Thus, the houses of the Pechts or dwarfs were inhabited by the people known as "fairies." As the fairies were "little people," there is here no contradiction in terms. We have, moreover, seen that the same "conical, green mounds" are remembered in Orkney and Shetland as the homes of the "trows." "Trow," however, is itself equivalent to droich, or dwarf. Therefore, the belief that those outward-seeming "green hillocks" were the abodes of Pechts is quite in agreement with the traditions that refer to those mound-dwellers as trows and fairies (otherwise "the little people"). Because pecht (or pech), trow, and fairy are all synonyms for "dwarf."
CHAPTER XI.
In a reference to the popular traditions of Northumberland, the Picts are spoken of as "a race of people who are represented, in such legends, as endowed with supernatural power, and holding, in the scale of beings, an intermediate rank between men and fairies."[121] Sir Walter Scott also corroborates this belief as existent in Northumberland ("Rob Roy," ch. xxiii). And the writer previously quoted, in describing the local tradition with regard to the building of the tower at Abernethy by the Pechts, explains that "the people always, when they speak of these Peghs, associate that idea with a notion that they were a preternatural sort of beings, such as fairies and brownies." Therefore, without entering into any discussion as to what is or was meant by "supernatural power," we have ascertained from these extracts that the Pechts were regarded, in Northumberland and in Scotland, as a race of people possessing or claiming "supernatural" attributes. And that they were akin to "fairies and brownies," if they were not identical with them. This also is the position of the "Feens" of Gaelic folk-lore, as the following references will show.
When the celebrated Irish king, Brian Borumha, defeated the Danes of Dublin and their allies, in the year 1000 A.D., it is stated that he appropriated all the vast treasures that the Danes had gathered together:—"gold and silver, and bronze, and precious stones, and carbuncle-gems, and buffalo-horns, and beautiful goblets," as well as "various vestures of all colours."[122] And the chronicler explains that "never was there a fortress, or a fastness, or a mound, or a church, or a sacred place, or a sanctuary," which the Danes had not plundered when it fell to their arms. The first three terms, which in the Gaelic are dún, daingean, and diongna, are closely allied, and each designates something akin to the "hollow mounds" of which we have been speaking.[123] But the succeeding sentence is quite explicit: "Neither was there in concealment under ground in Erinn, nor in the various solitudes belonging to Fians or to fairies, anything that was not discovered by these foreign, wonderful Denmarkians, through paganism and idol worship." With regard to which last allusion, Dr. Todd says: "The meaning is, that notwithstanding the potent spells employed by the Fians and fairies of old for the concealment of their hidden treasures, the Danes, by their pagan magic and the diabolical power of their idols, were enabled to find them out."[124] (The Gaelic from which Dr. Todd translates the above sentences is as follows:—"Ni raibh imorro dún no daingean, no diongna, no ceall, no cadhas, no neimedh do gabhadh ris an ngláim nglifidhigh, nglonnmair, ngnuismhir do bhí ag teaglaim, ocus ag teaccar na hédala sin, óir ni raibhe ifolach fo thalmain in Erinn ina fá dhiamhraibh díchealta ag fianaibh no ag síthcuiraibh ní na fuaratar na Danmargaigh allmardha ingantacha sin, tre geintlidhecht, ocus tre iodhaladhradh.")[125]
Like the Pechts in Northumbrian tradition, the Feens are here not absolutely identified with the fairies, although the two are so closely associated that it is difficult to distinguish between the one and the other. The traditions of the Feens themselves testify to a distinction between the two. Thus, in the "Dan an Fhir Shicair," or Ballad of the Fairy Man,[126] Fin and his six nobles, while walking out one evening, see a fairy-man coming towards them, who announces that he comes from the neighbouring Golden Doon (Dún an oir), and that his purpose is to cause those Feens to come, by enchantment, to dine that day with him and his people in their "hill." Here, then, we have the Feens associating, to some extent (though not, as it appears, on a very friendly footing) with fairies, and yet not themselves regarded as identical with that people.
From the foregoing reference to the plunder of the Danes at Dublin, in the year 1000, it is evident that "the Feens and Fairies" were understood, in the traditional history of the Gaels, to be then actually inhabiting those underground and half-underground dwellings known as "Pechts' houses." There is another reference, in the same history, that corroborates this belief. The date when Brian Borumha became possessor of those "fairy-hoards," which the Danes had previously obtained by their well-known process of "how-breaking,"[127] was the close of the tenth century. Now, a son of this same Brian, and also one of his father's chief warriors, are both described as asserting (on a certain occasion, in the reign of the same Brian)[128] that they had been tempted by the fairies to forsake their ancestral cause. "Often," says Murchadh, "was I offered, in hills and in fairy mansions [i sithaib ocus i sithbrugaib], this world and these gifts; but I never abandoned for one night my country nor my inheritance for them." As Murchadh's response was evoked by a similar statement on the part of Dunlang, it thus appears that, in rifling the abodes of the "how-folk," the Danes were robbing a race then alive, and were not merely appropriating unclaimed treasure. And, indeed, the Scandinavian accounts of "how-breaking" distinctly point out that this pastime involved a struggle of life and death with the armed inmate of the "how."
The evidence of Murchadh and Dunlang, then, shows that intercourse with "the fairies" was not a matter for wonder; and, moreover, that, for one reason or another, the latter desired to seduce the Gaelic-speaking people from their allegiance. That they were eventually successful with Dunlang seems pointed out by the statement, made elsewhere, that this Dunlang was himself a fairy (sioguidhe).[129] And it is well known that "Fairies," as well as "Feens," while possessing distinct innate attributes, were not averse to obtaining adherents from other races, who thus became "Feens" and "Fairies" by adoption.
In the instance of Murchadh and Dunlang, however, the Feens are not named; and it is a matter for conjecture whether they ought to be included among the Fairies there spoken of. But, at any rate, the incident shows that the Fairies (if not the Feens) formed an active, existent caste or race, subsequent to the date of Brian's famous victory over the Danes; and that the Danish inroads on their doons, brochs, hows, etc., in the neighbourhood of Dublin had not by any means annihilated them as a people.