me. I know YOU have a bath every morning, but sometimes you want one at night, too.' 'Thank you, grandmother; I will--I will indeed,' answered Irene, and was again silent for some moments thinking. Then she said: 'How was it, grandmother, that I saw your beautiful lamp--not the light of it only--but the great round silvery lamp itself, hanging alone in the great open air, high up? It was your lamp I saw--wasn't it?' 'Yes, my child--it was my lamp.' 'Then how was it? I don't see a window all round.' 'When I please I can make the lamp shine through the walls--shine so strong that it melts them away from before the sight, and shows itself as you saw it. But, as I told you, it is not everybody can see it.' 'How is it that I can, then? I'm sure I don't know.' 'It is a gift born with you. And one day I hope everybody will have it.' 'But how do you make it shine through the walls?' 'Ah! that you would not understand if I were to try ever so much to make you--not yet--not yet. But,' added the lady, rising, 'you must sit in my chair while I get you the present I have been preparing for you. I told you my spinning was for you. It is finished now, and I am going to fetch it. I have been keeping it warm under one of my brooding pigeons.' Irene sat down in the low chair, and her grandmother left her, shutting the door behind her. The child sat gazing, now at the rose fire, now at the starry walls, now at the silver light; and a great quietness grew in her heart. If all the long-legged cats in the world had come rushing at her then she would not have been afraid of them for a moment. How this was she could not tell--she only knew there was no fear in her, and everything was so right and safe that it could not get in. She had been gazing at the lovely lamp for some minutes fixedly: turning her eyes, she found the wall had vanished, for she was looking out on the dark cloudy night. But though she heard the wind blowing, none of it blew upon her. In a moment more the clouds themselves parted, or rather vanished like the wall, and she looked straight into the starry herds, flashing gloriously in the dark blue. It was but for a moment. The clouds gathered again and shut out the stars; the wall gathered again and shut out the clouds; and there stood the lady beside her with the loveliest smile on her face, and a shimmering ball in her hand, about the size of a pigeon's egg. 'There, Irene; there is my work for you!' she said, holding out the ball to the princess. She took it in her hand, and looked at it all over. It sparkled a little, and shone here and there, but not much. It was of a sort of grey-whiteness, something like spun glass. 'Is this all your spinning, grandmother?' she asked. 'All since you came to the house. There is more there than you think.' 'How pretty it is! What am I to do with it, please?' 'That I will now explain to you,' answered the lady, turning from her and going to her cabinet. She came back with a small ring in her hand. Then she took the ball from Irene's, and did something with the ring--Irene could not tell what. 'Give me your hand,' she said. Irene held up her right hand. 'Yes, that is the hand I want,' said the lady, and put the ring on the forefinger of it. 'What a beautiful ring!' said Irene. 'What is the stone called?' 'It is a fire-opal.' 'Please, am I to keep it?' 'Always.' 'Oh, thank you, grandmother! It's prettier than anything I ever saw, except those--of all colours-in your--Please, is that your crown?' 'Yes, it is my crown. The stone in your ring is of the same sort--only not so good. It has only red, but mine have all colours, you see.' 'Yes, grandmother. I will take such care of it! But--' she added, hesitating. 'But what?' asked her grandmother. 'What am I to say when Lootie asks me where I got it?' 'You will ask her where you got it,' answered the lady smiling. 'I don't see how I can do that.' 'You will, though.' 'Of course I will, if you say so. But, you know, I can't pretend not to know.' 'Of course not. But don't trouble yourself about it. You will see when the time comes.' So saying, the lady turned, and threw the little ball into the rose fire. 'Oh, grandmother!' exclaimed Irene; 'I thought you had spun it for me.' 'So I did, my child. And you've got it.' 'No; it's burnt in the fire!' The lady put her hand in the fire, brought out the ball, glimmering as before, and held it towards her. Irene stretched out her hand to take it, but the lady turned and, going to her cabinet, opened a drawer, and laid the ball in it. 'Have I done anything to vex you, grandmother?' said Irene pitifully. 'No, my darling. But you must understand that no one ever gives anything to another properly and really without keeping it. That ball is yours.' 'Oh! I'm not to take it with me! You are going to keep it for me!' 'You are to take it with you. I've fastened the end of it to the ring on your finger.' Irene looked at the ring. 'I can't see it there, grandmother,' she said. 'Feel--a little way from the ring--towards the cabinet,' said the lady. 'Oh! I do feel it!' exclaimed the princess. 'But I can't see it,' she added, looking close to her outstretched hand. 'No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it. Now you can fancy how much spinning that took, although it does seem such a little ball.' 'But what use can I make of it, if it lies in your cabinet?' 'That is what I will explain to you. It would be of no use to you--it wouldn't be yours at all if it did not lie in my cabinet. Now listen. If ever you find yourself in any danger--such, for example, as you were in this same evening--you must take off your ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay your finger, the same that wore the ring, upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you.' 'Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!' 'Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.' 'It is very wonderful!' said Irene thoughtfully. Then suddenly becoming aware, she jumped up, crying: 'Oh, grandmother! here have I been sitting all this time in your chair, and you standing! I beg your pardon.' The lady laid her hand on her shoulder, and said: 'Sit down again, Irene. Nothing pleases me better than to see anyone sit in my chair. I am only too glad to stand so long as anyone will sit in it.' 'How kind of you!' said the princess, and sat down again. 'It makes me happy,' said the lady. 'But,' said Irene, still puzzled, 'won't the thread get in somebody's way and be broken, if the one end is fast to my ring, and the other laid in your cabinet?' 'You will find all that arrange itself. I am afraid it is time for you to go.' 'Mightn't I stay and sleep with you tonight, grandmother?' 'No, not tonight. If I had meant you to stay tonight, I should have given you a bath; but you know everybody in the house is miserable about you, and it would be cruel to keep them so all night. You must go downstairs.' 'I'm so glad, grandmother, you didn't say "Go home," for this is my home. Mayn't I call this my home?' 'You may, my child. And I trust you will always think it your home. Now come. I must take you back without anyone seeing you.' 'Please, I want to ask you one question more,' said Irene. 'Is it because you have your crown on that you look so young?' 'No, child,' answered her grandmother; 'it is because I felt so young this evening that I put my crown on. And I thought you would like to see your old grandmother in her best.' 'Why do you call yourself old? You're not old, grandmother.' 'I am very old indeed. It is so silly of people--I don't mean you, for you are such a tiny, and couldn't know better--but it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs. I am older than you are able to think, and--' 'And look at you, grandmother!' cried Irene, jumping up and flinging her arms about her neck. 'I won't be so silly again, I promise you. At least--I'm rather afraid to promise--but if I am, I promise to be sorry for it--I do. I wish I were as old as you, grandmother. I don't think you are ever afraid of anything.' 'Not for long, at least, my child. Perhaps by the time I am two thousand years of age, I shall, indeed, never be afraid of anything. But I confess I have sometimes been afraid about my children--sometimes about you, Irene.' 'Oh, I'm so sorry, grandmother! Tonight, I suppose, you mean.' 'Yes--a little tonight; but a good deal when you had all but made up your mind that I was a dream, and no real great-great-grandmother. You must not suppose I am blaming you for that. I dare say you could not help it.' 'I don't know, grandmother,' said the princess, beginning to cry. 'I can't always do myself as I should like. And I don't always try. I'm very sorry anyhow.' The lady stooped, lifted her in her arms, and sat down with her in her chair, holding her close to her bosom. In a few minutes the princess had sobbed herself to sleep. How long she slept I do not know. When she came to herself she was sitting in her own high chair at the nursery table, with her doll's house before her. CHAPTER 16 The Ring The same moment her nurse came into the room, sobbing. When she saw her sitting there she started back with a loud cry of amazement and joy. Then running to her, she caught her in her arms and covered her with kisses. 'My precious darling princess! where have you been? What has happened to you? We've all been crying our eyes out, and searching the house from top to bottom for you.' 'Not quite from the top,' thought Irene to herself; and she might have added, 'not quite to the bottom', perhaps, if she had known all. But the one she would not, and the other she could not say. 'Oh, Lootie! I've had such a dreadful adventure!' she replied, and told her all about the cat with the long legs, and how she ran out upon the mountain, and came back again. But she said nothing of her grandmother or her lamp. 'And there we've been searching for you all over the house for more than an hour and a half!' exclaimed the nurse. 'But that's no matter, now we've got you! Only, princess, I must say,' she added, her mood changing, 'what you ought to have done was to call for your own Lootie to come and help you, instead of running out of the house, and up the mountain, in that wild, I must say, foolish fashion.' 'Well, Lootie,' said Irene quietly, 'perhaps if you had a big cat, all legs, running at you, you might not exactly know what was the wisest thing to do at the moment.' 'I wouldn't run up the mountain, anyhow,' returned Lootie. 'Not if you had time to think about it. But when those creatures came at you that night on the mountain, you were so frightened yourself that you lost your way home.' This put a stop to Lootie's reproaches. She had been on the point of saying that the long-legged cat must have been a twilight fancy of the princess's, but the memory of the horrors of that night, and of the talking-to which the king had given her in consequence, prevented her from saying what after all she did not half believe--having a strong suspicion that the cat was a goblin; for she knew nothing of the difference between the goblins and their creatures: she counted them all just goblins. Without another word she went and got some fresh tea and bread and butter for the princess. Before she returned, the whole household, headed by the housekeeper, burst into the nursery to exult over their darling. The gentlemen-at-arms followed, and were ready enough to believe all she told them about the long-legged cat. Indeed, though wise enough to say nothing about it, they remembered, with no little horror, just such a creature amongst those they had surprised at their gambols upon the princess's lawn. In their own hearts they blamed themselves for not having kept better watch. And their captain gave orders that from this night the front door and all the windows on the ground floor should be locked immediately the sun set, and opened after upon no pretence whatever. The men-at-arms redoubled their vigilance, and for some time there was no further cause of alarm. When the princess woke the next morning, her nurse was bending over her. 'How your ring does glow this morning, princess!--just like a fiery rose!' she said. 'Does it, Lootie?' returned Irene. 'Who gave me the ring, Lootie? I know I've had it a long time, but where did I get it? I don't remember.' 'I think it must have been your mother gave it you, princess; but really, for as long as you have worn it, I don't remember that ever I heard,' answered her nurse. 'I will ask my king-papa the next time he comes,' said Irene. CHAPTER 17 Springtime The spring so dear to all creatures, young and old, came at last, and before the first few days of it had gone, the king rode through its budding valleys to see his little daughter. He had been in a distant part of his dominions all the winter, for he was not in the habit of stopping in one great city, or of visiting only his favourite country houses, but he moved from place to place, that all his people might know him. Wherever he journeyed, he kept a constant look-out for the ablest and best men to put into office; and wherever he found himself mistaken, and those he had appointed incapable or unjust, he removed them at once. Hence you see it was his care of the people that kept him from seeing his princess so often as he would have liked. You may wonder why he did not take her about with him; but there were several reasons against his doing so, and I suspect her great-great-grandmother had had a principal hand in preventing it. Once more Irene heard the bugle-blast, and once more she was at the gate to meet her father as he rode up on his great white horse. After they had been alone for a little while, she thought of what she had resolved to ask him. 'Please, king-papa,' she said, 'Will you tell me where I got this pretty ring? I can't remember.' The king looked at it. A strange beautiful smile spread like sunshine over his face, and an answering smile, but at the same time a questioning one, spread like moonlight over Irene's. 'It was your queen-mamma's once,' he said. 'And why isn't it hers now?' asked Irene. 'She does not want it now,' said the king, looking grave. 'Why doesn't she want it now?' 'Because she's gone where all those rings are made.' 'And when shall I see her?' asked the princess. 'Not for some time yet,' answered the king, and the tears came into his eyes. Irene did not remember her mother and did not know why her father looked so, and why the tears came in his eyes; but she put her arms round his neck and kissed him, and asked no more questions. The king was much disturbed on hearing the report of the gentlemen-at-arms concerning the creatures they had seen; and I presume would have taken Irene with him that very day, but for what the presence of the ring on her finger assured him of. About an hour before he left, Irene saw him go up the old stair; and he did not come down again till they were just ready to start; and she thought with herself that he had been up to see the old lady. When he went away he left other six gentlemen behind him, that there might be six of them always on guard. And now, in the lovely spring weather, Irene was out on the mountain the greater part of the day. In the warmer hollows there were lovely primroses, and not so many that she ever got tired of them. As often as she saw a new one opening an eye of light in the blind earth, she would clap her hands with gladness, and unlike some children I know, instead of pulling it, would touch it as tenderly as if it had been a new baby, and, having made its acquaintance, would leave it as happy as she found it. She treated the plants on which they grew like birds' nests; every fresh flower was like a new little bird to her. She would pay visits to all the flower-nests she knew, remembering each by itself. She would go down on her hands and knees beside one and say: 'Good morning! Are you all smelling very sweet this morning? Good-bye!' and then she would go to another nest, and say the same. It was a favourite amusement with her. There were many flowers up and down, and she loved them all, but the primroses were her favourites. 'They're not too shy, and they're not a bit forward,' she would say to Lootie. There were goats too about, over the mountain, and when the little kids came she was as pleased with them as with the flowers. The goats belonged to the miners mostly-a few of them to Curdie's mother; but there were a good many wild ones that seemed to belong to nobody. These the goblins counted theirs, and it was upon them partly that they lived. They set snares and dug pits for them; and did not scruple to take what tame ones happened to be caught; but they did not try to steal them in any other manner, because they were afraid of the dogs the hill-people kept to watch them, for the knowing dogs always tried to bite their feet. But the goblins had a kind of sheep of their own--very queer creatures, which they drove out to feed at night, and the other goblin creatures were wise enough to keep good watch over them, for they knew they should have their bones by and by. CHAPTER 18 Curdie's Clue Curdie was as watchful as ever, but was almost getting tired of his ill success. Every other night or so he followed the goblins about, as they went on digging and boring, and getting as near them as he could, watched them from behind stones and rocks; but as yet he seemed no nearer finding out what they had in view. As at first, he always kept hold of the end of his string, while his pickaxe, left just outside the hole by which he entered the goblins' country from the mine, continued to serve as an anchor and hold fast the other end. The goblins, hearing no more noise in that quarter, had ceased to apprehend an immediate invasion, and kept no watch. One night, after dodging about and listening till he was nearly falling asleep with weariness, he began to roll up his ball, for he had resolved to go home to bed. It was not long, however, before he began to feel bewildered. One after another he passed goblin houses, caves, that is, occupied by goblin families, and at length was sure they were many more than he had passed as he came. He had to use great caution to pass unseen--they lay so close together. Could his string have led him wrong? He still followed winding it, and still it led him into more thickly populated quarters, until he became quite uneasy, and indeed apprehensive; for although he was not afraid of the cobs, he was afraid of not finding his way out. But what could he do? It was of no use to sit down and wait for the morning--the morning made no difference here. It was dark, and always dark; and if his string failed him he was helpless. He might even arrive within a yard of the mine and never know it. Seeing he could do nothing better he would at least find where the end of his string was, and, if possible, how it had come to play him such a trick. He knew by the size of the ball that he was getting pretty near the last of it, when he began to feel a tugging and pulling at it. What could it mean? Turning a sharp corner, he thought he heard strange sounds. These grew, as he went on, to a scuffling and growling and squeaking; and the noise increased, until, turning a second sharp corner, he found himself in the midst of it, and the same moment tumbled over a wallowing mass, which he knew must be a knot of the cobs' creatures. Before he could recover his feet, he had caught some great scratches on his face and several severe bites on his legs and arms. But as he scrambled to get up, his hand fell upon his pickaxe, and before the horrid beasts could do him any serious harm, he was laying about with it right and left in the dark. The hideous cries which followed gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he had punished some of them pretty smartly for their rudeness, and by their scampering and their retreating howls, he perceived that he had routed them. He stood for a little, weighing his battle-axe in his hand as if it had been the most precious lump of metal--but indeed no lump of gold itself could have been so precious at the time as that common tool--then untied the end of the string from it, put the ball in his pocket, and still stood thinking. It was clear that the cobs' creatures had found his axe, had between them carried it off, and had so led him he knew not where. But for all his thinking he could not tell what he ought to do, until suddenly he became aware of a glimmer of light in the distance. Without a moment's hesitation he set out for it, as fast as the unknown and rugged way would permit. Yet again turning a corner, led by the dim light, he spied something quite new in his experience of the underground regions--a small irregular shape of something shining. Going up to it, he found it was a piece of mica, or Muscovy glass, called sheep-silver in Scotland, and the light flickered as if from a fire behind it. After trying in vain for some time to discover an entrance to the place where it was burning, he came at length to a small chamber in which an opening, high in the wall, revealed a glow beyond. To this opening he managed to scramble up, and then he saw a strange sight. Below sat a little group of goblins around a fire, the smoke of which vanished in the darkness far aloft. The sides of the cave were full of shining minerals like those of the palace hall; and the company was evidently of a superior order, for every one wore stones about head, or arms, or waist, shining dull gorgeous colours in the light of the fire. Nor had Curdie looked long before he recognized the king himself, and found that he had made his way into the inner apartment of the royal family. He had never had such a good chance of hearing something. He crept through the hole as softly as he could, scrambled a good way down the wall towards them without attracting attention, and then sat down and listened. The king, evidently the queen, and probably the crown prince and the Prime Minister were talking together. He was sure of the queen by her shoes, for as she warmed her feet at the fire, he saw them quite plainly. 'That will be fun!' said the one he took for the crown prince. It was the first whole sentence he heard. 'I don't see why you should think it such a grand affair!' said his stepmother, tossing her head backward. 'You must remember, my spouse,' interposed His Majesty, as if making excuse for his son, 'he has got the same blood in him. His mother--' 'Don't talk to me of his mother! You positively encourage his unnatural fancies. Whatever belongs to that mother ought to be cut out of him.' 'You forget yourself, my dear!' said the king. 'I don't,' said the queen, 'nor you either. If you expect me to approve of such coarse tastes, you will find yourself mistaken. I don't wear shoes for nothing.' 'You must acknowledge, however,' the king said, with a little groan, 'that this at least is no whim of Harelip's, but a matter of State policy. You are well aware that his gratification comes purely from the pleasure of sacrificing himself to the public good. Does it not, Harelip?' 'Yes, father; of course it does. Only it will be nice to make her cry. I'll have the skin taken off between her toes, and tie them up till they grow together. Then her feet will be like other people's, and there will be no occasion for her to wear shoes.' 'Do you mean to insinuate I've got toes, you unnatural wretch?' cried the queen; and she moved angrily towards Harelip. The councillor, however, who was betwixt them, leaned forward so as to prevent her touching him, but only as if to address the prince. 'Your Royal Highness,' he said, 'possibly requires to be reminded that you have got three toes yourself--one on one foot, two on the other.' 'Ha! ha! ha!' shouted the queen triumphantly. The councillor, encouraged by this mark of favour, went on. 'It seems to me, Your Royal Highness, it would greatly endear you to your future people, proving to them that you are not the less one of themselves that you had the misfortune to be born of a sun-mother, if you were to command upon yourself the comparatively slight operation which, in a more extended form, you so wisely meditate with regard to your future princess.' 'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed the queen louder than before, and the king and the minister joined in the laugh. Harelip growled, and for a few moments the others continued to express their enjoyment of his discomfiture. The queen was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness. She sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon her face. He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was certainly broader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead of being horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular eggs, one on the broad, the other on the small end. Her mouth was no bigger than a small buttonhole until she laughed, when it stretched from ear to ear--only, to be sure, her ears were very nearly in the middle of her cheeks. Anxious to hear everything they might say, Curdie ventured to slide down a smooth part of the rock just under him, to a projection below, upon which he thought to rest. But whether he was not careful enough, or the projection gave way, down he came with a rush on the floor of the cavern, bringing with him a great rumbling shower of stones. The goblins jumped from their seats in more anger than consternation, for they had never yet seen anything to be afraid of in the palace. But when they saw Curdie with his pick in his hand their rage was mingled with fear, for they took him for the first of an invasion of miners. The king notwithstanding drew himself up to his full height of four feet, spread himself to his full breadth of three and a half, for he was the handsomest and squarest of all the goblins, and strutting up to Curdie, planted himself with outspread feet before him, and said with dignity: 'Pray what right have you in my palace?' 'The right of necessity, Your Majesty,' answered Curdie. 'I lost my way and did not know where I was wandering to.' 'How did you get in?' 'By a hole in the mountain.' 'But you are a miner! Look at your pickaxe!' Curdie did look at it, answering: 'I came upon it lying on the ground a little way from here. I tumbled over some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, Your Majesty.' And Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten. The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he had expected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, for he attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did not therefore feel friendly to the intruder. 'You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions at once,' he said, well knowing what a mockery lay in the words. 'With pleasure, if Your Majesty will give me a guide,' said Curdie. 'I will give you a thousand,' said the king with a scoffing air of magnificent liberality. 'One will be quite sufficient,' said Curdie. But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and in rushed goblins till the cave was swarming. He said something to the first of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from one to another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently heard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he did not relish, and he retreated towards the wall. They pressed upon him. 'Stand back,' said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee. They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself and began to rhyme. 'Ten, twenty, thirty-- You're all so very dirty! Twenty, thirty, forty-- You're all so thick and snorty! 'Thirty, forty, fifty-- You're all so puff-and-snifty! Forty, fifty, sixty-- Beast and man so mixty! 'Fifty, sixty, seventy-- Mixty, maxty, leaventy! Sixty, seventy, eighty-- All your cheeks so slaty! 'Seventy, eighty, ninety, All your hands so flinty! Eighty, ninety, hundred, Altogether dundred!' The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces all through the rhyme, as if eating something so disagreeable that it set their teeth on edge and gave them the creeps; but whether it was that the rhyming words were most of them no words at all, for, a new rhyme being considered the more efficacious, Curdie had made it on the spur of the moment, or whether it was that the presence of the king and queen gave them courage, I cannot tell; but the moment the rhyme was over they crowded on him again, and out shot a hundred long arms, with a multitude of thick nailless fingers at the ends of them, to lay hold upon him. Then Curdie heaved up his axe. But being as gentle as courageous and not wishing to kill any of them, he turned the end which was square and blunt like a hammer, and with that came down a great blow on the head of the goblin nearest him. Hard as the heads of all goblins are, he thought he must feel that. And so he did, no doubt; but he only gave a horrible cry, and sprung at Curdie's throat. Curdie, however, drew back in time, and just at that critical moment remembered the vulnerable part of the goblin body. He made a sudden rush at the king and stamped with all his might on His Majesty's feet. The king gave a most unkingly howl and almost fell into the fire. Curdie then rushed into the crowd, stamping right and left. The goblins drew back, howling on every side as he approached, but they were so crowded that few of those he attacked could escape his tread; and the shrieking and roaring that filled the cave would have appalled Curdie but for the good hope it gave him. They were tumbling over each other in heaps in their eagerness to rush from the cave, when a new assailant suddenly faced him--the queen, with flaming eyes and expanded nostrils, her hair standing half up from her head, rushed at him. She trusted in her shoes: they were of granite--hollowed like French sabots. Curdie would have endured much rather than hurt a woman, even if she was a goblin; but here was an affair of life and death: forgetting her shoes, he made a great stamp on one of her feet. But she instantly returned it with very different effect, causing him frightful pain, and almost disabling him. His only chance with her would have been to attack the granite shoes with his pickaxe, but before he could think of that she had caught him up in her arms and was rushing with him across the cave. She dashed him into a hole in the wall, with a force that almost stunned him. But although he could not move, he was not too far gone to hear her great cry, and the rush of multitudes of soft feet, followed by the sounds of something heaved up against the rock; after which came a multitudinous patter of stones falling near him. The last had not ceased when he grew very faint, for his head had been badly cut, and at last insensible. When he came to himself there was perfect silence about him, and utter darkness, but for the merest glimmer in one tiny spot. He crawled to it, and found that they had heaved a slab against the mouth of the hole, past the edge of which a poor little gleam found its way from the fire. He could not move it a hairbreadth, for they had piled a great heap of stones against it. He crawled back to where he had been lying, in the faint hope of finding his pickaxe, But after a vain search he was at last compelled to acknowledge himself in an evil plight. He sat down and tried to think, but soon fell fast asleep. CHAPTER 19 Goblin Counsels He must have slept a long time, for when he awoke he felt wonderfully restored--indeed almost well--and very hungry. There were voices in the outer cave. Once more, then, it was night; for the goblins slept during the day and went about their affairs during the night. In the universal and constant darkness of their dwelling they had no reason to prefer the one arrangement to the other; but from aversion to the sun-people they chose to be busy when there was least chance of their being met either by the miners below, when they were burrowing, or by the people of the mountain above, when they were feeding their sheep or catching their goats. And indeed it was only when the sun was away that the outside of the mountain was sufficiently like their own dismal regions to be endurable to their mole eyes, so thoroughly had they become unaccustomed to any light beyond that of their own fires and torches. Curdie listened, and soon found that they were talking of himself. 'How long will it take?' asked Harelip. 'Not many days, I should think,' answered the king. 'They are poor feeble creatures, those sun-people, and want to be always eating. We can go a week at a time without food, and be all the better for it; but I've been told they eat two or three times every day! Can you believe it? They must be quite hollow inside--not at all like us, nine-tenths of whose bulk is solid flesh and bone. Yes--I judge a week of starvation will do for him.' 'If I may be allowed a word,' interposed the queen,--'and I think I ought to have some voice in the matter--' 'The wretch is entirely at your disposal, my spouse,' interrupted the king. 'He is your property. You caught him yourself. We should never have done it.' The queen laughed. She seemed in far better humour than the night before. 'I was about to say,' she resumed, 'that it does seem a pity to waste so much fresh meat.' 'What are you thinking of, my love?' said the king. 'The very notion of starving him implies that we are not going to give him any meat, either salt or fresh.' 'I'm not such a stupid as that comes to,' returned Her Majesty. 'What I mean is that by the time he is starved there will hardly be a picking upon his bones.' The king gave a great laugh. 'Well, my spouse, you may have him when you like,' he said. 'I don't fancy him for my part. I am pretty sure he is tough eating.' 'That would be to honour instead of punish his insolence,' returned the queen. 'But why should our poor creatures be deprived of so much nourishment? Our little dogs and cats and pigs and small bears would enjoy him very much.' 'You are the best of housekeepers, my lovely queen!' said her husband. 'Let it be so by all means. Let us have our people in, and get him out and kill him at once. He deserves it. The mischief he might have brought upon us, now that he had penetrated so far as our most retired citadel, is incalculable. Or rather let us tie him hand and foot, and have the pleasure of seeing him torn to pieces by full torchlight in the great hall.' 'Better and better!' cried the queen and the prince together, both of them clapping their hands. And the prince made an ugly noise with his hare-lip, just as if he had intended to be one at the feast. 'But,' added the queen, bethinking herself, 'he is so troublesome. For poor creatures as they are, there is something about those sun-people that is very troublesome. I cannot imagine how it is that with such superior strength and skill and understanding as ours, we permit them to exist at all. Why do we not destroy them entirely, and use their cattle and grazing lands at our pleasure? Of course we don't want to live in their horrid country! It is far too glaring for our quieter and more refined tastes. But we might use it as a sort of outhouse, you know. Even our creatures' eyes might get used to it, and if they did grow blind that would be of no consequence, provided they grew fat as well. But we might even keep their great cows and other creatures, and then we should have a few more luxuries, such as cream and cheese, which at present we only taste occasionally, when our brave men have succeeded in carrying some off from their farms.' 'It is worth thinking of,' said the king; 'and I don't know why you should be the first to suggest it, except that you have a positive genius for conquest. But still, as you say, there is something very troublesome about them; and it would be better, as I understand you to suggest, that we should starve him for a day or two first, so that he may be a little less frisky when we take him out.' 'Once there was a goblin Living in a hole; Busy he was cobblin' A shoe without a sole. 'By came a birdie: "Goblin, what do you do?" "Cobble at a sturdie Upper leather shoe." '"What's the good o' that, Sir?" Said the little bird. "Why it's very Pat, Sir-- Plain without a word. '"Where 'tis all a hole, Sir, Never can be holes: Why should their shoes have soles, Sir, When they've got no souls?"' 'What's that horrible noise?' cried the queen, shuddering from pot-metal head to granite shoes. 'I declare,' said the king with solemn indignation, 'it's the sun-creature in the hole!' 'Stop that disgusting noise!' cried the crown prince valiantly, getting up and standing in front of the heap of stones, with his face towards Curdie's prison. 'Do now, or I'll break your head.' 'Break away,' shouted Curdie, and began singing again: 'Once there was a goblin, Living in a hole--' 'I really cannot bear it,' said the queen. 'If I could only get at his horrid toes with my slippers again!' 'I think we had better go to bed,' said the king. 'It's not time to go to bed,' said the queen. 'I would if I was you,' said Curdie. 'Impertinent wretch!' said the queen, with the utmost scorn in her voice. 'An impossible if,' said His Majesty with dignity. 'Quite,' returned Curdie, and began singing again: 'Go to bed, Goblin, do. Help the queen Take off her shoe. 'If you do, It will disclose A horrid set Of sprouting toes.' 'What a lie!' roared the queen in a rage. 'By the way, that reminds me,' said the king, 'that for as long as we have been married, I have never seen your feet, queen. I think you might take off your shoes when you go to bed! They positively hurt me sometimes.' 'I will do as I like,' retorted the queen sulkily. 'You ought to do as your own hubby wishes you,' said the king. 'I will not,' said the queen. 'Then I insist upon it,' said the king. Apparently His Majesty approached the queen for the purpose of following the advice given by Curdie, for the latter heard a scuffle, and then a great roar from the king. 'Will you be quiet, then?' said the queen wickedly. 'Yes, yes, queen. I only meant to coax you.' 'Hands off!' cried the queen triumphantly. 'I'm going to bed. You may come when you like. But as long as I am queen I will sleep in my shoes. It is my royal privilege. Harelip, go to bed.' 'I'm going,' said Harelip sleepily. 'So am I,' said the king. 'Come along, then,' said the queen; 'and mind you are good, or I'll--' 'Oh, no, no, no!' screamed the king in the most supplicating of tones. Curdie heard only a muttered reply in the distance; and then the cave was quite still. They had left the fire burning, and the light came through brighter than before. Curdie thought it was time to try again if anything could be done. But he found he could not get even a finger through the chink between the slab and the rock. He gave a great rush with his shoulder against the slab, but it yielded no more than if it had been part of the rock. All he could do was to sit down and think again. By and by he came to the resolution to pretend to be dying, in the hope they might take him out before his strength was too much exhausted to let him have a chance. Then, for the creatures, if he could but find his axe again, he would have no fear of them; and if it were not for the queen's horrid shoes, he would have no fear at all. Meantime, until they should come again at night, there was nothing for him to do but forge new rhymes, now his only weapons. He had no intention of using them at present, of course; but it was well to have a stock, for he might live to want them, and the manufacture of them would help to while away the time. CHAPTER 20 Irene's Clue That same morning early, the princess woke in a terrible fright. There was a hideous noise in her room--creatures snarling and hissing and rocketing about as if they were fighting. The moment she came to herself, she remembered something she had never thought of again--what her grandmother told her to do when she was frightened. She immediately took off her ring and put it under her pillow. As she did so she fancied she felt a finger and thumb take it gently from under her palm. 'It must be my grandmother!' she said to herself, and the thought gave her such courage that she stopped to put on her dainty little slippers before running from the room. While doing this she caught sight of a long cloak of sky-blue, thrown over the back of a chair by the bedside. She had never seen it before but it was evidently waiting for her. She put it on, and then, feeling with the forefinger of her right hand, soon found her grandmother's thread, which she proceeded at once to follow, expecting it would lead her straight up the old stair. When she reached the door she found it went down and ran along the floor, so that she had almost to crawl in order to keep a hold of it. Then, to her surprise, and somewhat to her dismay, she found that instead of leading her towards the stair it turned in quite the opposite direction. It led her through certain narrow passages towards the kitchen, turning aside ere she reached it, and guiding her to a door which communicated with a small back yard. Some of the maids were already up, and this door was standing open. Across the yard the thread still ran along the ground, until it brought her to a door in the wall which opened upon the Mountainside. When she had passed through, the thread rose to about half her height, and she could hold it with ease as she walked. It led her straight up the mountain. The cause of her alarm was less frightful than she supposed. The cook's great black cat, pursued by the housekeeper's terrier, had bounced against her bedroom door, which had not been properly fastened, and the two had burst into the room together and commenced a battle royal. How the nurse came to sleep through it was a mystery, but I suspect the old lady had something to do with it. It was a clear warm morning. The wind blew deliciously over the Mountainside. Here and there she saw a late primrose but she did not stop to call upon them. The sky was mottled with small clouds. The sun was not yet up, but some of their fluffy edges had caught his light, and hung out orange and gold-coloured fringes upon the air. The dew lay in round drops upon the leaves, and hung like tiny diamond ear-rings from the blades of grass about her path. 'How lovely that bit of gossamer is!' thought the princess, looking at a long undulating line that shone at some distance from her up the hill. It was not the time for gossamers though; and Irene soon discovered that it was her own thread she saw shining on before her in the light of the morning. It was leading her she knew not whither; but she had never in her life been out before sunrise, and everything was so fresh and cool and lively and full of something coming, that she felt too happy to be afraid of anything. After leading her up a good distance, the thread turned to the left, and down the path upon which she and Lootie had met Curdie. But she never thought of that, for now in the morning light, with its far outlook over the country, no path could have been more open and airy and cheerful. She could see the road almost to the horizon, along which she had so often watched her king-papa and his troop come shining, with the bugle-blast cleaving the air before them; and it was like a companion to her. Down and down the path went, then up, and then down and then up again, getting rugged and more rugged as it went; and still along the path went the silvery thread, and still along the thread went Irene's little rosy-tipped forefinger. By and by she came to a little stream that jabbered and prattled down the hill, and up the side of the stream went both path and thread. And still the path grew rougher and steeper, and the mountain grew wilder, till Irene began to think she was going a very long way from home; and when she turned to look back she saw that the level country had vanished and the rough bare mountain had closed in about her. But still on went the thread, and on went the princess. Everything around her was getting brighter and brighter as the sun came nearer; till at length his first rays all at once alighted on the top of a rock before her, like some golden creature fresh from the sky. Then she saw that the little stream ran out of a hole in that rock, that the path did not go past the rock, and that the thread was leading her straight up to it. A shudder ran through her from head to foot when she found that the thread was actually taking her into the hole out of which the stream ran. It ran out babbling joyously, but she had to go in. She did not hesitate. Right into the hole she went, which was high enough to let her walk without stooping. For a little way there was a brown glimmer, but at the first turn it all but ceased, and before she had gone many paces she was in total darkness. Then she began to be frightened indeed. Every moment she kept feeling the thread backwards and forwards, and as she went farther and farther into the darkness of the great hollow mountain, she kept thinking more and more about her grandmother, and all that she had said to her, and how kind she had been, and how beautiful she was, and all about her lovely room, and the fire of roses, and the great lamp that sent its light through stone walls. And she became more and more sure that the thread could not have gone there of itself, and that her grandmother must have sent it. But it tried her dreadfully when the path went down very steep, and especially When she came to places where she had to go down rough stairs, and even sometimes a ladder. Through one narrow passage after another, over lumps of rock and sand and clay, the thread guided her, until she came to a small hole through which she had to creep. Finding no change on the other side, 'Shall I ever get back?' she thought, over and over again, wondering at herself that she was not ten times more frightened, and often feeling as if she were only walking in the story of a dream. Sometimes she heard the noise of water, a dull gurgling inside the rock. By and by she heard the sounds of blows, which came nearer and nearer; but again they grew duller, and almost died away. In a hundred directions she turned, obedient to the guiding thread. At last she spied a dull red shine, and came up to the mica window, and thence away and round about, and right, into a cavern, where glowed the red embers of a fire. Here the thread began to rise. It rose as high as her head and higher still. What should she do if she lost her hold? She was pulling it down: She might break it! She could see it far up, glowing as red as her fire-opal in the light of the embers. But presently she came to a huge heap of stones, piled in a slope against the wall of the cavern. On these she climbed, and soon recovered the level of the thread only however to find, the next moment, that it vanished through the heap of stones, and left her standing on it, with her face to the solid rock. For one terrible moment she felt as if her grandmother had forsaken her. The thread which the spiders had spun far over the seas, which her grandmother had sat in the moonlight and spun again for her, which she had tempered in the rose-fire and tied to her opal ring, had left her--had gone where she could no longer follow it--had brought her into a horrible cavern, and there left her! She was forsaken indeed! 'When shall I wake?' she said to herself in an agony, but the same moment knew that it was no dream. She threw herself upon the heap, and began to cry. It was well she did not know what creatures, one of them with stone shoes on her feet, were lying in the next cave. But neither did she know who was on the other side of the slab. At length the thought struck her that at least she could follow the thread backwards, and thus get out of the mountain, and home. She rose at once, and found the thread. But the instant she tried to feel it backwards, it vanished from her touch. Forwards, it led her hand up to the heap of stones--backwards it seemed nowhere. Neither could she see it as before in the light of the fire. She burst into a wailing cry, and again threw herself down on the stones. CHAPTER 21 The Escape As the princess lay and sobbed she kept feeling the thread mechanically, following it with her finger many times up to the stones in which it disappeared. By and by she began, still mechanically, to poke her finger in after it between the stones as far as she could. All at once it came into her head that she might remove some of the stones and see where the thread went next. Almost laughing at herself for never having thought of this before, she jumped to her feet. Her fear vanished; once more she was certain her grandmother's thread could not have brought her there just to leave her there; and she began to throw away the stones from the top as fast as she could, sometimes two or three at a handful, sometimes taking both hands to lift one. After clearing them away a little, she found that the thread turned and went straight downwards. Hence, as the heap sloped a good deal, growing of course wider towards its base, she had to throw away a multitude of stones to follow the thread. But this was not all, for she soon found that the thread, after going straight down for a little way, turned first sideways in one direction, then sideways in another, and then shot, at various angles, hither and thither inside the heap, so that she began to be afraid that to clear the thread she must remove the whole huge gathering. She was dismayed at the very idea, but, losing no time, set to work with a will; and with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands, she worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing the heap slowly diminish and begin to show itself on the opposite side of the fire. Another thing which helped to keep up her courage was that, as often as she uncovered a turn of the thread, instead of lying loose upon the stone, it tightened up; this made her sure that her grandmother was at the end of it somewhere. She had got about half-way down when she started, and nearly fell with fright. Close to her ears as it seemed, a voice broke out singing: 'Jabber, bother, smash! You'll have it all in a crash. Jabber, smash, bother! You'll have the worst of the pother. Smash, bother, jabber!--' Here Curdie stopped, either because he could not find a rhyme to 'jabber', or because he remembered what he had forgotten when he woke up at the sound of Irene's labours, that his plan was to make the goblins think he was getting weak. But he had uttered enough to let Irene know who he was. 'It's Curdie!' she cried joyfully. 'Hush! hush!' came Curdie's voice again from somewhere. 'Speak softly.' 'Why, you were singing loud!' said Irene. 'Yes. But they know I am here, and they don't know you are. Who are you?' 'I'm Irene,' answered the princess. 'I know who you are quite well. You're Curdie.' 'Why, how ever did you come here, Irene?' 'My great-great-grandmother sent me; and I think I've found out why. You can't get out, I suppose?' 'No, I can't. What are you doing?' 'Clearing away a huge heap of stones.' 'There's a princess!' exclaimed Curdie, in a tone of delight, but still speaking in little more than a whisper. 'I can't think how you got here, though.' 'My grandmother sent me after her thread.' 'I don't know what you mean,' said Curdie; 'but so you're there, it doesn't much matter.' 'Oh, yes, it does!' returned Irene. 'I should never have been here but for her.' 'You can tell me all about it when we get out, then. There's no time to lose now,'said Curdie. And Irene went to work, as fresh as when she began. 'There's such a lot of stones!' she said. 'It will take me a long time to get them all away.' 'How far on have you got?' asked Curdie. 'I've got about the half away, but the other half is ever so much bigger.' 'I don't think you will have to move the lower half. Do you see a slab laid up against the wall?' Irene looked, and felt about with her hands, and soon perceived the outlines of the slab. 'Yes,' she answered, 'I do.' 'Then, I think,' rejoined Curdie, 'when you have cleared the slab about half-way down, or a bit more, I shall be able to push it over.' 'I must follow my thread,' returned Irene, 'whatever I do.' 'What do you mean?' exclaimed Curdie. 'You will see when you get out,' answered the princess, and went on harder than ever. But she was soon satisfied that what Curdie wanted done and what the thread wanted done were one and the same thing. For she not only saw that by following the turns of the thread she had been clearing the face of the slab, but that, a little more than half-way down, the thread went through the chink between the slab and the wall into the place where Curdie was confined, so that she could not follow it any farther until the slab was out of her way. As soon as she found this, she said in a right joyous whisper: 'Now, Curdie, I think if you were to give a great push, the slab would tumble over.' 'Stand quite clear of it, then,' said Curdie, 'and let me know when you are ready.' Irene got off the heap, and stood on one side of it. 'Now, Curdie!' she cried. Curdie gave a great rush with his shoulder against it. Out tumbled the slab on the heap, and out crept Curdie over the top of it. 'You've saved my life, Irene!' he whispered. 'Oh, Curdie! I'm so glad! Let's get out of this horrid place as fast as we can.' 'That's easier said than done,' returned he. 'Oh, no, it's quite easy,' said Irene. 'We have only to follow my thread. I am sure that it's going to take us out now.' She had already begun to follow it over the fallen slab into the hole, while Curdie was searching the floor of the cavern for his pickaxe. 'Here it is!' he cried. 'No, it is not,' he added, in a disappointed tone. 'What can it be, then? I declare it's a torch. That is jolly! It's better almost than my pickaxe. Much better if it weren't for those stone shoes!' he went on, as he lighted the torch by blowing the last embers of the expiring fire. When he looked up, with the lighted torch casting a glare into the great darkness of the huge cavern, he caught sight of Irene disappearing in the hole out of which he had himself just come. 'Where are you going there?' he cried. 'That's not the way out. That's where I couldn't get out.' 'I know that,' whispered Irene. 'But this is the way my thread goes, and I must follow it.' 'What nonsense the child talks!' said Curdie to himself. 'I must follow her, though, and see that she comes to no harm. She will soon find she can't get out that way, and then she will come with me.' So he crept over the slab once more into the hole with his torch in his hand. But when he looked about in it, he could see her nowhere. And now he discovered that although the hole was narrow, it was much longer than he had supposed; for in one direction the roof came down very low, and the hole went off in a narrow passage, of which he could not see the end. The princess must have crept in there. He got on his knees and one hand, holding the torch with the other, and crept after her. The hole twisted about, in some parts so low that he could hardly get through, in others so high that he could not see the roof, but everywhere it was narrow--far too narrow for a goblin to get through, and so I presume they never thought that Curdie might. He was beginning to feel very uncomfortable lest something should have befallen the princess, when he heard her voice almost close to his ear, whispering: 'Aren't you coming, Curdie?' And when he turned the next corner there she stood waiting for him. 'I knew you couldn't go wrong in that narrow hole, but now you must keep by me, for here is a great wide place,' she said. 'I can't understand it,' said Curdie, half to himself, half to Irene. 'Never mind,' she returned. 'Wait till we get out.' Curdie, utterly astonished that she had already got so far, and by a path he had known nothing of, thought it better to let her do as she pleased. 'At all events,' he said again to himself, 'I know nothing about the way, miner as I am; and she seems to think she does know something about it, though how she should passes my comprehension. So she's just as likely to find her way as I am, and as she insists on taking the lead, I must follow. We can't be much worse off than we are, anyhow.' Reasoning thus, he followed her a few steps, and came out in another great cavern, across which Irene walked in a straight line, as confidently as if she knew every step of the way. Curdie went on after her, flashing his torch about, and trying to see something of what lay around them. Suddenly he started back a pace as the light fell upon something close by which Irene was passing. It was a platform of rock raised a few feet from the floor and covered with sheepskins, upon which lay two horrible figures asleep, at once recognized by Curdie as the king and queen of the goblins. He lowered his torch instantly lest the light should awake them. As he did so it flashed upon his pickaxe, lying by the side of the queen, whose hand lay close by the handle of it. 'Stop one moment,' he whispered. 'Hold my torch, and don't let the light on their faces.' Irene shuddered when she saw the frightful creatures, whom she had passed without observing them, but she did as he requested, and turning her back, held the torch low in front of her. Curdie drew his pickaxe carefully away, and as he did so spied one of her feet, projecting from under the skins. The great clumsy granite shoe, exposed thus to his hand, was a temptation not to be resisted. He laid hold of it, and, with cautious efforts, drew it off. The moment he succeeded, he saw to his astonishment that what he had sung in ignorance, to annoy the queen, was actually true: she had six horrible toes. Overjoyed at his success, and seeing by the huge bump in the sheepskins where the other foot was, he proceeded to lift them gently, for, if he could only succeed in carrying away the other shoe as well, he would be no more afraid of the goblins than of so many flies. But as he pulled at the second shoe the queen gave a growl and sat up in bed. The same instant the king awoke also and sat up beside her. 'Run, Irene!' cried Curdie, for though he was not now in the least afraid for himself, he was for the princess. Irene looked once round, saw the fearful creatures awake, and like the wise princess she was, dashed the torch on the ground and extinguished it, crying out: 'Here, Curdie, take my hand.' He darted to her side, forgetting neither the queen's shoe nor his pickaxe, and caught hold of her hand, as she sped fearlessly where her thread guided her. They heard the queen give a great bellow; but they had a good start, for it would be some time before they could get torches lighted to pursue them. Just as they thought they saw a gleam behind them, the thread brought them to a very narrow opening, through which Irene crept easily, and Curdie with difficulty. 'Now,'said Curdie; 'I think we shall be safe.' 'Of course we shall,' returned Irene. 'Why do you think so?'asked Curdie. 'Because my grandmother is taking care of us.' 'That's all nonsense,' said Curdie. 'I don't know what you mean.' 'Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense?' asked the princess, a little offended. 'I beg your pardon, Irene,' said Curdie; 'I did not mean to vex you.' 'Of course not,' returned the princess. 'But why do you think we shall be safe?' 'Because the king and queen are far too stout to get through that hole.' 'There might be ways round,' said the princess. 'To be sure there might: we are not out of it yet,' acknowledged Curdie. 'But what do you mean by the king and queen?' asked the princess. 'I should never call such creatures as those a king and a queen.' 'Their own people do, though,' answered Curdie. The princess asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked leisurely along, gave her a full account, not only of the character and habits of the goblins, so far as he knew them, but of his own adventures with them, beginning from the very night after that in which he had met her and Lootie upon the mountain. When he had finished, he begged Irene to tell him how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene too had to tell a long story, which she did in rather a roundabout manner, interrupted by many questions concerning things she had not explained. But her tale, as he did not believe more than half of it, left everything as unaccountable to him as before, and he was nearly as much perplexed as to what he must think of the princess. He could not believe that she was deliberately telling stories, and the only conclusion he could come to was that Lootie had been playing the child tricks, inventing no end of lies to frighten her for her own purposes. 'But how ever did Lootie come to let you go into the mountains alone?'he asked. 'Lootie knows nothing about it. I left her fast asleep--at least I think so. I hope my grandmother won't let her get into trouble, for it wasn't her fault at all, as my grandmother very well knows.' 'But how did you find your way to me?' persisted Curdie. 'I told you already,' answered Irene; 'by keeping my finger upon my grandmother's thread, as I am doing now.' 'You don't mean you've got the thread there?' 'Of course I do. I have told you so ten times already. I have hardly--except when I was removing the stones--taken my finger off it. There!' she added, guiding Curdie's hand to the thread, 'you feel it yourself--don't you?' 'I feel nothing at all,' replied Curdie. 'Then what can be the matter with your finger? I feel it perfectly. To be sure it is very thin, and in the sunlight looks just like the thread of a spider, though there are many of them twisted together to make it--but for all that I can't think why you shouldn't feel it as well as I do.' Curdie was too polite to say he did not believe there was any thread there at all. What he did say was: 'Well, I can make nothing of it.' 'I can, though, and you must be glad of that, for it will do for both of us.' 'We're not out yet,' said Curdie. 'We soon shall be,' returned Irene confidently. And now the thread went downwards, and led Irene's hand to a hole in the floor of the cavern, whence came a sound of running water which they had been hearing for some time. 'It goes into the ground now, Curdie,' she said, stopping. He had been listening to another sound, which his practised ear had caught long ago, and which also had been growing louder. It was the noise the goblin-miners made at their work, and they seemed to be at no great distance now. Irene heard it the moment she stopped. 'What is that noise?' she asked. 'Do you know, Curdie?' 'Yes. It is the goblins digging and burrowing,' he answered. 'And you don't know what they do it for?' 'No; I haven't the least idea. Would you like to see them?' he asked, wishing to have another try after their secret. 'If my thread took me there, I shouldn't much mind; but I don't want to see them, and I can't leave my thread. It leads me down into the hole, and we had better go at once.' 'Very well. Shall I go in first?' said Curdie. 'No; better not. You can't feel the thread,' she answered, stepping down through a narrow break in the floor of the cavern. 'Oh!' she cried, 'I am in the water. It is running strong--but it is not deep, and there is just room to walk. Make haste, Curdie.' He tried, but the hole was too small for him to get in. 'Go on a little bit he said, shouldering his pickaxe. In a few moments he had cleared a larger opening and followed her. They went on, down and down with the running water, Curdie getting more and more afraid it was leading them to some terrible gulf in the heart of the mountain. In one or two places he had to break away the rock to make room before even Irene could get through--at least without hurting herself. But at length they spied a glimmer of light, and in a minute more they were almost blinded by the full sunlight, into which they emerged. It was some little time before the princess could see well enough to discover that they stood in her own garden, close by the seat on which she and her king-papa had sat that afternoon. They had come out by the channel of the little stream. She danced and clapped her hands with delight. 'Now, Curdie!' she cried, 'won't you believe what I told you about my grandmother and her thread?' For she had felt all the time that Curdie was not believing what she told him. 'There!--don't you see it shining on before us?' she added. 'I don't see anything,' persisted Curdie. 'Then you must believe without seeing,' said the princess; 'for you can't deny it has brought us out of the mountain.' 'I can't deny we are out of the mountain, and I should be very ungrateful indeed to deny that you had brought me out of it.' 'I couldn't have done it but for the thread,' persisted Irene. 'That's the part I don't understand.' 'Well, come along, and Lootie will get you something to eat. I am sure you must want it very much.' 'Indeed I do. But my father and mother will be so anxious about me, I must make haste--first up the mountain to tell my mother, and then down into the mine again to let my father know.' 'Very well, Curdie; but you can't get out without coming this way, and I will take you through the house, for that is nearest.' They met no one by the way, for, indeed, as before, the people were here and there and everywhere searching for the princess. When they got in Irene found that the thread, as she had half expected, went up the old staircase, and a new thought struck her. She turned to Curdie and said: 'My grandmother wants me. Do come up with me and see her. Then you will know that I have been telling you the truth. Do come--to please me, Curdie. I can't bear you should think what I say is not true.' 'I never doubted you believed what you said,' returned Curdie. 'I only thought you had some fancy in your head that was not correct.' 'But do come, dear Curdie.' The little miner could not withstand this appeal, and though he felt shy in what seemed to him a huge grand house, he yielded, and followed her up the stair. CHAPTER 22 The Old Lady and Curdie Up the stair then they went, and the next and the next, and through the long rows of empty rooms, and up the little tower stair, Irene growing happier and happier as she ascended. There was no answer when she knocked at length at the door of the workroom, nor could she hear any sound of the spinning-wheel, and once more her heart sank within her, but only for one moment, as she turned and knocked at the other door. 'Come in,' answered the sweet voice of her grandmother, and Irene opened the door and entered, followed by Curdie. 'You darling!' cried the lady, who was seated by a fire of red roses mingled with white. 'I've been waiting for you, and indeed getting a little anxious about you, and beginning to think whether I had not better go and fetch you myself.' As she spoke she took the little princess in her arms and placed her upon her lap. She was dressed in white now, and looking if possible more lovely than ever. 'I've brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn't believe what I told him and so I've brought him.' 'Yes--I see him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy. Aren't you glad you've got him out?' 'Yes, grandmother. But it wasn't very good of him not to believe me when I was telling him the truth.' 'People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it.' 'Ah! yes, grandmother, I dare say. I'm sure you are right. But he'll believe now.' 'I don't know that,' replied her grandmother. 'Won't you, Curdie?' said Irene, looking round at him as she asked the question. He was standing in the middle of the floor, staring, and looking strangely bewildered. This she thought came of his astonishment at the beauty of the lady. 'Make a bow to my grandmother, Curdie,' she said. 'I don't see any grandmother,' answered Curdie rather gruffly. 'Don't see my grandmother, when I'm sitting in her lap?' exclaimed the princess. 'No, I don't,' reiterated Curdie, in an offended tone. 'Don't you see the lovely fire of roses--white ones amongst them this time?' asked Irene, almost as bewildered as he. 'No, I don't,' answered Curdie, almost sulkily. 'Nor the blue bed? Nor the rose-coloured counterpane?--Nor the beautiful light, like the moon, hanging from the roof?' 'You're making game of me, Your Royal Highness; and after what we have come through together this day, I don't think it is kind of you,' said Curdie, feeling very much hurt. 'Then what do you see?' asked Irene, who perceived at once that for her not to believe him was at least as bad as for him not to believe her. 'I see a big, bare, garret-room--like the one in mother's cottage, only big enough to take the cottage itself in, and leave a good margin all round,' answered Curdie. 'And what more do you see?' 'I see a tub, and a heap of musty straw, and a withered apple, and a ray of sunlight coming through a hole in the middle of the roof and shining on your head, and making all the place look a curious dusky brown. I think you had better drop it, princess, and go down to the nursery, like a good girl.' 'But don't you hear my grandmother talking to me?' asked Irene, almost crying. 'No. I hear the cooing of a lot of pigeons. If you won't come down, I will go without you. I think that will be better anyhow, for I'm sure nobody who met us would believe a word we said to them. They would think we made it all up. I don't expect anybody but my own father and mother to believe me. They know I wouldn't tell a story.' 'And yet you won't believe me, Curdie?' expostulated the princess, now fairly crying with vexation and sorrow at the gulf between her and Curdie. 'No. I can't, and I can't help it,' said Curdie, turning to leave the room. 'What SHALL I do, grandmother?' sobbed the princess, turning her face round upon the lady's bosom, and shaking with suppressed sobs. 'You must give him time,' said her grandmother; 'and you must be content not to be believed for a while. It is very hard to bear; but I have had to bear it, and shall have to bear it many a time yet. I will take care of what Curdie thinks of you in the end. You must let him go now.' 'You're not coming, are you?' asked Curdie. 'No, Curdie; my grandmother says I must let you go. Turn to the right when you get to the bottom of all the stairs, and that will take you to the hall where the great door is.' 'Oh! I don't doubt I can find my way--without you, princess, or your old grannie's thread either,' said Curdie quite rudely. 'Oh, Curdie! Curdie!' 'I wish I had gone home at once. I'm very much obliged to you, Irene, for getting me out of that hole, but I wish you hadn't made a fool of me afterwards.' He said this as he opened the door, which he left open, and, without another word, went down the stair. Irene listened with dismay to his departing footsteps. Then turning again to the lady: 'What does it all mean, grandmother?' she sobbed, and burst into fresh tears. 'It means, my love, that I did not mean to show myself. Curdie is not yet able to believe some things. Seeing is not believing--it is only seeing. You remember I told you that if Lootie were to see me, she would rub her eyes, forget the half she saw, and call the other half nonsense.' 'Yes; but I should have thought Curdie--' 'You are right. Curdie is much farther on than Lootie, and you will see what will come of it. But in the meantime you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.' 'What is that, grandmother?' 'To understand other people.' 'Yes, grandmother. I must be fair--for if I'm not fair to other people, I'm not worth being understood myself. I see. So as Curdie can't help it, I will not be vexed with him, but just wait.' 'There's my own dear child,' said her grandmother, and pressed her close to her bosom. 'Why weren't you in your workroom when we came up, grandmother?' asked Irene, after a few moments' silence. 'If I had been there, Curdie would have seen me well enough. But why should I be there rather than in this beautiful room?' 'I thought you would be spinning.' 'I've nobody to spin for just at present. I never spin without knowing for whom I am spinning.' 'That reminds me--there is one thing that puzzles me,' said the princess: 'how are you to get the thread out of the mountain again? Surely you won't have to make another for me? That would be such a trouble!' The lady set her down and rose and went to the fire. Putting in her hand, she drew it out again and held up the shining ball between her finger and thumb. 'I've got it now, you see,' she said, coming back to the princess, 'all ready for you when you want it.' Going to her cabinet, she laid it in the same drawer as before. 'And here is your ring,' she added, taking it from the little finger of her left hand and putting it on the forefinger of Irene's right hand. 'Oh, thank you, grandmother! I feel so safe now!' 'You are very tired, my child,' the lady went on. 'Your hands are hurt with the stones, and I have counted nine bruises on you. Just look what you are like.' And she held up to her a little mirror which she had brought from the cabinet. The princess burst into a merry laugh at the sight. She was so draggled with the stream and dirty with creeping through narrow places, that if she had seen the reflection without knowing it was a reflection, she would have taken herself for some gipsy child whose face was washed and hair combed about once in a month. The lady laughed too, and lifting her again upon her knee, took off her cloak and night-gown. Then she carried her to the side of the room. Irene wondered what she was going to do with her, but asked no questions--only starting a little when she found that she was going to lay her in the large silver bath; for as she looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the stars shining miles away, as it seemed, in a great blue gulf. Her hands closed involuntarily on the beautiful arms that held her, and that was all. The lady pressed her once more to her bosom, saying: 'Do not be afraid, my child.' 'No, grandmother,' answered the princess, with a little gasp; and the next instant she sank in the clear cool water. When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a strange lovely blue over and beneath and all about her. The lady, and the beautiful room, had vanished from her sight, and she seemed utterly alone. But instead of being afraid, she felt more than happy--perfectly blissful. And from somewhere came the voice of the lady, singing a strange sweet song, of which she could distinguish every word; but of the sense she had only a feeling--no understanding. Nor could she remember a single line after it was gone. It vanished, like the poetry in a dream, as fast as it came. In after years, however, she would sometimes fancy that snatches of melody suddenly rising in her brain must be little phrases and fragments of the air of that song; and the very fancy would make her happier, and abler to do her duty. How long she lay in the water she did not know. It seemed a long time--not from weariness but from pleasure. But at last she felt the beautiful hands lay hold of her, and through the gurgling water she was lifted out into the lovely room. The lady carried her to the fire, and sat down with her in her lap, and dried her tenderly with the softest towel. It was so different from Lootie's drying. When the lady had done, she stooped to the fire, and drew from it her night-gown, as white as snow. 'How delicious!' exclaimed the princess. 'It smells of all the roses in the world, I think.' When she stood up on the floor she felt as if she had been made over again. Every bruise and all weariness were gone, and her hands were soft and whole as ever. 'Now I am going to put you to bed for a good sleep,' said her grandmother. 'But what will Lootie be thinking? And what am I to say to her when she asks me where I have been?' 'Don't trouble yourself about it. You will find it all come right,' said her grandmother, and laid her into the blue bed, under the rosy counterpane. 'There is just one thing more,' said Irene. 'I am a little anxious about Curdie. As I brought him into the house, I ought to have seen him safe on his way home.' 'I took care of all that,' answered the lady. 'I told you to let him go, and therefore I was bound to look after him. Nobody saw him, and he is now eating a good dinner in his mother's cottage far up in the mountain.' 'Then I will go to sleep,' said Irene, and in a few minutes she was fast asleep. CHAPTER 23 Curdie and His Mother Curdie went up the mountain neither whistling nor singing, for he was vexed with Irene for taking him in, as he called it; and he was vexed with himself for having spoken to her so angrily. His mother gave a cry of joy when she saw him, and at once set about getting him something to eat, asking him questions all the time, which he did not answer so cheerfully as usual. When his meal was ready, she left him to eat it, and hurried to the mine to let his father know he was safe. When she came back, she found him fast asleep upon her bed; nor did he wake until his father came home in the evening. 'Now, Curdie,' his mother said, as they sat at supper, 'tell us the whole story from beginning to end, just as it all happened.' Curdie obeyed, and told everything to the point where they came out upon the lawn in the garden of the king's house. 'And what happened after that?' asked his mother. 'You haven't told us all. You ought to be very happy at having got away from those demons, and instead of that I never saw you so gloomy. There must be something more. Besides, you do not speak of that lovely child as I should like to hear you. She saved your life at the risk of her own, and yet somehow you don't seem to think much of it.' 'She talked such nonsense' answered Curdie, 'and told me a pack of things that weren't a bit true; and I can't get over it.' 'What were they?' asked his father. 'Your mother may be able to throw some light upon them.' Then Curdie made a clean breast of it, and told them everything. They all sat silent for some time, pondering the strange tale. At last Curdie's mother spoke. 'You confess, my boy,' she said, 'there is something about the whole affair you do not understand?' 'Yes, of course, mother,' he answered. 'I cannot understand how a child knowing nothing about the mountain, or even that I was shut up in it, should come all that way alone, straight to where I was; and then, after getting me out of the hole, lead me out of the mountain too, where I should not have known a step of the way if it had been as light as in the open air.' 'Then you have no right to say what she told you was not true. She did take you out, and she must have had something to guide her: why not a thread as well as a rope, or anything else? There is something you cannot explain, and her explanation may be the right one.' 'It's no explanation at all, mother; and I can't believe it.' 'That may be only because you do not understand it. If you did, you would probably find it was an explanation, and believe it thoroughly. I don't blame you for not being able to believe it, but I do blame you for fancying such a child would try to deceive you. Why should she? Depend upon it, she told you all she knew. Until you had found a better way of accounting for it all, you might at least have been more sparing of your judgement.' 'That is what something inside me has been saying all the time,' said Curdie, hanging down his head. 'But what do you make of the grandmother? That is what I can't get over. To take me up to an old garret, and try to persuade me against the sight of my own eyes that it was a beautiful room, with blue walls and silver stars, and no end of things in it, when there was nothing there but an old tub and a withered apple and a heap of straw and a sunbeam! It was too bad! She might have had some old woman there at least to pass for her precious grandmother!' 'Didn't she speak as if she saw those other things herself, Curdie?' 'Yes. That's what bothers me. You would have thought she really meant and believed that she saw every one of the things she talked about. And not one of them there! It was too bad, I say.' 'Perhaps some people can see things other people can't see, Curdie,' said his mother very gravely. 'I think I will tell you something I saw myself once--only Perhaps You won't believe me either!' 'Oh, mother, mother!' cried Curdie, bursting into tears; 'I don't deserve that, surely!' 'But what I am going to tell you is very strange,' persisted his mother; 'and if having heard it you were to say I must have been dreaming, I don't know that I should have any right to be vexed with you, though I know at least that I was not asleep.' 'Do tell me, mother. Perhaps it will help me to think better of the princess.' 'That's why I am tempted to tell you,' replied his mother. 'But first, I may as well mention that, according to old whispers, there is something more than common about the king's family; and the queen was of the same blood, for they were cousins of some degree. There were strange stories told concerning them--all good stories--but strange, very strange. What they were I cannot tell, for I only remember the faces of my grandmother and my mother as they talked together about them. There was wonder and awe--not fear--in their eyes, and they whispered, and never spoke aloud. But what I saw myself was this: Your father was going to work in the mine one night, and I had been down with his supper. It was soon after we were married, and not very long before you were born. He came with me to the mouth of the mine, and left me to go home alone, for I knew the way almost as well as the floor of our own cottage. It was pretty dark, and in some parts of the road where the rocks overhung nearly quite dark. But I got along perfectly well, never thinking of being afraid, until I reached a spot you know well enough, Curdie, where the path has to make a sharp turn out of the way of a great rock on the left-hand side. When I got there, I was suddenly surrounded by about half a dozen of the cobs, the first I had ever seen, although I had heard tell of them often enough. One of them blocked up the path, and they all began tormenting and teasing me in a way it makes me shudder to think of even now.' 'If I had only been with you!' cried father and son in a breath. The mother gave a funny little smile, and went on. 'They had some of their horrible creatures with them too, and I must confess I was dreadfully frightened. They had torn my clothes very much, and I was afraid they were going to tear myself to pieces, when suddenly a great white soft light shone upon me. I looked up. A broad ray, like a shining road, came down from a large globe of silvery light, not very high up, indeed not quite so high as the horizon--so it could not have been a new star or another moon or anything of that sort. The cobs dropped persecuting me, and looked dazed, and I thought they were going to run away, but presently they began again. The same moment, however, down the path from the globe of light came a bird, shining like silver in the sun. It gave a few rapid flaps first, and then, with its wings straight out, shot, sliding down the slope of the light. It looked to me just like a white pigeon. But whatever it was, when the cobs caught sight of it coming straight down upon them, they took to their heels and scampered away across the mountain, leaving me safe, only much frightened. As soon as it had sent them off, the bird went gliding again up the light, and the moment it reached the globe the light disappeared, just as if a shutter had been closed over a window, and I saw it no More. But I had no more trouble with the cobs that night or ever after.' 'How strange!' exclaimed Curdie. 'Yes, it was strange; but I can't help believing it, whether you do or not,' said his mother. 'It's exactly as your mother told it to me the very next morning,' said his father. 'You don't think I'm doubting my own mother?' cried Curdie. 'There are other people in the world quite as well worth believing as your own mother,' said his mother. 'I don't know that she's so much the fitter to be believed that she happens to be your mother, Mr. Curdie. There are mothers far more likely to tell lies than the little girl I saw talking to the primroses a few weeks ago. If she were to lie I should begin to doubt my own word.' 'But princesses have told lies as well as other people,' said Curdie. 'Yes, but not princesses like that child. She's a good girl, I am certain, and that's more than being a princess. Depend upon it you will have to be sorry for behaving so to her, Curdie. You ought at least to have held your tongue.' 'I am sorry now,' answered Curdie. 'You ought to go and tell her so, then.' 'I don't see how I could manage that. They wouldn't let a miner boy like me have a word with her alone; and I couldn't tell her before that nurse of hers. She'd be asking ever so many questions, and I don't know how many the little princess would like me to answer. She told me that Lootie didn't know anything about her coming to get me out of the mountain. I am certain she would have prevented her somehow if she had known it. But I may have a chance before long, and meantime I must try to do something for her. I think, father, I have got on the track at last.' 'Have you, indeed, my boy?' said Peter. 'I am sure you deserve some success; you have worked very hard for it. What have you found out?' 'It's difficult, you know, father, inside the mountain, especially in the dark, and not knowing what turns you have taken, to tell the lie of things outside.' 'Impossible, my boy, without a chart, or at least a compass,' returned his father. 'Well, I think I have nearly discovered in what direction the cobs are mining. If I am right, I know something else that I can put to it, and then one and one will make three.' 'They very often do, Curdie, as we miners ought to be very well aware. Now tell us, my boy, what the two things are, and see whether we can guess at the same third as you.' 'I don't see what that has to do with the princess,' interposed his mother. 'I will soon let you see that, mother. Perhaps you may think me foolish, but until I am sure there, is nothing in my present fancy, I am more determined than ever to go on with my observations. Just as we came to the channel by which we got out, I heard the miners at work somewhere near--I think down below us. Now since I began to watch them, they have mined a good half-mile, in a straight line; and so far as I am aware, they are working in no other part of the mountain. But I never could tell in what direction they were going. When we came out in the king's garden, however, I thought at once whether it was possible they were working towards the king's house; and what I want to do tonight is to make sure whether they are or not. I will take a light with me--' 'Oh, Curdie,' cried his mother, 'then they will see you.' 'I'm no more afraid of them now than I was before,' rejoined Curdie, 'now that I've got this precious shoe. They can't make another such in a hurry, and one bare foot will do for my purpose. Woman as she may be, I won't spare her next time. But I shall be careful with my light, for I don't want them to see me. I won't stick it in my hat.' 'Go on, then, and tell us what you mean to do.' 'I mean to take a bit of paper with me and a pencil, and go in at the mouth of the stream by which we came out. I shall mark on the paper as near as I can the angle of every turning I take until I find the cobs at work, and so get a good idea in what direction they are going. If it should prove to be nearly parallel with the stream, I shall know it is towards the king's house they are working.' 'And what if you should? How much wiser will you be then?' 'Wait a minute, mother dear. I told you that when I came upon the royal family in the cave, they were talking of their prince--Harelip, they called him--marrying a sun-woman--that means one of us--one with toes to her feet. Now in the speech one of them made that night at their great gathering, of which I heard only a part, he said that peace would be secured for a generation at least by the pledge the prince would hold for the good behaviour of her relatives: that's what he said, and he must have meant the sun-woman the prince was to marry. I am quite sure the king is much too proud to wish his son to marry any but a princess, and much too knowing to fancy that his having a peasant woman for a wife would be of any great advantage to them.' 'I see what you are driving at now,' said his mother. 'But,' said his father, 'our king would dig the mountain to the plain before he would have his princess the wife of a cob, if he were ten times a prince.' 'Yes; but they think so much of themselves!' said his mother. 'Small creatures always do. The bantam is the proudest cock in my little yard.' 'And I fancy,' said Curdie, 'if they once got her, they would tell the king they would kill her except he consented to the marriage.' 'They might say so,' said his father, 'but they wouldn't kill her; they would keep her alive for the sake of the hold it gave them over our king. Whatever he did to them, they would threaten to do the same to the princess.' 'And they are bad enough to torment her just for their own amusement--I know that,' said his mother. 'Anyhow, I will keep a watch on them, and see what they are up to,' said Curdie. 'It's too horrible to think of. I daren't let myself do it. But they shan't have her--at least if I can help it. So, mother dear--my clue is all right--will you get me a bit of paper and a pencil and a lump of pease pudding, and I will set out at once. I saw a place where I can climb over the wall of the garden quite easily.' 'You must mind and keep out of the way of the men on the watch,' said his mother. 'That I will. I don't want them to know anything about it. They would spoil it all. The cobs would only try some other plan--they are such obstinate creatures! I shall take good care, mother. They won't kill and eat me either, if they should come upon me. So you needn't mind them.' His mother got him what he had asked for, and Curdie set out. Close beside the door by which the princess left the garden for the mountain stood a great rock, and by climbing it Curdie got over the wall. He tied his clue to a stone just inside the channel of the stream, and took his pickaxe with him. He had not gone far before he encountered a horrid creature coming towards the mouth. The spot was too narrow for two of almost any size or shape, and besides Curdie had no wish to let the creature pass. Not being able to use his pickaxe, however, he had a severe struggle with him, and it was only after receiving many bites, some of them bad, that he succeeded in killing him with his pocket-knife. Having dragged him out, he made haste to get in again before another should stop up the way. I need not follow him farther in this night's adventures. He returned to his breakfast, satisfied that the goblins were mining in the direction of the palace--on so low a level that their intention must, he thought, be to burrow under the walls of the king's house, and rise up inside it--in order, he fully believed, to lay hands on the little princess, and carry her off for a wife to their horrid Harelip. CHAPTER 24 Irene Behaves Like a Princess When the princess awoke from the sweetest of sleeps, she found her nurse bending over her, the housekeeper looking over the nurse's shoulder, and the laundry-maid looking over the housekeeper's. The room was full of women-servants; and the gentlemen-at-arms, with a long column of servants behind them, were peeping, or trying to peep in at the door of the nursery. 'Are those horrid creatures gone?' asked the princess, remembering first what had terrified her in the morning. 'You naughty, naughty little princess!' cried Lootie. Her face was very pale, with red streaks in it, and she looked as if she were going to shake her; but Irene said nothing--only waited to hear what should come next. 'How could you get under the clothes like that, and make us all fancy you were lost! And keep it up all day too! You are the most obstinate child! It's anything but fun to us, I can tell you!' It was the only way the nurse could account for her disappearance. 'I didn't do that, Lootie,' said Irene, very quietly. 'Don't tell stories!' cried her nurse quite rudely. 'I shall tell you nothing at all,' said Irene. 'That's just as bad,' said the nurse. 'Just as bad to say nothing at all as to tell stories?' exclaimed the princess. 'I will ask my papa about that. He won't say so. And I don't think he will like you to say so.' 'Tell me directly what you mean by it!' screamed the nurse, half wild with anger at the princess and fright at the possible consequences to herself. 'When I tell you the truth, Lootie,' said the princess, who somehow did not feel at all angry, 'you say to me "Don't tell stories": it seems I must tell stories before you will believe me.' 'You are very rude, princess,' said the nurse. 'You are so rude, Lootie, that I will not speak to you again till you are sorry. Why should I, when I know you will not believe me?' returned the princess. For she did know perfectly well that if she were to tell Lootie what she had been about, the more she went on to tell her, the less would she believe her. 'You are the most provoking child!' cried her nurse. 'You deserve to be well punished for your wicked behaviour.' 'Please, Mrs Housekeeper,' said the princess, 'will you take me to your room, and keep me till my king-papa comes? I will ask him to come as soon as he can.' Every one stared at these words. Up to this moment they had all regarded her as little more than a baby. But the housekeeper was afraid of the nurse, and sought to patch matters up, saying: 'I am sure, princess, nursie did not mean to be rude to you.' 'I do not think my papa would wish me to have a nurse who spoke to me as Lootie does. If she thinks I tell lies, she had better either say so to my papa, or go away. Sir Walter, will you take charge of me?' 'With the greatest of pleasure, princess,' answered the captain of the gentlemen-at-arms, walking with his great stride into the room. The crowd of servants made eager way for him, and he bowed low before the little princess's bed. 'I shall send my servant at once, on the fastest horse in the stable, to tell your king-papa that Your Royal Highness desires his presence. When you have chosen one of these under-servants to wait upon you, I shall order the room to be cleared.' 'Thank you very much, Sir Walter,' said the princess, and her eye glanced towards a rosy-cheeked girl who had lately come to the house as a scullery-maid. But when Lootie saw the eyes of her dear princess going in search of another instead of her, she fell upon her knees by the bedside, and burst into a great cry of distress. 'I think, Sir Walter,' said the princess, 'I will keep Lootie. But I put myself under your care; and you need not trouble my king-papa until I speak to you again. Will you all please to go away? I am quite safe and well, and I did not hide myself for the sake either of amusing myself, or of troubling my people. Lootie, will you please to dress me.' CHAPTER 25 Curdie Comes to Grief Everything was for some time quiet above ground. The king was still away in a distant part of his dominions. The men-at-arms kept watching about the house. They had been considerably astonished by finding at the foot of the rock in the garden the hideous body of the goblin creature killed by Curdie; but they came to the conclusion that it had been slain in the mines, and had crept out there to die; and except an occasional glimpse of a live one they saw nothing to cause alarm. Curdie kept watching in the mountain, and the goblins kept burrowing deeper into the earth. As long as they went deeper there was, Curdie judged, no immediate danger. To Irene the summer was as full of pleasure as ever, and for a long time, although she often thought of her grandmother during the day, and often dreamed about her at night, she did not see her. The kids and the flowers were as much her delight as ever, and she made as much friendship with the miners' children she met on the mountain as Lootie would permit; but Lootie had very foolish notions concerning the dignity of a princess, not understanding that the truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble towards them. At the same time she was considerably altered for the better in her behaviour to the princess. She could not help seeing that she was no longer a mere child, but wiser than her age would account for. She kept foolishly whispering to the servants, however--sometimes that the princess was not right in her mind, sometimes that she was too good to live, and other nonsense of the same sort. All this time Curdie had to be sorry, without a chance of confessing, that he had behaved so unkindly to the princess. This perhaps made him the more diligent in his endeavours to serve her. His mother and he often talked on the subject, and she comforted him, and told him she was sure he would some day have the opportunity he so much desired. Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.' So you see there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have been known in the world's history. At length, however, he began to see signs of a change in the proceedings of the goblin excavators: they were going no deeper, but had commenced running on a level; and he watched them, therefore, more closely than ever. All at once, one night, coming to a slope of very hard rock, they began to ascend along the inclined plane of its surface. Having reached its top, they went again on a level for a night or two, after which they began to ascend once more, and kept on at a pretty steep angle. At length Curdie judged it time to transfer his observation to another quarter, and the next night he did not go to the mine at all; but, leaving his pickaxe and clue at home, and taking only his usual lumps of bread and pease pudding, went down the mountain to the king's house. He climbed over the wall, and remained in the garden the whole night, creeping on hands and knees from one spot to the other, and lying at full length with his ear to the ground, listening. But he heard nothing except the tread of the men-at-arms as they marched about, whose observation, as the night was cloudy and there was no moon, he had little difficulty in avoiding. For several following nights he continued to haunt the garden and listen, but with no success. At length, early one evening, whether it was that he had got careless of his own safety, or that the growing moon had become strong enough to expose him, his watching came to a sudden end. He was creeping from behind the rock where the stream ran out, for he had been listening all round it in the hope it might convey to his ear some indication of the whereabouts of the goblin miners, when just as he came into the moonlight on the lawn, a whizz in his ear and a blow upon his leg startled him. He instantly squatted in the hope of eluding further notice. But when he heard the sound of running feet, he jumped up to take the chance of escape by flight. He fell, however, with a keen shoot of pain, for the bolt of a crossbow had wounded his leg, and the blood was now streaming from it. He was instantly laid Hold of by two or three of the men-at-arms. It was useless to struggle, and he submitted in silence. 'It's a boy!' cried several of them together, in a tone of amazement. 'I thought it was one of those demons. What are you about here?' 'Going to have a little rough usage, apparently,' said Curdie, laughing, as the men shook him. 'Impertinence will do you no good. You have no business here in the king's grounds, and if you don't give a true account of yourself, you shall fare as a thief.' 'Why, what else could he be?' said one. 'He might have been after a lost kid, you know,' suggested another. 'I see no good in trying to excuse him. He has no business here, anyhow.' 'Let me go away, then, if you please,' said Curdie. 'But we don't please--not except you give a good account of yourself.' 'I don't feel quite sure whether I can trust you,' said Curdie. 'We are the king's own men-at-arms,' said the captain courteously, for he was taken with Curdie's appearance and courage. 