There is no special reason for limiting the term "earth-house" to the underground gallery just spoken of, because the chambered mound is also as much an "earth-house." In either case, the structure itself is of stone. Therefore, we need not here restrict the term "earth-house" to one of these two varieties, but apply it equally to both. Each variety is popularly known as a "Pecht's house," and the one is as much an "earth-house" as the other.
The "hollow hill," however, will be the variety of earth-dwelling chiefly considered in this place. But, before leaving the ruder structure, reference may be made to a Shetland specimen, examined in 1865. It is described as "of a semicircular form, two feet or so beneath the arable land, about thirty feet in length, three feet in breadth and height, widening out at the western extremity to the form of a chamber of five feet square; ponderous slabs of mica-slate form the lintels. These stones have been transported from Norwick, which is the nearest depôt for such, and distant two miles." Like other similar structures this was locally known as a "Fairy Ha'."[169]
Thus, the two varieties of earth-house, each known popularly as a "Pecht's house," are also both remembered as the dwelling-place of fairies. For the chambered mound is equally a "Fairy Knowe"; in Gaelic, a "sheean" (sithean), or abode of fairies.
And as the "little people" of Scotland have been chiefly chronicled as "Pechts," or "Picts," we may further consider them in that twofold character; continuing also to regard them in the territories which have already been most frequently named. Of these, none are more worthy of examination than the districts—insulated or otherwise—in the neighbourhood of the Pecht-land Firth.
"By an authentic record of Thomas, Bishop of the Orkneys, dated 1443, and published in Wallace's "Orkneys," edit. 1700; when the Norwegians conquered these islands they found them possessed 'by two nations, the Pets [Pehts, or Pechts] and Papas'"[170] (i.e., popes or priests). The "popes" referred to are understood to have been the Irish missionaries from Iona, and of them there seems to be no distinct tradition surviving. But the other "nation" is well remembered in both of the Northern groups. "The first folks that ever were in our isles were the Picts," says Shetlandic folk-lore; "they were very small [people]."[171]
What appears to be a popular tradition relating to the time when the territory of the mound-dwelling Pechts was beginning to be invaded and settled by colonists of another race, is furnished us by Sir Walter Scott. The ballad of "Alice Brand," in "The Lady of the Lake," speaks of a "moody Elfin King, who won'd[172] within the hill." And we are told in the Appendix that this legend "is founded upon a very curious Danish Ballad, which occurs in the 'Kæmpe Viser,' a collection of heroic songs first published in 1591." It begins "Der ligger en vold i Vester Haf," which is rendered in English, "There lies a wold in Wester Haf." Scott says:—"As Wester Haf ... means the West Sea, in opposition to the Baltic or East Sea, Mr. Jamieson inclines to be of opinion that the scene ... is laid in one of the Orkney, or Hebride Islands." Both in this old ballad, and in Scott's adaptation, there is an element of the magical, or impossible, or, at least, unexplainable kind; but some of the leading facts are these:—A "husband," or yeoman, goes to this "wold in Wester Haf," taking his wife and all his belongings with him, and there he proceeds to settle down as a colonist. Like many other "backwoodsmen," he begins by felling the trees of the forest[173] for his new home, much to the indignation of the dwarfs who inhabit a certain "knock" (Gael. cnoc), or chambered mound, in that district, and who, indeed, are the owners of the soil.
"He hew'd him kipples,[174] he hew'd him bawks,[175]
Wi' mickle moil and haste,
Syne speer'd the Elf i' the knock that bade,
'Wha's hacking here sae fast?'"[176]
The dwarfs are discomfited in their attempt to enter the "husband's" house, but finally one of them succeeds:—
"The huswife she was a canny wife,
She set the Elf at the board;
She set before him baith ale and meat,
Wi' mony a weel-waled[177] word.
"'Hear thou, Gudeman o' Villenshaw,[178]
What now I say to thee;
Wha bade thee bigg[179] within our bounds,
Without the leave o' me?
"'But, an' thou in our bounds will bigg,
And bide, as well as may be,
Then thou thy dearest huswife maun
To me for a lemman gie.'"
However, the husband is not even temporarily bereft of his wife; and, indeed, after all the threatenings of the "how-folk," the settlers are allowed to remain quietly in possession of their homestead, and their daughter is afterwards married to the dwarf visitor.[180]