There were so many things in Brittany that Father wanted to show me—places he had seen with Mother, and curious monuments, and lovely views,—that I could not get out alone again until the day before we went on to Normandy. No Fairy would ever speak to me unless I was quite by myself, and the quaint little men who peered out from the old ruins when I ran on in front, scampered away at once when Father came in sight.
On that last morning a funny old postman in a blue cap brought him some letters from home. They were about the practice, and Father said that he must stay indoors to answer them. The patients did not seem to like the “locust” at all, according to Nancy. I don’t suppose he gave them such nice-tasting medicines as Father did.
The moment he took up his pen I was off to the wood. The paths were carpeted with velvet moss, and starry flowers peeped through the green. Some bees were buzzing round a clump of violets that grew by the side of the fountain, and sitting on the steps were two hideous old women, with bleared red eyes and wisps of faded hair. As I drew near they scowled most horribly, and vanished in the spray. I was delighted to find my Wood-Elf by the violets, for somehow the sight of those two old crones had made me shiver.
“They were Korrigans!” the Wood-Elf whispered. “That is how they look by daylight, so it is no wonder that they hate to be seen by mortals! I shouldn’t advise you to come here to-night, for they will bear you a grudge, and might tempt you to dance with them!”
I thought of what had befallen Jean, and shook my head. It must be dreadful to have a hump, though I read of one once that turned into wings. But Jean’s didn’t seem that kind.
“I know better than to put myself in their power,” I cried, and the Wood-Elf laughed.
“You think you are very wise,” she said, pausing the next moment to coax a bee to give her a sip of honey, “but mortal men are not a match for Fairy Folk. The Dwarfs, or Courils, who haunt the stone tables and curious mounds you find throughout this country, compel all travellers by night who come their way to dance with them, whether they will or no. They don’t let them stop dancing until they drop to the ground, worn out with fatigue, and sometimes the poor creatures never regain their strength. Mère Gautier’s husband danced with the Dwarfs when he was but eight-and-twenty, and he has not done a stroke of work from that day to this, though now he is eighty-five. Mère Gautier keeps the home together, and he sits by the fireside and tells the neighbours how the Dwarfs looked and what they said. The Curé declares that such idleness is sinful, and that he might work if he would; but one cannot be sure, and he makes himself out to be a very poor creature.
The Gorics—tiny men but three feet high, though they have the strength of giants—are little better than Courils. Near Quiberon, by the sea shore, is a heap of huge stones, some say no less than four thousand in number, known as ‘The House of the Gorics,’ and every night the Dwarfs come out and dance round it till break of day. If they spy a belated traveller, even in the distance, they compel him to join them, just as the Courils do; and when he faints from sheer exhaustion they vanish in peals of laughter.”
“The Fairy I met in the South spoke of little men who gave away fairy gold,” I said, trying not to let my voice sound sleepy. The sun was hot, though it was early spring, and there was a grasshopper just at my elbow who had been chirping a lullaby to her babies for the last half-hour.
“If you shut your eyes you will see nothing!” the Wood-Elf pouted; and I knew that she had noticed my yawn. I sat up then, and told her how pretty I thought her frock, all brown and green, with a dainty girdle of silver. She laughed at this, and I coaxed her to tell me another story. It was one, she said, that had been sung in verse on the Welsh hills, for in ancient times the people of Wales and those of “Little Britain” were the closest friends.