'Well, I will tell you all about it--if you will promise to listen to me and not do anything rash.' 'I call that cool!' said one of the party, laughing. 'He will tell us what mischief he was about, if we promise to do as pleases him.' 'I was about no mischief,' said Curdie. But ere he could say more he turned faint, and fell senseless on the grass. Then first they discovered that the bolt they had shot, taking him for one of the goblin creatures, had wounded him. They carried him into the house and laid him down in the hall. The report spread that they had caught a robber, and the servants crowded in to see the villain. Amongst the rest came the nurse. The moment she saw him she exclaimed with indignation: 'I declare it's the same young rascal of a miner that was rude to me and the princess on the mountain. He actually wanted to kiss the princess. I took good care of that--the wretch! And he was prowling about, was he? Just like his impudence!' The princess being fast asleep, she could misrepresent at her pleasure. When he heard this, the captain, although he had considerable doubt of its truth, resolved to keep Curdie a prisoner until they could search into the affair. So, after they had brought him round a little, and attended to his wound, which was rather a bad one, they laid him, still exhausted from the loss of blood, upon a mattress in a disused room--one of those already so often mentioned--and locked the door, and left him. He passed a troubled night, and in the morning they found him talking wildly. In the evening he came to himself, but felt very weak, and his leg was exceedingly painful. Wondering where he was, and seeing one of the men-at-arms in the room, he began to question him and soon recalled the events of the preceding night. As he was himself unable to watch any more, he told the soldier all he knew about the goblins, and begged him to tell his companions, and stir them up to watch with tenfold vigilance; but whether it was that he did not talk quite coherently, or that the whole thing appeared incredible, certainly the man concluded that Curdie was only raving still, and tried to coax him into holding his tongue. This, of course, annoyed Curdie dreadfully, who now felt in his turn what it was not to be believed, and the consequence was that his fever returned, and by the time when, at his persistent entreaties, the captain was called, there could be no doubt that he was raving. They did for him what they could, and promised everything he wanted, but with no intention of fulfilment. At last he went to sleep, and when at length his sleep grew profound and peaceful, they left him, locked the door again, and withdrew, intending to revisit him early in the morning. CHAPTER 26 The Goblin-Miners That same night several of the servants were having a chat together before going to bed. 'What can that noise be?' said one of the housemaids, who had been listening for a moment or two. 'I've heard it the last two nights,' said the cook. 'If there were any about the place, I should have taken it for rats, but my Tom keeps them far enough.' 'I've heard, though,' said the scullery-maid, 'that rats move about in great companies sometimes. There may be an army of them invading us. I've heard the noises yesterday and today too.' 'It'll be grand fun, then, for my Tom and Mrs Housekeeper's Bob,' said the cook. 'They'll be friends for once in their lives, and fight on the same side. I'll engage Tom and Bob together will put to flight any number of rats.' 'It seems to me,' said the nurse, 'that the noises are much too loud for that. I have heard them all day, and my princess has asked me several times what they could be. Sometimes they sound like distant thunder, and sometimes like the noises you hear in the mountain from those horrid miners underneath.' 'I shouldn't wonder,' said the cook, 'if it was the miners after all. They may have come on some hole in the mountain through which the noises reach to us. They are always boring and blasting and breaking, you know.' As he spoke, there came a great rolling rumble beneath them, and the house quivered. They all started up in affright, and rushing to the hall found the gentlemen-at-arms in consternation also. They had sent to wake their captain, who said from their description that it must have been an earthquake, an occurrence which, although very rare in that country, had taken place almost within the century; and then went to bed again, strange to say, and fell fast asleep without once thinking of Curdie, or associating the noises they had heard with what he had told them. He had not believed Curdie. If he had, he would at once have thought of what he had said, and would have taken precautions. As they heard nothing more, they concluded that Sir Walter was right, and that the danger was over for perhaps another hundred years. The fact, as discovered afterwards, was that the goblins had, in working up a second sloping face of stone, arrived at a huge block which lay under the cellars of the house, within the line of the foundations. It was so round that when they succeeded, after hard work, in dislodging it without blasting, it rolled thundering down the slope with a bounding, jarring roll, which shook the foundations of the house. The goblins were themselves dismayed at the noise, for they knew, by careful spying and measuring, that they must now be very near, if not under the king's house, and they feared giving an alarm. They, therefore, remained quiet for a while, and when they began to work again, they no doubt thought themselves very fortunate in coming upon a vein of sand which filled a winding fissure in the rock on which the house was built. By scooping this away they came out in the king's wine cellar. No sooner did they find where they were, than they scurried back again, like rats into their holes, and running at full speed to the goblin palace, announced their success to the king and queen with shouts of triumph. In a moment the goblin royal family and the whole goblin people were on their way in hot haste to the king's house, each eager to have a share in the glory of carrying off that same night the Princess Irene. The queen went stumping along in one shoe of stone and one of skin. This could not have been pleasant, and my readers may wonder that, with such skilful workmen about her, she had not yet replaced the shoe carried off by Curdie. As the king, however, had more than one ground of objection to her stone shoes, he no doubt took advantage of the discovery of her toes, and threatened to expose her deformity if she had another made. I presume he insisted on her being content with skin shoes, and allowed her to wear the remaining granite one on the present occasion only because she was going out to war. They soon arrived in the king's wine cellar, and regardless of its huge vessels, of which they did not know the use, proceeded at once, but as quietly as they could, to force the door that led upwards. CHAPTER 27 The Goblins in the King's House When Curdie fell asleep he began at once to dream. He thought he was ascending the Mountainside from the mouth of the mine, whistling and singing 'Ring, dod, bang!' when he came upon a woman and child who had lost their way; and from that point he went on dreaming everything that had happened to him since he thus met the princess and Lootie; how he had watched the goblins, how he had been taken by them, how he had been rescued by the princess; everything, indeed, until he was wounded, captured, and imprisoned by the men-at-arms. And now he thought he was lying wide awake where they had laid him, when suddenly he heard a great thundering sound. 'The cobs are coming!' he said. 'They didn't believe a word I told them! The cobs'll be carrying off the princess from under their stupid noses! But they shan't! that they shan't!' He jumped up, as he thought, and began to dress, but, to his dismay, found that he was still lying in bed. 'Now then, I will!' he said. 'Here goes! I am up now!' But yet again he found himself snug in bed. Twenty times he tried, and twenty times he failed; for in fact he was not awake, only dreaming that he was. At length in an agony of despair, fancying he heard the goblins all over the house, he gave a great cry. Then there came, as he thought, a hand upon the lock of his door. It opened, and, looking up, he saw a lady with white hair, carrying a silver box in her hand, enter the room. She came to his bed, he thought, stroked his head and face with cool, soft hands, took the dressing from his leg, rubbed it with something that smelt like roses, and then waved her hands over him three times. At the last wave of her hands everything vanished, he felt himself sinking into the profoundest slumber, and remembered nothing more until he awoke in earnest. The setting moon was throwing a feeble light through the casement, and the house was full of uproar. There was soft heavy multitudinous stamping, a clashing and clanging of weapons, the voices of men and the cries of women, mixed with a hideous bellowing, which sounded victorious. The cobs were in the house! He sprang from his bed, hurried on some of his clothes, not forgetting his shoes, which were armed with nails; then spying an old hunting-knife, or short sword, hanging on the wall, he caught it, and rushed down the stairs, guided by the sounds of strife, which grew louder and louder. When he reached the ground floor he found the whole place swarming. All the goblins of the mountain seemed gathered there. He rushed amongst them, shouting: 'One, two, Hit and hew! Three, four, Blast and bore!' and with every rhyme he came down a great stamp upon a foot, cutting at the same time their faces--executing, indeed, a sword dance of the wildest description. Away scattered the goblins in every direction--into closets, up stairs, into chimneys, up on rafters, and down to the cellars. Curdie went on stamping and slashing and singing, but saw nothing of the people of the house until he came to the great hall, in which, the moment he entered it, arose a great goblin shout. The last of the men-at-arms, the captain himself, was on the floor, buried beneath a wallowing crowd of goblins. For, while each knight was busy defending himself as well as he could, by stabs in the thick bodies of the goblins, for he had soon found their heads all but invulnerable, the queen had attacked his legs and feet with her horrible granite shoe, and he was soon down; but the captain had got his back to the wall and stood out longer. The goblins would have torn them all to pieces, but the king had given orders to carry them away alive, and over each of them, in twelve groups, was standing a knot of goblins, while as many as could find room were sitting upon their prostrate bodies. Curdie burst in dancing and gyrating and stamping and singing like a small incarnate whirlwind. 'Where 'tis all a hole, sir, Never can be holes: Why should their shoes have soles, sir, When they've got no souls? 'But she upon her foot, sir, Has a granite shoe: The strongest leather boot, sir, Six would soon be through.' The queen gave a howl of rage and dismay; and before she recovered her presence of mind, Curdie, having begun with the group nearest him, had eleven of the knights on their legs again. 'Stamp on their feet!' he cried as each man rose, and in a few minutes the hall was nearly empty, the goblins running from it as fast as they could, howling and shrieking and limping, and cowering every now and then as they ran to cuddle their wounded feet in their hard hands, or to protect them from the frightful stamp-stamp of the armed men. And now Curdie approached the group which, in trusting in the queen and her shoe, kept their guard over the prostrate captain. The king sat on the captain's head, but the queen stood in front, like an infuriated cat, with her perpendicular eyes gleaming green, and her hair standing half up from her horrid head. Her heart was quaking, however, and she kept moving about her skin-shod foot with nervous apprehension. When Curdie was within a few paces, she rushed at him, made one tremendous stamp at his opposing foot, which happily he withdrew in time, and caught him round the waist, to dash him on the marble floor. But just as she caught him, he came down with all the weight of his iron-shod shoe upon her skin-shod foot, and with a hideous howl she dropped him, squatted on the floor, and took her foot in both her hands. Meanwhile the rest rushed on the king and the bodyguard, sent them flying, and lifted the prostrate captain, who was all but pressed to death. It was some moments before he recovered breath and consciousness. 'Where's the princess?' cried Curdie, again and again. No one knew, and off they all rushed in search of her. Through every room in the house they went, but nowhere was she to be found. Neither was one of the servants to be seen. But Curdie, who had kept to the lower part of the house, which was now quiet enough, began to hear a confused sound as of a distant hubbub, and set out to find where it came from. The noise grew as his sharp ears guided him to a stair and so to the wine cellar. It was full of goblins, whom the butler was supplying with wine as fast as he could draw it. While the queen and her party had encountered the men-at-arms, Harelip with another company had gone off to search the house. They captured every one they met, and when they could find no more, they hurried away to carry them safe to the caverns below. But when the butler, who was amongst them, found that their path lay through the wine cellar, he bethought himself of persuading them to taste the wine, and, as he had hoped, they no sooner tasted than they wanted more. The routed goblins, on their way below, joined them, and when Curdie entered they were all, with outstretched hands, in which were vessels of every description from sauce pan to silver cup, pressing around the butler, who sat at the tap of a huge cask, filling and filling. Curdie cast one glance around the place before commencing his attack, and saw in the farthest corner a terrified group of the domestics unwatched, but cowering without courage to attempt their escape. Amongst them was the terror-stricken face of Lootie; but nowhere could he see the princess. Seized with the horrible conviction that Harelip had already carried her off, he rushed amongst them, unable for wrath to sing any more, but stamping and cutting with greater fury than ever. 'Stamp on their feet; stamp on their feet!' he shouted, and in a moment the goblins were disappearing through the hole in the floor like rats and mice. They could not vanish so fast, however, but that many more goblin feet had to go limping back over the underground ways of the mountain that morning. Presently, however, they were reinforced from above by the king and his party, with the redoubtable queen at their head. Finding Curdie again busy amongst her unfortunate subjects, she rushed at him once more with the rage of despair, and this time gave him a bad bruise on the foot. Then a regular stamping fight got up between them, Curdie, with the point of his hunting-knife, keeping her from clasping her mighty arms about him, as he watched his opportunity of getting once more a good stamp at her skin-shod foot. But the queen was more wary as well as more agile than hitherto. The rest meantime, finding their adversary thus matched for the moment, paused in their headlong hurry, and turned to the shivering group of women in the corner. As if determined to emulate his father and have a sun-woman of some sort to share his future throne, Harelip rushed at them, caught up Lootie, and sped with her to the hole. She gave a great shriek, and Curdie heard her, and saw the plight she was in. Gathering all his strength, he gave the queen a sudden cut across the face with his weapon, came down, as she started back, with all his weight on the proper foot, and sprung to Lootie's rescue. The prince had two defenceless feet, and on both of them Curdie stamped just as he reached the hole. He dropped his burden and rolled shrieking into the earth. Curdie made one stab at him as he disappeared, caught hold of the senseless Lootie, and having dragged her back to the corner, there mounted guard over her, preparing once more to encounter the queen. Her face streaming with blood, and her eyes flashing green lightning through it, she came on with her mouth open and her teeth grinning like a tiger's, followed by the king and her bodyguard of the thickest goblins. But the same moment in rushed the captain and his men, and ran at them stamping furiously. They dared not encounter such an onset. Away they scurried, the queen foremost. Of course, the right thing would have been to take the king and queen prisoners, and hold them hostages for the princess, but they were so anxious to find her that no one thought of detaining them until it was too late. Having thus rescued the servants, they set about searching the house once more. None of them could give the least information concerning the princess. Lootie was almost silly with terror, and, although scarcely able to walk would not leave Curdie's side for a single moment. Again he allowed the others to search the rest of the house--where, except a dismayed goblin lurking here and there, they found no one--while he requested Lootie to take him to the princess's room. She was as submissive and obedient as if he had been the king. He found the bedclothes tossed about, and most of them on the floor, while the princess's garments were scattered all over the room, which was in the greatest confusion. It was only too evident that the goblins had been there, and Curdie had no longer any doubt that she had been carried off at the very first of the inroad. With a pang of despair he saw how wrong they had been in not securing the king and queen and prince; but he determined to find and rescue the princess as she had found and rescued him, or meet the worst fate to which the goblins could doom him. CHAPTER 28 Curdie's Guide Just as the consolation of this resolve dawned upon his mind and he was turning away for the cellar to follow the goblins into their hole, something touched his hand. It was the slightest touch, and when he looked he could see nothing. Feeling and peering about in the grey of the dawn, his fingers came upon a tight thread. He looked again, and narrowly, but still could see nothing. It flashed upon him that this must be the princess's thread. Without saying a word, for he knew no one would believe him any more than he had believed the princess, he followed the thread with his finger, contrived to give Lootie the slip, and was soon out of the house and on the mountainside--surprised that, if the thread were indeed the grandmother's messenger, it should have led the princess, as he supposed it must, into the mountain, where she would be certain to meet the goblins rushing back enraged from their defeat. But he hurried on in the hope of overtaking her first. When he arrived, however, at the place where the path turned off for the mine, he found that the thread did not turn with it, but went straight up the mountain. Could it be that the thread was leading him home to his mother's cottage? Could the princess be there? He bounded up the mountain like one of its own goats, and before the sun was up the thread had brought him indeed to his mother's door. There it vanished from his fingers, and he could not find it, search as he might. The door was on the latch, and he entered. There sat his mother by the fire, and in her arms lay the princess, fast asleep. 'Hush, Curdie!' said his mother. 'Do not wake her. I'm so glad you're come! I thought the cobs must have got you again!' With a heart full of delight, Curdie sat down at a corner of the hearth, on a stool opposite his mother's chair, and gazed at the princess, who slept as peacefully as if she had been in her own bed. All at once she opened her eyes and fixed them on him. 'Oh, Curdie! you're come!' she said quietly. 'I thought you would!' Curdie rose and stood before her with downcast eyes. 'Irene,' he said, 'I am very sorry I did not believe you.' 'Oh, never mind, Curdie!' answered the princess. 'You couldn't, you know. You do believe me now, don't you?' 'I can't help it now. I ought to have helped it before.' 'Why can't you help it now?' 'Because, just as I was going into the mountain to look for you, I got hold of your thread, and it brought me here.' 'Then you've come from my house, have you?' 'Yes, I have.' 'I didn't know you were there.' 'I've been there two or three days, I believe.' 'And I never knew it! Then perhaps you can tell me why my grandmother has brought me here? I can't think. Something woke me--I didn't know what, but I was frightened, and I felt for the thread, and there it was! I was more frightened still when it brought me out on the mountain, for I thought it was going to take me into it again, and I like the outside of it best. I supposed you were in trouble again, and I had to get you out. But it brought me here instead; and, oh, Curdie! your mother has been so kind to me--just like my own grandmother!' Here Curdie's mother gave the princess a hug, and the princess turned and gave her a sweet smile, and held up her mouth to kiss her. 'Then you didn't see the cobs?'asked Curdie. 'No; I haven't been into the mountain, I told you, Curdie.' 'But the cobs have been into your house--all over it--and into your bedroom, making such a row!' 'What did they want there? It was very rude of them.' 'They wanted you--to carry you off into the mountain with them, for a wife to their prince Harelip.' 'Oh, how dreadful' cried the princess, shuddering. 'But you needn't be afraid, you know. Your grandmother takes care of you.' 'Ah! you do believe in my grandmother, then? I'm so glad! She made me think you would some day.' All at once Curdie remembered his dream, and was silent, thinking. 'But how did you come to be in my house, and me not know it?' asked the princess. Then Curdie had to explain everything--how he had watched for her sake, how he had been wounded and shut up by the soldiers, how he heard the noises and could not rise, and how the beautiful old lady had come to him, and all that followed. 'Poor Curdie! to lie there hurt and ill, and me never to know it!' exclaimed the princess, stroking his rough hand. 'I would have come and nursed you, if they had told me.' 'I didn't see you were lame,' said his mother. 'Am I, mother? Oh--yes--I suppose I ought to be! I declare I've never thought of it since I got up to go down amongst the cobs!' 'Let me see the wound,' said his mother. He pulled down his stocking--when behold, except a great scar, his leg was perfectly sound! Curdie and his mother gazed in each other's eyes, full of wonder, but Irene called out: 'I thought so, Curdie! I was sure it wasn't a dream. I was sure my grandmother had been to see you. Don't you smell the roses? It was my grandmother healed your leg, and sent you to help me.' 'No, Princess Irene,' said Curdie; 'I wasn't good enough to be allowed to help you: I didn't believe you. Your grandmother took care of you without me.' 'She sent you to help my people, anyhow. I wish my king-papa would come. I do want so to tell him how good you have been!' 'But,' said the mother, 'we are forgetting how frightened your people must be. You must take the princess home at once, Curdie--or at least go and tell them where she is.' 'Yes, mother. Only I'm dreadfully hungry. Do let me have some breakfast first. They ought to have listened to me, and then they wouldn't have been taken by surprise as they were.' 'That is true, Curdie; but it is not for you to blame them much. You remember?' 'Yes, mother, I do. Only I must really have something to eat.' 'You shall, my boy--as fast as I can get it,' said his mother, rising and setting the princess on her chair. But before his breakfast was ready, Curdie jumped up so suddenly as to startle both his companions. 'Mother, mother!' he cried, 'I was forgetting. You must take the princess home yourself. I must go and wake my father.' Without a word of explanation, he rushed to the place where his father was sleeping. Having thoroughly roused him with what he told him he darted out of the cottage. CHAPTER 29 Masonwork He had all at once remembered the resolution of the goblins to carry out their second plan upon the failure of the first. No doubt they were already busy, and the mine was therefore in the greatest danger of being flooded and rendered useless--not to speak of the lives of the miners. When he reached the mouth of the mine, after rousing all the miners within reach, he found his father and a good many more just entering. They all hurried to the gang by which he had found a way into the goblin country. There the foresight of Peter had already collected a great many blocks of stone, with cement, ready for building up the weak place--well enough known to the goblins. Although there was not room for more than two to be actually building at once, they managed, by setting all the rest to work in preparing the cement and passing the stones, to finish in the course of the day a huge buttress filling the whole gang, and supported everywhere by the live rock. Before the hour when they usually dropped work, they were satisfied the mine was secure. They had heard goblin hammers and pickaxes busy all the time, and at length fancied they heard sounds of water they had never heard before. But that was otherwise accounted for when they left the mine, for they stepped out into a tremendous storm which was raging all over the mountain. The thunder was bellowing, and the lightning lancing out of a huge black cloud which lay above it and hung down its edges of thick mist over its sides. The lightning was breaking out of the mountain, too, and flashing up into the cloud. From the state of the brooks, now swollen into raging torrents, it was evident that the storm had been storming all day. The wind was blowing as if it would blow him off the mountain, but, anxious about his mother and the princess, Curdie darted up through the thick of the tempest. Even if they had not set out before the storm came on, he did not judge them safe, for in such a storm even their poor little house was in danger. Indeed he soon found that but for a huge rock against which it was built, and which protected it both from the blasts and the waters, it must have been swept if it was not blown away; for the two torrents into which this rock parted the rush of water behind it united again in front of the cottage--two roaring and dangerous streams, which his mother and the princess could not possibly have passed. It was with great difficulty that he forced his way through one of them, and up to the door. The moment his hand fell on the latch, through all the uproar of winds and Waters came the joyous cry of the princess: 'There's Curdie! Curdie! Curdie!' She was sitting wrapped in blankets on the bed, his mother trying for the hundredth time to light the fire which had been drowned by the rain that came down the chimney. The clay floor was one mass of mud, and the whole place looked wretched. But the faces of the mother and the princess shone as if their troubles only made them the merrier. Curdie burst out laughing at the sight of them. 'I never had such fun!' said the princess, her eyes twinkling and her pretty teeth shining. 'How nice it must be to live in a cottage on the mountain!' 'It all depends on what kind your inside house is,' said the mother. 'I know what you mean,' said Irene. 'That's the kind of thing my grandmother says.' By the time Peter returned the storm was nearly over, but the streams were so fierce and so swollen that it was not only out of the question for the princess to go down the mountain, but most dangerous for Peter even or Curdie to make the attempt in the gathering darkness. 'They will be dreadfully frightened about you,' said Peter to the princess, 'but we cannot help it. We must wait till the morning.' With Curdie's help, the fire was lighted at last, and the mother set about making their supper; and after supper they all told the princess stories till she grew sleepy. Then Curdie's mother laid her in Curdie's bed, which was in a tiny little garret-room. As soon as she was in bed, through a little window low down in the roof she caught sight of her grandmother's lamp shining far away beneath, and she gazed at the beautiful silvery globe until she fell asleep. CHAPTER 30 The King and the Kiss The next morning the sun rose so bright that Irene said the rain had washed his face and let the light out clean. The torrents were still roaring down the side of the mountain, but they were so much smaller as not to be dangerous in the daylight. After an early breakfast, Peter went to his work and Curdie and his mother set out to take the princess home. They had difficulty in getting her dry across the streams, and Curdie had again and again to carry her, but at last they got safe on the broader part of the road, and walked gently down towards the king's house. And what should they see as they turned the last corner but the last of the king's troop riding through the gate! 'Oh, Curdie!' cried Irene, clapping her hands right joyfully,'my king-papa is come.' The moment Curdie heard that, he caught her up in his arms, and set off at full speed, crying: 'Come on, mother dear! The king may break his heart before he knows that she is safe.' Irene clung round his neck and he ran with her like a deer. When he entered the gate into the court, there sat the king on his horse, with all the people of the house about him, weeping and hanging their heads. The king was not weeping, but his face was white as a dead man's, and he looked as if the life had gone out of him. The men-at-arms he had brought with him sat with horror-stricken faces, but eyes flashing with rage, waiting only for the word of the king to do something--they did not know what, and nobody knew what. The day before, the men-at-arms belonging to the house, as soon as they were satisfied the princess had been carried away, rushed after the goblins into the hole, but found that they had already so skilfully blockaded the narrowest part, not many feet below the cellar, that without miners and their tools they could do nothing. Not one of them knew where the mouth of the mine lay, and some of those who had set out to find it had been overtaken by the storm and had not even yet returned. Poor Sir Walter was especially filled with shame, and almost hoped the king would order his head to be cut off, for to think of that sweet little face down amongst the goblins was unendurable. When Curdie ran in at the gate with the princess in his arms, they were all so absorbed in their own misery and awed by the king's presence and grief, that no one observed his arrival. He went straight up to the king, where he sat on his horse. 'Papa! papa!' the princess cried, stretching out her arms to him; 'here I am!' The king started. The colour rushed to his face. He gave an inarticulate cry. Curdie held up the princess, and the king bent down and took her from his arms. As he clasped her to his bosom, the big tears went dropping down his cheeks and his beard. And such a shout arose from all the bystanders that the startled horses pranced and capered, and the armour rang and clattered, and the rocks of the mountain echoed back the noises. The princess greeted them all as she nestled in her father's bosom, and the king did not set her down until she had told them all the story. But she had more to tell about Curdie than about herself, and what she did tell about herself none of them could understand--except the king and Curdie, who stood by the king's knee stroking the neck of the great white horse. And still as she told what Curdie had done, Sir Walter and others added to what she told, even Lootie joining in the praises of his courage and energy. Curdie held his peace, looking quietly up in the king's face. And his mother stood on the outskirts of the crowd listening with delight, for her son's deeds were pleasant in her ears, until the princess caught sight of her. 'And there is his mother, king-papa!' she said. 'See--there. She is such a nice mother, and has been so kind to me!' They all parted asunder as the king made a sign to her to come forward. She obeyed, and he gave her his hand, but could not speak. 'And now, king-papa,' the princess went on, 'I must tell you another thing. One night long ago Curdie drove the goblins away and brought Lootie and me safe from the mountain. And I promised him a kiss when we got home, but Lootie wouldn't let me give it him. I don't want you to scold Lootie, but I want you to tell her that a princess must do as she promises.' 'Indeed she must, my child--except it be wrong,' said the king. 'There, give Curdie a kiss.' And as he spoke he held her towards him. The princess reached down, threw her arms round Curdie's neck, and kissed him on the mouth, saying: 'There, Curdie! There's the kiss I promised you!' Then they all went into the house, and the cook rushed to the kitchen and the servants to their work. Lootie dressed Irene in her shiningest clothes, and the king put off his armour, and put on purple and gold; and a messenger was sent for Peter and all the miners, and there was a great and a grand feast, which continued long after the princess was put to bed. CHAPTER 31 The Subterranean Waters The king's harper, who always formed a part of his escort, was chanting a ballad which he made as he went on playing on his instrument--about the princess and the goblins, and the prowess of Curdie, when all at once he ceased, with his eyes on one of the doors of the hall. Thereupon the eyes of the king and his guests turned thitherward also. The next moment, through the open doorway came the princess Irene. She went straight up to her father, with her right hand stretched out a little sideways, and her forefinger, as her father and Curdie understood, feeling its way along the invisible thread. The king took her on his knee, and she said in his ear: 'King-papa, do you hear that noise?' 'I hear nothing,' said the king. 'Listen,' she said, holding up her forefinger. The king listened, and a great stillness fell upon the company. Each man, seeing that the king listened, listened also, and the harper sat with his harp between his arms, and his finger silent upon the strings. 'I do hear a noise,' said the king at length--'a noise as of distant thunder. It is coming nearer and nearer. What can it be?' They all heard it now, and each seemed ready to start to his feet as he listened. Yet all sat perfectly still. The noise came rapidly nearer. 'What can it be?' said the king again. 'I think it must be another storm coming over the mountain,' said Sir Walter. Then Curdie, who at the first word of the king had slipped from his seat, and laid his ear to the ground, rose up quickly, and approaching the king said, speaking very fast: 'Please, Your Majesty, I think I know what it is. I have no time to explain, for that might make it too late for some of us. Will Your Majesty give orders that everybody leave the house as quickly as possible and get up the mountain?' The king, who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well there was a time when things must be done and questions left till afterwards. He had faith in Curdie, and rose instantly, with Irene in his arms. 'Every man and woman follow me,' he said, and strode out into the darkness. Before he had reached the gate, the noise had grown to a great thundering roar, and the ground trembled beneath their feet, and before the last of them had crossed the court, out after them from the great hall door came a huge rush of turbid water, and almost swept them away. But they got safe out of the gate and up the mountain, while the torrent went roaring down the road into the valley beneath. Curdie had left the king and the princess to look after his mother, whom he and his father, one on each side, caught up when the stream overtook them and carried safe and dry. When the king had got out of the way of the water, a little up the mountain, he stood with the princess in his arms, looking back with amazement on the issuing torrent, which glimmered fierce and foamy through the night. There Curdie rejoined them. 'Now, Curdie,' said the king, 'what does it mean? Is this what you expected?' 'It is, Your Majesty,' said Curdie; and proceeded to tell him about the second scheme of the goblins, who, fancying the miners of more importance to the upper world than they were, had resolved, if they should fail in carrying off the king's daughter, to flood the mine and drown the miners. Then he explained what the miners had done to prevent it. The goblins had, in pursuance of their design, let loose all the underground reservoirs and streams, expecting the water to run down into the mine, which was lower than their part of the mountain, for they had, as they supposed, not knowing of the solid wall close behind, broken a passage through into it. But the readiest outlet the water could find had turned out to be the tunnel they had made to the king's house, the possibility of which catastrophe had not occurred to the young miner until he had laid his ear to the floor of the hall. What was then to be done? The house appeared in danger of falling, and every moment the torrent was increasing. 'We must set out at once,' said the king. 'But how to get at the horses!' 'Shall I see if we can manage that?' said Curdie. 'Do,' said the king. Curdie gathered the men-at-arms, and took them over the garden wall, and so to the stables. They found their horses in terror; the water was rising fast around them, and it was quite time they were got out. But there was no way to get them out, except by riding them through the stream, which was now pouring from the lower windows as well as the door. As one horse was quite enough for any man to manage through such a torrent, Curdie got on the king's white charger and, leading the way, brought them all in safety to the rising ground. 'Look, look, Curdie!' cried Irene, the moment that, having dismounted, he led the horse up to the king. Curdie did look, and saw, high in the air, somewhere about the top of the king's house, a great globe of light shining like the purest silver. 'Oh!' he cried in some consternation, 'that is your grandmother's lamp! We must get her out. I will go an find her. The house may fall, you know.' 'My grandmother is in no danger,' said Irene, smiling. 'Here, Curdie, take the princess while I get on my horse,' said the king. Curdie took the princess again, and both turned their eyes to the globe of light. The same moment there shot from it a white bird, which, descending with outstretched wings, made one circle round the king an Curdie and the princess, and then glided up again. The light and the pigeon vanished together. 'Now, Curdie!' said the princess, as he lifted her to her father's arms, 'you see my grandmother knows all about it, and isn't frightened. I believe she could walk through that water and it wouldn't wet her a bit.' 'But, my child,' said the king, 'you will be cold if you haven't Something more on. Run, Curdie, my boy, and fetch anything you can lay your hands on, to keep the princess warm. We have a long ride before us.' Curdie was gone in a moment, and soon returned with a great rich fur, and the news that dead goblins were tossing about in the current through the house. They had been caught in their own snare; instead of the mine they had flooded their own country, whence they were now swept up drowned. Irene shuddered, but the king held her close to his bosom. Then he turned to Sir Walter, and said: 'Bring Curdie's father and mother here.' 'I wish,' said the king, when they stood before him, 'to take your son with me. He shall enter my bodyguard at once, and wait further promotion.' Peter and his wife, overcome, only murmured almost inaudible thanks. But Curdie spoke aloud. 'Please, Your Majesty,' he said, 'I cannot leave my father and mother.' 'That's right, Curdie!' cried the princess. 'I wouldn't if I was you.' The king looked at the princess and then at Curdie with a glow of satisfaction on his countenance. 'I too think you are right, Curdie,' he said, 'and I will not ask you again. But I shall have a chance of doing something for you some time.' 'Your Majesty has already allowed me to serve you,' said Curdie. 'But, Curdie,' said his mother, 'why shouldn't you go with the king? We can get on very well without you.' 'But I can't get on very well without you,' said Curdie. 'The king is very kind, but I could not be half the use to him that I am to you. Please, Your Majesty, if you wouldn't mind giving my mother a red petticoat! I should have got her one long ago, but for the goblins.' 'As soon as we get home,' said the king, 'Irene and I will search out the warmest one to be found, and send it by one of the gentlemen.' 'Yes, that we will, Curdie!' said the princess. 'And next summer we'll come back and see you wear it, Curdie's mother,' she added. 'Shan't we, king-papa?' 'Yes, my love; I hope so,' said the king. Then turning to the miners, he said: 'Will you do the best you can for my servants tonight? I hope they will be able to return to the house tomorrow.' The miners with one voice promised their hospitality. Then the king commanded his servants to mind whatever Curdie should say to them, and after shaking hands with him and his father and mother, the king and the princess and all their company rode away down the side of the new stream, which had already devoured half the road, into the starry night. CHAPTER 32 The Last Chapter All the rest went up the mountain, and separated in groups to the homes of the miners. Curdie and his father and mother took Lootie with them. And the whole way a light, of which all but Lootie understood the origin, shone upon their path. But when they looked round they could see nothing of the silvery globe. For days and days the water continued to rush from the doors and windows of the king's house, and a few goblin bodies were swept out into the road. Curdie saw that something must be done. He spoke to his father and the rest of the miners, and they at once proceeded to make another outlet for the waters. By setting all hands to the work, tunnelling here and building there, they soon succeeded; and having also made a little tunnel to drain the water away from under the king's house, they were soon able to get into the wine cellar, where they found a multitude of dead goblins--among the rest the queen, with the skin-shoe gone, and the stone one fast to her ankle--for the water had swept away the barricade, which prevented the men-at-arms from following the goblins, and had greatly widened the passage. They built it securely up, and then went back to their labours in the mine. A good many of the goblins with their creatures escaped from the inundation out upon the mountain. But most of them soon left that part of the country, and most of those who remained grew milder in character, and indeed became very much like the Scotch brownies. Their skulls became softer as well as their hearts, and their feet grew harder, and by degrees they became friendly with the inhabitants of the mountain and even with the miners. But the latter were merciless to any of the cobs' creatures that came in their way, until at length they all but disappeared. The rest of the history of The Princess and Curdie must be kept for another volume. 
34704	----	Transcriber's Note Bold text is indicated with equals signs, =like this=. Individual letters in curly brackets indicate superscripts, e.g. y{e}. A y with a circumflex above is shown as [^y]. Reverse asterisms are indicated with [*.*]. Illustration captions in {curly brackets} have been added by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader. BRITISH GOBLINS: _WELSH FOLK-LORE, FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS._ BY WIRT SIKES, UNITED STATES CONSUL FOR WALES. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. H. THOMAS. In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour ... Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie. CHAUCER. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 1880. [_All rights reserved._] LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. [Illustration: THE OLD WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.] TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, THIS ACCOUNT OF THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY AND FOLK-LORE OF HIS PRINCIPALITY IS BY PERMISSION DEDICATED. PREFACE. In the ground it covers, while this volume deals especially with Wales, and still more especially with South Wales--where there appear to have been human dwellers long before North Wales was peopled--it also includes the border counties, notably Monmouthshire, which, though severed from Wales by Act of Parliament, is really very Welsh in all that relates to the past. In Monmouthshire is the decayed cathedral city of Caerleon, where, according to tradition, Arthur was crowned king in 508, and where he set up his most dazzling court, as told in the 'Morte d'Arthur.' In a certain sense Wales may be spoken of as the cradle of fairy legend. It is not now disputed that from the Welsh were borrowed many of the first subjects of composition in the literature of all the cultivated peoples of Europe. The Arthur of British history and tradition stands to Welshmen in much the same light that Alfred the Great stands to Englishmen. Around this historic or semi-historic Arthur have gathered a throng of shining legends of fabulous sort, with which English readers are more or less familiar. An even grander figure is the Arthur who existed in Welsh mythology before the birth of the warrior-king. The mythic Arthur, it is presumed, began his shadowy life in pre-historic ages, and grew progressively in mythologic story, absorbing at a certain period the personality of the real Arthur, and becoming the type of romantic chivalry. A similar state of things is indicated with regard to the enchanter Merlin; there was a mythic Merlin before the real Merlin was born at Carmarthen. With the rich mass of legendary lore to which these figures belong, the present volume is not intended to deal; nor do its pages treat, save in the most casual and passing manner, of the lineage and original significance of the lowly goblins which are its theme. The questions here involved, and the task of adequately treating them, belong to the comparative mythologist and the critical historian, rather than to the mere literary workman. UNITED STATES CONSULATE, CARDIFF, _August, 1879_. CONTENTS. BOOK I. THE REALM OF FAERIE. CHAPTER I. PAGE Fairy Tales and the Ancient Mythology--The Compensations of Science--Existing Belief in Fairies in Wales--The Faith of Culture--The Credulity of Ignorance--The Old-Time Welsh Fairyland--The Fairy King--The Legend of St. Collen and Gwyn ap Nudd--The Green Meadows of the Sea--Fairies at Market--The Land of Mystery 1 CHAPTER II. Classification of Welsh Fairies--General Designation--Habits of the Tylwyth Teg--Ellyllon, or Elves--Shakspeare's Use of Welsh Folk-Lore--Rowli Pugh and the Ellyll--Household Story Roots--The Ellylldan--The Pooka--Puck Valley, Breconshire--Where Shakspeare got his Puck--Pwca'r Trwyn--Usual Form of the Pooka Story--Coblynau, or Mine Fairies--The Knockers--Miners' Superstitions--Basilisks and Fire Fiends--A Fairy Coal-mine--The Dwarfs of Cae Caled--Counterparts of the Coblynau--The Bwbach, or Household Fairy--Legend of the Bwbach and the Preacher--Bogies and Hobgoblins--Carrying Mortals through the Air--Counterparts and Originals 11 CHAPTER III. Lake Fairies--The Gwragedd Annwn, or Dames of Elfin-Land--St. Patrick and the Welshmen; a Legend of Crumlyn Lake--The Elfin Cow of Llyn Barfog--Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith--The Legend of the Meddygon Myddfai--The Wife of Supernatural Race--The Three Blows; a Carmarthenshire Legend--Cheese and the Didactic Purpose in Welsh Folk-Lore--The Fairy Maiden's Papa--The Enchanted Isle in the Mountain Lake--Legend of the Men of Ardudwy--Origin of Water Fairies--Their prevalence in many Lands 34 CHAPTER IV. Mountain Fairies--The Gwyllion--The Old Woman of the Mountain--The Black Mountain Gwyll--Exorcism by Knife--Occult Intellectual Powers of Welsh Goats--The Legend of Cadwaladr's Goat 49 CHAPTER V. Changelings--The Plentyn-newid--The Cruel Creed of Ignorance regarding Changelings--Modes of Ridding the House of the Fairy Child--The Legend of the Frugal Meal--Legend of the Place of Strife--Dewi Dal and the Fairies--Prevention of Fairy Kidnapping--Fairies caught in the Act by Mothers--Piety as an Exorcism 56 CHAPTER VI. Living with the Tylwyth Teg--The Tale of Elidurus--Shuï Rhys and the Fairies--St. Dogmell's Parish, Pembrokeshire--Dancing with the Ellyllon--The Legend of Rhys and Llewellyn--Death from joining in the Fairy Reel--Legend of the Bush of Heaven--The Forest of the Magic Yew--The Tale of Twm and Iago--Taffy ap Sion, a Legend of Pencader--The Traditions of Pant Shon Shenkin--Tudur of Llangollen; the Legend of Nant yr Ellyllon--Polly Williams and the Trefethin Elves--The Fairies of Frennifawr--Curiosity Tales--The Fiend Master--Iago ap Dewi--The Original of Rip Van Winkle 65 CHAPTER VII. Fairy Music--Birds of Enchantment--The Legend of Shon ap Shenkin--Harp-Music in Welsh Fairy Tales--Legend of the Magic Harp--Songs and Tunes of the Tylwyth Teg--The Legend of Iolo ap Hugh--Mystic Origin of an old Welsh Air 91 CHAPTER VIII. Fairy Rings--The Prophet Jones and his Works--The Mysterious Language of the Tylwyth Teg--The Horse in Welsh Folk-Lore--Equestrian Fairies--Fairy Cattle, Sheep, Swine, etc.--The Flying Fairies of Bedwellty--The Fairy Sheepfold at Cae'r Cefn 103 CHAPTER IX. Piety as a Protection from the Seductions of the Tylwyth Teg--Various Exorcisms--Cock-crowing--The Name of God--Fencing off the Fairies--Old Betty Griffith and her Eithin Barricade--Means of Getting Rid of the Tylwyth Teg--The Bwbach of the Hendrefawr Farm--The Pwca'r Trwyn's Flitting in a Jug of Barm 112 CHAPTER X. Fairy Money and Fairy Gifts in General--The Story of Gitto Bach, or Little Griffith--The Penalty of Blabbing--Legends of the Shepherds of Cwm Llan--The Money Value of Kindness--Ianto Llewellyn and the Tylwyth Teg--The Legend of Hafod Lwyddog--Lessons inculcated by these Superstitions 119 CHAPTER XI. Origins of Welsh Fairies--The Realistic Theory--Legend of the Baron's Gate--The Red Fairies--The Trwyn Fairy a Proscribed Nobleman--The Theory of hiding Druids--Colour in Welsh Fairy Attire--The Green Lady of Caerphilly--White the favourite Welsh Hue--Legend of the Prolific Woman--The Poetico-Religious Theory--The Creed of Science 127 BOOK II. THE SPIRIT-WORLD. CHAPTER I. Modern Superstition regarding Ghosts--American 'Spiritualism'--Welsh Beliefs--Classification of Welsh Ghosts--Departed Mortals--Haunted Houses--Lady Stradling's Ghost--The Haunted Bridge--The Legend of Catrin Gwyn--Didactic Purpose in Cambrian Apparitions--An Insulted Corpse--Duty-performing Ghosts--Laws of the Spirit-World--Cadogan's Ghost 137 CHAPTER II. Household Ghosts and Hidden Treasures--The Miser of St. Donat's--Anne Dewy's Ghost--The Ghost on Horseback--Hidden Objects of Small Value--Transportation through the Air--From Breconshire to Philadelphia, Pa., in Thirty-Six Hours--Sir David Llwyd, the Magician--The Levitation of Walter Jones--Superstitions regarding Hares--The Legend of Monacella's Lambs--Aerial Transportation in Modern Spiritualism--Exorcising Household Ghosts--The Story of Haunted Margaret 151 CHAPTER III. Spectral Animals--The Chained Spirit--The Gwyllgi, or Dog of Darkness--The Legend of Lisworney-Crossways--The Gwyllgi of the Devil's Nags--The Dog of Pant y Madog--Terrors of the Brute Creation at Phantoms--Apparitions of Natural Objects--Phantom Ships and Phantom Islands 167 CHAPTER IV. Grotesque Ghosts--The Phantom Horseman--Gigantic Spirits--The Black Ghost of Ffynon yr Yspryd--Black Men in the Mabinogion--Whirling Ghosts--Antic Spirits--The Tridoll Valley Ghost--Resemblance to Modern Spiritualistic Performances--Household Fairies 174 CHAPTER V. Familiar Spirits--The Famous Sprite of Trwyn Farm--Was it a Fairy?--The Familiar Spirits of Magicians--Sir David Llwyd's Demon--Familiar Spirits in Female Form--The Legend of the Lady of the Wood--The Devil as a Familiar Spirit--His Disguises in this Character--Summoning and Exorcising Familiars--Jenkin the Pembrokeshire Schoolmaster--The Terrible Tailor of Glanbran 187 CHAPTER VI. The Evil Spirit in his customary Form--The stupid Medieval Devil in Wales--Sion Cent--The Devil outwitted--Pacts with the Fiend and their Avoidance--Sion Dafydd's Foul Pipe--The Devil's Bridge and its Legends--Similar Legends in other Lands--The Devil's Pulpit near Tintern--Angelic Spirits--Welsh Superstitions as to pronouncing the Name of the Evil Spirit--The Bardic Tradition of the Creation--The Struggle between Light and Darkness and its Symbolization 202 CHAPTER VII. Cambrian Death-Portents--The Corpse-Bird--The Tan-Wedd--Listening at the Church-Door--The Lledrith--The Gwrach y Rhibyn--The Llandaff Gwrach--Ugliness of this Female Apparition--The Black Maiden--The Cyhyraeth, or Crying Spirit--Its Moans on Land and Sea--The St. Mellons Cyhyraeth--The Groaning Spirit of Bedwellty 212 CHAPTER VIII. The Tolaeth Death Portent--Its various Forms--The Tolaeth before Death--Ewythr Jenkin's Tolaeth--A modern Instance--The Railway Victim's Warning--The Goblin Voice--The Voice from the Cloud--Legend of the Lord and the Beggar--The Goblin Funeral--The Horse's Skull--The Goblin Veil--The Wraith of Llanllwch--Dogs of Hell--The Tale of Pwyll--Spiritual Hunting Dogs--Origin of the Cwn Annwn 225 CHAPTER IX. The Corpse Candle--Its Peculiarities--The Woman of Caerau--Grasping a Corpse Candle--The Crwys Candle--Lights issuing from the Mouth--Jesting with the Canwyll Corph--The Candle at Pontfaen--The Three Candles at Golden Grove--Origin of Death-Portents in Wales--Degree of Belief prevalent at the Present Day--Origin of Spirits in General--The Supernatural--The Question of a Future Life 238 BOOK III. QUAINT OLD CUSTOMS. CHAPTER I. Serious Significance of seemingly Trivial Customs--Their Origins--Common Superstitions--The Age we Live in--Days and Seasons--New Year's Day--The Apple Gift--Lucky Acts on New Year's Morning--The First Foot--Showmen's Superstitions--Levy Dew Song--Happy New Year Carol--Twelfth Night--The Mari Lwyd--The Penglog--The Cutty Wren--Tooling and Sowling--St. Valentine's Day--St. Dewi's Day--The Wearing of the Leek--The Traditional St. David--St. Patrick's Day--St. Patrick a Welshman--Shrove Tuesday 250 CHAPTER II. Sundry Lenten Customs--Mothering Sunday--Palm Sunday--Flowering Sunday--Walking Barefoot to Church--Spiritual Potency of Buns--Good Friday Superstitions--Making Christ's Bed--Bad Odour of Friday--Unlucky Days--Holy Thursday--The Eagle of Snowdon--New Clothing at Easter--Lifting--The Crown of Porcelain--Stocsio--Ball-Playing in Churchyards--The Tump of Lies--Dancing in Churchyards--Seeing the Sun Dance--Calan Ebrill, or All Fools' Day--May Day--The Welsh Maypole--The Daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint--Carrying the Kings of Summer and Winter 266 CHAPTER III. Midsummer Eve--The Druidic Ceremonies at Pontypridd--The Snake Stone--Beltane Fires--Fourth of July Fires in America--St. Ulric's Day--Carrying Cynog--Marketing on Tombstones--The First Night of Winter--The Three Nights for Spirits--The Tale of Thomas Williams the Preacher--All Hallows Eve Festivities--Running through Fire--Quaint Border Rhymes--The Puzzling Jug--Bobbing for Apples--The Fiery Features of Guy Fawkes' Day--St. Clement's Day--Stripping the Carpenter 277 CHAPTER IV. Nadolig, the Welsh Christmas--Bell-Ringing--Carols--Dancing to the Music of the Waits--An Evening in Carmarthenshire--Shenkin Harry, the Preacher, and the Jig Tune--Welsh Morality--Eisteddfodau--Decorating Houses and Churches--The Christmas Thrift-box--The Colliers' Star--The Plygain--Pagan Origin of Christmas Customs 286 CHAPTER V. Courtship and Marriage--Planting Weeds and Rue on the Graves of Old Bachelors--Special Significance of Flowers in connection with Virginity--The Welsh Venus--Bundling, or Courting Abed--Kissing Schools--Rhamanta--Lovers' Superstitions--The Maid's Trick--Dreaming on a Mutton Bone--Wheat and Shovel--Garters in a Lovers' Knot--Egg-Shell Cake--Sowing Leeks--Twca and Sheath 298 CHAPTER VI. Wedding Customs--The Bidding--Forms of Cymmhorth--The Gwahoddwr--Horse-Weddings--Stealing a Bride--Obstructions to the Bridal Party--The Gwyntyn--Chaining--Evergreen Arches--Strewing Flowers--Throwing Rice and Shoes--Rosemary in the Garden--Names after Marriage--The Coolstrin--The Ceffyl Pren 306 CHAPTER VII. Death and Burial--The Gwylnos--Beer-drinking at Welsh Funerals--Food and Drink over the Coffin--Sponge Cakes at Modern Funerals--The Sin-eater--Welsh Denial that this Custom ever existed--The Testimony concerning it--Superstitions regarding Salt--Plate of Salt on Corpse's Breast--The Scapegoat--The St. Tegla Cock and Hen--Welsh Funeral Processions--Praying at Cross-roads--Superstition regarding Criminals' Graves--Hanging and Welsh Prejudice--The Grassless Grave--Parson's Penny, or Offrwm--Old Shoes to the Clerk--Arian y Rhaw, or Spade Money--Burials without Coffin--The Sul Coffa--Planting and Strewing Graves with Flowers 321 BOOK IV. BELLS, WELLS, STONES, AND DRAGONS. CHAPTER I. Base of the Primeval Mythology--Bells and their Ghosts--The Bell that committed Murder and was damned for it--The Occult Powers of Bells--Their Work as Detectives, Doctors, etc.--Legend of the Bell of Rhayader--St. Illtyd's Wonderful Bell--The Golden Bell of Llandaff 338 CHAPTER II. Mystic Wells--Their Good and Bad Dispositions--St. Winifred's Well--The Legend of St. Winifred--Miracles--St. Tecla's Well--St. Dwynwen's--Curing Love-sickness--St. Cynfran's--St. Cynhafal's--Throwing Pins in Wells--Warts--Barry Island and its Legends--Ffynon Gwynwy--Propitiatory Gifts to Wells--The Dreadful Cursing Well of St. Elian's--Wells Flowing with Milk--St. Illtyd's--Taff's Well--Sanford's Well--Origins of Superstitions of this Class 345 CHAPTER III. Personal Attributes of Legendary Welsh Stones--Stone Worship--Canna's Stone Chair--Miraculous Removals of Stones--The Walking Stone of Eitheinn--The Thigh Stone--The Talking Stone in Pembrokeshire--The Expanding Stone--Magic Stones in the 'Mabinogion'--The Stone of Invisibility--The Stone of Remembrance--Stone Thief-catchers--Stones of Healing--Stones at Cross-roads--Memorials of King Arthur--Round Tables, Carns, Pots, etc.--Arthur's Quoits--The Gigantic Rock-tossers of Old--Mol Walbec and the Pebble in her Shoe--The Giant of Trichrug--Giants and the Mythology of the Heavens--The Legend of Rhitta Gawr 361 CHAPTER IV. Early Inscribed Stones--The Stone Pillar of Banwan Bryddin, near Neath--Catastrophe accompanying its Removal--The Sagranus Stone and the White Lady--The Dancing Stones of Stackpool--Human Beings changed to Stones--St. Ceyna and the Serpents--The Devil's Stone at Llanarth--Rocking Stones and their accompanying Superstitions--The Suspended Altar of Loin-Garth--Cromlechs and their Fairy Legends--The Fairies' Castle at St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire--The Stone of the Wolf Bitch--The Welsh Melusina--Parc-y-Bigwrn Cromlech--Connection of these Stones with Ancient Druidism 373 CHAPTER V. Baleful Spirits of Storm--The Shower at the Magic Fountain--Obstacles in the way of Treasure-Seekers--The Red Lady of Paviland--The Fall of Coychurch Tower--Thunder and Lightning evoked by Digging--The Treasure-Chest under Moel Arthur in the Vale of Clwyd--Modern Credulity--The Cavern of the Ravens--The Eagle-guarded Coffer of Castell Coch--Sleeping Warriors as Treasure-Guarders--The Dragon which St. Samson drove out of Wales--Dragons in the Mabinogion--Whence came the Red Dragon of Wales?--The Original Dragon of Mythology--Prototypes of the Welsh Caverns and Treasure-Hills--The Goblins of Electricity 385 [Illustration: {FAIRIES.}] BRITISH GOBLINS. BOOK I. THE REALM OF FAERIE. At eve, the primrose path along, The milkmaid shortens with a song Her solitary way; She sees the fairies with their queen Trip hand-in-hand the circled green, And hears them raise, at times unseen, The ear-enchanting lay. REV. JOHN LOGAN: _Ode to Spring_, 1780. CHAPTER I. Fairy Tales and the Ancient Mythology--The Compensations of Science--Existing Belief in Fairies in Wales--The Faith of Culture--The Credulity of Ignorance--The Old-Time Welsh Fairyland--The Fairy King--The Legend of St. Collen and Gwyn ap Nudd--The Green Meadows of the Sea--Fairies at Market--The Land of Mystery. I. With regard to other divisions of the field of folk-lore, the views of scholars differ, but in the realm of faerie these differences are reconciled; it is agreed that fairy tales are relics of the ancient mythology; and the philosophers stroll hand in hand harmoniously. This is as it should be, in a realm about which cluster such delightful memories of the most poetic period of life--childhood, before scepticism has crept in as ignorance slinks out. The knowledge which introduced scepticism is infinitely more valuable than the faith it displaced; but, in spite of that, there be few among us who have not felt evanescent regrets for the displacement by the _foi scientifique_ of the old faith in fairies. There was something so peculiarly fascinating in that old belief, that 'once upon a time' the world was less practical in its facts than now, less commonplace and humdrum, less subject to the inexorable laws of gravitation, optics, and the like. What dramas it has yielded! What poems, what dreams, what delights! But since the knowledge of our maturer years destroys all that, it is with a degree of satisfaction we can turn to the consolations of the fairy mythology. The beloved tales of old are 'not true'--but at least they are not mere idle nonsense, and they have a good and sufficient reason for being in the world; we may continue to respect them. The wit who observed that the final cause of fairy legends is 'to afford sport for people who ruthlessly track them to their origin,'[1] expressed a grave truth in jocular form. Since one can no longer rest in peace with one's ignorance, it is a comfort to the lover of fairy legends to find that he need not sweep them into the grate as so much rubbish; on the contrary they become even more enchanting in the crucible of science than they were in their old character. FOOTNOTE: [1] 'Saturday Review,' October 20, 1877. II. Among the vulgar in Wales, the belief in fairies is less nearly extinct than casual observers would be likely to suppose. Even educated people who dwell in Wales, and have dwelt there all their lives, cannot always be classed as other than casual observers in this field. There are some such residents who have paid special attention to the subject, and have formed an opinion as to the extent of prevalence of popular credulity herein; but most Welsh people of the educated class, I find, have no opinion, beyond a vague surprise that the question should be raised at all. So lately as the year 1858, a learned writer in the 'Archæologia Cambrensis' declared that 'the traveller may now pass from one end of the Principality to the other, without his being shocked or amused, as the case may be, by any of the fairy legends or popular tales which used to pass current from father to son.' But in the same periodical, eighteen years later, I find Mr. John Walter Lukis (President of the Cardiff Naturalists' Society), asserting with regard to the cromlechs, tumuli, and ancient camps in Glamorganshire: 'There are always fairy tales and ghost stories connected with them; some, though _fully believed in_ by the inhabitants of those localities, are often of the most absurd character; in fact, the more ridiculous they are, the more they are believed in.'[2] My own observation leads me to support the testimony of the last-named witness. Educated Europeans generally conceive that this sort of belief is extinct in their own land, or, at least their own immediate section of that land. They accredit such degree of belief as may remain, in this enlightened age, to some remote part--to the south, if they dwell in the north; to the north, if they dwell in the south. But especially they accredit it to a previous age: in Wales, to last century, or the middle ages, or the days of King Arthur. The rector of Merthyr, being an elderly man, accredits it to his youth. 'I am old enough to remember,' he wrote me under date of January 30th, 1877, 'that these tales were thoroughly believed in among country folk forty or fifty years ago.' People of superior culture have held this kind of faith concerning fairy-lore, it seems to me, in every age, except the more remote. Chaucer held it, almost five centuries ago, and wrote:[3] In olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour, ... Al was this lond fulfilled of fayrie; ... I speke of many hundrid yer ago; But now can no man see non elves mo. Dryden held it, two hundred years later, and said of the fairies: I speak of ancient times, for now the swain Returning late may pass the woods in vain, And never hope to see the nightly train. In all later days, other authors have written the same sort of thing; it is not thus now, say they, but it was recently thus. The truth, probably, is that if you will but sink down to the level of common life, of ignorant life, especially in rural neighbourhoods, there you will find the same old beliefs prevailing, in about the same degree to which they have ever prevailed, within the past five hundred years. To sink to this level successfully, one must become a living unit in that life, as I have done in Wales and elsewhere, from time to time. Then one will hear the truth from, or at least the true sentiments of, the class he seeks to know. The practice of every generation in thus relegating fairy belief to a date just previous to its own does not apply, however, to superstitious beliefs in general; for, concerning many such beliefs, their greater or less prevalence at certain dates (as in the history of witchcraft) is matter of well-ascertained fact. I confine the argument, for the present, strictly to the domain of faerie. In this domain, the prevalent belief in Wales may be said to rest with the ignorant, to be strongest in rural and mining districts, to be childlike and poetic, and to relate to anywhere except the spot where the speaker dwells--as to the next parish, to the next county, to the distant mountains, or to the shadow-land of Gwerddonau Llion, the green meadows of the sea. FOOTNOTES: [2] 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' 4th Se., vi., 174. [3] 'Wyf of Bathes Tale,' 'Canterbury Tales.' III. In Arthur's day and before that, the people of South Wales regarded North Wales as pre-eminently the land of faerie. In the popular imagination, that distant country was the chosen abode of giants, monsters, magicians, and all the creatures of enchantment. Out of it came the fairies, on their visits to the sunny land of the south. The chief philosopher of that enchanted region was a giant who sat on a mountain peak and watched the stars. It had a wizard monarch called Gwydion, who possessed the power of changing himself into the strangest possible forms. The peasant who dwelt on the shores of Dyfed (Demetia) saw in the distance, beyond the blue waves of the ocean, shadowy mountain summits piercing the clouds, and guarding this mystic region in solemn majesty. Thence rolled down upon him the storm-clouds from the home of the tempest; thence streamed up the winter sky the flaming banners of the Northern lights; thence rose through the illimitable darkness on high, the star-strewn pathway of the fairy king. These details are current in the Mabinogion, those brilliant stories of Welsh enchantment, so gracefully done into English by Lady Charlotte Guest,[4] and it is believed that all the Mabinogion in which these details were found were written in Dyfed. This was the region on the west, now covered by Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan shires. More recently than the time above indicated, special traditions have located fairyland in the Vale of Neath, in Glamorganshire. Especially does a certain steep and rugged crag there, called Craig y Ddinas, bear a distinctly awful reputation as a stronghold of the fairy tribe.[5] Its caves and crevices have been their favourite haunt for many centuries, and upon this rock was held the court of the last fairies who have ever appeared in Wales. Needless to say there are men still living who remember the visits of the fairies to Craig y Ddinas, although they aver the little folk are no longer seen there. It is a common remark that the Methodists drove them away; indeed, there are numberless stories which show the fairies to have been animated, when they were still numerous in Wales, by a cordial antipathy for all dissenting preachers. In this antipathy, it may be here observed, teetotallers were included. FOOTNOTES: [4] 'The Mabinogion, from the Welsh of the Llyfr Coch o Hergest.' Translated, with notes, by Lady Charlotte Guest. (New Edition, London, 1877.) [5] There are two hills in Glamorganshire called by this name, and others elsewhere in Wales. IV. The sovereign of the fairies, and their especial guardian and protector, was one Gwyn ap Nudd. He was also ruler over the goblin tribe in general. His name often occurs in ancient Welsh poetry. An old bard of the fourteenth century, who, led away by the fairies, rode into a turf bog on a mountain one dark night, called it the 'fish-pond of Gwyn ap Nudd, a palace for goblins and their tribe.' The association of this legendary character with the goblin fame of the Vale of Neath will appear, when it is mentioned that Nudd in Welsh is pronounced simply Neath, and not otherwise. As for the fairy queen, she does not seem to have any existence among Cambrian goblins. It is nevertheless thought by Cambrian etymologists, that Morgana is derived from Mor Gwyn, the white maid; and the Welsh proper name Morgan can hardly fail to be mentioned in this connection, though it is not necessarily significant. The legend of St. Collen, in which Gwyn ap Nudd figures, represents him as king of Annwn (hell, or the shadow land) as well as of the fairies.[6] Collen was passing a period of mortification as a hermit, in a cell under a rock on a mountain. There he one day overheard two men talking about Gwyn ap Nudd, and giving him this twofold kingly character. Collen cried out to the men to go away and hold their tongues, instead of talking about devils. For this Collen was rebuked, as the king of fairyland had an objection to such language. The saint was summoned to meet the king on the hill-top at noon, and after repeated refusals, he finally went there; but he carried a flask of holy water with him. 'And when he came there he saw the fairest castle he had ever beheld, and around it the best appointed troops, and numbers of minstrels and every kind of music of voice and string, and steeds with youths upon them, the comeliest in the world, and maidens of elegant aspect, sprightly, light of foot, of graceful apparel, and in the bloom of youth; and every magnificence becoming the court of a puissant sovereign. And he beheld a courteous man on the top of the castle who bade him enter, saying that the king was waiting for him to come to meat. And Collen went into the castle, and when he came there the king was sitting in a golden chair. And he welcomed Collen honourably, and desired him to eat, assuring him that besides what he saw, he should have the most luxurious of every dainty and delicacy that the mind could desire, and should be supplied with every drink and liquor that the heart could wish; and that there should be in readiness for him every luxury of courtesy and service, of banquet and of honourable entertainment, of rank and of presents, and every respect and welcome due to a man of his wisdom. "I will not eat the leaves of the trees," said Collen. "Didst thou ever see men of better equipment than these of red and blue?" asked the king. "Their equipment is good enough," said Collen, "for such equipment as it is." "What kind of equipment is that?" said the king. Then said Collen, "The red on the one part signifies burning, and the blue on the other signifies coldness." And with that Collen drew out his flask and threw the holy water on their heads, whereupon they vanished from his sight, so that there was neither castle nor troops, nor men, nor maidens, nor music, nor song, nor steeds, nor youths, nor banquet, nor the appearance of anything whatever but the green hillocks.' FOOTNOTE: [6] 'Greal' (8vo. London, 1805), p. 337. V. A third form of Welsh popular belief as to the whereabouts of fairyland corresponds with the Avalon of the Arthurian legends. The green meadows of the sea, called in the triads Gwerddonau Llion, are the Green fairy islands, reposing, In sunlight and beauty on ocean's calm breast.[7] Many extraordinary superstitions survive with regard to these islands. They were supposed to be the abode of the souls of certain Druids, who, not holy enough to enter the heaven of the Christians, were still not wicked enough to be condemned to the tortures of annwn, and so were accorded a place in this romantic sort of purgatorial paradise. In the fifth century a voyage was made, by the British king Gavran, in search of these enchanted islands; with his family he sailed away into the unknown waters, and was never heard of more. This voyage is commemorated in the triads as one of the Three Losses by Disappearance, the two others being Merlin's and Madog's. Merlin sailed away in a ship of glass; Madog sailed in search of America; and neither returned, but both disappeared for ever. In Pembrokeshire and southern Carmarthenshire are to be found traces of this belief. There are sailors on that romantic coast who still talk of the green meadows of enchantment lying in the Irish channel to the west of Pembrokeshire. Sometimes they are visible to the eyes of mortals for a brief space, when suddenly they vanish. There are traditions of sailors who, in the early part of the present century, actually went ashore on the fairy islands--not knowing that they were such, until they returned to their boats, when they were filled with awe at seeing the islands disappear from their sight, neither sinking in the sea, nor floating away upon the waters, but simply vanishing suddenly. The fairies inhabiting these islands are said to have regularly attended the markets at Milford Haven and Laugharne. They made their purchases without speaking, laid down their money and departed, always leaving the exact sum required, which they seemed to know, without asking the price of anything. Sometimes they were invisible, but they were often seen, by sharp-eyed persons. There was always one special butcher at Milford Haven upon whom the fairies bestowed their patronage, instead of distributing their favours indiscriminately. The Milford Haven folk could see the green fairy islands distinctly, lying out a short distance from land; and the general belief was that they were densely peopled with fairies. It was also said that the latter went to and fro between the islands and the shore through a subterranean gallery under the bottom of the sea. [Illustration: FAIRIES MARKETING AT LAUGHARNE.] That isolated cape which forms the county of Pembroke was looked upon as a land of mystery by the rest of Wales long after it had been settled by the Flemings in 1113. A secret veil was supposed to cover this sea-girt promontory; the inhabitants talked in an unintelligible jargon that was neither English, nor French, nor Welsh; and out of its misty darkness came fables of wondrous sort, and accounts of miracles marvellous beyond belief. Mythology and Christianity spoke together from this strange country, and one could not tell at which to be most amazed, the pagan or the priest. FOOTNOTE: [7] Parry's 'Welsh Melodies.' CHAPTER II. Classification of Welsh Fairies--General Designation--Habits of the Tylwyth Teg--Ellyllon, or Elves--Shakspeare's Use of Welsh Folk-Lore--Rowli Pugh and the Ellyll--Household Story Roots--The Ellylldan--The Pooka--Puck Valley, Breconshire--Where Shakspeare got his Puck--Pwca'r Trwyn--Usual Form of the Pooka Story--Coblynau, or Mine Fairies--The Knockers--Miners' Superstitions--Basilisks and Fire Fiends--A Fairy Coal-mine--The Dwarfs of Cae Caled--Counterparts of the Coblynau--The Bwbach, or Household Fairy--Legend of the Bwbach and the Preacher--Bogies and Hobgoblins--Carrying Mortals through the Air--Counterparts and Originals. I. Fairies being creatures of the imagination, it is not possible to classify them by fixed and immutable rules. In the exact sciences, there are laws which never vary, or if they vary, their very eccentricity is governed by precise rules. Even in the largest sense, comparative mythology must demean itself modestly in order to be tolerated in the severe company of the sciences. In presenting his subjects, therefore, the writer in this field can only govern himself by the purpose of orderly arrangement. To secure the maximum of system, for the sake of the student who employs the work for reference and comparison, with the minimum of dullness, for the sake of the general reader, is perhaps the limit of a reasonable ambition. Keightley[8] divides into four classes the Scandinavian elements of popular belief as to fairies, viz.: 1. The Elves; 2. The Dwarfs, or Trolls; 3. The Nisses; and 4. The Necks, Mermen, and Mermaids. How entirely arbitrary this division is, the student of Scandinavian folk-lore at once perceives. Yet it is perhaps as satisfactory as another. The fairies of Wales may be divided into five classes, if analogy be not too sharply insisted on. Thus we have, 1. The Ellyllon, or elves; 2. The Coblynau, or mine fairies; 3. The Bwbachod, or household fairies; 4. The Gwragedd Annwn, or fairies of the lakes and streams; and 5. The Gwyllion, or mountain fairies. The modern Welsh name for fairies is y Tylwyth Teg, the fair folk or family. This is sometimes lengthened into y Tylwyth Teg yn y Coed, the fair family in the wood, or Tylwyth Teg y Mwn, the fair folk of the mine. They are seen dancing in moonlight nights on the velvety grass, clad in airy and flowing robes of blue, green, white, or scarlet--details as to colour not usually met, I think, in accounts of fairies. They are spoken of as bestowing blessings on those mortals whom they select to be thus favoured; and again are called Bendith y Mamau, or their mother's blessing, that is to say, good little children whom it is a pleasure to know. To name the fairies by a harsh epithet is to invoke their anger; to speak of them in flattering phrase is to propitiate their good offices. The student of fairy mythology perceives in this propitiatory mode of speech a fact of wide significance. It can be traced in numberless lands, and back to the beginning of human history, among the cloud-hung peaks of Central Asia. The Greeks spoke of the furies as the Eumenides, or gracious ones; Highlanders mentioned by Sir Walter Scott uncover to the gibbet and call it 'the kind gallows;' the Dayak will not name the small-pox, but calls it 'the chief;' the Laplander calls the bear 'the old man with the fur coat;' in Ammam the tiger is called 'grandfather;' and it is thought that the maxim, 'Speak only good of the dead,' came originally from the notion of propitiating the ghost of the departed,[9] who, in laying off this mortal garb, had become endowed with new powers of harming his late acquaintance. FOOTNOTES: [8] 'Fairy Mythology' (Bohn's Ed.), 78. [9] John Fiske, 'Myths and Myth-makers,' 223. II. The Ellyllon are the pigmy elves who haunt the groves and valleys, and correspond pretty closely with the English elves. The English name was probably derived from the Welsh _el_, a spirit, _elf_, an element; there is a whole brood of words of this class in the Welsh language, expressing every variety of flowing, gliding, spirituality, devilry, angelhood, and goblinism. Ellyllon (the plural of ellyll), is also doubtless allied with the Hebrew Elilim, having with it an identity both of origin and meaning.[10] The poet Davydd ab Gwilym, in a humorous account of his troubles in a mist, in the year 1340, says: Yr ydoedd ym mhob gobant Ellyllon mingeimion gant. There was in every hollow A hundred wrymouthed elves. The hollows, or little dingles, are still the places where the peasant, belated on his homeward way from fair or market, looks for the ellyllon, but fails to find them. Their food is specified in Welsh folk-lore as fairy butter and fairy victuals, ymenyn tylwyth teg and bwyd ellyllon; the latter the toadstool, or poisonous mushroom, and the former a butter-resembling substance found at great depths in the crevices of limestone rocks, in sinking for lead ore. Their gloves, menyg ellyllon, are the bells of the digitalis, or fox-glove, the leaves of which are well known to be a strong sedative. Their queen--for though there is no fairy-queen in the large sense that Gwyn ap Nudd is the fairy-king, there is a queen of the elves--is none other than the Shakspearean fairy spoken of by Mercutio, who comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman.[11] Shakspeare's use of Welsh folk-lore, it should be noted, was extensive and peculiarly faithful. Keightley in his 'Fairy Mythology' rates the bard soundly for his inaccurate use of English fairy superstitions; but the reproach will not apply as regards Wales. From his Welsh informant Shakspeare got Mab, which is simply the Cymric for a little child, and the root of numberless words signifying babyish, childish, love for children (mabgar), kitten (mabgath), prattling (mabiaith), and the like, most notable of all which in this connection is mabinogi, the singular of Mabinogion, the romantic tales of enchantment told to the young in by-gone ages. FOOTNOTES: [10] Pughe's 'Welsh Dictionary.' (Denbigh, 1866.) [11] 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act II., Sc. 4. III. In the Huntsman's Rest Inn at Peterstone-super-Ely, near Cardiff, sat a group of humble folk one afternoon, when I chanced to stop there to rest myself by the chimney-side, after a long walk through green lanes. The men were drinking their tankards of ale and smoking their long clay pipes; and they were talking about their dogs and horses, the crops, the hard times, and the prospect of bettering themselves by emigration to America. On this latter theme I was able to make myself interesting, and acquaintance was thereupon easily established on a friendly footing. I led the conversation into the domain of folk-lore; and this book is richer in illustration on many a page, in consequence. Among others, this tale was told: On a certain farm in Glamorganshire lived Rowli Pugh, who was known far and wide for his evil luck. Nothing prospered that he turned his hand to; his crops proved poor, though his neighbours' might be good; his roof leaked in spite of all his mending; his walls remained damp when every one else's walls were dry; and above all, his wife was so feeble she could do no work. His fortunes at last seemed so hard that he resolved to sell out and clear out, no matter at what loss, and try to better himself in another country--not by going to America, for there was no America in those days. Well, and if there was, the poor Welshman didn't know it. So as Rowli was sitting on his wall one day, hard by his cottage, musing over his sad lot, he was accosted by a little man who asked him what was the matter. Rowli looked around in surprise, but before he could answer the ellyll said to him with a grin, 'There, there, hold your tongue, I know more about you than you ever dreamed of knowing. You're in trouble, and you're going away. But you may stay, now I've spoken to you. Only bid your good wife leave the candle burning when she goes to bed, and say no more about it.' With this the ellyll kicked up his heels and disappeared. Of course the farmer did as he was bid, and from that day he prospered. Every night Catti Jones, his wife,[12] set the candle out, swept the hearth, and went to bed; and every night the fairies would come and do her baking and brewing, her washing and mending, sometimes even furnishing their own tools and materials. The farmer was now always clean of linen and whole of garb; he had good bread and good beer; he felt like a new man, and worked like one. Everything prospered with him now as nothing had before. His crops were good, his barns were tidy, his cattle were sleek, his pigs the fattest in the parish. So things went on for three years. One night Catti Jones took it into her head that she must have a peep at the fair family who did her work for her; and curiosity conquering prudence, she arose while Rowli Pugh lay snoring, and peeped through a crack in the door. There they were, a jolly company of ellyllon, working away like mad, and laughing and dancing as madly as they worked. Catti was so amused that in spite of herself she fell to laughing too; and at sound of her voice the ellyllon scattered like mist before the wind, leaving the room empty. They never came back any more; but the farmer was now prosperous, and his bad luck never returned to plague him. [Illustration: ROWLI AND THE ELLYLL.] The resemblance of this tale to many he has encountered will at once be noted by the student of comparative folk-lore. He will also observe that it trenches on the domain of another class in my own enumeration, viz., that of the Bwbach, or household fairy. This is the stone over which one is constantly stumbling in this field of scientific research. Mr. Baring-Gould's idea that all household tales are reducible to a primeval root (in the same or a similar manner that we trace words to their roots), though most ingeniously illustrated by him, is constantly involved in trouble of the sort mentioned. He encounters the obstacle which lies in the path of all who walk this way. His roots sometimes get inextricably gnarled and intertwisted with each other. But some effort of this sort is imperative, and we must do the best we can with our materials. Stories of the class of Grimm's Witchelmänner (Kinder und Hausmärchen) will be recalled by the legend of Rowli Pugh as here told. The German Hausmänner are elves of a domestic turn, sometimes mischievous and sometimes useful, but usually looking for some material reward for their labours. So with the English goblin named by Milton in 'L'Allegro,' which drudges, To earn his cream-bowl duly set. FOOTNOTE: [12] Until recently, Welsh women retained their maiden names even after marriage. IV. The Ellylldan is a species of elf exactly corresponding to the English Will-o'-wisp, the Scandinavian Lyktgubhe, and the Breton Sand Yan y Tad. The Welsh word dan means fire; dan also means a lure; the compound word suggests a luring elf-fire. The Breton Sand Yan y Tad (St. John and Father)[13] is a double ignis fatuus fairy, carrying at its finger-ends five lights, which spin round like a wheel. The negroes of the southern seaboard states of America invest this goblin with an exaggeration of the horrible peculiarly their own. They call it Jack-muh-lantern, and describe it as a hideous creature five feet in height, with goggle-eyes and huge mouth, its body covered with long hair, and which goes leaping and bounding through the air like a gigantic grasshopper. This frightful apparition is stronger than any man, and swifter than any horse, and compels its victims to follow it into the swamp, where it leaves them to die. Like all goblins of this class, the Ellylldan was, of course, seen dancing about in marshy grounds, into which it led the belated wanderer; but, as a distinguished resident in Wales has wittily said, the poor elf 'is now starved to death, and his breath is taken from him; his light is quenched for ever by the improving farmer, who has drained the bog; and, instead of the rank decaying vegetation of the autumn, where bitterns and snipes delighted to secrete themselves, crops of corn and potatoes are grown.'[14] A poetic account by a modern character, called Iolo the Bard, is thus condensed: 'One night, when the moon had gone down, as I was sitting on a hill-top, the Ellylldan passed by. I followed it into the valley. We crossed plashes of water where the tops of bulrushes peeped above, and where the lizards lay silently on the surface, looking at us with an unmoved stare. The frogs sat croaking and swelling their sides, but ceased as they raised a melancholy eye at the Ellylldan. The wild fowl, sleeping with their heads under their wings, made a low cackle as we went by. A bittern awoke and rose with a scream into the air. I felt the trail of the eels and leeches peering about, as I waded through the pools. On a slimy stone a toad sat sucking poison from the night air. The Ellylldan glowed bravely in the slumbering vapours. It rose airily over the bushes that drooped in the ooze. When I lingered or stopped, it waited for me, but dwindled gradually away to a speck barely perceptible. But as soon as I moved on again, it would shoot up suddenly and glide before. A bat came flying round and round us, flapping its wings heavily. Screech-owls stared silently at us with their broad eyes. Snails and worms crawled about. The fine threads of a spider's web gleamed in the light of the Ellylldan. Suddenly it shot away from me, and in the distance joined a ring of its fellows, who went dancing slowly round and round in a goblin dance, which sent me off to sleep.'[15] FOOTNOTES: [13] Keightley, 'Fairy Mythology,' 441. [14] Hon. W. O. Stanley, M.P., in 'Notes and Queries.' [15] 'The Vale of Glamorgan.' (London, 1839.) V. Pwca, or Pooka, is but another name for the Ellylldan, as our Puck is another name for the Will-o'-wisp; but in both cases the shorter term has a more poetic flavour and a wider latitude. The name Puck was originally applied to the whole race of English fairies, and there still be few of the realm who enjoy a wider popularity than Puck, in spite of his mischievous attributes. Part of this popularity is due to the poets, especially to Shakspeare. I have alluded to the bard's accurate knowledge of Welsh folk-lore; the subject is really one of unique interest, in view of the inaccuracy charged upon him as to the English fairyland. There is a Welsh tradition to the effect that Shakspeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian fairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the priory of Brecon. It is even claimed that Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the original scene of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream'--a fancy as light and airy as Puck himself.[16] Anyhow, there Cwm Pwca is, and in the sylvan days, before Frere and Powell's ironworks were set up there, it is said to have been as full of goblins as a Methodist's head is of piety. And there are in Wales other places bearing like names, where Pwca's pranks are well remembered by old inhabitants. The range given to the popular fancy in Wales is expressed with fidelity by Shakspeare's words in the mouth of Puck: I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier, Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.[17] The various stories I have encountered bear out these details almost without an omission. [Illustration: {SKETCH OF PWCA.}] In his own proper character, however, Pwca has a sufficiently grotesque elfish aspect. It is stated that a Welsh peasant who was asked to give an idea of the appearance of Pwca, drew the above figure with a bit of coal. A servant girl who attended to the cattle on the Trwyn farm, near Abergwyddon, used to take food to 'Master Pwca,' as she called the elf. A bowl of fresh milk and a slice of white bread were the component parts of the goblin's repast, and were placed on a certain spot where he got them. One night the girl, moved by the spirit of mischief, drank the milk and ate most of the bread, leaving for Master Pwca only water and crusts. Next morning she found that the fastidious fairy had left the food untouched. Not long after, as the girl was passing the lonely spot, where she had hitherto left Pwca his food, she was seized under the arm pits by fleshly hands (which, however, she could not see), and subjected to a castigation of a most mortifying character. Simultaneously there fell upon her ear in good set Welsh a warning not to repeat her offence on peril of still worse treatment. This story 'is thoroughly believed in there to this day.'[18] I visited the scene of the story, a farm near Abergwyddon (now called Abercarne), and heard a great deal more of the exploits of that particular Pwca, to which I will refer again. The most singular fact of the matter is that although at least a century has elapsed, and some say several centuries, since the exploits in question, you cannot find a Welsh peasant in the parish but knows all about Pwca'r Trwyn. FOOTNOTES: [16] According to a letter written by the poet Campbell to Mrs. Fletcher, in 1833, and published in her Autobiography, it was thought Shakspeare went in person to see this magic valley. 'It is no later than yesterday,' wrote Campbell, 'that I discovered a probability--almost near a certainty--that Shakspeare visited friends in the very town (Brecon in Wales) where Mrs. Siddons was born, and that he there found in a neighbouring glen, called "The Valley of Fairy Puck," the principal machinery of his "Midsummer Night's Dream."' [17] 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act III., Sc. 3. [18] 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' 4th Se., vi., 175. (1875.) VI. The most familiar form of the Pwca story is one which I have encountered in several localities, varying so little in its details that each account would be interchangeable with another by the alteration of local names. This form presents a peasant who is returning home from his work, or from a fair, when he sees a light travelling before him. Looking closer he perceives that it is carried by a dusky little figure, holding a lantern or candle at arm's length over its head. He follows it for several miles, and suddenly finds himself on the brink of a frightful precipice. From far down below there rises to his ears the sound of a foaming torrent. At the same moment the little goblin with the lantern springs across the chasm, alighting on the opposite side; raises the light again high over its head, utters a loud and malicious laugh, blows out its candle and disappears up the opposite hill, leaving the awestruck peasant to get home as best he can. [Illustration: PWCA. COBLYNAU.] VII. Under the general title of Coblynau I class the fairies which haunt the mines, quarries and underground regions of Wales, corresponding to the cabalistic Gnomes. The word coblyn has the double meaning of knocker or thumper and sprite or fiend; and may it not be the original of goblin? It is applied by Welsh miners to pigmy fairies which dwell in the mines, and point out, by a peculiar knocking or rapping, rich veins of ore. The faith is extended, in some parts, so as to cover the indication of subterranean treasures generally, in caves and secret places of the mountains. The coblynau are described as being about half a yard in height and very ugly to look upon, but extremely good-natured, and warm friends of the miner. Their dress is a grotesque imitation of the miner's garb, and they carry tiny hammers, picks and lamps. They work busily, loading ore in buckets, flitting about the shafts, turning tiny windlasses, and pounding away like madmen, but really accomplishing nothing whatever. They have been known to throw stones at the miners, when enraged at being lightly spoken of; but the stones are harmless. Nevertheless, all miners of a proper spirit refrain from provoking them, because their presence brings good luck. VIII. Miners are possibly no more superstitious than other men of equal intelligence; I have heard some of their number repel indignantly the idea that they are superstitious at all; but this would simply be to raise them above the level of our common humanity. There is testimony enough, besides, to support my own conclusions, which accredit a liberal share of credulity to the mining class. The _Oswestry Advertiser_, a short time ago, recorded the fact that, at Cefn, 'a woman is employed as messenger at one of the collieries, and as she commences her duty early each morning she meets great numbers of colliers going to their work. Some of them, we are gravely assured, consider it a bad omen to meet a woman first thing in the morning; and not having succeeded in deterring her from her work by other means, they waited upon the manager and declared that they should remain at home unless the woman was dismissed.' This was in 1874. In June, 1878, the _South Wales Daily News_ recorded a superstition of the quarrymen at Penrhyn, where some thousands of men refused to work on Ascension Day. 'This refusal did not arise out of any reverential feeling, but from an old and widespread superstition, which has lingered in that district for years, that if work is continued on Ascension Day an accident will certainly follow. A few years ago the agents persuaded the men to break through the superstition, and there were accidents each year--a not unlikely occurrence, seeing the extent of works carried on, and the dangerous nature of the occupation of the men. This year, however, the men, one and all, refused to work.' These are examples dealing with considerable numbers of the mining class, and are quoted in this instance as being more significant than individual cases would be. Of these last I have encountered many. Yet I should be sorry if any reader were to conclude from all this that Welsh miners are not in the main intelligent, church-going, newspaper-reading men. They are so, I think, even beyond the common. Their superstitions, therefore, like those of the rest of us, must be judged as 'a thing apart,' not to be reconciled with intelligence and education, but co-existing with them. Absolute freedom from superstition can come only with a degree of scientific culture not yet reached by mortal man. It can hardly be cause for wonder that the miner should be superstitious. His life is passed in a dark and gloomy region, fathoms below the earth's green surface, surrounded by walls on which dim lamps shed a fitful light. It is not surprising that imagination (and the Welsh imagination is peculiarly vivid) should conjure up the faces and forms of gnomes and coblynau, of phantoms and fairy men. When they hear the mysterious thumping which they know is not produced by any human being, and when in examining the place where the noise was heard they find there are really valuable indications of ore, the sturdiest incredulity must sometimes be shaken. Science points out that the noise may be produced by the action of water upon the loose stones in fissures and pot-holes of the mountain limestone, and does actually suggest the presence of metals. In the days before a Priestley had caught and bottled that demon which exists in the shape of carbonic acid gas, when the miner was smitten dead by an invisible foe in the deep bowels of the earth it was natural his awestruck companions should ascribe the mysterious blow to a supernatural enemy. When the workman was assailed suddenly by what we now call fire-damp, which hurled him and his companions right and left upon the dark rocks, scorching, burning, and killing, those who survived were not likely to question the existence of the mine fiend. Hence arose the superstition--now probably quite extinct--of basilisks in the mines, which destroyed with their terrible gaze. When the explanation came, that the thing which killed the miner was what he breathed, not what he saw; and when chemistry took the fire-damp from the domain of faerie, the basilisk and the fire fiend had not a leg to stand on. The explanation of the Knockers is more recent, and less palpable and convincing. IX. The Coblynau are always given the form of dwarfs, in the popular fancy; wherever seen or heard, they are believed to have escaped from the mines or the secret regions of the mountains. Their homes are hidden from mortal vision. When encountered, either in the mines or on the mountains, they have strayed from their special abodes, which are as spectral as themselves. There is at least one account extant of their secret territory having been revealed to mortal eyes. I find it in a quaint volume (of which I shall have more to say), printed at Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1813.