These English domestic sprites or elves that seem to claim a species of kinship to those they alternately torment and render substantial aid, clearly find their counterparts in the ghost and fairy lore of other nations. Kelly says, "Many similar tales are told of the German Zwergs, or dwarfs, who are the same race of little people as the elves and fairies that live in the hearts of green hills and mounds in Great Britain and Ireland. Often does it happen that a whole colony of these Zwergs effects an exodus from a German district, because the people have given them some offence, or 'have become too knowing for them;' and on these occasions there is always a river to be crossed." This was ever a difficulty, but not an unconquerable one, with the German elves. In England and Scotland a certain class of goblin or ghost found a running stream an impassable barrier. Poor Tam O'Shanter's mare Meg demonstrated the truth of this by the sacrifice of her caudal appendage. Grimm says that many facts tend to show a near relationship between elves of this class and the souls of men. The ordinary ghosts of the present day, whether voluntary visitors or obedient servants of "spirit mediums," are supposed to be the souls of the departed. Kelly says, on the authority of Kuhn and Schwartz, "Some of the many names by which the Zwergs are known in North Germany mean the 'ancients' or the 'ancestors,' and mark the analogy between the beings so designated and the Hindoo Pitris or Fathers; whilst other names—Holden (i.e., good, kind) in Germany; good people, good neighbours, in Ireland and Scotland—connect the same elves with the Manes of the Romans." The Pitris of the Hindoos seem to furnish the germ of "good fairies," the fairy godmother, the Persian Peris, the Arabic Ginns, the chief of the followers of Oberon and Titania, and of the kindlier phase in the character of Puck, Robin Goodfellow, or the Lancashire bogie, or domestic boggart, but the larking propensity of this sprite may possibly have resulted from a more modern addition to the spirit lore of the Northern Aryan people.
Mr. Jno. Aubrey, Fellow of the Royal Society, in his "Miscellanies," published in 1696, gives what he styles "a Collection of Hermetic Philosophy," which exhibits an astonishing amount of superstition, even amongst the presumedly learned men of the age. Amongst other things he informs his readers, on the authority of a letter from a "learned friend," in Scotland, that a certain Lord Duffin was suddenly transported, by fairies, from his residence in Morayshire, and that he was "found the next day in Paris, in the French king's cellar, with a silver cup in his hand!" Such a feat was worthy of the sprite who could put a "girdle round the earth in forty minutes." Truly, as Ben Johnson's Puck says, he could "travel swifter than the wind with a load of humanity on his back."
Our ordinary stories of churchyard ghosts, and other apparitions and "spiritual manifestations," have much more in common with the "folk-lore" of classical antiquity than is generally known. There is a story told by Pliny the younger, which so much resembles many that we have heard in youth, that nothing is required but a change of name, place, and date, to thoroughly domesticate it amongst us. It is related as follows, in Melmoth's translation of Pliny's letters:
"There was at Athens a large and spacious house which lay under the disrepute of being haunted. In the dead of the night a noise resembling the clashing of iron was frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded like the rattling of chains; at first it seemed at a distance, but approached nearer by degrees; immediately afterwards a spectre appeared in the form of an old man, extremely meagre and ghastly, with a long beard and dishevelled hair, rattling the chains on his feet and hands.... By this means the house was at last deserted, being judged by everybody to be absolutely uninhabitable; so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However, in hopes that some tenant might be found who was ignorant of this great calamity which attended it, a bill was put up giving notice that it was either to be let or sold. It happened that the philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens at this time, and, reading the bill, inquired the price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion; nevertheless, when he heard the whole story, he was so far from being discouraged that he was more strongly inclined to hire it, and, in short, actually did so. When it drew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the fore part of the house, and, after calling for a light, together with his pen and tablets, he directed all his people to retire. But that his mind might not, for want of employment, be open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and spirits, he applied himself to writing with the utmost attention. The first part of the night passed with usual silence, when at length the chains began to rattle; however he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen, but diverted his observation by pursuing his studies with greater earnestness. The noise increased, and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked up, and saw the ghost exactly in the manner it had been described to him; it stood before him, beckoning with his finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and then threw his eyes again upon his papers; but, the ghost still rattling his chains in his ears, he looked up, and saw him beckoning as before. Upon this he immediately arose, and, with the light in his hand, followed it. The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with his chains, and turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, being thus deserted, made a mark, with some grass and leaves, where the spirit left him. The next day he gave information to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in chains was there found; for the body having lain for a considerable time in the ground, was putrefied and mouldered away from the fetters. The bones, being collected together, were publicly buried, and thus, after the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies, the house was haunted no more."
I was forcibly struck with the peculiarly Eastern character of a traditionary observance related to me during my investigation of the remains found in the ancient British tumulus at Over Darwen, in Lancashire, in November, 1864. I was informed that the country people spoke of the mound as a locality haunted by "boggarts," and that children were in the habit of taking off their clogs or shoes, under the influence of some such superstitious feeling, when walking past it in the night time.
Keppel, in his "Visit to the Indian Archipelago," refers to a somewhat similar superstition in Northern Australia. The natives will not willingly approach graves at night alone; "but when they are obliged to pass them, they carry a fire stick to keep off the spirit of darkness."
It is perhaps scarcely necessary that I should refer to the fact that recent naturalists have satisfactorily demonstrated that the green circles termed "fairy rings," have nothing "supernatural" in their character, being simply a result of the growth of a species of fungus. Not long ago, "the learned" contended that they resulted from some obscure kind of electric action. Sir Walter Scott, who held this opinion, sneeringly refers to them as "electrical rings, which vulgar credulity supposes to be traces of fairy revels." Thousands of English peasants, yes, and many presumedly much wiser people, nevertheless, yet firmly adhere to the ancient faith. Singularly enough, Shakspere seems almost to have intuitively guessed at their true origin. When Prospero, for the last time invokes the aid of the supernatural, he exclaims:—
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves;
And ye that on the sands with printless feet
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Sir Walter Scott thought bargaist to be the German bahrgeist, the spirit of the bier, alluding to its presence foretelling death. The word is variously written, barguest and boguest being amongst its forms. A very slight provincial change would make the latter boguerst, from whence, probably, the Lancashire boggart. The Cymric word bwg, which represents, according to Mr. Garnett, the modern bug, bugbear, and hobgoblin, has evidently intimate relation to the root of the word. This sprite is often confounded with others, and is subjected to much local variation.