In this story and in many others the Swiss dwarf appears as a good Christian, but sometimes a rude and terrible form of paganism is attributed to him. In the tale of the "Gotwergini im Lötschental"[54] these dwarfs are accused of devouring children, and are said to have buried an old woman alive. She was apparently one of themselves. When they were laying her in the pit she wept bitterly, and begged that she might go free, saying she could still cook. But the dwarfs showed no pity: placing some bread and wine beside her, they covered in the grave. Is this an instance of the primitive barbarism of killing those no longer able to work, which is said still to exist among the Todas of India, and of which traces have been found in the customs of Scandinavia and other countries?[55]
The Irish fairy never appears as a Christian.[56] He is regarded by the peasant as a fallen angel, and no Church holds out to him the hope of salvation. I was told in Inishowen that a priest walking between Clonmany and Ballyliffan was surrounded by the "wee folk," who asked anxiously if they could be saved. He threw his book towards them, bade them catch it, and he would give them an answer; but at the sight of the breviary they scattered and fled.[57]
The Protestant Bible and hymn-book are equally dreaded by them, and are used as a spell against their influence. I was told in the North of Antrim of a woman who was nearly carried off by the fairies because her friends had omitted to leave these books beside her. Luckily her husband, who was sleeping by the fire, awoke in time to save her. A pair of scissors, a darning-needle, or any piece of iron, would have been efficacious as a charm, so would the husband's trousers, if thrown across the bed.
While, as we have seen, the fairies are endowed with many supernatural qualities, they have much in common with ordinary mortals; there are fairy men, fairy women, and fairy children. I have more than once heard of a fairy's funeral; they intermarry with mortals, and I have been told that those who bear the name of Ferris are descended from fairies. I presume Ferris is a corruption of Fir Sidhe. Fairies are never associated with churchyards, nor are they usually looked on as the spirits of the departed. The banshee may, indeed, partake to some extent of a ghostly character. Lady Wilde speaks of her as the "spirit of death—the most weird and awful of all the fairy powers," and adds, "but only certain families of historic lineage or persons gifted with music and song are attended by this spirit."[58]
It has often been stated that the banshee is an appanage of the great, but this is not the belief of the peasantry of Ulster: many families in humble life have a banshee attached to them. When in a curragh on Lough Sessiagh, in Co. Donegal, the neighbouring hill of Ben Olla was pointed out to me, and I was also shown a small cottage in which a girl named Olla had lived. She was carried off by the fairies, and her wailing was heard before the death of her mother, and again before the death of several members of her family. A farmer, or even a labourer, may have a banshee attached to his family—a little white creature was the description given to me by a woman who said she had seen one; others say that banshees are like birds.
To leave these weird apparitions, it will be seen that the ordinary fairy, the Grogach, the Pecht, and the Dane, all inhabit underground dwellings, although the fairy and Grogach are regarded more in the light of supernatural beings. To cut down a fairy or a "Skiough" bush is to court misfortune, sometimes to attempt an impossible task. In Glenshesk some men tried to cut down a Skiough bush, but the hatchet broke; after several failures they gave up, and the bush still flourishes. Another bush was transplanted, but returned during the night.
To the Danes and Pechts the building of all the raths and souterrains is ascribed, and in North-East Antrim the Pechts are said to have been so numerous that, when making a fort, they could stand in a long line, and hand the earth from one to another, no one moving a step. A similar story is told of the Scotch Pechts by the Rev. Andrew Small in his "Antiquities of Fife" (1823).[59] Speaking of the Round Tower of Abernethy, "The story goes," he says, "that it was built by the Pechts ... and that while the work was going on they stood in a row all the way from the Lomond Hill to the building, handing the stones from one to another.... That it has been built of freestone from the Lomond Hill is clear to a demonstration, as the grist or nature of the stone points out the very spot where it has been taken from—namely, a little west, and up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile straight south from Meralsford." According to popular tradition in Scotland, these Pechts or Picts were great builders, and many of the edifices ascribed to them belong to a comparatively late period. Mr. MacRitchie suggests that in the erection of some of these the Picts may have been employed as serfs or slaves.[60] He believes the Pechts to be the Picts of history. Mr. W. C. Mackenzie, on the other hand, has suggested that they are an earlier dwarf race, the Pets or Peti, who have been confused by the peasantry with the Picts.[61] This is a matter I must leave to others to decide; but I may remark in passing that in an ancient poem on the Cruithnians, preserved in the book of Lecan, we have a suggestion that these Cruithnians or Picts were a smaller race than their enemies, the Tuath Fidga. We are told how
"God vouchsafed unto them, in munificence,
For their faithfulness—for their reward—
To protect them from the poisoned arms
Of the repulsive horrid giants."[62]
Then follows an account of the cure discovered by the Cruithnian Druid—how he milked thrice fifty cows into one pit, and bathing in this pit appears to have healed the warriors and preserved them from harm.
In an article on "The Fairy Mythology of Europe in its Relation to Early History,"[63] Mr. A. S. Herbert identifies the early dwarf race with Palæolithic man, and states that from such skeletons as have been unearthed "it is believed that they were a people of Mongolian or Turanian origin, short, squat, yellow-skinned, and swarthy."