[19] It relates that one William Evans, of Hafodafel, while crossing the Beacon Mountain very early in the morning, passed a fairy coal mine, where fairies were busily at work. Some were cutting the coal, some carrying it to fill the sacks, some raising the loads upon the horses' backs, and so on; but all in the completest silence. He thought this 'a wonderful extra natural thing,' and was considerably impressed by it, for well he knew that there really was no coal mine at that place. He was a person of 'undoubted veracity,' and what is more, 'a great man in the world--above telling an untruth.' That the Coblynau sometimes wandered far from home, the same chronicler testifies; but on these occasions they were taking a holiday. Egbert Williams, 'a pious young gentleman of Denbighshire, then at school,' was one day playing in a field called Cae Caled, in the parish of Bodfari, with three girls, one of whom was his sister. Near the stile beyond Lanelwyd House they saw a company of fifteen or sixteen coblynau engaged in dancing madly. They were in the middle of the field, about seventy yards from the spectators, and they danced something after the manner of Morris-dancers, but with a wildness and swiftness in their motions. They were clothed in red like British soldiers, and wore red handkerchiefs spotted with yellow wound round their heads. And a strange circumstance about them was that although they were almost as big as ordinary men, yet they had unmistakably the appearance of dwarfs, and one could call them nothing but dwarfs. Presently one of them left the company and ran towards the group near the stile, who were direfully scared thereby, and scrambled in great fright to go over the stile. Barbara Jones got over first, then her sister, and as Egbert Williams was helping his sister over they saw the coblyn close upon them, and barely got over when his hairy hand was laid on the stile. He stood leaning on it, gazing after them as they ran, with a grim copper-coloured countenance and a fierce look. The young people ran to Lanelwyd House and called the elders out, but though they hurried quickly to the field the dwarfs had already disappeared. FOOTNOTE: [19] 'A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales.' By Rev. Edmund Jones of the Tranch. (Newport, 1813.) X. The counterparts of the Coblynau are found in most mining countries. In Germany, the Wichtlein (little Wights) are little old long-bearded men, about three-quarters of an ell high, which haunt the mines of the southern land. The Bohemians call the Wichtlein by the name of Haus-schmiedlein, little House-smiths, from their sometimes making a noise as if labouring hard at the anvil. They are not so popular as in Wales, however, as they predict misfortune or death. They announce the doom of a miner by knocking three times distinctly, and when any lesser evil is about to befall him they are heard digging, pounding, and imitating other kinds of work. In Germany also the kobolds are rather troublesome than otherwise, to the miners, taking pleasure in frustrating their objects, and rendering their toil unfruitful. Sometimes they are downright malignant, especially if neglected or insulted, but sometimes also they are indulgent to individuals whom they take under their protection. 'When a miner therefore hit upon a rich vein of ore, the inference commonly was not that he possessed more skill, industry, or even luck than his fellow-workmen, but that the spirits of the mine had directed him to the treasure.'[20] The intimate connection between mine fairies and the whole race of dwarfs is constantly met throughout the fairy mythology; and the connection of the dwarfs with the mountains is equally universal. 'God,' says the preface to the Heldenbuch, 'gave the dwarfs being, because the land and the mountains were altogether waste and uncultivated, and there was much store of silver and gold and precious stones and pearls still in the mountains.' From the most ancient times, and in the oldest countries, down to our own time and the new world of America, the traditions are the same. The old Norse belief which made the dwarfs the current machinery of the northern Sagas is echoed in the Catskill Mountains with the rolling of the thunder among the crags where Hendrik Hudson's dwarfs are playing ninepins. FOOTNOTE: [20] Scott, 'Demonology and Witchcraft,' 121. XI. The Bwbach, or Boobach, is the good-natured goblin which does good turns for the tidy Welsh maid who wins its favour by a certain course of behaviour recommended by long tradition. The maid having swept the kitchen, makes a good fire the last thing at night, and having put the churn, filled with cream, on the whitened hearth, with a basin of fresh cream for the Bwbach on the hob, goes to bed to await the event. In the morning she finds (if she is in luck) that the Bwbach has emptied the basin of cream, and plied the churn-dasher so well that the maid has but to give a thump or two to bring the butter in a great lump. Like the Ellyll which it so much resembles, the Bwbach does not approve of dissenters and their ways, and especially strong is its aversion to total abstainers. There was a Bwbach belonging to a certain estate in Cardiganshire, which took great umbrage at a Baptist preacher who was a guest in the house, and who was much fonder of prayers than of good ale. Now the Bwbach had a weakness in favour of people who sat around the hearth with their mugs of cwrw da and their pipes, and it took to pestering the preacher. One night it jerked the stool from under the good man's elbows, as he knelt pouring forth prayer, so that he fell down flat on his face. Another time it interrupted the devotions by jangling the fire-irons on the hearth; and it was continually making the dogs fall a-howling during prayers, or frightening the farm-boy by grinning at him through the window, or throwing the maid into fits. At last it had the audacity to attack the preacher as he was crossing a field. The minister told the story in this wise: 'I was reading busily in my hymn-book as I walked on, when a sudden fear came over me and my legs began to tremble. A shadow crept upon me from behind, and when I turned round--it was myself!--my person, my dress, and even my hymn-book. I looked in its face a moment, and then fell insensible to the ground.' And there, insensible still, they found him. This encounter proved too much for the good man, who considered it a warning to him to leave those parts. He accordingly mounted his horse next day and rode away. A boy of the neighbourhood, whose veracity was, like that of all boys, unimpeachable, afterwards said that he saw the Bwbach jump up behind the preacher, on the horse's back. And the horse went like lightning, with eyes like balls of fire, and the preacher looking back over his shoulder at the Bwbach, that grinned from ear to ear. XII. The same confusion in outlines which exists regarding our own Bogie and Hobgoblin gives the Bwbach a double character, as a household fairy and as a terrifying phantom. In both aspects it is ludicrous, but in the latter it has dangerous practices. To get into its clutches under certain circumstances is no trifling matter, for it has the power of whisking people off through the air. Its services are brought into requisition for this purpose by troubled ghosts who cannot sleep on account of hidden treasure they want removed; and if they can succeed in getting a mortal to help them in removing the treasure, they employ the Bwbach to transport the mortal through the air. This ludicrous fairy is in France represented by the gobelin. Mothers threaten children with him. 'Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera.'[21] In the English 'hobgoblin' we have a word apparently derived from the Welsh hob, to hop, and coblyn, a goblin, which presents a hopping goblin to the mind, and suggests the Pwca (with which the Bwbach is also confused in the popular fancy at times), but should mean in English simply the goblin of the hob, or household fairy. In its bugbear aspect, the Bwbach, like the English bogie, is believed to be identical with the Slavonic 'bog,' and the 'baga' of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, both of which are names for the Supreme Being, according to Professor Fiske. 'The ancestral form of these epithets' is found in 'the old Aryan "Bhaga," which reappears unchanged in the Sanskrit of the Vedas, and has left a memento of itself in the surname of the Phrygian Zeus "Bagaios." It seems originally to have denoted either the unclouded sun, or the sky of noonday illuminated by the solar rays.... Thus the same name which to the Vedic poet, to the Persian of the time of Xerxes, and to the modern Russian, suggests the supreme majesty of deity, is in English associated with an ugly and ludicrous fiend, closely akin to that grotesque Northern Devil of whom Southey was unable to think without laughing.'[22] FOOTNOTES: [21] Père l'Abbé, 'Etymologie,' i., 262. [22] Fiske, 'Myths and Myth-makers,' 105. CHAPTER III. Lake Fairies--The Gwragedd Annwn, or Dames of Elfin-Land--St. Patrick and the Welshmen; a Legend of Crumlyn Lake--The Elfin Cow of Llyn Barfog--Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith--The Legend of the Meddygon Myddfai--The Wife of Supernatural Race--The Three Blows; a Carmarthenshire Legend--Cheese and the Didactic Purpose in Welsh Folk-Lore--The Fairy Maiden's Papa--The Enchanted Isle in the Mountain Lake--Legend of the Men of Ardudwy--Origin of Water Fairies--Their prevalence in many Lands. I. The Gwragedd Annwn (literally, wives of the lower world, or hell) are the elfin dames who dwell under the water. I find no resemblance in the Welsh fairy to our familiar mermaid, beyond the watery abode, and the sometimes winning ways. The Gwragedd Annwn are not fishy of aspect, nor do they dwell in the sea. Their haunt is the lakes and rivers, but especially the wild and lonely lakes upon the mountain heights. These romantic sheets are surrounded with numberless superstitions, which will be further treated of. In the realm of faerie they serve as avenues of communication between this world and the lower one of annwn, the shadowy domain presided over by Gwyn ap Nudd, king of the fairies. This sub-aqueous realm is peopled by those children of mystery termed Plant Annwn, and the belief is current among the inhabitants of the Welsh mountains that the Gwragedd Annwn still occasionally visit this upper world of ours.[23] The only reference to Welsh mermaids I have either read or heard is contained in Drayton's account of the Battle of Agincourt. There it is mentioned, among the armorial ensigns of the counties of Wales: As Cardigan, the next to them that went, Came with a mermaid sitting on a rock.[24] FOOTNOTES: [23] 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' 2nd Se., iv., 253. [24] There is in 'Cymru Fu' a mermaid story, but its mermaid feature is apparently a modern embellishment of a real incident, and without value here. II. Crumlyn Lake, near the quaint village of Briton Ferry, is one of the many in Wales which are a resort of the elfin dames. It is also believed that a large town lies swallowed up there, and that the Gwragedd Annwn have turned the submerged walls to use as the superstructure of their fairy palaces. Some claim to have seen the towers of beautiful castles lifting their battlements beneath the surface of the dark waters, and fairy bells are at times heard ringing from these towers. The way the elfin dames first came to dwell there was this: A long, ay, a very long time ago, St. Patrick came over from Ireland on a visit to St. David of Wales, just to say 'Sut yr y'ch chwi?' (How d'ye do?); and as they were strolling by this lake conversing on religious topics in a friendly manner, some Welsh people who had ascertained that it was St. Patrick, and being angry at him for leaving Cambria for Erin, began to abuse him in the Welsh language, his native tongue. Of course such an insult could not go unpunished, and St. Patrick caused his villifiers to be transformed into fishes; but some of them being females, were converted into fairies instead. It is also related that the sun, on account of this insolence to so holy a man, never shed its life-giving rays upon the dark waters of this picturesque lake, except during one week of the year. This legend and these magical details are equally well accredited to various other lakes, among them Llyn Barfog, near Aberdovey, the town whose 'bells' are celebrated in immortal song. III. Llyn Barfog is the scene of the famous elfin cow's descent upon earth, from among the droves of the Gwragedd Annwn. This is the legend of the origin of the Welsh black cattle, as related to me in Carmarthenshire: In times of old there was a band of elfin ladies who used to haunt the neighbourhood of Llyn Barfog, a lake among the hills just back of Aberdovey. It was their habit to make their appearance at dusk clad all in green, accompanied by their milk-white hounds. Besides their hounds, the green ladies of Llyn Barfog were peculiar in the possession of droves of beautiful milk-white kine, called Gwartheg y Llyn, or kine of the lake. One day an old farmer, who lived near Dyssyrnant, had the good luck to catch one of these mystic cows, which had fallen in love with the cattle of his herd. From that day the farmer's fortune was made. Such calves, such milk, such butter and cheese, as came from the milk-white cow never had been seen in Wales before, nor ever will be seen again. The fame of the Fuwch Gyfeiliorn (which was what they called the cow) spread through the country round. The farmer, who had been poor, became rich; the owner of vast herds, like the patriarchs of old. But one day he took it into his silly noddle that the elfin cow was getting old, and that he had better fatten her for the market. His nefarious purpose thrived amazingly. Never, since beef steaks were invented, was seen such a fat cow as this cow grew to be. Killing day came, and the neighbours arrived from all about to witness the taking-off of this monstrously fat beast. The farmer had already counted up the gains from the sale of her, and the butcher had bared his red right arm. The cow was tethered, regardless of her mournful lowing and her pleading eyes; the butcher raised his bludgeon and struck fair and hard between the eyes--when lo! a shriek resounded through the air, awakening the echoes of the hills, as the butcher's bludgeon went through the goblin head of the elfin cow, and knocked over nine adjoining men, while the butcher himself went frantically whirling around trying to catch hold of something permanent. Then the astonished assemblage beheld a green lady standing on a crag high up over the lake, and crying with a loud voice: Dere di felen Einion, Cyrn Cyfeiliorn--braith y Llyn, A'r foel Dodin, Codwch, dewch adre. Come yellow Anvil, stray horns, Speckled one of the lake, And of the hornless Dodin, Arise, come home. Whereupon not only did the elfin cow arise and go home, but all her progeny to the third and fourth generations went home with her, disappearing in the air over the hill tops and returning nevermore. Only one cow remained of all the farmer's herds, and she had turned from milky white to raven black. Whereupon the farmer in despair drowned himself in the lake of the green ladies, and the black cow became the progenitor of the existing race of Welsh black cattle. This legend appears, in a slightly different form, in the 'Iolo MSS.,' as translated by Taliesin Williams, of Merthyr:[25] 'The milk-white milch cow gave enough of milk to every one who desired it; and however frequently milked, or by whatever number of persons, she was never found deficient. All persons who drank of her milk were healed of every illness; from fools they became wise; and from being wicked, became happy. This cow went round the world; and wherever she appeared, she filled with milk all the vessels that could be found, leaving calves behind her for all the wise and happy. It was from her that all the milch cows in the world were obtained. After traversing through the island of Britain, for the benefit and blessing of country and kindred, she reached the Vale of Towy; where, tempted by her fine appearance and superior condition, the natives sought to kill and eat her; but just as they were proceeding to effect their purpose, she vanished from between their hands, and was never seen again. A house still remains in the locality, called Y Fuwch Laethwen Lefrith (The Milk-white Milch Cow.)' FOOTNOTE: [25] Llandovery, published for the Welsh MSS. Society, 1848. IV. The legend of the Meddygon Myddfai again introduces the elfin cattle to our notice, but combines with them another and a very interesting form of this superstition, namely, that of the wife of supernatural race. A further feature gives it its name, Meddygon meaning physicians, and the legend professing to give the origin of certain doctors who were renowned in the thirteenth century. The legend relates that a farmer in the parish of Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, having bought some lambs in a neighbouring fair, led them to graze near Llyn y Fan Fach, on the Black Mountains. Whenever he visited these lambs three beautiful damsels appeared to him from the lake, on whose shores they often made excursions. Sometimes he pursued and tried to catch them, but always failed; the enchanting nymphs ran before him and on reaching the lake taunted him in these words: Cras dy fara, Anhawdd ein dala; which, if one must render it literally, means: Bake your bread, 'Twill be hard to catch us; but which, more poetically treated, might signify: Mortal, who eatest baken bread, Not for thee is the fairy's bed! One day some moist bread from the lake came floating ashore. The farmer seized it, and devoured it with avidity. The following day, to his great delight, he was successful in his chase, and caught the nymphs on the shore. After talking a long time with them, he mustered up the courage to propose marriage to one of them. She consented to accept him on condition that he would distinguish her from her sisters the next day. This was a new and great difficulty to the young farmer, for the damsels were so similar in form and features, that he could scarcely see any difference between them. He noted, however, a trifling singularity in the strapping of the chosen one's sandal, by which he recognized her on the following day. As good as her word, the gwraig immediately left the lake and went with him to his farm. Before she quitted the lake she summoned therefrom to attend her, seven cows, two oxen, and one bull. She stipulated that she should remain with the farmer only until such time as he should strike her thrice without cause. For some years they dwelt peaceably together, and she bore him three sons, who were the celebrated Meddygon Myddfai. One day, when preparing for a fair in the neighbourhood, the farmer desired her to go to the field for his horse. She said she would, but being rather dilatory, he said to her humorously 'Dôs, dôs, dôs,' i.e., 'Go, go, go,' and at the same time slightly tapped her arm three times with his glove.... The blows were slight--but they were blows. The terms of the marriage contract were broken, and the dame departed, summoning with her her seven cows, her two oxen, and the bull. The oxen were at that moment ploughing in the field, but they immediately obeyed her call and dragged the plough after them to the lake. The furrow, from the field in which they were ploughing to the margin of the lake, is still to be seen--in several parts of that country--at the present day. After her departure, the gwraig annwn once met her three sons in the valley now called Cwm Meddygon, and gave them a magic box containing remedies of wonderful power, through whose use they became celebrated. Their names were Cadogan, Gruffydd and Einion, and the farmer's name was Rhiwallon. Rhiwallon and his sons, named as above, were physicians to Rhys Gryg, Lord of Dynevor, and son of the last native prince of Wales. They lived about 1230, and dying, left behind them a compendium of their medical practice. 'A copy of their works is in the Welsh School Library in Gray's Inn Lane.'[26] FOOTNOTE: [26] 'Cambro-Briton,' ii., 315. V. In a more polished and elaborate form this legend omits the medical features altogether, but substitutes a number of details so peculiarly Welsh that I cannot refrain from presenting them. This version relates that the enamoured farmer had heard of the lake maiden, who rowed up and down the lake in a golden boat, with a golden oar. Her hair was long and yellow, and her face was pale and melancholy. In his desire to see this wondrous beauty, the farmer went on New Year's Eve to the edge of the lake, and in silence awaited the coming of the first hour of the new year. It came, and there in truth was the maiden in her golden boat, rowing softly to and fro. Fascinated, he stood for hours beholding her, until the stars faded out of the sky, the moon sank behind the rocks, and the cold gray dawn drew nigh; and then the lovely gwraig began to vanish from his sight. Wild with passion, and with the thought of losing her for ever, he cried aloud to the retreating vision, 'Stay! stay! Be my wife.' But the gwraig only uttered a faint cry, and was gone. Night after night the young farmer haunted the shores of the lake, but the gwraig returned no more. He became negligent of his person; his once robust form grew thin and wan; his face was a map of melancholy and despair. He went one day to consult a soothsayer who dwelt on the mountain, and this grave personage advised him to besiege the damsel's heart with gifts of bread and cheese. This counsel commending itself strongly to his Welsh way of thinking, the farmer set out upon an assiduous course of casting his bread upon the waters--accompanied by cheese. He began on Midsummer eve by going to the lake and dropping therein a large cheese and a loaf of bread. Night after night he continued to throw in loaves and cheeses, but nothing appeared in answer to his sacrifices. His hopes were set, however, on the approaching New Year's eve. The momentous night arrived at last. Clad in his best array, and armed with seven white loaves and his biggest and handsomest cheese, he set out once more for the lake. There he waited till midnight, and then slowly and solemnly dropped the seven loaves into the water, and with a sigh sent the cheese to keep them company. His persistence was at length rewarded. The magic skiff appeared; the fair gwraig guided it to where he stood; stepped ashore, and accepted him as her husband. The before-mentioned stipulation was made as to the blows; and she brought her dower of cattle. One day, after they had been four years married, they were invited to a christening. In the midst of the ceremony the gwraig burst into tears. Her husband gave her an angry look, and asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She replied, 'The poor babe is entering a world of sin and sorrow; misery lies before it. Why should I rejoice?' He pushed her pettishly away. 'I warn you, husband,' said the gwraig; 'you have struck me once.' After a time they were bidden to the funeral of the child they had seen christened. Now the gwraig laughed, sang, and danced about. The husband's wrath again arose, and again he asked her why she thus made a fool of herself. She answered, 'The dear babe has escaped the misery that was before it, and gone to be good and happy for ever. Why should I grieve?' Again he pushed her from him, and again she warned him; he had struck her twice. Soon they were invited to a wedding; the bride was young and fair, the groom a tottering, toothless, decrepit old miser. In the midst of the wedding feast the gwraig annwn burst into tears, and to her husband's question why she thus made a fool of herself she replied, 'Truth is wedded to age for greed, and not for love--summer and winter cannot agree--it is the diawl's compact.' The angry husband thrust her from him for the third and last time. She looked at him with tender love and reproach, and said, 'The three blows are struck--husband, farewell!' He never saw her more, nor any of the flocks and herds she had brought him for her dowry. [Illustration: THE GWRAIG OF THE GOLDEN BOAT.] In its employment of the myth to preach a sermon, and in its introduction of cheese, this version of the legend is very Welsh indeed. The extent to which cheese figures in Cambrian folk-lore is surprising; cheese is encountered in every sort of fairy company; you actually meet cheese in the Mabinogion, along with the most romantic forms of beauty known in story. And herein again is illustrated Shakspeare's accurate knowledge of the Cambrian goblins. 'Heaven defend me from that Welsh fairy!' says Falstaff, 'lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!'[27] Bread is found figuring actively in the folk-lore of every country, especially as a sacrifice to water-gods; but cheese is, so far as I know, thus honoured only in Cambria. FOOTNOTE: [27] 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act V., Sc. 5. VI. Once more this legend appears, this time with a feature I have nowhere else encountered in fairy land, to wit, the father of a fairy damsel. The son of a farmer on Drws Coed farm was one foggy day looking after his father's sheep, when crossing a marshy meadow he beheld a little lady behind some rising ground. She had yellow hair, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. He approached her, and asked permission to converse; whereupon she smiled sweetly and said to him, 'Idol of my hopes, you have come at last!' They there and then began to 'keep company,' and met each other daily here and there along the farm meadows. His intentions were honourable; he desired her to marry him. He was sometimes absent for days together, no one knew where, and his friends whispered about that he had been witched. Around the Turf Lake (Llyn y Dywarchen) was a grove of trees, and under one of these one day the fairy promised to be his. The consent of her father was now necessary. One moonlight night an appointment was made to meet in this wood. The father and daughter did not appear till the moon had disappeared behind the hill. Then they both came. The fairy father immediately gave his consent to the marriage, on one condition, namely, that her future husband should never hit her with iron. 'If ever thou dost touch her flesh with iron she shall be no more thine, but she shall return to her own.' They were married--a good-looking pair. Large sums of money were brought by her, the night before the wedding, to Drws Coed. The shepherd lad became wealthy, had several handsome children, and they were very happy. After some years, they were one day out riding, when her horse sank in a deep mire, and by the assistance of her husband, in her hurry to remount, she was struck on her knee by the stirrup of the saddle. Immediately voices were heard singing on the brow of the hill, and she disappeared, leaving all her children behind. She and her mother devised a plan by which she could see her beloved, but as she was not allowed to walk the earth with man, they floated a large turf on the lake, and on this turf she stood for hours at a time holding converse with her husband. This continued until his death.[28] FOOTNOTE: [28] 'Cymru Fu,' 476. VII. The didactic purpose again appears in the following legend, which, varying but little in phraseology, is current in the neighbourhood of a dozen different mountain lakes: In other days, before the Cymry had become reconciled to their Saxon foe, on every New Year's morning a door was found open in a rock hard by the lake. Those mortals who had the curiosity and the resolution to enter this door were conducted by a secret passage to a small island in the middle of the lake. Here they found a most enchanting garden, stored with the choicest fruits and flowers, and inhabited by the Gwragedd Annwn, whose beauty could be equalled only by the courtesy and affability which they exhibited to those who pleased them. They gathered fruit and flowers for each of their guests, entertained them with the most exquisite music, disclosed to them many secrets of futurity, and invited them to stay as long as they liked. 'But,' said they, 'the island is secret, and nothing of its produce must be carried away.' The warning being heeded, all went well. But one day there appeared among the visitors a wicked Welshman, who, thinking to derive some magical aid therefrom, pocketed a flower with which he had been presented, and was about to leave the garden with his prize. But the theft boded him no good. As soon as he had touched unhallowed ground the flower vanished, and he lost his senses. However, of this abuse of their hospitality the Gwragedd Annwn took no notice at the time. They dismissed their guests with their accustomed courtesy, and the door was closed as usual. But their resentment was bitter; for though the fairies of the lake and their enchanted garden undoubtedly occupy the spot to this day, the door which led to the island has never been reopened. VIII. In all these legends the student of comparative folk-lore traces the ancient mythology, however overlain with later details. The water-maidens of every land doubtless originally were the floating clouds of the sky, or the mists of the mountain. From this have come certain fair and fanciful creations with which Indo-European folk-lore teems, the most familiar of which are Undine, Melusina, Nausicaa, and the classic Muse. In Wales, as in other lands, the myth has many forms. The dispersion of dark clouds from the mountains, by the beams of the rising sun, or the morning breezes, is localized in the legend of the Men of Ardudwy. These men make a raid on the maidens of the Vale of Clwyd, and are pursued and slaughtered by the latter's fathers and brothers. The maidens thereupon cast themselves headlong into the lake, which is thenceforth called the Maidens' Lake, or Llyn y Morwynion. In another legend, the river mist over the Cynwal is the spirit of a traitress who perished long ago in the lake. She had conspired with the sea-born pirates of the North (the ocean storms) to rob her Cambrian lord of his domains. She was defeated by the aid of a powerful enchanter (the sun), and fled up the river to the lake, accompanied by her maidens, who were drowned with her there.[29] FOOTNOTE: [29] 'Arch. Camb.,' 4th Se., vii., 251. IX. As the mermaid superstition is seemingly absent in Wales, so there are no fairy tales of maidens who lure mortals to their doom beneath the water, as the Dracæ did women and children, and as the Nymph of the Lurley did marriageable young men. But it is believed that there are several old Welsh families who are the descendants of the Gwragedd Annwn, as in the case of the Meddygon Myddfai. The familiar Welsh name of Morgan is sometimes thought to signify, 'Born of the Sea.' Certainly môr in Welsh means sea, and gân a birth. It is curious, too, that a mermaid is called in Basse Bretagne 'Mary Morgan.' But the class of stories in which a mortal marries a water-maiden is large, and while the local details smack of the soil, the general idea is so like in lands far remote from each other as to indicate a common origin in pre-historic times. In Wales, where the mountain lakes are numerous, gloomy, lonely, and yet lovely; where many of them, too, show traces of having been inhabited in ancient times by a race of lake-dwellers, whose pile-supported villages vanished ages ago; and where bread and cheese are as classic as beer and candles, these particulars are localized in the legend. In the Faro Islands, where the seal is a familiar yet ever-mysterious object, with its human-like eyes, and glossy skin, the wife of supernatural race is a transformed seal. She comes ashore every ninth night, sheds her skin, leaves it on the shore, and dances with her fairy companions. A mortal steals her sealskin dress, and when day breaks, and her companions return to their abode in the sea, compels her to remain and be his wife. Some day he offends her; she recovers her skin and plunges into the sea. In China, the superstition appears in a Lew-chewan legend mentioned by Dr. Dennys,[30] which relates how a fairy in the guise of a beautiful woman is found bathing in a man's well. He persuades her to marry him, and she remains with him for nine years, at the end of which time, despite the affection she has for their two children, she 'glides upwards into a cloud' and disappears. FOOTNOTE: [30] 'Folk-Lore of China,' 99. CHAPTER IV. Mountain Fairies--The Gwyllion--The Old Woman of the Mountain--The Black Mountain Gwyll--Exorcism by Knife--Occult Intellectual Powers of Welsh Goats--The Legend of Cadwaladr's Goat. I. The Gwyllion are female fairies of frightful characteristics, who haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains, and lead night-wanderers astray. They partake somewhat of the aspect of the Hecate of Greek mythology, who rode on the storm, and was a hag of horrid guise. The Welsh word gwyll is variously used to signify gloom, shade, duskiness, a hag, a witch, a fairy, and a goblin; but its special application is to these mountain fairies of gloomy and harmful habits, as distinct from the Ellyllon of the forest glades and dingles, which are more often beneficent. The Gwyllion take on a more distinct individuality under another name--as the Ellyllon do in mischievous Puck--and the Old Woman of the Mountain typifies all her kind. She is very carefully described by the Prophet Jones,[31] in the guise in which she haunted Llanhiddel Mountain in Monmouthshire. This was the semblance of a poor old woman, with an oblong four-cornered hat, ash-coloured clothes, her apron thrown across her shoulder, with a pot or wooden can in her hand, such as poor people carry to fetch milk with, always going before the spectator, and sometimes crying 'Wow up!' This is an English form of a Welsh cry of distress, 'Wwb!' or 'Ww-bwb!'[32] Those who saw this apparition, whether by night or on a misty day, would be sure to lose their way, though they might be perfectly familiar with the road. Sometimes they heard her cry, 'Wow up!' when they did not see her. Sometimes when they went out by night, to fetch coal, water, etc., the dwellers near that mountain would hear the cry very close to them, and immediately after they would hear it afar off, as if it were on the opposite mountain, in the parish of Aberystruth. The popular tradition in that district was that the Old Woman of the Mountain was the spirit of one Juan White, who lived time out of mind in those parts, and was thought to be a witch; because the mountains were not haunted in this manner until after Juan White's death.[33] When people first lost their way, and saw her before them, they used to hurry forward and try to catch her, supposing her to be a flesh-and-blood woman, who could set them right; but they never could overtake her, and she on her part never looked back; so that no man ever saw her face. She has also been seen in the Black Mountain in Breconshire. Robert Williams, of Langattock, Crickhowel, 'a substantial man and of undoubted veracity,' tells this tale: As he was travelling one night over part of the Black Mountain, he saw the Old Woman, and at the same time found he had lost his way. Not knowing her to be a spectre he hallooed to her to stay for him, but receiving no answer thought she was deaf. He then hastened his steps, thinking to overtake her, but the faster he ran the further he found himself behind her, at which he wondered very much, not knowing the reason of it. He presently found himself stumbling in a marsh, at which discovery his vexation increased; and then he heard the Old Woman laughing at him with a weird, uncanny, crackling old laugh. This set him to thinking she might be a gwyll; and when he happened to draw out his knife for some purpose, and the Old Woman vanished, then he was sure of it; for Welsh ghosts and fairies are afraid of a knife. FOOTNOTES: [31] See p. 104. [32] Pronounced Wooboob. [33] 'Juan (Shuï) White is an old acquaintance of my boyhood,' writes to me a friend who was born some thirty years ago in Monmouthshire. 'A ruined cottage on the Lasgarn hill near Pontypool was understood by us boys to have been her house, and there she appeared at 12 p.m., carrying her head under her arm.' II. Another account relates that John ap John, of Cwm Celyn, set out one morning before daybreak to walk to Caerleon Fair. As he ascended Milfre Mountain he heard a shouting behind him as if it were on Bryn Mawr, which is a part of the Black Mountain in Breconshire. Soon after he heard the shouting on his left hand, at Bwlch y Llwyn, nearer to him, whereupon he was seized with a great fright, and began to suspect it was no human voice. He had already been wondering, indeed, what any one could be doing at that hour in the morning, shouting on the mountain side. Still going on, he came up higher on the mountain, when he heard the shouting just before him, at Gilfach fields, to the right--and now he was sure it was the Old Woman of the Mountain, who purposed leading him astray. Presently he heard behind him the noise of a coach, and with it the special cry of the Old Woman of the Mountain, viz., 'Wow up!' Knowing very well that no coach could go that way, and still hearing its noise approaching nearer and nearer, he became thoroughly terrified, and running out of the road threw himself down upon the ground and buried his face in the heath, waiting for the phantom to pass. When it was gone out of hearing, he arose; and hearing the birds singing as the day began to break, also seeing some sheep before him, his fear went quite off. And this, says the Prophet Jones, was 'no profane, immoral man,' but 'an honest, peaceable, knowing man, and a very comely person' moreover. III. The exorcism by knife appears to be a Welsh notion; though there is an old superstition of wide prevalence in Europe that to give to or receive from a friend a knife or a pair of scissors cuts friendship. I have even encountered this superstition in America; once an editorial friend at Indianapolis gave me a very handsome pocket-knife, which he refused to part with except at the price of one cent, lawful coin of the realm, asserting that we should become enemies without this precaution. In China, too, special charms are associated with knives, and a knife which has slain a fellow-being is an invaluable possession. In Wales, according to Jones, the Gwyllion often came into the houses of the people at Aberystruth, especially in stormy weather, and the inmates made them welcome--not through any love they bore them, but through fear of the hurts the Gwyllion might inflict if offended--by providing clean water for them, and taking especial care that no knife, or other cutting tool, should be in the corner near the fire, where the fairies would go to sit. 'For want of which care many were hurt by them.' While it was desirable to exorcise them when in the open air, it was not deemed prudent to display an inhospitable spirit towards any member of the fairy world. The cases of successful exorcism by knife are many, and nothing in the realm of faerie is better authenticated. There was Evan Thomas, who, travelling by night over Bedwellty Mountain, towards the valley of Ebwy Fawr, where his house and estate were, saw the Gwyllion on each side of him, some of them dancing around him in fantastic fashion. He also heard the sound of a bugle-horn winding in the air, and there seemed to be invisible hunters riding by. He then began to be afraid, but recollected his having heard that any person seeing Gwyllion may drive them away by drawing out a knife. So he drew out his knife, and the fairies vanished directly. Now Evan Thomas was 'an old gentleman of such strict veracity that he' on one occasion 'did confess a truth against himself,' when he was 'like to suffer loss' thereby, and notwithstanding he 'was persuaded by some not to do it, yet he would persist in telling the truth, to his own hurt.' Should we find, in tracing these notions back to their source, that they are connected with Arthur's sword Excalibur? If so, there again we touch the primeval world. Jones says that the Old Woman of the Mountain has, since about 1800, (at least in South Wales,) been driven into close quarters by the light of the Gospel--in fact, that she now haunts mines--or in the preacher's formal words, 'the coal-pits and holes of the earth.' IV. Among the traditions of the origin of the Gwyllion is one which associates them with goats. Goats are in Wales held in peculiar esteem for their supposed occult intellectual powers. They are believed to be on very good terms with the Tylwyth Teg, and possessed of more knowledge than their appearance indicates. It is one of the peculiarities of the Tylwyth Teg that every Friday night they comb the goats' beards to make them decent for Sunday. Their association with the Gwyllion is related in the legend of Cadwaladr's goat: Cadwaladr owned a very handsome goat, named Jenny, of which he was extremely fond; and which seemed equally fond of him; but one day, as if the very diawl possessed her, she ran away into the hills, with Cadwaladr tearing after her, half mad with anger and affright. At last his Welsh blood got so hot, as the goat eluded him again and again, that he flung a stone at her, which knocked her over a precipice, and she fell bleating to her doom. Cadwaladr made his way to the foot of the crag; the goat was dying, but not dead, and licked his hand--which so affected the poor man that he burst into tears, and sitting on the ground took the goat's head on his arm. The moon rose, and still he sat there. Presently he found that the goat had become transformed to a beautiful young woman, whose brown eyes, as her head lay on his arm, looked into his in a very disturbing way. 'Ah, Cadwaladr,' said she, 'have I at last found you?' Now Cadwaladr had a wife at home, and was much discomfited by this singular circumstance; but when the goat--yn awr maiden--arose, and putting her black slipper on the end of a moonbeam, held out her hand to him, he put his hand in hers and went with her. As for the hand, though it looked so fair, it felt just like a hoof. They were soon on the top of the highest mountain in Wales, and surrounded by a vapoury company of goats with shadowy horns. These raised a most unearthly bleating about his ears. One, which seemed to be the king, had a voice that sounded above the din as the castle bells of Carmarthen used to do long ago above all the other bells in the town. This one rushed at Cadwaladr and butting him in the stomach sent him toppling over a crag as he had sent his poor nannygoat. When he came to himself, after his fall, the morning sun was shining on him and the birds were singing over his head. But he saw no more of either his goat or the fairy she had turned into, from that time to his death. CHAPTER V. Changelings--The Plentyn-newid--The Cruel Creed of Ignorance regarding Changelings--Modes of Ridding the House of the Fairy Child--The Legend of the Frugal Meal--Legend of the Place of Strife--Dewi Dal and the Fairies--Prevention of Fairy Kidnapping--Fairies caught in the Act by Mothers--Piety as an Exorcism. I. The Tylwyth Teg have a fatal admiration for lovely children. Hence the abundant folk-lore concerning infants who have been stolen from their cradles, and a plentyn-newid (change-child--the equivalent of our changeling) left in its place by the Tylwyth Teg. The plentyn-newid has the exact appearance of the stolen infant, at first; but its aspect speedily alters. It grows ugly of face, shrivelled of form, ill-tempered, wailing, and generally frightful. It bites and strikes, and becomes a terror to the poor mother. Sometimes it is idiotic; but again it has a supernatural cunning, not only impossible in a mortal babe, but not even appertaining to the oldest heads, on other than fairy shoulders. The veracious Prophet Jones testifies to a case where he himself saw the plentyn-newid--an idiot left in the stead of a son of Edmund John William, of the Church Valley, Monmouthshire. Says Jones: 'I saw him myself. There was something diabolical in his aspect,' but especially in his motions. He 'made very disagreeable screaming sounds,' which used to frighten strangers greatly, but otherwise he was harmless. He was of a 'dark, tawny complexion.' He lived longer than such children usually lived in Wales in that day, (a not altogether pleasant intimation regarding the hard lot to which such children were subjected by their unwilling parents,) reaching the age of ten or twelve years. But the creed of ignorance everywhere as regards changelings is a very cruel one, and reminds us of the tests of the witchcraft trials. Under the pretence of proving whether the objectionable baby is a changeling or not, it is held on a shovel over the fire, or it is bathed in a solution of the fox-glove, which kills it; a case where this test was applied is said to have actually occurred in Carnarvonshire in 1857. That there is nothing specially Welsh in this, needs not to be pointed out. Apart from the fact that infanticide, like murder, is of no country, similar practices as to changelings have prevailed in most European lands, either to test the child's uncanny quality, or, that being admitted, to drive it away and thus compel the fairies to restore the missing infant. In Denmark the mother heats the oven, and places the changeling on the peel, pretending to put it in; or whips it severely with a rod; or throws it into the water. In Sweden they employ similar methods. In Ireland the hot shovel is used. With regard to a changeling which Martin Luther tells of in his 'Colloquia Mensalia,' the great reformer declared to the Prince of Anhalt, that if he were prince of that country he would 'venture _homicidium_ thereon, and would throw it into the River Moldaw.' He admonished the people to pray devoutly to God to take away the devil, which 'was done accordingly; and the second year after the changeling died.' It is hardly probable that the child was very well fed during the two years that this pious process was going on. Its starved ravenous appetite indeed is indicated in Luther's description: It 'would eat as much as two threshers, would laugh and be joyful when any evil happened in the house, but would cry and be very sad when all went well.' II. A story, told in various forms in Wales, preserves a tradition of an exceedingly frugal meal which was employed as a means of banishing a plentyn-newid. M. Villemarqué, when in Glamorganshire, heard this story, which he found to be precisely the same as a Breton legend, in which the changeling utters a rhymed triad as follows: Gweliz vi ken guelet iar wenn, Gweliz mez ken gwelet gwezen. Gweliz mez ha gweliz gwial, Gweliz derven e Koat Brezal, Biskoaz na weliz kemend all. In the Glamorgan story the changeling was heard muttering to himself in a cracked voice: 'I have seen the acorn before I saw the oak: I have seen the egg before I saw the white hen: I have never seen the like of this.' M. Villemarqué found it remarkable that these words form in Welsh a rhymed triad nearly the same as in the Breton ballad, thus: Gweliz mez ken gwelet derven, Gweliz vi ken gwelet iar wenn, Erioez ne wiliz evelhenn.[34] Whence he concluded that the story and the rhyme are older than the seventh century, the epoch of the separation of the Britons of Wales and Armorica. And this is the story: A mother whose child had been stolen, and a changeling left in its place, was advised by the Virgin Mary to prepare a meal for ten farm-servants in an egg-shell, which would make the changeling speak. This she did, and the changeling asked what she was about. She told him. Whereupon he exclaimed, 'A meal for ten, dear mother, in one egg-shell?' Then he uttered the exclamation given above, ('I have seen the acorn,' etc.,) and the mother replied, 'You have seen too many things, my son, you shall have a beating.' With this she fell to beating him, the child fell to bawling, and the fairy came and took him away, leaving the stolen child sleeping sweetly in the cradle. It awoke and said, 'Ah, mother, I have been a long time asleep!' FOOTNOTE: [34] Keightley, 'Fairy Mythology,' 437. III. I have encountered this tale frequently among the Welsh, and it always keeps in the main the likeness of M. Villemarqué's story. The following is a nearly literal version as related in Radnorshire (an adjoining county to Montgomeryshire), and which, like most of these tales, is characterised by the non-primitive tendency to give names of localities: 'In the parish of Trefeglwys, near Llanidloes, in the county of Montgomery, there is a little shepherd's cot that is commonly called the Place of Strife, on account of the extraordinary strife that has been there. The inhabitants of the cottage were a man and his wife, and they had born to them twins, whom the woman nursed with great care and tenderness. Some months after, indispensable business called the wife to the house of one of her nearest neighbours, yet notwithstanding that she had not far to go, she did not like to leave her children by themselves in their cradle, even for a minute, as her house was solitary, and there were many tales of goblins, or the Tylwyth Teg, haunting the neighbourhood. However, she went and returned as soon as she could;' but on her way back she was 'not a little terrified at seeing, though it was midday, some of the old elves of the blue petticoat.' She hastened home in great apprehension; but all was as she had left it, so that her mind was greatly relieved. 'But after some time had passed by, the good people began to wonder that the twins did not grow at all, but still continued little dwarfs. The man would have it that they were not his children; the woman said they must be their children, and about this arose the great strife between them that gave name to the place. One evening when the woman was very heavy of heart, she determined to go and consult a conjuror, feeling assured that everything was known to him.... Now there was to be a harvest soon of the rye and oats, so the wise man said to her, "When you are preparing dinner for the reapers, empty the shell of a hen's egg, and boil the shell full of pottage, and take it out through the door as if you meant it for a dinner to the reapers, and then listen what the twins will say; if you hear the children speaking things above the understanding of children, return into the house, take them and throw them into the waves of Llyn Ebyr, which is very near to you; but if you don't hear anything remarkable do them no injury." And when the day of the reaping came, the woman did as her adviser had recommended to her; and as she went outside the door to listen she heard one of the children say to the other: Gwelais fesen cyn gweled derwen; Gwelais wy cyn gweled iâr; Erioed ni welais ferwi bwyd i fedel Mewn plisgyn wy iâr! Acorns before oak I knew; An egg before a hen; Never one hen's egg-shell stew Enough for harvest men! 'On this the mother returned to her house and took the two children and threw them into the Llyn; and suddenly the goblins in their blue trousers came to save their dwarfs, and the mother had her own children back again; and thus the strife between her and her husband ended.'[35] FOOTNOTE: [35] 'Cambrian Quarterly,' ii., 86. IV. This class of story is not always confined to the case of the plentyn-newid, as I have said. It is applied to the household fairy, when the latter, as in the following instance, appears to have brought a number of extremely noisy friends and acquaintances to share his shelter. Dewi Dal was a farmer, whose house was over-run with fairies, so that he could not sleep of nights for the noise they made. Dewi consulted a wise man of Taiar, who entrusted Dewi's wife to do certain things, which she did carefully, as follows: 'It was the commencement of oat harvest, when Cae Mawr, or the big field, which it took fifteen men to mow in a day, was ripe for the harvesters. "I will prepare food for the fifteen men who are going to mow Cae Mawr to-morrow," said Eurwallt, the wife, aloud. "Yes, do," replied Dewi, also aloud, so that the fairies might hear, "and see that the food is substantial and sufficient for the hard work before them." Said Eurwallt, "The fifteen men shall have no reason to complain upon that score. They shall be fed according to our means." Then when evening was come Eurwallt prepared food for the harvesters' sustenance upon the following day. Having procured a sparrow, she trussed it like a fowl, and roasted it by the kitchen fire. She then placed some salt in a nut-shell, and set the sparrow and the salt, with a small piece of bread, upon the table, ready for the fifteen men's support while mowing Cae Mawr. So when the fairies beheld the scanty provision made for so many men, they said "Let us quickly depart from this place, for alas! the means of our hosts are exhausted. Who before this was ever so reduced in circumstances as to serve up a sparrow for the day's food of fifteen men?" So they departed upon that very night. And Dewi Dal and his family lived, ever afterwards, in comfort and peace.'[36] FOOTNOTE: [36] Rev. T. R. Lloyd (Estyn), in 'The Principality.' V. The Welsh fairies have several times been detected in the act of carrying off a child; and in these cases, if the mother has been sufficiently energetic in her objections, they have been forced to abandon their purpose. Dazzy Walter, the wife of Abel Walter, of Ebwy Fawr, one night in her husband's absence awoke in her bed and found her baby was not at her side. In great fright she sought for it, and caught it with her hand upon the boards above the bed, which was as far as the fairies had succeeded in carrying it. And Jennet Francis, of that same valley of Ebwy Fawr, one night in bed felt her infant son being taken from her arms; whereupon she screamed and hung on, and, as she phrased it, 'God and me were too hard for them.' This son subsequently grew up and became a famous preacher of the gospel. [Illustration: JENNET FRANCIS STRUGGLES WITH THE FAIRIES FOR HER BABY.] There are special exorcisms and preventive measures to interfere with the fairies in their quest of infants. The most significant of these, throughout Cambria, is a general habit of piety. Any pious exclamation has value as an exorcism; but it will not serve as a preventive. To this end you must put a knife in the child's cradle when you leave it alone, or you must lay a pair of tongs across the cradle. But the best preventive is baptism; it is usually the unbaptised infant that is stolen. So in Friesland, Germany, it is considered a protection against the fairies who deal in changelings, to lay a Bible under the child's pillow. In Thuringia it is deemed an infallible preventive to hang the father's breeches against the wall. Anything more trivial than this, as a matter for the consideration of grave and scholarly men, one could hardly imagine; but it is in precisely these trivial or seemingly trivial details that the student of comparative folk-lore finds his most extraordinary indices. Such a superstition in isolation would suggest nothing; but it is found again in Scotland,[37] and other countries, including China, where 'a pair of the trousers of the child's father are put on the frame of the bedstead in such a way that the waist shall hang downward or be lower than the legs. On the trousers is stuck a piece of red paper, having four words written upon it intimating that all unfavourable influences are to go into the trousers instead of afflicting the babe.'[38] FOOTNOTES: [37] Henderson, 'Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,' 6. [38] See Doolittle's 'Social Life of the Chinese.' CHAPTER VI. Living with the Tylwyth Teg--The Tale of Elidurus--Shuï Rhys and the Fairies--St. Dogmell's Parish, Pembrokeshire--Dancing with the Ellyllon--The Legend of Rhys and Llewellyn--Death from joining in the Fairy Reel--Legend of the Bush of Heaven--The Forest of the Magic Yew--The Tale of Twm and Iago--Taffy ap Sion, a Legend of Pencader--The Traditions of Pant Shon Shenkin--Tudur of Llangollen; the Legend of Nant yr Ellyllon--Polly Williams and the Trefethin Elves--The Fairies of Frennifawr--Curiosity Tales--The Fiend Master--Iago ap Dewi--The Original of Rip van Winkle. I. Closely akin to the subject of changelings is that of adults or well-grown children being led away to live with the Tylwyth Teg. In this field the Welsh traditions are innumerable, and deal not only with the last century or two, but distinctly with the middle ages. Famed among British goblins are those fairies which are immortalised in the Tale of Elidurus. This tale was written in Latin by Giraldus Cambrensis (as he called himself, after the pedantic fashion of his day), a Welshman, born at Pembroke Castle, and a hearty admirer of everything Welsh, himself included. He was beyond doubt a man of genius, and of profound learning. In 1188 he made a tour through Wales, in the interest of the crusade then in contemplation, and afterwards wrote his book--a fascinating picture of manners and customs in Wales in the twelfth century. The scene of the tale is that Vale of Neath, already named as a famous centre of fairyland. Elidurus, when a youth of twelve years, 'in order to avoid the severity of his preceptor,' ran away from school, 'and concealed himself under the hollow bank of a river.' After he had fasted in that situation for two days, 'two little men of pigmy stature appeared to him,' and said, 'If you will go with us, we will lead you into a country full of delights and sports.' Assenting, Elidurus rose up and 'followed his guides through a path at first subterraneous and dark, into a most beautiful country, but obscure and not illuminated with the full light of the sun.' All the days in that country 'were cloudy, and the nights extremely dark.' The boy was brought before the king of the strange little people, and introduced to him in the presence of his Court. Having examined Elidurus for a long time, the king delivered him to his son, that prince being then a boy. The men of this country, though of the smallest stature, were very well proportioned, fair-complexioned, and wore long hair. 'They had horses and greyhounds adapted to their size. They neither ate flesh nor fish, but lived on milk-diet, made up into messes with saffron. As often as they returned from our hemisphere, they reprobated our ambition, infidelities, and inconstancies; and though they had no form of public worship, were, it seems, strict lovers and reverers of truth. The boy frequently returned to our hemisphere, sometimes by the way he had gone, sometimes by others; at first in company, and afterwards alone; and made himself known only to his mother, to whom he described what he had seen. Being desired by her to bring her a present of gold, with which that country abounded, he stole, whilst at play with the king's son, a golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it in haste to his mother, but not unpursued; for, as he entered the house of his father, he stumbled at the threshold;' the ball fell, 'and two pigmies seizing it, departed, showing the boy every mark of contempt and derision. Notwithstanding every attempt for the space of a year, he never again could find the track to the subterraneous passage.' He had made himself acquainted with the language of his late hosts, 'which was very conformable to the Greek idiom. When they asked for water, they said _Udor udorum_; when they want salt, they say _Halgein udorum_.'[39] FOOTNOTE: [39] See Sir R. C. Hoare's Translation of Giraldus. II. Exactly similar to this medieval legend in spirit, although differing widely in detail, is the modern story of Shuï Rhys, told to me by a peasant in Cardiganshire. Shuï was a beautiful girl of seventeen, tall and fair, with a skin like ivory, hair black and curling, and eyes of dark velvet. She was but a poor farmer's daughter, notwithstanding her beauty, and among her duties was that of driving up the cows for the milking. Over this work she used to loiter sadly, to pick flowers by the way, or chase the butterflies, or amuse herself in any agreeable manner that fortune offered. For her loitering she was often chided; indeed, people said Shuï's mother was far too sharp with the girl, and that it was for no good the mother had so bitter a tongue. After all the girl meant no harm, they said. But when one night Shuï never came home till bed-time, leaving the cows to care for themselves, dame Rhys took the girl to task as she never had done before. 'Ysgwaetheroedd, mami,' said Shuï, 'I couldn't help it; it was the Tylwyth Teg.' The dame was aghast at this, but she could not answer it--for well she knew the Tylwyth Teg were often seen in the woods of Cardigan. Shuï was at first shy about talking of the fairies, but finally confessed they were little men in green coats, who danced around her and made music on their tiny harps; and they talked to her in language too beautiful to be repeated; indeed she couldn't understand the words, though she knew well enough what the fairies meant. Many a time after that Shuï was late; but now nobody chided her, for fear of offending the fairies. At last one night Shuï did not come home at all. In alarm the woods were searched; there was no sign of her; and never was she seen in Cardigan again. Her mother watched in the fields on the Teir-nos Ysprydion, or three nights of the year when goblins are sure to be abroad; but Shuï never returned. Once indeed there came back to the neighbourhood a wild rumour that Shuï Rhys had been seen in a great city in a foreign land--Paris, perhaps, or London, who knows? but this tale was in no way injurious to the sad belief that the fairies had carried her off; they might take her to those well-known centres of idle and sinful pleasure, as well as to any other place. [Illustration: SHUÏ RHYS AND THE TYLWYTH TEG.] III. An old man who died in St. Dogmell's parish, Pembrokeshire, a short time since (viz., in 1860), nearly a hundred years old, used to say that that whole neighbourhood was considered 'fou.' It was a common experience for men to be led astray there all night, and after marvellous adventures and untellable trampings, which seemed as if they would be endless, to find when day broke that they were close to their own homes. In one case, a man who was led astray chanced to have with him a number of hoop-rods, and as he wandered about under the influence of the deluding phantom, he was clever enough to drop the rods one by one, so that next day he might trace his journeyings. When daylight came, and the search for the hoop-rods was entered on, it was found they were scattered over miles upon miles of country. Another time, a St. Dogmell's fisherman was returning home from a wedding at Moelgrove, and it being very dark, the fairies led him astray, but after a few hours he had the good luck (which Sir John Franklin might have envied him) to 'discover the North Pole,' and by this beacon he was able to steer his staggering barque to the safe port of his own threshold. It is even gravely stated that a severe and dignified clerical person, no longer in the frisky time of life, but advanced in years, was one night forced to join in the magic dance of St. Dogmell's, and keep it up till nearly daybreak. Specific details in this instance are wanting; but it was no doubt the Ellyllon who led all these folk astray, and put a cap of oblivion on their heads, which prevented them from ever telling their adventures clearly. IV. Dancing and music play a highly important part in stories of this class. The Welsh fairies are most often dancing together when seen. They seek to entice mortals to dance with them, and when anyone is drawn to do so, it is more than probable he will not return to his friends for a long time. Edmund William Rees, of Aberystruth, was thus drawn away by the fairies, and came back at the year's end, looking very bad. But he could not give a very clear account of what he had been about, only said he had been dancing. This was a common thing in these cases. Either they were not able to, or they dared not, talk about their experiences. Two farm servants named Rhys and Llewellyn were one evening at twilight returning home from their work, when Rhys cried out that he heard the fairy music. Llewellyn could hear nothing, but Rhys said it was a tune to which he had danced a hundred times, and would again, and at once. 'Go on,' says he, 'and I'll soon catch you up again.' Llewellyn objected, but Rhys stopped to hear no more; he bounded away and left Llewellyn to go home alone, which he did, believing Rhys had merely gone off on a spree, and would come home drunk before morning. But the morning came, and no Rhys. In vain search was made, still no Rhys. Time passed on; days grew into months; and at last suspicion fell on Llewellyn, that he had murdered Rhys. He was put in prison. A farmer learned in fairy-lore, suspecting how it was, proposed that he and a company of neighbours should go with poor Llewellyn to the spot where he had last seen Rhys. Agreed. Arrived at the spot, 'Hush,' cried Llewellyn, 'I hear music! I hear the sweet music of the harps!' They all listened, but could hear nothing. 'Put your foot on mine, David,' says Llewellyn to one of the company; his own foot was on the outward edge of a fairy ring as he spoke. David put his foot on Llewellyn's, and so did they all, one after another; and then they heard the sound of many harps, and saw within a circle about twenty feet across, great numbers of little people dancing round and round. And there was Rhys, dancing away like a madman! As he came whirling by, Llewellyn caught him by his smock-frock and pulled him out of the circle. 'Where are the horses? where are the horses?' cried Rhys in an excited manner. 'Horses, indeed!' sneered Llewellyn, in great disgust; 'wfft! go home. Horses!' But Rhys was for dancing longer, declaring he had not been there five minutes. 'You've been there,' says Llewellyn, 'long enough to come near getting me hanged, anyhow.' They got him home finally, but he was never the same man again, and soon after he died. V. In the great majority of these stories the hero dies immediately after his release from the thraldom of the fairies--in some cases with a suddenness and a completeness of obliteration as appalling as dramatic. The following story, well known in Carmarthenshire, presents this detail with much force: There was a certain farmer who, while going early one morning to fetch his horses from the pasture, heard harps playing. Looking carefully about for the source of this music, he presently saw a company of Tylwyth Teg footing it merrily in a corelw. Resolving to join their dance and cultivate their acquaintance, the farmer stepped into the fairy ring. Never had man his resolution more thoroughly carried out, for having once begun the reel he was not allowed to finish it till years had elapsed. Even then he might not have been released, had it not chanced that a man one day passed by the lonely spot, so close to the ring that he saw the farmer dancing. 'Duw catto ni!' cried the man, 'God save us! but this is a merry one. Hai, holo! man, what, in Heaven's name, makes you so lively?' This question, in which the name of Heaven was uttered, broke the spell which rested on the farmer, who spoke like one in a dream: 'O dyn!' cried he, 'what's become of the horses?' Then he stepped from the fairy circle and instantly crumbled away and mingled his dust with the earth. A similar tale is told in Carnarvon, but with the fairy dance omitted and a pious character substituted, which helps to indicate the antiquity of this class of legend, by showing that it was one of the monkish adoptions of an earlier story. Near Clynog, in Carnarvonshire, there is a place called Llwyn y Nef, (the Bush of Heaven,) which thus received its name: In Clynog lived a monk of most devout life, who longed to be taken to heaven. One evening, whilst walking without the monastery by the riverside, he sat down under a green tree and fell into a deep reverie, which ended in sleep; and he slept for thousands of years. At last he heard a voice calling unto him, 'Sleeper, awake and be up.' He awoke. All was strange to him except the old monastery, which still looked down upon the river. He went to the monastery, and was made much of. He asked for a bed to rest himself on and got it. Next morning when the brethren sought him, they found nothing in the bed but a handful of ashes.[40] So in the monkish tale of the five saints, who sleep in the cave of Caio, reappears the legend of Arthur's sleeping warriors under Craig-y-Ddinas. FOOTNOTE: [40] 'Cymru Fu,' 188. VI. [Illustration: PLUCKED FROM THE FAIRY CIRCLE.] A tradition is current in Mathavarn, in the parish of Llanwrin, and the Cantref of Cyfeillioc, concerning a certain wood called Ffridd yr Ywen, (the Forest of the Yew,) that it is so called on account of a magical yew-tree which grows exactly in the middle of the forest. Under that tree there is a fairy circle called The Dancing Place of the Goblin. There are several fairy circles in the Forest of the Yew, but the one under the yew-tree in the middle has this legend connected with it: Many years ago, two farm-servants, whose names were Twm and Iago, went out one day to work in the Forest of the Yew. Early in the afternoon the country became covered with so dense a mist that the youths thought the sun was setting, and they prepared to go home; but when they came to the yew-tree in the middle of the forest, suddenly they found all light around them. They now thought it too early to go home, and concluded to lie down under the yew-tree and have a nap. By-and-by Twm awoke, to find his companion gone. He was much surprised at this, but concluded Iago had gone to the village on an errand of which they had been speaking before they fell asleep. So Twm went home, and to all inquiries concerning Iago, he answered, 'Gone to the cobbler's in the village.' But Iago was still absent next morning, and now Twm was cross-questioned severely as to what had become of his fellow-servant. Then he confessed that they had fallen asleep under the yew where the fairy circle was, and from that moment he had seen nothing more of Iago. They searched the whole forest over, and the whole country round, for many days, and finally Twm went to a gwr cyfarwydd (or conjuror), a common trade in those days, says the legend. The conjuror gave him this advice: 'Go to the same place where you and the lad slept. Go there exactly a year after the boy was lost. Let it be on the same day of the year and at the same time of the day; but take care that you do not step inside the fairy ring. Stand on the border of the green circle you saw there, and the boy will come out with many of the goblins to dance. When you see him so near to you that you may take hold of him, snatch him out of the ring as quickly as you can.' These instructions were obeyed. Iago appeared, dancing in the ring with the Tylwyth Teg, and was promptly plucked forth. 'Duw! Duw!' cried Tom, 'how wan and pale you look! And don't you feel hungry too?' 'No,' said the boy, 'and if I did, have I not here in my wallet the remains of my dinner that I had before I fell asleep?' But when he looked in his wallet, the food was not there. 'Well, it must be time to go home,' he said, with a sigh; for he did not know that a year had passed by. His look was like a skeleton, and as soon as he had tasted food, he mouldered away. VII. Taffy ap Sion, the shoemaker's son, living near Pencader, Carmarthenshire, was a lad who many years ago entered the fairy circle on the mountain hard by there, and having danced a few minutes, as he supposed, chanced to step out. He was then astonished to find that the scene which had been so familiar was now quite strange to him. Here were roads and houses he had never seen, and in place of his father's humble cottage there now stood a fine stone farm-house. About him were lovely cultivated fields instead of the barren mountain he was accustomed to. 'Ah,' thought he, 'this is some fairy trick to deceive my eyes. It is not ten minutes since I stepped into that circle, and now when I step out they have built my father a new house! Well, I only hope it is real; anyhow, I'll go and see.' So he started off by a path he knew instinctively, and suddenly struck against a very solid hedge. He rubbed his eyes, felt the hedge with his fingers, scratched his head, felt the hedge again, ran a thorn into his fingers and cried out, 'Wbwb! this is no fairy hedge anyhow, nor, from the age of the thorns, was it grown in a few minutes' time.' So he climbed over it and walked on. 'Here was I born,' said he, as he entered the farmyard, staring wildly about him, 'and not a thing here do I know!' His mystification was complete when there came bounding towards him a huge dog, barking furiously. 'What dog is this? Get out, you ugly brute! Don't you know I'm master here?--at least, when mother's from home, for father don't count.' But the dog only barked the harder. 'Surely,' muttered Taffy to himself, 'I have lost my road and am wandering through some unknown neighbourhood; but no, yonder is the Careg Hir!' and he stood staring at the well-known erect stone thus called, which still stands on the mountain south of Pencader, and is supposed to have been placed there in ancient times to commemorate a victory. As Taffy stood thus looking at the Long Stone, he heard footsteps behind him, and turning, beheld the occupant of the farm-house, who had come out to see why his dog was barking. Poor Taffy was so ragged and wan that the farmer's Welsh heart was at once stirred to sympathy. 'Who are you, poor man?' he asked. To which Taffy answered, 'I know who I was, but I do not know who I _am now_. I was the son of a shoemaker who lived in this place, this morning; for that rock, though it is changed a little, I know too well.' 'Poor fellow,' said the farmer, 'you have lost your senses. This house was built by my great-grandfather, repaired by my grandfather; and that part there, which seems newly built, was done about three years ago at my expense. You must be deranged, or have missed the road; but come in and refresh yourself with some victuals, and rest.' Taffy was half persuaded that he had overslept himself and lost his road, but looking back he saw the rock before mentioned, and exclaimed, 'It is but an hour since I was on yonder rock robbing a hawk's nest.' 'Where have you been since?' Taffy related his adventure. 'Ah,' quoth the farmer, 'I see how it is--you have been with the fairies. Pray, who was your father?' 'Sion Evan y Crydd o Glanrhyd,' was the answer. 'I never heard of such a man,' said the farmer, shaking his head, 'nor of such a place as Glanrhyd, either: but no matter, after you have taken a little food we will step down to Catti Shon, at Pencader, who will probably be able to tell us something.' With this he beckoned Taffy to follow him, and walked on; but hearing behind him the sound of footsteps growing weaker and weaker, he turned round, when to his horror he beheld the poor fellow crumble in an instant to about a thimbleful of black ashes. The farmer, though much terrified at this sight, preserved his calmness sufficiently to go at once and see old Catti, the aged crone he had referred to, who lived at Pencader, near by. He found her crouching over a fire of faggots, trying to warm her old bones. 'And how do you do the day, Catti Shon?' asked the farmer. 'Ah,' said old Catti, 'I'm wonderful well, farmer, considering how old I am.' 'Yes, yes, you're very old. Now, since you are so old, let me ask you--do you remember anything about Sion y Crydd o Glanrhyd? Was there ever such a man, do you know?' 'Sion Glanrhyd? O! I have some faint recollection of hearing my grandfather, old Evan Shenkin, Penferdir, relate that Sion's son was lost one morning, and they never heard of him afterwards, so that it was said he was taken by the fairies. His father's cot stood somewhere near your house.' 'Were there many fairies about at that time?' asked the farmer. 'O yes; they were often seen on yonder hill, and I was told they were lately seen in Pant Shon Shenkin, eating flummery out of egg-shells, which they had stolen from a farm hard by.' 'Dir anwyl fi!' cried the farmer; 'dear me! I recollect now--I saw them myself!' Pant Shon[41] Shenkin, it must be here remarked, was a famous place for the Carmarthenshire fairies. The traditions thereabout respecting them are numerous. Among the strangest is, that a woman once actually caught a fairy on the mountain near Pant Shon Shenkin, and that it remained long in her custody, retaining still the same height and size, but at last made its escape. Another curious tradition relates that early one Easter Monday, when the parishioners of Pencarreg and Caio were met to play at football, they saw a numerous company of Tylwyth Teg dancing. Being so many in number, the young men were not intimidated at all, but proceeded in a body towards the puny tribe, who, perceiving them, removed to another place. The young men followed, whereupon the little folks suddenly appeared dancing at the first place. Seeing this, the men divided and surrounded them, when they immediately became invisible, and were never more seen there. FOOTNOTE: [41] Sion and Shon are the same word, just as are our Smith and Smyth. Where there are so few personal names as in Wales, while I would not myself change a single letter in order to render the actors in a tale more distinct, it is perhaps as well to encourage any eccentricities of spelling which we are so lucky as to find on the spot. VIII. Ignorance of what transpired in the fairy circle is not an invariable feature of legends like those we have been observing. In the story of Tudur of Llangollen, preserved by several old Welsh writers, the hero's experiences are given with much liveliness of detail. The scene of this tale is a hollow near Llangollen, on the mountain side half-way up to the ruins of Dinas Bran Castle, which hollow is to this day called Nant yr Ellyllon. It obtained its name, according to tradition, in this wise: A young man, called Tudur ap Einion Gloff, used in old times to pasture his master's sheep in that hollow. One summer's night, when Tudur was preparing to return to the lowlands with his woolly charge, there suddenly appeared, perched upon a stone near him, 'a little man in moss breeches with a fiddle under his arm. He was the tiniest wee specimen of humanity imaginable. His coat was made of birch leaves, and he wore upon his head a helmet which consisted of a gorse flower, while his feet were encased in pumps made of beetle's wings. He ran his fingers over his instrument, and the music made Tudur's hair stand on end. "Nos da'ch', nos da'ch'," said the little man, which means "Good-night, good-night to you," in English. "Ac i chwithau," replied Tudur; which again, in English, means "The same to you." Then continued the little man, "You are fond of dancing, Tudur; and if you but tarry awhile you shall behold some of the best dancers in Wales, and I am the musician." Quoth Tudur, "Then where is your harp? A Welshman even cannot dance without a harp." "Oh," said the little man, "I can discourse better dance music upon my fiddle." "Is it a fiddle you call that stringed wooden spoon in your hand?" asked Tudur, for he had never seen such an instrument before. And now Tudur beheld through the dusk hundreds of pretty little sprites converging towards the spot where they stood, from all parts of the mountain. Some were dressed in white, and some in blue, and some in pink, and some carried glow-worms in their hands for torches. And so lightly did they tread that not a blade nor a flower was crushed beneath their weight, and every one made a curtsey or a bow to Tudur as they passed, and Tudur doffed his cap and moved to them in return. Presently the little minstrel drew his bow across the strings of his instrument, and the music produced was so enchanting that Tudur stood transfixed to the spot.' At the sound of the sweet melody, the Tylwyth Teg ranged themselves in groups, and began to dance. Now of all the dancing Tudur had ever seen, none was to be compared to that he saw at this moment going on. He could not help keeping time with his hands and feet to the merry music, but he dared not join in the dance, 'for he thought within himself that to dance on a mountain at night in strange company, to perhaps the devil's fiddle, might not be the most direct route to heaven.' But at last he found there was no resisting this bewitching strain, joined to the sight of the capering Ellyllon. '"Now for it, then," screamed Tudur, as he pitched his cap into the air under the excitement of delight. "Play away, old devil; brimstone and water, if you like!" No sooner were the words uttered than everything underwent a change. The gorse-blossom cap vanished from the minstrel's head, and a pair of goat's horns branched out instead. His face turned as black as soot; a long tail grew out of his leafy coat, while cloven feet replaced the beetle-wing pumps. Tudur's heart was heavy, but his heels were light. Horror was in his bosom, but the impetus of motion was in his feet. The fairies changed into a variety of forms. Some became goats, and some became dogs, some assumed the shape of foxes, and others that of cats. It was the strangest crew that ever surrounded a human being. The dance became at last so furious that Tudur could not distinctly make out the forms of the dancers. They reeled around him with such rapidity that they almost resembled a wheel of fire. Still Tudur danced on. He could not stop, the devil's fiddle was too much for him, as the figure with the goat's horns kept pouring it out with unceasing vigour, and Tudur kept reeling around in spite of himself. Next day Tudur's master ascended the mountain in search of the lost shepherd and his sheep. He found the sheep all right at the foot of the Fron, but fancy his astonishment when, ascending higher, he saw Tudur spinning like mad in the middle of the basin now known as Nant yr Ellyllon.' Some pious words of the master broke the charm, and restored Tudur to his home in Llangollen, where he told his adventures with great gusto for many years afterwards.[42] FOOTNOTE: [42] Rev. T. R. Lloyd (Estyn), in 'The Principality.' IX. Polly Williams, a good dame who was born in Trefethin parish, and lived at the Ship Inn, at Pontypool, Monmouthshire, was wont to relate that, when a child, she danced with the Tylwyth Teg. The first time was one day while coming home from school. She saw the fairies dancing in a pleasant, dry place, under a crab-tree, and, thinking they were children like herself, went to them, when they induced her to dance with them. She brought them into an empty barn and they danced there together. After that, during three or four years, she often met and danced with them, when going to or coming from school. She never could hear the sound of their feet, and having come to know that they were fairies, took off her ffollachau (clogs), so that she, too, might make no noise, fearful that the clattering of her clog-shodden feet was displeasing to them. They were all dressed in blue and green aprons, and, though they were so small, she could see by their mature faces that they were no children. Once when she came home barefoot, after dancing with the fairies, she was chided for going to school in that condition; but she held her tongue about the fairies, for fear of trouble, and never told of them till after she grew up. She gave over going with them to dance, however, after three or four years, and this displeased them. They tried to coax her back to them, and, as she would not come, hurt her by dislocating 'one of her walking members,'[43] which, as a euphemism for legs, surpasses anything charged against American prudery. FOOTNOTE: [43] Jones, 'Apparitions.' X. Contrasting strongly with this matter-of-fact account of a modern witness is the glowing description of fairy life contained in the legend of the Fairies of Frennifawr. About ten miles south of Cardigan is the Pembrokeshire mountain called Frennifawr, which is the scene of this tale: A shepherd's lad was tending his sheep on the small mountains called Frennifach one fine morning in June. Looking to the top of Frennifawr to note what way the fog hung--for if the fog on that mountain hangs on the Pembrokeshire side, there will be fair weather, if on the Cardigan side, storm--he saw the Tylwyth Teg, in appearance like tiny soldiers, dancing in a ring. He set out for the scene of revelry, and soon drew near the ring where, in a gay company of males and females, they were footing it to the music of the harp. Never had he seen such handsome people, nor any so enchantingly cheerful. They beckoned him with laughing faces to join them as they leaned backward almost falling, whirling round and round with joined hands. Those who were dancing never swerved from the perfect circle; but some were clambering over the old cromlech, and others chasing each other with surprising swiftness and the greatest glee. Still others rode about on small white horses of the most beautiful form; these riders were little ladies, and their dresses were indescribably elegant, surpassing the sun in radiance, and varied in colour, some being of bright whiteness, others the most vivid scarlet. The males wore red tripled caps, and the ladies a light fantastic headdress which waved in the wind. All this was in silence, for the shepherd could not hear the harps, though he saw them. But now he drew nearer to the circle, and finally ventured to put his foot in the magic ring. The instant he did this, his ears were charmed with strains of the most melodious music he had ever heard. Moved with the transports this seductive harmony produced in him, he stepped fully into the ring. He was no sooner in than he found himself in a palace glittering with gold and pearls. Every form of beauty surrounded him, and every variety of pleasure was offered him. He was made free to range whither he would, and his every movement was waited on by young women of the most matchless loveliness. And no tongue can tell the joys of feasting that were his! Instead of the tatws-a-llaeth (potatoes and buttermilk) to which he had hitherto been accustomed, here were birds and meats of every choice description, served on plates of silver. Instead of home-brewed cwrw, the only bacchic beverage he had ever tasted in real life, here were red and yellow wines of wondrous enjoyableness, brought in golden goblets richly inlaid with gems. The waiters were the most beautiful virgins, and everything was in abundance. There was but one restriction on his freedom: he must not drink, on any consideration, from a certain well in the garden, in which swam fishes of every colour, including the colour of gold. Each day new joys were provided for his amusement, new scenes of beauty were unfolded to him, new faces presented themselves, more lovely if possible than those he had before encountered. Everything was done to charm him; but one day all his happiness fled in an instant. Possessing every joy that mortal could desire, he wanted the one thing forbidden--like Eve in the garden, like Fatima in the castle; curiosity undid him. He plunged his hand into the well: the fishes all disappeared instantly. He put the water to his mouth: a confused shriek ran through the garden. He drank: the palace and all vanished from his sight, and he stood shivering in the night air, alone on the mountain, in the very place where he had first entered the ring.[44] [Illustration: THE FATAL DRAUGHT.] FOOTNOTE: [44] 'Cambrian Superstitions,' 148. (This is a small collection of Welsh stories printed at Tipton in 1831, and now rare; its author was W. Howells, a lad of nineteen, and his work was drawn out by a small prize offered by Archdeacon Beynon through a Carmarthen newspaper in 1830. Its English requires rehandling, but its material is of value.) XI. Comment on the resemblances borne by these tales to the more famous legends of other lands, is perhaps unnecessary; they will occur to every reader who is at all familiar with the subject of folk-lore. To those who are not, it is sufficient to say that these resemblances exist, and afford still further testimony to the common origin of such tales in a remote past. The legend last given embodies the curiosity feature which is familiar through the story of Bluebeard, but has its root in the story of Psyche. She was forbidden to look upon her husband Eros, the god of love; she disobeyed the injunction, and the beautiful palace in which she had dwelt with him vanished in an instant, leaving her alone in a desolate spot. Ages older than the Psyche story, however, is the legend embodying the original Aryan myth. The drop of oil which falls upon the shoulder of the sleeping prince and wakes him, revealing Psyche's curiosity and destroying her happiness, is paralleled among the Welsh by the magic ointment in the legend of the Fiend Master. This legend, it may be premised, is also familiar to both France and Germany, where its details differ but little from those here given: A respectable young Welshwoman of the working class, who lived with her parents, went one day to a hiring fair. Here she 'was addressed by a very noble-looking gentleman all in black, who asked her if she would be a nursemaid, and undertake the management of his children. She replied that she had no objection; when he promised her immense wages, and said he would take her home behind him, but that she must, before they started, consent to be blindfolded. This done, she mounted behind him on a coal-black steed, and away they rode at a great rate. At length they dismounted, when her new master took her by the hand and led her on, still blindfolded, for a considerable distance. The handkerchief was then removed, when she beheld more grandeur than she had ever seen before; a beautiful palace lighted up by more lights than she could count, and a number of little children as beautiful as angels; also many noble-looking ladies and gentlemen. The children her master put under her charge, and gave her a box containing ointment, which she was to put on their eyes. At the same time he gave her strict orders always to wash her hands immediately after using the ointment, and be particularly careful never to let a bit of it touch her own eyes. These injunctions she strictly followed, and was for some time very happy; yet she sometimes thought it odd that they should always live by candle-light; and she wondered, too, that grand and beautiful as the palace was, such fine ladies and gentlemen as were there should never wish to leave it. But so it was; no one ever went out but her master. One morning, while putting the ointment on the eyes of the children, her own eye itched, and forgetting the orders of her master she touched one corner of it with her finger which was covered with ointment. Immediately, with the vision of that corner of her eye, she saw herself surrounded by fearful flames; the ladies and gentlemen looked like devils, and the children appeared like the most hideous imps of hell. Though with the other parts of her eyes she beheld all grand and beautiful as before, she could not help feeling much frightened at all this; but having great presence of mind she let no one see her alarm. However, she took the first opportunity of asking her master's leave to go and see her friends. He said he would take her, but she must again consent to be blindfolded. Accordingly a handkerchief was put over her eyes; she was again mounted behind her master, and was soon put down in the neighbourhood of her own house. It will be believed that she remained quietly there, and took good care not to return to her place; but very many years afterwards, being at a fair, she saw a man stealing something from a stall, and with one corner of her eye beheld her old master pushing his elbow. Unthinkingly she said, "How are you master? how are the children?" He said, "How did you see me?" She answered, "With the corner of my left eye." From that moment she was blind of her left eye, and lived many years with only her right.'[45] An older legend preserving this mythical detail is the story of Taliesin. Gwion Bach's eyes are opened by a drop from Caridwen's caldron falling upon his finger, which he puts in his mouth. FOOTNOTE: [45] 'Camb. Sup.,' 349. XII. A Carmarthenshire tradition names among those who lived for a period among the Tylwyth Teg no less a person than the translator into Welsh of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He was called Iago ap Dewi, and lived in the parish of Llanllawddog, Carmarthenshire, in a cottage situated in the wood of Llangwyly. He was absent from the neighbourhood for a long period, and the universal belief among the peasantry was that Iago 'got out of bed one night to gaze on the starry sky, as he was accustomed (astrology being one of his favourite studies), and whilst thus occupied the fairies (who were accustomed to resort in a neighbouring wood), passing by, carried him away, and he dwelt with them seven years. Upon his return he was questioned by many as to where he had been, but always avoided giving them a reply.' XIII. The wide field of interest opened up in tales of this class is a fascinating one to the students of fairy mythology. The whole world seems to be the scene of such tales, and collectors of folk-lore in many lands have laid claim to the discovery of 'the original' on which the story of Rip van Winkle is based. It is an honour to American genius, to which I cannot forbear a passing allusion, that of all these legends, none has achieved so wide a fame as that which Washington Irving has given to our literature, and Joseph Jefferson to our stage. It is more than probable that Irving drew his inspiration from Grimm, and that the Catskills are indebted to the Hartz Mountains of Germany for their romantic fame. But the legends are endless in which occur this unsuspected lapse of time among supernatural beings, and the wandering back to the old home to find all changed. In Greece, it is Epimenides, the poet, who, while searching for a lost sheep, wanders into a cave where he slumbers forty-seven years. The Gaelic and Teutonic legends are well known. But our wonder at the vitality of this myth is greatest when we find it in both China and Japan. In the Japanese account a young man fishing in his boat on the ocean is invited by the goddess of the sea to her home beneath the waves. After three days he desires to see his old mother and father. On parting she gives him a golden casket and a key, but begs him never to open it. At the village where he lived he finds that all is changed, and he can get no trace of his parents until an aged woman recollects having heard of their names. He finds their graves a hundred years old. Thinking that three days could not have made such a change, and that he was under a spell, he opens the casket. A white vapour rises, and under its influence the young man falls to the ground. His hair turns grey, his form loses its youth, and in a few moments he dies of old age. The Chinese legend relates how two friends wandering amongst the ravines of their native mountains in search of herbs for medicinal purposes, come to a fairy bridge where two maidens of more than earthly beauty are on guard. They invite them to the fairy land which lies on the other side of the bridge, and the invitation being accepted, they become enamoured of the maidens, and pass what to them seems a short though blissful period of existence with the fairy folk. At length they desire to revisit their earthly homes and are allowed to return, when they find that seven generations have lived and died during their apparently short absence, they themselves having become centenarians.[46] In China, as elsewhere, the legend takes divers forms. FOOTNOTE: [46] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 98. CHAPTER VII. Fairy Music--Birds of Enchantment--The Legend of Shon ap Shenkin--Harp-Music in Welsh Fairy Tales--Legend of the Magic Harp--Songs and Tunes of the Tylwyth Teg--The Legend of Iolo ap Hugh--Mystic Origin of an old Welsh Air. I. In those rare cases where it is not dancing which holds the victim of Tylwyth Teg in its fatal fascination, the seducer is music. There is a class of stories still common in Wales, in which is preserved a wondrously beautiful survival of the primitive mythology. In the vast middle ground between our own commonplace times and the pre-historic ages we encounter more than once the lovely legend of the Birds of Rhiannon, which sang so sweetly that the warrior knights stood listening entranced for eighty years. This legend appears in the Mabinogi of 'Branwen, daughter of Llyr,' and, as we read it there, is a medieval tale; but the medieval authors of the Mabinogion as we know them were working over old materials--telling again the old tales which had come down through unnumbered centuries from father to son by tradition. Cambrian poets of an earlier age often allude to the birds of Rhiannon; they are mentioned in the Triads. In the Mabinogi, the period the warriors listened is seven years. Seven men only had escaped from a certain battle with the Irish, and they were bidden by their dying chief to cut off his head and bear it to London and bury it with the face towards France. Various were the adventures they encountered while obeying this injunction. At Harlech they stopped to rest, and sat down to eat and drink. 'And there came three birds, and began singing unto them a certain song, and all the songs they had ever heard were unpleasant compared thereto; and the birds seemed to them to be at a great distance from them over the sea, yet they appeared as distinct as if they were close by; and at this repast they continued seven years.'[47] This enchanting fancy reappears in the local story of Shon ap Shenkin, which was related to me by a farmer's wife near the reputed scene of the legend. Pant Shon Shenkin has already been mentioned as a famous centre for Carmarthenshire fairies. The story of Taffy ap Sion and this of Shon ap Shenkin were probably one and the same at some period in their career, although they are now distinct. Shon ap Shenkin was a young man who lived hard by Pant Shon Shenkin. As he was going afield early one fine summer's morning he heard a little bird singing, in a most enchanting strain, on a tree close by his path. Allured by the melody he sat down under the tree until the music ceased, when he arose and looked about him. What was his surprise at observing that the tree, which was green and full of life when he sat down, was now withered and barkless! Filled with astonishment he returned to the farm-house which he had left, as he supposed, a few minutes before; but it also was changed, grown older, and covered with ivy. In the doorway stood an old man whom he had never before seen; he at once asked the old man what he wanted there. 'What do I want here?' ejaculated the old man, reddening angrily; 'that's a pretty question! Who are you that dare to insult me in my own house?' 'In your own house? How is this? where's my father and mother, whom I left here a few minutes since, whilst I have been listening to the charming music under yon tree, which, when I rose, was withered and leafless?' 'Under the tree!--music! what's your name?' 'Shon ap Shenkin.' 'Alas, poor Shon, and is this indeed you!' cried the old man. 