It has been held by many that the relics of Palæolithic man do not occur in Ireland, but the Rev. Frederick Smith has found his implements, some of them glaciated, at Killiney[99]; and Mr. Lewis Abbott, who has made the implements of early man a special study, believes that Palæolithic man lived and worked in Ireland. In a letter to me he states that this opinion is based on material in his possession. "I have," he writes, "the Irish collection of my old friend, the late Professor Rupert Jones; in this there are many immensely metamorphosed, deeply iron-stained (and the iron, again, in turn further altered), implements of Palæolithic types.... They are usually very lustrous or highly 'patinated,' as it is called." In his recent paper, "On the Classification of the British Stone Age Industries,"[100] in describing the club studs, Mr. Abbott writes: "I have found very fine examples in the Cromer Forest bed, and under and in various glacial deposits in England and Ireland." How long Palæolithic man survived in Ireland it would be difficult to say, but in such characters as the fairy ogress we are brought face to face with a very low form of savagery. It will be noted that her sons are red-haired. Now, I have often found red hair ascribed to fairies and Danes, but not to Pechts. This persistent tradition has led me to ask whether red was the colour of the hair in some early races of mankind. The following passage in Dr. Beddoe's Huxley Lecture[101] favours an affirmative answer: "There are, of course, facts, or reported facts, which would lead one to suspect that red was the original hair colour of man in Europe—at least, when living in primitive or natural conditions with much exposure, and that the development of brown pigment came later, with subjection to heat and malaria, and other influences connected with what we call 'civilisation.'"
We have seen that the implements of early man are found in spots sacred to the fairies. The Rev. Gath Whitley considers the Piskey dwarfs the earliest Neolithic inhabitants of Cornwall, and describes them as a small race who hunted the elk and the deer, and perhaps, like the Bushmen, danced and sang to the light of the moon.[102] Our traditional Irish fairies bear a strong resemblance to these Piskey dwarfs of Cornwall, and also to the Welsh fairies of whom Sir John Rhys writes that when fairyland is cleared of its glamour there seems to be disclosed "a swarthy population of short, stumpy men, occupying the most inaccessible districts of our country.... They probably fished and hunted and kept domestic animals, including, perhaps, the pig, but they depended largely on what they could steal at night or in misty weather. Their thieving, however, was not resented, as their visits were believed to bring luck and prosperity."[103] This description might apply to our Ulster fairies, who in many of the stories appear as a very primitive people. In some of the tales, however, the fairies are represented in a higher state of civilisation. They can spin and weave; they inhabit underground but well-built houses, and in the Irish records they are closely associated with the Tuatha de Danann.
I believe these Tuatha de Danann are the small Danes, who, according to tradition, built the raths and souterrains. The late Mr. John Gray[104] would ascribe a Mongoloid origin to them. In a letter written to me shortly before his death he stated his belief that the Danes and Pechts "were of the same race, and were identical with a short, round-headed race which migrated into the British Isles about 2,000 B.C. at the beginning of the Bronze Age.... The stature of these primitive Danes and Pechts was five feet three inches, and they must have looked very small men to the later Teutonic invaders of an average stature of five feet eight and a half inches."
In his papers, "Who built the British Stone Circles?"[105] and "The Origin of the Devonian Race,"[106] Mr. Gray has fully described this round-headed race, who buried in short cists, and whom he believes to have been a colony from Asia Minor of Akkadians, Sumerians, or Hittites, who migrated to England by sea in order to work the Cornish tin-mines and the Welsh copper-mines.
For a fuller exposition of these views I must refer the reader to Mr. Gray's very interesting articles.
In regard to the Tuatha de Danann, according to Keating,[107] they came from Greece by way of Scandinavia. This might lead us to infer a northern origin, or, at least, that they had taken a different route from those who came by the Mediterranean to the West of Europe. They appear to have known the use of metals and to have ploughed the land.
Dr. O'Donovan, in writing of these Tuatha de Danann, says: "From the many monuments ascribed to this colony by tradition and in ancient Irish historical tales, it is quite evident that they were a real people, and from their having been considered gods and magicians by the Gaedhil or Scoti who subdued them, it may be inferred that they were skilled in arts which the latter did not understand." Referring to the colloquy between St. Patrick and Caoilte MacRonain, Dr. O'Donovan says that it appears from this ancient Irish text that "there were very many places in Ireland where the Tuatha de Dananns were then supposed to live as sprites or fairies." He adds: "The inference naturally to be drawn from these stories is that the Tuatha de Dananns lingered in the country for many centuries after their subjugation by the Gaedhil, and that they lived in retired situations, which induced others to regard them as magicians."[108]
What is here averred of the Tuatha de Danann may be true of other primitive races who may have survived long in Ireland. It is difficult to exterminate a people, and they could not be driven farther west.
It appears to me that in the traditions of the Ulster peasantry we see indications of a tall, savage people, and of various races of small men. Some were in all probability veritable dwarfs, like those whose skeletons have been found in Switzerland, near Schaffhausen. Others may have been of the stature of the round-headed race described by Mr. John Gray, but in tradition they all—fairy, Grogach, Pecht, and Dane—appear as little people. In these tales we have not a clear outline—the picture is often blurred—but as we see the red-haired Danes carrying earth in their aprons to build the forts, the Pechts handing from one to another the large slabs to roof the souterrains, and the Grogachs herding cattle, we catch glimpses of the life of those who in long past ages inhabited Ireland.