'I often heard my grandfather, your father, speak of you, and long did he bewail your absence. Fruitless inquiries were made for you; but old Catti Maddock of Brechfa said you were under the power of the fairies, and would not be released until the last sap of that sycamore tree would be dried up. Embrace me, my dear uncle, for you are my uncle--embrace your nephew.' With this the old man extended his arms, but before the two men could embrace, poor Shon ap Shenkin crumbled into dust on the doorstep. [Illustration: SHON AP SHENKIN RETURNS HOME.] FOOTNOTE: [47] Lady Charlotte Guest's 'Mabinogion,' 381. II. The harp is played by Welsh fairies to an extent unknown in those parts of the world where the harp is less popular among the people. When any instrument is distinctly heard in fairy cymmoedd it is usually the harp. Sometimes it is a fiddle, but then on close examination it will be discovered that it is a captured mortal who is playing it; the Tylwyth Teg prefer the harp. They play the bugle on specially grand occasions, and there is a case or two on record where the drone of the bagpipes was heard; but it is not doubted that the player was some stray fairy from Scotland or elsewhere over the border. On the top of Craig-y-Ddinas thousands of white fairies dance to the music of many harps. In the dingle called Cwm Pergwm, in the Vale of Neath, the Tylwyth Teg make music behind the waterfall, and when they go off over the mountains the sounds of their harps are heard dying away as they recede. The story which presents the Cambrian equivalent of the Magic Flute substitutes a harp for the (to Welshmen) less familiar instrument. As told to me this story runs somewhat thus: A company of fairies which frequented Cader Idris were in the habit of going about from cottage to cottage in that part of Wales, in pursuit of information concerning the degree of benevolence possessed by the cottagers. Those who gave these fairies an ungracious welcome were subject to bad luck during the rest of their lives, but those who were good to the little folk became the recipients of their favour. Old Morgan ap Rhys sat one night in his own chimney corner making himself comfortable with his pipe and his pint of cwrw da. The good ale having melted his soul a trifle, he was in a more jolly mood than was natural to him, when there came a little rap at the door, which reached his ear dully through the smoke of his pipe and the noise of his own voice--for in his merriment Morgan was singing a roystering song, though he could not sing any better than a haw--which is Welsh for a donkey. But Morgan did not take the trouble to get up at sound of the rap; his manners were not the most refined; he thought it was quite enough for a man on hospitable purposes bent to bawl forth in ringing Welsh, 'Gwaed dyn a'i gilydd! Why don't you come in when you've got as far as the door?' The welcome was not very polite, but it was sufficient. The door opened, and three travellers entered, looking worn and weary. Now these were the fairies from Cader Idris, disguised in this manner for purposes of observation, and Morgan never suspected they were other than they appeared. 'Good sir,' said one of the travellers, 'we are worn and weary, but all we seek is a bite of food to put in our wallet, and then we will go on our way.' 'Waw, lads! is that all you want? Well, there, look you, is the loaf and the cheese, and the knife lies by them, and you may cut what you like, and fill your bellies as well as your wallet, for never shall it be said that Morgan ap Rhys denied bread and cheese to a fellow creature.' The travellers proceeded to help themselves, while Morgan continued to drink and smoke, and to sing after his fashion, which was a very rough fashion indeed. As they were about to go, the fairy travellers turned to Morgan and said, 'Since you have been so generous we will show that we are grateful. It is in our power to grant you any one wish you may have; therefore tell us what that wish may be.' 'Ho, ho!' said Morgan, 'is that the case? Ah, I see you are making sport of me. Wela, wela, the wish of my heart is to have a harp that will play under my fingers no matter how ill I strike it; a harp that will play lively tunes, look you; no melancholy music for me!' He had hardly spoken, when to his astonishment, there on the hearth before him stood a splendid harp, and he was alone. 'Waw!' cried Morgan, 'they're gone already.' Then looking behind him he saw they had not taken the bread and cheese they had cut off, after all. ''Twas the fairies, perhaps,' he muttered, but sat serenely quaffing his beer, and staring at the harp. There was a sound of footsteps behind him, and his wife came in from out doors with some friends. Morgan feeling very jolly, thought he would raise a little laughter among them by displaying his want of skill upon the harp. So he commenced to play--oh, what a mad and capering tune it was! 'Waw!' said Morgan, 'but this is a harp. Holo! what ails you all?' For as fast as he played his neighbours danced, every man, woman, and child of them all footing it like mad creatures. Some of them bounded up against the roof of the cottage till their heads cracked again; others spun round and round, knocking over the furniture; and, as Morgan went on thoughtlessly playing, they began to pray to him to stop before they should be jolted to pieces. But Morgan found the scene too amusing to want to stop; besides, he was enamoured of his own suddenly developed skill as a musician; and he twanged the strings and laughed till his sides ached and the tears rolled down his cheeks, at the antics of his friends. Tired out at last he stopped, and the dancers fell exhausted on the floor, the chairs, the tables, declaring the diawl himself was in the harp. 'I know a tune worth two of that,' quoth Morgan, picking up the harp again; but at sight of this motion all the company rushed from the house and escaped, leaving Morgan rolling merrily in his chair. Whenever Morgan got a little tipsy after that, he would get the harp and set everybody round him to dancing; and the consequence was he got a bad name, and no one would go near him. But all their precautions did not prevent the neighbours from being caught now and then, when Morgan took his revenge by making them dance till their legs were broken, or some other damage was done them. Even lame people and invalids were compelled to dance whenever they heard the music of this diabolical telyn. In short, Morgan so abused his fairy gift that one night the good people came and took it away from him, and he never saw it more. The consequence was he became morose, and drank himself to death--a warning to all who accept from the fairies favours they do not deserve. III. The music of the Tylwyth Teg has been variously described by people who claim to have heard it; but as a rule with much vagueness, as of a sweet intangible harmony, recalling the experience of Caliban: The isle is full of noises; Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears.[48] One Morgan Gwilym, who saw the fairies by Cylepsta Waterfall, and heard their music dying away, was only able to recall the last strain, which he said sounded something like this: [Music] Edmund Daniel, of the Arail, 'an honest man and a constant speaker of truth,' told the Prophet Jones that he often saw the fairies after sunset crossing the Cefn Bach from the Valley of the Church towards Hafodafel, leaping and striking in the air, and making a serpentine path through the air, in this form: [Illustration: {WAVY HORIZONTAL LINE.}] The fairies were seen and heard by many persons in that neighbourhood, and sometimes by several persons together. They appeared more often by night than by day, and in the morning and evening more often than about noon. Many heard their music, and said of it that it was low and pleasant; but that it had this peculiarity: no one could ever learn the tune. In more favoured parts of the Principality, the words of the song were distinctly heard, and under the name of the 'Cân y Tylwyth Teg' are preserved as follows: Dowch, dowch, gyfeillion mân, O blith marwolion byd, Dowch, dowch, a dowch yn lân. Partowch partowch eich pibau cân, Gan ddawnsio dowch i gyd, Mae yn hyfryd heno i hwn. One is reluctant to turn into bald English this goblin song, which in its native Welsh is almost as impressive as 'Fi Fo Fum.' Let it suffice that the song is an invitation to the little ones among the dead of earth to come with music and dancing to the delights of the night revel. FOOTNOTE: [48] 'Tempest,' Act III., Sc. 2. IV. In the legend of Iolo ap Hugh, than which no story is more widely known in Wales, the fairy origin of that famous tune 'Ffarwel Ned Pugh' is shown. It is a legend which suggests the Enchanted Flute fancy in another form, the instrument here being a fiddle, and the victim and player one under fairy control. In its introduction of bread and cheese and candles it smacks heartily of the soil. In North Wales there is a famous cave which is said to reach from its entrance on the hillside 'under the Morda, the Ceiriog, and a thousand other streams, under many a league of mountain, marsh and moor, under the almost unfathomable wells that, though now choked up, once supplied Sycharth, the fortress of Glyndwrdwy, all the way to Chirk Castle.' Tradition said that whoever went within five paces of its mouth would be drawn into it and lost. That the peasants dwelling near it had a thorough respect for this tradition, was proved by the fact that all around the dangerous hole 'the grass grew as thick and as rank as in the wilds of America or some unapproached ledge of the Alps.' Both men and animals feared the spot: 'A fox, with a pack of hounds in full cry at his tail,' once turned short round on approaching it, 'with his hair all bristled and fretted like frostwork with terror,' and ran into the middle of the pack, 'as if anything earthly--even an earthly death--was a relief to his supernatural perturbations.' And the dogs in pursuit of this fox all declined to seize him, on account of the phosphoric smell and gleam of his coat. Moreover, 'Elias ap Evan, who happened one fair night to stagger just upon the rim of the forbidden space,' was so frightened at what he saw and heard that he arrived at home perfectly sober, 'the only interval of sobriety, morning, noon, or night, Elias had been afflicted with for upwards of twenty years.' Nor ever after that experience--concerning which he was wont to shake his head solemnly, as if he might tell wondrous tales an' he dared--could Elias get tipsy, drink he never so faithfully to that end. As he himself expressed it, 'His shadow walked steadily before him, that at one time wheeled around him like a pointer over bog and stone.' One misty Hallow E'en, Iolo ap Hugh, the fiddler, determined to solve the mysteries of the Ogof, or Cave, provided himself with 'an immense quantity of bread and cheese and seven pounds of candles,' and ventured in. He never returned; but long, long afterwards, at the twilight of another Hallow E'en, an old shepherd was passing that--as he called it--'Land-Maelstrom of Diaboly,' when he heard a faint burst of melody dancing up and down the rocks above the cave. As he listened, the music gradually 'moulded itself in something like a tune, though it was a tune the shepherd had never heard before.' And it sounded as if it were being played by some jolting fiend, so rugged was its rhythm, so repeated its discordant groans. Now there appeared at the mouth of the Ogof a figure well-known to the shepherd by remembrance. It was dimly visible; but it was Iolo ap Hugh, one could see that at once. He was capering madly to the music of his own fiddle, with a lantern dangling at his breast. 'Suddenly the moon shone full on the cave's yellow mouth, and the shepherd saw poor Iolo for a single moment--but it was distinctly and horribly. His face was pale as marble, and his eyes stared fixedly and deathfully, whilst his head dangled loose and unjointed on his shoulders. His arms seemed to keep his fiddlestick in motion without the least sympathy from their master. The shepherd saw him a moment on the verge of the cave, and then, still capering and fiddling, vanish like a shadow from his sight;' but the old man was heard to say he seemed as if he slipped into the cave in a manner quite different from the step of a living and a willing man; 'he was dragged inwards like the smoke up the chimney, or the mist at sunrise.' Years elapsed; 'all hopes and sorrows connected with poor Iolo had not only passed away, but were nearly forgotten; the old shepherd had long lived in a parish at a considerable distance amongst the hills. One cold December Sunday evening he and his fellow-parishioners were shivering in their seats as the clerk was beginning to light the church, when a strange burst of music, starting suddenly from beneath the aisle, threw the whole congregation into confusion, and then it passed faintly along to the farther end of the church, and died gradually away till at last it was impossible to distinguish it from the wind that was careering and wailing through almost every pillar of the old church.' The shepherd immediately recognised this to be the tune Iolo had played at the mouth of the Ogof. The parson of the parish--a connoisseur in music--took it down from the old man's whistling; and to this day, if you go to the cave on Hallow eve and put your ear to the aperture, you may hear the tune 'Ffarwel Ned Pugh' as distinctly as you may hear the waves roar in a sea-shell. 'And it is said that in certain nights in leap-year a star stands opposite the farther end of the cave, and enables you to view all through it and to see Iolo and its other inmates.'[49] [Music: FFARWEL NED PUGH.] FOOTNOTE: [49] 'Camb. Quarterly,' i., 45. CHAPTER VIII. Fairy Rings--The Prophet Jones and his Works--The Mysterious Language of the Tylwyth Teg--The Horse in Welsh Folk-Lore--Equestrian Fairies--Fairy Cattle, Sheep, Swine, etc.--The Flying Fairies of Bedwellty--The Fairy Sheepfold at Cae'r Cefn. I. The circles in the grass of green fields, which are commonly called fairy rings, are numerous in Wales, and it is deemed just as well to keep out of them, even in our day. The peasantry no longer believe that the fairies can be seen dancing there, nor that the cap of invisibility will fall on the head of one who enters the circle; but they do believe that the fairies, in a time not long gone, made these circles with the tread of their tripping feet, and that some misfortune will probably befall any person intruding upon this forbidden ground. An old man at Peterstone-super-Ely told me he well remembered in his childhood being warned by his mother to keep away from the fairy rings. The counsel thus given him made so deep an impression on his mind, that he had never in his life entered one. He remarked further, in answer to a question, that he had never walked under a ladder, because it was unlucky to walk under a ladder. This class of superstitions is a very large one, and is encountered the world over; and the fairy rings seem to fall into this class, so far as present-day belief in Wales is concerned. II. Allusion has been made in the preceding pages to the Prophet Jones, and as some account of this personage is imperatively called for in a work treating of Welsh folk-lore, I will give it here, before citing his remarks respecting fairy circles. Edmund Jones, 'of the Tranch,' was a dissenting minister, noted in Monmouthshire in the first years of the present century for his fervent piety and his large credulity with regard to fairies and all other goblins. He was for many years pastor of the congregation of Protestant Dissenters at the Ebenezer Chapel, near Pontypool, and lived at a place called 'The Tranch,' near there. He wrote and published two books, one an 'Account of the Parish of Aberystruth,' printed at Trevecca; the other a 'Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales,' printed at Newport; and they have been referred to by most writers on folk-lore who have attempted any account of Welsh superstitions during the past half-century; but the books are extremely rare, and writers who have quoted from them have generally been content to do so at second-hand. Keightley,[50] quoting from the 'Apparitions,' misprints the author's name 'Edward Jones of the Tiarch,' and accredits the publication to 'the latter half of the eighteenth century,' whereas it was published in 1813. Keightley's quotations are taken from Croker, who himself had never seen the book, but heard of it through a Welsh friend. It is not in the library of the British Museum, and I know of but a few copies in Wales; the one I saw is at Swansea. The author of these curious volumes was called the Prophet Jones, because of his gift of prophecy--so a Welshman in Monmouthshire told me. In my informant's words, 'He was noted in his district for foretelling things. He would, for instance, be asked to preach at some anniversary, or quarterly meeting, and he would answer, "I cannot, on that day; the rain will descend in torrents, and there will be no congregation." He would give the last mite he possessed to the needy, and tell his wife, "God will send a messenger with food and raiment at nine o'clock to-morrow." And so it would be.' He was a thorough-going believer in Welsh fairies, and full of indignant scorn toward all who dared question their reality. To him these phantoms were part and parcel of the Christian faith, and those who disbelieved in them were denounced as Sadducees and infidels. FOOTNOTE: [50] 'Fairy Mythology,' 412. III. With regard to the fairy rings, Jones held that the Bible alludes to them, Matt. xii. 43: 'The fairies dance in circles in dry places; and the Scripture saith that the walk of evil spirits is in dry places.' They favour the oak-tree, and the female oak especially, partly because of its more wide-spreading branches and deeper shade, partly because of the 'superstitious use made of it beyond other trees' in the days of the Druids. Formerly, it was dangerous to cut down a female oak in a fair dry place. 'Some were said to lose their lives by it, by a strange aching pain which admitted of no remedy, as one of my ancestors did; but now that men have more knowledge and faith, this effect follows not.' William Jenkins was for a long time the schoolmaster at Trefethin church, in Monmouthshire, and coming home late in the evening, as he usually did, he often saw the fairies under an oak within two or three fields from the church. He saw them more often on Friday evenings than any other. At one time he went to examine the ground about this oak, and there he found the reddish circle wherein the fairies danced, 'such as have often been seen under the female oak, called Brenhin-bren.' They appeared more often to an uneven number of persons, as one, three, five, &c.; and oftener to men than to women. Thomas William Edmund, of Hafodafel, 'an honest pious man, who often saw them,' declared that they appeared with one bigger than the rest going before them in the company. They were also heard talking together in a noisy, jabbering way; but no one could distinguish the words. They seemed, however, to be a very disputatious race; insomuch, indeed, that there was a proverb in some parts of Wales to this effect: 'Ni chytunant hwy mwy na Bendith eu Mamau,' (They will no more agree than the fairies). IV. This observation respecting the mysterious language used by fairies recalls again the medieval story of Elidurus. The example of fairy words there given by Giraldus is thought by the learned rector of Llanarmon[51] to be 'a mixture of Irish and Welsh. The letter U, with which each of the words begins, is, probably, no more than the representative of an indistinct sound like the E mute of the French, and which those whose language and manners are vulgar often prefix to words indifferently. If, then, they be read dor dorum, and halgein dorum, dor and halgein are nearly dwr (or, as it is pronounced, door) and halen, the Welsh words for water and salt respectively. Dorum therefore is equivalent to "give me," and the Irish expression for "give me" is thorum; the Welsh dyro i mi. The order of the words, however, is reversed. The order should be thorum dor, and thorum halen in Irish, and in Welsh dyro i mi ddwr, and dyro i mi halen, but was, perhaps, reversed intentionally by the narrator, to make his tale the more marvellous.'[52] FOOTNOTES: [51] Rev. Peter Roberts, 'Cambrian Popular Antiquities,' 195. (1815.) [52] Supra, p. 67. V. The horse plays a very active part in Welsh fairy tales. Not only does his skeleton serve for Mary Lwyds[53] and the like, but his spirit flits. The Welsh fairies seem very fond of going horseback. An old woman in the Vale of Neath told Mrs. Williams, who told Thomas Keightley, that she had seen fairies to the number of hundreds, mounted on little white horses, not bigger than dogs, and riding four abreast. This was about dusk, and the fairy equestrians passed quite close to her, in fact less than a quarter of a mile away. Another old woman asserted that her father had often seen the fairies riding in the air on little white horses; but he never saw them come to the ground. He heard their music sounding in the air as they galloped by. There is a tradition among the Glamorgan peasantry of a fairy battle fought on the mountain between Merthyr and Aberdare, in which the pigmy combatants were on horseback. There appeared to be two armies, one of which was mounted on milk-white steeds, and the other on horses of jet-black. They rode at each other with the utmost fury, and their swords could be seen flashing in the air like so many penknife blades. The army on the white horses won the day, and drove the black-mounted force from the field. The whole scene then disappeared in a light mist. FOOTNOTE: [53] See Index. VI. In the agricultural districts of Wales, the fairies are accredited with a very complete variety of useful animals; and Welsh folk-lore, both modern and medieval, abounds with tales regarding cattle, sheep, horses, poultry, goats, and other features of rural life. Such are the marvellous mare of Teirnyon, which foaled every first of May, but whose colt was always spirited away, no man knew whither; the Ychain Banog, or mighty oxen, which drew the water-monster out of the enchanted lake, and by their lowing split the rocks in twain; the lambs of St. Melangell, which at first were hares, and ran frightened under the fair saint's robes; the fairy cattle which belong to the Gwraig Annwn; the fairy sheep of Cefn Rhychdir, which rose up out of the earth and vanished into the sky; even fairy swine, which the haymakers of Bedwellty beheld flying through the air. To some of these traditions reference has already been made; others will be mentioned again. Welsh mountain sheep will run like stags, and bound from crag to crag like wild goats; and as for Welsh swine, they are more famed in Cambrian romantic story than almost any other animal that could be named. Therefore the tale told by Rev. Roger Rogers, of the parish of Bedwellty, sounds much less absurd in Wales than it might elsewhere. It relates to a very remarkable and odd sight, seen by Lewis Thomas Jenkin's two daughters, described as virtuous and good young women, their father a substantial freeholder; and seen not only by them but by the man-servant and the maid-servant, and by two of the neighbours, viz., Elizabeth David, and Edmund Roger. All these six people were on a certain day making hay in a field called Y Weirglodd Fawr Dafolog, when they plainly beheld a company of fairies rise up out of the earth in the shape of a flock of sheep; the same being about a quarter of a mile distant, over a hill, called Cefn Rhychdir; and soon the fairy flock went out of sight, as if they vanished in the air. Later in the day they all saw this company of fairies again, but while to two of the haymakers the fairies appeared as sheep, to others they appeared as greyhounds, and to others as swine, and to others as naked infants. Whereupon the Rev. Roger remarks: 'The sons of infidelity are very unreasonable not to believe the testimonies of so many witnesses.'[54] FOOTNOTE: [54] Jones, 'Apparitions,' 24. VII. The Welsh sheep, it is affirmed, are the only beasts which will eat the grass that grows in the fairy rings; all other creatures avoid it, but the sheep eat it greedily--hence the superiority of Welsh mutton over any mutton in the wide world. The Prophet Jones tells of the sheepfold of the fairies, which he himself saw--a circumstance to be accorded due weight, the judicious reader will at once perceive, because as a habit Mr. Jones was not specially given to seeing goblins on his own account. He believes in them with all his heart, but it is usually a friend or acquaintance who has seen them. In this instance, therefore, the exception is to be noted sharply. He thus tells the tale: 'If any think I am too credulous in these relations, and speak of things of which I myself have had no experience, I must let them know they are mistaken. For when a very young boy, going with my aunt, early in the morning, but after sun-rising, from Hafodafel towards my father's house at Pen-y-Llwyn, at the end of the upper field of Cae'r Cefn, ... I saw the likeness of a sheepfold, with the door towards the south, ... and within the fold a company of many people. Some sitting down, and some going in, and coming out, bowing their heads as they passed under the branch over the door.... I well remember the resemblance among them of a fair woman with a high-crown hat and a red jacket, who made a better appearance than the rest, and whom I think they seemed to honour. I still have a pretty clear idea of her white face and well-formed countenance. The men wore white cravats.... I wondered at my aunt, going before me, that she did not look towards them, and we going so near them. As for me, I was loth to speak until I passed them some way, and then told my aunt what I had seen, at which she wondered, and said I dreamed.... There was no fold in that place. There is indeed the ruins of some small edifice in that place, most likely a fold, but so old that the stones are swallowed up, and almost wholly crusted over with earth and grass.' This tale has long been deemed a poser by the believers in Cambrian phantoms; but there is something to be said on the side of doubt. Conceding that the Reverend Edmund Jones, the dissenting minister, was an honest gentleman who meant to tell truth, it is still possible that Master Neddy Jones, the lad, could draw a long bow like another boy; and that having seen, possibly, some gypsy group (or possibly nothing whatever) he embellished his tale to excite wonderment, as boys do. Telling a fictitious tale so often that one at last comes to believe it oneself, is a well-known mental phenomenon. VIII. The only other instance given by the Prophet Jones as from the depths of his own personal experience, is more vague in its particulars than the preceding, and happened when he had presumably grown to years of discretion. He was led astray, it appears, by the Old Woman of the Mountain, on Llanhiddel Bryn, near Pontypool--an eminence with which he was perfectly well acquainted, and which 'is no more than a mile and a half long and about half a mile broad.' But as a result of his going astray, he came to a house where he had never been before; and being deeply moved by his uncanny experience, 'offered to go to prayer, which they admitted.... I was then about twenty-three years of age and had begun to preach the everlasting gospel. They seemed to admire that a person so young should be so warmly disposed; few young men of my age being religious in this country then. Much good came into this house and still continues in it.... So the old hag got nothing by leading me astray that time.' CHAPTER IX. Piety as a Protection from the Seductions of the Tylwyth Teg--Various Exorcisms--Cock-crowing--The Name of God--Fencing off the Fairies--Old Betty Griffith and her Eithin Barricade--Means of Getting Rid of the Tylwyth Teg--The Bwbach of the Hendrefawr Farm--The Pwca'r Trwyn's Flitting in a Jug of Barm. I. The extreme piety of his daily walk and conversation may have been held as an explanation why the Prophet Jones saw so few goblins himself, and consequently why most of his stories of the fairies are related as coming from other people. The value of a general habit of piety, as a means of being rid of fairies, has already been mentioned. The more worldly exorcisms, such as the production of a black-handled knife, or the turning one's coat wrongside out, are passed over by the Prophet as trivial; but by the student of comparative folk-lore, they are not deemed unimportant. The last-mentioned exorcism, by the way, is current among the Southern negroes of the United States. The more spiritual exorcisms are not less interesting than the others, however. First among these is ranked the pronunciation of God's name; but the crowing of a cock is respectfully mentioned, in connection with the story of our Saviour. Jones gives many accounts which terminate in the manner of the following: Rees John Rosser, born at Hendy, in the parish of Llanhiddel, 'a very religious young man,' went one morning very early to feed the oxen in a barn called Ysgubor y Llan, and having fed them lay himself upon the hay to rest. While he lay there he heard the sound of music approaching, and presently a large company of fairies came into the barn. They wore striped clothes, some in gayer colours than the others, but all very gay; and they all danced to the music. He lay there as quiet as he could, thinking they would not see him, but he was espied by one of them, a woman, who brought a striped cushion with four tassels, one at each corner of it, and put it under his head. After some time the cock crew at the house of Blaen y Cwm, hard by, upon which they appeared as if they were surprised and displeased; the cushion was hastily whisked from under his head, and the fairies vanished. 'The spirits of darkness do not like the crowing of the cock, because it gives notice of the approach of day, for they love darkness rather than light.... And it hath been several times observed that these fairies cannot endure to hear the name of God.' A modern Welsh preacher (but one whose opinions contrast most decidedly with those of Jones) observes: 'The cock is wonderfully well versed in the circumstances of the children of Adam; his shrill voice at dawn of day is sufficient intimation to every spirit, coblyn, wraith, elf, bwci, and apparition to flee into their illusive country for their lives, before the light of day will show them to be an empty nothingness, and bring them to shame and reproach.'[55] Shakspeare introduces this superstition in Hamlet: _Ber._ It was about to speak, when the cock crew. _Hor._ And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons.[56] But the opinion that spirits fly away at cock-crow is of extreme antiquity. It is mentioned by the Christian poet Prudentius (fourth century) as a tradition of common belief.[57] As for the effect of the name of God as an exorcism, we still encounter this superstition, a living thing in our own day, and in every land where modern 'spiritualism' finds believers. The mischief produced at 'spiritual seances' by 'bad spirits' is well-known to those who have paid any attention to this subject. The late Mr. FitzHugh Ludlow once related to me, with dramatic fervour, the result of his attempts to exorcise a bad spirit which was in possession of a female 'medium,' by trying to make her pronounce the name of Christ. She stumbled and stammered over this test in a most embarrassing way, and finally emerged from her trance with the holy name unspoken; the bad spirit had fled. This was in New York, in 1867. Like many others who assert their unbelief in spiritualism, Mr. Ludlow was intensely impressed by this phenomenon. Students of comparative folk-lore class all such manifestations under a common head, whether related of fairies or spirit mediums. They trace their origin to the same source whence come the notions of propitiating the fairies by euphemistic names. The use of such names as Jehovah, the Almighty, the Supreme Being, etc., for the terrible and avenging God of the Jewish theology, being originally an endeavour to avoid pronouncing the name of God, it is easy to see the connection with the exorcising power of that name upon all evil spirits, such as fairies are usually held to be. Here also, it is thought, is presented the ultimate source of that horror of profane language which prevails among the Puritanic peoples of England and America. The name of the devil is similarly provided with euphemisms, some of which--such as the Old Boy--are not of a sort to offend that personage's ears; and until recently the word devil was deemed almost as offensive as the word God, when profanely used. FOOTNOTES: [55] Rev. Robert Ellis, in 'Manion Hynafiaethol.' (Treherbert, 1873.) [56] 'Hamlet,' Act I., Sc. 1. [57] Brand, 'Popular Antiquities,' ii., 31. II. A popular protection from the encroachments of fairies is the eithin, or prickly furze, common in Wales. It is believed that the fairies cannot penetrate a fence or hedge composed of this thorny shrub. An account illustrating this, and otherwise curious in its details, was given in 1871 by a prominent resident of Anglesea:[58] 'One day, some thirty years ago, Mrs. Stanley went to one of the old houses to see an old woman she often visited. It was a wretched hovel; so unusually dark when she opened the door, that she called to old Betty Griffith, but getting no answer she entered the room. A little tiny window of one pane of glass at the further side of the room gave a feeble light. A few cinders alight in the miserable grate also gave a glimmer of light, which enabled her to see where the bed used to be, in a recess. To her surprise she saw it entirely shut out by a barricade of thick gorse, so closely packed and piled up that no bed was to be seen. Again she called Betty Griffith; no response came. She looked round the wretched room; the only symptom of life was a plant of the Wandering Jew (_Saxifraga tricolor_), so called by the poor people, and dearly loved to grace their windows. It was planted in a broken jar or teapot on the window, trailing its long tendrils around, with here and there a new formed plant seeming to derive sustenance from the air alone. As she stood, struck with the miserable poverty of the human abode, a faint sigh came from behind the gorse. She went close and said, "Betty, where are you?" Betty instantly recognised her voice, and ventured to turn herself round from the wall. Mrs. Stanley then made a small opening in the gorse barricade, which sadly pricked her fingers; she saw Betty in her bed and asked her, "Are you not well? are you cold, that you are so closed up?" "Cold! no. It is not cold, Mrs. Stanley; it is the Tylwyth Teg; they never will leave me alone, there they sit making faces at me, and trying to come to me." "Indeed! oh how I should like to see them, Betty." "Like to see them, is it? Oh, don't say so." "Oh but Betty, they must be so pretty and good." "Good? they are not good." By this time the old woman got excited, and Mrs. Stanley knew she should hear more from her about the fairies, so she said, "Well, I will go out; they never will come if I am here." Old Betty replied sharply, "No, do not go. You must not leave me. I will tell you all about them. Ah! they come and plague me sadly. If I am up they will sit upon the table; they turn my milk sour and spill my tea; then they will not leave me at peace in my bed, but come all round me and mock at me." "But Betty, tell me what is all this gorse for? It must have been great trouble for you to make it all so close." "Is it not to keep them off? They cannot get through this, it pricks them so bad, and then I get some rest." So she replaced the gorse and left old Betty Griffith happy in her device for getting rid of the Tylwyth Teg.' FOOTNOTE: [58] Hon. W. O. Stanley, in 'Notes and Queries.' III. A common means of getting rid of the fairies is to change one's place of residence; the fair folk will not abide in a house which passes into new hands. A story is told of a Merionethshire farmer who, being tormented beyond endurance by a Bwbach of a mischievous turn, reluctantly resolved to flit. But first consulting a wise woman at Dolgelley, he was advised to make a pretended flitting, which would have the same effect; he need only give out that he was going to move over the border into England, and then get together his cattle and his household goods, and set out for a day's drive around the Arenig. The fairy would surely quit the house when the farmer should quit it, and especially would it quit the premises of a born Cymro who avowed his purpose of settling in the foreign land of the Sais. So then he could come back to his house by another route, and he would find the obnoxious Bwbach gone. The farmer did as he was told, and set out upon his journey, driving his cattle and sheep before him, and leading the cart upon which his furniture was piled, while his wife and children trudged behind. When he reached Rhyd-y-Fen, a ford so called from this legend, they met a neighbour, who exclaimed, 'Holo, Dewi, are you leaving us for good?' Before the farmer could answer there was a shrill cry from inside the churn on the cart, 'Yes, yes, we are flitting from Hendrefawr to Eingl-dud, where we've got a new home.' It was the Bwbach that spoke. He was flitting with the household goods, and the farmer's little plan to be rid of him was a complete failure. The good man sighed as he turned his horses about and went back to Hendrefawr by the same road he had come. IV. The famous Pwca of the Trwyn Farm, in Mynyddyslwyn parish, came there from his first abode, at Pantygasseg, in a jug of barm. One of the farm-servants brought the jug to Pantygasseg, and as she was being served with the barm in the jug, the Pwca was heard to say, 'The Pwca is going away now in this jug of barm, and he'll never come back;' and he was never heard at Pantygasseg again. Another story tells that a servant let fall a ball of yarn, over the ledge of the hill whose base is washed by the two fishponds between Hafod-yr-Ynys and Pontypool, and the Pwca said, 'I am going in this ball, and I'll go to the Trwyn, and never come back,'--and directly the ball was seen to roll down the hillside, and across the valley, ascending the hill on the other side, and trundling along briskly across the mountain top to its new abode. CHAPTER X. Fairy Money and Fairy Gifts in General--The Story of Gitto Bach, or Little Griffith--The Penalty of Blabbing--Legends of the Shepherds of Cwm Llan--The Money Value of Kindness--Ianto Llewellyn and the Tylwyth Teg--The Legend of Hafod Lwyddog--Lessons inculcated by these Superstitions. I. 'This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so,' says the old shepherd in 'Winter's Tale;' sagely adding, 'Up with it, keep it close; home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy, and to be so still, requires nothing but secrecy.'[59] Here we have the traditional belief of the Welsh peasantry in a nut-shell. Fairy money is as good as any, so long as its source is kept a profound secret; if the finder relate the particulars of his good fortune, it will vanish. Sometimes--especially in cases where the money has been spent--the evil result of tattling consists in there being no further favours of the sort. The same law governs fairy gifts of all kinds. A Breconshire legend tells of the generosity of the Tylwyth Teg in presenting the peasantry with loaves of bread, which turned to toadstools next morning; it was necessary to eat the bread in darkness and silence to avoid this transformation. The story of Gitto Bach, a familiar one in Wales, is a picturesque example. Gitto Bach (little Griffith), a good little farmer's boy of Glamorganshire, used often to ramble to the top of the mountain to look after his father's sheep. On his return he would show his brothers and sisters pieces of remarkably white paper, like crown pieces, with letters stamped upon them, which he said were given to him by the little children with whom he played on the mountain. One day he did not return. For two years nothing was heard of him. Meantime other children occasionally got like crown-pieces of paper from the mountains. One morning when Gitto's mother opened the door there he sat--the truant!--dressed exactly as he was when she saw him last, two years before. He had a little bundle under his arm. 'Where in the world have you been all this time?' asked the mother, 'Why, it's only yesterday I went away!' quoth Gitto. 'Look at the pretty clothes the children gave me on the mountain, for dancing with them to the music of their harps.' With this he opened his bundle, and showed a handsome dress; and behold, it was only paper, like the fairy money. FOOTNOTE: [59] 'Winter's Tale,' Act III., Sc. 3. II. But usually, throughout Wales, it is simply a discontinuance of fairy favour which follows blabbing. A legend is connected with a bridge in Anglesea, of a lad who often saw the fairies there, and profited by their generosity. Every morning, while going to fetch his father's cows from pasture, he saw them, and after they were gone he always found a groat on a certain stone of Cymmunod Bridge. The boy's having money so often about him excited his father's suspicion, and one Sabbath day he cross-questioned the lad as to the manner in which it was obtained. Oh, the meddlesomeness of fathers! Of course the poor boy confessed that it was through the medium of the fairies, and of course, though he often went after this to the field, he never found any money on the bridge, nor saw the offended Tylwyth Teg again. Through his divulging the secret their favour was lost. Jones tells a similar story of a young woman named Anne William Francis, in the parish of Bassalleg, who on going by night into a little grove of wood near the house, heard pleasant music, and saw a company of fairies dancing on the grass. She took a pail of water there, thinking it would gratify them. The next time she went there she had a shilling given her, 'and so had for several nights after, until she had twenty-one shillings.' But her mother happening to find the money, questioned her as to where she got it, fearing she had stolen it. At first the girl would not tell, but when her mother 'went very severe on her,' and threatened to beat her, she confessed she got the money from the fairies. After that they never gave her any more. The Prophet adds: 'I have heard of other places where people have had money from the fairies, sometimes silver sixpences, but most commonly copper coin. As they cannot make money, it certainly must be money lost or concealed by persons.' The Euhemerism of this is hardly like the wonder-loving Jones. III. In the legends of the two shepherds of Cwm Llan and their experience with the fairies, the first deals with the secrecy feature, while the second reproduces the often-impressed lesson concerning the money value of kindness. The first is as follows: One evening a shepherd, who had been searching for his sheep on the side of Nant y Bettws, after crossing Bwlch Cwm Llan, espied a number of little people singing and dancing, and some of the prettiest damsels he ever set eyes on preparing a feast. He went to them and partook of the meal, and thought he had never tasted anything to equal those dishes. When it became dusk they pitched their tents, and the shepherd had never seen before such beautiful things as they had about them there. They provided him with a soft feather-bed and sheets of the finest linen, and he retired, feeling like a prince. But on the morrow, lo and behold! his bed was but a bush of bulrushes, and his pillow a tuft of moss. He however found in his shoes some pieces of silver, and afterwards, for a long time, he continued to find once a week a piece of silver placed between two stones near the spot where he had lain. One day he divulged his secret to another, and the weekly coin was never placed there again. There was another shepherd near Cwm Llan, who heard some strange noise in a crevice of a rock, and turning to see what it was, found there a singular creature who wept bitterly. He took it out and saw it to be a fairy child, but whilst he was looking at it compassionately, two middle-aged men came to him and thanked him courteously for his kindness, and on leaving him presented him with a staff as a token of remembrance of the occasion. The following year every sheep he possessed bore two ewe lambs. They continued to thus breed for years to come; but one very dark and stormy night, having stayed very late in the village, in crossing the river that comes down from Cwm Llan, there being a great flood sweeping everything before it, he dropped his staff into the river and saw it no more. On the morrow he found that nearly all his sheep and lambs, like his staff, had been swept away by the flood. His wealth had departed from him in the same way as it came--with the staff which he had received from the guardians of the fairy child. IV. A Pembrokeshire Welshman told me this story as a tradition well known in that part of Wales. Ianto Llewellyn was a man who lived in the parish of Llanfihangel, not more than fifty or eighty years ago, and who had precious good reason to believe in the fairies. He used to keep his fire of coal balls burning all night long, out of pure kindness of heart, in case the Tylwyth Teg should be cold. That they came into his kitchen every night he was well aware; he often heard them. One night when they were there as usual, Ianto was lying wide awake and heard them say, 'I wish we had some good bread and cheese this cold night, but the poor man has only a morsel left; and though it's true that would be a good meal for us, it is but a mouthful to him, and he might starve if we took it.' At this Ianto cried out at the top of his voice, 'Take anything I've got in my cupboard and welcome to you!' Then he turned over and went to sleep. The next morning, when he descended into the kitchen, he looked in his cupboard, to see if by good luck there might be a bit of crust there. He had no sooner opened the cupboard door than he cried out, 'O'r anwyl! what's this?' for there stood the finest cheese he had ever seen in his life, with two loaves of bread on top of it. 'Lwc dda i ti!' cried Ianto, waving his hand toward the wood where he knew the fairies lived; 'good luck to you! May you never be hungry or penniless!' And he had not got the words out of his mouth when he saw--what do you think?--a shilling on the hob! But that was the lucky shilling. Every morning after this, when Ianto got up, there was the shilling on the hob--another one, you mind, for he'd spent the first for beer and tobacco to go with his bread and cheese. Well, after that, no man in the parish was better supplied with money than Ianto Llewellyn, though he never did a stroke of work. He had enough to keep his wife in ease and comfort, too, and he got the name of Lucky Ianto. And lucky he might have been to the day of his death but for the curiosity of woman. Betsi his wife was determined to know where all this money came from, and gave the poor man no peace. 'Wel, naw wfft!' she cried--which means in English, 'Nine shames on you'--'to have a bad secret from your own dear wife!' 'But you know, Betsi, if I tell you I'll never get any more money.' 'Ah,' said she, 'then it's the fairies!' 'Drato!' said he--and that means 'Bother it all'--'yes--the fairies it is.' With that he thrust his hands down in his breeches pockets in a sullen manner and left the house. He had had seven shillings in his pockets up to that minute, and he went feeling for them with his fingers, and found they were gone. In place of them were some pieces of paper fit only to light his pipe. And from that day the fairies brought him no more money. V. The lesson of generosity is taught with force and simplicity in the legend of Hafod Lwyddog, and the necessity for secrecy is quite abandoned. Again it is a shepherd, who dwelt at Cwm Dyli, and who went every summer to live in a cabin by the Green Lake (Llyn Glas) along with his fold. One morning on awaking from sleep he saw a good-looking damsel dressing an infant close by his side. She had very little in which to wrap the babe, so he threw her an old shirt of his own, and bade her place it about the child. She thanked him and departed. Every night thereafter the shepherd found a piece of silver placed in an old clog in his cabin. Years and years this good luck continued, and Meirig the shepherd became immensely wealthy. He married a lovely girl, and went to the Hafod Lwyddog to live. Whatever he undertook prospered--hence the name Hafod Lwyddog, for Lwydd means prosperity. The fairies paid nightly visits to the Hafod. No witch or evil sprite could harm this people, as Bendith y Mamau was poured down upon the family, and all their descendants.[60] FOOTNOTE: [60] 'Cymru Fu,' 472. VI. The thought will naturally occur that by fostering belief in such tales as some of the foregoing, roguery might make the superstition useful in silencing inquiry as to ill-gotten gains. But on the other hand the virtues of hospitality and generosity were no doubt fostered by the same influences. If any one was favoured by the fairies in this manner, the immediate explanation was, that he had done a good turn to them, generally without suspecting who they were. The virtues of neatness, in young girls and servants, were encouraged by the like notions; the belief that a fairy will leave money only on a clean-kept hob, could tend to nothing more directly. It was also made a condition of pleasing the Tylwyth Teg that the hearth should be carefully swept and the pails left full of water. Then the fairies would come at midnight, continue their revels till daybreak, sing the well-known strain of 'Toriad y Dydd,' or 'The Dawn,' leave a piece of money on the hob, and disappear. Here is seen a precaution against fire in the clean-swept hearth and the provision of filled water-pails. That the promised reward did not always arrive, was not evidence it would never arrive; and so the virtue of perseverance was also fostered. Superstitions of this class are widely prevalent among Aryan peoples. The 'Arabian Nights' story of the old rogue whose money turned to leaves will be recalled. In Danish folk-lore, the fairy money bestowed on the boors turns sometimes to pebbles, and sometimes grows hot and burns their fingers, so that they drop it, when it sinks into the earth. [Music: TORIAD Y DYDD.] CHAPTER XI. Origins of Welsh Fairies--The Realistic Theory--Legend of the Baron's Gate--The Red Fairies--The Trwyn Fairy a Proscribed Nobleman--The Theory of hiding Druids--Colour in Welsh Fairy Attire--The Green Lady of Caerphilly--White the favourite Welsh Hue--Legend of the Prolific Woman--The Poetico-Religious Theory--The Creed of Science. I. Concerning the origin of the Tylwyth Teg, there are two popular explanations, the one poetico-religious in its character, the other practical and realistic. Both are equally wide of the truth, the true origin of fairies being found in the primeval mythology; but as my purpose is to avoid enlarging in directions generally familiar to the student, I have only to present the local aspects of this, as of the other features of the subject. The realistic theory of the origin of the Tylwyth Teg must be mentioned respectfully, because among its advocates have been men of culture and good sense. This theory presumes that the first fairies were men and women of mortal flesh and blood, and that the later superstitions are a mere echo of tales which first were told of real beings. In quasi-support of this theory, there is a well-authenticated tradition of a race of beings who, in the middle of the sixteenth century, inhabited the Wood of the Great Dark Wood (Coed y Dugoed Mawr) in Merionethshire, and who were called the Red Fairies. They lived in dens in the ground, had fiery red hair and long strong arms, and stole sheep and cattle by night. There are cottages in Cemmaes parish, near the Wood of the Great Dark Wood, with scythes in the chimneys, which were put there to keep these terrible beings out. One Christmas eve a valiant knight named Baron Owen headed a company of warriors who assailed the Red Fairies, and found them flesh and blood. The Baron hung a hundred of them; but spared the women, one of whom begged hard for the life of her son. The Baron refused her prayer, whereupon she opened her breast and shrieked, 'This breast has nursed other sons than he, who will yet wash their hands in thy blood, Baron Owen!' Not very long thereafter, the Baron was waylaid at a certain spot by the sons of the 'fairy' woman, who washed their hands in his warm and reeking blood, in fulfilment of their mother's threat. And to this day that spot goes by the name of Llidiart y Barwn (the Baron's Gate); any peasant of the neighbourhood will tell you the story, as one told it to me. There is of course no better foundation for the fairy features of it than the fancies of the ignorant mind, but the legend itself is--very nearly in this shape--historical. The beings in question were a band of outlaws, who might naturally find it to their interest to foster belief in their supernatural powers. II. The so-called Pwca'r Trwyn, which haunted the farm-house in the parish of Mynyddyslwyn, is sometimes cited as another case in which a fairy was probably a being of flesh and blood; and if this be true, it of course proves nothing but the adoption of an ancient superstition by a proscribed Welsh nobleman. There is a tradition that this fairy had a name, and that this name was 'yr Arglwydd Hywel,' which is in English 'Lord Howell.' And it is argued that this Lord, in a contest with the forces of the English king, was utterly worsted, and driven into hiding; that his tenants at Pantygasseg and the Trwyn Farm, loving their Lord, helped to hide him, and to disseminate the belief that he was a household fairy, or Bwbach. It is related that he generally spoke from his own room in this farm-house, in a gentle voice which 'came down between the boards' into the common room beneath. One day the servants were comparing their hands, as to size and whiteness, when the fairy was heard to say, 'The Pwca's hand is the fairest and smallest.' The servants asked if the fairy would show its hand, and immediately a plank overhead was moved and a hand appeared, small, fair and beautifully formed, with a large gold ring on the little finger. III. Curiously interesting is the hypothesis concerning the realistic origin of the Tylwyth Teg, which was put forth at the close of the last century by several writers, among them the Rev. Peter Roberts, author of the 'Collectanea Cambrica.' This hypothesis precisely accounts for the fairies anciently as being the Druids, in hiding from their enemies, or if not they, other persons who had such cause for living concealed in subterraneous places, and venturing forth only at night. 'Some conquered aborigines,' thought Dr. Guthrie; while Mr. Roberts fancied that as the Irish had frequently landed hostilely in Wales, 'it was very possible that some small bodies of that nation left behind, or unable to return, and fearing discovery, had hid themselves in caverns during the day, and sent their children out at night, fantastically dressed, for food and exercise, and thus secured themselves.' But there were objections to this presumption, and the Druidical theory was the favourite one. Says Mr. Roberts: 'The fairy customs appeared evidently too systematic, and too general, to be those of an accidental party reduced to distress. They are those of a consistent and regular policy instituted to prevent discovery, and to inspire fear of their power, and a high opinion of their beneficence. Accordingly tradition notes, that to attempt to discover them was to incur certain destruction. "They are fairies," says Falstaff: "he that looks on them shall die." They were not to be impeded in ingress or egress; a bowl of milk was to be left for them at night on the hearth; and, in return, they left a small present in money when they departed, if the house was kept clean; if not, they inflicted some punishment on the negligent, which, as it was death to look on them, they were obliged to suffer, and no doubt but many unlucky tricks were played on such occasions. Their general dress was green, that they might be the better concealed; and, as their children might have betrayed their haunts, they seem to have been suffered to go out only in the night time, and to have been entertained by dances on moonlight nights. These dances, like those round the Maypole, have been said to be performed round a tree; and on an elevated spot, mostly a tumulus, beneath which was probably their habitation, or its entrance. The older persons, probably, mixed as much as they dared with the world; and, if they happened to be at any time recognised, the certainty of their vengeance was their safety. If by any chance their society was thinned, they appear to have stolen children, and changed feeble for strong infants. The stolen children, if beyond infancy, being brought into their subterraneous dwellings, seem to have had a soporific given them, and to have been carried to a distant part of the country; and, being there allowed to go out merely by night, mistook the night for the day, and probably were not undeceived until it could be done securely. The regularity and generality of this system shows that there was a body of people existing in the kingdom distinct from its known inhabitants, and either confederated, or obliged to live or meet mysteriously; and their rites, particularly that of dancing round a tree, probably an oak, as Herne's, etc., as well as their character for truth and probity, refer them to a Druidic origin. If this was the case, it is easy to conceive, as indeed history shows, that, as the Druids were persecuted by the Romans and Christians, they used these means to preserve themselves and their families, and whilst the country was thinly peopled, and thickly wooded, did so successfully; and, perhaps, to a much later period than is imagined: till the increase of population made it impossible. As the Druidical was one of the most ancient religions, so it must have been one of the first persecuted, and forced to form a regular plan of security, which their dwelling in caves may have suggested, and necessity improved.' IV. It will be observed that one of the points in this curious speculation rests on the green dress of the fairies. I do not call attention to it with any Quixotic purpose of disputing the conclusion it assists; it is far more interesting as one feature of the general subject of fairies' attire. The Welsh fairies are described with details as to colour in costume not commonly met with in fairy tales, a fact to which I have before alluded. In the legend of the Place of Strife, the Tylwyth Teg encountered by the women are called 'the old elves of the blue petticoat.' A connection with the blue of the sky has here been suggested. It has also been pointed out that the sacred Druidical dress was blue. The blue petticoat fancy seems to be local to North Wales. In Cardiganshire, the tradition respecting an encampment called Moyddin, which the fairies frequented, is that they were always in green dresses, and were never seen there but in the vernal month of May. There is a Glamorganshire goblin called the Green Lady of Caerphilly, the colour of whose dress is indicated by her title. She haunts the ruin of Caerphilly Castle at night, wearing a green robe, and has the power of turning herself into ivy and mingling with the ivy growing on the wall. A more ingenious mode of getting rid of a goblin was perhaps never invented. The fairies of Frennifawr, in Pembrokeshire, were on the contrary gorgeous in scarlet, with red caps, and feathers waving in the wind as they danced. But others were in white, and this appears to be the favourite hue of modern Welsh fairy costume, when the Tylwyth Teg are in holiday garb. These various details of colour are due to the fervour of the Welsh fancy, of course, and perhaps their variety may in part be ascribed to a keener sense of the fitness of things among moderns than was current in earlier times. White, to the Welsh, would naturally be the favourite colour for a beautiful creature, dancing in the moonlight on the velvet sward. The most popular pet name for a Welsh lass is to-day exactly what it has been for centuries, viz., Gwenny, the diminutive of Gwenllian (Anglicised into Gwendoline)--a name which means simply white linen; and the white costume of the favourite fairies undoubtedly signifies a dress of white linen. This fabric, common as it is in our day, was in ancient times of inestimable value. In the Mabinogion, linen is repeatedly particularised in the gorgeous descriptions of fabled splendour in princely castles--linen, silk, satin, velvet, gold-lace, and jewels, are the constantly-recurring features of sumptuous attire. In his account of the royal tribes of Wales, Yorke mentions that linen was so rare in the reign of Charles VII. of France (i.e., in the fifteenth century) 'that her majesty the queen could boast of only two shifts of that commodity.' The first cause of the fairies' robes being white is evidently to be discerned here; and in Wales the ancient sentiment as to whiteness remains. The Welsh peasantry, coarsely and darkly clad themselves, would make white a purely holiday colour, and devise some other hue for such commoner fairies as the Bwbach and his sort: The coarse and country fairy, That doth haunt the hearth and dairy.[61] So the Bwbach is usually brown, often hairy; and the Coblynau are black or copper-coloured in face as well as dress. FOOTNOTE: [61] Jonson, Masque of 'Oberon.' V. A local legend of the origin of fairies in Anglesea mingles the practical and the spiritual in this manner: 'In our Saviour's time there lived a woman whose fortune it was to be possessed of nearly a score of children, ... and as she saw our blessed Lord approach her dwelling, being ashamed of being so prolific, and that He might not see them all, she concealed about half of them closely, and after his departure, when she went in search of them, to her great surprise found they were all gone. They never afterwards could be discovered, for it was supposed that as a punishment from heaven for hiding what God had given her, she was deprived of them; and it is said these her offspring have generated the race called fairies.'[62] FOOTNOTE: [62] 'Camb. Sup.,' 118. VI. The common or popular theory, however, is in Wales the poetico-religious one. This is, in a word, the belief that the Tylwyth Teg are the souls of dead mortals not bad enough for hell nor good enough for heaven. They are doomed to live on earth, to dwell in secret places, until the resurrection day, when they will be admitted into paradise. Meantime they must be either incessantly toiling or incessantly playing, but their toil is fruitless and their pleasure unsatisfying. A variation of this general belief holds these souls to be the souls of the ancient Druids, a fancy which is specially impressive, as indicating the duration of their penance, and reminds us of the Wandering Jew myth. It is confined mainly to the Coblynau, or dwellers in mines and caves. Another variation considers the fairies bad spirits of still remoter origin--the same in fact who were thrown over the battlements of heaven along with Satan, but did not fall into hell--landed on the earth instead, where they are permitted to tarry till doomsday as above. A detail of this theory is in explanation of the rare appearance of fairies nowadays; they are refraining from mischief in view of the near approach of the judgment, with the hope of thus conciliating heaven. The Prophet Jones, in explaining why the fairies have been so active in Wales, expounds the poetico-religious theory in masterly form. After stating that some in Monmouthshire were so ignorant as to think the fairies happy spirits, because they had music and dancing among them, he proceeds to assert, in the most emphatic terms, that the Tylwyth Teg are nothing else, 'after all the talking about them,' but the disembodied spirits of men who lived and died without the enjoyment of the means of grace and salvation, as Pagans and others, and whose punishment therefore is far less severe than that of those who have enjoyed the means of salvation. 'But some persons may desire to know why these fairies have appeared in Wales more than in some other countries? to which I answer, that I can give no other reason but this, that having lost the light of the true religion in the eighth and ninth centuries of Christianity, and received Popery in its stead, it became dark night upon them; and then these spirits of darkness became more bold and intruding; and the people, as I said before, in their great ignorance seeing them like a company of children in dry clean places, dancing and having music among them, thought them to be some happy beings, ... and made them welcome in their houses.... The Welsh entered into familiarity with the fairies in the time of Henry IV., and the evil then increased; the severe laws of that prince enjoining, among other things, that they were not to bring up their children to learning, etc., by which a total darkness came upon them; which cruel laws were occasioned by the rebellion of Owen Glandwr, and the Welsh which joined with him; foolishly thinking to shake off the Saxon yoke before they had repented of their sins.' Whatever their locally accepted causes of being may be, it is beyond any question that in the fairy folk-lore of Wales, as of other lands, are to be found the _débris_ of ancient mythology--scintillant fragments of those magic constellations which glow in the darkness of primeval time, grand and majestic as the vast Unknown out of which they were evolved by barbaric fancy. Through the aid of modern scientific research, 'those ages which the myths of centuries have peopled with heroic shadows'[63] are brought nearer to us, and the humble Welsh Tylwyth Teg may reach back and shake hands with the Olympian gods. [Illustration: "THE HUMBLE 'TYLWYTH TEG' SHAKE HANDS WITH THE OLYMPIAN GODS."] FOOTNOTE: [63] Marquis of Bute, address before the Royal Archæological Institute, Cardiff meeting. BOOK II. THE SPIRIT-WORLD. Where the wan spectres walk eternal rounds. POPE. _Miranda._ What is't? a spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form:--But 'tis a spirit. SHAKSPEARE: _Tempest_. CHAPTER I. Modern Superstition regarding Ghosts--American 'Spiritualism'--Welsh Beliefs--Classification of Welsh Ghosts--Departed Mortals--Haunted Houses--Lady Stradling's Ghost--The Haunted Bridge--The Legend of Catrin Gwyn--Didactic Purpose in Cambrian Apparitions--An Insulted Corpse--Duty-performing Ghosts--Laws of the Spirit-World--Cadogan's Ghost. I. In an age so given to mysticism as our own, it is unnecessary to urge that the Welsh as a people are not more superstitious regarding spirits than other peoples. Belief in the visits to earth of disembodied spirits is common to all lands. There are no doubt differences in the degree of this belief, as there are differences in matters of detail. Where or how these spirits exist are questions much more difficult to the average faith than why they exist. They exist for the moral good of man; of this there prevails no doubt. The rest belongs to the still unsettled science of the Unknowable. That form of mysticism called 'spiritualism' by its disciples is dignified to the thoughtful observer by being viewed as a remnant of the primeval philosophy. When we encounter, in wandering among the picturesque ghosts of the Welsh spirit-world, last-century stories displaying details exactly similar to those of modern spiritualism, our interest is strongly aroused. The student of folk-lore finds his materials in stories and beliefs which appear to be of a widespread family, rather than in stories and beliefs which are unique; and the spirit of inquiry is constantly on the alert, in following the details of a good old ghost story, however fascinating it may be in a poetic sense. The phantoms of the Welsh spirit-world are always picturesque; they are often ghastly; sometimes they are amusing to the point of risibility; but besides, they are instructive to him whose purpose in studying is, to know. That this age is superstitious with regard to ghosts, is not wonderful; all ages have been so; the wonder is that this age should be so and yet be the possessor of a scientific record so extraordinary as its own. An age which has brought forth the magnetic telegraph, steamships and railway engines, sewing-machines, mowing-machines, gas-light, and innumerable discoveries and inventions of marvellous utility--not to allude to those of our own decade--should have no other use for ghostology than a scientific one. But it would be a work as idle as that of the Coblynau themselves, to point out how universal among the most civilised nations is the superstition that spirits walk. The 'controls' of the modern spiritualistic seance have the world for their audience. The United States, a land generally deemed--at least by its inhabitants--to be the most advanced in these directions of any on God's footstool, gave birth to modern spiritualism. Its disciples there compose a vast body of people, respectable and worthy people in the main (as the victims of superstition usually are), among whom are many men of high intellectual ability. With the masses, some degree of belief in the spirits is so nearly universal that I need hardly qualify the adjective. In a country where there is practically no such class as that represented in Europe by the peasantry, the rampancy of such a belief is a phenomenon deserving close and curious study. The present work affords no scope for this study, of course. But I may here mention in further illustration of my immediate theme, the constant appearance, in American communities, of ghosts of the old-fashioned sort. Especially in the New England states, which are notable for their enlightenment, are ghost-stories still frequent--such as that of the haunted school-house at Newburyport, Mass., where a disembodied spirit related its own murder; of the ghost of New Bedford, which struck a visitor in the face, so that he yet bears the marks of the blow; of the haunted house at Cambridge, in the classic shadow of Harvard College. It is actually on record in the last-named case, that the house fell to decay on account of its ghastly reputation, as no one would live in it; that a tenant who ventured to occupy it in 1877 was disturbed by the spirit of a murdered girl who said her mortal bones were buried in his cellar; and that a party of men actually dug all night in that cellar in search of those bones, while the ghost waltzed in a chamber overhead. The more common form of spirit peculiar to our time appears constantly in various parts of the country; it is continually turning up in the American newspapers, rapping on walls, throwing stones, tipping over tables, etc. 'Mediums' of every grade of shrewdness and stupidity, and widely differing degrees of education and ignorance, flourish abundantly. Occasionally, where revelations of murder have been made to a mortal by a spirit, the police have taken the matter in hand. It is to be observed as a commendable practice in such cases, that the mortal is promptly arrested by the police if there has really been a murder; and when the fact appears, as it sometimes does, that the mortal had need of no ghost to tell him what he knows, he is hanged. II. The Welsh dearly love to discuss questions of a spiritual and religious nature, and there are no doubt many who look upon disbelief herein as something approaching paganism. That one should believe in God and a future life, and yet be utterly incredulous as to the existence of a mundane spirit-world, seems to such minds impossible. It is not many years since the clergy taught a creed of this sort. One must not only believe in a spiritual existence, but must believe in that existence here below--must believe that ghosts walked, and meddled, and made disagreeable noises. Our friend the Prophet Jones taught this creed with energy. In his relation of apparitions in Monmouthshire, he says: 'Enough is said in these relations to satisfy any reasonable sober-minded person, and to confute this ancient heresy, now much revived and spreading, especially among the gentry, and persons much estranged from God and spiritual things; and such as will not be satisfied with things plainly proved and well designed; are, in this respect, no better than fools, and to be despised as such.... They are chiefly women and men of weak and womanish understandings, who speak against the accounts of spirits and apparitions. In some women this comes from a certain proud fineness, excessive delicacy, and a superfine disposition which cannot bear to be disturbed with what is strange and disagreeable to a vain spirit.' Nor does the Prophet hesitate to apply the term 'Sadducees' to all doubters of his goblins. His warrant for this is found in Wesley and Luther. That Luther saw apparitions, or believed he did, is commonly known. Wesley's beliefs in this direction, however, are of a nearer century, and strike us more strangely; though it must be said that the Prophet Jones, in our own century, believed more than either of his eminent prototypes. 'It is true,' wrote Wesley, 'that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do _not_ believe it.... They well know, whether Christians know it or not, that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible. And they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air--deism, atheism, materialism--falls to the ground.' III. The ghosts of Wales present many well-defined features. It is even possible to classify them, after a fashion. Of course, as with all descriptions of phantoms, the vagueness inevitable in creatures of the imagination is here; but the ghosts of Welsh tradition are often so old, and have been handed down so cleanly through successive generations, that in our day they have almost acquired definite outlines, as in the case of images arising from the perceptions. Always bearing in mind the risk of being lost in the labyrinthine eccentricities of popular fancy, compared to which the Arsinoë of Herodotus was unperplexing, I venture to classify the inhabitants of the Welsh spirit-world thus: 1. Departed Mortals; 2. Goblin Animals; 3. Spectres of Natural Objects; 4. Grotesque Ghosts; 5. Familiar Spirits; 6. Death Omens. IV. The ghosts of departed mortals are usually the late personal acquaintances of the people who see them. But sometimes they are strangers whom nobody knows, and concerning whom everybody is curious. Two such ghosts haunted the streets of Ebbw Vale, in Glamorganshire, in January, 1877. One was in the shape of an old woman, the other in that of a girl child. Timid people kept indoors after nightfall, and there were many who believed thoroughly in the ghostly character of the mysterious visitors. Efforts were made to catch them, but they eluded capture. It was hinted by materialists that they were thieves; by unbelievers in spiritualism that they had perhaps escaped from a seance in some adjoining town. These ghosts, however, are not very interesting. A cultivated moderner can have no satisfaction in forming the acquaintance of a seance ghost; it is quite otherwise in the case of a respectable old family goblin which has haunted a friend's house in the most orthodox manner for centuries. Such ghosts are numerous in Wales, and quite faithfully believed in by selected individuals. Indeed one of the highest claims to a dignified antiquity that can be put in by a Welsh family mansion, is the possession of a good old-fashioned blood-curdling spectre--like that, for example, which has haunted Duffryn House, a handsome stone manse near Cardiff, for the past two hundred years and more. This is the ghost of the doughty admiral Sir Thomas Button, famed in his day as an Arctic navigator. Since his death he has faithfully haunted (so the local farm folk say) the cellar and the garden of Duffryn House, where he lived, when he did live, which was in the 17th century. He has never been known to appear in hall or chamber of the mansion, within the memory of man, but has been seen hovering over the beer butt or tun in the cellar, commemorated in his name, and walking in the flower-garden of a fine windy night. It is noteworthy that in Wales it is by no means necessary that a house should be tenantless, mortally speaking, merely because a ghost haunts it. The dreary picture of desolation drawn by Hood, the all-sufficient explanation of which was-- ... the place is haunted! would not recall the smug tidiness of Duffryn House, whose clean-cut lawns and well-trimmed hedges are fit surroundings of a mansion where luxurious comfort reigns. A ghost which confines itself to the cellar and the garden need disturb neither the merrymaking nor the slumbers of the guests. St. Donat's Castle is down on the southern coast of Glamorganshire, in a primitive region not yet profaned by railroads, nor likely to be perhaps for many years to come. It is owned and inhabited by a worthy gentleman whose ancestors for seven centuries sleep in the graveyard under the old castle wall. Its favourite ghost--for to confine this or any other ancient Welsh castle to a single ghost would be almost disrespectful--is that of Lady Stradling, who was done away with by some of her family in those wicked old times when families did not always dwell in peace together. This ghost makes a practice of appearing when any mishap is about to befall a member of the house of Stradling--the direct line of which is, however, extinct, a fact not very well apprehended among the neighbouring peasantry. She wears high-heeled shoes and a long trailing gown of the finest silk. In this guise doth she wander up and down the long majestic halls and chambers, and, while she wanders, the castle hounds refuse to rest, but with their howlings raise all the dogs of the village under the hill. V. Ghosts of this sort are vague and purposeless in character, beyond a general blood-curdling office which in all ghosts doth dwell. They haunt not only castles and family mansions, but bridges, rocks, and roads, objectless but frightful. The ghost of Pont Cwnca Bach, near Yscanhir, in Carmarthenshire, frightens people off the bridge into the rivulet. Many belated peasants have had this dire experience at the little bridge, afterwards wandering away in a dazed condition, and finding themselves on recovering at some distance from home, often in the middle of a bog. In crossing this bridge people were seized with 'a kind of _cold dread_,' and felt 'a peculiar sensation' which they could not describe, but which the poorest fancy can no doubt imagine. Another purposeless spectre exists in the legend of Catrin Gwyn, told in Cardiganshire. The ruin of a shepherd's cottage, standing on a mountain waste near the river Rheidol, is the haunt of this spectre. A peasant who was asked to escort a stranger up the narrow defile of rocks by the ruin, in horror exclaimed, 'Yn enw y daioni, peidiwch,' (in the name of heaven, sir, don't go!) 'or you'll meet White Catti of the Grove Cave.' 'And what's that?' 'An evil spirit, sir.' And the superstitious peasant would neither be laughed nor reasoned out of his fears. Catrin was the bride of a young shepherd living near Machynlleth in 1705. One day she went to market with a party of other peasants, who separated from her on the return way at a point two miles from Gelli Gogo. She was never more seen alive. A violent storm arose in the night, and next day a scrap of her red cloak was found on the edge of a frightful bog, in which she is believed to have disappeared in the darkness and storm. The husband went mad; their cottage fell to decay; and to this day the shepherds declare that Catti's ghost haunts the spot. It is most often seen, and in its most terrific shape, during howling storms, when it rides on the gale, shrieking as it goes.[64] FOOTNOTE: [64] 'Camb. Quarterly,' i., 452. VI. Few Cambrian spirits are devoid of a didactic purpose. Some teach reverence for the dead,--a lesson in great request among the rising generation in Wales and elsewhere. The church at Tregaron, Cardiganshire, was being rebuilt in 1877, and certain skulls were turned up by the diggers in making new foundations. The boys of Tregaron amused themselves playing ball with the skulls, picking out their teeth, banging them against the wall to see if they would break, and the like.[65] They probably never heard the story told by Mrs. Morgan of Newport to the Prophet Jones: of some people who were drinking at an inn there, 'two of them officers of excise,' when one of the men, to show his courage, declared he was afraid of no ghosts, and dared go to the charnel house and fetch a skull from that ghastly place. This bold and dangerous thing he did, and the men debated, over their beer, whether it was a male or a female skull, and concluded it was a woman's, 'though the grave nearly destroys the difference between male and female before the bones are turned to dust, and the difference then quite destroyed and known only to God.' After a jolly hour over the skull, the bold one carried it back and left it where he got it; but as he was leaving the church, suddenly a tremendous blast like a whirlwind seized him, and so mauled and hauled him that his teeth chattered in his head and his knees knocked together, and he ever after swore that nothing should tempt him to such a deed again. He was still more convinced that the ghost of the original owner of the skull had been after him, when he got home, and his wife told him that his cane, which hung in the room, had been beating against the wall in a dreadful manner. FOOTNOTE: [65] 'Western Mail,' Dec. 14, 1877. VII. As a rule, the motive for the reappearance on earth of a spirit lately tenanting a mortal body, is found in some neglected duty. The spirit of a suicide is morally certain to walk: a reason why suicides are so unpopular as tenants of graveyards. It is a brave man who will go to the grave of a suicide and play 'Hob y deri dando' on the ysturmant (jew's-harp), without missing a note. Many are the tales displaying the motive, on the ghost's part, of a duty to perform--sometimes clearly defining it, sometimes vaguely suggesting it, as in the story of Noe. 'The evening was far gone when a traveller of the name of Noe arrived at an inn in Pembrokeshire, and called for refreshment. After remaining some time he remarked that he must proceed on his journey. "Surely," said the astonished landlord, "you will not travel at night, for it is said that a ghost haunts that road, crying out, The days are long and the nights are cold to wait for Noe." "O, I am the man sought for," said he, and immediately departed; but strange to say, neither Noe nor the ghost was ever heard of afterwards.'[66] The ghost of a weaver, which appeared to Walter John Harry, had a very clear idea of the duty he must perform: Walter John Harry was a Quaker, a harmless, honest man, and by trade a farrier, who lived in the romantic valley of Ebwy Fawr. The house he lived in was haunted by the ghost of Morgan Lewis, a weaver, who had died in that house. One night, while lying awake in his bed, with his wife sleeping by his side, Harry saw a light slowly ascending the stairs, and being somewhat afraid, though he was naturally a fearless man, strove to awake his wife by pinching her, but could not awake her. So there he lay in great fear, and with starting eyes beheld the ghost of the weaver come up the stairs, bearing a candle in its hand, and wearing a white woollen cap on its head, with other garments usual to the weaver when alive. The ghost came near the farrier's bed, who then mustered up courage to speak to it. 'Morgan Lewis,' said Harry, 'why dost thou walk this earth?' The ghost replied with great solemnity, that its reason for so doing was that there were some 'bottoms of wool' hidden in the wall of this house, and until these said bottoms were removed from the wall it could not sleep. The ghost did not say this wool had been stolen, but such was the inference. However, the harmless farrier spoke severely to the ghost, saying, 'I charge thee, Morgan Lewis, in the name of God, that thou trouble my house no more.' Whereupon the ghost vanished, and the house ceased thereafter to be haunted. The motives animating ghosts are much the same the world over, and these details have no greater novelty than that of the local colouring. European peoples are familiar with the duty-compelled ghost; but it is odd to encounter the same spectre in China. The most common form of Chinese ghost-story is that wherein the ghost seeks to bring to justice the murderer who shuffled off its mortal coil. The ghosts of suicides are also especially obnoxious there. The spectres which are animated by a sense of duty are more frequently met than any others: now they seek to serve virtue in distress, now they aim to restore wrongfully-held treasure.[67] FOOTNOTES: [66] 'Camb. Sup.,' 31. [67] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 73. VIII. The laws governing the Welsh spirit-world are clear and explicit. A ghost on duty bent has no power of speech until first spoken to. Its persistency in haunting is due to its eager desire to speak, and tell its urgent errand, but the person haunted must take his courage in both hands and put the question to the issue. Having done so, he is booked for the end of the business, be it what it may. The mode of speech adopted must not vary, in addressing a spirit; in the name of the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost it must be addressed, and not otherwise. Its business must be demanded; three times the question must be repeated, unless the ghost answer earlier. When it answers, it speaks in a low and hollow voice, stating its desire; and it must not be interrupted while speaking, for to interrupt it is dangerous in the extreme. At the close of its remarks, questions are in order. They must be promptly delivered, however, or the ghost will vanish. They must bear on the business in hand: it is offended if asked as to its state, or other idle questions born of curiosity. Neglect to obey the ghost's injunctions will lead to much annoyance, and eventually to dire results. At first the spirit will appear with a discontented visage, next with an angry one, and finally with a countenance distorted with the most ferocious rage. Obedience is the only method of escape from its revenge. Such is a _resumé_ of the laws. The illustrations thereof are generally consistent in their details. The story of Cadogan's ghost is one of many in kind. Thomas Cadogan was the owner of a large estate in the parish of Llanvihangel Llantarnam, and being a covetous man did wickedly remove his landmarks in such a way as to absorb to himself part of the land of a widow his neighbour. After his death this injustice troubled him, and as a certain woman was going home one night, at a stile she passed over she met Cadogan's ghost. By a strange forgetfulness, this woman for the moment lost sight of the fact that Cadogan was now a ghost; she had momentarily forgotten that Cadogan was dead. 'Mr. Cadogan,' said she, with ungrammatical curiosity, 'what does you here this time o' night?' To which the ghost answered, 'I was obliged to come.' It then explained the matter of the landmarks, and begged the woman to request a certain person (whom it mentioned) to remove them back to their proper places; and then the ghost vanished. At this unexpected termination of the interview, the woman suddenly recollected Cadogan's death, and fell into a state of extreme terror. She however did as the ghost had bidden her, and Cadogan walked no more. CHAPTER II. Household Ghosts and Hidden Treasures--The Miser of St. Donat's--Anne Dewy's Ghost--The Ghost on Horseback--Hidden Objects of Small Value--Transportation through the Air--From Breconshire to Philadelphia, Pa., in Thirty-Six Hours--Sir David Llwyd, the Magician--The Levitation of Walter Jones--Superstitions regarding Hares--The Legend of Monacella's Lambs--Aerial Transportation in Modern Spiritualism--Exorcising Household Ghosts--The Story of Haunted Margaret. I. The majority of stories of this class turn on the subject of hidden treasures. The popular belief is that if a person die while any hoarded money--or indeed metal of any kind, were it nothing more than old iron--is still hidden secretly, the spirit of that person cannot rest. Its perturbation can only be relieved by finding a human hand to take the hidden metal, and throw it down the stream of a river. To throw it up the stream, will not do. The Ogmore is the favourite river for this purpose in lower Glamorganshire. The spirit selects a particular person as the subject of its attentions, and haunts that person till asked what it wants, when it prefers its request. Some say it is only ill-gotten treasure which creates this disturbance of the grave's repose. A tailor's wife at Llantwit Major, who had been a stout and jolly dame, was thus haunted until she was worn to the semblance of a skeleton, 'for not choosing to take a hoard honestly to the Ogmore.' But flesh and blood could not resist for ever, and so--this is her story: 'I at last consented, for the sake of quiet, to take the treasure to the river; and the spirit wafted me through the air so high that I saw below me the church loft, and all the houses, as if I leaned out of a balloon. When I took the treasure to throw it into the river, in my flurry I flung it up stream instead of down: and on this the spirit, with a savage look, tossed me into a whirlwind, and however I got back to my home I know not.' The bell-ringers found her lying insensible in the church lane, as they were going home from church late in the evening. II. There was an old curmudgeon of a money-hoarder who lived in a cottage on the side of the cwm, or dingle, at St. Donat's, not far from the Castle. His housekeeper was an antique dame of quaint aspect. He died, and the dame lived there alone; but she began to grow so gaunt and grizzly that people wondered at it, and the children ran frightened from her. Some one finally got from her the confession that she was haunted by the miser's ghost. To relieve her of its presence the Methodists resolved to hold a prayer-meeting in the haunted house. While they were there singing and praying the old woman suddenly jumped up and screamed, 'There he is! there he is!' The people grew silent. Then some one said, 'Ask it what it wants.' 'What do you want?' quavered the old woman. No one heard the reply, except the dame, who presently said: 'Where is it?' Then the old woman, nodding and staring as if obeying an invisible mandate, groped her way to the chimney, thrust her gaunt arm up, and drew down a bag of money. With this she cried out, 'Let me go! let me go!' which, no one preventing her, she did, as quickly as a flash of light. Some young men by the door followed her, and, it being a bright moonlight night, beheld her whisk over the stile without touching it, and so off up the road towards the Ogmore. The people now resumed their praying and singing. It was an hour before the old woman got back, and then she was found to be spattered with mud and bedraggled with wet, as if she had been having a terrific time. She had indeed, as she confessed, been to the Ogmore, and thrown the bag of money down the stream; the ghost had then taken off its hat, made a low bow, and vanished, to trouble her no more. III. A young man from Llywel parish, who was courting a lass who lodged at the house of Thomas Richard, in the vale of Towy, found himself haunted as he went to and fro by the ghost of Anne Dewy, a woman who had hanged herself. She would not only meet him in the road, and frighten him, but she would come to his bedside, and so scare him that he fell ill. While he was ill his cousin came to see him, and thinking his illness was due to his being crossed in love, rallied him, saying, 'Wfft! thou'rt sick because thy cariad has refused thee.' But being gravely answered, and told of Anne Dewy's ghost, this cousin advised the haunted man to speak to her. 'Speak to her,' said he, 'or thou wilt have no quiet. I will go with thee, and see thou shalt have no harm.' So they went out, and called at Tafarn y Garreg, an inn not far off; but the haunted man could not drink, and often looked towards the door. 'What ails the man?' asked the tap-room loungers. He continued to be uneasy, and finally went out, his cousin following him, and then he saw the ghost again. 'Oh God, here she is!' he cried out, his teeth chattering and his eyes rolling. 'This is a sad thing,' said his cousin: 'I know not what to think of thee; but come, I will go with thee, go where thou wilt.' They returned to the ale-house, and after a while the haunted man started up, saying he was called, but when others offered to go with him he said no, he must go alone. He did go alone, and spoke to the ghost, who said, 'Fear nothing; follow me.' She led him to a spot behind the house where she had lived when in the flesh, and where she had hanged herself, and bade him take from the wall a small bag. He did so. The bag contained 'a great sum of money,' in pieces of gold; he guessed it might be 200_l._ or more. But the ghost, greatly to his regret, bade him go and cast it into the river. He obeyed, against his better judgment. The next day, and for many a day thereafter, people looked for that money where he had thrown it in the river, but it never could be found. The Rev. Thomas Lewis, a dissenting minister in those parts, saw the place in the wall where the money had been hid, in the haunted house, and wondered how the young man could reach it, it being so very high; but thought it likely he was assisted by the ghost. IV. This same Rev. Thomas Lewis was well acquainted with a man who was similarly employed by a perturbed spirit, and was at the man's bedside when he died. This ghost was in appearance a clergyman, dressed in black clothes, with a white wig on. As the man was looking out of an ale-house window one night, he saw this ghost on horseback, and went out to him. The ghost bowed and silently offered him drink; but this was declined. Thereupon the ghost lifted his hat, crooked his elbow, and said in a hollow tone, 'Attoch chwi, syr,' (towards you, sir). But others who were there could see nothing and hear nothing. The ghost then said, 'Go to Clifford Castle, in Radnorshire, take out some money which lies hidden there, and throw it into the river. Do this, I charge thee, or thou shalt have no rest.' Further and more explicit directions were then given, and the unhappy man set out, against his will, for Clifford Castle, which is the castle in which was born Fair Rosamond, King Henry II.'s beautiful favourite. No one but himself was allowed to enter the castle, although he was permitted to have a friend's company to the ruined gate thereof. It was dark when they came to the castle, but he was guided to the place where the money was, and ran with it and flung it into the river. After that he was haunted no more. An old house at Ty'n-y-Twr, in Carnarvonshire, was haunted by a ghost whose troubles were a reversal of the rule. A new tenant, who took possession of the house a few years ago, was so bothered by this spectre that he resolved to question it. He did so and got for answer the information that if he would deposit a particular sum of money in a specified place, his ghostship would cease to walk. The man actually did this, and it acted like magic. The money disappeared with promptitude, and the ghost came there no more. A man at Crumlyn, Monmouthshire, was haunted by a ghost whose trouble related to a hidden object of small value. Nevertheless the spectre was so importunate that the man set out one night to accompany it to the scene of perturbation. In due time they came to a huge stone, which the ghost bade its friend lift up, who replied that he had not sufficient strength, it being a pretty large rock he was thus requested to move. 'But try,' said the ghost. So he tried, and lo! it was lifted as if it had been a feather. He drew forth a pike, or mattock; 'and the light,' the man afterwards related, 'was as great as if the sun shone; and in the snow there was no impression of the feet of either of us.' They went to the river, and by the ghost's command the man threw the pike over his head into the water, standing with his back to the flood. The ghost then conducted him home, and never troubled him more. But for a long time after he was out of his senses. This was an illustration, according to the popular belief, of the wickedness of hiding anything, however trifling its value--a practice strongly condemned by the Welsh peasantry. There is a Glamorganshire story about a certain young man who, returning late at night from courting his sweetheart, felt tired, and sitting down fell asleep. He had not slept long when he was aroused by a strange noise, and looking up recognised the ghost of his departed grandfather. Enquiring the cause of the old gentleman's visit to this scene of trials, he got this answer: 'Under the corner of the thatch of your roof, look and you will find a pair of silver spurs, surreptitiously obtained by me when in the flesh, and hidden there. Throw them into the river Taff, and I shall be at peace.' The young man obeyed these instructions, and found the spurs accordingly; and although many persons were present when he climbed to the roof and fumbled under the thatch, and saw him in the very act, not one among them could see the spurs, which were to them invisible. They said, however, that when the purloined spurs had been thrown into the river, a bright flame was seen to flash along the water. V. A large proportion of these stories of ghostly perturbation concerning hidden treasure include a further feature of great interest, relating to transportation through the air. I have mentioned that ghosts sometimes employ the services of the fairy Boobach in thus carrying mortals from place to place. The fairies of Wales are indeed frequently found to be on the best of terms with the ghosts. Their races have much in common, and so many of their practices are alike that one is not always absolutely sure whether he is dealing with a fairy or a spectre, until some test-point crops up. However, in transporting a mortal through the air, ghost and fairy work together. The Boobach being set his task, complaisantly gives the mortal the choice of being transported above wind, amid wind, or below wind. The value of knowing beforehand what to expect, was never better illustrated than in this place. The mortal who, with a natural reluctance to get into an unpleasantly swift current, avoids travelling mid-wind, misses a pleasant journey, for mid-wind is the only agreeable mode of being borne by a Boobach. Should you choose to go above wind, you are transported so high that you skim the clouds and are in danger of being frightened to death. But choosing the below-wind course is even worse, for then you are dragged through bush, through briar, in a way to impress upon you the advice of Apollo to Phaeton, and teach you the value of the golden mean. _In medio tutissimus ibis._ VI. In the parish of Ystradgynlais, in Breconshire, Thomas Llewellyn, an innkeeper's son, was often troubled by the spirit of a well-dressed woman, who used to stand before him in narrow lanes, as if to bar his passage, but he always got by her, though in great alarm. One night he mustered up courage to speak to her, and ask her what she wanted with him. To which she replied, 'Be not afraid; I will not hurt thee.' Then she told him he must go to 'Philadelphia in Pennsylvania,' and take a box from a house there, (which she described,) in which there was a sum of 200_l._ But as he did not know how to go to that far-off place, he said as much. 'Meet me here next Friday night,' said the phantom; 'meet me, I charge thee.' She then vanished. The young man went home and told this story to his neighbours and friends. They held a consultation with the curate of the parish, who promptly appointed a prayer-meeting for that Friday night, to which the young man was bidden, and by which it was hoped the purpose of the ghost to spirit him off to Philadelphia might be circumvented. The meeting continued until midnight, and when it broke up the young man's friends stayed with him; but they had no sooner got beyond the parson's stables than he was taken from among them. His subsequent adventures are thus related by himself: 'The apparition carried me away to a river, and threw me into it, chiding me for telling the people of our appointed meeting and for not coming to meet her as she had charged me; but bade me be not afraid, that she would not hurt me, because she had not charged me to be silent on the subject; nevertheless I had done wrong to go to the parson's house. Now, said she, we begin the journey. I was then lifted up and carried away I know not how. When I came to the place,' (in Philadelphia,) 'I was taken into a house, and conducted to a fine room. The spirit then bade me lift up a board, which I did. I then saw the box, and took it. Then the spirit said I must go three miles and cast it into the black sea. We went, as I thought, to a lake of clear water, where I was commanded to throw the box into it; which when I did there was such a noise as if all about was going to pieces. From thence I was taken up and carried to the place where I was first taken up. I then asked her, Am I free now? She said I was; and then she told me a secret, which she strictly charged me to tell no person.' Extensive and ingenious guessing was indulged in by all Ystradgynlais, as to what this secret might be; and one woman made herself popular by remembering that there was a certain Elizabeth Gething in other days who had gone from this neighbourhood to Pennsylvania, and the conclusion was eagerly arrived at, that this was the woman whose phantom the young man saw, and that the secret she told him was her name when alive. They questioned him as to her appearance, and he said she was largely made, very pale, her looks severe, and her voice hollow, different from a human voice. This was considered by the Ystradgynlaisians, with many nods to each other, as a most accurate description of what Elizabeth Gething would probably be, after having shuffled off this mortal coil. The time occupied in this mysterious transportation and ghostly enterprise was three days and three nights; that is, from Friday night to Monday night; and when the voyager came home he could scarcely speak. VII. Sir David Llwyd, the Welsh magician, was once at Lanidloes town, in Montgomeryshire, and as he was going home late at night, saw a boy there from his neighbourhood. He asked the lad if he would like to ride home behind him, and receiving an affirmative reply, took the boy up behind on the horse's back. They rode so swiftly that they were home in no time, and the boy lost one of his garters in the journey. The next day, seeing something hanging in the ash-tree near the church, he climbed up to learn what it was, and to his great surprise found it was the garter he had lost. 'Which shows they rode home in the air,' observes the Prophet Jones in telling the story. Mr. Jones has a number of extraordinary narratives of this class--e.g., the following, which I condense: Henry Edmund, of Hafodafel, was one night visiting Charles Hugh, the conjuror of Aberystruth, and they walked together as far as Lanhiddel, where Hugh tried to persuade his companion to stay all night with him at a public house. Edmund refused, and said he would go home. 'You had _better_ stay,' said Hugh in a meaning tone. But Edmund went out into the street, when he was seized by invisible hands and borne through the air to Landovery, in Carmarthenshire, a distance of fully fifty miles as the crow flies. There he was set down at a public house where he had before been, and talked with people who knew him. He then went out into the street, when he was seized again and borne back to Lanhiddel, arriving there the next morning at daybreak. The first man he met was the conjuror Charles Hugh, who said, 'Did I not tell you you had better stay with me?' VIII. The landlord of the inn at Langattock Crickhowel, in Breconshire, was a man called Richard the Tailor. He was more than suspected of resorting to the company of fairies, and of practising infernal arts. One day a company of gentlemen were hunting in that vicinity, when the hounds started a hare, which ran so long and so hard that everybody was prostrated with fatigue; and this hare disappeared from view at the cellar window of the inn kept by Richard the Tailor. The circumstance begat a suspicion among the hunters that the hare which had so bothered them was none other than Richard the Tailor himself, and that his purpose in taking that form had been to lead them a dance and bring them to the door of his inn at an hour too late for them to return home, thus compelling them to spend their money there. They stayed, however, being very tired. But they growled very hard at their landlord and were perfectly free with their comments on his base conduct. One of their party, having occasion to go out-doors during the evening, did not come back; his name was Walter Jones, and he was well known in that part of the country. The company became uneasy at his absence, and began to abuse the landlord roundly, threatening to burn the house if Walter Jones did not return. Notwithstanding their threats, Walter Jones came not back all night. Late the next morning he made his appearance, looking like one who had been drawn through thorns and briars, with his hair in disorder, and his whole aspect terribly demoralised. His story was soon told. He had no sooner got out-doors than invisible hands had whisked him up, and whirled him along rough ways until daybreak, when he found himself near by the town of Newport, helping a man from Risca to raise a load of coal upon his horse. Suddenly he became insensible, and was whisked back again to the inn where they now saw him. The distance he traversed in going to and fro was about forty miles. And Walter Jones, who had hitherto been an ungodly man, mended his ways from that time forth. IX. There are many points in all these traditional stories which are suggestive of interesting comparisons, and constantly remind us of the significance of details which, at first sight, seem trivial. The supposed adoption of the hare form by the tailor recalls a host of mythological details. The hare has been identified with the sun-god Michabo of the American Indians, who sleeps through the winter months, and symbolises the sleep of nature precisely as in the fairy myth of the Sleeping Maiden, and the Welsh legends of Sleeping Heroes. Among the Hottentots, the hare figures as the servant of the moon. In China, the hare is viewed as a telluric genius in one province, and everywhere as a divine animal. In Wales, one of the most charming of the local legends relates how a hare flying from the hounds took refuge under a fair saint's robes, so that hares were ever after called Monacella's Lambs in that parish. Up to a comparatively recent time, no person in the parish would kill a hare. When a hare was pursued by dogs, it was firmly believed that if any one cried, 'God and St. Monacella be with thee,' it was sure to escape. The legend is related by Pennant, in his tour through Montgomeryshire: 'At about two miles distant from Llangynog, I turned up a small valley to the right, to pay my devotions to the shrine of St. Monacella, or, as the Welsh style her, Melangell.... She was the daughter of an Irish monarch, who had determined to marry her to a nobleman of his court. The princess had vowed celibacy. She fled from her father's dominions, and took refuge in this place, where she lived fifteen years without seeing the face of man. Brochwel Yscythrog, prince of Powys, being one day a hare-hunting, pursued his game till he came to a great thicket; when he was amazed to find a virgin of surprising beauty engaged in deep devotion, with the hare he had been pursuing under her robe, boldly facing the dogs, who retired to a distance, howling, notwithstanding all the efforts of the sportsmen to make them seize their prey. When the huntsman blew his horn, it stuck to his lips. Brochwel heard her story, and gave to God and her a parcel of lands to be a sanctuary to all who fled there. He desired her to found an abbey on the spot. She did so, and died abbess of it, in a good old age. She was buried in the neighbouring church.... Her hard bed is shown in the cleft of a neighbouring rock. Her tomb was in a little chapel, or oratory, adjoining to the church and now used as a vestry-room. This room is still called cell y bedd, (cell of the grave).... The legend is perpetuated by some rude wooden carvings of the saint, with numbers of hares scuttling to her for protection.' X. It is interesting to observe, in connection with the subject of transportation through the air, with what vitality this superstition lingers in modern spiritualism. The accounts of such transportation are familiar to every reader of newspapers. That Mr. Home was seen, by a learned English nobleman, sailing through the moonlight seventy feet from the ground, is on record; that Mrs. Guppy was transported from Highbury Park to Lamb's Conduit Street, in London, in a trance and a state of partial _déshabille_, is also on record; and that a well-known American spiritualist was borne by invisible hands from Chicago to Milwaukee and back, between midnight and 4 A.M., I have been assured by a number of persons in Illinois who thoroughly believed it, or said they did. But it certainly is not too much to demand, that people who give credence to these instances of aerial transportation should equally believe in the good old ghost stories of the Welsh. The same consistency calls for credulity as to the demoniacal elevation of Simon Magus, and the broomstick riding of the witches whose supernatural levitation was credited by Lord Bacon and Sir Matthew Hale, not to speak of Addison and Wesley. There is something peculiarly fascinating to the gross denizens of earth in this notion of skimming like a bird over house-tops. No dreams, save those of love and dalliance, are so charming to the dreamer as visions of flying; to find oneself floating along over the tops of trees, over the streets where less favoured mortals walk, to look down on them as they stroll, is to feel an exquisite pleasure. The mind of childhood and that of ignorance, alike unable to discriminate between reality and illusion, would naturally retain the impression of such a dream with peculiar vividness. The superstition has no doubt been fostered by this fact, although it, like most superstitions, began its career in pre-historic days. The same class of belief attaches to the magical lore of widely separated lands, in all ages. The magic carpet of the Arabian Nights finds its parallel to-day in the enchanted mat of the Chinese conjuror, which carries him from place to place, at a height of twenty or thirty feet in the air. The levitation involved is in Welsh story embodied in the person of Sgilti Yscawndroed; when he was sent on a message through the wood he went along the tops of the trees; in his whole life, a blade of reed grass never bent beneath his feet, so light was his tread.[68] FOOTNOTE: [68] Lady Charlotte Guest's 'Mabinogion,' 225. XI. It remains but to add, in connection with our household ghosts, that the method of exorcising such goblins in Wales is explicit. The objectionable spectre must be conjured, in the name of Heaven, to depart, and return no more. Not always is this exorcism effective; the ghost may have a specific purpose in hand, or it may be obstinate. The strength of the exorcism is doubled by employing the Latin language to deliver it; it receives its utmost power, however, through the clergy; three clergymen, it is thought, will exorcise any ghost that walks. The exorcism is usually for a stated period; seven years is the favourite time; one hundred years the limit. There are many instances where a ghost which had been laid a hundred years returned at the end of the time to its old haunts. In all cases it is necessary the ghost should agree to be exorcised; no power can lay it if it be possessed of an evil demon--a spirit within a spirit, as it were--which stubbornly refuses to listen to argument. In such cases the terrors of Heaven must be rigorously invoked; but the result is only temporary. Properly constituted family ghosts, however, will lend a reasonable ear to entreaty, backed by prayer. There are even cases on record where the ghost has been the entreater, as in the story of Haunted Margaret. Haunted Margaret, or Marget yr Yspryd, was a servant-girl who lived in the parish of Panteg. She had been seduced by a man who promised to marry her, and a day was set for their wedding; but when the day came, the man was not on hand, and Margaret thereupon fell on her knees in the church and prayed Heaven that her seducer might have no rest either in this world or in the world to come. In due course the man died, and immediately his ghost came to haunt Margaret Richard. People heard her in the night saying to the ghost, 'What dost thou want?' or 'Be quiet, let me alone;' and hence it was that she came to be known in that parish by the nickname of Marget yr Yspryd. One evening when the haunted woman was at the house of Mrs. Hercules Jenkins, at Trosdra, she began to be uneasy, and as it grew late said, 'I must go now, or else I shall be sure to meet him on the way home.' Mrs. Jenkins advised Margaret to speak to him; 'and tell him thou dost forgive him,' said the good dame. Margaret went her way, and as she drew near a stile at the end of a foot-bridge, she saw the ghost at the stile waiting for her. When she came up to it the ghost said, 'Do thou forgive me, and God will forgive thee. Forgive me and I shall be at rest, and never trouble thee any more.' Margaret then forgave him, and he shook hands with her in a friendly way, and vanished. CHAPTER III. Spectral Animals--The Chained Spirit--The Gwyllgi, or Dog of Darkness--The Legend of Lisworney-Crossways--The Gwyllgi of the Devil's Nags--The Dog of Pant y Madog--Terrors of the Brute Creation at Phantoms--Apparitions of Natural Objects--Phantom Ships and Phantom Islands. I. Of spectral animals there is no great diversity in Cambria, unless one should class under this head sundry poetic creatures which more properly belong to the domain of magic, or to fairyland. The spirits of favourite animals which have died return occasionally to visit their masters. Sometimes it is a horse, which is seen on a dark night looking in at the window, its eyes preternaturally large. More often it is the ghost of a dog which revisits the glimpses of the moon. Men sometimes become as fondly attached to a dog as they could to any human being, and, where the creed of piety is not too severe, the possibility of a dog's surviving after death in a better world is admitted. 'It is hard to look in that dog's eyes and believe,' said a Welshman to me, 'that he has not a bit of a soul to be saved.' The almost human companionship of the dog for man is a familiar fact. It is not strange, therefore, that the dog should be the animal whose spirit, in popular belief, shares the nature of man's after death. II. Sometimes the spirit in animal form is the spirit of a mortal, doomed to wear this shape for some offence. This again trenches on the ground of magic; but the ascription to the spirit-world is distinct in modern instances. There was a Rev. Mr. Hughes, a clergyman of the Church of England, in the isle and county of Anglesea, who was esteemed the most popular preacher thereabout in the last century, and upon this account was envied by the rest of the clergy, 'which occasioned his becoming a field preacher for a time, though he was received into the Church again.'[69] As he was going one night to preach, he came upon an artificial circle in the ground, between Amlwch village and St. Elian Church, where a spirit in the shape of a large greyhound jumped against him and threw him from his horse. This experience was repeated on a second night. The third night he went on foot, and warily; and now he saw that the spirit was chained. He drew near, but keeping beyond the reach of the chain, and questioned the spirit: 'Why troublest thou those that pass by?' The spirit replied that its unrest was due to a silver groat it had hidden under a stone when in the flesh, and which belonged to the church of St. Elian. The clergyman being told where the groat was, found it and paid it over to the church, and the chained spirit was released. FOOTNOTE: [69] Jones, 'Apparitions.' III. In the Gwyllgi, or Dog of Darkness, is seen a spirit of terrible form, well known to students of folk-lore. This is a frightful apparition of a mastiff, with a baleful breath and blazing red eyes which shine like fire in the night. It is huge in size, and reminds us of the 'shaggy mastiff larger than a steed nine winters old,' which guarded the sheep before the castle of Yspaddaden Pencawr. 'All the dead trees and bushes in the plain he burnt with his breath down to the very ground.'[70] The lane leading from Mousiad to Lisworney-Crossways, is reported to have been haunted by a Gwyllgi of the most terrible aspect. Mr. Jenkin, a worthy farmer living near there, was one night returning home from market on a young mare, when suddenly the animal shied, reared, tumbled the farmer off, and bolted for home. Old Anthony the farm-servant, found her standing trembling by the barn-door, and well knowing the lane she had come through suspected she had seen the Gwyllgi. He and the other servants of the farm all went down the road, and there in the haunted lane they found the farmer, on his back in the mud. Being questioned, the farmer protested it was the Gwyllgi and nothing less, that had made all this trouble, and his nerves were so shaken by the shock that he had to be supported on either side to get him home, slipping and staggering in the mud in truly dreadful fashion all the way. It is the usual experience of people who meet the Gwyllgi that they are so overcome with terror by its unearthly howl, or by the glare of its fiery eyes, that they fall senseless. Old Anthony, however, used to say that he had met the Gwyllgi without this result. As he was coming home from courting a young woman of his acquaintance (name delicately withheld, as he did not marry her) late one Sunday night--or it may have been Monday morning--he encountered in the haunted lane two large shining eyes, which drew nearer and nearer to him. He was dimly able to discern, in connection with the gleaming eyes, what seemed a form of human shape above, but with the body and limbs of a large spotted dog. He threw his hat at the terrible eyes, and the hat went whisking right through them, falling in the road beyond. However, the spectre disappeared, and the brave Anthony hurried home as fast as his shaking legs would carry him. As Mr. David Walter, of Pembrokeshire, 'a religious man, and far from fear and superstition,' was travelling by himself through a field called the Cot Moor, where there are two stones set up called the Devil's Nags, which are said to be haunted, he was suddenly seized and thrown over a hedge. He went there another day, taking with him for protection a strong fighting mastiff dog. When he had come near the Devil's Nags there appeared in his path the apparition of a dog more terrible than any he had ever seen. In vain he tried to set his mastiff on; the huge beast crouched frightened by his master's feet and refused to attack the spectre. Whereupon his master boldly stooped to pick up a stone, thinking that would frighten the evil dog; but suddenly a circle of fire surrounded it, which lighting up the gloom, showed the white snip down the dog's nose, and his grinning teeth, and white tail. 'He then knew it was one of the infernal dogs of hell.'[71] Rebecca Adams was 'a woman who appeared to be a true living experimental Christian, beyond many,' and she lived near Laugharne Castle, in Carmarthenshire. One evening when she was going to Laugharne town on some business, her mother dissuaded her from going, telling her she would be benighted, and might be terrified by some apparition at Pant y Madog. This was a pit by the side of the lane leading to Laugharne, which was never known to be dry, and which was haunted, as many had both seen and heard apparitions there. But the bold Rebecca was not to be frighted at such nonsense, and went her way. It was rather dark when she was returning, and she had passed by the haunted pit of Pant y Madog, and was congratulating herself on having seen no ghost. Suddenly she saw a great dog coming towards her. When within about four or five yards of her it stopped, squatted on its haunches, 'and set up such a scream, so loud, so horrible, and so strong, that she thought the earth moved under her.' Then she fell down in a swoon. When she revived it was gone; and it was past midnight when she got home, weak and exhausted. FOOTNOTES: [70] 'Mabinogion,' 230. [71] Jones, 'Apparitions.' IV. Much stress is usually laid, in accounts of the Gwyllgi, on the terror with which it inspires domestic animals. This confidence in the ability of the brute creation to detect the presence of a spirit, is a common superstition everywhere. An American journal lately gave an account of an apparition seen in Indiana, whose ghostly character was considered by the witnesses to be proven by the terror of horses which saw it. They were drawing the carriage in which drove the persons to whom the ghost appeared, and they shied from the road at sight of it, becoming unmanageable. The spectre soon dissolved in thin air and vanished, when the horses instantly became tractable. In Wales it is thought that horses have peculiarly this 'gift' of seeing spectres. Carriage horses have been known to display every sign of the utmost terror, when the occupants of the carriage could see no cause for fright; and in such cases a funeral is expected to pass there before long, bearing to his grave some person not dead at the time of the horses' fright. These phenomena are certainly extremely interesting, and well calculated to 'bid us pause,' though not, perhaps, for the purpose of considering whether a horse's eye can receive an image which the human retina fails to accept. Much weight will not be given to the fright of the lower animals, I fear, by any thoughtful person who has witnessed the terror of a horse at sight of a flapping shirt on a clothes-line, or that hideous monster a railway engine. Andrew Jackson Davis has a theory that we all bear about us an atmosphere, pleasing or repulsive, which can be detected by horses, dogs, and spiritual 'mediums;' this _aura_, being spiritual, surrounds us without our will or wish, goes where we go, but does not die when we die, and is the means by which a bloodhound tracks a slave, or a fond dog finds its master. Without denying the possibility of this theory, I must record that in my observation a dog has been found to smell his master most successfully when that master was most in need of a bath and a change of linen. Also, that when the master leaves off his coat he clearly leaves--if a dog's conduct be evidence--a part of his _aura_ with it. More worthy of serious attention is August Comte's suggestion that dogs and some other animals are perhaps capable of forming fetichistic notions. That dogs accredit inanimate objects with volition, to a certain extent, I am quite convinced. The thing which constitutes knowledge, in dogs as in human beings--that is to say, thought, organised by experience--corrects this tendency in animals as they grow older, precisely as it corrects the false conclusions of children, though never to the same extent. That a dog can think, I suppose no well-informed person doubts in these days. V. The Gwyllgi finds its counterpart in the Mauthe Doog of the Isle of Man and the Shock of the Norfolk coast. It there comes up out of the sea and travels about in the lanes at night. To meet it is a sign of trouble and death. The Gwyllgi also is confined to sea-coast parishes mainly, and although not classed among death-omens, to look on it is deemed dangerous. The hunting dogs, Cwn Annwn, or dogs of hell, whose habitat is the sky overhead, have also other attributes which distinguish them clearly from the Gwyllgi. They are death-omens, ancient of lineage and still encountered. The Gwyllgi, while suggesting some interesting comparisons with the old mythology, appears to have lost vogue since smuggling ceased to be profitable. VI. Confined to the coast, too, are those stories of phantom ships and phantom islands which, too familiar to merit illustration here, have their origin in the mirage. That they also touch the ancient mythology is undoubted; but their source in the mirage is probably true of the primeval belief as well as of the medieval, and that of our time. The Chinese also have the mirage, but not its scientific explanation, and hence of course their belief in its supernatural character is undisturbed. CHAPTER IV. Grotesque Ghosts--The Phantom Horseman--Gigantic Spirits--The Black Ghost of Ffynon yr Yspryd--Black Men in the Mabinogion--Whirling Ghosts--Antic Spirits--The Tridoll Valley Ghost--Resemblance to Modern Spiritualistic Performances--Household Fairies. I. The grotesque ghosts of Welsh folk-lore are often most diverting acquaintances. They are ghosts on horseback, or with coloured faces, or of huge and monstrous form; or they indulge in strange gymnastics, in whirling, throwing stones, or whistling. A phantom horseman, encountered by the Rev. John Jones, of Holywell, in Flintshire, as described by himself, is worthy of Heinrich Zschokke. This Mr. Jones was a preacher of extraordinary power, renowned and respected throughout Wales. He was one day travelling alone on horseback from Bala, in Merionethshire, to Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, and as he approached a forest which lay in his way he was dogged by a murderous-looking man carrying a sharp sickle. The minister felt sure this man meditated an attack on his life, from his conduct in running crouched along behind hedges, and from his having met the man at the village inn of Llanuwchllyn, where the minister exposed his watch and purse. Presently he saw the man conceal himself at a place where the hedge was thick, and where a gate crossed the road; and feeling sure that here he should be attacked, he stopped his horse to reflect on the situation. No house was in sight, and the road was hidden by high hedges on either side. Should he turn back? 'In despair, rather than in a spirit of humble trust and confidence,' says the good man, 'I bowed my head, and offered up a silent prayer. At this juncture my horse, growing impatient of the delay, started off. I clutched the reins, which I had let fall on his neck, when, happening to turn my eyes, I saw, to my utter astonishment, that I was no longer alone: there, by my side, I beheld a horseman in a dark dress, mounted on a white steed. In intense amazement I gazed upon him. Where could he have come from? He appeared as suddenly as if he had sprung from the earth; he must have been riding behind and have overtaken me, and yet I had not heard the slightest sound. It was mysterious, inexplicable; but joy overcame my feelings of wonder, and I began at once to address my companion. I asked him if he had seen any one, and then described to him what had taken place, and how relieved I felt by his sudden appearance. He made no reply, and on looking at his face he seemed paying but slight attention to my words, but continued intently gazing in the direction of the gate, now about a quarter of a mile ahead. I followed his gaze, and saw the reaper emerge from his concealment and run across a field to our left, resheathing his sickle as he hurried along. He had evidently seen that I was no longer alone, and had relinquished his intended attempt.' Seeking to converse with the mysterious horseman, the minister found the phantom was speechless. In vain he addressed it in both Welsh and English; not a word did it utter, save that once the minister thought it said 'Amen,' to a pious remark. Suddenly it was gone. 'The mysterious horseman was gone; he was not to be seen; he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. What could have become of him? He could not have gone through the gate, nor have made his horse leap the high hedges, which on both sides shut in the road. Where was he? had I been dreaming? was it an apparition--a spectre, which had been riding by my side for the last ten minutes? was it but a creature of my imagination? I tried hard to convince myself that this was the case; but why had the reaper resheathed his murderous-looking sickle and fled? And then a feeling of profound awe began to creep over my soul. I remembered the singular way of his first appearance, his long silence, and the single word to which he had given utterance after I had mentioned the name of the Lord; the single occasion on which I had done so. What could I then believe but that ... in the mysterious horseman I had a special interference of Providence, by which I was delivered from a position of extreme danger?' II. Of gigantic ghosts there are many examples which are very grotesque indeed. Such was the apparition which met Edward Frank, a young man who lived in the parish of Llantarnam. As he was coming home one night he heard something walking towards him, but at first could see nothing. Suddenly his way was barred by a tall dismal object which stood in the path before him. It was the ghost of a marvellous thin man, whose head was so high above the observer's line of vision that he nearly fell over backward in his efforts to gaze at it. His knees knocked together and his heart sank. With great difficulty he gasped forth, 'In the name of God what is here? Turn out of my way or I will strike thee!' The giant ghost then disappeared, and the frightened Edward, seeing a cow not far off, went towards her to lean on her, which the cow stood still and permitted him to do. The naïveté of this conclusion is convincing. Equally prodigious was the spectre seen by Thomas Miles Harry, of the parish of Aberystruth. He was coming home by night from Abergavenny, when his horse took fright at something which it saw, but which its master could not see. Very much terrified, the latter hastened to guide the animal into an adjoining yard, and dismount; whereupon he saw the apparition of a gigantic woman. She was so prodigiously tall, according to the account of the horrified Harry, that she was fully half as high as the tall beech trees on the other side of the road; and he hastened to hide from his eyes the awful sight, by running into the house, where they listened open-mouthed to his tale. Concerning this Mr. Harry we are assured that he was of an affable disposition, innocent and harmless, and the grandfather of that eminent and famous preacher of the Gospel, Thomas Lewis, of Llanharan, in Glamorganshire.[72] The same narrator relates that Anne, the daughter of Herbert Jenkins, of the parish of Trefethin, 'a young woman well disposed to what is good,' was going one evening to milk the cows by Rhiw-newith, when as she passed through a wood she saw a horrible black man standing by a holly tree. She had with her a dog, which saw it also, and ran towards it to bark at it, upon which it stretched out a long black tongue, and the dog ran affrighted back to the young woman, crawling and cringing about her feet for fear. She was in great terror at all this, but had the courage still to go on after the cows, which had strayed into another field. She drove them back to their own field, and in passing the holly-tree avoided looking that way for fear of seeing the black man again. However, after she had got safely by she looked back, and saw the monster once more, 'very big in the middle and narrow at both ends,' and as it walked away the ground seemed to tremble under its heavy tread. It went towards a spring in that field called Ffynon yr Yspryd, (the Fountain of the Spirit,) where ghosts had been seen before, and crossing over the stile into the common way, it whistled so loud and strong that the narrow valley echoed and re-echoed with the prodigious sound. Then it vanished, much to the young woman's relief. FOOTNOTE: [72] Jones, 'Apparitions.' III. That giants should appear in the Welsh spirit-land will surprise no one, but the apparition of black men is more unique. The Mabinogion, however, are full of black men, usually giants, always terrible to encounter. The black man whom Peredur slew had but one eye, having lost the other in fighting with the black serpent of the Carn. 'There is a mound, which is called the Mound of Mourning; and on the mound there is a carn, and in the carn there is a serpent, and on the tail of the serpent there is a stone, and the virtues of the stone are such, that whosoever should hold it in one hand, in the other he will have as much gold as he may desire. And in fighting with this serpent was it that I lost my eye.'[73] In the 'Lady of the Fountain' mabinogi the same character appears: 'a black man ... not smaller in size than two of the men of this world,' and with 'one eye in the middle of his forehead.'[74] And there are other black men in other Mabinogion, indicating the extremely ancient lineage of the spectre seen by Anne Jenkins at the Fountain of the Spirit. Whatever Anglo-Saxon scoffers may say of Welsh pedigrees of mere flesh and blood, the antiquity of its spectral hordes may not be disputed. The black giant of Sindbad the Sailor and the monster woodward of Cynan alike descend from the Polyphemus blinded by Odysseus. FOOTNOTES: [73] 'Mabinogion,' 106. [74] Ibid., 6. IV. Another grotesque Welsh goblin goes whirling through the world. Three examples are given by the Prophet Jones. _First:_ Lewis Thomas, the father of the Rev. Thomas Lewis, was on his return from a journey, and in passing through a field near Bedwellty, saw this dreadful apparition, to wit, the spectre of a man walking or whirling along on its hands and feet; at sight of which Lewis Thomas felt his hair to move on his head; his heart panted and beat violently, 'his body trembled, and he felt not his clothes about him,' _Second:_ John Jenkins, a poor man, who lived near Abertillery, hanged himself in a hay-loft. His sister soon after came upon his dead body there hanging, and screamed loudly. Jeremiah James, who lived in Abertillery House, hearing the scream, looked in that direction and saw the 'resemblance of a man' coming from the hay-loft 'and violently turning upwards and downwards topsy turvy' towards the river, 'which was a dreadful sight to a serious godly man.' _Third:_ Thomas Andrew, living at a place called The Farm, in the parish of Lanhiddel, coming home late at night saw a whirling goblin on all fours by the side of a wall, which fell to scraping the ground and wagging its head, 'looking aside one way and the other,' making at the same time a horrible mowing noise; at which Thomas Andrew 'was terribly frightened.' V. The antics of these and similar inhabitants of the Cambrian spirit-world at times outdo the most absurd capers of modern spiritualism. At the house of a certain farmer in the parish of Llanllechid, in Carnarvonshire, there was great disturbance by a spirit which threw stones into the house, and from one room to another, which hit and hurt the people who lived there. The stones were of various sizes, the largest weighing twenty-seven pounds. Most of them were river stones, from the stream which runs hard by. Some clergymen came from Bangor and read prayers in the house, to drive the spirit away, but their faith was not strong enough, and stones were thrown at them, so that they retired from the contest. The family finally had to abandon the house. On the farm of Edward Roberts, in the parish of Llangunllo, in Radnorshire, there was a spirit whose antics were somewhat remarkable. As the servant-man was threshing, the threshel was taken out of his hand and thrown upon the hay-loft. At first he did not mind this so much, but when the trick had been repeated three or four times he became concerned about it, and went into the house to tell of it. The master of the house was away, but the wife and the maid-servant laughed at the man, and merrily said they would go to the barn to protect him. So they went out there and sat, the one to knit and the other to wind yarn. They were not there long before their things were taken from their hands and tumbled about the barn. On returning to the house, they perceived the dishes on the shelves move to and fro, and some were thrown on to the stone floor and broken. That night there was a terrible clattering among the dishes, and next morning they could scarcely tread without stepping on the wrecks of crockery which lay about. This pleasant experience was often repeated. Neighbours came to see. People even came from far to satisfy their curiosity--some from so far as Knighton; and one who came from Knighton to read prayers for the exorcising of the spirit, had the book taken out of his hand and thrown upstairs. Stones were often cast at the people, and once iron was projected from the chimney at them. At last the spirit set the house on fire, and nothing could quench it; the house was burnt down: nothing but the walls and the two chimneys stood, long after, to greet the eyes of people who passed to and from Knighton market. VI. A spirit which haunted the house of William Thomas, in Tridoll Valley, Glamorganshire, used to hit the maid-servant on the side of her head, as it were with a cushion, when she was coming down the stairs. 'One time she brought a marment of water into the house,' and the water was thrown over her person. Another time there came so great an abundance of pilchards in the sea, that the people could scarcely devour them, and the maid asked leave of her master to go and fetch some of them. 'No,' said he, being a very just man, 'the pilchards are sent for the use of poor people; we do not want them.' But the maid was very fond of pilchards, and so she went without leave, and brought some to the house. After giving a turn about the house, she went to look for her fish, and found them thrown out upon the dunghill. 'Well,' said her master, 'did not I tell thee not to go?' Once a pot of meat was on the fire, and when they took it off they found both meat and broth gone, none knew where, and the pot as empty as their own bellies. Sometimes the clasped Bible would be thrown whisking by their heads; and 'so it would do with the gads of the steller, and once it struck one of them against the screen where a person then sat, and the mark of it still to be seen in the hard board.' Once the china dishes were thrown off the shelf, and not one broke. 'It was a great business with this light-hating spirit to throw an old lanthorn about the house without breaking it.' When the maid went a-milking to the barn, the barn-door would be suddenly shut upon her as she was milking the cow; then when she rose up the spirit began to turn the door backwards and forwards with an idle ringing noise. Once it tried to make trouble between the mistress and the maid by strewing charcoal ashes on the milk. When William Evans, a neighbour, went there to pray, as he knelt by the bedside, it struck the bed such a bang with a trencher that it made a report like a gun, so that both the bed and the room shook perceptibly. On another occasion, it made a sudden loud noise, which made the master think his house was falling down, and he was prodigiously terrified; it never after that made so loud a noise. The Rev. R. Tibbet, a dissenting minister from Montgomeryshire, was one night sleeping in the house, with another person in the bed with him; and they had a tussle with the Tridoll spirit for possession of the bed-clothes. By praying and pulling with equal energy, the parson beat the spirit, and kept the bed-clothes. But the spirit, apparently angered by this failure, struck the bed with the cawnen (a vessel to hold grain) such a blow that the bed was knocked out of its place. Then they lit a light and the spirit left them alone. It was a favourite diversion with this goblin to hover about William Thomas when he was shaving, and occasionally cuff him on the side of his head--the consequence being that the persecuted farmer shaved himself by fits and starts, in a very unsatisfactory manner, and in a most uncomfortable state of mind. For about two years it troubled the whole of that family, during which period it had intervals of quiet lasting for a fortnight or three weeks. Once it endeavoured to hinder them from going to church, by hiding the bunch of keys, on the Lord's day, so that for all their searching they could not find them. The good man of the house bade them not to yield to the devil, and as they were loth to appear in their old clothes at meeting, they were about to break the locks; but first concluded to kneel in prayer, and so did. After their prayers they found the keys where they used to be, but where they could not find them before. One night the spirit divided the books among the members of the family, after they had gone to bed. To the man of the house it gave the Bible, to the woman of the house 'Allen's Sure Guide,' and upon the bed of the maid-servant (whom it was specially fond of plaguing) it piled a lot of English books, which language she did not understand. The maid was heartily afraid of the spirit, and used to fall on her knees and go to praying with chattering teeth, at all hours of the day or night; and prayer this spirit could not abide. When the maid would go about in the night with a candle, the light thereof would diminish, grow feeble as if in dampness, and finally go out. The result was the maid was generally excused from making journeys into cellar or garret after dark, very much to her satisfaction. Particularly did this frisky Tridoll spirit trouble the maid-servant after she had gone to bed--in winter hauling the bed-clothes off her; in summer piling more on her. Now there was a young man, a first cousin to William Thomas, who could not be got to believe there was a spirit at his kinsman's house, and said the family were only making tricks with one another, 'and very strong he was, a hero of an unbeliever, like many of his brethren in infidelity.' One night William Thomas and his wife went to a neighbour's wake, and left the house in charge of the doubting cousin, who searched the place all over, and then went to bed there; and no spirit came to disturb him. This made him stronger than ever in his unbelief. But soon after he slept there again, when they were all there, and before going to bed he said aloud to the maid, 'If anything comes to disturb thee, Ally, call upon me, as I lie in the next room to you.' During the night the maid cried out that the spirit was pulling the clothes off her bed, and the doubting cousin awoke, jumped out of bed, and ran to catch the person he believed to be playing tricks with the maid. But there was no creature visible, although there rained upon his doubting head a series of cuffs, and about his person a fusillade of kicks, which thrust the unbelief quite out of him, so that he doubted no more. The departure of this spirit came about thus: William Thomas being in bed with his wife, heard a voice calling him. He awaked his wife, and rising on his elbow said to the invisible spirit, 'In the name of God what seekest thou in my house? Hast thou anything to say to me?' The spirit answered, 'I have,' and desired him to remove certain things out of a place where they had been mislaid. 'Satan,' answered William Thomas, in a candid manner, 'I'll do nothing thou biddest me; I command thee, in the name of God, to depart from my house.' And it obeyed. VII. This long and circumstantial account, which I have gathered from different sources, but mainly from the two books of the Prophet Jones, will impress the general reader with its resemblance, in many respects, to modern newspaper ghost stories. The throwing about of dishes, books, keys, etc.; its raps and touches of the person; its making of loud noises by banging down metal objects; all these antics are the tricks of contemporaneous spiritualism. But this spectre is of a date when our spiritualism was quite unknown. The same is true of the spirit which threw stones, another modern spiritualistic accomplishment.[75] The spiritualists will argue from all this that their belief is substantiated, not by any means that it is shaken. The doubter will conclude that there were clever tricksters in humble Welsh communities some time before the American city of Rochester had produced its 'mediums.' The student of comparative folk-lore, in reading these accounts, will be equally impressed with their resemblance to phenomena noted in many other lands. The conclusion is irresistible that we here encounter but another form of the fairy which goes in Wales by the name of the Bwbach, and in England is called the Hobgoblin, in Denmark the Nis, in Scotland the Brownie. Also, the resemblance is strong in all stories of this class to certain of the German Kobolds. In several of these accounts of spirits in Wales appear the leading particulars of the Kobold Hinzelmann, as condensed by Grimm from Feldman's long narrative.[76] There is also a close correspondence to certain ghost stories found in China. In the story of Woo, from the 'Che-wan-luk,'[77] appear details much like those in Hinzelmann, and equally resembling Welsh particulars, either in the stories given above, or those which follow. But we are now drawn so near to the division of Familiar Spirits that we may as well enter it at once. FOOTNOTES: [75] For the sake of comparison, I give the latest American case which comes under my notice. The scene is Akron, a bustling town in the State of Ohio; the time October, 1878. 'Mr. and Mrs. Michael Metzler, middle-aged Germans, with their little daughter, ten years of age, and Mrs. Knoss, Metzler's mother-in-law, recently moved to a brick house in the suburbs known as Hell's Half Acre. The house is a good, substantial building, situated in a somewhat open space, and surrounded by a lonesome deserted air. A few days after they had moved, they were disturbed by sharp rappings all over the house, produced by small stones or pebbles thrown against the window panes. Different members of the family were hit by these stones coming to and going from the house. Other persons were hit by them, the stones varying in size from a pea to a hen's egg. Mrs. Metzler said that when she went after the cow in the evening, she could hear these stones whistling around her head. Mr. and Mrs. Metzler, who are devout Catholics, had Father Brown come to the house to exorcise the spirits which were tormenting them. The reverend father, in the midst of his exercises, was struck by a stone, and so dismayed thereby that he went home in despair.' (Newspaper account.) [76] 'Deutsche Sagen,' i. 103. [77] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 86. CHAPTER V. Familiar Spirits--The Famous Sprite of Trwyn Farm--Was it a Fairy?--The Familiar Spirits of Magicians--Sir David Llwyd's Demon--Familiar Spirits in Female Form--The Legend of the Lady of the Wood--The Devil as a Familiar Spirit--His Disguises in this Character--Summoning and Exorcising Familiars--Jenkin the Pembrokeshire Schoolmaster--The Terrible Tailor of Glanbran. I. Innumerable are the Welsh stories of familiar spirits. Sometimes these are spectres of the sort whose antics we have just been observing. More often they are confessedly demons, things of evil. In numberless cases it is no less a personage than the diawl himself who makes his appearance in the guise of a familiar spirit. The familiar spirit which takes up its abode in the household is, as we have seen, a pranksome goblin. Its personal appearance--or rather its invisibility--is the saving circumstance which prevents it from being deemed a fairy. The familiar spirit which haunted the house of Job John Harry, at the Trwyn Farm, in the parish of Mynyddyslwyn, was a stone-thrower, a stroker of persons, etc., but could not be seen. It is famous in Wales under the cognomen of Pwca'r Trwyn, and is referred to in my account of the Ellylldan.[78] The tenants at present residing on the Trwyn Farm are strangers who have recently invaded the home of this ancestral spook, but I was able to glean abundant information concerning it from people thereabout. It made a home of Mr. Harry's house some time in the last century, for a period beginning some days before Christmas, and ending with Easter Wednesday, on which day it departed. During this time it spoke, and did many remarkable things, but was always invisible. It began at first to make its presence known by knocking at the outer door in the night; but when persons went to open the door there was no one there. This continued for some time, much to the perplexity of the door-openers. At last one night it spoke to the one who opened the door, and the family were in consequence much terrified. Some of the neighbours, hearing these tales, came to watch with the family; and Thomas Evans foolishly brought a gun with him, 'to shoot the spirit,' as he said. But as Job John Harry was coming home that night from a journey, the familiar spirit met him in the lane and said, 'There is a man come to your house to shoot me, but thou shalt see how I will beat him.' So Job went on to the house, and immediately stones were thrown at the unbelieving Thomas who had brought the gun, stones from which he received severe blows. The company tried to defend him from the stones, which did strike and hurt him, and no other person; but their efforts were in vain. The result was, that Thomas Evans took his gun and ran home as fast as his legs would carry him, and never again engaged in an enterprise of that sort. As this familiar spirit got better acquainted with its quarters, it became more talkative, and used often to speak from out of an oven by the hearth's side. It also took to making music o' nights with Job's fiddle. One night as Job was going to bed, the familiar spirit gave him a gentle stroke on the toe. 'Thou art curious in smiting,' said Job. 'I can smite thee where I please,' replied the spirit. As time passed on the family became accustomed to their ghostly visitor, and seeing it never did them any harm, but on the contrary was a source of recreation to them, they used to boldly speak to it, and indulge in entertaining conversation. One old man, a neighbour, more bold than wise, hearing the spirit just by his side, but being unable to see it, threatened to stick it with his knife. 'Thou fool,' quoth the spirit, 'how canst thou stick what thou canst not see with thine eyes?' When questioned about its antecedents, the spirit said, 'I came from Pwll y Gasseg' (Mare's Pit, a place in the adjacent mountain), 'and I knew ye all before I came hither.' The wife of Morris Roberts desired one of the family to ask the spirit who it was that killed William Reilly the Scotchman; which being done, the spirit said, 'It was Blanch y Byd who bade thee ask that question;' and Blanch y Byd (Worldly Blanche) was Morris Roberts' wife ever after called. On Easter Wednesday the spirit departed, saying, 'Dos yn iach, Job,' (fare thee well, Job,) and Job asked the spirit, 'Where goest thou?' The reply was, 'Where God pleases.'[79] There are other accounts of this Trwyn sprite which credit it to a time long anterior to last century; but all are consistent in this, that the goblin is always invisible. The sole exception to this rule is the legend about its having once shown a white hand to some girls in the kitchen, thrusting it through the floor of its room overhead for that purpose. Now invisibility is a violation of fairy traditions, while ghosts are very often invisible--these rapping and stone-throwing ghosts, always. It might be urged that this spirit was a Bwbach, if a fairy at all, seeing that it kept pretty closely to the house; but on the whole I choose to class it among the inhabitants of the spirit-world; and really, the student of folk-lore must classify his materials distinctly in some understandable fashion, or go daft. FOOTNOTES: [78] Supra, p. 21. [79] Let me recommend the scene of this story to tourists. It is a most romantic spot, on the top of a mountain, a glorious tramp from Crumlyn, returning by another road to Abercarne. Wheels cannot go there, though a sure-footed horse might bear one safely up. The ancient farm-house is one of the quaintest in Wales, and must be hundreds of years old; and its front porch looks out over a ravine hardly less grand and lonely than a Californian gulch. II. The sort of familiar spirit employed by magicians in the eighteenth and preceding centuries was distinctly a demon. The spirit of this class which was controlled by Sir David Llwyd is celebrated in Wales. This Sir David was a famous dealer in the black art, who lived in Cardiganshire. He was a physician, and at one time a curate; but being known to deal in the magic art, he was turned out of the curacy, and obliged to live by practising physic. It was thought he learned the magic art in Oxford. 'It was this man's great wickedness,' says the Prophet Jones, 'to make use of a familiar spirit.... The bishop did well in turning him out of the sacred office, though he was no ill-tempered man, for how unfit was such a man to read the sacred Scripture! With what conscience could he ask the sponsors in baptism to undertake for the child to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, who himself was familiar with one of the spirits of darkness?... Of this Sir David I have heard much, but chiefly depend upon what was told to me by the Rev. Mr. Thomas Lewis, the curate of Landdw and Tolachdy, an excellent preacher of the gospel; and not sufficiently esteemed by his people, (which likely will bring a judgment on them in time to come.) Mr. Lewis knew the young woman who had been Sir David's maid servant, and the house where he lived.' His familiar spirit he kept locked up in a book. Once while he was in Radnorshire, in going from one house to another he accidentally left this book behind him, and sent his boy back to fetch it. The boy, being of an inquisitive turn of mind, opened the book--a thing his master had expressly charged him not to do--and the familiar spirit immediately demanded to be set at work. The boy, though very much alarmed, had the wit to answer, 'Tafl gerrig o'r afon,' (throw stones out of the river,) which the spirit immediately did, so that the air was for a time full of flying stones, and the boy was fain to skip about in a surprisingly active manner in order to dodge the same. After a while, having thrown up a great quantity of stones out of the river, (the Wye,) the spirit again, with the pertinacity of its kind, asked for something to do; whereupon the boy bade it throw the stones back again, which it did. Sir David having waited a long time for the boy to return, began to suspect that things had gone wrong, and so hastened back after him, and commanded the familiar spirit again into his book. III. Familiar spirits of this class are not always invisible; and they can assume such forms as may be necessary to serve their purposes. A favourite shape with them is that of a young and lovely woman. Comparisons are here suggested with the water-maidens, and other like forms of this fancy; but they need not be pursued. It is necessary for the student of phantoms to constantly remind himself of the omnipresent danger of being enticed too far afield, unless he keep somewhat sternly to the path he has marked out. How ancient is the notion of a familiar spirit in female form, may be seen from accounts which are given by Giraldus and other old writers. Near Caerleon, (Monmouthshire,) in the twelfth century, Giraldus tells us[80] there lived 'a Welshman named Melerius, who by the following means acquired the knowledge of future events and the occult sciences: Having on a certain night met a damsel whom he loved, in a pleasant and convenient place, while he was indulging in her embraces, instead of a beautiful girl he found in his arms a hairy, rough and hideous creature, the sight of which deprived him of his senses; and after remaining many years in this condition he was restored to health in the church of St. David's, through the merits of its saints. But having always had an extraordinary familiarity with unclean spirits, by seeing them, knowing them, talking with them, and calling each by his proper name, he was enabled through their assistance to foretell future events; he was indeed often deceived (as they are) with respect to circumstances at a great distance; but was less mistaken in affairs which were likely to happen soon, or within the space of a year. They appeared to him on foot, equipped as hunters, with horns suspended from their necks, and truly as hunters not of animals but of souls; he particularly met them near monasteries and religious places; for where rebellion exists there is the greatest need of armies and strength. He knew when any one spoke falsely in his presence, for he saw the devil as it were leaping and exulting upon the tongue of the liar; and if he looked into a book faultily or falsely written, although wholly illiterate he would point out the place with his finger. Being questioned how he could gain such knowledge, he said he was directed by the demon's finger to the place.' In the same connection Giraldus mentions a familiar spirit which haunted Lower Gwent, 'a demon incubus, who from his love for a certain young woman, and frequenting the place where she lived, often conversed with men, and frequently discovered hidden things and future events.' FOOTNOTE: [80] Sir R. C. Hoare's Trans., i. 105. IV. The legend of the Lady of the Wood is contained in the Iolo MSS., and is of considerable antiquity. It is a most fascinating tale: Einion, the son of Gwalchmai, 'was one fine summer morning walking in the woods of Treveilir,' when 'he beheld a graceful slender lady of elegant growth, and delicate feature, and her complexion surpassing every white and red in the morning dawn and the mountain snow, and every beautiful colour in the blossoms of wood, field, and hill. And then he felt in his heart an inconceivable commotion of affection, and he approached her in a courteous manner, and she also approached him in the same manner; and he saluted her, and she returned his salutation; and by these mutual salutations he perceived that his society was not disagreeable to her. He then chanced to cast his eye upon her foot, and he saw that she had hoofs instead of feet, and he became exceedingly dissatisfied,' as well he might. But the lady gave him to understand that he must pay no attention to this trifling freak of nature. 'Thou must,' she said, 'follow me wheresoever I go, as long as I continue in my beauty.' The son of Gwalchmai thereupon asked permission to go and say good-bye to his wife, at least. This the lady agreed to; 'but,' said she, 'I shall be with thee, invisible to all but thyself.' 'So he went, and the goblin went with him; and when he saw Angharad, his wife, he saw her a hag like one grown old, but he retained the recollection of days past, and still felt extreme affection for her, but he was not able to loose himself from the bond in which he was. "It is necessary for me," said he, "to part for a time, I know not how long, from thee, Angharad, and from thee, my son, Einion," and they wept together, and broke a gold ring between them; he kept one half and Angharad the other, and they took their leave of each other, and he went with the Lady of the Wood, and knew not where; for a powerful illusion was upon him, and he saw not any place, or person, or object under its true and proper appearance, excepting the half of the ring alone. And after being a long time, he knew not how long, with the goblin, the Lady of the Wood, he looked one morning as the sun was rising upon the half of the ring, and he bethought him to place it in the most precious place he could, and he resolved to put it under his eyelid; and as he was endeavouring to do so, he could see a man in white apparel, and mounted on a snow-white horse, coming towards him, and that person asked him what he did there; and he told him that he was cherishing an afflicting remembrance of his wife Angharad. "Dost thou desire to see her?" said the man in white. "I do," said Einion, "above all things, and all happiness of the world." "If so," said the man in white, "get upon this horse, behind me;" and that Einion did, and looking around he could not see any appearance of the Lady of the Wood, the goblin, excepting the track of hoofs of marvellous and monstrous size, as if journeying towards the north. "What delusion art thou under?" said the man in white. Then Einion answered him and told everything how it occurred 'twixt him and the goblin. "Take this white staff in thy hand," said the man in white, and Einion took it. And the man in white told him to desire whatever he wished for. The first thing he desired was to see the Lady of the Wood, for he was not yet completely delivered from the illusion. And then she appeared to him in size a hideous and monstrous witch, a thousand times more repulsive of aspect than the most frightful things seen upon earth. And Einion uttered a cry of terror; and the man in white cast his cloak over Einion, and in less than a twinkling Einion alighted as he wished on the hill of Treveilir, by his own house, where he knew scarcely any one, nor did any one know him.' The goblin meantime had gone to Einion's wife, in the disguise of a richly apparelled knight, and made love to her, pretending that her husband was dead. 'And the illusion fell upon her; and seeing that she should become a noble lady, higher than any in Wales, she named a day for her marriage with him. And there was a great preparation of every elegant and sumptuous apparel, and of meats and drinks, and of every honourable guest, and every excellence of song and string, and every preparation of banquet and festive entertainment.' Now there was a beautiful harp in Angharad's room, which the goblin knight desired should be played on; 'and the harpers present, the best in Wales, tried to put it in tune, and were not able.' But Einion presented himself at the house, and offered to play on it. Angharad, being under an illusion, 'saw him as an old, decrepit, withered, grey-haired man, stooping with age, and dressed in rags.' Einion tuned the harp, 'and played on it the air which Angharad loved. And she marvelled exceedingly, and asked him who he was. And he answered in song: ... "Einion the golden-hearted." ... "Where hast thou been!" "In Kent, in Gwent, in the wood, in Monmouth, In Maenol, Gorwenydd; And in the valley of Gwyn, the son of Nudd; See, the bright gold is the token." And he gave her the ring. "Look not on the whitened hue of my hair, Where once my aspect was spirited and bold; Now gray, without disguise, where once it was yellow. Never was Angharad out of my remembrance, But Einion was by thee forgotten."' But Angharad 'could not bring him to her recollection. Then said he to the guests: "If I have lost her whom I loved, the fair one of polished mind, The daughter of Ednyved Vychan, I have not lost (so get you out!) Either my bed, or my house, or my fire." 'And upon that he placed the white staff in Angharad's hand, and instantly the goblin which she had hitherto seen as a handsome and honourable nobleman, appeared to her as a monster, inconceivably hideous; and she fainted from fear, and Einion supported her until she revived. And when she opened her eyes, she saw there neither the goblin, nor any of the guests, nor of the minstrels, nor anything whatever except Einion, and her son, and the harp, and the house in its domestic arrangement, and the dinner on the table, casting its savoury odour around. And they sat down to eat ... and exceeding great was their enjoyment. And they saw the illusion which the demoniacal goblin had cast over them.... And thus it ends.'[81] FOOTNOTE: [81] Iolo MSS. 587, et seq. V. There is hardly a goblin in the world more widely known than this spectre of the forest. Her story appears in the legends of very many lands, including China. Its ancient Grecian prototype is found in the Odyssey.[82] When it is the Diawl himself who appears in the role of the familiar spirit, his majesty is usually in some other form than that of a man, with hoofs, horns, and tail. The orthodox form of Satan has indeed been seen in many parts of Wales, but not when doing duty as a familiar spirit. A Welsh poet of the thirteenth century mentions this form: And the horned devil, With sharp hoofs On his heels.[83] He is variously called cythraul, dera, diafol, all euphemisms for devil, equivalent to our destroyer, evil one, adversary--as well as plain diawl, devil. In his character of a familiar spirit he assumes the shape of a fiery ball, a donkey, a black calf, a round bowl, a dog, a roaring flame, a bull, a goose, and numberless others, including the imp that goes into a book. In all this he bears out the character given him in old mythology, where he grows big or little at pleasure, and roars in a gale as Hermes, the wind-god, howls as a dog, enters a walnut as in the Norse Tale, or is confined in a bottle as the genie of the 'Arabian Nights.' To that eminent nonconformist preacher, Vavasor Powell, the devil once appeared in shape like a house. 'Satan ... appeared several times, and in several wayes, to me: as once like a house, stood directly in my way, with which sight I fell on my face as dead.... Another time, being alone in my chamber ... I perceived a strong cold wind to blow ... it made the hair of my flesh to stand up, and caused all my bones to shake; and on the suddain, I heard one walk about me, tramping upon the chamber floor, as if it had been some heavie big man ... but it proved in the end to be no other than ... Satan.'[84] A black calf, which haunted a Pembrokeshire brook early in the present century, was believed to be the devil in familiar guise. It appeared at a certain spot near the village of Narberth--a village which has figured actively in mythic story since the earliest ages of which there is any record. One night two peasants caught the terrible calf and took it home, locking it up safely in a stable with some other cattle, but it had vanished when morning came. Henry Llewelyn, of Ystrad Defoc parish, Glamorganshire, was beset by the devil in the shape of a round bowl. He had been sent by his minister (Methodist) to fetch from another parish a load of religious books--Bibles, Testaments, Watts' 'Psalms, Hymns and Songs for Children'--and was coming home with the same, on horseback, by night, when he saw a living thing, round like a bowl, moving to and fro across the lane. The bold Llewelyn having concluded it was the devil, resolved to speak to it. 'What seekest thou, thou foul thing?' he demanded, adding, 'In the name of the Lord Jesus go away!' And to prove that it was the adversary, at these words it vanished into the ground, leaving a sulphurous smell behind. To William Jones, a sabbath-breaker, of Risca village, the devil appeared as an enormous mastiff dog, which transformed itself into a great fire and made a roaring noise like burning gorse. And to two men at Merthyr Tydfil, in Glamorganshire, the fiend appeared in the shape of a gosling. These men were one night drinking together at the Black Lion Inn, when one dared the other to go to conjure. The challenge was accepted, and they went, but conducted their emprise with such drunken recklessness, that the devil put out the eyes of one of them, so that he was blind the rest of his days. FOOTNOTES: [82] In his fascinating essay on the 'Folk-Lore of France,' in the 'Folk-Lore Record' for 1878 (published by the Folk-Lore Society) Mr. A. Lang says: 'So widespread is this superstition, that a friend of mine declares he has met with it among the savages of New Caledonia, and has known a native who actually died, as he himself said he would, after meeting one of the fairy women of the wild wood.' [83] Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch. [84] 'The Life and Death of Mr. Vavasor Powell,' p. 8. (A curious seventeenth century book, no two existing copies of which appear to be alike. I here cite from that in the library of the Marquis of Bute, than which a more perfect copy is rarely met with.) VI. The mode of summoning and of exorcising familiar spirits--in other words, of laying and raising the devil--varies little the world over. Even in China, the magic circle is entered and incantations are muttered when the fiend is summoned; and for the exorcism of devils there are laws like our own--though since modern Christianity has been introduced in China the most popular exorcist is the Christian missionary.[85] In Wales, the popular belief is compounded of about equal parts of foul magic and fair Biblical text; magic chiefly for summoning, the Book for exorcising. John Jenkin, a schoolmaster in Pembrokeshire, was a conjuror of renown in that part of Wales. One of his scholars who had a curiosity to see the devil made bold to ask the master to assist him to that entertainment. 'May see him,' said the master, 'if thou hast the courage for it. Still,' he added, 'I do not choose to call him till I have employment for him.' So the boy waited; and not long after a man came to the master saying he had lost some money, and wished to be told who had stolen it. 'Now,' the master said to the scholar, 'I have some business for him.' At night they went into the wood together and drew a circle, which they entered, and the schoolmaster called one of the spirits of evil by its name. Presently they saw a light in the sky, which shot like lightning down to the circle, and turned round about it. The conjuror asked it who had stolen the man's money; the spirit did not know, and it disappeared. Then the schoolmaster called another evil spirit by its name; and presently they saw the resemblance of a bull flying through the air towards them, so swiftly and fiercely as if it would go through them; and it also turned about the circle. But the conjuror asked it in vain who had the stolen money. 'I must call still another,' said he. The schoolboy was now almost dead with fear, and the conjuror considerately waited till he was somewhat revived before calling the third spirit. But when he did call, there came out of the wood a spirit dressed in white, and went about the circle. 'Ah,' said the schoolmaster, 'we shall now hear something from this.' And sure enough 'this' told the conjuror (in a language the boy could not understand) where the money was, and all about it. Then it vanished in red fire; and that boy 'has never been well since, the effect of the great fright still cleaving to him.' Not far from Glanbran, in Carmarthenshire, lived a tailor, who added to his trade as a breeches-mender the loftier, if wickeder, employments of a worker in magic. A certain Mr. Gwynne, living at Glanbran, took it upon himself to ridicule this terrible tailor, for the tailor was a little man, and Mr. Gwynne was a burly six-footer, who feared nobody. 'Thou have the courage to look upon the devil!' sneered Gwynne; 'canst thou show him to me?' 'That I can,' said the tailor, his eyes flashing angrily; 'but you are not able to look at him.' 'What!' roared Gwynne, 'thou able to look at him, and not I?' 'Very well,' quoth the tailor; 'if you are able to look at him I will show him to you.' It was in the day time, but the tailor went immediately into a little grove of wood in a field hard by, and made a circle in the usual manner. In a short time he returned to fetch the incredulous Mr. Gwynne, saying, 'Come with me and you shall see him.' The two then crossed the field until they came to the stile by the wood, when suddenly the tailor cried, 'Look yonder! there it is!' And looking, Mr. Gwynne saw, in the circle the tailor had drawn, 'one of the fallen angels, now become a devil.' It was so horrible a sight that the terrified Mr. Gwynne was never after able to describe it; but from that time forth he had a proper respect for the tailor. FOOTNOTE: [85] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 89. CHAPTER VI. The Evil Spirit in his customary Form--The stupid Medieval Devil in Wales--Sion Cent--The Devil outwitted--Pacts with the Fiend and their Avoidance--Sion Dafydd's Foul Pipe--The Devil's Bridge and its Legends--Similar Legends in other Lands--The Devil's Pulpit near Tintern--Angelic Spirits--Welsh Superstitions as to pronouncing the Name of the Evil Spirit--The Bardic Tradition of the Creation--The Struggle between Light and Darkness and its Symbolization. I. The devil has often appeared in Wales in his customary form, or with his distinctive marks covered up by such clothing as mortals wear. There was even a tailor in Cardiganshire who had the honour of making a suit of clothes for his sulphuric majesty. The medieval view of this malignant spirit--which makes the devil out as dull and stupid as he is mendacious and spiteful--still lingers in some parts. Those formal pacts with the devil, the first traces of which are found in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, have been made in great numbers in Wales; and tales in which the devil is outwitted by a mortal are still preserved with much distinctness in various localities. That the myth of Polyphemus reappears in all accounts of this sort, is pretty well agreed among students of folk-lore. Hercules and Cacus, Polyphemus and Odysseus, Peredur and the one-eyed monster of the Mabinogion, Gambrinus and der Teufel, Jack the Giant-Killer, Norse Jötuns and Arabian genii tricked and bottled; all these are deemed outgrowths of the same primeval idea, to wit, the victory of the sun-god over the night-fiend; and the story of Sion Cent's compact with the diawl is doubtless from the same root. Certain it is that were not the devil at times gullible, he never would have been so useful as a familiar spirit, never could have been made so completely a slave to his mortal masters. The Pope (Benedict IX.) who had seven evil spirits in a sugar-bottle, merely subdivided the arch-fiend in the same way the genii of the old tales are subdivided--now existing as a dense and visible form, again expanding to blot out the sky, and again entering the narrow compass of a bottle or a nut-shell; co-existing in a million places at the same instant, yet having a single individuality. II. Tradition relates that Sion Cent was a famous necromancer in Monmouthshire, who outwitted the devil, not once but many times. He lives in popular legend simply as a worker in magic, but in reality he was a worthy minister, the Rev. John Kent, who flourished from 1420 to 1470, and wrote several theological works in Latin. In his native Welsh he confined himself to poetry, and Sion Cent was his Cymric pseudonym. Like many learned men in those days, he was accredited with magical powers by the ignorant peasantry, and of his transactions with the devil many stories were then invented which still survive. One relates that he once served as a farmer's boy, and was set to keep the crows from the corn, but preferring to go to Grosmont fair, he confined the crows in an old roofless barn by a magic spell till the next day, when he returned. His compact with the devil enabled him to build the bridge over the Monnow, near Grosmont, which still bears his name. The compact gave the devil the man's soul, as all such compacts do--the stipulation being that if his body were buried either in or out of the church, his soul should be forfeit to the diawl. But the shrewd Welshman gave orders that he should be buried exactly under the chancel wall, so that he should lie neither in the church nor out of it; and the devil was made a fool of by this device. A precisely similar tradition exists concerning an old gentleman in Carmarthenshire. III. A popular legend giving the origin of the jack-o'-lantern in Wales deals with the idea of a stupid devil: A long time ago there lived on the hills of Arfon an old man of the name of Sion Dafydd, who used to converse much with one of the children of the bottomless pit. One morning Sion was on his way to Llanfair-Fechan, carrying a flail on his shoulder, for he had corn there, when whom should he meet but his old friend from the pit, with a bag on his back, and in it two little devils like himself. After conversing for some time they began to quarrel, and presently were in the midst of a terrible fight. Sion fell to basting the devils with his flail, until the bag containing the two little ones went all to pieces, and the two tumbling out, fled for their lives to Rhiwgyfylchi, which village is considered to this day a very wicked place from this fact. Sion then went his way rejoicing, and did not for a long time encounter his adversary. Eventually, however, they met, and this time Sion had his gun on his shoulder. 'What's that long thing you're carrying?' inquired the devil. 'That's my pipe,' said Sion. Then the devil asked, 'Shall I have a whiff out of it?' 'You shall,' was Sion's reply, and he placed the mouth of his gun in the devil's throat and drew the trigger. Well; that was the loudest report from a gun that was ever heard on this earth. 'Ach!--tw!--tw!' exclaimed the smoker, 'your pipe is very foul,' and he disappeared in a flame. After a lapse of time, Sion met him again in the guise of a gentleman, but the Welshman knew it was the tempter. This time he made a bargain for which he was ever afterwards sorry, i.e., he sold himself to the devil for a sum down, but with the understanding that whenever he could cling to something the devil should not then control him. One day when Sion was busily gardening, the evil one snatched him away into the air without warning, and Sion was about giving up all hopes of again returning to earth, when he thought to himself, 'I'll ask the devil one last favour.' The stupid devil listened. 'All I want is an apple,' said Sion, 'to moisten my lips a bit down below; let me go to the top of my apple-tree, and I'll pick one.' 'Is that all?' quoth the diawl, and consented. Of course Sion laid hold of the apple-tree, and hung on. The devil had to leave him there. But the old reprobate was too wicked for heaven, and the devil having failed to take him to the other place, he was turned into a fairy, and is now the jack-o'-lantern.[86] FOOTNOTE: [86] 'Cymru Fu,' 355 et seq. IV. Best known among the natural objects in various parts of Wales which are connected with the devil in popular lore, is the Devil's Bridge, in Cardiganshire. Associated with this bridge are several legends, which derive their greatest interest from their intrinsic evidences of an antiquity in common with the same legends in other lands. The guide-books of the region, like guide-books everywhere, in their effort to avoid being led into unwarranted statement, usually indulge in playfully sarcastic references to these ancient tales. They are much older, however, than the bridge itself can possibly be. The devil's activity in bridge-building is a myth more ancient than the medieval devil of our acquaintance. The building story of the Devil's Bridge in Cardiganshire runs briefly thus: An old woman who had lost her cow spied it on the other side of the ravine, and was in great trouble about it, not knowing how to get over where the animal was. The devil, taking advantage of her distress, offered to throw a bridge over the ravine, so that she might cross and get her cow; but he stipulated that the first living creature to cross the bridge should be his. The old woman agreed; the bridge was built; and the devil waited to see her cross. She drew a crust of bread from her pocket, threw it over, and her little black dog flew after it. 'The dog's yours, sir,' said the dame; and Satan was discomfited. In the story told of the old bridge over the Main at Frankfort, a bridge-contractor and his troubles are substituted for the old woman and her cow; instead of a black dog a live rooster appears, driven in front of him by the contractor. The Welsh Satan seems to have received his discomfiture good-naturedly enough; in the German tale he tears the fowl to pieces in his rage. In Switzerland, every reader knows the story told of the devil's bridge in the St. Gothard pass. A new bridge has taken the place, for public use, of the old bridge on the road to Andermatt, and to the dangers of the crumbling masonry are added superstitious terrors concerning the devil's power to catch any one crossing after dark. The old Welsh bridge has been in like manner superseded by a modern structure; but I think no superstition like the last noted is found at Hafod. V. The English have a saying that the devil lives in the middle of Wales. There is in every part of Wales that I have seen a custom of whitening the doorsteps with chalk, and it is said to have originated in the belief that his Satanic majesty could not enter a door thus protected. The devil of slovenliness certainly would find difficulty in entering a Welsh cottage if the tidiness of its doorstep is borne out in the interior. But out-of-doors everywhere there are signs of the devil's active habits. His flowers grow on the river-banks; his toes are imprinted on the rocks. Near Tintern Abbey there is a jutting crag overhung by gloomy branches of the yew, called the Devil's Pulpit. His eminence used in other and wickeder days to preach atrocious morals, or immorals, to the white-robed Cistercian monks of the abbey, from this rocky pulpit. One day the devil grew bold, and taking his tail under his arm in an easy and _dégagée_ manner, hobnobbed familiarly with the monks, and finally proposed, just for a lark, that he should preach them a nice red-hot sermon from the rood-loft of the abbey. To this the monks agreed, and the devil came to church in high glee. But fancy his profane perturbation (I had nearly written holy horror) when the treacherous Cistercians proceeded to shower him with holy water. The devil clapped his tail between his legs and scampered off howling, and never stopped till he got to Llandogo, where he leaped across the river into England, leaving the prints of his talons on a stone. VI. Where accounts of the devil's appearance are so numerous, it is perhaps somewhat surprising so little is heard of apparitions of angels. There are reasons for this, however, which might be enlarged upon. Tradition says that 'in former times' there were frequent visits of angels to Wales; and their rare appearance in our days is ascribed to the completion of revelation. One or two modern instances of angelic visitation are given by the Prophet Jones. There was David Thomas, who lived at a place called the Pantau, between the towns of Carmarthen and Laugharne; he was 'a gifted brother, who sometimes preached,' in the dissenting way. One night, when he was at prayer alone in a room which stood apart from his house, there was suddenly a great light present, which made the light of the candle no longer visible. And in that light appeared a band of angels, like children, very beautiful in bright clothing, singing in Welsh these words: Pa hyd? Pa hyd? Dychwelwch feibion Adda! Pa hyd? Pa hyd yr erlidiwch y Cristnogion duwiol? How long? How long? Return ye sons of Adam! How long? How long will ye persecute the godly Christians? After a time they departed; reappeared; departed again; the great light faded; and the light of Mr. Thomas's candle was once more visible on his table. There was also Rees David, a man of more than common piety, who lived in Carmarthenshire, near Whitlands. At the time of his death, it was testified by 'several religious persons who were in the room,' that there was heard, by them and by the dying man, the singing of angels. It drew nearer and nearer as his death-struggle grew imminent, and after his death they 'heard the pleasant incomparable singing gradually depart, until it was out of hearing.' That the dying do see something more, in the last moment of expiring nature, than it is given to living eyes to see, is a cherished belief by numberless Christian men and women, whom to suspect of superstitious credulity were to grossly offend. This belief is based on exclamations uttered by the dying, while with fixed and staring eyes they appeared to gaze intently at some object not visible to the bystanders. But that the bystanders also saw, or heard, voice or vision from the Unknown, is not often pretended. VII. Reference has been made to the euphemisms in use among all peoples to avoid pronouncing the name of the devil. That many good folk still consider the word devil, lightly spoken, a profane utterance only second to a similar utterance of God's name, is a curious survival of old superstitions. No prohibition of this sort attaches to the words demon, fiend, etc., nor to such euphemisms, common in both Welsh and English, as the adversary, the evil one, etc. It is an old custom in North Wales to spit at the name of the devil, even when so innocently used as in pronouncing the name of the Devil's Bridge. The peasantry prefer to call the bridge 'Pont y Gwr Drwg,' the Bridge of the Wicked One; and spitting and wiping off the tongue are deemed a necessary precaution after saying devil, diafol, or diawl. The phrase 'I hope to goodness,' so common in Wales and elsewhere, is clearly but another euphemism for God; the goodness meant is the Divine beneficence. 'Goodness' sake' is but a contraction of 'For God's sake!' The Hebrew tetragrammaton which was invested with such terror, as representing the great 'I am,' finds an explanation, according to the ideas of Welsh scholars, in the Bardic traditions. These relate that, by the utterance of His Name, God created this world; the Name being represented by the symbol /|\, three lines which typify the focusing of the rising sun's rays at the equinoxes and solstices. The first ray is the Creator, the second the Preserver, and the third the Destroyer; the whole are God's Name. This name cannot be uttered by a mortal; he has not the power; therefore it remains for ever unuttered on earth. At the creation the universe uttered it in joy at the new-born world; 'the morning stars sang together.' At the last day it will be uttered again. Till then it is kept a secret, lest it be degraded, as it has been by the Hindus, who, from the three rays created their three false gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Tradition relates that Einigan Gawr saw the Divine Name appear, and inscribed it on three rods of mountain ash. The people mistook the three rods thus inscribed for God himself, and Einigan died from grief at their error.[87] FOOTNOTE: [87] 'Dosparth Edeyrn Dafod Aur,' 3. VIII. The devil with which we are acquainted is a character unknown to Greek or Roman mythology; this devil was a later invention; but his identity with the genii, or jinns of the 'Arabian Nights,' the Dïvs of Persian history, is clear enough. Ahriman, the evil spirit, king of the realms of darkness and of fire, was apparently the progenitor of Satan, as Vritra was of Ahriman. Both these ancient arch-fiends appeared as serpents in form, and were myths representing the darkness, slain by the light, or the sun-god, in the one case called Indra, in the other Ormuzd. The medieval devil with horns and hoofs does not appear in the records of Judaism. He is an outgrowth of the moral principle of the Christian era; and traced to his origins he is simply a personification of the adversary in the never-ending struggle on earth between light and darkness. That struggle is not, in nature, a moral one; but it remains to-day, as it was in the beginning, the best type we have of the battle between right and wrong, and between truth and error. When God said, 'Let there be light,' the utterance became the symbol and guide of virtue, of brave endeavour, and of scientific research, until the end. CHAPTER VII. Cambrian Death-Portents--The Corpse-Bird--The Tan-Wedd--Listening at the Church-Door--The Lledrith--The Gwrach y Rhibyn--The Llandaff Gwrach--Ugliness of this Female Apparition--The Black Maiden--The Cyhyraeth, or Crying Spirit--Its Moans on Land and Sea--The St. Mellons Cyhyraeth--The Groaning Spirit of Bedwellty. I. There are death portents in every country, and in endless variety; in Wales these portents assume distinct and striking individualities, in great number and with clearly defined attributes. The banshee, according to Mr. Baring-Gould, has no corresponding feature in Scandinavian, Teutonic, or classic mythology, and belongs entirely to the Celts. The Welsh have the banshee in its most blood-curdling form under the name of the Gwrach y Rhibyn; they have also the Cyhyraeth, which is never seen, but is heard, moaning dolefully and dreadfully in the night; the Tolaeth, also only heard, not groaning but imitating some earthly sound, such as sawing, singing, or the tramping of feet; the Cwn Annwn and Cwn y Wybr, Dogs of Hell and Dogs of the Sky; the Canwyll Corph, or Corpse Candle; the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral, and many others--all of them death-portents. These, as the more important and striking, I will describe further; but there are several others which must first be mentioned. The Aderyn y Corph is a bird which chirps at the door of the person who is about to die, and makes a noise that sounds like the Welsh word for 'Come! come!' the summons to death.[88] In ancient tradition, it had no feathers nor wings, soaring without support high in the heavens, and, when not engaged upon some earthly message, dwelling in the land of illusion and phantasy.[89] This corpse-bird may properly be associated with the superstition regarding the screech-owl, whose cry near a sick-bed inevitably portends death. The untimely crowing of a cock also foretells the sudden demise of some member of the family. In North Wales the cry of the golden plover is a death-omen; these birds are called, in this connection, the whistlers.[90] The same superstition prevails in Warwickshire, and the sound is called the seven whistlers. Thunder and lightning in mid-winter announce the death of the great man of the parish. This superstition is thought to be peculiar to Wales, or to the wilder and more secluded parts of North Wales.[91] Also deemed peculiar to Wales is the Tan-wedd, a fiery apparition which falls on the lands of a freeholder who is about to die. It is described as appearing somewhat similar to falling stars, but slower of motion. 'It lighteneth all the air and ground where it passeth,' says 'the honest Welshman, Mr. Davis, in a letter to Mr. Baxter,' adding, 'lasteth three or four miles or more, for aught is known, because no man seeth the rising or beginning of it; and when it falls to the ground it sparkleth and lighteth all about.'[92] It also comes as a duty-performing goblin, after a death, haunting the graveyard, and calling attention to some special grave by its conduct, as in the following account: Walter Watkins, of the Neuadd, in a parish of Brecknockshire, was going one dark night towards Taf Fechan Chapel, not far from his house, when he saw a light near the chapel. It increased till it was as big as a church tower, and decreased again till it was as small as a star; then enlarged again and decreased as before; and this it did several times. He went to his house and fetched his father and mother to see it, and they all saw it plainly, much to their astonishment and wonder. Some time after, as a neighbour was ploughing in a field near the chapel, about where the mysterious light had been seen, the plough struck against a large flat stone. This the ploughman raised up, after a deal of difficulty, and under it he found a stone chest, in which was the jawbone of a man, and nought else except an earthen jug. The bone was supposed to be the remains of a man who had disappeared long before, and whose wife had since married; and on her being told of it, she fell ill and died. The light, which had often been seen before by various persons, was after this seen no more. It was believed to be the spirit of the murdered man, appearing as a light. Listening at the church-door in the dark, to hear shouted by a ghostly voice in the deserted edifice the names of those who are shortly to be buried in the adjoining churchyard, is a Hallow E'en custom in some parts of Wales. In other parts, the window serves the same purpose. There are said to be still extant, outside some village churches, steps which were constructed in order to enable the superstitious peasantry to climb to the window to listen. The principle of 'expectant attention,' so well known to physiological science, would be likely in this case to act with special force as a ghost-raiser. In an ancient MS. by Llywelyn Sion, of Llangewydd, there is mention of a frightful monster called the Fad Felen, which was seen through the key-hole of Rhos church by Maelgwn Gwynedd, who 'died in consequence.' This monster was predicted in a poem by Taliesin, as a 'strange creature' which should come from the sea marsh, with hair and teeth and eyes like gold. The yellow fever plague, which raged in Wales during some five years in the sixth century, is the monster referred to in this legend. The Scotch wraith and Irish fetch have their parallel in Wales in the Lledrith, or spectre of a person seen before his death; it never speaks, and vanishes if spoken to. It has been seen by miners previous to a fatal accident in the mine. The story is told of a miner who saw himself lying dead and horribly maimed in a phantom tram-car, led by a phantom horse, and surrounded by phantom miners. As he watched this dreadful group of spectres they passed on, looking neither to the right nor the left, and faded away. The miner's dog was as frightened as its master at the sight, and ran howling into the darkness. Though deeming himself doomed, the miner continued to work in the pit; and as the days passed on, and no harm came to him, he grew more cheerful, and was so bold as to laugh at the superstition. The day he did this, a stone fell from the roof and broke his arm. As soon as he recovered he resumed work in the pit; his death followed instantly. A stone crushed him, and he was borne maimed and dead in the tram along the road where his lledrith had appeared, 'a mile below the play of sunshine and wave of trees.'[93] The Mallt y Nos, or night-fiend, is a death-omen mentioned by Rev. D. R. Thomas in the 'Archæologia Cambrensis'; and Croker[94] gives as the Welsh parallel of the Irish death-coach a spectre called ceffyl heb un pen, or the headless horse. The marw coel, or 'yellow spot before death,' is another death-omen which I have been able to trace no further than the pages where I find it.[95] FOOTNOTES: [88] 'Dewch! dewch!' [89] 'Cymru Fu,' 299. [90] 'Camb. Quarterly,' iv., 487. [91] 'Arch. Camb.' 4th Se., iii., 333. [92] Brand, 'Pop. Ant.' iii., 127. [93] 'Tales and Sketches of Wales,' in 'Weekly Mail.' [94] 'Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland,' 341. [95] 'The Vale of Glamorgan.' II. A frightful figure among Welsh apparitions is the Gwrach y Rhibyn, whose crowning distinction is its prodigious ugliness. The feminine pronoun is generally used in speaking of this goblin, which unlike the majority of its kind, is supposed to be a female. A Welsh saying, regarding one of her sex who is the reverse of lovely, is, 'Y mae mor salw a Gwrach y Rhibyn,' (She is as ugly as the Gwrach y Rhibyn.) The spectre is a hideous being with dishevelled hair, long black teeth, long, lank, withered arms, leathern wings, and a cadaverous appearance. In the stillness of night it comes and flaps its wings against the window, uttering at the same time a blood-curdling howl, and calling by name on the person who is to die, in a lengthened dying tone, as thus: 'Da-a-a-vy!' 'De-i-i-o-o-o ba-a-a-ch!' The effect of its shriek or howl is indescribably terrific, and its sight blasting to the eyes of the beholder. It is always an omen of death, though its warning cry is heard under varying circumstances; sometimes it appears in the mist on the mountain side, or at cross-roads, or by a piece of water which it splashes with its hands. The gender of apparitions is no doubt as a rule the neuter, but the Gwrach y Rhibyn defies all rules by being a female which at times sees fit to be a male. In its female character it has a trick of crying at intervals, in a most doleful tone, 'Oh! oh! fy ngwr, fy ngwr!' (my husband! my husband!) But when it chooses to be a male, this cry is changed to 'Fy ngwraig! fy ngwraig!' (my wife! my wife!) or 'Fy mlentyn, fy mlentyn bach!' (my child, my little child!) There is a frightful story of a dissipated peasant who met this goblin on the road one night, and thought it was a living woman; he therefore made wicked and improper overtures to it, with the result of having his soul nearly frightened out of his body in the horror of discovering his mistake. As he emphatically exclaimed, 'Och, Dduw! it was the Gwrach y Rhibyn, and not a woman at all.' III. The Gwrach y Rhibyn recently appeared, according to an account given me by a person who claimed to have seen it, at Llandaff. Surely, no more probable site for the appearance of a spectre so ancient of lineage could be found, than that ancient cathedral city where some say was the earliest Christian fane in Great Britain, and which was certainly the seat of the earliest Christian bishopric. My narrator was a respectable-looking man of the peasant-farmer class, whom I met in one of my walks near Cardiff, in the summer of 1878. 'It was at Llandaff,' he said to me, 'on the fourteenth of last November, when I was on a visit to an old friend, that I saw and heard the Gwrach y Rhibyn. I was sleeping in my bed, and was woke at midnight by a frightful screeching and a shaking of my window. It was a loud and clear screech, and the shaking of the window was very plain, but it seemed to go by like the wind. I was not so much frightened, sir, as you may think; excited I was--that's the word--excited; and I jumped out of bed and rushed to the window and flung it open. Then I saw the Gwrach y Rhibyn, saw her plainly, sir, a horrible old woman with long red hair and a face like chalk, and great teeth like tusks, looking back over her shoulder at me as she went through the air with a long black gown trailing along the ground below her arms, for body I could make out none. She gave another unearthly screech while I looked at her; then I heard her flapping her wings against the window of a house just below the one I was in, and she vanished from my sight. But I kept on staring into the darkness, and as I am a living man, sir, I saw her go in at the door of the Cow and Snuffers Inn, and return no more. I watched the door of the inn a long time, but she did not come out. The next day, it's the honest truth I'm telling you, they told me the man who kept the Cow and Snuffers Inn was dead--had died in the night. His name was Llewellyn, sir--you can ask any one about him, at Llandaff--he had kept the inn there for seventy years, and his family before him for three hundred years, just at that very spot. It's not these new families that the Gwrach y Rhibyn ever troubles, sir, it's the old stock.' IV. The close resemblance of this goblin to the Irish banshee (or benshi) will be at once perceived. The same superstition is found among other peoples of Celtic origin. Sir Walter Scott mentions it among the highlands of Scotland.[96] It is not traced among other than Celtic peoples distinctly, but its association with the primeval mythology is doubtless to be found in the same direction with many other death-omens, to wit, the path of the wind-god Hermes. The frightful ugliness of the Gwrach y Rhibyn is a consistent feature of the superstition, in both its forms; it recalls the Black Maiden who came to Caerleon and liberated Peredur:[97] 'Blacker were her face and her two hands than the blackest iron covered with pitch; and her hue was not more frightful than her form. High cheeks had she, and a face lengthened downwards, and a short nose with distended nostrils. And one eye was of a piercing mottled gray, and the other was as black as jet, deep-sunk in her head. And her teeth were long and yellow, more yellow were they than the flower of the broom. And her stomach rose from the breast-bone, higher than her chin. And her back was in the shape of a crook, and her legs were large and bony. And her figure was very thin and spare, except her feet and legs, which were of huge size.' The Welsh word 'gwrach' means a hag or witch, and it has been fancied that there is a connection between this word and the mythical Avagddu,[98] whose wife the gwrach was. The Gwrach y Rhibyn appears also as a river-spectre, in Glamorganshire. FOOTNOTES: [96] 'Demonology and Witchcraft,' 351. [97] 'Mabinogion,' 114. [98] Avagddu means both hell and the devil, as our word Heaven means both the Deity and his abode. V. A death-portent which is often confused with the Gwrach y Rhibyn, yet which is rendered quite distinct by its special attributes, is the Cyhyraeth. This is a groaning spirit. It is never seen, but the noise it makes is no less terrible to the ear than the appearance of its visible sister is to the eye. Among groaning spirits it is considered to be the chief. The Prophet Jones succinctly characterises it as 'a doleful, dreadful noise in the night, before a burying.' David Prosser, of Llanybyther parish, 'a sober, sensible man and careful to tell the truth,' once heard the Cyhyraeth in the early part of the night, his wife and maid-servant being together in the house, and also hearing it; and when it came opposite the window, it 'pronounced these strange words, of no signification that we know of,' viz. '_Woolach! Woolach!_' Some time afterward a funeral passed that way. The judicious Joshua Coslet, who lived by the river Towy in Carmarthenshire, testified that the Cyhyraeth is often heard there, and that it is 'a doleful, disagreeable sound heard before the deaths of many, and most apt to be heard before foul weather. The voice resembles the groaning of sick persons who are to die; heard at first at a distance, then comes nearer, and the last near at hand; so that it is a threefold warning of death. It begins strong, and louder than a sick man can make; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful, but rather more so; the third yet lower, and soft, like the groaning of a sick man almost spent and dying.' A person 'well remembering the voice' and coming to the sick man's bed, 'shall hear his groans exactly like' those which he had before heard from the Cyhyraeth. This crying spirit especially affected the twelve parishes in the hundred of Inis Cenin, which lie on the south-east side of the river Towy, 'where some time past it groaned before the death of every person who lived that side of the country.' It also sounded before the death of persons 'who were born in these parishes, but died elsewhere.' Sometimes the voice is heard long before death, but not longer than three quarters of a year. So common was it in the district named, that among the people there a familiar form of reproach to any one making a disagreeable noise, or 'children crying or groaning unreasonable,' was to ejaculate, 'Oh 'r Cyhyraeth!' A reason why the Cyhyraeth was more often heard in the hundred of Inis Cenin was thought to be that Non, the mother of St. David, lived in those parts, where a village is called after her name, Llan-non, the church of Non. On the southern sea-coast, in Glamorganshire, the Cyhyraeth is sometimes heard by the people in the villages on shore passing down the channel with loud moans, while those dismal lights which forebode a wreck are seen playing along the waves. Watchers by the sea-shore have also heard its moan far out on the ocean, gradually drawing nearer and nearer, and then dying away; and when they thought it gone it has suddenly shrieked close to their startled ears, chilling their very marrows. Then, long after, they would hear it, now faint, now loud, going along the sands into the distant darkness. One or more corpses were usually washed ashore soon after. In the villages the Cyhyraeth is heard passing through the empty streets and lanes by night, groaning dismally, sometimes rattling the window-shutters, or flinging open the door as it flits by. When going along the country lanes it will thus horrify the inmates of every house it passes. Some old people say it is only heard before the death of such as are of strayed mind, or who have long been ill; but it always comes when an epidemic is about to visit the neighbourhood. A tradition of the Cyhyraeth is connected with the parish churchyard at St. Mellons, a quaint old-fashioned village within easy tramping distance of Cardiff, but in Monmouthshire. It is of a boy who was sent on an errand, and who heard the Cyhyraeth crying in the churchyard, first in one place, then in another, and finally in a third place, where it rested. Some time after, a corpse was brought to that churchyard to be buried, but some person came and claimed the grave. They went to another place, but that also was claimed. Then they went to a third place, and there they were allowed to bury their dead in peace. And this going about with the corpse was 'just the same as the boy declared it.' Of course the boy could not know what was to come to pass, 'but this crying spirit knew exactly what would come to pass.' I was also told by a person at St. Mellons that a ghost had been seen sitting upon the old stone cross which stands on the hillside near the church. VI. Other groaning spirits are sometimes heard. A girl named Mary Morgan, living near Crumlyn Bridge, while standing on the bridge one evening was seized with mortal terror on hearing a groaning voice going up the river, uttering the words, 'O Dduw, beth a wnaf fi?' (O God, what shall I do?) many times repeated, amid direful groans. The conclusion of this narration is a hopeless mystery, as Mary fainted away with her fright. Much more satisfactory, as a ghost-story with a moral, is the tale of the groaning spirit of Bedwellty.[99] There was one night a wake at the house of Meredith Thomas, over the body of his four-year-old child, at which two profane men (named Thomas Edward Morgan and Anthony Aaron) began playing at cards, and swearing most horribly. In the parish of Bedwellty, the wakes--or watch-nights, as they are more commonly called in Wales--were at that time very profanely kept. 'Few besides the dissenters,' says Jones (who was himself a dissenter, it must be remembered), 'had the sense and courage to forbid' this wickedness, but 'suffered it as a custom, because the pretence was to divert the relations of the dead, and lessen their sorrows.' While the aforementioned profane men were playing cards and swearing, suddenly a dismal groaning noise was heard at the window. At this the company was much frightened, excepting the card-players, who said 'Pw!' and went on playing. But to pacify the rest of the company they finally desisted, and at once the groaning ceased. Soon after they began playing again, when at once the groaning set up in most lamentable tones, so that people shuddered; but the profane men again said, 'Pw! it is some fellow playing tricks to frighten us.' 'No,' said William Harry Rees, a good man of the Baptist persuasion, 'it is no human being there groaning, but a spirit,' and again he desired them to give over. But though they were so bold with their card-playing, these wicked men had not the hardihood to venture out and see who it was 'playing tricks,' as they called it. However, one of the company said, 'I will go, and take the dogs with me, and see if there be any human being there.' The groaning still continued. This bold person then 'took the prime staff, and began to call the dogs to go with him;' but the dogs could not be induced to go out, being in great terror at the groaning noise, and sought to hide themselves under the stools, and about the people's feet. In vain they beat the dogs, and kicked and scolded them, out-door they would not go. This at last convinced the profane men, and they left off playing, for fear the devil should come among them. For it was told in other places that people had played cards till his sulphurous majesty appeared in person. FOOTNOTE: [99] Jones, 'Apparitions,' 24. CHAPTER VIII. The Tolaeth Death Portent--Its various Forms--The Tolaeth before Death--Ewythr Jenkin's Tolaeth--A modern Instance--The Railway Victim's Warning--The Goblin Voice--The Voice from the Cloud--Legend of the Lord and the Beggar--The Goblin Funeral--The Horse's Skull--The Goblin Veil--The Wraith of Llanllwch--Dogs of Hell--The Tale of Pwyll--Spiritual Hunting Dogs--Origin of the Cwn Annwn. I. The Tolaeth is an ominous sound, imitating some earthly sound of one sort or another, and always heard before either a funeral or some dreadful catastrophe. Carpenters of a superstitious turn of mind will tell you that they invariably hear the Tolaeth when they are going to receive an order to make a coffin; in this case the sound is that of the sawing of wood, the hammering of nails, and the turning of screws, such as are heard in the usual process of making a coffin. This is called the 'Tolaeth before the Coffin.' The 'Tolaeth before Death' is a supernatural noise heard about the house, such as a knocking, or the sound of footsteps in the dead of night. Sometimes it is the sound of a tolling bell, where no bell is; and the direction in which the ear is held at the time points out the place of the coming death. Formerly the veritable church-bell in its steeple would foretell death, by tolling thrice at the hour of midnight, unrung by human hands. The bell of Blaenporth, Cardiganshire, was noted for thus warning the neighbours. The 'Tolaeth before the Burying' is the sound of the funeral procession passing by, unseen, but heard. The voices are heard singing the 'Old Hundredth,' which is the psalm tune usually sung by funeral bands; the slow regular tramp of the feet is heard, and the sobbing and groaning of the mourners. The Tolaeth touches but one sense at a time. When this funeral procession is heard it cannot be seen. But it is a peculiarity of the Tolaeth that after it has been heard by the ear, it sometimes makes itself known to the eye also--but in silence. The funeral procession will at first be heard, and then if the hearer stoop forward and look along the ground, it may perhaps be seen; the psalm-singers, two abreast, with their hats off and their mouths open, as in the act of singing; the coffin, borne on the shoulders of four men who hold their hats by the side of their heads; the mourners, the men with long black hatbands streaming behind, the women pale and sorrowful, with upheld handkerchiefs; and the rest of the procession stretching away dimly into shadow. Not a sound is heard, either of foot or voice, although the singers' mouths are open. After the procession has passed, and the observer has risen from his stooping posture, the Tolaeth again breaks on the ear, the music, the tread of feet, and the sobbing, as before. A real funeral is sure to pass that way not long afterwards. This form of the Tolaeth should not be confused with the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral proper, which is a death-warning occupying its own place. II. John Clode, an honest labouring man living on the coast of Glamorganshire, near the Sker Rocks, had just gone to bed one night, when he and his wife heard the door open, the tread of shuffling feet, the moving about of chairs, and the grunting of men as if setting down a load. This was all in the room where they lay, it being the only room their cottage afforded, except the one upstairs. 'John, John!' cried his wife in alarm, 'what is this?' In vain John rubbed his eyes and stared into the darkness. Nothing could he see. Two days afterward their only son was brought home drowned; and his corpse being borne into the house upon a ladder, there were the same noises of opening the door, the shuffling of feet, the moving of chairs, the setting down of the burden, that the Tolaeth had touched their ears with. 'John, John!' murmured poor Mrs. Clode; 'this is exactly what I heard in the night.' 'Yes, wife,' quoth John, 'it was the Tolaeth before Death.' Before Ewythr Jenkin of Nash died, his daughter Gwenllian heard the Tolaeth. She had taken her old father's breeches from under his pillow to mend them (for he was very careful always to fold and put his breeches under his pillow, especially if there was a sixpence in the pocket), and just as she was about sitting down at the table on which she had thrown them, there came a loud rap on the table, which startled her very much. 'Oh, Jenny, what was that?' she asked of the servant girl; but Jenny could only stare at her mistress, more frightened than herself. Again did Gwenllian essay to sit and take the breeches in hand, when there came upon the table a double rap, much louder than the first, a rap, in fact, that made all the chairs and kettles ring. So then Gwenllian fainted away. At a place called by its owner Llynwent, in Radnorshire, at a certain time the man of the house and his wife were gone from home. The rest of the family were sitting at supper, when three of the servants heard the sound of horses coming toward the house, and cried out, 'There, they are coming!' thinking it was their master and mistress returning home. But on going out to meet them, there was nobody near. They re-entered the house, somewhat uneasy in their minds at this strange thing, and clustered about the fire, with many expressions of wonderment. While they were so seated, 'Hark!' said one, and all listening intently, heard footsteps passing by them and going up stairs, and voices of people talking among themselves. Not long afterward three of the family fell sick and died. III. An instance of recent occurrence is given by a local newspaper correspondent writing from the scene of a Welsh railway accident in October, 1878. It was at Pontypridd, famous the world over for its graceful bridge, (now old and superannuated,) and renowned in Druidic story as a seat of learning. A victim of the railway accident was, a few days before the collision, 'sitting with his wife at the fireside, when he had an omen. The house was still, and they were alone, only a little servant girl being with them. Then, while so sitting and talking, they both heard a heavy footstep ascending the stairs, step by step, step by step, as that of one carrying a burden. They looked at one another, and the husband called, "Run, Mary, upstairs; some one has gone up." Mary did run, but there was no one. She was told to look in every room, and she did so, and it was put down as fancy. When the news was borne to the poor wife on Saturday night, she started up and said, "There now, that was the omen!"'[100] That his readers may not by any perversity fail to understand him as alluding to the Tolaeth before Death, our newspaper correspondent states his creed: 'I believe in omens. I knew a lady who heard distinctly three raps at her door. Another lady was sitting with her near it too. The door was an inner door. No servant was in the house. The two ladies heard it, and yet no human hand touched that door, and at the time when the knock was heard a dear brother was dying. I know of strange things of this sort. Of voices crying the names of half-sleeping relatives when the waves were washing some one dear away to the mighty deep; but then the world laughs at all this and the world goes on.' The correspondent is severe; there is nothing here to laugh at. FOOTNOTE: [100] 'Western Mail,' Oct. 23, 1878. IV. The Tolaeth has one other form--that of a Voice which speaks, in a simple and natural manner, but very significant words. Thus Edward Lloyd, in the parish of Llangurig, was lying very ill, when the people that were with him in his chamber heard a voice near them, but could see no one; nor could they find any one anywhere about the house, to whom the voice might belong. Soon afterwards they heard it utter, so distinctly that it seemed to be in the room where they were, these words, 'Y mae nenbren y t[^y] yn craccio,' (the upper beam of the house cracketh.) Soon the Voice spoke again, saying, 'Fe dor yn y man,' (it will presently break.) And once more it spoke: 'Dyna fe yn tori,' (there it breaks.) That moment the sick man gave up the ghost. John, the son of Watkin Elias Jones, of the parish of Mynyddyslwyn, was one day ploughing in the field, when the oxen rested, and he sent the lad who drove the oxen, to fetch something which he wanted; and while thus alone in the field, he saw a cloud coming across the field to him. When the cloud had come to that part of the field where he was, it stopped, and shadowed the sun from him; and out of the cloud came a Voice, which asked him which of these three diseases he would choose to die of--fever, dropsy, or consumption. Being a man who could give a plain answer to a plain question, he replied that he would rather die of consumption. The lad now returning, he sent him home with the oxen, and then, feeling inclined to sleep, lay down and slept. When he awoke he was ill, and fell by degrees into a consumption, of which he died one year from the day of this warning. He did not tell of this apparition, however, until within six weeks of his death. V. One of the most beautiful legends in the Iolo MSS. gives an ancient tale of the Tolaeth which may be thus condensed: A great and wealthy lord, rich in land, houses and gold, enjoying all the luxuries of life, heard a voice proclaim thrice distinctly: 'The greatest and richest man of this parish shall die to-night.' At this he was sadly troubled, for he knew that the greatest and richest man of that parish could be no other than he; so he sent for the physician, but made ready for death. Great, however, was his joy when the night passed, the day broke, and he was yet alive. At sunrise the church bell was heard tolling, and the lord sent in haste to know who was dead. Answer came that it was an old blind beggar man, who had asked, and been refused, alms at the great man's gate. Then the lord knew the meaning of the warning voice he had heard: that very great and very rich man had been the poor beggar--his treasures and wealth in the kingdom of heaven. He took the warning wisely to heart, endowed religious houses, relieved all who were in poverty, and when at last he was dying, the voices of angels were heard to sing a hymn of welcome; and he was buried, according to his desire, in the old beggar's grave.[101] FOOTNOTE: [101] Iolo MSS., 592. VI. Of the Teulu, or Goblin Funeral, a death-portent of wide prevalence in Wales, numberless stories are told. This omen is sometimes a form of the Tolaeth, but in itself constitutes an omen which is simple and explicit. A funeral procession is seen passing down the road, and at the same time it is heard. It has no shadowy goblin aspect, but appears to be a real funeral. Examination shows its shadowy nature. Subsequently a real funeral passes the same way, and is recognised as the fulfilment of the omen. The goblin funeral precedes the other sometimes by days, sometimes by weeks. Rees Thomas, a carpenter of Carmarthenshire, passing by night through Rhiw Edwst, near Capel Ywen, heard a stir as of a procession of people coming towards him, walking and speaking; and when they were close to him he felt the touch of an unseen hand upon his shoulder, and a voice saying to him, 'Rhys bach, pa fodd yr y'ch chwi?' (my dear Rees, how are you?) A month after, passing that way again, he met a funeral in that very place, and a woman of the company put her hand upon his shoulder and spoke exactly the same Welsh words to him that the invisible spirit had spoken. Rev. Howel Prosser, many years ago curate of Aberystruth, late one evening saw a funeral procession going down the church lane. Supposing it to be the funeral of a man who had recently died in the upper part of his parish, yet wondering he had not been notified of the burial, he put on his band in order to perform his office over the dead, and hastened to meet the procession. But when he came to it he saw that it was composed of strangers, whom he had never seen before. Nevertheless, he laid his hand on the bier, to help carry the corpse, when instantly the whole vanished, and he was alone; but in his hand he found the skull of a dead horse. 'Mr. Prosser was my schoolmaster, and a right honest man,' says Edmund Jones,[102] who is responsible for this story, as well as for the ensuing: Isaac William Thomas, who lived not far from Hafodafel, once met a Goblin Funeral coming down the mountain toward Llanhiddel church. He stood in a field adjoining the highway, and leaned against the stone wall. The funeral came close to the other side of the wall, and as the bier passed him he reached forth his hand and took off the black veil which was over the bier. This he carried to his home, where many people saw it. 'It was made of some exceeding fine stuff, so that when folded it was a very little substance, and very light.' That he escaped being hurt for this bold act was long the marvel of the parish; but it was believed, by their going aside to come so near him, that the goblins were willing he should do as he did. An old man who resided near Llanllwch church, in Carmarthenshire, used to assert in the most solemn manner that he had seen the Teulu going to church again and again. On a certain evening hearing one approaching, he peeped over a wall to look at it. The persons composing the procession were all acquaintances of his, with the exception of one who stood apart from the rest, gazing mournfully at them, and who appeared to be a stranger. Soon afterwards there was a real burying, and the old man, determined to see if there would be in the scene any resemblance to his last Teulu, went to the churchyard and waited. When the procession arrived, all were there as he had seen them, except the stranger. Looking about him curiously, the old man was startled by the discovery that he was himself the stranger! He was standing on the identical spot where had stood the man he did not recognise when he saw the Teulu. It was his own ghost. FOOTNOTE: [102] 'Account of the Parish of Aberystruth,' 17. VII. The death portent called Cwn Annwn, or Dogs of Hell, is a pack of hounds which howl through the air with a voice frightfully disproportionate to their size, full of a wild sort of lamentation. There is a tradition that one of them once fell on a tombstone, but no one was able to secure it. A peculiarity of these creatures is that the nearer they are to a man the less loud their voice sounds, resembling then the voice of small beagles, and the farther off they are the louder is their cry. Sometimes a voice like that of a great hound is heard sounding among them--a deep hollow voice, as if it were the voice of a monstrous bloodhound. Although terrible to hear, and certain portents of death, they are in themselves harmless. 'They have never been known,' says a most respectable authority,[103] 'to commit any mischief on the persons of either man or woman, goat, sheep, or cow.' Sometimes they are called Cwn y Wybr, or Dogs of the Sky, but the more sulphurous name is the favourite one. They are also sometimes called Dogs of the Fairies. Their origin in fairyland is traced to the famous mabinogi of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed; but in that fascinating tale of enchantment their right to be called Cwn Annwn is clearly set forth, for they are there the hounds of a King of Annwn. There are several translations of this mabinogi in existence, and its popularity in South Wales is great, for the villages, vales, and streams mentioned in it are familiar to residents in Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan shires. Pwyll, the Prince, was at Narberth, where was his chief palace, when he went one day to a wood in Glyn Cych. Here 'he sounded his horn and began to enter upon the chase, following his dogs and separating from his companions. And as he was listening to the cry of his pack, he could distinctly hear the cry of another pack, different from that of his own, and which was coming in an opposite direction. He could also discern an opening in the woods towards a level plain; and as his pack was entering the skirt of the opening he perceived a stag before the other pack, and about the middle of the glade the pack in the rear coming up and throwing the stag on the ground. Upon this he fixed his attention on the colour of the pack, without recollecting to look at the stag: and of all the hounds in the world he had ever seen he never saw any like them in colour. Their colour was a shining clear white, with red ears; and the whiteness of the dogs and the redness of their ears were equally conspicuous.'[104] They were the hounds of Arawn, a crowned king in the land of Annwn, the shadow-land of Hades. The Cwn Annwn are sometimes held to be the hell-hounds which hunt through the air the soul of the wicked man, the instant it quits the body--a truly terrific idea to the vulgar mind. The Prophet Jones has several accounts of them: Thomas Phillips, of Trelech parish, heard them with the voice of the great dog sounding among them, and noticed that they followed a course that was never followed by funerals, which surprised him very much, as he had always heard that the Dogs of the Sky invariably went the same way that the corpse was to follow. Not long after a woman from an adjoining parish died at Trelech, and being carried to her own parish church to be buried, her corpse did actually pass the same way in which the spirit dogs had been heard to hunt. Thomas Andrew, of the parish of Llanhiddel, heard them one night as he was coming home. 'He heard them coming towards him, though he saw them not.' Their cry grew fainter as they drew near him, passed him, and louder again as they went from him. They went down the steeps towards the river Ebwy. And Thomas Andrew was 'a religious man, who would not have told an untruth for fear or for favour.' FOOTNOTES: [103] 'Cambro-Briton,' i., 350. [104] Dr. W. Owen Pughe's Trans., 'Camb.-Briton,' ii., 271. VIII. No form of superstition has had a wider popularity than this of spiritual hunting dogs, with which was usually connected in olden time the wild huntsman, a personage who has dropped quite out of modern belief, at least in Wales. In France this goblin was called Le Grand Veneur, and hunted with his dogs in the forests of Fontainebleau; in Germany it was Hackelberg, who sold himself to the devil for permission to hunt till doomsday. In Britain it was King Arthur who served as the goblin huntsman. Peasants would hear the cry of the hounds and the sounding of the horns, but the huntsman was invisible. When they called out after him, however, the answer came back: 'We are King Arthur and his kindred.' Mr. Baring-Gould,[105] in giving an account of the myth of Odin, the Wild Huntsman, who rides over the forests by night on a white horse, with his legion of hell-hounds, seems to ascribe the superstition to the imagination of a belated woodcutter frightened by the wind in the tree-tops. William Henderson[106] presumes the belief in the Wild Huntsman's pack, which prevails in the North of England, to come from the strange unearthly cries uttered by wild fowl on their passage southward, and which sound like the yelping of dogs. These natural phenomena have not served, however, to keep the old belief alive in Wales. That the Cwn Annwn are descendants of the wish-hound of Hermes, hardly admits of doubt. The same superstition prevails among all Aryan peoples, with details differing but little. The souls of the dying are carried away by the howling winds, the dogs of Hermes, in the ancient mythology as in surviving beliefs; on this follows the custom of opening the windows at death, so that the released soul may escape. In Devonshire they say no soul can escape from the house in which its body dies, unless all the locks and bolts are opened. In China a hole is made in the roof for a like purpose. The early Aryan conception of the wind as a howling dog or wolf speeding over the house-tops caused the inmates to tremble with fear, lest their souls should be called to follow them. It must be constantly borne in mind that all these creatures of fancy were more or less interchangeable, and the god Hermes was at times his own dog, which escorted the soul to the river Styx. The winds were now the maruts, or spirits of the breeze, serving Indra, the sky-god; again they were the great psychopomp himself. The peasant who to-day tells you that dogs can see death enter the house where a person is about to die, merely repeats the idea of a primeval man whose ignorance of physical science was complete. FOOTNOTES: [105] 'Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas,' 199-203. [106] 'Notes on Folk-Lore,' 97. CHAPTER IX. The Corpse Candle--Its Peculiarities--The Woman of Caerau--Grasping a Corpse Candle--The Crwys Candle--Lights issuing from the Mouth--Jesting with the Canwyll Corph--The Candle at Pontfaen--The Three Candles at Golden Grove--Origin of Death-Portents in Wales--Degree of Belief prevalent at the Present Day--Origin of Spirits in General--The Supernatural--The Question of a Future Life. I. Perhaps the most picturesque of the several death-omens popular in Wales is the Canwyll Corph, or Corpse Candle. It is also, according to my observation, the most extensively believed in at the present day. Its details are varied and extremely interesting. The idea of a goblin in the form of a lighted tallow candle is ludicrous enough, at first sight; and indeed I know several learned Welsh gentlemen who venture to laugh at it; but the superstition grows more and more grim and less risible the better one becomes acquainted with it. It is worth noting here that the canwyll, or candle, is a more poetic thing among the Welsh--has a higher literary place, so to speak--than among English-speaking peoples. In the works of their ancient poets the candle is mentioned in passages where we should use the word light or lamp--as in this verse, which is attributed to Aneurin (sixth century): The best candle for man is prudence. The candle is the favourite figure for mental guidance among the Welsh;[107] there is no book in the Welsh language so popular as a certain work of religious counsel by a former Vicar of Llandovery, called 'The Candle of the Cymry.' The Corpse Candle is always and invariably a death-warning. It sometimes appears as a stately flambeau, stalking along unsupported, burning with a ghastly blue flame. Sometimes it is a plain tallow 'dip' in the hand of a ghost, and when the ghost is seen distinctly it is recognised as the ghost of some person yet living, who will now soon die. This, it will be noticed, is a variation upon the wraith, or Lledrith. Sometimes the goblin is a light which issues from a person's mouth or nostrils. According to the belief of some sections, the size of the candle indicates the age of the person who is about to die, being large when it is a full-grown person whose death is foretold, small when it is a child, still smaller when an infant. Where two candles together are seen, one of which is large and the other small, it is a mother and child who are to die. When the flame is white, the doomed person is a woman; when red, a man. FOOTNOTE: [107] Stephens, 'Lit. of the Kymry,' 287. (New Ed., 1876.) II. Among the accounts of the Corpse Candle which have come under my notice none are more interesting than those given me by a good dame whom I encountered at Caerau, near Cardiff. Caerau is a little village of perhaps one hundred souls, crouched at the foot of a steep hill on whose summit are the ancient earthworks of a Roman camp. On this summit also stands the parish church, distinctly visible from Cardiff streets, so ponderous is its square tower against the sky. To walk there is a pleasant stroll from the late Marquis of Bute's statue in the centre of the seaport town. I am thus particular merely for emphasis of the fact that this superstition is not confined to remote and out-of-the-way districts. Caerau is rural, and its people are all poor people, perhaps; but its church is barely three miles from the heart of a busy seaport. In this church I met the voluble Welshwoman who gave me the accounts referred to. One was to this effect: One night her sister was lying very ill at the narrator's house, and she was alone with her children, her husband being in the lunatic asylum at Cardiff. She had just put the children to bed, and had set her candle on the floor preparatory to going to bed herself, when there came a 'swish' along the floor, like the rustling of grave-clothes, and the candle was blown out. The room, however, to her surprise, remained glowing with a feeble light as from a very small taper, and looking behind her she beheld 'old John Richards,' who had been dead ten years. He held a Corpse Candle in his hand, and he looked at her in a chill and steadfast manner which caused the blood to run cold in her veins. She turned and woke her eldest boy, and said to him, 'Don't you see old John Richards?' The boy asked 'Where?' rubbing his eyes. She pointed out the ghost, and the boy was so frightened at sight of it that he cried out 'O wi! O Dduw! I wish I may die!' The ghost then disappeared, the Corpse Candle in its hand; the candle on the floor burned again with a clear light, and the next day the sick sister died. Another account ran somewhat thus: The narrator's mother-in-law was ill with a cancer of the breast. 'Jenny fach,' she said to the narrator one night, 'sleep by me--I feel afraid.' 'Hach!' said Jenny, thinking the old woman was foolishly nervous; but she stayed. As she was lying in bed by the side of her mother-in-law, she saw at the foot of the bed the faint flame of a Corpse Candle, which shed no light at all about the room; the place remained as dark as it was before. She looked at it in a sort of stupor for a short time, and then raised herself slowly up in bed and reached out to see if she could grasp the candle. Her fingers touched it, but it immediately went out in a little shower of pale sparkles that fell downward. At that moment her mother-in-law uttered a groan, and expired. 'Do you know Thomas Mathews, sir?' she asked me; 'he lives at Crwys now, but he used to live here at Caerau.' 'Crwys?' I repeated, not at once comprehending. 'Oh, you must know Crwys, sir; it's just the other side of Cardiff, towards Newport.' 'Can you spell it for me?'[108] The woman blushed. ''Deed, sir,' said she, 'I ought to be a scholar, but I've had so much trouble with my old man that I've quite forgot my spellin'.' However, the story of Thomas Mathews was to the effect that he saw a Corpse Candle come out of his father's mouth and go to his feet, and away a bit, then back again to the mouth, which it did not exactly enter, but blended as it were with the sick man's body. I asked if the candle was tallow at any point in its excursion, to which I was gravely answered that it was the spirit of tallow. The man died not long after, in the presence of my informant, who described the incident with a dramatic force and fervour peculiarly Celtic, concluding with the remark: 'Well, well, there's only one way to come into the world, but there's a many ways to go out of it.' The light issuing from the mouth is a fancy frequently encountered. In the 'Liber Landavensis' it is mentioned that one day as St. Samson was celebrating the holy mysteries, St. Dubricius with two monks saw a stream of fire to proceed glittering from his mouth.[109] In old woodcuts, the souls of the dying are represented as issuing from the mouth in the form of small human figures; and the Tyrolese peasants still fancy the soul is seen coming out of the mouth of a dying man like a little white cloud.[110] From the mouth of a patient in a London hospital some time since the nurses observed issuing a pale bluish flame, and soon after the man died. The frightened nurses--not being acquainted with the corpse-candle theory of such things--imagined the torments of hell had already begun in the still living body. A scientific explanation of the phenomenon ascribed it to phosphuretted hydrogen, a result of incipient decomposition.[111] FOOTNOTES: [108] It is pronounced Croo-iss. [109] 'Liber Landavensis,' 299. [110] Tylor, 'Primitive Culture,' 391. [111] 'Transactions Cardiff Nat. Soc.,' iv. 5. III. It is ill jesting with the Corpse Candle. Persons who have endeavoured to stop it on its way have come severely to grief thereby. Many have been struck down where they stood, in punishment of their audacity, as in the case of William John, a blacksmith of Lanboydi. He was one night going home on horseback, when he saw a Corpse Candle, and his natural caution being at the moment somewhat overcome by potables, he resolved to go out of his way to obstruct its passage. As the candle drew near he saw a corpse upon a bier, the corpse of a woman he knew, and she held the candle between her forefingers, and dreadfully grinned at him. Then he was struck from his horse, and lay in the road a long time insensible, and was ill for weeks thereafter. Meantime, the woman whose spectral corpse he had seen, died and was buried, her funeral passing by that road. A clergyman's son in Carmarthenshire, (subsequently himself a preacher,) who in his younger days was somewhat vicious, came home one night late from a debauch, and found the doors locked. Fearing to disturb the folk, and fearing also their reproaches and chidings for his staying out so late, (as many a young fellow has felt before and since,) he went to the man-servant, who slept in an out-room, as is sometimes the custom in Welsh rural districts. He could not awake the man-servant, but while standing over him, he saw a small light issue from the servant's nostrils, which soon became a Corpse Candle. He followed it out. It came to a foot-bridge which crossed a rivulet. Here the young man became inspired with the idea of trying an experiment with the Corpse Candle. He raised the end of the foot-bridge off the bank, and watched to see what the ghostly light would do. When it came to the rivulet it seemed to offer to go over, but hesitated, as if loth to cross except upon the bridge. So the young man put the bridge back in its place, and stayed to see how the candle would act. It came on the bridge, and as it passed the young man it struck him, as with a handkerchief. But though the blow was thus light and phantom-like, it doubled the young man up and left him a senseless heap on the ground, where he lay till morning, when he recovered and went home. It is needless to add that the servant died. IV. Morris Griffith was once schoolmaster in the parish of Pontfaen, in Pembrokeshire, but subsequently became a Baptist preacher of the Gospel. He tells this story: 'As I was coming from a place called Tre-Davydd, and was come to the top of the hill, I saw a great light down in the valley, which I wondered at; for I could not imagine what it meant. But it came to my mind that it was a light before a burying, though I never could believe before that there was such a thing. The light which I saw then was a very red light, and it stood still for about a quarter of an hour in the way which went towards Llanferch-Llawddog church. I made haste to the other side of the hill, that I might see it farther; and from thence I saw it go along to the churchyard, where it stood still for a little time and entered into the church. I remained waiting to see it come out, and it was not long before it came out, and went to a certain part of the churchyard, where it stood a little time, and then vanished out of my sight. A few days afterwards, being in school with the children about noon, I heard a great noise overhead, as if the top of the house was coming down. I ran out to see the garret, and there was nothing amiss. A few days afterwards, Mr. Higgon of Pontfaen's son died. When the carpenter came to fetch the boards to make the coffin, (which were in the garret,) he made exactly such a stir, in handling the boards in the garret, as was made before by some spirit, who foreknew the death that was soon to come to pass. In carrying the body to the grave, the burying stood where the light had stood for about a quarter of an hour, because there was some water crossing the way, and the people could not go over it without wetting their feet, therefore they were obliged to wait till those that had boots helped them over. The child was buried in that very spot of ground in the churchyard, where I saw the light stop after it came out of the church. This is what I can boldly testify, having seen and heard what I relate--a thing which before I could not believe.' Joshua Coslet, before mentioned in these pages, suddenly met a Corpse Candle as he was going through Heol Bwlch y Gwynt, (Windgap Lane) in Llandilo Fawr parish. It was a small light when near him, but increased as it went farther from him. He could easily see that there was some dark shadow passing along with the candle, and the shadow of a man carried it, holding it 'between his three forefingers over against his face.' He might perhaps have seen more, but he was afraid to look too earnestly upon it. Not long after, a burying passed through Heol Bwlch y Gwynt. Another time he saw the likeness of a candle carried in a skull. 'There is nothing unlikely or unreasonable in either of these representations,' says the Prophet Jones, their historian. A Carmarthenshire tradition relates that one day, when the coach which runs between Llandilo and Carmarthen was passing by Golden Grove, the property of the Earl of Cawdor, three Corpse Candles were observed on the surface of the water gliding down the stream which runs near the road. All the passengers saw them. A few days after, some men were about crossing the river near there in a coracle, when one of them expressed his fear at venturing, as the river was flooded, and he remained behind. Thus the fatal number crossed the river--three--three Corpse Candles having foretold their fate; and all were drowned. V. Tradition ascribes the origin of all these death-portents to the efforts of St. David. This saint appears to have been a great and good man, and a zealous Catholic, who, as a contemporary of the historical Arthur, is far enough back in the dim past to meet the views of romantic minds. And a prelate who by his prayers and presence could enable King Arthur to overthrow the Saxons in battle, or who by his pious learning could single-handed put down the Pelagian heresy in the Cardiganshire synod, was surely strong enough to invoke the Gwrach y Rhibyn, the Cyhyraeth, the Corpse Candle, and all the dreadful brood. This the legend relates he did by a special appeal to Heaven. Observing that the people in general were careless of the life to come, and could not be brought to mind it, and make preparation for it, St. David prayed that Heaven would give a sign of the immortality of the soul, and of a life to come, by a presage of death. Since that day, Wales, and particularly that part of Wales included in the bishopric of St. David, has had these phantoms. More materialistic minds consider these portents to be a remainder of those practices by which the persecuted Druids performed their rites and long kept up their religion in the land which Christianity had claimed: a similar origin, in fact, is here found for goblin omens as for fairies. That these various portents are extensively believed in at the present day there cannot be a doubt; with regard to the most important of them, I am able to testify with the fullest freedom; I have heard regarding them story after story, from the lips of narrators whose sincerity was expressed vividly in face, tones, and behaviour. The excited eye, the paling cheek, the bated breath, the sinking voice, the intense and absorbed manner--familiar phenomena in every circle where ghost stories are told--evidenced the perfect sincerity, at least, of the speakers. It is unnecessary here to repeat, what I for my own part never forget, nor, I trust, does the reader, that Wales is no exception to the rest of the world in its credulity. That it is more picturesque is true, and it is also true that there is here an unusual amount of legend which has not hitherto found its way into books. Death-omens are common to all lands; even in America, there are tales of the banshee, imported from Ireland along with the sons of that soil. In one recent case which came under my notice the banshee belonged to a Cambridgeshire Englishman. This was at Evansville, Indiana, and the banshee had appeared before the deaths of five members of a family, the last of whom was the father. His name was Feast, and the circumstances attending the banshee's visits were gravely described in a local journal as a matter of news. Less distinguished death-portents are common enough in the United States. That the Cambrian portents are so picturesque and clearly defined must be considered strong testimony to the vivid imagination of the Welsh. Figures born of the fancy, as distinguished from creatures born of the flesh, prove their parentage by the vagueness of their outlines. The outlines of the Cyhyraeth and the Gwrach y Rhibyn sometimes run into and mingle with each other, and so do those of the Tolaeth and the Goblin Funeral; but the wonder is they are such distinct entities as they are. VI. To say that all the visible inhabitants of the mundane spirit-world are creatures of the disordered human liver, is perhaps a needless harshness of statement. The question of a future life is not involved in this subject, nor raised by the best writers who are studying it; but, religious belief quite apart, it remains to be proved that spirits of a supernatural world have any share in the affairs of a world governed by natural law. A goblin which manifests itself to the human eye, it seems to me, becomes natural, by bowing before the natural laws which rule in optics. Yet believers in ghosts find no difficulty in this direction; the word 'supernatural' covers a multitude of sins. 'What is the supernatural?' asks Disraeli, in 'Lothair.' 'Can there be anything more miraculous than the existence of man and the world? anything more literally supernatural than the origin of things?' Surely, in this life, nothing! The student who endeavours to govern his faith by the methods of science asks no more of any ghost that ever walked the earth, than that it will prove itself a reality. Man loves the marvellous. The marvels of science, however, do not melt away into thin air on close examination. They thrive under the severest tests, and grow more and more extraordinary the more they are tried. The spectroscope and the radiometer are more wonderful than any 'supernatural' thing yet heard of. Transportation through the air in the arms of a spirit is a clear impossibility; but it is less wonderful than the every-day feats of electricity in our time, the bare conception of which would have filled Plato and Aristotle with awe. The actual origin of the phantoms of the spirit-world is to be found in the lawless and luxuriant fancy of primeval man. The creatures of this fancy have been perpetuated throughout all time, unto our own day, by that passionate yearning in men for continued life and love, which is ineradicable in our nature. Men will not, they can not, accept the doubt which plunges an eternal future into eternal darkness, and separates them for ever from the creatures of their love. Hence, when the remorseless fact of Death removes those creatures, they look, with a longing which is indescribably pathetic, into the Unknown where their beloved have gone, and strive to see them in their spirit-life. On this verge the finite mind must pause; to question that life is to add a terrible burden to all human woe; it need not be questioned. But to question the power of anything in that life to manifest itself to man through natural law, is to do what science has a right to do. 'The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing ... neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.'[112] FOOTNOTE: [112] 'Eccles.' ix., 5, 6. [Illustration: {SPRIG OF LILY OF THE VALLEY.}] BOOK III. QUAINT OLD CUSTOMS. Where in an agede cell with moss and iveye growne, In which nor to this daye the sunn had ever showne, Their reverend British saint, in zealous ages paste, To contemplation lived, and did so truly faste, As he did onlie drink what chrystal [rivers] yields, And fed upon the leakes he gather'd in the fields: In memory of whom, in the revolving year, The Welchman on that daye that sacred herb doth wear. _MS. in Bodleian Library._ CHAPTER I. Serious Significance of seemingly Trivial Customs--Their Origins--Common Superstitions--The Age we Live in--Days and Seasons--New Year's Day--The Apple Gift--Lucky Acts on New Year's Morning--The First Foot--Showmen's Superstitions--Levy Dew Song--Happy New Year Carol--Twelfth Night--The Mari Lwyd--The Penglog--The Cutty Wren--Tooling and Sowling--St. Valentine's Day--St. Dewi's Day--The Wearing of the Leek--The Traditional St. David--St. Patrick's Day--St. Patrick a Welshman--Shrove Tuesday. I. Numberless customs in Wales which appear to be meaningless, to people of average culture, are in truth replete with meaning. However trivial they may seem, they are very seldom the offspring of mere fooling. The student of comparative folk-lore is often able to trace their origin with surprising distinctness, and to evolve from them a significance before unsuspected. In many cases these quaint old customs are traced to the primeval mythology. Others are clearly seen to be of Druidical origin. Many spring from the rites and observances of the Roman Catholic Church in the early days of Christianity on Welsh soil--where, as is now generally conceded, the Gospel was first preached in Great Britain. Some embody historical traditions; and some are the outgrowth of peculiar states of society in medieval times. Directly or indirectly, they are all associated with superstition, though in many instances they have quite lost any superstitious character in our day. Modern society is agreed, with respect to many curious old customs, to view them as the peculiar possession of ignorance. It is very instructive to note, in this connection, how blandly we accept some of the most superstitious of these usages, with tacit approval, and permit them to govern our conduct. In every civilised community, in every enlightened land on earth, there are many men and women to whom this remark applies, who would deem themselves shamefully insulted should you doubt their intelligence and culture. Men and women who 'smile superior' at the idea of Luther hurling inkstands at the devil, or at the Welsh peasant who thinks a pig can see the wind, will themselves avoid beginning a journey on a Friday, view as ominous a rainy wedding-day, throw an old slipper after a bride for luck, observe with interest the portents of their nightly dreams, shun seeing the new moon over the left shoulder, throw a pinch of salt over the same member when the salt-cellar is upset, tie a red string about the neck to cure nose-bleed, and believe in the antics of the modern spiritualistic 'control.' Superstition, however, they leave to the ignorant! The examples of every-day fetichism here cited are familiar to us, not specially among the Welsh, but among the English also, and the people of the United States--who, I may again observe, are no doubt as a people uncommonly free from superstition, in comparison with the older nations of the earth; but modesty is a very becoming wear for us all, in examining into other people's superstitions. Aside from their scientific interest, there is a charm about many of the quaint customs of the Welsh, which speaks eloquently to most hearts. They are the offspring of ignorance, true, but they touch the 'good old times' of the poet and the romancer, when the conditions of life were less harsh than now. So we love to think. As a matter of scientific truth, this idea is itself, alas! but a superstition. This world has probably never been so fair a place to live in, life never so free from harsh conditions, as now; and as time goes on, there can be no doubt the improving process will continue. The true halcyon days of man are to be looked for in the future--not in the past; but with that future we shall have no mortal part. II. In treating of customs, no other classification is needful than their arrangement in orderly sequence in two divisions: first, those which pertain to certain days and seasons; second, those relating to the most conspicuous events in common human life, courtship, marriage, and death. Beginning with the year: there is in Glamorganshire a New Year's Day custom of great antiquity and large present observance, called the apple gift, or New Year's gift. In every town and village you will encounter children, on and about New Year's Day, going from door to door of shops and houses, bearing an apple or an orange curiously tricked out. Three sticks in the form of a tripod are thrust into it to serve as a rest; its sides are smeared with flour or meal, and stuck over with oats or wheat, or bits of broken lucifer matches to represent oats; its top is covered with thyme or other sweet evergreen, and a skewer is inserted in one side as a handle to hold it by. In its perfection, this piece of work is elaborate; but it is now often a decrepit affair, in the larger towns, where the New Year is welcomed (as at Cardiff) by a midnight chorus of steam-whistles. [Illustration: THE NEW YEAR'S APPLE.] The Christian symbolism of this custom is supposed to relate to the offering, by the Wise Men, of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus. The older interpretation, however, takes the custom back to the Druidic days, and makes it a form of the solar myth. In the three supporting sticks of the apple are seen the three rays of the sun, /|\, the mystic Name of the Creator; the apple is the round sun itself; the evergreens represent its perennial life; and the grains of wheat, or oats, Avagddu's spears. Avagddu is the evil principle of darkness--hell, or the devil--with which the sun fights throughout the winter for the world's life. Thousands of children in Wales seek to win from their elders a New Year's copper by exhibiting the apple gift, or by singing in chorus their good wishes. A popular verse on this occasion hopes the hearer will be blessed with an abundance of money in his pocket and of beer in his cellar, and draws attention to the singers' thin shoes and the bad character of the walking. In many cases the juvenile population parades the street all night, sometimes with noisy fife bands, which follow the death knell, as it sounds from the old church tower, with shrill peals of a merrier if not more musical sort. In Pembrokeshire, to rise early on New Year's morning is considered luck-bringing. On that morning also it is deemed wise to bring a fresh loaf into the house, with the superstition that the succession of loaves throughout the year will be influenced by that incident. A rigid quarantine is also set up, to see that no female visitor cross the threshold first on New Year's morning; that a male visitor shall be the first to do so is a lucky thing, and the reverse unlucky. A superstition resembling this prevails to this day in America among showmen. 'There's no showman on the road,' said an American manager of my acquaintance, 'who would think of letting a lady be first to pass through the doors when opening them for a performance. There's a sort of feeling that it brings ill-luck. Then there are cross-eyed people; many a veteran ticket-seller loses all heart when one presents himself at the ticket-window. A cross-eyed patron and a bad house generally go together. A cross-eyed performer would be a regular Jonah. With circuses there is a superstition that a man with a yellow clarionet brings bad luck.' Another well-known New York manager in a recent conversation assured me that to open an umbrella in a new play is deemed certain failure for the piece. An umbrella may be carried closed with impunity, but it must not be opened unless the author desire to court failure. The Chinese have the Pembrokeshire superstition exactly, as regards the first foot on New Year's Day. They consider a woman peculiarly unlucky as a first foot after the New Year has begun, but a Buddhist priest is even more unlucky than a woman, in this light.[113] Another Pembrokeshire custom on New Year's morning is quaint and interesting. As soon as it is light, children of the peasantry hasten to provide a small cup of pure spring water, just from the well, and go about sprinkling the faces of those they meet, with the aid of a sprig of evergreen. At the same time they sing the following verses: Here we bring new water from the well so clear, For to worship God with, this happy new year; Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine, With seven bright gold wires, and bugles that do shine; Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her toe; Open you the west door and turn the old year go; Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her chin; Open you the east door and let the new year in! This custom also is still observed extensively. The words 'levy dew' are deemed an English version of Llef i Dduw, (a cry to God). A Welsh song sung on New Year's Day, in Glamorganshire, by boys in chorus, somewhat after the Christmas carol fashion, is this: Blwyddyn newydd dda i chwi, Gwyliau llawen i chwi, Meistr a meistres bob un trwy'r ty, Gwyliau llawen i chwi, Codwch yn foreu, a rheswch y tan, A cherddwch i'r ffynon i ymofyn dwr glan. A happy new year to you, Merry be your holidays, Master and mistress--every one in the house; Arise in the morning; bestir the fire, And go to the well to fetch fresh water. FOOTNOTE: [113] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 31. III. Among Twelfth Night customs, none is more celebrated than that called Mary Lwyd. It prevails in various parts of Wales, notably in lower Glamorganshire. The skeleton of a horse's head is procured by the young men or boys of a village, and adorned with 'favours' of pink, blue, yellow, etc. These are generally borrowed from the girls, as it is not considered necessary the silken fillets and rosettes should be new, and such finery costs money. The bottoms of two black bottles are inserted in the sockets of the skeleton head to serve as eyes, and a substitute for ears is also contrived. On Twelfth Night they carry this object about from house to house, with shouts and songs, and a general cultivation of noise and racket. Sometimes a duet is sung in Welsh, outside a door, the singers begging to be invited in; if the door be not opened they tap on it, and there is frequently quite a series of _awen_ sung, the parties within denying the outsiders admission, and the outsiders urging the same. At last the door is opened, when in bounces the merry crowd, among them the Mary Lwyd, borne by one personating a horse, who is led by another personating the groom. The horse chases the girls around the room, capering and neighing, while the groom cries, 'So ho, my boy--gently, poor fellow!' and the girls, of course, scream with merriment. A dance follows--a reel, performed by three young men, tricked out with ribbons. The company is then regaled with cakes and ale, and the revellers depart, pausing outside the door to sing a parting song of thanks and good wishes to their entertainers. The penglog (a skull, a noddle) is a similar custom peculiar to Aberconwy (Conway) in Carnarvonshire. In this case the horse's skull is an attention particularly bestowed upon prudes. Mary Lwyd may mean Pale Mary, or Wan Mary, or Hoary Mary, but the presumption is that it means in this case Blessed Mary, and that the custom is of papal origin. There is, however, a tradition which links the custom with enchantment, in connection with a warlike princess, reputed to have flourished in Gwent and Morganwg in the early ages, and who is to be seen to this day, mounted on her steed, on a rock in Rhymney Dingle.[114] The cutty wren is a Pembrokeshire Twelfth Night custom prevailing commonly during the last century, but now nearly extinct. A wren was placed in a little house of paper, with glass windows, and this was hoisted on four poles, one at each corner. Four men bore it about, singing a very long ballad, of which one stanza will be enough: [Music: O! where are you go-ing? says Mil-der to Mel-der, O! where are you go-ing? says the youn-ger to the el-der; O! I can-not tell, says Fes-tel to Fose; We're go-ing to the woods, said John the Red Nose, We're go-ing to the woods, said John the Red Nose!] The immediate purpose of this rite was to levy contributions. Another such custom was called 'tooling,' and its purpose was beer. It consisted in calling at the farm-houses and pretending to look for one's tools behind the beer cask. 'I've left my saw behind your beer cask,' a carpenter would say; 'my whip,' a carter; and received the tool by proxy, in the shape of a cup of ale. The female portion of the poorer sort, on the other hand, practised what was called sowling, viz., asking for 'sowl,' and receiving, accordingly, any food eaten with bread, such as cheese, fish, or meat. This custom is still maintained, and 'sowling day' fills many a poor woman's bag. The phrase is supposed to be from the French _soûl_, signifying one's fill. FOOTNOTE: [114] Vide W. Roberts's 'Crefydd yr Oesoedd Tywyll,' 1. IV. Connected with St. Valentine's Day, there is no Welsh custom which demands notice here; but it is perhaps worthy of mention that nowhere in the world is the day more abundantly productive of its orthodox crop--love-letters. The post-offices in the Principality are simply deluged with these missives on the eve and morning of St. Valentine's. In Cardiff the postmaster thinks himself lucky if he gets off with fifteen thousand letters in excess of the ordinary mail. Nineteen extra sorters and carriers were employed for this work on February 14th, 1878, and the regular force also was heavily worked beyond its usual hours. The custom is more Norman than Cambrian, I suppose; the word Valentine comes from the Norman word for a lover, and the saint is a mere accident in this connection. V. St. Dewi is to the Welsh what St. George is to the English, St. Andrew to the Scotch, and St. Patrick to the Irish. His day is celebrated on the 1st of March throughout Wales, and indeed throughout the world where Welshmen are. In some American ports (perhaps all) the British consulate displays its flag in honour of the day. In Wales there are processions, grand dinners; places of business are closed; the poor are banqueted; speeches are made and songs are sung. The most characteristic feature of the day is the wearing of the leek. This feature is least conspicuous, it may be noted, in those parts of Wales where the English residents are fewest, and least of all in the ultra-Welsh shires of Cardigan and Carmarthen, where St. David is peculiarly honoured. The significance of this fact no doubt lies in the absence of any necessity for asserting a Cambrianism which there are none to dispute. In the border towns, every Welshman who desires to assert his national right wears the leek in his hat or elsewhere on his person; but in the shadow of St. David's College at Lampeter, not a leek is seen on St. Dewi's Day. In Glamorganshire may be found the order of Knights of the Leek, who hold high festival on the 1st of every March, gathering in the Welsh bards and men of letters. Why is the leek worn? Practically, because the wearer is a Welshman who honours tradition. But the precise origin of the custom is involved in an obscurity from which emerge several curious and interesting traditions. The verses cited at the opening of this Part refer to one of these; they are quoted by Manby[115] without other credit than 'a very antient manuscript.' Another tradition is thus given in a pamphlet of 1642:[116] 'S. David when hee always went into the field in Martiall exercise he carried a Leek with him, and once being almost faint to death, he immediately remembred himself of the Leek, and by that means not only preserved his life but also became victorious: hence is the Mythologie of the Leek derived.' The practice is traced by another writer[117] to 'the custom of Cymhortha, or the neighbourly aid practised among farmers, which is of various kinds. In some districts of South Wales all the neighbours of a small farmer without means appoint a day when they all attend to plough his land, and the like; and at such a time it is a custom for each individual to bring his portion of leeks, to be used in making pottage for the whole company; and they bring nothing else but the leeks in particular for the occasion.' Some find the true origin of the custom in Druidical days, but their warrant is not clear, nor how it came to be associated with the 1st of March in that case. The military origin bears down the scale of testimony, and gives the leek the glory of a Cambrian victory as its consecrator to ornamental purposes. Whether this victory was over the Saxon or the Gaul does not exactly appear; some traditions say one, some the other. The battle of Poictiers has been named; also that of Cressy, where the Welsh archers did good service with the English against a common enemy; but an older tradition is to the effect that the Saxon was the foe. The invaders had assumed the dress of the Britons, that they might steal upon them unsuspected; but St. David ordered the Welshmen to stick leeks in their caps as a badge of distinction. This he did merely because there was a large field of leeks growing near the British camp. The precaution gave the day to the favoured of St. Dewi. It cannot be denied that there have been found Englishmen rude enough to ridicule this honourable and ancient custom of the Welsh, though why they should do so there is no good reason. The leek is not fragrant, perhaps; but if an old custom must smell sweet or be laughed at, there is work enough for our risibles in every English parish. The following is one of the foolish legends of the English respecting the leek: 'The Welsh in olden days were so infested by ourang outangs that they could obtain no peace day or night, and not being themselves able to extirpate them they invited the English to assist, who came; but through mistake killed several of the Welsh, so that in order to distinguish them from the monkeys they desired them to stick a leek in their hats.' The author of this ridiculous tale deserves the fate of Pistol, whom Fluellen compelled to eat his leek, skin and all. _Flu._ I peseech you heartily, scurvy lowsy knave, at my desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it. _Pist._ Not for Cadwallader, and all his goats. _Flu._ There is one goat for you. [_Strikes him._] Will you be so good, scald knave, as eat it? _Pist._ Base Trojan, thou shalt die. _Flu._ You say very true, scald knave, when Got's will is: I will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals.... If you can mock a leek you can eat a leek.... _Pist._ Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see, I eat. _Flu._ Much goot do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, 'pray you, throw none away; the skin is goot for your proken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at them! that is all.[118] FOOTNOTES: [115] 'Hist. and Ant. of the Parish of St. David,' 54. [116] 'The Welchmen's Ivbilee to the honour of St. David, shewing the manner of that solemn celebration which the Welchmen annually hold in honour of St. David, describing likewise the trve and reall cause why they wear that day a _Leek_ on their Hats, with an excellent merry Sonnet annexed unto it, composed by T. Morgan Gent. London. Printed for I. Harrison.' [117] Owen, 'Camb. Biog.' 86. [118] Shaks., 'K. Henry V.,' Act V., Sc. 1. VI. The traditional St. David is a brilliant figure in Welsh story; with the historical character this work has not to deal. The legendary account of him represents a man of gigantic stature and fabulous beauty, whose age at his death was 147 years. He was a direct descendant of the sister of the Virgin Mary, and his first miracles were performed while he was yet unborn. In this condition he regulated the diet of his virgin mother, and struck dumb a preacher who presumed to preach in her presence. At the hour of his birth St. Dewi performed a miracle; another when he was baptized; and he was taught his lessons (at a place called The Old Bush, in South Wales) by a pigeon with a golden beak, which played about his lips. As he grew up, his miraculous powers waxed stronger; and magicians who opposed him were destroyed by fire which he called from heaven to consume them. Thirsty, a fountain rose in Glyn Hodnant at his call, and from this fountain ran not water but good wine. When he went about the country he was always accompanied by an angel. On the banks of the river Teify, a miserable woman wept over her son who lay dead; she appealed to Dewi, who laid hold of the boy's right hand and he arose from the dead as if from a sleep. At Llandewi Brefi, in Cardiganshire, as he was preaching on the surface of the flat ground, the ground rose as a high mount under his feet, so that the people all about could see him as well as hear him. A labourer lifted his pickaxe to strike a friend of Dewi's, which the saint seeing from afar off, raised his hand and willed that the labourer's hand should become stiff--which it did. Another friend, going away to Ireland, forgot and left behind him a little bell that Dewi had given him; but Dewi sent the bell across the sea by an angel, so that it arrived there next day without the aid of human hands. And finally, having made up his mind that he would die and go to heaven, he did so--but quite of his own will--at his own request, so to speak. Having asked that his soul might be taken, an angel informed him it would be taken on the first of March proximo. So David bade his friends good-bye on the 28th of February, greatly to their distress. 'Alas!' they cried, 'the earth will not swallow us! Alas! fire will not consume us! Alas! the sea will not come over the land! Alas! the mountains will not fall to cover us!' On Tuesday night, as the cocks were crowing, a host of angels thronged the streets of the city, and filled it with joy and mirth; and Dewi died. 'The angels took his soul to the place where there is light without end, and rest without labour, and joy without sorrow, and plenty of all good things, and victory, and brightness, and beauty.' There Abel is with the martyrs, Noah is with the sailors, Thomas is with the Indians, Peter is with the apostles, Paul is with the Greeks, other saints are with other suitable persons, and David is with the kings.[119] On the summit which rose under St. Dewi while he stood on it and preached, now stands St. David's church, at Llandewi Brefi. In the days of its glory--i.e. during nearly the whole period of Roman Catholic rule--it was renowned beyond all others in Britain. To go twice to St. David's was deemed equal to going once to Rome, and a superstitious belief prevailed that every man must go to St. David's once, either alive or dead. William the Conqueror marched through Wales in hostile array in 1080, but arriving at St. David's shrine laid aside the warrior for the votary. FOOTNOTE: [119] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 402, etc. VII. St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in Wales with much enthusiasm. The Welsh believe that St. Patrick was a Welshman. Born at Llandeilo Talybont, in Glamorganshire, and educated at the famous college of Llantwit Major, he held St. David's place till the coming of Dewi was announced to him; then he went into Ireland, to do missionary work, as it were. This is the monastic tale. Patrick was comfortably settled in the valley of Rosina, and intended to pass his life there, but an angel came to him and said, 'Thou must leave this place to one who is not yet born.' Patrick was annoyed, even angered, but obedient, and went off to Ireland, where he became a great man.[120] The story of the Iolo MSS., however, presents the matter in a different light: 'About A.D. 420 the Island of Britain seemed to have neither ruler nor proprietor.' The Irish took advantage of this state of things to invade and oppress Britain, robbing her of corn, cattle, 'and every other moveable property that they could lay their hands on.' Among other things, they stole away St. Patrick from the college at Llantwit Major, 'whence that college became destitute of a principal and teacher for more than forty years, and fell into dilapidation'--a condition it remains in at present, by the way. 'Patrick never returned to Wales, choosing rather to reside in Ireland; having ascertained that the Irish were better people than the Welsh, in those times.'[121] Still, it is not the native Welsh who are as a rule the celebrators of St. Patrick's Day in Wales. FOOTNOTES: [120] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 403. [121] Iolo MSS., 455. VIII. Shrove Tuesday was once characterised by a custom called throwing at cocks, now obsolete. Hens which had laid no eggs before that day were threshed with a flail, as being good for nothing. The person who hit the hen with the flail and killed her got her for his reward. The more reputable custom of cramming with crammwythau (pancakes) still survives, and is undoubtedly of extreme antiquity. CHAPTER II. Sundry Lenten Customs--Mothering Sunday--Palm Sunday--Flowering Sunday--Walking Barefoot to Church--Spiritual Potency of Buns--Good Friday Superstitions--Making Christ's Bed--Bad Odour of Friday--Unlucky Days--Holy Thursday--The Eagle of Snowdon--New Clothing at Easter--Lifting--The Crown of Porcelain--Stocsio--Ball-Playing in Churchyards--The Tump of Lies--Dancing in Churchyards--Seeing the Sun Dance--Calan Ebrill, or All Fools' Day--May Day--The Welsh Maypole--The Daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint--Carrying the Kings of Summer and Winter. I. Wearing mourning throughout Lent was formerly common in Wales. In Monmouthshire, Mothering Sunday--the visiting of parents on Mid-Lent Sunday--was observed in the last century, but is nowhere popular in Wales at present. Palm Sunday takes precedence among the Welsh, and is very extensively and enthusiastically observed. The day is called Flowering Sunday, and its peculiar feature is strewing the graves of the dead with flowers. The custom reaches all classes, and all parts of the Principality. In the large towns, as Cardiff, many thousands of people gather at the graves. The custom is associated with the strewing of palms before Christ on his entry into Jerusalem, but was observed by the British Druids in celebration of the awakening life of the earth at this season. II. In Pembrokeshire, it was customary up to the close of the last century, to walk barefoot to church on Good Friday, as had been done since times prior to the Reformation. The old people and the young joined in this custom, which they said was done so as not to 'disturb the earth.' All business was suspended, and no horse nor cart was to be seen in the town. Hot-cross buns also figured in a peculiar manner at this time. They were eaten in Tenby after the return from church. After having tied up a certain number in a bag, the folk hung them in the kitchen, where they remained till the next Good Friday, for use as medicine. It was believed that persons labouring under any disease had only to eat a portion of a bun to be cured. The buns so preserved were used also as a panacea for all the diseases of domestic animals. They were further believed to be serviceable in frightening away goblins of an evil sort. That these buns are of Christian invention is the popular belief, and indeed this notion is not altogether exploded among the more intelligent classes. Their connection with the cross of the Saviour is possible by adoption--as the early Christians adopted many pagan rites and customs--but that they date back to pre-historic times there is abundant testimony. Innumerable are the superstitious customs and beliefs associated with Good Friday. In Pembrokeshire there was a custom called 'making Christ's bed.' A quantity of long reeds were gathered from the river and woven into the shape of a man. This effigy was then stretched on a wooden cross, and laid in some retired field or garden, and left there. The birth of a child on that day is very unlucky--indeed a birth on any Friday of the whole year is to be deprecated as a most unfortunate circumstance. III. The bad odour in which Friday is everywhere held is naturally associated, among Christians, with the crucifixion; but this will not account for the existence of a like superstition regarding Friday among the Brahmins of India, nor for the prevalence of other lucky and unlucky days among both Aryan and Mongolian peoples. In the Middle Ages Monday and Tuesday were unlucky days. A Welshman who lived some time in Russia, tells me Monday is deemed a very unlucky day there, on which no business must be begun. In some English districts Thursday is the unlucky day. In Norway it is lucky, especially for marrying. In South Wales, Friday is the fairies' day, when they have special command over the weather; and it is their whim to make the weather on Friday differ from that of the other days of the week. 'When the rest of the week is fair, Friday is apt to be rainy, or cloudy; and when the weather is foul, Friday is apt to be more fair.' The superstitious prejudice of the quarrymen in North Wales regarding Holy Thursday has been cited. It is not a reverential feeling, but a purely superstitious one, and has pervaded the district from ancient times. It has been supposed that Thursday was a sacred day among the Druids. There is a vulgar tradition (mentioned by Giraldus), that Snowdon mountains are frequented by an eagle, which perches on a fatal stone on every Thursday and whets her beak upon it, expecting a battle to occur, upon which she may satiate her hunger with the carcases of the slain; but the battle is ever deferred, and the stone has become almost perforated with the eagle's sharpening her beak upon it. There may perhaps be a connection traced between these superstitions and the lightning-god Thor, whose day Thursday was. IV. Easter is marked by some striking customs. It is deemed essential for one's well-being that some new article of dress shall be donned at this time, though it be nothing more than a new ribbon. This is also a Hampshire superstition. A servant of mine, born in Hampshire, used always to say, 'If you don't have on something new Easter Sunday the dogs will spit at you.' This custom is associated with Easter baptism, when a new life was assumed by the baptized, clothed in righteousness as a garment. A ceremony called 'lifting' is peculiar to North Wales on Easter Monday and Tuesday. On the Monday bands of men go about with a chair, and meeting a woman in the street compel her to sit, and be lifted three times in the air amidst their cheers: she is then invited to bestow a small compliment on her entertainers. This performance is kept up till twelve o'clock, when it ceases. On Easter Tuesday the women take their turn, and go about in like manner lifting the men. It has been conjectured that in this custom an allusion to the resurrection is intended. [Illustration: LIFTING. (_From an old drawing._)] A custom, the name of which is now lost, was that the village belle should on Easter Eve and Easter Tuesday carry on her head a piece of chinaware of curious shape, made expressly for this purpose, and useless for any other. It may be described as a circular crown of porcelain, the points whereof were cups and candles. The cups were solid details of the crown: the candles were stuck with clay upon the spaces between the cups. The cups were filled with a native beverage called bragawd, and the candles were lighted. To drink the liquor without burning yourself or the damsel at the candle was the difficulty involved in this performance. A stanza was sung by the young woman's companions, the last line of which was, Rhag i'r feinwen losgi ei thalcen. (Lest the maiden burn her forehead.[122]) Stocsio is an Easter Monday custom observed from time immemorial in the town of Aberconwy, and still practised there in 1835. On Easter Sunday crowds of men and boys carrying wands of gorse went to Pen Twthil, and there proclaimed the laws and regulations of the following day. They were to this effect: all men under sixty to be up and out before 6 A.M.; all under forty, before 4 A.M.; all under twenty, to stay up all night. Penalty for disobedience: the stocks. The crier who delivered this proclamation was the man last married in the town previous to Easter Sunday. Other like rules were proclaimed, amid loud cheers. Early next morning a party, headed by a fife and drum, patrolled the town with a cart, in search of delinquents. When one was discovered, he was hauled from his bed and made to dress himself; then put in the cart and dragged to the stocks. His feet being secured therein, he was duly lectured on the sin of laziness, and of breaking an ancient law of the town by lying abed in violation thereof. His right hand was then taken, and he was asked a lot of absurd questions, such as 'Which do you like best, the mistress or the maid?' 'Which do you prefer, ale or buttermilk?' 'If the gate of a field were open, would you go through it, or over the stile?' and the like. His answers being received with derision, his hand was smeared with mud, and he was then released amid cheers. 'This sport, which would be impracticable in a larger and less intimate community, is continued with the greatest good humour until eight; when the rest of the day is spent in playing ball at the Castle.'[123] FOOTNOTES: [122] 'Arch. Camb.' 4 Se., iii., 334. [123] 'Hist. and Ant. of Aberconwy,' 108. V. Ball-playing against the walls of the church between hours of service was a fashion of Easter which is within recollection. It was also common on the Sabbath day itself in many parishes, in the days when dissent was unknown and parishioners had long distances to traverse on a Sunday; 'and that, too, with the sanction of the clergyman, and even his personal superintendence. Old people can remember such a state of things, when the clergyman gave notice that the game must cease by putting the ball into his pocket and marched his young friends into church.'[124] Nowhere less than in a custom like this would the ordinary observer look for traditionary significance; yet there is no doubt our Easter eggs are but another surviving form of the same ancient rite. Before the Reformation there was a Church of England custom of playing ball _in_ church at Easter, according to Dr. Fosbrooke, the dean and clergy participating. There were other sports and pastimes common alike to Easter and to the Sabbath day, which are full of curious interest. Some of them no doubt arose out of the social exigencies of sparsely settled neighbourhoods, which caused people to remain at the church between services, instead of returning to distant homes; but a Druidic origin seems necessary to account for others. That the people should between services gather near the church to talk over the gossip of the day, is natural enough, and is a phenomenon which may still be witnessed in remote parts of the United States. In St. Dogmell's parish, Pembrokeshire, there is a tump which bears the name of 'Cnwc y Celwydd,' videlicet, the Tump of Lies. Here were men and women formerly in the habit of gathering together on the Lord's day in great crowds, and entertaining each other with the inventing and telling of the most lying and wonderful yarns they could conjure up with the aid of an imagination spurred to exercise by rivalry and applause. The custom is discontinued; but there is still hardly a neighbourhood in Wales so rich in tales of fairies and other goblins. The custom of dancing in churchyards was common in many parts of the Principality in the early part of this century. At Aberedwy, Malkin saw a large yew tree in the churchyard under which as many as sixty couples had been seen dancing at once.[125] The dancing was not in that part of the yard consecrated to the dead, but on the north side of the church, where it was not the custom to bury. A tradition is preserved by Giraldus of a solemn festival dance which took place in the churchyard at St. Almedha's church, Breconshire, on that saint's day. The dance was 'led round the churchyard with a song,' and succeeded by the dancers falling down in a trance, followed by a sort of religious frenzy. This is believed to have been a Druidical rite, described on hearsay by Giraldus, and embellished by him with those pious inventions not uncommon in his day. One of the customs of Easter, at a comparatively recent period in Wales, was getting the children up early in the morning to see the sun dance. This exercise the sun was said to perform at rising on Easter Day, in honour of the rising of our Lord. The sun was sometimes aided in this performance by a bowl of clear water, into which the youth must look to see the orb dance, as it would be dangerous to look directly on the sun while thus engaged. The religious dance of the ancient Druids is believed to exist in modern times in a round dance wherein the figures imitate the motions of the sun and moon. The ball-playing in church mentioned above was also accompanied by dancing. FOOTNOTES: [124] 'Arch. Camb.' 4 Se., iii., 333. [125] Malkin's 'South Wales,' 281. VI. The first of April is in Welsh called Calan Ebrill, and an April Fool a Ffwl Ebrill; the similarity of English and Welsh words may be said to typify the similarity of observance. The universality of this observance among Aryan peoples would certainly indicate an origin in a time preceding the dispersion of the human family over the world. The Druids, tradition says, celebrated the revival of Nature's powers in a festival which culminated on the first of April in the most hilarious foolery. The Roman Saturnalia or feast of fools perpetuated the rite, though the purpose of the Christian revelry may quite possibly have been to ridicule the Druidic ceremonies. The festivities of May-day are in like manner associated with the powers of Nature, whose vigour and productiveness were symbolized by the Maypole round which village lads and lasses danced. The rites of love were variously celebrated at this time, and some of these customs locally have long survived the Maypole itself. The ordinance for the destruction of Maypoles in England and Wales, printed in 1644, declared them 'a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness,' wherefore it was ordained that they should be destroyed, and that no Maypole should thereafter be 'set up, erected, or suffered to be within this kingdom of England or dominion of Wales.' The Maypole in Wales was called Bedwen, because it was always made of birch, bedw, a tree still associated with the gentler emotions. To give a lover a birchen branch, is for a maiden to accept his addresses; to give him a collen, or hazel, the reverse. Games of various sorts were played around the bedwen. The fame of a village depended on its not being stolen away, and parties were constantly on the alert to steal the bedwen, a feat which, when accomplished, was celebrated with peculiar festivities. This rivalry for the possession of the Maypole was probably typical of the ancient idea that the first of May was the boundary day dividing the confines of winter and summer, when a fight took place between the powers of the air, on the one hand striving to continue the reign of winter, on the other to establish that of summer. Here may be cited the Mabinogi of Kilhwch and Olwen, where it speaks of the daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint. 'She was the most splendid maiden in the three Islands of the Mighty, and in the three Islands adjacent,' and for her does Gwyn ap Nudd, the fairy king, fight every first of May till the day of doom.[126] She was to have been the bride of Gwythyr, the son of Greidawl, when Gwyn ap Nudd carried her off by force. The bereaved bridegroom followed, and there was a bloody struggle, in which Gwyn was victorious, and which he signalized by an act of frightful cruelty; he slew an old warrior, took out his heart from his breast, and constrained the warrior's son to eat the heart of his father. When Arthur heard of this he summoned Gwyn ap Nudd before him, and deprived him of the fruits of his victory. But he condemned the two combatants to fight for the radiant maiden henceforth for ever on every first of May till doomsday; the victor on that day to possess the maiden.[127] FOOTNOTES: [126] 'Mabinogion,' 229. [127] 'Mabinogion,' 251. VII. In the remote and primitive parish of Defynog, in Breconshire, until a few years since, a custom survived of carrying the King of Summer and the King of Winter. Two boys were chosen to serve as the two kings, and were covered all over with a dress of brigau bedw, (birchen boughs,) only their faces remaining visible. A coin was tossed and the boy chosen was the summer king; a crown of bright-hued ribbons was put upon his head. Upon the other boy's head was placed a crown of holly, to designate the winter king. Then a procession was formed, headed by two men with drawn swords to clear the way. Four men supported the summer king upon two poles, one under his knees and the other under his arms; and four others bore the winter king in a similar undignified posture. The procession passed round the village and to the farm-houses near by, collecting largess of coin or beer, winding up the perambulation at the churchyard. Here the boys were set free, and received a dole for their services, the winter king getting less than the other. Another May-day custom among the boys of that parish, was to carry about a rod, from which the bark had been partly peeled in a spiral form, and upon the top of which was set either a cock or a cross, the bearers waking the echoes of the village with 'Yo ho! yo ho! yo ho!'[128] FOOTNOTE: [128] 'Arch. Camb.,' 2 Se., iv., 326. CHAPTER III. Midsummer Eve--The Druidic Ceremonies at Pontypridd--The Snake Stone--Beltane Fires--Fourth of July Fires in America--St. Ulric's Day--Carrying Cynog--Marketing on Tombstones--The First Night of Winter--The Three Nights for Spirits--The Tale of Thomas Williams the Preacher--All Hallows Eve Festivities--Running through Fire--Quaint Border Rhymes--The Puzzling Jug--Bobbing for Apples--The Fiery Features of Guy Fawkes' Day--St. Clement's Day--Stripping the Carpenter. I. Midsummer Eve, or St. John's Eve (June 23rd), is one of the ancient Druidic festivals, still liberally honoured in Wales. The custom of lighting bonfires survives in some of the villages, and at Pontypridd there are ceremonies of a solemn sort. Midsummer Eve, in 1878, fell on a Sunday. Upon that day the 'Druids and bards' at Pontypridd held the usual feast of the summer solstice in the face of the sun. There is a breezy common on the top of a high hill overlooking the town, where stand a logan stone and a circle of upright stones constituting the 'temple of the Druids.' Here it is the custom of the present-day adherents of that ancient religion, beside which Christianity is an infant, to celebrate their rites 'within the folds of the serpent,' a circle marked with the signs of the zodiac. The venerable archdruid, Myfyr Morganwg, stands on the logan stone, with a mistletoe sprig in his button-hole, and prays to the god Kali, 'creator of sun, moon, stars, and universe.' Then the white-bearded old man delivers a discourse, and new members are initiated into the 'mysteries,' Occasionally these new members are Americans from over the sea, and they include both sexes. Large crowds gather to witness the impressive spectacle--a shadow of the ancient rites when from Belenian heights flamed high the sacrificial fires. It was a former belief that these fires protected the lands within their light from the machinations of sorcery, so that good crops would follow, and that their ashes were valuable as a medicinal charm. The Snake-stone is another striking Welsh tradition, associated with Midsummer eve. At this time of the year there are certain convocations of snakes, which, hissing sociably together among one another, hiss forth a mystic bubble, which hardens into the semblance of a glass ring. The finder of this ring is a lucky man, for all his undertakings will prosper while he retains it. These rings are called Gleiniau Nadroedd in Welsh--snake-stones in English. They are supposed to have been used by the ancient Druids as charms. There is a Welsh saying, respecting people who lay their heads together in conversation, that the talkers are 'blowing the gem.' II. The traditions connected with the Beltane fires are very interesting, but the subject has received so much attention in published volumes that it need not here be dwelt upon. The lad who in the United States capers around a bonfire on the night of Independence Day has not a suspicion that he is imitating the rites of an antiquity the most remote; that in burning a heap of barrels and boxes in a public square the celebrators of the American Fourth of July imitate the priests who thus worshipped the sun-god Beal. The origins of our most familiar customs are constantly being discovered in such directions as this. On the face of the thing, nothing could be more absurd as a mode of jollification, in a little American town, with its wooden architecture, on a hot night in the midst of summer, than building a roaring fire to make the air still hotter and endanger the surrounding houses. The reason for the existence of such a custom must be sought in another land and another time; had reflection governed the matter, instead of tradition, the American anniversary would have found some more fitting means of celebration than Druidic fires and Chinese charms. (For it may be mentioned further, in this connection, that the fire-crackers of our urchins are quite as superstitious in their original purpose as the bonfire is. In China, even to this day, fire-crackers are charms pure and simple, their office to drive away evil spirits, their use as a means of jollification quite unknown to their inventors.) A far more sensible Midsummer rite, especially in a hot country, would have been to adopt the custom of St. Ulric's day, and eat fish. This saint's day falls on the fourth of July, and Barnabe Googe's translation of Naogeorgius has this couplet concerning it: Wheresoeuer Huldryche hath his place, the people there brings in Both carpes and pykes, and mullets fat, his fauour here to win. III. The Welsh saint called Cynog was one of the numberless children of that famous old patriarch Brychan Brycheiniog, and had his memory honoured, until a comparatively recent period, in the parish of Defynog. Here, on this saint's feast Monday, which fell in October, there was a custom called 'carrying Cynog.' Cynog was represented by a man who was paid for his services with money, or with a suit of clothes--sometimes a 'stranger' from an adjoining parish, but on the last recorded occasion a drunken farmer of the neighbourhood. He was clad in dilapidated garments, and borne through the village; after which he was tumbled headlong into the river amid the jeers of the crowd, to scramble out as best he might. It was not a very respectful way of commemorating a saint who had been buried a thousand years or thereabouts; but such as it was it died out early in the present century. The ducking which ended the performance has been supposed to be a puritan improvement on what was before a religious ceremony, or mystery. It is more than possibly a relic of the Druidic sacrificial rites; in cases where a river ran near, at the time of the Beltane fires, a sacrifice by water was substituted for that of flame. The feast of St. Cynog continued for a week. On the Tuesday there was a singular marketing in the churchyard; from all about the farmers brought their tithe of cheese, and taking it to the churchyard, laid it on the tombstones, where it was sold for the parson's behoof. IV. All Hallows eve is by the Welsh called 'Nos Calan Gauaf,' meaning 'the first night of winter;' sometimes, 'Nos Cyn Gauaf,' the 'night before winter.' It is one of the 'Teir Nos Ysprydnos,' or 'three nights for spirits,' upon which ghosts walk, fairies are abroad, mysterious influences are in the air, strange sights are seen, and in short goblins of every sort are to be with special freedom encountered. They may be conjured to appear, by certain enchantments, and to give their visitors glimpses of the future, especially as regards the subject of marrying. On this night it is customary for the young people, gathered in many a merry circle, to seek by tricks and charms of various sort to become acquainted with their future lovers and sweethearts. Not that it is always necessary to employ such aids, for on the Teir Nos Ysprydnos the phantoms of future companions have been known to appear unsummoned. There are many such stories as that of Thomas Williams, the preacher, who slept in the hills on a Nos Ysprydnos, and although he used no charms nor tricks of any sort, he saw his future wife. As he was just about putting out his light, having jumped into bed, the door opened and the goblin mother of the young woman he subsequently married walked into the room, leading her daughter. 'Here, Thomas,' said she, 'I am going, but I leave you Mary.' And when he came down home out of the mountains he found that the old mother had died in her bed at the very moment he saw her goblin. To have done less than marry the girl, after that, would have been to insult the good old lady's ghost, and cast reflections on the reputation of All Hallows eve. The two other spirit-nights, it may here be mentioned, are May-day eve and Midsummer eve; which with All Hallows were three great festivals of the ancient Druids, when they commemorated the powers of Nature and love in the manner which has been alluded to. I have two accounts of this matter, however, and I know not which is the older in tradition, as I have both from the mouths of the people; but one account calls Christmas-night the third spirit-night. The festivities of All Hallows in Wales are in the main like those of other Christian lands, in so far as they consist of feasting and making merry. Bonfires were kindled in many places until recently, and perhaps are still, in some parts, again in pursuance of the Druidic rites, which the Christian Church adopted and continued while changing their significance. In Owen's account of the Bards occurs a curious description of the autumnal fires kindled in North Wales on the eve of the first of November, and the attendant ceremonies. There was running through the fire and smoke, and casting of stones into the fire, 'all running off at the conclusion to escape from the black short-tailed sow.'[129] This custom of running through the fire is said to survive in Ireland. It is no doubt related to the ancient sacrificial rites. As testimonies to the kinship of our race, all these customs possess a deep interest, which is increased in this direction as they lose in the charm of the unique. On the Welsh Border there prevails a Hallow-e'en custom among the children of going about to the houses singing the rhymes which follow: Wissel wassel, bread and possel, Cwrw da, plas yma: An apple or a pear, a plum or a cherry, Or any good thing to make us merry. Sol cakes, sol cakes, Pray you, good missus, a sol cake; One for Peter, and two for Paul, And three for the good man that made us all. The roads are very dirty, My shoes are very thin, I've got a little pocket, To put a penny in. Up with the kettle and down with the pan, Give us an answer and we'll be gan. (_A loud rap at the door._) _Spoken._ Please to give us a 'apenny. Some of these rhymes are heard in Glamorganshire and elsewhere at Christmas and New Year's. The puzzling jug is a vessel in use in some quarters as a means of increasing the hilarity of a Hallow-e'en party. It is a stone jug, 'out of which each person is compelled to drink. From the brim, extending about an inch below the surface, it has holes fantastically arranged so as to appear like ornamental work, and which are not perceived except by the perspicacious; three projections, of the size and shape of marbles, are around the brim, having a hole of the size of a pea in each; these communicate with the bottom of the jug through the handle, which is hollow, and has a small hole at the top, which, with two of the holes being stopped by the fingers, and the mouth applied to the one nearest the handle, enables one to suck the contents with ease; but this trick is unknown to every one, and consequently a stranger generally makes some mistake, perhaps applying his mouth as he would to another jug, in which case the contents (generally ale) issue through the fissures on his person, to the no small diversion of the spectators.'[130] Another merry custom of All Hallows was--and is--twco am 'falau, bobbing for apples. A large tub (crwc) is brought into the kitchen of a farm-house and filled with water; a dozen apples are thrown into it, and the rustic youths bob for them with their mouths. To catch up two apples at a single mouthful is a triumphant achievement. Again the revellers will form a semicircle before the fire, while there depends above their mouths from a hook in the ceiling, a string with a stick attached. At one end of the stick is an apple, at the other end a candle. To snatch the apple with the lips, and yet avoid the candle, is the aim of the competitors. The stick is so hung that it turns easily on its axis, and the bobbers often find themselves catching the candle in their hair while aiming at the apple. This appears to be a relic of the ancient Welsh game of quintain, or gwyntyn. FOOTNOTES: [129] Brand, 'Pop. Ant.,' i., 191. [130] 'Camb. Sup.,' 174. V. November the Fifth, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, is much observed in Wales. 'God grant,' said Bishop Sanderson in one of his sermons, 'that we nor ours ever live to see November the Fifth forgotten, or the solemnity of it silenced.' The words are similar to those used by a great American, of the early days of the Republic, with regard to the 4th of July--God grant it might never be forgotten. But the rites by which both days are celebrated are as old as tradition, and much older than history. As the Americans have given a historical significance to bonfires and fireworks, so the English before them did to sacrificing a puppet on Guy Fawkes' Day; and so again some Catholic nations have made the rite a religious one, in the hanging of Judas. All three customs are traced to the same original--the ancient Druidic sacrifices to the sun-god Beal or Moloch. It is noteworthy that the Fifth of November and the Fourth of July--or rather the fiery features of these days--are alike voted a nuisance by respectable and steady-going people in the countries to which they respectively belong. VI. On St. Clement's Day (the 23rd of November) it was customary in Pembrokeshire in the last century to parade an effigy of a carpenter, which had been hung to the church steeple the night before. Cutting the effigy down from where it hung, the people carried it about the village, repeating loudly some doggerel verses which purported to be the last will and testament of St. Clement, distributing to the different carpenters in town the several articles of dress worn by the effigy. After the image was thus stripped of its garments, one by one, the padded remains were thrown down and carefully kicked to pieces by the crowd. CHAPTER IV. Nadolig, the Welsh Christmas--Bell-Ringing--Carols--Dancing to the Music of the Waits--An Evening in Carmarthenshire--Shenkin Harry, the Preacher, and the Jig Tune--Welsh Morality--Eisteddfodau--Decorating Houses and Churches--The Christmas Thrift-box--The Colliers' Star--The Plygain--Pagan Origin of Christmas Customs. I. We come now to the most interesting holiday season of the year, by reason of its almost universality of observance among Christian peoples, and the variety of customs peculiar to it. In the land of Arthur and Merlin it is a season of such earnest and widespread cordiality, such warm enthusiasm, such hearty congratulations between man and man, that I have been nowhere equally impressed with the geniality and joyousness of the time. In some Catholic countries one sees more merriment on the day itself; indeed, the day itself is not especially merry in Wales, at least in its out-door aspects. It is the season rather than the day which is merry in Wales. The festival is usually understood, throughout Christendom, to include twelve days; the Welsh people not only make much of the twelve days, but they extend the peculiar festivities of the season far beyond those limits. Christmas has fairly begun in Wales a week or two before Christmas-day. The waits are patrolling the streets of Cardiff as early as December 5th, and Christmas festivals are held as early as December 19th, at which Christmas-trees are displayed, and their boughs denuded of the toys and lollipops in which the juvenile heart delights. After Christmas-day the festival continues I know not just how long, but apparently for weeks. The characteristic diversions of the Christmas season are, in the main, alike in all Christian countries. In Wales many well-known old customs are retained which in some other parts of Great Britain have disappeared, such as the mummers, the waits, carols, bell-ringings, etc. Not only do the bell-ringers of the several churches throughout the principality do their handsomest on their own particular bells, but there are grand gatherings, at special points, of all the bell-ringers for leagues around, who vie with each other in showing what feats they can perform, how they can astonish you with their majors, bob-majors, and triple bob-majors, on the brazen clangers of the steeples. At Cowbridge, for instance, on Christmas will come together the ringers from Aberdare, Penarth, St. Fagan's, Llantrisant, Llanblethian, and other places, thirty or forty in number, and after they have rung till the air above the town is black with flying clefs and quavers from the steeples, they will all sit down to a jolly Christmas-dinner at the Bear. The bands of waits, or 'pipers of the watch,' who wake the echoes of the early morning with their carols, are heard in every Welsh town and village. In some towns there are several bands and much good-natured rivalry. The universal love of music among the Welsh saves the waits from degenerating into the woe-begone creatures they are in some parts, where the custom has that poor degree of life which can be kept in it by shivering clusters of bawling beggars who cannot sing. Regularly organised and trained choirs of Welshmen perambulate the Cambrian country, chanting carols at Christmas-tide, and bands of musicians play who, in many cases, would not discredit the finest military orchestras. Carols are sung in both Welsh and English; and, generally, the waits are popular. If their music be not good, they are not tolerated; irate gentlemen attack them savagely and drive them off. Not exactly that boot-jacks and empty bottles are thrown at them, but they are excoriated in 'letters to the editor,' in which strong language is hurled at them as intolerable nuisances, ambulatory disturbers of the night's quiet, and inflicters of suffering upon the innocent. But such cases are rare. The music is almost invariably good, and the effect of the soft strains of melodiously-warbled Welsh coming dreamily to one's ears through the darkness and distance on a winter morning is sweet and soothing to most ears. Sometimes small boys will pipe their carols through the key-holes. The songs vary greatly in character, but usually the religious tone prevails, as in this case: As I sat on a sunny bank, a sunny bank, a sunny bank, All on a Christmas morning, Three ships came sailing by, sailing by, sailing by. Who do you think was in the ships? Who do you think was in the ships? Christ and the Virgin Mary. Both English and Welsh words are sung. Sometimes a group of young men and women will be seen dancing about the waits to the measure of their music, in the hours 'ayont the twal.' In one aspect the Welsh people may be spoken of as a people whose lives are passed in the indulgence of their love for music and dancing. The air of Wales seems always full of music. In the Christmas season there is an unending succession of concerts and of miscellaneous entertainments of which music forms a part, while you cannot enter an inn where a few are gathered together, without the imminent probability that one or more will break forth in song. By this is not meant a general musical howl, such as is apt to be evoked from a room full of men of any nationality when somewhat under the influence of the rosy god, but good set songs, with good Welsh or English words to them, executed with respect for their work by the vocalists, and listened to with a like respect by the rest of the company. When an Englishman is drunk he is belligerent; when a Frenchman is drunk he is amorous; when an Italian is drunk he is loquacious; when a Scotchman is drunk he is argumentative; when a German is drunk he is sleepy; when an American is drunk he brags; and when a Welshman is drunk he sings. Sometimes he dances; but he does not do himself credit as a dancer under these circumstances; for when I speak of dancing I do not refer to those wooden paces and inflections which pass for dancing in society, and which are little more than an amiable pretext for bringing in contact human elements which are slow to mix when planted in chairs about a room: I refer to the individual dancing of men who do not dance for the purpose of touching women's hands, or indulging in small talk, but for the purpose of dancing; and who apply themselves seriously and skilfully to their work--to wit, the scientific performance of a jig. I chanced to pass one evening, in the Christmas-time, at a country inn in a little Carmarthenshire village remote from railways. Certain wanderings through green lanes (and the lanes were still green, although it was cold, mid-winter weather) had brought me to the place at dusk, and, being weary, I had resolved to rest there for the night. Some local festivity of the season had taken place during the day, which had drawn into the village an unusual number of farmer-folk from the immediate neighbourhood. After a simple dinner off a chop and a half-pint of cwrw da, I strolled into what they called the smoke-room, by way of distinguishing it from the tap-room adjoining. It was a plain little apartment, with high-backed wooden settles nearly up to the ceiling, which gave an old-fashioned air of comfort to the place. Two or three farmers were sitting there drinking their beer and smoking their pipes, and toasting their trouserless shins before the blazing fire. Presently a Welsh harper with his harp entered from out-doors, and, seating himself in a corner of the room, began to tune his instrument. The room quickly filled up with men and women, and though no drinks but beer and 'pop' were indulged in (save that some of the women drank tea), Bacchus never saw a more genial company. Some one sang an English song with words like these: Thrice welcome, old Christmas, we greet thee again, With laughter and innocent mirth in thy train; Let joy fill the heart, and shine on the brow, While we snatch a sweet kiss 'neath the mistletoe-bough-- The mistletoe-bough, The mistletoe-bough, We will snatch a sweet kiss 'neath the mistletoe-bough. The words are certainly modern, and as certainly not of a high order of literary merit, but they are extremely characteristic of life at this season in Wales, where kissing under the mistletoe is a custom still honoured by observance. There was dancing, too, in this inn company--performed with stern and determined purpose to excel, by individuals who could do a jig, and wished to do it well. The harper played a wild lilting tune; a serious individual who looked like a school-teacher took off his hat, bowed to the company, jumped into the middle of the floor, and began to dance like a madman. It was a strange sight. With a face whose grave earnestness relaxed no whit, with firmly compressed lips and knitted brow, the serious person shuffled and double-shuffled, and swung and teetered, and flailed the floor with his rattling soles, till the perspiration poured in rivulets down his solemn face. The company was greatly moved; enthusiastic ejaculations in Welsh and English were heard; shouts of approbation and encouragement arose; and still the serious person danced and danced, ending at last with a wonderful pigeon-wing, and taking his seat exhausted, amid a tremendous roar of applause. Scenes like this are common throughout Wales at the Christmas-time; and they contrast strangely with the austerities of religious observance which are everywhere proceeding. But there is not so wide a chasm between the two as would exist in some countries. The best church-members frequently do not deem a little jollity of this sort a hanging matter, and there are ministers who can do a double-shuffle themselves if the worst comes to the worst. A worthy pastor in Glamorganshire related to me, with a suspicious degree of relish, a story about two ministers who were once riding through a certain village of Wales on horseback. One was the Rev. Evan Harris, the other a celebrated old preacher named Shenkin Harry. And, as they rode on, Harris noticed his companion's legs twitching curiously on his horse's sides. 'Why, what ails your leg?' he asked. 'Don't you hear the harp,' was the reply, 'in the public-house yonder? It makes my old toes crazy for a jig.' But the moral tone of Wales is certainly better, on the whole, than that of most countries--better even than that of Great Britain generally, I should say. There is, I know, a prevailing impression quite to the contrary; but it is utterly absurd. It is an impression which has grown, I imagine, out of English injustice to Welshmen in former times, allied to English ignorance in those times concerning this people. Until within the last hundred years, English writers habitually wrote of Wales with contempt and even scurrility. But no one can live in Wales and not form the opinion that the Welsh are, in truth, an exceptionally moral people; and the nature of their public entertainments throughout the Christmas-time enforces this conclusion. Stendhal's declaration that, in true Biblical countries, religion spoils one day out of seven, destroys the seventh part of possible happiness, would find strong illustration in Wales. It is not my purpose to argue whether the illustration would prove or disprove Stendhal's assertion, though one might fairly ask whether religious people are not, perhaps, as happy in going to church on Sunday as irreligious people are in staying away. II. Let it not be supposed that there is any lack of amusement on Christmas-day for people who are willing to be amused in a God-fearing manner. Although you cannot go to the theatre or the circus, you can have a wide liberty of choice among oratorios, concerts, examinations, exhibitions, eisteddfodau, and other odd diversions. Concerts especially thrive. The halls in which they are held are decorated with evergreens, and the familiar custom is in Wales habitually and commonly associated with the ancient Druids, who viewed the green twigs as the symbols of perennial life. Thus a peculiar poetic grace rests with a custom beautiful in itself, and capable in any land of being poetized by any one poetically inclined. Many of those unique gatherings called eisteddfodau are held in different parts of the principality, when poetry, music, and essays, in Welsh and in English, are put forth by the strivers in these Olympian games of intellect and culture, after the prizes which in Hellas would have given them crowns of olive-leaves instead of gold-coins of the realm. When Pindar and Sophocles handed in poems, and Herodotus competed among the essayists, and Phidias and Praxiteles among the cutters of stone, there was no Christmas,--but it is claimed there were eisteddfodau, here in Wales; ay, and before that; for has not Herodotus spoken of the British bards who held them? III. In the family circle, the rules which regulate the Sabbath in Wales--which are almost as repressive as those of bonnie Scotland, where, by the way, Christmas-day is scarcely observed at all--are relaxed, and the aspect of the home is as bright as can be. The rooms are elaborately decorated with flowers and evergreens, holly and ivy, ferns and rare plants. In Glamorganshire, and other of the southern counties looking on the sea, roses and hawthorn-sprays may be sometimes seen in full bloom out-of-doors at Christmas. The decoration of churches is also elaborate beyond anything I have elsewhere seen. It is a sight to behold, the preparations for and the work of decorating a vast pile of ecclesiastical buildings like Llandaff Cathedral--the huge quantities of evergreens and holly, flowers, cedars, etc., which are day by day accumulated by the ladies who have the business in charge; and the slow, continual growth of forms of grace--arches, crosses, wreaths, festoons; green coverings to font, altar, pulpit, choir-stalls, pillars, reredos, and rood-screen; panels faced with scarlet cloth bearing sacred devices worked in evergreen; the very window-sills glowing with banks of colour--until all the wide spaces in chancel, nave, and transepts, are adorned. IV. Of common prevalence formerly, and still observed in numerous parishes, is the custom called the Plygain, or watching for the dawn. This consists in proceeding to the church at three o'clock on Christmas morning, and uniting in a service which is held by the light of small green candles made for the purpose. Sometimes this ceremony is observed at home, the people in a farm-house holding a jollification on the Christmas eve, and sitting up all night to greet the dawn. If the east wind blew on the Christmas eve the circumstance was deemed propitious in this connection. This wind was called 'gwynt traed y meirw,' (the wind blowing over the feet of the corpses,) because it blew towards the foot of the graves in the churchyards. It was also believed that the dumb animals paid their tribute of respect to this night; the bees would hum loudly in their hives at midnight, and the cattle in the cow-houses would bend their knees as in adoration.[131] A Christmas-eve custom among Welsh colliers is to carry from house to house a board stuck over with lighted candles, or to wheel a handbarrow containing a bed of clay in which the candles are stuck. This is called 'the Star,' sometimes 'the Star of Bethlehem,' and when stopping before a house the men kneel about it and sing a carol. A like custom exists in Belgium, among children. The purpose is to solicit a Rhodd Nadolig, or Christmas gift. FOOTNOTE: [131] 'Cymru Fu,' 403. V. The British Boxing-day is well known, both as to its customs and its origin. The Christmas-box, or thrift-box, is still to be seen in barber shops in Wales, fastened to the wall, or standing conveniently under the looking-glass among the pots and brushes. At one time the custom became such a nuisance throughout Britain that an outcry was raised about it. It got to that pass that the butcher and baker would send their apprentices around among their customers to levy contributions. The English Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in 1837, sent a circular to the different embassies requesting their excellencies and chargés d'affaires to discontinue the customary Christmas-boxes to the 'messengers of the Foreign Department, domestic servants of Viscount Palmerston, foreign postmen, etc.' The nuisance is hardly less prevalent now. The faithful postman in Wales not only expects to be remembered at Christmas, but he expects to be given a precise sum, and if he does not get it he is capable of asking for it. In one case, a postman accustomed to receive five shillings at a certain office, on asking for his 'box,' was told the usual donor was absent in London, whereupon he requested the clerk to write up to him in London immediately on the subject. These things strike a stranger as very singular, among a people usually so self-respecting. Warnings are from time to time issued on this subject by those in authority, but the custom is likely to survive so long as it is not ranked outright with beggary. Like the Christmas-tree, it is a graceful thing among the children, or among friends or household servants, if spontaneous; but as a tax, it is an odious perversion.[132] FOOTNOTE: [132] Among those who last Christmas applied at my house for 'his box, sir, if you please' (as my maid put it), quite as a matter of course, were the postman, the leader of the waits, the boy who brings the daily newspapers, the bookseller's boy, the chimney-sweep, the dustman, the grocer's man, etc., etc., no one of whom I had ever set eyes on. The equal of this I never encountered, except in Paris, on the _jour de l'an_. VI. The pagan origin of most of our Christmas customs is undoubted. Even the cheery Christmas-tree is a symbol of heathen rites in times long antedating Christ. The early Christian fathers, in adopting the popular usages of their predecessors, and bending them to the service of Christianity, made wondrous little change in them, beyond the substitution of new motives and names for the old festivals peculiar to several seasons of the year. The British Druids' feast of Alban Arthur, celebrating the new birth of the sun, occurred at our Christmas time, and is still celebrated at Pontypridd, Glamorganshire, every year. It begins on the 22nd of December, and lasts three days, during which period the sun is supposed to fight with Avagddu, the spirit of darkness, the great luminary having descended into hell for that purpose. On the third day he rose, and the bards struck their harps, rejoicing that the sun had again been found. The Pontypridd ceremonies are similar to those of Midsummer-day, already mentioned. The Arch-Druid presides in the folds of the serpent circle--when he can get there, that is, for he is old, past eighty, and the Druidic hill is apt to be slippery with snow and ice at this time of the year. He prays to the pagan god, and perhaps chants a poem in Welsh.[133] The Druidic fires of the winter solstice feast were continued in customs like that which survived in Herefordshire until recent years, when on old Christmas-eve thirteen fires were lighted in a cornfield, twelve of them being in a circle round a central one which burned higher than the rest. The circle fires were called the Twelve Apostles, and the central one the Virgin Mary. In a shed near by was a cow with a plum-cake between or upon her horns, into whose face a pail of cider was dashed, with a rhyming address, and the cow tossing her horns from her unexpected baptism naturally threw the plum-cake down. If it fell forward, good harvests were predicted; if backward, the omen was evil. A feast among the peasants followed. In the Plygain in like manner survives the Druidic custom of going to the sacred groves before dawn on this morning, to greet the rising of the new-born sun after his struggle with the evil principle. FOOTNOTE: [133] I give a free translation of this effort as delivered on Sunday, December 24th, 1876 (which proved a mild day), and which I find reported in the 'Western Mail' of the 26th as follows: 'The day of the winter solstice has dawned upon us; little is the smile and the halo of Hea. The depth of winter has been reached, but the muse of Wales is budding still. Cold is the snow on the mountains; naked are the trees, and the meadows are bare; but while nature is withering the muse of Wales is budding. When the earth is decked in mourning, and the birds are silent, the muse of Wales, with its harp, is heard in the gorsedd of the holy hill. On the stone ark, within the circle of the caldron of Ceridwen, are throned the sons of Awen; though through their hair the frozen mist is wafted, their bosoms are sympathetic and they rejoice. Peace, love, and truth, encircle our throne; throne without a beginning and without ending, adorned with uchelwydd (mistletoe), symbol of perennial life. The throne of the British Bard--which remains a throne while other thrones decay into dust around it: an everlasting throne! The great wheel of ages revolves and brings around our festivities; repeating our joys it does perpetually. Muse, awake; awake, ye harps; let not any part of the year be forgotten wherein to crown usage (defod), morals (moes), and virtue. The Saviour Hea is about to be born of the winter solstice. He will rise higher still and higher shiningly, and we will have again a new year. Haste hail, haste falling snow, hasten rough storms of winter--hasten away that we may see the happy evidences of the new year.' CHAPTER V. Courtship and Marriage--Planting Weeds and Rue on the Graves of Old Bachelors--Special Significance of Flowers in connection with Virginity--The Welsh Venus--Bundling, or Courting Abed--Kissing Schools--Rhamanta--Lovers' Superstitions--The Maid's Trick--Dreaming on a Mutton Bone--Wheat and Shovel--Garters in a Lovers' Knot--Egg-Shell Cake--Sowing Leeks--Twca and Sheath. I. Welsh courtship is a thorough-going business, early entered upon by the boys and girls of the Principality; and consequently most Welsh women marry young. The ancient laws of Howell the Good (died 948) expressly provided that a woman should be considered marriageable from fourteen upwards, and should be entitled to maintenance from that age until the end of her fortieth year; 'that is to say, from fourteen to forty she ought to be considered in her youth.' By every sort of moral suasion it is deemed right in Wales to encourage matrimony, and no where are old bachelors viewed with less forbearance. There used to be a custom--I know not whether it be extinct now--of expressing the popular disapprobation for celibacy by planting on the graves of old bachelors that ill-scented plant, the rue, and sometimes thistles, nettles, henbane, and other unlovely weeds. The practice was even extended, most illiberally and unjustly, to the graves of old maids, who certainly needed no such insult added to their injury. Probably the custom was never very general, but grew out of similar--but other-meaning--customs which are still prevalent, and which are very beautiful. I refer to the planting of graves with significant flowers in token of the virtues of the dead. Thus where the red rose is planted on a grave, its tenant is indicated as having been in life a person of peculiar benevolence of character. The flower specially planted on the grave of a young virgin is the white rose. There is also an old custom, at the funeral of a young unmarried person, of strewing the way to the grave with evergreens and sweet-scented flowers, and the common saying in connection therewith is that the dead one is going to his or her marriage-bed. Sad extremely, and touchingly beautiful, are these customs; but wherever such exist, there are sure to be ill-conditioned persons who will vent spiteful feelings by similar means. Hence the occasional affront to the remains of antiquated single folk, who had been perhaps of a temperament which rendered them unpopular. The Welsh being generally of an affectionate disposition, courtship, as I have said, is a thorough-going business. To any but a people of the strongest moral and religious tendencies, some of their customs would prove dangerous in the extreme; but no people so link love and religion. More of their courting is done while going home from church than at any other time whatever; and the Welsh Venus is a holy saint, and not at all a wicked Pagan character like her classic prototype. 'Holy Dwynwen, goddess of love, daughter of Brychan,' had a church dedicated to her in Anglesea in 590; and for ages her shrine was resorted to by desponding swains and lovesick maidens. Her name--_Dwyn_, to carry off, and _wen_, white--signifies the bearer off of the palm of fairness; and, ruling the court of love while living, when dead A thousand bleeding hearts her power invoked. Throughout the poetry of the Cymric bards you constantly see the severest moral precepts, and the purest pictures of virtuous felicity, mingling in singularly perfect fusion with the most amorous strains. Among the 'Choice Things' of Geraint, the famous Blue Bard, were: A song of ardent love for the lip of a fair maid; A softly sweet glance of the eye, and love without wantonness; A secluded walking-place to caress one that is fair and slender; To reside by the margin of a brook in a tranquil dell of dry soil; A house small and warm, fronting the bright sunshine. With these, versifications of all the virtues and moralities. 'In the whole range of Kymric poetry,' says the learned Thomas Stephens,[134] 'there is not, I venture to assert, a line of impiety.' FOOTNOTE: [134] Vide 'Lit. of the Kymry.' II. The Welsh custom of Bundling, or courting abed, needs no description. The Welsh words sopen and sypio mean a bundle and to bundle, and they mean a squeezed-up mass, and to squeeze together; but there is a further meaning, equivalent to our word baggage, as applied to a strumpet.[135] The custom of bundling is still practised in certain rural neighbourhoods of Wales. To discuss its moral character is not my province in these pages; but I may properly record the fact that its practice is not confined to the irreligious classes. It is also pertinent here to recall the circumstance that among these people anciently, courtship was guarded by the sternest laws, so that any other issue to courtship than marriage was practically impossible. If a maiden forgot her duty to herself, her parents, and her training, when the evil result became known she was to be thrown over a precipice; the young man who had abused the parents' confidence was also to be destroyed. Murder itself was punished less severely. Customs of promiscuous sleeping arose in the earliest times, out of the necessities of existence in those primitive days, when a whole household lay down together on a common bed of rushes strewn on the floor of the room. In cold weather they lay close together for greater warmth, with their usual clothing on. Cæsar's misconception that the ancient Britons were polyandrous polygamists evidently had here its source. It is only by breathing the very atmosphere of an existence whose primitive influences we may thus ourselves feel, that we can get a just conception of the underlying forces which govern a custom like this. Of course it is sternly condemned by every advanced moralist, even in the neighbourhoods where it prevails. An instance came to my knowledge but a short time ago, (in 1877,) where the vicar of a certain parish (Mydrim, Carmarthenshire) exercised himself with great zeal to secure its abolition. Unfortunately, in this instance, the good man was not content with abolishing bundling, he wanted to abolish more innocent forms of courting; and worst of all, he turned his ethical batteries chiefly upon the lads and lasses of the dissenting congregation. Of course, it was not the vicar's fault that the bundlers were among the meeting-house worshippers, and not among the established church-goers, but nevertheless it injured the impartiality of his championship in the estimation of 'the Methodys.' I am not sure the bundling might not have ceased, in deference to his opinions, notwithstanding, if he had not, in the excess of his zeal, complained of the young men for seeing the girls home after meeting, and casually stretching the walk beyond what was necessary. Such intermeddling as this taxed the patience of the courting community to its extreme limit, and it assumed a rebellious front. The vicar, quite undaunted, pursued the war with vigour; he smote the enemy hip and thigh. He returned to the charge with the assertion that these young people had 'schools for the art of kissing,' a metaphorical expression, I suppose; and that they indulged in flirtation. This was really too much. Bundling might or might not be an exclusively dissenting practice, but the most unreasonable of vicars must know that kissing and flirtation were as universal as the parish itself; and so there was scoffing and flouting of the vicar, and, as rebounds are proverbially extreme, I fear there is now more bundling in Mydrim than ever. FOOTNOTE: [135] The Rev. Dr. Thomas, late President of Pontypool College, whose acquaintance with Welsh customs is very extensive, (and to whose erudition I have been frequently indebted during the progress of these pages through the press,) tells me he never heard the word sopen or sypio, synonymous with bundling, used for the old custom, but only 'caru yn y gwelu,' (courting abed.) III. The customs of Rhamanta, or romantic divination, by which lovers and sweethearts seek to pierce the future, are many and curious, in all parts of Wales. Besides such familiar forms of this widely popular practice as sleeping on a bit of wedding-cake, etc., several unique examples may be mentioned. One known as the Maid's Trick is thus performed; and none must attempt it but true maids, or they will get themselves into trouble with the fairies: On Christmas eve, or on one of the Three Spirit Nights, after the old folks are abed, the curious maiden puts a good stock of coal on the fire, lays a clean cloth on the table, and spreads thereon such store of eatables and drinkables as her larder will afford. Toasted cheese is considered an appropriate luxury for this occasion. Having prepared the feast, the maiden then takes off all her clothing, piece by piece, standing before the fire the while, and her last and closest garment she washes in a pail of clear spring water, on the hearth, and spreads it to dry across a chair-back turned to the fire. She then goes off to bed, and listens for her future husband, whose apparition is confidently expected to come and eat the supper. In case she hears him, she is allowed to peep into the room, should there be a convenient crack or key-hole for that purpose; and it is said there be unhappy maids who have believed themselves doomed to marry a monster, from having seen through a cranny the horrible spectacle of a black-furred creature with fiery eyes, its tail lashing its sides, its whiskers dripping gravy, gorging itself with the supper. But if her lover come, she will be his bride that same year. In Pembrokeshire a shoulder of mutton, with nine holes bored in the blade bone, is put under the pillow to dream on. At the same time the shoes of the experimenting damsel are placed at the foot of the bed in the shape of a letter T, and an incantation is said over them, in which it is trusted by the damsel that she may see her lover in his every-day clothes. In Glamorganshire a form of rhamanta still exists which is common in many lands. A shovel being placed against the fire, on it a boy and a girl put each a grain of wheat, side by side. Presently these edge towards each other; they bob and curtsey, or seem to, as they hop about. They swell and grow hot, and finally pop off the shovel. If both grains go off together, it is a sign the young pair will jump together into matrimony; but if they take different directions, or go off at different times, the omen is unhappy. In Glamorganshire also this is done: A man gets possession of a girl's garters, and weaves them into a true lover's knot, saying over them some words of hope and love in Welsh. This he puts under his shirt, next his heart, till he goes to bed, when he places it under the bolster. If the test be successful the vision of his future wife appears to him in the night. IV. A curious rhamanta among farm-women is thus described by a learned Welsh writer:[136] The maiden would get hold of a pullet's first egg, cut it through the middle, fill one half-shell with wheaten flour and the other with salt, and make a cake out of the egg, the flour, and the salt. One half of this she would eat; the other half was put in the foot of her left stocking under her pillow that night; and after offering up a suitable prayer, she would go to sleep. What with her romantic thoughts, and her thirst after eating this salty cake, it was not perhaps surprising that the future husband should be seen, in a vision of the night, to come to the bedside bearing a vessel of water or other beverage for the thirsty maid. Another custom was to go into the garden at midnight, in the season when 'black seed' was sown, and sow leeks, with two garden rakes. One rake was left on the ground while the young woman worked away with the other, humming to herself the while, Y sawl sydd i gydfydio, Doed i gydgribinio! Or in English: He that would a life partner be, Let him also rake with me. There was a certain young Welshwoman who, about eighty years ago, performed this rhamanta, when who should come into the garden but her master! The lass ran to the house in great fright, and asked her mistress, 'Why have you sent master out into the garden to me?' 'Wel, wel,' replied the good dame, in much heaviness of heart, 'make much of my little children!' The mistress died shortly after, and the husband eventually married the servant. The sterner sex have a form of rhamanta in which the knife plays a part. This is to enter the churchyard at midnight, carrying a twca, which is a sort of knife made out of an old razor, with a handle of sheep or goat-horn, and encircle the church edifice seven times, holding the twca at arm's length, and saying, 'Dyma'r twca, p'le mae'r wain?' (Here's the twca--where's the sheath?) FOOTNOTE: [136] Cynddelw, 'Manion Hynafiaethol,' 53. CHAPTER VI. Wedding Customs--The Bidding--Forms of Cymmhorth--The Gwahoddwr--Horse-Weddings--Stealing a Bride--Obstructions to the Bridal Party--The Gwyntyn--Chaining--Evergreen Arches--Strewing Flowers--Throwing Rice and Shoes--Rosemary in the Garden--Names after Marriage--The Coolstrin--The Ceffyl Pren. I. Wales retains several ancient customs in connection with weddings, which are elsewhere extinct. No one who has ever paid any attention to Wales and its ways can have failed to hear of that most celebrated rite the Bidding, which is, however, one of several picturesque survivals less well known to the outer world. The Bidding wedding must be spoken of as an existing custom, although it be confined to rural neighbourhoods in South Wales, and to obscure and humble folk. Those who strive to prove that all such customs are obsolete everywhere--a thankless and even ungraceful task, it seems to me--will not admit that the Bidding has been known since 1870. I have evidence, however, that in Pembroke, Cardigan, and Carmarthen shires, the custom did not cease on the date named, and there is every probability that it prevails to-day. Nothing could be of smaller importance, it is true, than the precise date on which a given custom recently ceased, since any one may revive it next year who chooses to do so. The Bidding is an invitation sent by a couple who are about to be married, soliciting the presence and donations of the neighbours on their behalf. The presents may be either sums of money or necessaries. Gifts of bread, butter, cheese, tea, sugar, and the like, are common, and sometimes articles of farming stock and household furniture. All gifts of money are recognized by a sort of promissory note, i.e., by setting down the name and residence of the donor, with the amount given; and when a like occasion arises on the part of the giver, the debt is religiously paid. The obligation is an absolute one, and its legality has actually been recognized by the Court of Great Sessions at Cardiff. The gift is even claimable under other circumstances than the donor's getting married. Another sort of contribution is the eatables and drinkables which are set before the guests; these are only repayable when required on a like occasion. The method of bidding the guests was until lately through a personage called the gwahoddwr (inviter or bidder) who tramped about the country some days beforehand, proclaiming the particulars to everybody he met. He usually recited a doggerel set of rhymes before and after the special invitation--a composition of his own, or understood to be such, for rhyme-making was a part of the talent of a popular bidder. Frequently no little humour was displayed in the bidding song. But since the printing press became the cheap and ready servant of the humblest classes, the occupation of the bidder has gradually fallen to decay; a printed circular serves in his place. At the shop of a printer in Carmarthen I procured a copy of the following bidding circular, which may be a real document, or a fictitious one: CARMARTHENSHIRE, JULY 4TH, 1862. As we intend to enter the Matrimonial State, on Wednesday, the 30th of July instant, we purpose to make a BIDDING on the occasion, the same day, at the Young Man's Father's House, called TY'R BWCI, in the Parish of Llanfair ar y Bryn, when and where the favour of your good and agreeable company is respectfully solicited, and whatever donation you may be pleased to confer on us then will be thankfully received, warmly acknowledged, and cheerfully repaid whenever called for on a similar occasion. By your most obedient Servants, OWEN GWYN, ELEN MORGAN. The Young Man, his Father and Mother (Llewelyn and Margaret Gwyn, of Ty'r Bwci), his Brother (Evan Gwyn, Maes y Blodau), his Sisters (Gwladys and Hannah), and his Aunt (Mary Bowen, Llwyn y Fedwen, Llannon), desire that all gifts of the above nature due to them be returned to the Young Man on the above day, and will be thankful for all additional favours granted. The Young Woman, her Father (Rhys Morgan, Castell y Moch), and her Brothers and Sister (Howel, Gruffydd, and Gwenllïan Morgan), desire that all gifts of the above nature due to them be returned to the Young Woman on the above day, and will be thankful for all additional favours conferred on her. The Young Man's company will meet in the Morning at Ty'r Bwci; and the Young Woman's at Pant y Clacwydd, near the Village of Llansadwrn. The Bidding is sometimes held on the day of the wedding, and sometimes on the day and night before it; the custom varies in different districts, as all these customs do. When the latter is the case, the night is an occasion of great merrymaking, with much consumption of cwrw da, and dancing to the music of the harp, for poor indeed would be the Welsh community that could not muster up a harper. This festival is called Nos Blaen, or preceding night, and is a further source of income to the couple, from the sale of cakes and cwrw. 'Base is the slave who pays' is a phrase emphatically reversed at a Welsh wedding. [Illustration: THE OLD-TIME GWAHODDWR.] The Bidding is but one form of a feature of Welsh life which extensively prevails, known by the term Cymmhorth. The Bidding is a Priodas Cymmhorth; the Cyfarfod Cymmhorth, or Assistance Meeting, is much the same thing, minus the wedding feature. The customs of the latter festival are, however, often of a sort distinctly tending toward matrimonial results as an eventuality. A number of farmer girls of the humbler sort will gather at a stated time and place to give a day's work to one needing assistance, and after a day spent in such toil as may be required, the festival winds up with jollity in the evening. The day is signalized on the part of those youths of the neighbourhood who are interested in the girls, by tokens of that interest in the shape of gifts. The lass who receives a gift accompanied by a twig of birch is thereby assured of her lover's constancy. To her whom the young man would inform of his change of heart, a sprig of hazel is given. An earlier feature of this ceremony was the Merry Andrew, who presented the gifts in the name of the lover. This personage was disguised fantastically, and would lead the young woman he selected into another room, where he would deliver the gift and whisper the giver's name. The antiquity of the Bidding as a local custom is undoubted. The old-time gwahoddwr was a person of much importance, skilled in pedigrees and family traditions, and himself of good family. A chieftain would assume the character in behalf of his vassal, and hostile clans respected his person as he went about from castle to castle, from hall to hall. He bore a garlanded staff as the emblem of his office, and on entering a dwelling would strike his staff upon the floor to command the attention of the group before him, and then begin his address. II. The Horse-Wedding is of more ancient origin than the Bidding, and is still a living custom in some parts of Wales, especially Carmarthenshire and western Glamorganshire. It was in other days common throughout South Wales, and was scolded about by old Malkin (generally very cordial in his praise of Welsh customs) in these spicy terms: 'Ill may it befal the traveller, who has the misfortune of meeting a Welsh wedding on the road. He would be inclined to suppose that he had fallen in with a company of lunatics, escaped from their confinement. It is the custom of the whole party who are invited, both men and women, to ride full speed to the church porch, and the person who arrives there first has some privilege or distinction at the marriage feast. To this important object all inferior considerations give way; whether the safety of his majesty's subjects, who are not going to be married, or their own, incessantly endangered by boisterous, unskilful and contentious jockeyship.'[137] Glamorganshire is here spoken of. The custom varies somewhat in different localities, but it preserves the main feature, to force the bride away from her friends, who then gallop after her to church, arriving _toujours trop tard_, of course, like the carabineers in 'Les Brigands.' There have been cases, however, when the bride was caught by a member of the pursuing party, and borne away--an incident which occurred in the knowledge of an acquaintance, who related it to me. As may readily be inferred, the bride in this case was not unwilling to be caught; in fact she was averse to marrying the man who was taking her to church, and who was her parent's choice, not her own. The lover who had her heart caught up with her by dint of good hard riding, and whisked her on his horse within sight of the church-door, to the intense astonishment of the bridegroom, who gazed at them open-mouthed as they galloped away. He thought at first it was a joke, but as the lovers disappeared in the distance the truth dawned upon him: a Welsh custom had served something like its original purpose. But usually, the whole performance is a vehicle for fun of the most good-natured and innocent sort. It begins by the arrival of the neighbours on horseback at the residence of the expectant bridegroom. An eye-witness to a certain wedding gathering in Glamorganshire a few years ago states that the horsemen exceeded one hundred in number. From among them a deputation was chosen to go (still on horseback) to the bride's residence to make formal demand for her. Her door was barred inside, and the demand was made in rhyme, and replied to in the same form from within. It often happens that a brisk contest of wits signalizes this proceeding, for if the voice of any one within is recognized by one of those outside, his personal peculiarities are made the subject of satirical verses. A voice inside being recognized as that of a man who was charged with sheep-stealing, this rhyme was promptly shouted at him: Gwrando, leidr hoyw'r ddafad, Ai ti sydd yma heddyw'n geidwad? Ai dyna y rheswm cloi y drysau, Rhag dwyn y wreigan liw dydd goleu? (Ah, sheep-stealer, art thou a guardian of the fair one? If the doors were not locked thou wouldst steal the bride in broad daylight.) The doors are opened in the end, of course, and after refreshments the wedding party gallops off to church. The bride is stolen away and borne off to a distance on her captor's horse, but only in sport; her captor brings her back to the church, where she is quietly married to the proper person. Sometimes the precaution is taken of celebrating the marriage privately at an early hour, and the racing takes place afterward. Obstructions are raised by the bride's friends, to prevent the bridegroom's party from coming to her house, and these difficulties must be overcome ere the bride can be approached. Sometimes a mock battle on the road is a feature of the racing to church. The obstructions placed in the road in former days included the Gwyntyn, a sort of game of skill which seems to have been used by most nations in Europe, called in English the quintain. It was an upright post, upon which a cross-piece turned freely, at one end of which hung a sand-bag, the other end presenting a flat side. At this the rider tilted with his lance, his aim being to pass without being hit in the rear by the sand-bag. Other obstructions in use are ropes of straw and the like. There is a Welsh custom called Chaining, which probably arose out of the horse-wedding, and still prevails. In the village of Sketty, Glamorganshire, in August, 1877, I saw a chaining, on the occasion of a marriage between an old lady of eighty and a man of fifty. The affair had made so much talk, owing to the age of the bride, that the whole village was in the streets. While the wedding ceremony was in progress, a chain was stretched across the street, forming a barrier which the wedding party could not pass till the chainers were 'tipped.' The driver of the carriage containing the newly wedded pair was an Englishman, and ignorant of the custom, at which he was naturally indignant. His angry efforts to drive through the barrier made great sport for the Welshmen. The origin of the Welsh horse-wedding may be traced to the Romans, if no further back, and may thus be connected with the rape of the Sabines. That the Romans had an exactly similar custom is attested by Apuleius, and it is said to have been established by Romulus in memory of the Sabine virgins. It is not improbable that the Romans may have left the custom behind them when they quitted this territory in the fifth century, after nearly three hundred years' rule. FOOTNOTE: [137] Malkin's 'South Wales,' 67. III. Among the wealthier classes of Wales, certain joyous and genial wedding customs prevail, such as are common in most parts of the British isles, but which do not reappear in the new world across the Atlantic,--a fact by which American life is a heavy loser, in my opinion. When the Rector of Merthyr's daughter (to use the form of speech common) was married, a few months since, the tenants of the estate erected arches of evergreens over the roads, and adorned their houses with garlands, and for two or three days the estate was a scene of festivity, ending with the distribution of meat to the poor of the parish. Such festivities and such decorations are common on the estates of the country gentry not only, but in the towns as well. At Tenby, when the High Sheriff's son was married to the Rector of Tenby's daughter, in 1877, garlands of flowers were hung across the High Street, bearing pleasant mottoes, while flags and banners fluttered from house-tops in all directions. Children strewed flowers in the bride's path as she came out of church, while the bells in the steeple chimed a merry peal, and a park of miniature artillery boomed from the pier-head. This custom of children strewing flowers in the path of the new-made bride is common; so also is that of throwing showers of rice after the wedded pair, by way of expressing good wishes--a pleasanter thing to be thrown under these circumstances than the old shoes of tradition. However, since fashion has taken up the custom of rice-throwing and shoe-throwing, the shoes have become satin slippers. As far back as the 16th century, throwing an old shoe after any one going on an important errand was deemed lucky in Wales. It is thought that in the case of a bride, the custom is derived from the old Jewish law of exchange, when a shoe was given in token that the parents for ever surrendered all dominion over their daughter. But a precisely similar custom prevails in China, where it is usual for the bride to present her husband with a pair of shoes, by way of signifying that for the future she places herself under his control. 'These are carefully preserved in the family and are never given away, like other worn-out articles, it being deemed, that to part with them portends an early separation between husband and wife.'[138] The custom of rice-throwing is also Chinese, the rice being viewed as a sign of abundance. In Sicily, as in some parts of England, wheat is thrown on the bride's head; in Russia, a handful of hops; in the north of England a plateful of shortcake;[139] in Yorkshire, bits of the bride-cake. All these customs, while popularly done 'for luck,' are apparently symbolical of the obedience and the fruitfulness of the newly-wedded wife. And as in Scandinavia the bride tries to get her husband to pick up her handkerchief as an omen of his obeying instead of compelling obedience, so in China the bride tries to sit on a part of her husband's dress. The vulgar story and adage, 'Bandbox now, bandbox always,' expresses the superstition succinctly. There is a saying current on the Welsh border, that when rosemary flourishes in the garden of a married pair, the lady 'rules the roast,' as the phrase is--though if there is anything a woman should rule, one would think the 'roast' is that thing. 'That be rosemary, sir,' said an old gardener in Herefordshire, pointing to where the plant grew; 'they say it grows but where the missus is master, and it do grow here like wildfire.' The idea of feminine obedience to masculine will, merely because it is masculine, is in itself looked upon as a superstition by all cultivated people in these days, I suppose. Sex aside, if the truth were known, it would be found that the stronger is the ruler, in all lands, under all customs, be the outward show of the ruling more or less; and it is not always where the public sees it most clearly, or fancies it does, that the rule of the dame is sternest. The strength here employed is not virile strength; there is nothing necessarily masculine about it. The severest mistress of her lord I ever knew was a feeble little woman with hands like a baby's, and a face of wax, with no more will-power apparently than a week-old kitten, but whose lightest whim lay on her lord like iron, and was obeyed as faithfully as if it were backed by a cat-o'-nine-tails and a six-shooter. To return for a moment to our Welsh wedding customs among the wealthier classes. When the couple return from their bridal tour, the fun often begins all over again. Thus at Lampeter, on the edge of Cardiganshire, last September, when Mr. and Mrs. Jones of Glandennis (Jones of Glandennis, Roberts of the Dingle, Williams of Pwlldu,--such cognomens take the place in Wales of the distinctive names which separate Englishmen one from another, and from Jones of Nevada),--when Jones of Glandennis brought home his bride, the whole neighbourhood was agog to greet them. Thousands of people gathered in a field near the station, and passed their time in athletic sports till the train arrived, when they woke the echoes with their cheers. The Joneses entered their carriage, the horses were unharnessed, and a long procession of tenantry, headed by a brass band, dragged the carriage all the way to Glandennis, two miles off, some bearing torches by the side of the carriage. Arches of evergreens were everywhere; and when they got to the house, nothing would do but Mrs. Jones must appear at a window and make a little speech of thanks to the crowd; which she did accordingly--a thing in itself shocking to superstitious ideas of chivalry, but in strictest accord with the true chivalric spirit toward woman. Then fireworks blazed up the sky, and bonfires were lighted on the tops of all the adjoining hills. Lampeter town was illuminated, and nobody went to bed till the small hours. After marriage, Welshwomen still in some cases retain their maiden names, a custom formerly universal among them. The wife of John Thomas, though the mother of a houseful of children, may be habitually known among her neighbours as Betty Williams. In other cases, she not only assumes her husband's name, but the name of his calling as well; if he is Dick Shon the tailor, she is simply Mrs. Dick Shon the tailor. FOOTNOTES: [138] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 18. [139] Henderson, 'Notes on Folk-Lore,' 22. IV. A custom called the Coolstrin is now apparently obsolete, unless in occasional rural communities remote from railroads. It resembles the old custom once known in certain parts of England, called the skimitry or skimmington, in which a man whose wife had struck him was forced to ride behind a woman, with his face to the horse's tail, while a band of pans and cow-horns made music for them. The Welsh custom is, however, more elaborate, and more comical, while it is less severe on the man. A husband who is suspected of having a termagant wife, is made the subject of espionage. If it be found that he drinks his mug of ale standing, with his eye twinkling toward the door, the circumstance is considered most suspicious. Efforts are accordingly made to induce the henpecked man to stay and be merry, and if he can be made drunk a great point is gained, as then a squad of volunteers take him inside his own door and critically observe his reception. A moral point involved appears to be that a henpecked husband is a disgrace to manhood in general; and the purpose of the coolstrin is to reform it altogether. However, although it may even be proved that a woman is in the habit of cuffing her husband, the case does not come under the jurisdiction of the coolstrin court until she has 'drawn blood on him.' Then the court is convened. It is composed, no doubt, of any rakehelly youngsters, married or single, who are ripe for sport. One of them is chosen for judge; a special point is that he must be a married man who is not afraid of his wife; and he is invested with robe and gown, that is to say, the collar-bone of a horse is set on his head, around the crown of a slouch hat, and a bed-quilt is made fast to his shoulders. He marches through the streets, with a youth behind him bearing his bed-quilt train, and mounts a chosen wall for a judge's bench. Officers with long white wands range themselves solemnly on either side of him; men are chosen as advocates; and a posse of rustics with pitchforks keeps order. The court is opened by a crier who calls on all good men who as yet wear their own clos,[140] to attend the court. The case is argued by the advocates; witnesses are examined to prove, first, that the man is henpecked, second, that his wife has struck him and drawn blood with the blow. In one case it was proved that the wife had knocked her beery lord down, and that his nose, striking a stool, had bled. The wife's advocate nearly gravelled the judge, by holding that blood drawn by a stool could not be said to have been drawn by the woman. The judge got over this by deciding that if the woman had taken the stool by one of its three legs, and hit the man, drawing blood, the blood would be clearly chargeable to her. 'And where is the difference,' asked he, triumphantly, 'between knocking the stool against him, and knocking him against the stool?' The woman was found guilty. 'For,' said the prosecuting attorney indignantly, 'if a man shan't drink a blue of beer with a neighbour or so, to what won't it come?' Her condemnation followed; to be ridden on the Ceffyl Pren. A derisive procession was formed, and two fellows were rigged up to personate the husband and wife. The male bore a broom, and the female brandished a ladle, and the two were paraded through the town. A band of 'musicians' marched before them, beating frying-pans with marrow bones, banging gridirons and kettles with pokers, tongs and shovels, and two playing on a fife and drum. These were followed by two standard bearers, one bearing a petticoat on top of a pole, the other a pair of breeches in the same manner. Other orts and ends of rabble made up the procession, which with antic and grimace marched about the village and neighbourhood. The orgie ended by the planting in front of the culprit's house of the pole and petticoat, and the pelting of it with addled eggs, stones, and mud, till it fell to the ground. The noble bifurcated emblem of manhood, the clos, was then elevated proudly aloft, and the woman's punishment was deemed complete. This is the story of a rural village in Glamorganshire. The custom was known in other counties, and varied in its details. In Breconshire, the virago was punished through the ceffyl pren merely by the moral influence of parading it before her cottage. Quarrelsome wives were said to stand in great and constant dread of its possible appearance before their doors. In Cardiganshire, on the contrary, the custom termed the coolstrin is _vice versâ_, and it is only husbands who ill-use their wives who are amenable to its discipline. FOOTNOTE: [140] Breeches. CHAPTER VII. Death and Burial--The Gwylnos--Beer-drinking at Welsh Funerals--Food and Drink over the Coffin--Sponge Cakes at Modern Funerals--The Sin-eater--Welsh Denial that this Custom ever existed--The Testimony concerning it--Superstitions regarding Salt--Plate of Salt on Corpse's Breast--The Scapegoat--The St. Tegla Cock and Hen--Welsh Funeral Processions--Praying at Cross-roads--Superstition regarding Criminals' Graves--Hanging and Welsh Prejudice--The Grassless Grave--Parson's Penny, or Offrwm--Old Shoes to the Clerk--Arian y Rhaw, or Spade Money--Burials without Coffin--The Sul Coffa--Planting and Strewing Graves with Flowers. I. With the growth of modern refinement the people of every land have become constantly more decorous in their grief. The effort of the primitive and untutored mind to utter its sorrow in loud and wild lamentations, and of friends and neighbours to divert the mind of the sufferer from his bereavement, gave rise to many funeral customs of which we still find traces in Wales. Pennant, while travelling in North Wales, noted, with regard to one Thomas Myddleton, a fact which he held 'to prove that the custom of the Irish howl, or Scotch Coranich, was in use among us (the Welsh); for we are told he was buried "cum magno dolore et clamore cognatorum et propinquorum omnium."' No such custom now exists; but there is a very impressive rite, of a corresponding character, but religious, called the Gwylnos. It is a meeting held in the room where the corpse is lying, on the night before the funeral. The Irish cry, 'Why did ye die?' is replaced by pious appeals to Heaven, in which great and strong emotion is expressed, the deceased referred to in stirring sentences, and his death made a theme for warnings on the brevity of earth-life and the importance of the future life of the soul. On the day of the funeral, however, the customs are not always in keeping with modern notions of the praiseworthy. Indulgence in beer-drinking at funerals is still a Welsh practice, and its antiquity is indicated by a proverb: 'Claddu y marw, ac at y cwrw'--(To bury the dead, and to the beer.)[141] The collection of Welsh writings called 'Cymru Fu' refers to the custom thus, (to translate:) 'Before the funeral procession started for the church, the nearest friends and relatives would congregate around the corpse to wail and weep their loss; while the rest of the company would be in an adjoining room drinking warm beer (cwrw brwd) and smoking their pipes; and the women in still another room drinking tea together.'[142] The writer here speaks of the custom in the past tense, but apparently rather as a literary fashion than to indicate a fact; at any rate, the custom is not extinct. Occasionally it leads to appearances in the police-court on the part of injudicious mourners.[143] After taking the coffin out of the house and placing it on a bier near the door, it was formerly customary for one of the relatives of the deceased to distribute bread and cheese to the poor, taking care to hand it to each one over the coffin. These poor people were usually those who had, in expectation of this gift, been busily engaged in gathering flowers and herbs with which to grace the coffin. Sometimes this dole was supplemented by the gift of a loaf of bread or a cheese with a piece of money placed inside it. After that a cup of drink was presented, and the receiver was required to drink a little of it immediately.[144] Alluding to this subject the Rev. E. L. Barnwell[145] says: 'Although this custom is no longer in fashion, yet it is to some extent represented by the practice, especially in funerals of a higher class, to hand to those who are invited to attend the funeral, oblong sponge cakes sealed up in paper, which each one puts into his or her pocket, but the providing and distribution of these cakes are now often part of the undertaker's duty.' [Illustration: GIVING FOOD OVER THE COFFIN. (_From an old drawing._)] FOOTNOTES: [141] So the Spanish say, 'The dead to the bier, the living to good cheer.' [142] 'Cymru Fu,' 91. [143] 'Two Llancaiach men named Servis and Humphrey were arrested for fighting. They had _been to a funeral_, had done the customary honours by the remains of the departed brother or sister who had suffered, died, and was "chested," and then, after drowning their grief in the "cwrw," finished up in the police-court with a _finale_ involving the payment of 5_s._ and costs, and 8_s._ 8_d._ damage, or in default twenty-one days' hard labour.'--'Western Mail,' Jan. 31, 1877. [144] Pennant, quoted by Roberts, 'Camb. Pop. Ant.,' 175. [145] 'Arch. Camb.' 4th Se., iii., 332. II. What connection there may be between these customs and the strange and striking rite of the Sin-eater, is a question worthy of careful consideration. It has been the habit of writers with family ties in Wales, whether calling themselves Welshmen or Englishmen, to associate these and like customs with the well-known character for hospitality which the Cymry have for ages maintained. Thus Malkin writes: 'The hospitality of the country is not less remarkable on melancholy than on joyful occasions. The invitations to a funeral are very general and extensive; and the refreshments are not light, and taken standing, but substantial and prolonged. Any deficiency in the supply of ale would be as severely censured on this occasion, as at a festival.'[146] Some have thought that the bread-eating and beer-drinking are survivals of the sin-eating custom described by Aubrey, and repeated from him by others. But well-informed Welshmen have denied that any such custom as that of the Sin-eater ever existed in Wales at any time, or in the border shires; and it must not be asserted that they are wrong unless we have convincing proof to support the assertion. The existing evidence in support of the belief that there were once Sin-eaters in Wales I have carefully collated and (excluding hearsay and second-hand accounts), it is here produced. The first reference to the Sin-eater anywhere to be found is in the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, in the handwriting of John Aubrey, the author. It runs thus: 'In the county of Hereford was an old custom at funerals to hire poor people, who were to take upon them the sins of the party deceased. One of them (he was a long, lean, ugly, lamentable poor rascal), I remember, lived in a cottage on Rosse highway. The manner was that when the corpse was brought out of the house, and laid on the bier, a loaf of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sin-eater, over the corpse, as also a mazard bowl of maple, full of beer (which he was to drink up), and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him, _ipso facto_, all the sins of the defunct, and freed him or her from walking after they were dead.' Aubrey adds, 'and this custom though rarely used in our days, yet by some people was observed in the strictest time of the Presbyterian Government; as at Dynder (_nolens volens_ the parson of the parish), the kindred of a woman, deceased there, had this ceremony punctually performed, according to her will: and also, the like was done at the city of Hereford, in those times, where a woman kept many years before her death a mazard bowl for the Sin-eater; and the like in other places in this country; as also in Brecon, e.g., at Llangors, where Mr. Gwin, the minister, about 1640, could not hinder the performance of this custom. I believe,' says Aubrey, 'this custom was heretofore used all over Wales.' He states further, 'A.D. 1686: This custom is used to this day in North Wales.' Upon this, Bishop White Kennet made this comment: 'It seems a remainder of this custom which lately obtained at Amersden, in the county of Oxford; where, at the burial of every corpse, one cake and one flaggon of ale, just after the interment, were brought to the minister in the church porch.'[147] No other writer of Aubrey's time, either English or Welsh, appears to have made any reference to the Sin-eater in Wales; and equal silence prevails throughout the writings of all previous centuries. Since Aubrey, many references to it have been made, but never, so far as I can discover, by any writer in the Welsh language--a singular omission if there ever was such a custom, for concerning every other superstitious practice commonly ascribed to Wales the Welsh have written freely. In August, 1852, the Cambrian Archæological Association held its sixth annual meeting at Ludlow, under the Presidency of Hon. R. H. Clive, M.P. At this meeting Mr. Matthew Moggridge, of Swansea, made some observations on the custom of the Sin-eater, when he added details not contained in Aubrey's account given above. He said: 'When a person died, his friends sent for the Sin-eater of the district, who on his arrival placed a plate of salt on the breast of the defunct, and upon the salt a piece of bread. He then muttered an incantation over the bread, which he finally ate, thereby eating up all the sins of the deceased. This done he received his fee of 2_s._ 6_d._ and vanished as quickly as possible from the general gaze; for, as it was believed that he really appropriated to his own use and behoof the sins of all those over whom he performed the above ceremony, he was utterly detested in the neighbourhood--regarded as a mere Pariah--as one irredeemably lost.' The speaker then mentioned the parish of Llandebie where the above practice 'was said to have prevailed to a recent period.' He spoke of the survival of the plate and salt custom near Swansea, and indeed generally, within twenty years, (i.e. since 1830) and added: 'In a parish near Chepstow it was usual to make the figure of a cross on the salt, and cutting an apple or an orange into quarters, to put one piece at each termination of the lines.' Mr. Allen, of Pembrokeshire, testified that the plate and salt were known in that county, where also a lighted candle was stuck in the salt; the popular notion was that it kept away the evil spirit. Mr. E. A. Freeman, (the historian) asked if Sin-eater was the term used in the district where the custom prevailed, and Mr. Moggridge said it was. Such is the testimony. I venture no opinion upon it further than may be conveyed in the remark that I cannot find any direct corroboration of it, as regards the Sin-eater, and I have searched diligently for it. The subject has engaged my attention from the first moment I set foot on Cambrian soil, and I have not only seen no reference to it in Welsh writings, but I have never met any unlettered Welshman who had ever heard of it. All this proves nothing, perhaps; but it weighs something.[148] FOOTNOTES: [146] 'South Wales,' 68. [147] Vide Hone's 'Year Book,' 1832, p. 858. [148] Mr. Eugene Schuyler's mention of a corresponding character in Turkistan is interesting: 'One poor old man, however, I noticed, who seemed constantly engaged in prayer. On calling attention to him I was told that he was an iskatchi, a person who gets his living by taking on himself the sins of the dead, and thenceforth devoting himself to prayer for their souls. He corresponds to the Sin-eater of the Welsh border.'--'Turkistan,' ii., 28. III. Of superstitions regarding salt, there are many in Wales. I have even encountered the special custom of placing a plate of salt on the breast of the corpse. In the case of an old woman from Cardiganshire, who was buried at Cardiff, and who was thus decked by her relatives, I was told the purpose of the plate of salt was to 'prevent swelling.' There is an Irish custom of placing a plate of snuff on the body of a corpse; hence the saying, addressed to an enemy, 'I'll get a pinch off your belly yet.' The Irish also employ the plate of salt in the same manner. In view of the universal prevalence of superstitions regarding salt, too much weight should not be placed on this detail, in connection with the accounts of the Sin-eater. Such superstitions are of extreme antiquity, and they still survive even among the most cultivated classes. Salt falling toward a person was of old considered a most unlucky omen, the evil of which could only be averted by throwing a little of the fallen salt over the shoulder. My own wife observes this heathen rite to this day, and so, I fancy, do most men's wives--jocularly, no doubt, but with a sort of feeling that 'if there _is_ anything in it,' &c. Salt was the ancient symbol of friendship, being deemed incorruptible. In the Isle of Man no important business was ventured on without salt in the pocket; marrying, moving, even the receiving of alms, must be sanctified by an exchange of salt between the parties. An influential legend is noted among the Manx inhabitants, of the dissolution of an enchanted palace on that island, through the spilling of salt on the ground. In Da Vinci's picture of the Lord's Supper, Judas Iscariot is represented as overturning the salt--an omen of the coming betrayal of Christ by that personage. In Russia, should a friend pass you the salt without smiling, a quarrel will follow. The Scotch put salt in a cow's first milk after calving. Even the Chinese throw salt into water from which a person has been rescued from drowning. All these practices point either to lustration or propitiation. IV. It has been suggested that the custom of the Sin-eater is in imitation of the Biblical scapegoat. 'And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.'[149] This brings up the subject of charms and magic, and is illustrated in Wales, if not by the Sin-eater, by the cock and hen of St. Tegla's Well. This well is about half-way between Wrexham and Ruthin, in the parish of Llandegla, and has been considered efficacious in curing epilepsy. One of the common names of that complaint in Welsh is Clwyf y Tegla, (Tegla's disease). Relief is obtained by bathing in the well, and performing a superstitious ceremony in this manner: The patient repairs to the well after sunset, and washes himself in it; then, having made an offering by throwing into the water fourpence, he walks round it three times, and thrice recites the Lord's Prayer. If of the male sex, he offers a cock; if a woman, a hen. The bird is carried in a basket, first round the well, then round the church, and the rite of repeating the Pater Noster again performed. After all this, he enters the church, creeps under the altar, and making the Bible his pillow and the communion cloth his coverlet, remains there until the break of day. In the morning, having made a further offering of sixpence, he leaves the cock (or hen, as the case may be) and departs. 'Should the bird die, it is supposed that the disease has been transferred to it, and the man or woman consequently cured.'[150] The custom is associated with the ancient Druids as well as with the Jews, and its resemblance to the scapegoat is suggestive. FOOTNOTES: [149] Levit. xvi., 21, 22. [150] Ab Ithel, 'Arch. Camb.' 1st Se., i., 184. V. The funeral procession, in rural districts where hearses are unknown, wends its way graveward on foot, with the corpse borne by the nearest relatives of the deceased, a custom probably introduced in Wales during their residence here by the Romans. The coffin of Metellus, the conqueror of Macedon, was borne by his four sons. The coffins of Roman citizens held in high esteem by the Republic, were borne by justices and senators, while those of the enemies of the people were borne by slaves and hired servants. As the Welsh procession winds its way along the green lanes, psalms and hymns are sung continually, except on coming to cross-roads. Here the bier is set down, and all kneel and repeat the Lord's Prayer. The origin of this custom, as given by the Welsh, is to be found in the former practice of burying criminals at cross-roads. It was believed that the spirits of these criminals did not go far away from the place where their bodies lay, and the repeating of the Lord's Prayer was supposed to destroy and do away with any evil influence these spirits might have on the soul of the dear departed.[151] The Welsh retain much of the superstitious feeling regarding the graves of criminals and suicides. There is indeed a strong prejudice against hanging, on account of the troublesome spirits thus let loose. The well-known leniency of a 'Cardigan jury' may be connected with this prejudice, though it is usually associated with a patriotic feeling. 'What! would you have hur hang hur own countryman?' is the famous response of a Cardigan juror, who was asked why he and his brethren acquitted a murderer. The tale may be only a legend; the fact it illustrates is patent. It is related that in a dispute between two Cardigan farmers, some fifty years ago, one of them killed the other. The jury, believing the killing was unintentional, acquitted the homicide; but 'whether the man was guilty or not, his neighbours and the people who lived in the district, and who knew the spot where the farmer was killed, threw a stone upon it whenever they passed, probably to show their abhorrence of the deed that had been perpetrated in that place. By this means a large heap of stones, which was allowed to remain for many years, arose.'[152] They were then removed to repair the turnpike. This custom is apparently Jewish. Hangings are almost unknown in Wales, whether from the extra morality of the people, or the prejudice above noted. FOOTNOTES: [151] 'Cymru Fu,' 92. [152] 'Bye-gones,' March 22, 1876. VI. The legend of the Grassless Grave is a well-known Montgomeryshire tale, concerning a certain spot of earth in the graveyard of Montgomery Castle, upon which the verdure is less luxuriant than in other portions of the yard. One dark November night, many years ago, a man named John Newton, who had been at Welshpool fair, set out for home. Soon after, he was brought back to Welshpool in the custody of two men, who charged him with highway robbery, a crime then punishable with death. He was tried, and executed, in spite of his protestations; and in his last speech, admitting he had committed a former crime, but protesting he was innocent of this, he said: 'I have offered a prayer to Heaven, and believe it has been heard and accepted. And in meek dependence on a merciful God, whom I have offended, but who, through the atonement of His blessed Son, has, I trust, pardoned my offence, I venture to assert that as I am innocent of the crime for which I suffer, the grass, for one generation at least, will not cover my grave.' For thirty years thereafter, the grave was grassless; a bare spot in the shape of a coffin marked, amidst the surrounding luxuriance, the place where lay the penitent criminal, unjustly executed. Then a sacrilegious hand planted the spot with turf; but it withered as if blasted by lightning; and the grave is still grassless--certainly an unnecessary extension of the time set by the defunct for its testimony to his innocence. VII. A curious surviving custom at Welsh funerals is the Offrwm, or parson's penny. After having read the burial service in the church, the parson stands behind a table while a psalm is being sung, and to him go the mourners, one and all, and deposit a piece of money on the table. The parson counts it, states the amount, and pockets it. If the mourner depositing his offrwm be wealthy, he will give perhaps a guinea; if a farmer or tradesman, his gift will be a crown; and if poor, he will lay down his sixpence. 'Each one that intended making an offering of silver, would go up to the altar in his turn, and after each one had contributed there would be a respite, after which those who gave copper as their offering went forward and did likewise; but no coppers were offered at any respectable funeral. These offerings often reached the sum of ten and even twenty pounds in the year.' Thus the Welsh work, 'Cymru Fu,' speaking as usual in the past tense; but the custom is a present-day one. The Welsh believe that this custom was originally intended to compensate the clergyman for praying for the soul of the departed. It has now ceased to mean anything more than a tribute of respect to the deceased, or a token of esteem towards the officiating clergyman. In the parish of Defynog, Breconshire, there was a custom (up to 1843, when it seems to have ceased through the angry action of a lawless widower,) of giving to the parish clerk the best pair of shoes and stockings left behind by the defunct.[153] A still more curious form of the offrwm, which also survives in many rural neighbourhoods, is called the Arian y Rhaw, or spade money. At the grave, the gravedigger rubs the soil off his spade, extends it for donations, and receives a piece of silver from each one in turn, which he also pockets. In Merionethshire the money is received at the grave in a bowl, instead of on the spade, and the gift is simply called the offrwm. 'I well recollect, when a lad,' says an entertaining correspondent,[154] 'at Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant, seeing the clerk or sexton cleaning his spade with the palm of his hand, and blowing the remaining dust, so that the instrument of his calling should be clean and presentable, and then, with due and clerk-like gravity, presenting his polished spade, first to the "cyfneseifiaid" (next-of-kin), and then to the mourners one by one, giving all an opportunity of showing their respect to the dead, by giving the clerk the accustomed offrwm. At times the old clerk, "yr hen glochydd," when collecting the offrwm, rather than go around the grave to the people, to the no small annoyance of the friends, would reach his spade over the grave. At the particular time referred to, the clerk, having nearly had all the offrwm, saw that facetious wag and practical joker, Mr. B., extending his offering towards him from the opposite side of the grave. The clerk, as was his wont, extended the spade over the grave towards the offered gift. The opportunity for fun was not to be lost, and whilst placing his offrwm on the spade, Mr. B. pressed on one corner, and the spade turned in the hands of the unwitting clerk, emptying the whole offering into the grave, to the no small surprise of the clerk, who never forgot the lesson, and the great amusement of the standers-by.' It is noted in this connection that the sexton's spade 'was a terror to the superstitious, for if the gravedigger would but shake his spade at anyone, it was a matter of but short time ere the sexton would be called upon to dig the grave of that person who had come under the evil influence of the spade. "Has the sexton shook his spade at you?" was a question often put to a person in bad health.' FOOTNOTES: [153] 'Arch. Camb.,' 2nd Se., iv., 326. [154] 'Bye-gones,' Oct. 17, 1877. VIII. Until a recent date, burials without a coffin were common in some parts of Wales. Old people in Montgomeryshire not many years ago, could remember such burials, in what was called the cadach deupen, or cloth with two heads. Old Richard Griffith, of Trefeglwys, who died many years ago, recollected a burial in this fashion there, when the cloth gave way and was rent; whereupon the clergyman prohibited any further burials in that churchyard without a coffin. That was the last burial of the kind which took place in Montgomeryshire.[155] In the middle ages there was a Welsh custom of burying the dead in the garment of a monk, as a protection against evil spirits. This was popular among the wealthy, and was a goodly source of priestly revenue. FOOTNOTE: [155] 'Bye-gones,' Nov. 22, 1876. IX. Sul Coffa is an old Welsh custom of honouring the dead on the Sunday following the funeral, and for several succeeding Sundays, until the violence of grief has abated. In the Journal of Thomas Dinelly, Esquire, an Englishman who travelled through Wales and Ireland in the reign of Charles II.,[156] this passage occurs, after description of the wake, the keening, etc.: 'This done y{e} Irish bury their dead, and if it be in or neer y{e} burying place of that family, the servants and followers hugg kiss howle and weep over the skulls that are there digg'd up and once a week for a quarter of an year after come two or three and pay more noyse at the place.' The similarity in spirit between this and the Welsh Sul Coffa is as striking as the difference in practice. The Welsh walk quietly and gravely to the solemn mound beneath which rest the remains of the loved, and there kneeling in silence for five or ten minutes, pray or appear to pray. The Sul Coffa of Ivan the Harper is a well-known anecdote. Ivan the Harper was a noted character in his day, who desired that his coffa should be thus: 'I should like,' said he, on his death-bed, 'to have my coffa; but not in the old style. Instead of the old custom ask Williams of Merllyn and Richard the Harper to attend the church at Llanfwrog, and give these, my disciples, my two harps, and after the service is over, let them walk to my grave; let Williams sit at the head and Richard at the feet, of my grave, and let them play seven Welsh airs, beginning with Dafydd y Garreg Wen,' (David of the White Stone) 'and ending with, Toriad y Dydd,' (the Dawn.) 'The former is in a flat key, like death, and the latter is as sober as the day of judgment.' This request was religiously obeyed by the mourners on the ensuing Sul Coffa. FOOTNOTE: [156] Quoted in the Proceedings of the Kilkenny Arch. Soc., 1858. X. Reference has been made, in the chapter on courtship and marriage, to the Welsh practice of planting graves with flowers. There are graves in Glamorganshire which have been kept blooming with flowers for nearly a century without interruption, through the loving care of descendants of the departed. By a most graceful custom which also prevailed until recently, each mourner at a funeral carried in his hand a sprig of rosemary, which he threw into the grave. The Pagan practice of throwing a sprig of cypress into the grave has been thought to symbolize the annihilation of the body, as these sprigs would not grow if set in the earth: whereas the rosemary was to signify the resurrection or up-springing of the body from the grave. The existing custom of throwing flowers and immortelles into the grave is derivable from the ancient practice. But the Welsh carry the association of graves and floral life to the most lavish extreme, as has already been pointed out. Shakspeare has alluded to this in 'Cymbeline,' the scene of which tragedy is principally in Pembrokeshire, at and about Milford Haven: _Arv._ With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor The azur'd harebell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Outsweeten'd not thy breath.[157] [Music: DAFYDD Y GARREG WEN.] FOOTNOTE: [157] 'Cymbeline,' Act IV., Sc. 2. BOOK IV. BELLS, WELLS, STONES, AND DRAGONS. Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire. MILTON: _Paradise Lost_. Then up there raise ane wee wee man Franethe the moss-gray stane; His face was wan like the collifloure, For he nouthir had blude nor bane. HOGG: _The Witch of Fife_. ... where he stood, Of auncient time there was a springing well, From which fast trickled forth a silver flood, Full of great vertues, and for med'cine good: ... For unto life the dead it could restore. SPENSER: _Faerie Queene_. CHAPTER I. Base of the Primeval Mythology--Bells and their Ghosts--The Bell that committed Murder and was damned for it--The Occult Powers of Bells--Their Work as Detectives, Doctors, etc.--Legend of the Bell of Rhayader--St. Illtyd's Wonderful Bell--The Golden Bell of Llandaff. I. The human mind in its infancy turns instinctively to fetichism. The mind of primeval man resembled that of a child. Children have to learn by experience that the fire which burns them is not instigated by malice.[158] In his primitive condition, man personified everything in nature. Animate and inanimate objects were alike endowed with feelings, passions, emotions, moral qualities. On this basis rests the primeval mythology. The numerous superstitions associated with bells, wells and stones in Wales, excite constant inquiries as regards their origin in fetichism, in paganism, in solar worship, or in church observances. That bells, especially, should suggest the supernatural to the vulgar mind is not strange. The occult powers of bells have place in the popular belief of many lands. The Flemish child who wonders how the voices got into the bells is paralleled by the Welsh lad who hears the bells of Aberdovey talking in metrical words to a musical chime. The ghosts of bells are believed to haunt the earth in many parts of Wales. Allusion has been made to those castle bells which are heard ringing from the submerged towers in Crumlyn lake. Like fancies are associated with many Welsh lakes. In Langorse Pool, Breconshire, an ancient city is said to lie buried, from whose cathedral bells on a calm day may be heard a faint and muffled chime, pealing solemnly far down in the sepial depths. A legend of Trefethin relates that in the church of St. Cadoc, at that place, was a bell of wondrous powers, a gift from Llewellyn ap Iorwerth, Lord of Caerleon. A little child who had climbed to the belfry was struck by the bell and killed, not through the wickedness of the bell itself, but through a spell which had been put upon the unfortunate instrument by an evil spirit. But though innocent of murderous intent, the wretched bell became forfeit to the demons on account of its fatal deed. They seized it and bore it down through the earth to the shadow-realm of annwn. And ever since that day, when a child is accidentally slain at Trefethin, the bell of St. Cadoc is heard tolling mournfully underneath the ground where it disappeared ages ago. FOOTNOTE: [158] A Mississippi negro-boy who was brought by a friend of mine from his southern home to a northern city, and who had never seen snow, found the ground one morning covered with what he supposed to be salt, and going out to get some, returned complaining that it 'bit his fingers.' II. There was anciently a belief that the sound of brass would break enchantment, as well as cause it; and it is presumed that the original purpose of the common custom of tolling the bell for the dead was to drive away evil spirits. Originally, the bell was tolled not for the dead, but for the dying; it was believed that evil spirits were hovering about the sick chamber, waiting to pounce on the soul as soon as it should get free from the body; and the bell was tolled for the purpose of driving them away. Later, the bell was not tolled till death had occurred, and this form of the custom survives here, as in many lands. Before the Reformation there was kept in all Welsh churches a handbell, which was taken by the sexton to the house where a funeral was to be held, and rung at the head of the procession. When the voices of the singers were silent at the end of a psalm, the bell would take up the burden of complaint in measured and mournful tones, and ring till another psalm was begun. It was at this period deemed sacred. The custom survived long after the Reformation in many places, as at Caerleon, the little Monmouthshire village which was a bustling Roman city when London was a hamlet. The bell--called the bangu--was still preserved in the parish of Llanfair Duffryn Clwyd half-a-dozen years ago. I believe the custom of ringing a handbell before the corpse on its way through the streets is still observed at Oxford, when a university man is buried. The town marshal is the bellman for this office. The custom is associated with the same superstitious belief which is seen in the 'passing bell,' the notes of pure bronze freeing the soul from the power of evil spirits. III. The Welsh were formerly strong in the belief that bells could perform miracles, detect thieves, heal the sick, and the like. In many instances they were possessed of locomotive powers, and would transport themselves from place to place when they had occasion, according to their own sweet will, and without human intervention. It is even recorded that certain handbells required to be tied with the double cord of an exorcism and a piece of twine, or they would get up and walk off in the night. Bells which presaged storms, as well as other disasters, have been believed to exist in many parts of Wales. In Pembrokeshire the unexpected tolling of a church bell in the night is held to be the sure precursor of a calamity--a belief which may be paralleled in London, where there are still people who believe such tolling on the part of the great bell of St. Paul's portends disaster to the royal family. In the Cromwellian wars, the sacrilegious followers of the stern old castle-hater carried off a great bell from St. David's, Pembrokeshire. They managed to get it on shipboard, but in passing through Ramsey Sound the vessel was wrecked--a direct result, the superstitious said, of profanely treating the bell. Ever since that time, Pembroke people have been able to hear this sunken bell ring from its watery grave when a storm is rising. IV. The legend of the Bell of Rhayader perpetuates a class of story which reappears in other parts of Great Britain. It was in the twelfth century that a certain contumacious knight was imprisoned in the castle of Rhayader. His wife, being devoted to him, and a good Catholic, besought the aid of the monks to get him out. They were equal to the occasion, at least in so far as to provide for her service a magical bell, which possessed the power of liberating from confinement any prisoner who should set it up on the wall and ring it. The wife succeeded in getting the bell secretly into her husband's possession, and he set it up on the wall and rang it. But although he had gathered his belongings together and was fully prepared to go, the doors of his prison refused to open. The castellan mocked at the magical bell, and kept the knight in durance vile. So therefore (for of course the story could not be allowed to end here) the castle was struck by lightning, and both it and the town were burned in one night--excepting only the wall upon which the magic bell was hanging. Nothing remains of the castle walls in this day. V. The bell of St. Illtyd was greatly venerated in the middle ages. A legend concerning this wonderful bell relates that a certain king had stolen it from the church, and borne it into England, tied about the neck of one of his horses. For this deed the king was destroyed, but repenting before his death, ordered the bell to be restored to its place in Wales. Without waiting to be driven, the horse with the bell about his neck set out for Wales, followed by a whole drove of horses, drawn by the melodious sound of the bell. Wonderful to tell, the horse was able to cross the river Severn and come into Wales, the great collection of horses following. 'Then hastening along the shore, and over the mountains, and through the woods, he came to the road which went towards Glamorgan, all the horses hearing, and following the sweet sound.' When they came to the banks of the river Taff, a clergyman heard the sound of the bell, and went out to meet the horse, and they together carried the bell to the gate of St. Illtyd's church. There the horse bent down and loosed his precious burden from his neck, 'and it fell on a stone, from which fall a part of it was broken, which is to be seen until the present day, in memory of the eminent miracle.'[159] Some thirty years ago a bell was discovered at Llantwit Major, in Glamorganshire, which was thought to be the identical bell of this saint. The village named was the scene of his exploits, many of which were miraculous to the point of Arabian Nights marvelousness. The discovered bell was inscribed 'Sancte Iltute, ora pro nobis,' and stood upon the gable of the quaint old town-hall. But though the bell was unmistakably ancient, it bore intrinsic evidence of having been cast long after the saint's death, when his name had become venerated. He was one of King Arthur's soldiers, who afterwards renounced the world, and founded several churches in Glamorganshire. FOOTNOTE: [159] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 492. VI. Among the many legends of Llandaff which still linger familiarly on the lips of the people is that of the bell of St. Oudoceus, second bishop of that see. In the ancient 'Book of Llandaff,' where are preserved the records of that cathedral from the earliest days of Christianity on this island, the legend is thus related: 'St. Oudoceus, being thirsty after undergoing labour, and more accustomed to drink water than any other liquor, came to a fountain in the vale of Llandaff, not far from the church, that he might drink, where he found women washing butter, after the manner of the country; and sending to them his messengers and disciples, they requested that they would accommodate them with a vessel, that their pastor might drink therefrom; who, ironically, as mischievous girls, said, "We have no cup besides that which we hold in our hands, namely, the butter." And the man of blessed memory taking it, formed one in the shape of a small bell, and he raised his hand so that he might drink therefrom, and he drank. And it remained in that form, that is, a golden one, so that it appeared to those who beheld it to consist altogether of the purest gold, which, by divine power, is from that day reverently preserved in the church of Llandaff in memory of the holy man, and it is said that by touching it health is given to the diseased.'[160] [Music: CLYCHAU ABERDYFI. (The Bells of Aberdovey.)] FOOTNOTE: [160] 'Liber Landavensis,' 378. CHAPTER II. Mystic Wells--Their Good and Bad Dispositions--St. Winifred's Well--The Legend of St. Winifred--Miracles--St. Tecla's Well--St. Dwynwen's--Curing Love-sickness--St. Cynfran's--St. Cynhafal's--Throwing Pins in Wells--Warts--Barry Island and its Legends--Ffynon Gwynwy--Propitiatory Gifts to Wells--The Dreadful Cursing Well of St. Elian's--Wells Flowing with Milk--St. Illtyd's--Taff's Well--Sanford's Well--Origins of Superstitions of this Class. I. The waters of mystery which flow at Lourdes, in France, are paralleled in numberless Welsh parishes. In every corner of Cambria may be found wells which possess definite attributes, malicious or beneficent, which they are popularly supposed to actively exert toward mankind. In almost every instance, the name of the tutelary saint to whom the well is consecrated is known to the peasantry, and generally they can tell you something about him, or her. Unnumbered centuries have elapsed since the saint lived; nay, generation upon generation has perished since any complete knowledge of his life or character existed, save in mouldering manuscripts left by monks, themselves long turned to dust; yet the tradition of the saint as regards the well is there, a living thing beside its waters. However lightly some forms of superstition may at times be treated by the vulgar, they are seldom capable of irreverent remark concerning the well. In many cases this respect amounts to awe. These wells are of varying power and disposition. Some are healing wells; others are cursing wells; still others combine the power alike to curse and to cure. Some are sovereign in their influence over all the diseases from which men suffer, mental and moral as well as physical; others can cure but one disease, or one specific class of diseases; and others remedy all the misfortunes of the race, make the poor rich, the unhappy happy, and the unlucky lucky. That these various reputations arose in some wells from medicinal qualities found by experience to dwell in the waters, is clear at a glance; but in many cases the character of the patron saint gives character to the well. In parishes dedicated to the Virgin Mary there will almost inevitably be found a Ffynon Mair, (Well of Mary,) the waters of which are supposed to be purer than the waters of other wells. Sometimes the people will take the trouble to go a long distance for water from the Ffynon Mair, though a good well may be nearer, in whose water chemical analysis can find no difference. Formerly, and indeed until within a few years past, no water would do for baptizing but that fetched from the Ffynon Mair, though it were a mile or more from the church. That the water flowed southward was in some cases held to be a secret of its virtue. In other instances, wells which opened and flowed eastward were thought to afford the purest water. II. Most renowned and most frequented of Welsh wells is St. Winifred's, at Holywell. By the testimony of tradition it has been flowing for eleven hundred and eighty years, or since the year 700, and during all this time has been constantly visited by throngs of invalids; and that it will continue to be so frequented for a thousand years to come is not doubted, apparently, by the members of the Holywell Local Board, who have just taken a lease of the well from the Duke of Westminster for 999 years more, at an annual rental of £1. The town of Holywell probably owes not only name but existence to this well. Its miraculous powers are extensively believed in by the Welsh, and by people from all parts of Great Britain and the United States; but Drayton's assertion that no dog could be drowned in its waters, on account of their beneficent disposition, is not an article of the existing faith. The most prodigious fact in connection with this wonderful fountain, when its legendary origin is contemplated, is its size, its abounding life, the great volume of its waters. A well which discharges twenty-one tons of water per minute, which feeds an artificial lake and runs a mill, and has cured unnumbered thousands of human beings of their ills for hundreds of years, is surely one of the wonders of the world, to which even mystic legend can only add one marvel more. The legend of St. Winifred, or Gwenfrewi, as she is called in Welsh, was related by the British monk Elerius in the year 660, or by Robert of Salop in 1190, and is in the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum. It is there written in characters considered to be of the middle of the eleventh century. Winifred was the daughter of a valiant soldier in North Wales; from her youth she loved a heavenly spouse, and refused transitory men. One day Caradoc, a descendant of royal stock, came to her house fatigued from hunting wild beasts, and asked Winifred for drink. But seeing the beauty of the nymph he forgot his thirst in his admiration, and at once besought her to treat him with the familiarity of a sweetheart. Winifred refused, asserting that she was engaged to be married to another. Caradoc became furious at this, and said, 'Leave off this foolish, frivolous, and trifling mode of speaking, and consent to my wish.' Then he asked her to be his wife. Finding he would not be denied, Winifred had recourse to a stratagem to escape from him: she pretended to comply, but asked leave to first make a becoming toilet. Caradoc agreed, on condition that she should make it quickly. The girl went through her chamber with swift feet into the valley, and was escaping, when Caradoc perceived the trick, and mounting his horse spurred after her. He overtook her at the very door of the monastery to which she was fleeing; before she could place her foot within the threshold he struck off her head at one blow. St. Beino coming quickly to the door saw bloody Caradoc standing with his stained sword in his hand, and immediately cursed him as he stood, so that the bloody man melted in his sight like wax before a fire. Beino then took the virgin's head (which had been thrown inside the door by the blow which severed it) and fitted it on the neck of the corpse. Winifred thereupon revived, with no further harm than a small line on her neck. But the floor upon which her bloody head had fallen, cracked open, and a fountain sprang up like a torrent at the spot. 'And the stones appear bloody at present as they did at first, and the moss smells as frankincense, and it cures divers diseases.'[161] Thus far the monastic legend. Some say that Caradoc's descendants were doomed to bark like dogs. Among the miracles related of Winifred's well by her monkish biographer is one characterized as 'stupendous,' concerning three bright stones which were seen in the middle of the ebullition of the fountain, ascending and descending, 'up and down by turns, after the manner of stones projected by a shooter.' They so continued to dance for many years, but one day an unlucky woman was seized with a desire to play with the stones. So she took hold of one; whereat they all vanished, and the woman died. This miracle was supplemented by that of a man who was rebuked for theft at the fountain; and on his denying his guilt, the goat which he had stolen and eaten became his accuser by uttering an audible bleating from his belly. But the miracles of Winifred's well are for the most part records of wonderful cures from disease and deformity. Withered and useless limbs were made whole and useful; the dumb bathed in the water, came out, and asked for their clothes; the blind washed and received their sight; lunatics 'troubled by unclean spirits' were brought to the well in chains, 'tearing with their teeth and speaking vain things,' but returned homeward in full possession of their reason. Fevers, paralysis, epilepsy, stone, gout, cancers, piles--these are but a few of the diseases cured by the marvellous well, on the testimony of the ancient chronicler of the Cotton MSS. 'Nor is it to be hidden in the silence of Lethean oblivion that after the expulsion of the Franks from all North Wales' the fountain flowed with a milky liquor for the space of three days. A priest bottled some of it, and it 'was carried about and drunk in all directions,' curing diseases in the same manner as the well itself. FOOTNOTE: [161] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 519. III. Only second in fame to Winifred's, among the Welsh themselves, is St. Tecla's well, or Ffynon Tegla, in Denbighshire. It springs out of a bog called Gwern Degla, about two hundred yards from the parish church of Llandegla. Some account of the peculiar superstitious ceremony connected with this well has already been given, in the chapter treating of the sin-eater. It is there suggested that the cock to which the fits are transferred by the patient at the well is a substitute for the scapegoat of the Jews. The parish clerk of Llandegla in 1855 said that an old man of his acquaintance 'remembered quite well seeing the birds staggering about from the effects of the fits' which had been transferred to them. IV. Of great celebrity in other days was St. Dwynwen's well, in the parish of Llandwyn, Anglesea. This saint being patron saint of lovers, her well possessed the property of curing love-sickness. It was visited by great numbers, of both sexes, in the fourteenth century, when the popular faith in its waters seems to have been at its strongest. It is still frequented by young women of that part of the country when suffering from the woes inflicted by Dan Cupid. That the well itself has been for many years covered over with sand does not prevent the faithful from displaying their devotion; they seek their cure from 'the water next to the well.' Ffynon Dwynwen, or Fountain of Venus, was also a name given to the sea, according to the Iolo MSS.; and in the legend of Seithenhin the Drunkard, in the 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' this stanza occurs: Accursed be the damsel, Who, after the wailing, Let loose the Fountain of Venus, the raging deep.[162] The story of Aphrodite, born from the foam of the sea, need only be alluded to here. FOOTNOTE: [162] 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' xxxviii. (An ancient MS. in the Hengwrt collection, which belonged of old to the priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, and at the dissolution of the religious houses in Wales, when their libraries were dispersed, was given by the treasurer of St. David's Church to Sir John Price, one of Henry VIII.'s commissioners.) V. Several wells appear to have been devoted to the cure of the lower animals' diseases. Such was the well of Cynfran, where this ejaculation was made use of: 'Rhad Duw a Chynfran lwydd ar y da!'--(the grace of God and the blessed Cynfran on the cattle.) This Cynfran was one of the many sons of the patriarch Brychan, and his well is near Abergeleu. Pennant speaks also of a well near Abergeleu, which he calls St. George's well, and says that there the British Mars had his offering of horses; 'for the rich were wont to offer one, to secure his blessing on all the rest. He was the tutelar saint of those animals.' VI. St. Cynhafal's well, on a hillside in Llangynhafal parish, Denbighshire, is one of those curing wells in which pins are thrown. Its specialty is warts. To exorcise your wart you stick a pin in it and then throw the pin into this well; the wart soon vanishes. The wart is a form of human trouble which appears to have been at all times and in all countries a special subject of charms, both in connection with wells and with pins. Where a well of the requisite virtue is not conveniently near, the favourite form of charm for wart-curing is in connection with the wasting away of some selected object. Having first been pricked into the wart, the pin is then thrust into the selected object--in Gloucestershire it is a snail--and then the object is buried or impaled on a blackthorn in a hedge, and as it perishes the wart will disappear. The scapegoat principle of the sin-eater also appears in connection with charming away warts, as where a 'vagrom man' counts your warts, marks their number in his hat, and goes away, taking the warts with him into the next county--for a trifling consideration.[163] FOOTNOTE: [163] A popular belief among boys in some parts of the United States is that warts can be rubbed off upon a toad impaled with a sharp stick; as the toad dies the warts will go. _Per contra_, this cruel faith is offset by a theory that toads if ill-treated can spit upon their aggressors' hands and thus cause warts. VII. On Barry Island, near Cardiff, is the famous well of St. Barruc, or Barri, which was still frequented by the credulous up to May, 1879, at which time the island was closed against visitors by its owner, Lord Windsor, and converted into a rabbit warren. Tradition directs that on Holy Thursday he who is troubled with any disease of the eyes shall go to this well, and having thoroughly washed his eyes in its water, shall drop a pin in it. The innkeeper there formerly found great numbers of pins--a pint, in one instance--when cleaning out the well. It had long been utterly neglected by the sole resident of the island, whose house was a long distance from the well, at a point nearer the main land; but pins were still discovered there from time to time. There was in old days a chapel on this island; no vestige of it remains. Tradition says that St. Barruc was buried there, and the now barren and deserted islet appears to have been anciently a popular place among the saints. St. Cadoc had one of his residences there.[164] He was one day sitting on a hill-top in that island when he saw the two saints Barruc and Gwalches drawing near in a boat, and as he looked the boat was overturned by the wind. Both saints were drowned, and Cadoc's manual book, which they had in the boat with them, was lost in the sea. But when Cadoc proceeded to order his dinner, a salmon was brought to him which being cut open was found to have the missing manual book in its belly in an unimpaired condition. Concerning another saint whose name was Barri, a wonderful story is told that one day being on a visit to St. David he borrowed the latter's horse and rode across the sea from Pembrokeshire to the Irish coast. Many have supposed this Barri to be the same person as Barruc, but they were two men. This romantic island was anciently celebrated for certain ghastly noises which were heard in it--sounds resembling the clanking of chains, hammering of iron, and blowing of bellows--and which were supposed to be made by the fiends whom Merlin had set to work to frame the wall of brass to surround Carmarthen. So the noises and eruptions of Etna and Stromboli were in ancient times ascribed to Typhon or Vulcan. But in the case of Barry I have been unable, by any assistance from imagination, to detect these mystic sounds in our day. Camden, in his 'Britannica,' makes a like remark, but says the tradition was universally prevalent. The judicious Malkin, however, thinks it requires but a moderate stretch of fancy to create this cyclopean imagery, when the sea at high tides is often in possession of cavities under the very feet of the stranger, and its voice is at once modified and magnified by confinement and repercussion.[165] FOOTNOTES: [164] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 336. [165] Malkin's 'South Wales,' 132. VIII. Another well whose specialty is warts is a small spring called Ffynon Gwynwy, near Llangelynin church, Carnarvonshire. The pins used here must be crooked in order to be efficacious. It is said that fifty years ago the bottom of this little well was covered with pins; and that everybody was careful not to touch them, fearing that the warts deposited with the pins would grow upon their own hands if they did so.[166] At present the well is overgrown with weeds, like that on Barry Island. FOOTNOTE: [166] 'Arch. Camb.,' 3rd Se., xiii., 61. IX. The use of pins for purposes of enchantment is one of the most curious features of popular superstition. Trivial as it appears to superficial observation, it can be associated with a vast number of mystic rites and ceremonials, and with times the most ancient. There is no doubt that before the invention of pins in this country small pieces of money were thrown into the well instead; indeed it was asserted by a writer in the 'Archæologia Cambrensis' in 1856 that money was still thrown into St. Tecla's well, by persons desirous of recovering from fits. That the same practice prevailed among the Romans is shown by Pliny, who speaks of the sacred spring of the Clitumnus, so pure and clear that you may count the pieces of money that have been thrown into it, and the shining pebbles at the bottom. And in connection with the Welsh well of St. Elian there was formerly a box into which the sick dropped money as they nowadays drop a pin into that well. This box was called cyff-elian, and was in the form of a trunk studded with nails, with an aperture in the top through which the money was dropped. It is said to have got so full of coins that the parishioners opened it, and with the contents purchased three farms. The presentation of pins to the well, though now a meaningless rite on the part of those who practice it, was originally intended as a propitiatory offering to the evil spirit of the well. In some instances the heathen faith is virtually restored, and the well endowed with supernatural powers irrespective of the dedication of its waters to a Christian saint. Indeed in the majority of cases where these wells are now resorted to by the peasantry for any other than curative purposes, the fetichistic impulse is much more conspicuous than any influence associated with religious teaching. X. St. Elian's is accounted the most dreadful well in Wales. It is in the parish of Llanelian, Denbighshire. It is at the head of the cursing wells, of which there are but few in the Principality, and holds still a strong influence over the ignorant mind. The popular belief is that you can 'put' your enemy 'into' this well, i.e., render him subject to its evil influence, so that he will pine away and perhaps die unless the curse be removed. The degree and nature of the curse can be modified as the 'offerer' desires, so that the obnoxious person will suffer aches and pains in his body, or troubles in his pocket--the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The minister of the well appears to be some heartless wretch residing in the neighbourhood, whose services are enlisted for a small fee. The name of the person to be 'put into' the well is registered in a book kept by the wretch aforesaid, and a pin is cast into the well in his name, together with a pebble inscribed with its initials. The person so cursed soon hears of it, and the fact preys on his mind; he imagines for himself every conceivable ill, and if gifted with a lively faith soon finds himself reduced to a condition where he cannot rest till he has secured the removal of the curse. This is effected by a reversal of the above ceremonies--erasing the name, taking out the pebble, and otherwise appeasing the spirit of the well. It is asserted that death has in many instances resulted from the curse of this wickedly malicious well.[167] FOOTNOTE: [167] 'Camb. Pop. Ant.,' 247. See also 'Arch. Camb.,' 1st Se., i. 46. XI. Occasionally the cursing powers of a well were synonymous with curing powers. Thus a well much resorted to near Penrhos, was able to curse a cancer, i.e., cure it. The sufferer washed in the water, uttering curses upon the disease, and also dropping pins around the well. This well has been drained by the unsympathizing farmer on whose land it was, on account of the serious damage done to his crops by trespassers. XII. Wells from which milk has flowed have been known in several places. That Winifred's well indulged in this eccentricity on one occasion has been noted. The well of St. Illtyd is celebrated for the like performance. This well is in Glamorganshire, in the land called Gower, near Swansea. It was about the nativity of John the Baptist, on the fifth day of the week, in a year not specified, but certainly very remote, that for three hours there flowed from this well a copious stream of milk instead of water. That it was really milk we are not left in any possible doubt, for 'many who were present testified that while they were looking at the milky stream carefully and with astonishment, they also saw among the gravel curds lying about in every direction, and all around the edge of the well a certain fatty substance floating about, such as is collected from milk, so that butter can be made from it.'[168] The origin of this well is a pleasing miracle, and recalls the story of Canute; but while Canute's effort to command the sea was a failure in the eleventh century, that of St. Illtyd five hundred years earlier was a brilliant success. It appears that the saint was very pleasantly established on an estate consisting of a field surrounded on all sides by plains, with an intermediate grove, but was much afflicted by the frequent overflowings of the sea upon his land. In vain he built and rebuilt a very large embankment of mud mixed with stones, the rushing waves burst through again and again. At last the saint's patience was worn out, and he said, 'I will not live here any longer; I much wished it, but troubled with this marine molestation, it is not in my power. It destroys my buildings, it flows to the oratory which we built with great labour.' However, the place was so convenient he was loth to leave it, and he prayed for assistance. On the night before his intended departure an angel came to him and bade him remain, and gave him instructions for driving back the sea. Early in the morning Illtyd went to the fluctuating sea and drove it back; it receded before him 'as if it were a sensible animal,' and left the shore dry. Then Illtyd struck the shore with his staff, 'and thereupon flowed a very clear fountain, which is also beneficial for curing diseases, and which continues to flow without a falling off; and what is more wonderful, although it is near the sea, the water emitted is pure.'[169] FOOTNOTES: [168] 'Arch. Camb.,' 1st Se., iii., 264. [169] 'Cambro-British Saints,' 478. XIII. Some of the Welsh mystic wells are so situated that they are at times overflowed by the waters of the sea, or of a river. Taff's Well, in Glamorganshire, a pleasant walk from Cardiff, is situated practically in the bed of the river Taff. One must wade through running water to reach it, except in the summer season, when the water in the river is very low. A rude hut of sheet iron has been built over it. This well is still noted for its merits in healing rheumatism and kindred ailments. The usual stories are told of miraculous cures. A primitive custom of the place is that when men are bathing at this well they shall hang a pair of trousers outside the hut; women, in their turn, must hang out a petticoat or bonnet. At Newton Nottage, Glamorganshire, a holy well called Sanford's is so situated that the water is regulated in the well by the ocean tides. From time immemorial wondrous tales have been told of this well, how it ebbs and flows daily in direct contrariety to the tidal ebb and flow. The bottom of the well is below high-water mark on the beach, where it has an outlet into the sea. At very low tides in the summer, when the supply of water in the well is scanty, it becomes dry for an hour or two after low water. When the ocean tide rises, the sea-water banks up and drives back the fresh water, and the well fills again and its water rises. The villagers are accustomed to let the well-water rise through what they call the 'nostrils of the well,' and become settled a little before they draw it. Of course this phenomenon has been regarded as something supernatural by the ignorant for ages, and upon the actual visible phenomena have been built a number of magical details of a superstitious character. XIV. The wide prevalence of some form of water-worship among Aryan peoples is a fact of great significance. Superstitions in connection with British wells are generally traceable to a Druidic origin. The worship of natural objects in which the British Druids indulged, particularly as regards rivers and fountains, probably had a connection with traditions of the flood. When the early Christian preachers and teachers encountered such superstitions among the people, they carefully avoided giving unnecessary offence by scoffing at them; on the contrary they preferred to adopt them, and to hallow them by giving them Christian meanings. They utilized the old Druidic circles as places of worship, chose young priests from among the educated Druids, and consecrated to their own saints the mystic wells and fountains. In this manner were continued practices the most ancient. As time passed on, other wells were similarly sanctified, as the new religion spread and parish churches were built. Disease and wickedness being intimately associated in the popular mind--epileptics and like sufferers being held to be possessed of devils, and even such vulgar ills as warts and wens being considered direct results of some evil deed, suffered or performed--so the waters of Christian baptism which cleansed from sin, cleansed also from disease. Ultimately the virtue of the waters came to be among the vulgar a thing apart from the rite of baptism; the good was looked upon as dwelling in the waters themselves, and the Christian rite as not necessarily an element in the work of regeneration. The reader who will recall what has been said in the chapter on changelings, in the first part of this volume, will perceive a survival of the ancient creed herein, in the notion that baptism is a preventive of fairy babe-thievery. Remembering that the changeling notion is in reality nothing but a fanciful way of accounting for the emaciation, ugliness, idiocy, bad temper--in a word, the illness--of the child, it will be seen that the rite of baptism, by curing the first manifestations of evil in the child's system, was the orthodox means of preventing the fairies from working their bad will on the poor innocent. CHAPTER III. Personal Attributes of Legendary Welsh Stones--Stone Worship--Canna's Stone Chair--Miraculous Removals of Stones--The Walking Stone of Eitheinn--The Thigh Stone--The Talking Stone in Pembrokeshire--The Expanding Stone--Magic Stones in the 'Mabinogion'--The Stone of Invisibility--The Stone of Remembrance--Stone Thief-catchers--Stones of Healing--Stones at Cross-roads--Memorials of King Arthur--Round Tables, Carns, Pots, etc.--Arthur's Quoits--The Gigantic Rock-tossers of Old--Mol Walbec and the Pebble in her Shoe--The Giant of Trichrug--Giants and the Mythology of the Heavens--The Legend of Rhitta Gawr. I. In the traditions concerning Welsh stones, abundant personal attributes are accorded them, such as in nature belong only to animals. They were endowed with volition and with voice; they could travel from place to place without mortal aid; they would move uneasily when disturbed by human contact; they expanded and contracted at will; they clung to people who touched them with profane or guilty purpose; they possessed divers qualities which made them valuable to their possessors, such as the power of rendering them invisible, or of filling their pockets with gold. In pursuing the various accounts of these stones in Welsh folk-lore we find ourselves now in fairyland, now in the domains of mother church, now listening to legends of enchantment, now to tales of saintly virtue, now giving ear to a magician, now to a monk. Stone-worship, of which the existing superstitions are remains, was so prevalent under the Saxon monarchy, that it was forbidden by law in the reign of Edgar the Peaceable, (ninth century,) and when Canute came, in the following century, he also found it advisable to issue such a law. That this pagan worship was practised from a time of which there is now no record, is not questioned; and the perpetuation of certain features of this worship by the early Christians was in spite of the laws promulgated for its suppression by a Christian king. In this manner the monks were enabled to draw to themselves the peasantry in whose breasts the ancient superstition was strong, and who willingly substituted the new story for the old, so long as the underlying belief was not rudely uprooted. II. Among the existing stones in Wales with which the ancient ideas of occult power are connected, one in Carmarthenshire is probably unique of its kind. It is called Canna's Stone, and lies in a field adjoining the old church of Llangan, now remote from the population whose ancestors worshipped in it. The church was founded by an Armorican lady of rank named Canna, who was sainted. The stone in question forms a sort of chair, and was used in connection with a magic well called Ffynon Canna, which is now, like the church, deserted and wretched. Patients suffering from ague, in order to profit by its healing power, must sit in the chair of Canna's stone, after drinking of the water. If they could manage to sleep while in the chair, the effect of the water was supposed to be made sure. The process was continued for some days, sometimes for two or three weeks. In the middle of this parish there is a field called Parc y Fonwent, or the churchyard-field, where, according to local tradition, the church was to have been originally built; but the stones brought to the spot during the day were at night removed by invisible hands to the site of the present church. Watchers in the dark heard the goblins engaged in this work, and pronouncing in clear and correct Welsh these words, 'Llangan, dyma'r fan,' which mean, 'Llangan, here is the spot.' Similar miraculous removals of stones are reported and believed in other parts of Wales. Sometimes visible goblins achieve the work; sometimes the stones themselves possess the power of locomotion. The old British historian Nennius[170] speaks of a stone, one of the wonders of the Isle of Anglesea, which walks during the night in the valley of Eitheinn. Being once thrown into the whirlpool Cerevus, which is in the middle of the sea called Menai, it was on the morrow found on the side of the aforesaid valley. Also in Builth is a heap of stones, upon which is one stone bearing the impress of a dog's foot. This was the famous dog of King Arthur, named Cabal, which left its footprint on this stone when it hunted the swine Troynt. Arthur himself gathered this heap of stones, with the magic stone upon it, and called it Carn Cabal; and people who take away this stone in their hands for the space of a day and a night cannot retain it, for it returns itself to the heap. The Anglesea stone is also mentioned by Giraldus, through whom it achieved celebrity under the name of Maen Morddwyd, or the Thigh Stone--'a stone resembling a human thigh, which possesses this innate virtue, that whatever distance it may be carried it returns of its own accord the following night. Hugh, Earl of Chester, in the reign of King Henry I., having by force occupied this island and the adjacent country, heard of the miraculous power of this stone, and for the purpose of trial ordered it to be fastened with strong iron chains to one of a larger size and to be thrown into the sea; on the following morning, however, according to custom, it was found in its original position, on which account the Earl issued a public edict that no one from that time should presume to move the stone from its place. A countryman also, to try the powers of this stone, fastened it to his thigh, which immediately became putrid, and the stone returned to its original situation.'[171] This stone ultimately lost its virtues, however, for it was stolen in the last century and never came back. FOOTNOTES: [170] Harleian MSS., 3859. [171] Sir R. C. Hoare's Giraldus, 'Itin. Camb.,' ii., 104. III. The Talking Stone Llechlafar, or stone of loquacity, served as a bridge over the river Alyn, bounding the churchyard of St. David's in Pembrokeshire, on the northern side. It was a marble slab worn smooth by the tread of many feet, and was ten feet long, six feet broad, and one foot thick. Ancient tradition relates that one day 'when a corpse was being carried over it for interment the stone broke forth into speech, and by the effort cracked in the middle, which fissure is still visible; and on account of this barbarous and ancient superstition the corpses are no longer brought over it.'[172] In this same parish of St. David's, there was a flight of steps leading down to the sea, among which were a certain few which uttered a miraculous sound, like the ringing of a bell. The story goes that in ancient times a band of pirates landed there and robbed the chapel. The bell they took away to sea with them, but as it was heavy they rested it several times on their way, and ever since that day the stones it rested upon have uttered these mysterious sounds when struck. Also in this parish is the renowned Expanding Stone, an excavation in the rock of St. Gowan's chapel, which has the magic property of adapting itself to the size of the person who gets into it, growing smaller for a small man and larger for a large one. Among its many virtues was that if a person got into it and made a wish, and did not change his mind while turning about, the wish would come true. The original fable relates that this hollow stone was once solid; that a saint closely pursued by Pagan persecutors sought shelter of the rock, which thereupon opened and received him, concealing him till the danger was over and then obligingly letting him out. This stone may probably be considered as the monkish parallel for the magic stones which confer on their possessor invisibility, as we find them in the romances of enchantment. In the 'Mabinogion' such stones are frequently mentioned, usually in the favourite form of a gem set within a ring. 'Take this ring,' says the damsel with yellow curling hair,[173] 'and put it on thy finger, with the stone inside thy hand; and close thy hand upon the stone. And as long as thou concealest it, it will conceal thee.' But when it is found, as we find in following these clues further, that this Stone of Invisibility was one of the Thirteen Rarities of Kingly Regalia of the Island of Britain; that it was formerly kept at Caerleon, in Monmouthshire, the city whence St. David journeyed into Pembrokeshire; and that it is mentioned in the Triads thus: 'The Stone of the Ring of Luned, which liberated Owen the son of Urien from between the portcullis and the wall; whoever concealed that stone the stone or bezel would conceal him,' the strong probability appears that we are dealing with one and the same myth in the tale of magic and in the monkish legend. Traced back to a period more remote than that with which these Welsh stories ostensibly deal, we should find their prototype in the ring of Gyges. The Stone of Remembrance is another stone mentioned in the 'Mabinogion,' also a jewel, endowed with valuable properties which it imparts not merely to its wearer, but to any one who looks upon it. 'Rhonabwy,' says Iddawc to the enchanted dreamer on the yellow calf-skin, 'dost thou see the ring with a stone set in it, that is upon the Emperor's hand?' 'I see it,' he answered. 'It is one of the properties of that stone to enable thee to remember that thou seest here to-night, and hadst thou not seen the stone, thou wouldst never have been able to remember aught thereof.'[174] Still another stone of rare good qualities is that which Peredur gave to Etlym, in reward for his attendance,[175] the stone which was on the tail of a serpent, and whose virtues were such that whosoever should hold it in one hand, in the other he would have as much gold as he might desire. Peredur having vanquished the serpent and possessed himself of the stone, immediately gave it away, in that spirit of lavish free-handedness which so commonly characterizes the heroes of chivalric British romance. FOOTNOTES: [172] Ibid., ii., 8. [173] Lady Charlotte Guest's 'Mabinogion,' 13. [174] Lady Charlotte Guest's 'Mabinogion,' 303. [175] Ibid., 111. IV. In the church of St. David's of Llanfaes, according to Giraldus, was preserved among the relics a stone which caught a thieving boy in the act of robbing a pigeon's nest, and held him fast for three days and nights. Only by assiduous and long-continued prayer were the unhappy boy's parents able to get him loose from the terrible stone, and the marks of his five fingers remained ever after impressed upon it, so that all might see them. There was a stone of similar proclivities in the valley of Mowddwy, which did good service for the church. A certain St. Tydecho, a relation of King Arthur, who slept on a blue rock in this valley, was persecuted by Maelgwn Gwynedd. One day this wicked knight came with a pack of white dogs to hunt in that neighbourhood, and sat down upon the saint's blue stone. When he endeavoured to get up he found himself fastened to his seat so that he could not stir, in a manner absurdly suggestive of French farces; and he was obliged to make up matters with the saint. He ceased to persecute the good man, and to make amends for the past gave him the privilege of sanctuary for a hundred ages.[176] FOOTNOTE: [176] 'Celtic Remains,' 420. (Printed for the Cambrian Arch. Soc., London, 1878.) V. As for Stones of Healing, with qualities resembling those abiding in certain wells, they appear in many shapes. Now it is a maenhir, against which the afflicted peasant must rub himself; now it is a pebble which he must carry in his pocket. The inevitable wart reappears in this connection; the stone which cures the wart is found by the roadside, wrapped in a bit of paper, and dropped on a cross-road; to him who picks it up the wart is transferred. Children in Pembrokeshire will not at the present day pick up a small parcel on a cross-road, suspecting the presence of the wart-bearing stone. In Carmarthen are still to be found traces of a belief in the Alluring Stone, whose virtue is that it will cure hydrophobia. It is represented as a soft white stone, about the size of a man's head, originally found on a farm called Dysgwylfa, about twelve miles from Carmarthen town. Grains were scraped from the stone with a knife, and administered to the person who had been bitten by a rabid dog; and a peculiarity of the stone was that though generation after generation had scraped it, nevertheless it did not diminish in size. A woman who ate of this miraculous stone, after having been bitten by a suspicious cur, testified that it caused 'a boiling in her blood.' The stone was said to have fallen from the sky in the first instance. VI. Stones standing at cross-roads are seldom without some superstitious legend. A peasant pointed out to me, on a mountain-top near Crumlyn, Monmouthshire, a cross-roads stone, beneath which, he asserted, a witch sleeps by day, coming forth at night. 'Least they was say so,' he explained, with a nervous look about him, 'but there you! _I_ was never see anything, an' I was pass by there many nights--yes, indeed, often.' The man's eagerness to testify against the truth of the tradition was one of the most impressive illustrations possible of lingering superstitious awe in this connection. A famous Welsh witch, who used to sleep under a stone at Llanberis, in North Wales, was called Canrig Bwt, and her favourite dish at dinner was children's brains. A certain criminal who had received a death-sentence was given the alternative of attacking this frightful creature, his life to be spared should he succeed in destroying her. Arming himself with a sharp sword, the doomed man got upon the stone and called on Canrig to come out. 'Wait till I have finished eating the brains in this sweet little skull,' was her horrible answer. However, forth she came presently, when the valiant man cut off her head at a blow. To this day they scare children thereabout with the name of Canrig Bwt. VII. In every part of Wales one encounters the ancient memorials of King Arthur--sometimes to be dimly connected with the historical character, but more often with the mythical figure--each with its legend, or its bundle of legends, poetic, patriotic, or superstitious. Arthur's Round Table at Caerleon, Monmouthshire, is as well known to every boy in the neighbourhood as any inn or shop of the village. It is a grass-grown Roman amphitheatre, whence alabaster statues of Adrian's day have been disinterred. There is also an Arthur's Round Table in Denbighshire, a flat-topped hill thus called, and in Anglesea another, near the village of Llanfihangel. Arthur's Seat, Arthur's Bed, Arthur's Castle, Arthur's Stone, Arthur's Hill, Arthur's Quoit, Arthur's Board, Arthur's Carn, Arthur's Pot--these are but a few of the well-known cromlechs, rocking-stones, or natural objects to be found in various neighbourhoods. They are often in duplicates, under these names, but they never bear such titles by other authority than traditions reaching back into the dark ages. Some of the stories and superstitions which attach to them are striking, and of the most fascinating interest to the student of folk-lore; others are merely grotesque, as in the case of Arthur's Pot. This is under a cromlech at Dolwillim, on the banks of the Tawe, and in the stream itself when the water is high; it is a circular hole of considerable depth, accurately bored in the stone by the action of the water. This hole is called Arthur's Pot, and according to local belief was made by Merlin for the hero king to cook his dinner in. Arthur's Quoits are found in many parts of the country. A large rock in the bed of the Sawdde river, on the Llangadock side of Mynydd Du, (the Black Mountain,) is one of these quoits. The story is that the king one day flung it from the summit of Pen Arthur, a mile away. There is another large rock beside it, which was similarly flung down by a lady of Arthur's acquaintance, whose gigantic proportions may be guessed from the fact that this boulder was a pebble in her shoe, which annoyed her. VIII. Upon this hint there opens out before the inquirer a wealth of incident and illustration, in connection with gigantic Britons of old time who hurled huge rocks about as pebbles. There is the story of the giant Idris, who dwelt upon Cader Idris, and who found no less a number than three troublesome pebbles in his shoe as he was out walking one day, and who tossed them down where they lie on the road from Dolgelley to Machynlleth, three bulky crags. There are several legends about Mol Walbec's pebbles in Breconshire. This lusty dame has a full score of shadowy castles on sundry heights in that part of Wales; and she is said to have built the castle of Hay in one night. In performing this work she carried the stones in her apron; one of these--a pebble about a foot thick and nine feet long--fell into her shoe. At first she did not notice it, but by-and-by it began to annoy her, and she plucked it out and threw it into Llowes churchyard, three miles away, where it now lies. In many parts of Wales where lie rude heaps of stones, the peasantry say they were carried there by a witch in her apron. The gigantic creatures whose dimensions are indicated by these stones reappear continually in Welsh folk-lore. Arthur is merely the greatest among them; all were of prodigious proportions. Hu Gadarn, Cadwaladr, Rhitta Gawr, Brutus, Idris, are all members of the shadowy race whose 'quoits' and 'pebbles' are scattered about Wales. The remains at Stonehenge have been from time immemorial called by the Cymry the Côr Gawr, Circle or Dance of Giants. How the Carmarthen enchanter, Merlin, transported these stones hither from Killara mountain in Ireland by his magic art, everybody knows. It is only necessary that a stone should be of a size to make the idea of removing it an apparently hopeless one--that Merlin or some other magician brought it there by enchantment, or that Arthur or some other giant tossed it there with his mighty arm, is a matter of course.[177] The giant of Trichrug, (a fairy haunt in Cardiganshire,) appears to have been the champion pebble-tosser of Wales, if local legend may be trusted. Having invited the neighbouring giants to try their strength with him in throwing stones, he won the victory by tossing a huge rock across the sea into Ireland. His grave is traditionally reported to be on that mountain, and to possess the same properties as the Expanding Stone, for it fits any person who lies down in it, be he tall or short. It has the further virtue of imparting extraordinary strength to any one lying in it; but if he gets into it with arms upon his person they will be taken from him and he will never see them more. FOOTNOTE: [177] It is noteworthy that most of the great stones of these legends appear to have really been transported to the place where they are now found, being often of a different rock than that of the immediate locality. To what extent the legends express the first vague inductions of early geological observers, is a question not without interest. IX. The gigantic stone-tossers of Wales associate themselves without effort with the mythology of the heavens. One of their chiefest, Idris, was indeed noted as an astrologer, and is celebrated as such in the Triads: Idris Gawr, or the Giant Idris; Gwydion, or the Diviner by Trees; Gwyn, the Son of Nudd, the Generous; So great was their knowledge of the stars, that they could foretell whatever might be desired to be known until the day of doom. And among Welsh legends none is more familiar than that of Rhitta Gawr, wherein the stars are familiarly spoken of as cows and sheep, and the firmament as their pasture. CHAPTER IV. Early Inscribed Stones--The Stone Pillar of Banwan Bryddin, near Neath--Catastrophe accompanying its Removal--The Sagranus Stone and the White Lady--The Dancing Stones of Stackpool--Human Beings changed to Stones--St. Ceyna and the Serpents--The Devil's Stone at Llanarth--Rocking Stones and their accompanying Superstitions--The Suspended Altar of Loin-Garth--Cromlechs and their Fairy Legends--The Fairies' Castle at St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire--The Stone of the Wolf Bitch--The Welsh Melusina--Parc-y-Bigwrn Cromlech--Connection of these Stones with Ancient Druidism. I. Paleographic students are more or less familiar with about seventy early inscribed stones in Wales. The value of these monuments, as corroborative evidence of historical facts, in connection with waning popular traditions, is well understood. Superstitious prejudice is particularly active in connection with stones of this kind. The peasantry view them askance, and will destroy them if not restrained, as they usually are, by fear of evil results to themselves. Antiquaries have often reason to thank superstition for the existence in our day of these ancient monuments. But there is a sort of progressive movement towards enlightenment which carries the Welsh farmer from the fearsome to the destructive stage, in this connection. That dangerous thing, a little knowledge, sometimes leads its imbiber beyond the reach of all fear of the guardian fairy or demon of the stone, yet leaves him still so superstitious regarding it that he believes its influence to be baleful, and its destruction a sort of duty. It was the common opinion of the peasantry of the parish in which it stood, that whoever happened to read the inscription on the Maen Llythyrog, an early inscribed stone on the top of a mountain near Margam Abbey, in Glamorganshire, would die soon after. In many instances the stones are believed to be transformed human beings, doomed to this guise for some sin, usually an act of sacrilege. Beliefs of this character would naturally be potent in influencing popular feeling against the stones. But on the other hand, however desirable might be their extinction, there would be perils involved, which one would rather his neighbour than himself should encounter. Various awful consequences, but especially the most terrific storms and disturbances of the earth, followed any meddling with them. At Banwan Bryddin, a few miles from Neath, a stone pillar inscribed 'MARCI CARITINI FILII BERICII,' long stood on a tumulus which by the peasants was considered a fairy ring. The late Lady Mackworth caused this stone to be removed to a grotto she was constructing on her grounds, and which she was ornamenting with all the curious stones she could collect. An old man who was an under-gardener on her estate, and who abounded with tales of goblins, declaring he had often had intercourse with these strange people, told the Rev. Mr. Williams of Tir-y-Cwm, that he had always known this act of sacrilege would not go unpunished by the guardians of the stone. He had more than once seen these sprites dancing of an evening in the rings of Banwan Bryddin, where the 'wonder stone' stood, but never since the day the stone was removed had any mortal seen them. Upon the stone, he said, were written mysterious words in the fairy language, which no one had ever been able to comprehend, not even Lady Mackworth herself. When her ladyship removed the stone to Gnoll Gardens the fairies were very much annoyed; and the grotto, which cost Lady Mackworth thousands of pounds to build, was no sooner finished than one night, Duw'n catwo ni! there was such thunder and lightning as never was heard or seen in Glamorganshire before; and next morning the grotto was gone! The hill had fallen over it and hidden it for ever. 'Iss indeed,' said the old man, 'and woe will fall on the Cymro or the Saeson that will dare to clear the earth away. I myself, and others who was there, was hear the fairies laughing loud that night, after the storm has cleared away.' II. The Sagranus Stone at St. Dogmell's, Pembrokeshire, was formerly used as a bridge over a brook not far from where it at present stands--luckily with its inscribed face downwards, so that the sculpture remained unharmed while generations were tramping over it. During its use as a bridge it bore the reputation of being haunted by a white lady, who was constantly seen gliding over it at the witching hour of midnight. No man or woman could be induced to touch the strange stone after dark, and its supernatural reputation no doubt helped materially in its preservation unharmed till the present time. It is considered on paleographic grounds to be of the fourth century. In Pembrokeshire also are found the famous Dancing Stones of Stackpool. These are three upright stones standing about a mile from each other, the first at Stackpool Warren, the second further to the west, on a stone tumulus in a field known as Horestone Park, and the third still further westward. One of many traditions concerning them is to the effect that on a certain day they meet and come down to Sais's Ford to dance, and after their revel is over return home and resume their places. III. There is a curious legend regarding three stones which once stood on the top of Moelfre Hill, in Carnarvonshire, but which were long ago rolled to the bottom of the hill by 'some idle-headed youths' who dug them up. They were each about four feet high, standing as the corners of a triangle; one was red as blood, another white, and the third a pale blue. The tradition says that three women, about the time when Christianity first began to be known in Britain, went up Moelfre Hill on a Sabbath morning to winnow their corn. They had spread their winnowing sheet upon the ground and begun their work, when some of their neighbours came to them and reprehended them for working on the Lord's day. But the women, having a greater eye to their worldly profit than to the observance of the fourth commandment, made light of their neighbours' words, and went on working. Thereupon they were instantly transformed into three pillars of stone, each stone of the same colour as the dress of the woman in whose place it stood, one red, one white, and the third bluish. Legends of the turning to stone of human beings occur in connection with many of the meini hirion (long stones). Near Llandyfrydog, Anglesea, there is a maenhir of peculiar shape. From one point of view it looks not unlike the figure of a humpbacked man, and it is called 'Carreg y Lleidr,' or the Robber's Stone. The tradition connected with it is that a man who had stolen the church Bible, and was carrying it away on his shoulder, was turned into this stone, and must stand here till the last trump sets him free. At Rolldritch (Rhwyldrech?) there is or was a circle of stones, concerning which tradition held that they were the human victims of a witch who, for some offence, transformed them to this shape. In connection with this circle is preserved another form of superstitious belief very often encountered, namely, that the number of stones in the circle cannot be correctly counted by a mortal.[178] It is noteworthy that the only creature which shares with man the grim fate of being turned to stone, in Welsh legends, is the serpent. The monkish account of St. Ceyna, one of the daughters of Prince Brychan, of Breconshire, relates that having consecrated her virginity to the Lord by a perpetual vow, she resolved to seek some desert place where she could give herself wholly up to meditation. So she journeyed beyond the river Severn, 'and there meeting a woody place, she made her request to the prince of that country that she might be permitted to serve God in that solitude. His answer was that he was very willing to grant her request, but that the place did so swarm with serpents that neither man nor beast could inhabit it. But she replied that her firm trust was in the name and assistance of Almighty God to drive all that poisonous brood out of that region. Hereupon the place was granted to the holy virgin, who, prostrating herself before God, obtained of him to change the serpents and vipers into stones. And to this day the stones in that region do resemble the windings of serpents, through all the fields and villages, as if they had been framed by the hand of the sculptor.' The scene of this legend is mentioned by Camden as being at a place near Bristol, called Keynsham, 'where abundance of that fossil called by the naturalists Cornu Ammonis is dug up.' FOOTNOTE: [178] Roberts, 'Camb. Pop. Ant.,' 220. IV. Our old friend the devil is once more to the fore when we encounter the inscribed stone of the twelfth century, which stands in the churchyard of Llanarth, near Aberaeron, in Cardiganshire. A cross covers this stone, with four circular holes at the junction of the arms. The current tradition of the place regarding it is that one stormy night, there was such a tremendous noise heard in the belfry that the whole village was thrown into consternation. It was finally concluded that nobody but the diawl could be the cause of this, and therefore the people fetched his reverence from the vicarage to go and request the intruder to depart. The vicar went up into the belfry, with bell, book, and candle, along the narrow winding stone staircase, and, as was anticipated, there among the bells he saw the devil in person. The good man began the usual 'Conjurate in nomine,' etc., when the fiend sprang up and mounted upon the leads of the tower. The vicar was not to be balked, however, and boldly followed up the remainder of the staircase and got also out upon the leads. The devil finding himself hard pressed, had nothing for it but to jump over the battlements of the tower. He came down plump among the gravestones below, and falling upon one, made with his hands and knees the four holes now visible on the stone in question, which among the country people still bears the name of the Devil's Stone. V. The logan stones in various parts of Wales, which vibrate mysteriously under the touch of a child's finger, and rock violently at a push from a man's stronger hand, are also considered by the superstitious a favourite resort of the fairies and the diawl. The holy aerolite to which unnumbered multitudes bow down at Mecca is indeed no stranger thing than the rocking-stone on Pontypridd's sky-perched common. Among the marvellous stones in Nennius is one concerning a certain altar in Loin-Garth, in Gower, 'suspended by the power of God,' which he says a legend tells us was brought thither in a ship along with the dead body of some holy man who desired to be buried near St. Illtyd's grave, and to remain unknown by name, lest he should become an object of too reverent regard; for Illtyd dwelt in a cave there, the mouth of which faced the sea in those days; and having received this charge, he buried the corpse, and built a church over it, enclosing the wonderful altar, which testified by more than one astounding miracle the Divine power which sustained it. This is thought to be a myth relating to some Welsh rocking-stone no longer known. The temptation to throw down stones of this character has often been too much for the destruction-loving vulgarian, both in Wales and in other parts of the British islands; but the offenders have seldom been the local peasantry, who believe that the guardians of the stone--the fairies or the diawl, as the case may be--will heavily avenge its overthrow on the overthrowers. VI. [Illustration: THE FAIRY FROLIC AT THE CROMLECH.] Venerable in their hoary antiquity stand those monuments of a long-vanished humanity, the cromlechs which are so numerous in Wales, sharing with the logan and the inscribed stone the peasant's superstitious interest. Even more than the others, these solemn rocks are surrounded with legends of enchantment. They figure in many fairy-tales like that of the shepherd of Frennifawr, who stood watching their mad revelry about the old cromlech, where they were dancing, making music on the harp, and chasing their companions in hilarious sort. That the fairies protect the cromlechs with special care, as they also do the logans and others, is a belief the Welsh peasant shares with the superstitious in many lands. There is a remarkable cromlech near the hamlet of St. Nicholas, Glamorganshire, on the estate of the family whose house has the honour of being haunted by the ghost of an admiral. This cromlech is called, by children in that neighbourhood, 'Castle Correg.' A Cardiff gentleman who asked some children who were playing round the cromlech, what they termed it, was struck by the name, which recalled to him the Breton fairies thus designated.[179] The korreds and korregs of Brittany closely resemble the Welsh fairies in numberless details. The korreds are supposed to live in the cromlechs, of which they are believed to have been the builders. They dance around them at night, and woe betide the unhappy peasant who joins them in their roundels.[180] Like beliefs attach to cromlechs in the Haute Auvergne, and other parts of France. A cromlech at Pirols, said to have been built by a fée, is composed of seven massive stones, the largest being twelve feet long by eight and a half feet wide. The fée carried these stones hither from a great distance, and set them up; and the largest and heaviest one she carried on the top of her spindle, and so little was she incommoded by it that she continued to spin all the way.[181] FOOTNOTES: [179] Mr. J. W. Lukis, in an address before the Cardiff Nat. Soc. in July, 1874. [180] Keightley, 'Fairy Mythology,' 432. [181] Cambry, 'Monuments Celtiques,' 232. VII. Among the Welsh peasantry the cromlechs are called by a variety of names, one interesting group giving in Cardiganshire 'the Stone of the Bitch,' in Glamorganshire 'the Stone of the Greyhound Bitch,' in Carmarthenshire and in Monmouthshire 'the Kennel of the Greyhound Bitch,' and in some other parts of Wales 'the Stone of the Wolf Bitch.' These names refer to no fact of modern experience; they are legendary. The Cambrian form of the story of Melusina is before us here, with differing details. The wolf-bitch of the Welsh legend was a princess who for her sins was transformed to that shape, and thus long remained. Her name was Gast Rhymhi, and she had two cubs while a wolf-bitch, with which she dwelt in a cave. After long suffering in this wretched guise, she and her cubs were restored to their human form 'for Arthur,' who sought her out. The unfortunate Melusina, it will be remembered, was never entirely robbed of her human form. 'Ange par la figure, et serpent par le reste,' she was condemned by the lovely fay Pressina to become a serpent from the waist downwards, on every Saturday, till she should meet a man who would marry her under certain specified conditions. The monkish touch is on the Welsh legend, in the medieval form in which we have it in the Mabinogi of 'Kilhwch and Olwen.' The princess is transformed into a wolf-bitch 'for her sins,' and when restored, although it is for Arthur, 'God did change' her to a woman again.[182] FOOTNOTE: [182] 'Mabinogion,' 259. VIII. In a field called Parc-y-Bigwrn, near Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire, are the remains of a cromlech destroyed many years ago, concerning which an old man named John Jones related a superstitious tale. It was to the effect that there were ten men engaged in the work of throwing it down, and that when they were touching the stone they became filled with awe; and moreover, as the stone was being drawn away by six horses the road was suddenly rent asunder in a supernatural manner. This is a frequent phenomenon supposed by the Welsh peasantry to accompany the attempt to move a cromlech. Another common catastrophe is the breaking down of the waggon--not from the weight of the stone, but through the displeasure of its goblin guardians. Sometimes this awful labour is accompanied by fierce storms of hail and wind, or violent thunder and lightning; sometimes by mysterious noises, or swarms of bees which are supposed to be fairies in disguise. IX. A very great number of fanciful legends might be related in connection with stones of striking shape, or upon which there are peculiar marks and figures; but enough of this store of folk-lore has been given to serve present ends. If more were detailed, there would in all cases be found a family resemblance to the legends which have been presented, and which lead us now into the enchanted country where Arthur reigns, now wandering among the monkish records of church and abbey, now to the company of the dwarfs and giants of fairyland. That the British Druids regarded many of these stones with idolatrous reverence, is most probable. Some of them, as the cromlechs and logans, they no doubt employed in their mystic rites, as being symbols of the dimly descried Power they worshipped. Of their extreme antiquity there is no question. The rocking-stones may be considered natural objects, though they were perhaps assisted to their remarkable poise by human hands. The cromlechs were originally sepulchral chambers, unquestionably, but they are so old that neither history nor tradition gives any aid in assigning the date of their erection. Opinions that they were once pulpits of sun-worship, or Druidic altars of sacrifice, are not unwarranted, perhaps, though necessarily conjectural. The evidence that the inscribed stones are simply funeral monuments, is extensive and conclusive. Originally erected in honour of some great chief or warrior, they were venerated by the people, and became shrines about which the latter gathered in a spirit of devotion. With the lapse of ages, the warrior was forgotten; even the language in which he was commemorated decayed, and the marks on the stones became to the peasantry meaningless hieroglyphics, to which was given a mysterious and awful significance; and so for unnumbered centuries the tombstone remained an object of superstitious fear and veneration. CHAPTER V. Baleful Spirits of Storm--The Shower at the Magic Fountain--Obstacles in the way of Treasure-Seekers--The Red Lady of Paviland--The Fall of Coychurch Tower--Thunder and Lightning evoked by Digging--The Treasure-Chest under Moel Arthur in the Vale of Clwyd--Modern Credulity--The Cavern of the Ravens--The Eagle-guarded Coffer of Castell Coch--Sleeping Warriors as Treasure-Guarders--The Dragon which St. Samson drove out of Wales--Dragons in the Mabinogion--Whence came the Red Dragon of Wales?--The Original Dragon of Mythology--Prototypes of the Welsh Caverns and Treasure-Hills--The Goblins of Electricity. I. In the prominent part played by storm--torrents of rain, blinding lightning, deafening thunder--in legends of disturbed cromlechs, and other awful stones, is involved the ancient belief that these elements were themselves baleful spirits, which could be evoked by certain acts. They were in the service of fiends and fairies, and came at their bidding to avenge the intrusion of venturesome mortals, daring to meddle with sacred things. This fascinating superstition is preserved in numberless Welsh legends relating to hidden treasures, buried under cromlechs or rocky mounds, or in caverns. In the 'Mabinogion' it appears in the enchanted barrier to the Castle of the Lady of the Fountain. Under a certain tall tree in the midst of a wide valley there was a fountain, 'and by the side of the fountain a marble slab, and on the marble slab a silver bowl, attached by a chain of silver, so that it may not be carried away. Take the bowl and throw a bowlful of water on the slab,' says the black giant of the wood to Sir Kai, 'and thou wilt hear a mighty peal of thunder, so that thou wilt think that heaven and earth are trembling with its fury. With the thunder there will come a shower so severe that it will be scarce possible for thee to endure it and live. And the shower will be of hailstones; and after the shower the weather will become fair, but every leaf that was upon the tree will have been carried away by the shower.'[183] Of course the knight dares this awful obstacle, throws the bowlful of water upon the slab, receives the terrible storm upon his shield, and fights the knight who owned the fountain, on his coming forth. Sir Kai is worsted, and returns home to Arthur's court; whereupon Sir Owain takes up the contest. He sallies forth, evokes the storm, encounters the black knight, slays him, and becomes master of all that was his--his castle, his lands, his wife, and all his treasures. The peasant of to-day who sets out in quest of hidden treasures evokes the avenging storm in like manner. Sometimes the treasure is in the ground, under a cromlech or a carn; he digs, and the thunder shakes the air, the lightnings flash, torrents descend, and he is frustrated in his search. Again, the treasure is in a cavern, guarded by a dragon, which belches forth fire upon him and scorches his eyeballs. Welsh folk-lore is full of legends of this character; and the curious way in which science and religion sometimes get mixed up with these superstitions is most suggestive--as in the cases of the falling of Coychurch tower, and the Red Lady of Paviland. The latter is the name given a skeleton found by Dr. Buckland in his exploration of the Paviland caves, the bones of which were stained by red oxide of iron. The vulgar belief is that the Red Lady was entombed in the cave by a storm while seeking treasure there--a legend the truth of which no one can dispute with authority, since the bones are certainly of a period contemporary with the Roman rule in this island. Coins of Constantine were found in the same earth, cemented with fragments of charcoal and bone ornaments. In the case of Coychurch tower, it undoubtedly fell because it was undermined by a contractor who had the job of removing certain defunct forefathers from their graves near its base. Some eighteen hundred skulls were taken from the ground and carted off to a hole on the east side of the church. But the country folk pooh-pooh the idea that the tower fell for any reason other than sheer indignation and horror at the disturbance of this hallowed ground by utilitarian pickaxe and spade. They call your attention to the fact that not only did the venerable tower come crashing down, after having stood for centuries erect, but that in falling it struck to the earth St. Crallo's cross--an upright stone in the churchyard as venerable as itself--breaking it all to pieces. FOOTNOTE: [183] 'Mabinogion,' 8. II. A hollow in the road near Caerau, in Cardiganshire, 'rings when any wheeled vehicle goes over it.' Early in this century, two men having been led to believe that there were treasures hidden there (for a fairy in the semblance of a gipsy had appeared and thrown out hints on the fascinating subject from time to time), made up their minds to dig for it. They dug accordingly until they came, by their solemn statement, to the oaken frame of a subterranean doorway; and feeling sure now, that they had serious work before them, prepared for the same by going to dinner. They had no sooner gone than a terrible storm arose; the rain fell in torrents, the thunder pealed and the lightning flashed. When they went back to their work, the hole they had digged was closed up; and nothing would convince them that this was done by any other than a supernatural agency. Moreover, but a little above the place where they were, there had been no rain at all.[184] FOOTNOTE: [184] 'Arch. Camb.' 3rd Se., ix., 306. III. There is a current belief among the peasants about Moel Arthur--a mountain overlooking the Vale of Clwyd--that treasure, concealed in an iron chest with a ring-handle to it, lies buried there. The place of concealment is often illuminated at night by a supernatural light. Several people thereabouts are known to have seen the light, and there are even men who will tell you that bold adventurers have so far succeeded as to grasp the handle of the iron chest, when an outburst of wild tempest wrested it from their hold and struck them senseless. Local tradition points out the place as the residence of an ancient prince, and as a spot charmed against the spade of the antiquary. 'Whoever digs there,' said an old woman in Welsh to some men going home from their work on this spot, after a drenching wet day, 'is always driven away by thunder and lightning and storm; you have been served like everybody else who has made the attempt.' IV. So prevalent are superstitions of this class even in the present day that cases get into the newspapers now and then. The 'Herald Cymraeg' of September 25, 1874, gave an account of some excavations made at Pant-y-Saer cromlech, Anglesea, by the instigation of John Jones of Llandudno, 'a brother of Isaac Jones, the present tenant of Pant-y-Saer,' at the time on a visit to the latter. The immediately exciting cause of the digging was a dream in which the dreamer was told that there was a pot of treasure buried within the cromlech's precincts. The result was the revelation of a large number of human bones, among them five lower jaws with the teeth sound; but no crochan aur (pitcher of gold) turned up, and the digging was abandoned in disgust. Is it credible that between this account and the following yawns the gulf of seven hundred years? Thus Giraldus: In the province of Kemeys, one of the seven cantrefs of Pembrokeshire, 'during the reign of King Henry I., a rich man who had a residence on the northern side of the Preseleu mountains was warned for three successive nights by dreams that if he put his hand under a stone which hung over the spring of a neighbouring well called the Fountain of St. Bernacus, he should find there a golden chain; obeying the admonition, on the third day he received from a viper a deadly wound in his finger; but as it appears that many treasures have been discovered through dreams, it seems to me probable that some ought and some ought not to be believed.'[185] FOOTNOTE: [185] Sir R. C. Hoare's Giraldus, 'Itin. Camb.' ii., 37. V. In a certain cavern in Glamorganshire, called the Ogof Cigfrain, or Cavern of the Ravens, is said to be a chest of gold, watched over by two birds of gloomy plumage, in a darkness so profound that nothing can be seen but the fire of their sleepless eyes. To go there with the purpose of disturbing them is to bring on a heaving and rolling of the ground, accompanied by thunder and lightning. A swaggering drover from Brecknockshire, though warned by a 'dark woman' that he had better not try it, sneered that 'a couple of ravens were a fine matter to be afraid of indeed!' and ventured into the cavern, with a long rope about his waist, and a lantern in his hand. Some men who accompanied him (seeing that he was bent on this rash and dangerous emprise,) held the coil of rope, and paid it out as he went further and further in. The result was prompt and simple: the sky cracked with loud bursts of thunder and flashes of lightning, and the drover roared with affright and rushed out of the dark cavern with his hair on end. No coaxing ever prevailed on him to reveal the terrible sights he had seen; when questioned he would only repeat in Welsh the advice of 'Punch' to those about to marry, viz., 'Peidiwch!' VI. In the legend of Castell Coch, instead of a raven it is a pair of huge eagles which watch the treasure. Castell Coch is an easy and pleasant two hours' walk from Cardiff Castle, with which it is vulgarly believed to be connected by a subterranean passage. A short time ago--well, to be precise, a hundred years ago, but that is no time at all in the history of Castell Coch, which was a crumbling ruin then as it is now[186]--in or about the year 1780, a reduced lady was allowed to fit up three or four rooms in the ruin as a residence, and to live there with two old servants of her house. One night this lady was awakened from her sleep to receive the visit of a venerable ghost in a full dress-suit of an earlier century, who distressed her by his troubled countenance and vexed her by his eccentric behaviour, for when she spoke to him from the depths of her nightcap he at once got through the wall. He came on subsequent nights so often, and frightened the servants so much by the noise he made--in getting through the wall, of course--that the lady gave up her strange abode, and was glad to pay house rent ever after in other parts. This old ghost was in the flesh proprietor of the castle, it appears, and during the civil wars buried an iron chest full of gold in the subterranean passage--which is still there, guarded by two large eagles. A party of gentlemen who somewhere about 1800 attempted to explore the passage saw the eagles, and were attacked by the birds of freedom so fiercely that they retreated in disorder. Subsequently they returned with pistols and shot the eagles, which resented this trifling impertinence by tearing the treasure-seekers in a shocking manner. After having recovered from their wounds, the determined Welshmen renewed the attack--this time with silver bullets, which they had got blessed by a good-natured priest. The bullets rattled harmlessly on the feathers of the terrible birds; the ground shook under foot; rain descended in torrents; with their great wings the eagles beat out the gold-hunters' torches, and they barely escaped with their lives. FOOTNOTE: [186] It is at present being entirely restored and made habitable by its owner, Lord Bute. VII. The shadowy Horror which keeps vigil over these hidden treasures is now a dragon, again a raven or an eagle, again a worm. In the account of the treasure-seeker of Nantyglyn, it is a winged creature of unknown nature, a 'mysterious incubus,' which broods over the chest in the cave. The terrible Crocodile of the Lake, which was drawn from its watery hiding-place by the Ychain Banog, or Prominent Oxen of Hu Gadarn, is also sometimes called a dragon (draig) in those local accounts which survive in the folk-lore of several different districts. It infested the region round about the lake where it lay concealed, and the mighty oxen so strained themselves in the labour of drawing it forth that one of them died and the other rent the mountain in twain with his bellowing. Various legends of Sleeping Warriors appear in Welsh folk-lore, in which the dragon is displaced by a shadowy army of slumbering heroes, lying about in a circle, with their swords and shields by their sides, guarding great heaps of gold and silver. Now they are Owen Lawgoch and his men, who lie in their enchanted sleep in a cavern on the northern side of Mynydd Mawr, in Carmarthenshire; again they are Arthur and his warriors, asleep in a secret ogof under Craig-y-Ddinas, waiting for a day when the Briton and the Saxon shall go to war, when the noise of the struggle will awaken them, and they will reconquer the island, reduce London to dust, and re-establish their king at Caerleon, in Monmouthshire. Dragon or demon, raven or serpent, eagle or sleeping warriors, the guardian of the underground vaults in Wales where treasures lie is a personification of the baleful influences which reside in caverns, graves, and subterraneous regions generally. It is something more than this, when traced back to its source in the primeval mythology; the dragon which watched the golden apples of Hesperides, and the Payshtha-more, or great worm, which in Ireland guards the riches of O'Rourke, is the same malarious creature which St. Samson drove out of Wales. According to the monkish legend, this pestiferous beast was of vast size, and by its deadly breath had destroyed two districts. It lay hid in a cave, near the river. Thither went St. Samson, accompanied only by a boy, and tied a linen girdle about the creature's neck, and drew it out and threw it headlong from a certain high eminence into the sea.[187] This dreadful dragon became mild and gentle when addressed by the saint; did not lift up its terrible wings, nor gnash its teeth, nor put out its tongue to emit its fiery breath, but suffered itself to be led to the sea and hurled therein.[188] In the 'Mabinogion,' the dragon which fights in Lludd's dominion is mentioned as a plague, whose shriek sounded on every May eve over every hearth in Britain; and it 'went through people's hearts, and so scared them, that the men lost their hue and their strength, and the women their children, and the young men and maidens lost their senses.'[189] 'Whence came the _red_ dragon of Cadwaladr?' asks the learned Thomas Stephens.[190] 'Why was the Welsh dragon in the fables of Merddin, Nennius, and Geoffrey, described as _red_, while the Saxon dragon was _white_?' The question may remain long unanswered, for the reason that there is no answer outside the domain of fancy, and therefore no reason which could in our day be accepted as reasonable.[191] The Welsh word 'dragon' means equally a dragon and a leader in war. Red was the most honourable colour of military garments among the British in Arthur's day; and Arthur wore a dragon on his helmet, according to tradition. His haughty helmet, horrid all with gold, Both glorious brightness and great terror bred, For all the crest a dragon did enfold With greedy paws.[192] But the original dragon was an embodiment of mythological ideas as old as mankind, and older than any written record. The mysterious beast of the boy Taliesin's song, in the marvellous legend of Gwion Bach, is a dragon worthy to be classed with the gigantic conceptions of the primeval imagination, which sought by these prodigious figures to explain all the phenomena of nature. 'A noxious creature from the rampart of Satanas,' sings Taliesin; with jaws as wide as mountains; in the hair of its two paws there is the load of nine hundred waggons, and in the nape of its neck three springs arise, through which sea-roughs swim.[193] FOOTNOTES: [187] 'Liber Landavensis,' 301. [188] Ibid., 347. [189] 'Mabinogion,' 461. [190] 'Literature of the Kymry,' 25. [191] Mr. Conway, in his erudite chapter on the Basilisk, appears to think that the red colour of the Welsh dragon, in the legend of Merlin and Vortigern, determines its moral character; that it illustrates the evil principle in the struggle between right and wrong, or light and darkness, as black does in the Persian legends of fighting serpents.--'Demonology and Devil-Lore,' p. 369. (London, Chatto and Windus, 1879.) [192] Spenser, 'Faerie Queene.' [193] 'Mabinogion,' 484. VIII. For the prototype of the dragon-haunted caves and treasure-hills of Wales, we must look to the lightning caverns of old Aryan fable, into which no man might gaze and live, and which were in fact the attempted explanation of thunderstorms, when the clouds appeared torn asunder by the lightning. Scholars have noted the impressive fact that the ancient Aryan people had the same name for cloud and mountain; in the Old Norse, 'klakkr' means both cloud and rock, and indeed the English word cloud has been identified with the Anglo-Saxon 'clûd,' rock.[194] Equally significant here is the fact that in the Welsh language 'draig' means both lightning and dragon. Primeval man, ignorant that the cloud was in any way different in structure from the solid mountains whose peaks it emulated in appearance, started back aghast and trembling when with crashing thunders the celestial rocks opened, displaying for an instant the glowing cavern whose splendour haunted his dreams. From this phenomenon, whose goblins modern science has tamed and taught to run errands along a wire, came a host of glittering legends, the shining hammer of Thor, the lightning spear of Odin, the enchanted arrow of Prince Ahmed, and the forked trident of Poseidon, as well as the fire-darting dragons of our modern folk-lore. [Illustration: {THISTLE DECORATION.}] FOOTNOTE: [194] Max Müller, 'Rig-Veda,' i. 44. And see Mr. Baring-Gould's 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,' etc. INDEX A. Aberdovey, the Bells of, 339, 344 Aderyn y Corph, the, 212 All Fools' Day, 274 All Hallows, 280 Alluring Stone, the, 367 American Ghost Stories, 139, 185 Angels, Apparitions of, 208 Animals' Terrors at Goblins, 171 Annwn, the World of Shadows, 7, 34 Antic Spirits, 180 Aphrodite, the Welsh, 350 Apple Gift, the, 253 Arian y Rhaw, 333 Arthur, the Mythic and the Historic, vii. Arthur's Dog, 363 " Pot, 369 " Quoits, 370 " Round Table, 369 " Seat, Bed, Castle, Stone, etc., 369 Ascension Day, Curious Superstition concerning, 25 Aura, the Human, its Perception by Dogs, 172 Avagddu, 219 Avalon, 8 B. Ball-playing in Churchyards, 272 Bangu, the, 340 Banshee, the, 212 " " in America, 247 Banwan Bryddin, the Stone of, 374 Barnwell, Rev. E. L., cited, 324 Baron's Gate, Legend of the, 127 Barry Island, Mysterious Noises on, 353 Basilisks in Mines, 27 Beer-drinking at Funerals, 322 Bells, Superstitions concerning, 339 " of Aberdovey, 339, 344 " " St. Cadoc, 339 " " Rhayader, Legend of the, 341 " " St. Illtyd, 342 " " St. Oudoceus, 343 Beltane Fires, 278 Bendith y Mamau, 12 Betty Griffith and the Fairies, 115 Birds of Rhiannon, the, 91 Blabbing, Penalty of, 119 Black Book of Carmarthen, the, 350 " Maiden of Caerleon, the, 219 " Man of Ffynon yr Yspryd, 178 " Men in the Mabinogion, 178 Blue Petticoat, Old Elves of the, 132 Bogie, the, 32 Boxing-day, 295 Branwen, Daughter of Llyr, 91 Bread and Cheese in Fairy Mythology, 44 Brownie, the, 186 Bundling, or Courting Abed, 300 Buns, 267 Burial Customs, 321 Bush of Heaven, Legend of the, 73 Bute, the Marquis of, cited, 136 Bwbach, the, 30 " and the Preacher, the, 30 C. Cadogan's Ghost, 149 Cadwaladr's Goat, the Legend of, 54 Cae Caled, the Dwarfs of, 28 Cae Mawr, the Mowing of, 61 Caerau, the Woman of, 239 Caerphilly, the Green Lady of, 132 Calan Ebrill, 274 Cân y Tylwyth Teg, the, 99 Canna's Stone, 362 Canrig Bwt, the Legend of, 368 Canwyll Corph, the, 238 Caradoc the Bloody, 348 Caridwen's Caldron, 88 Carols, 288 Carrying the Kings, 276 " Cynog, 279 " Mortals through the Air, 157, 163 Castell Coch, the Eagles of, 390 " Correg, 380 Catrin Gwyn, the Legend of, 144 Catti Shon, the Witch of Pencader, 77 Cavern of Ravens, the, 389 Ceffyl Pren, the, 319 Chained Spirit, the, 168 Chaining at Weddings, 313 Changelings, 56 Cheese in Welsh Fairy Tales, 44 Christmas Observances, 286 Classification of Fairies, 11 " " Ghosts, 141 " " Customs, 252 Coblynau, 24 Cock-crow, Fairy Dislike of, 112 " a Death Omen when Untimely, 213 Colliers' Star, the, 294 Colour in Fairy Costume, 131 Compacts with the Diawl, 202 Conway, Mr., cited, 393 Coolstrin, the, 317 Corpse, an Insulted, 146 " Bird, the, 212 " Candle, the, 238 Courting Abed, 300 Courtship and Marriage, 298 Craig y Ddinas, a Fairy Haunt, 6 Criminals' Graves, Superstitions concerning, 331 Crocodile of the Lake, the, 392 Cromlechs, Superstitions concerning, 379 " Legendary Names of, 381 Cross-roads, Stones at, 368 Crown of Porcelain, the, 269 Crumlyn Lake, Legend of, 35 Curiosity Tales, 86 Cursing Wells, 355 Customs, Superstitious and Traditional, 250 Cutty Wren, the, 257 Cwm Llan, the Shepherds of, 121 Cwm Pwca, Breconshire, 20 Cwn Annwn, 233 Cwn y Wybr, 233 Cyhyraeth, the, 219 " of St. Mellons, the, 221 " " the Sea-coast, the, 221 D. Dancing Stones of Stackpool, the, 375 Dancing in Churchyards, 273 " with Fairies, 70 Death Portents, 212 Devil, when Invented, 210 " as a Familiar Spirit, 197 " exorcising the, 199 " in his Customary Form, 202 " measured for a Suit of Clothes, 202 " his Stupidity, 202 " as a Bridge-builder, 206 " at Tintern Abbey, 207 " and the Foul Pipe, a Legend, 204 Devil's Bridge, Legends of the, 205 " Nags, the, 170 " Pulpit, the, 207 " Stone at Llanarth, the, 378 Dewi Dal and the Fairies, 61 Didactic Purpose in Welsh Fairy Tales, 44 " " " Spirits, 145 Dissenters, Fairy Antipathy to, 6 Divination, 302 Dog of Darkness, the, 168 Dogs of the Fairies, 234 " " Hell, 233 " " the Sky, 233 " Fetichistic Notions of, 172 " Ghosts of, 167 Dracæ, 47 Dragons, 391 Dreams of Flying, 164 Druidic Fires, 278 Druids, Fairies Hiding, 129 Duffryn House, the Ghost of, 143 Duty-compelled Ghosts, 146 Dwarfs, 27 Dwynwen, the Welsh Venus, 299, 350 Dyfed, the Ancient, 5 E. Early Inscribed Stones, Superstitions concerning, 373 Easter Customs, 269 Egg-shell Pottage, Story of the, 60 Eisteddfodau, 293 Eithin Hedges, a Protection against Fairies, 115 Elf Queen, the, 14 Elfin Dames, 34 " Cow, the, 36 Elidurus, the Tale of, 65 Ellylldan, the, 18 Ellyllon, 12 Elves, 13 Enchanted Harp, the, 94 Epimenides, 89 Equestrian Fairies, 107 " Ghosts, 174 Eumenides, 12 Euphemisms, 12, 114, 209 Excalibur, 53 Exorcism of Changelings, 57 " " Devils, 199 " " Fairies, 112, 116 " " Ghosts, 165 " " Child-stealing Elves, 62 Expanding Stone, the, 365 F. Fair Folk, 12 Fairies, existing belief in, 2 " King of the, 6 " Welsh names of, 12 " at Market, 9 " of the Mines, 24 " of the Lakes, 34 " of the Mountains, 49 " Dancing with, 70 " of Frennifawr, Legend of the, 82 " on Horseback, 107 " the Red, 127 " hiding Druids, 129 " why in Wales, 132 " their Origin, 127 " Bad Spirits, 134 " on familiar terms with Ghosts, 157 " of the Cromlechs, 380 Fairy Land, 5 " Queen, 14 " Islands, 8, 45 " Food, 13 " Gloves, 13 " Coal-mining, 27 " Father, the, 45 " a, captured by a Welshwoman, 78 " Song, 99 " Rings, 103 " Conversations, 106 " Battle, a, 107 " Animals, 108 " Sheepfold, the, 109 " Gifts, 119 " Tales, débris of Ancient Mythology, 135 Falling of Coychurch Tower, 386 Familiar Spirits, 187 " " in Female Form, 191 Family Ghosts, 142 Fatal Draught, the, 83 Fetches, 215 Fetichism, 338 Fetichistic Notions of Lower Animals, 171 Ffarwel Ned Pugh, 99 Ffynon yr Yspryd, 178 Ffynon Canna, 362 Fiend Master, Legend of the, 86 Fire-damp Goblins, 27 Fires, Mysterious, 213 First Foot on New Year's Day, 254 First Night of Winter, 280 Flowering Sunday, 266 Food at Funerals, 322 Forest of the Yew, Legend of the, 73 Foul Pipe, Story of the, 204 Fountain of Venus, the, 350 Fountains Flowing with Milk, 356 Fourth of July, 278 Frennifawr, the Fairies of, 82 Friday, its Bad Reputation, 268 Frugal Meal, Legend of the, 58 Funeral Customs, 321 " the Goblin, 231 Future Life, the Question of a, 247 Fuwch Gyfeiliorn, the, 36 G. Gallery under the Sea, 10 Gast Rhymhi, the Legend of, 381 Ghosts, Existing Belief in, 137 " in America, 139 " Classification of, 141 " with a Duty to Perform, 146 " of Ebbw Vale, 142 " on Horseback, 154, 174 " Exorcising, 165 " of Animals, 167 " Grotesque, 174 " Gigantic, 176 " their Origin, 247 " of Bells, 339 " Stories of-- The Weaver's Ghost, 147 Cadogan's Ghost, 149 The Ghost of Ystradgynlais, 157 The Admiral's Ghost, 143 The Miser's Ghost, 152 The Ghost of St. Donat's, 143 The Pont Cwnca Bach Ghost, 144 The Ghost of Noe, 147 Anne Dewy's Ghost, 153 The Clifford Castle Ghost, 155 The Ghost of Ty'n-y-Twr, 155 The Ghost of the Silver Spurs, 156 The Tridoll Valley Sprite, 181 The Mynyddyslwyn Sprite, 187 Giants, 370 Giants' Dance, the, 371 Gigantic Ghosts, 176 Giraldus Cambrensis, 65 Gitto Bach, the Legend of, 119 Gnomes, 24 Goats, Strange Beliefs concerning, 53 Gobelin, the French, 32 Goblin Animals, 167 " Funerals, 231 God's Name as an Exorcism, 112 " " in the Bardic Traditions, 209 Good Friday Customs, 266 Good Old Times, the, 252 Grassless Grave, Legend of the, 331 Green Lady of Caerphilly, the, 132 " Meadows of the Sea, 8 Groaning Spirits, 222 Grotesque Ghosts, 174 Guest, Lady Charlotte, 5 Guy Fawkes Day Customs, 284 Gwahoddwr, the, 307 Gwenfrewi, Legend of, 347 Gwerddonau Llion, 8 Gwion Bach (Taliesin), 88, 394 Gwrach y Rhibyn, the, 216 Gwragedd Annwn, the, 34 Gwraig of the Golden Boat, the, 41 Gwydion, the Wizard Monarch, 5 Gwyllgi, the, 168 Gwyllion, 49 Gwyn ap Nudd, 6, 372 H. Hafod Lwyddog, Legend of, 124 Hallow E'en Customs, 280 Hares, Mythological Details, 162 Harp Music among Welsh Fairies, 94 Haunted Bridge, the, 144 " Castles and Houses, 143 " Margaret, 165 Headless Horse, the, 216 Hecate, 49 Hermes, 236 Hidden Treasures and Perturbed Ghosts, 151 " " Dragon-Guarded, 386 Hobgoblin, 32 Holy Thursday, Superstition concerning, 25, 268 Horse-Weddings, 310 Hot-cross Buns, 267 Household Fairy, the, 31 Howell Dda, 298 I. Iago ap Dewi's Seven Years' Absence, 88 Ianto Llewellyn and the Fairies, 123 Idris the Giant, 370 Incubus, 193 Inscribed Stones, Superstitious Dread of, 373 Iolo ap Hugh, the Legend of, 99 Islands, the Enchanted, 8 J. Jack-muh-Lantern, 18 Jennet Francis and the Fairy Child-Stealers, 62 John the Red Nose, 258 Jones, the Prophet, 104 Juan White, the Spirit of, 50 K. Knife, Exorcism by the, 52 Knockers in Mines, 24 Kobolds, 29 L. Lady of the Fountain, 178, 385 " " Wood, Legend of the, 193 Lake Fairies, 34 Lang, A., cited, 197 Language of the Fairies, 106 Lapse of Time under Enchantment, 89 Laws of the Welsh Spirit-World, 148 Leek, Wearing of the, 260 Lenten Customs, 266 Levitation of Mortals, 157, 163 Levy Dew, 255 Lies, the Tump of, 273 Lifting at Easter, 269 Lightning Caverns, 394 Linen, its Ancient Value, 133 Listening at the Church Door, 214 Lisworney-Crossways, the Legend of, 169 Living with Fairies, 65 Llandaff Gwrach y Rhibyn, the, 217 Llechlafar Stone, 364 Lledrith, the, 215 Llwyd the Magician, 159, 190 Llwyn y Nef, the Bush of Heaven, 72 Llyn Barfog, the Fairy Maiden of, 36 " y Dywarchen, the Lady of, 44 " y Fan Fach, the Sirens of, 38 " Glas, the Shepherd of, 124 " y Morwynion, the Maidens' Lake, 47 Logan Stones, Superstitions concerning, 378 Lord and Beggar, Legend of the, 230 Love Charms, 302 Lucky Days, 268 Lukis, J. W., cited, 3, 380 Luther and the Changeling, 57 M. Mab, 14 Mabinogion, the, 5, 14, 91 Magic Carpet, 164 " Harp, 95 Maidens' Lake, the, 47 Maid's Trick, the, 302 Making Christ's Bed, 267 Mallt y Nos, the, 215 Marget yr Yspryd, 165 Mari Lwyd, the, 256 Marketing on Tombstones, 280 Marriage Customs, 306 May-day Customs, 274 Meddygon Myddfai, Legend of the, 38 Melerius, the Legend of, 192 Melusina, the Welsh, 381 Memorials of Arthur, 369 Men of Ardudwy, the Legend of the, 47 Merlin the Enchanter, as a Stone Remover, 371 " " " and the Red Dragon, 393 " an Early Myth, viii. Mermaids, 35, 47 Merthyr, the Rector of, cited, 3 Methodists, Banishers of Fairies, 6 Mid-Lent Sunday, 266 Midsummer Eve, 277 Milford Haven, the Fairies at, 9 Milk from Fountains, 356 Milk-white Milch Cow, Legend of the, 37 Mine Goblins, 24 Miner's Wraith, the, 215 Mirage, 173 Moel Arthur, the Treasure-Chest of, 388 Moelfre Hill, the Women of, 376 Mol Walbec the Giantess, 370 Monacella's Lambs, 162 Money thrown in Wells, 354 Morgan, Born of the Sea, 47 Morgana, 7 Mothering Sunday, 266 Mountain Ash, the Three Rods of, 210 " the Old Woman of the, 49 Mourning in Lent, 266 Music in Welsh Fairy Tales, 91, 98 Myfyr Morganwg, 277 Mystic Wells, 345 N. Nadolig, 286 Names of Welsh Fairies, 12 Nant yr Ellyllon, 79 Narberth in Mythic Story, 198, 234 New Year's Day Customs, 252 Night Fiend, the, 215 Nights for Spirits, the Three, 280 Nis, the, 186 Noises, Mysterious, on Barry Island, 353 North Wales, Fairyland in, 5 Nos Calan Gauaf, 280 O. Oaks, Superstitions concerning, 105 Odin's Spear, 395 Offrwm, the, 332 Old Woman of the Mountain, 49 " " " Torrent, 216 Origins of Fairies, 127 " " the Devil, 210 " " Death Omens, 245 " " Customs, 251 " " Spirits, 247 " " Mystic Well Superstitions, 359 " " Superstitions regarding Stones, 383 " " Dragons, 395 Owen Lawgoch and his Enchanted Men, 392 Owl's Screech a Death Omen, 213 P. Palm Sunday Customs, 266 Pant Shon Shenkin, the Legend of, 75 Pant-y-Madoc, the Gwyllgi of, 170 Pant-y-Saer, the Treasure-Hunter of, 389 Parc-y-Bigwrn, the Cromlech of, 382 Parson's Penny, 332 Pebble-Tossers, Gigantic, 370 Pembrokeshire a Land of Mystery, 10 Peredur, the Legend of, 202, 366 Phantom Horseman, the, 174 " Ships and Islands, 173 Pigmies, 24 Pins in Enchantment, 354 Place of Strife, the Legend of the, 59 Plant Annwn, 34 Planting Weeds on Graves, 298 " Flowers on Graves, 299, 336 Plentyn-newid, the, 56 Plygain, the, 294 Poetico-Religious Theory of Fairies' Origin, 134 Polly Williams and the Fairies, 81 Polyphemus, the Welsh, 179, 202 Pontypridd, Druidic Ceremonies at, 277 Preacher and Bwbach, the, 30 Prolific Woman, Legend of the, 133 Pronunciation of Welsh Words, Preface Propitiation of Goblins, 12, 114 Psyche, 86 Puck, the Welsh, 20 Puzzling Jug, the, 283 Pwca'r Trwyn, Account of, 187 " " chastises a Servant Girl, 22 " " travels in a Jug, 118 " " a Proscribed Noble, 128 " " was it a Fairy, 190 Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, 234 Q. Quintain, the, 284, 313 Quoits, Arthur's, 370 R. Ravens, Cave of the, 389 Realistic Theory of Fairies' Origin, 129 Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch), 5 " Fairies, the, 127 " Lady of Paviland, the, 386 Rhamanta, 302 Rhitta Gawr, the Giant, 372 Rhys and Llewellyn, the Story of, 70 Rice at Weddings, 314 Richard the Tailor, 160 Rip Van Winkle, the Original of, 89 Robber's Stone, the, 376 Rocking Stone, Superstitions concerning, 378 Rowli Pugh and the Ellyll, 15 S. Sabbath-breakers Turned to Stone, 376 Sacred Wells, 345 Sagranus Stone, the, 375 Sailors' Superstitions, 9 St. Barruc's Well, 352 St. Ceyna, the Legend of, 377 St. Clement's Day, 284 St. Collen, the Legend of, 7 St. Cynfran's Well, 351 St. Cynhafal's Well, 351 St. David the Introducer of Death Portents into Wales, 245 " his Day, 259 " his Legendary Character, 260 St. Dogmell's Parish, 69, 273 St. Dwynwen's Well, 350 St. Elian's Well, 355 St. George's Well, 351 St. Gwenfrewi, the Legend of, 347 St. Gwynwy's Well, 353 St. Illtyd's Well, 357 St. John's Eve, 277 St. Mary's Well, 346 St. Melangell's Lambs, 162 St. Patrick and the Elfin Dames, 35 " a Welshman, 264 " his Day, 264 St. Samson and the Dragon, 392 St. Tegla's Well, 329, 349 St. Tydecho's Blue Stone, 367 St. Ulric's Day, 279 St. Valentine's Day, 259 St. Winifred's Well, 346 Salt at Funerals, 328 Sanford's Well, 358 Scapegoat, the, 329 Science, the Marvels of, 248 Seeing the Sun Dance, 273 Serpents Turned to Stones, 377 Seven Whistlers, the, 213 Sgilti Yscawndroed, the Lightfooted, 164 Shakspeare, his use of Welsh Folk-Lore, 14, 44 " his Visit to Wales, 20 Shepherds of Cwm Llan, the Legends of the, 121 Shoe-throwing, 314 Shon ap Shenkin, the Story of, 92 Showmen's Superstitions, 255 Shrove Tuesday, 265 Shuï Rees and the Fairies, 67 Sin-eater, the, 324 Sion Cent the Magician, 203 Skulls, 145 Sleeping Saints, the, 73 " Heroes, Legends of, 162, 392 Snake Stone, the, 278 Soul, its Future Destiny, 249 Souls of Dogs, 167 Sowling, 258 Spade Money, 333 Spectral Animals, 167 Spirit Fountain, the, 178 " Life, the Question of a, 249 " Nights, the Three, 280 " World, Laws Governing the Welsh, 148 Spirits' Antics, 180 Spiritual Hunting Dogs, 235 Spiritualism, 139 Spitting at the Name of the Devil, 209 Stanley, Hon. W. O., cited, 19, 115 Stone-throwing Spirits, 180, 185 Stone-tossing Giants, 370 Stone-worship, 361 Stone of Invisibility, the, 365 " " Remembrance, the, 366 " " Golden Gifts, the, 366 Stones, Curious Superstitions concerning, 361 " at Cross-roads, 368 " of Healing, 367 Storms, Baleful Spirits of, 385 Stripping the Carpenter, 284 Suicides, Superstitions concerning, 146, 331 Sul Coffa, 335 Summoning Spirits, 199 Supernatural, What is the, 248 Superstition, its Degree of Prevalence, 138, 251 " in the United States, 139, 252 Sweethearts' Charms, 302 T. Taff's Well, 358 Taffy ap Sion, the Shoemaker's Son, Legend of, 75 Tailor Magician of Glanbran, the, 200 Taliesin, the Tale of, 88 " his Dragon, 394 Talking Stone, the, 364 Tan-wedd, the, 213 Teetotallers, Fairy Antipathy to, 6 Teir-nos Ysprydnos, 280 Terrors of the Brute, Creation at Apparitions, 171 Teulu, the, 231 Thief-catching Stone, the, 366 Thigh Stone, the, 363 Thomas, Rev. Dr., cited, 300 Thor's Hammer, 395 Three Blows, the Story of the, 40 " Losses by Disappearance, the, 9 " Nights for Spirits, the, 280 Throwing at Cocks, 265 Thunder and Lightning as a Death Omen, 213 Toads and Warts, 352 Tolaeth, the, 225 Tolling the Bell, 340 Tooling, 258 Toriad y Dydd, 125 Transformation of Human Beings to Animals, 167, 381 " " " Stone, 374, 376 Transportation through the Air, 157, 163 Trichrug, the Giant of, 371 Tricking the Diawl, 203 Tridoll Valley Ghost, the, 181 Tudur of Llangollen, the Story of, 79 Tump of Lies, the, 273 Twelfth Night Customs, 256 Tylwyth Teg, the, 12 U. Unknowable, the, 138 Unlucky Days, 268 V. Vale of Neath, the, its Goblin Fame, 6 Vavasor Powell and the Devil, 198 Veil, the Goblin, 232 Venus, the Welsh, 299 " " her Well, 350 Villemarqué cited, 58 W. Walking Barefoot to Church, 266 Walking-stones, 363 Warts, 351, 367 Water Maidens, 47 " Worship, 359 Wedding Customs, 306 Wells, Mystic, 345 Wesley's Belief in Apparitions, 141 Whistlers, the, 213 Whistling Goblin, the, 178 White as a Fairy Colour, 132 " Catti of the Grove Cave, 144 Whitening Doorsteps to Keep off the Devil, 207 Wife of Supernatural Race, 38 Wild Huntsman, 235 Will-o'-Wisp, 20 Witches Sleeping under Stones, 368 Wonder Stone of Banwan Bryddin, the, 374 Wraiths, 215 Y. Ychain Banog, the, 108, 392 Yellow Spot before Death, the, 216 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. _A Catalogue of American and Foreign Books Published or Imported by MESSRS. SAMPSON LOW & CO. can be had on application._ _Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street, London, April, 1879._ A List of Books PUBLISHED BY SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON. ALPHABETICAL LIST. _A classified Educational Catalogue of Works_ published in Great Britain. Demy 8vo, cloth extra. 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Crown 8vo, boards, 2_s._ ---- _Books I. to VII._ Boards, 3_s._ 6_d._ London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. Transcriber's Note Minor punctuation errors have been repaired. Hyphenation and accent usage has been made consistent throughout. Capitalisation of items in the Table of contents and chapter headers has been made consistent. On page 181, following an account of the damage caused by spirits is the line "This pleasant experience was often repeated." The word 'pleasant' may be an error on the part of the author or typesetter, and 'unpleasant' was actually intended, or it may be deliberate on the part of the author. Since it is impossible to be sure, it is preserved as printed. The following amendments have been made, addressing typographic errors or inconsistency: Page xi--Llwellyn amended to Llewellyn--"... Ianto Llewellyn and the Tylwyth Teg ..." Page 17--reducable amended to reducible--"... all household tales are reducible to a primeval root ..." Page 45--hurrry amended to hurry--"... in her hurry to remount, ..." Page 49--Llanhyddel amended to Llanhiddel--"... the guise in which she haunted Llanhiddel Mountain ..." Page 75--acccustomed amended to accustomed--"... the barren mountain he was accustomed to." Page 106--Mammau amended to Mamau--"... Ni chytunant hwy mwy na Bendith eu Mamau, ..." Page 117--Dolgelly amended to Dolgelley--"But first consulting a wise woman at Dolgelley, ..." Page 117--gods amended to goods (based on reference to same further up the same page)--"He was flitting with the household goods, ..." Page 125--Mammau amended to Mamau--"... as Bendith y Mamau was poured down ..." Page 135--hape amended to have--"... may desire to know why these fairies have appeared ..." Page 137--Shakespeare amended to Shakspeare--"SHAKSPEARE: _Tempest_." Page 176--Lantarnam amended to Llantarnam--"... who lived in the parish of Llantarnam." Page 241--Landavenis amended to Landavensis--"In the 'Liber Landavensis' it is mentioned ..." Page 275--Llud amended to Lludd--"... the daughter of Lludd Llaw Ereint." Page 276--VIII amended to VII--"VII. In the remote and primitive parish ..." Page 314--IV amended to III--"III. Among the wealthier classes ..." Page 317--V amended to IV--"IV. A custom called the Coolstrin ..." Page 338--Faery amended to Faerie--"SPENSER: _Faerie Queene_." Page 343--Taf amended to Taff--"When they came to the banks of the river Taff, ..." Page 358--well amended to Well--"Taff's Well, in Glamorganshire, ..." Page 399--Gwin amended to Gwyn--"Catrin Gwyn, the Legend of, 144" Page 400--Wybyr amended to Wybr--"Cwn y Wybr, 233" Page 404--Howel amended to Howell--"Howell Dda, 298" Page 408--Dyved amended to Dyfed--"Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, 234" The frontispiece illustration has been moved to follow the title page. Other illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.