Brownies and Bogles

by Louise Imogen Guiney

——"Still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names":

and again and again, when we cite some beautiful fiction of Merman and Kobold, of White Dwarf or Pooka, we but repeat, whether aware of it or not, how the dews come down at morning, or the storm-wind breaks the strong trees, or how a comet, trailing light, bursts headlong across the wide sky.

To comprehend fairy-stories, to get under the surface of them, we would have to go over them all at great length, and with exhaustless patience. And as in digging for the tendrils of a delicate, berry-laden vine, we have to search, sometimes, deep and wide into the woodland loam, among gnarly roots of shrubs and giant pines, so in tracing the sources of the simplest tale which makes us glad or sad, we fall across a network of ponderous ancient lore; of custom, prejudice, and lost day-dreams, from which this vine, also, is hard to be severed.

The spirit of these neat little goblin-chronicles was right and sincere; but the matter of them was often sadly astray. Of course, sometimes, useless, misleading details gathered to obscure the first idea, and to overrun it with a tangle of error; and not only were fine stories spoiled, but many were started which were funny, or silly, or grim merely, without serving any use beyond that.

But so powerful is Truth, when there was actually a grain of it at the centre, that even those versions which were exaggerated and distorted, played into the hands of what we call Folk-lore, and laid their golden key at the feet of Science. You will discover that, besides pointing out the workings of the natural world, the fairy-tales rested often on the workings of our own minds and consciences. The Brownie was a little schoolmaster set up to teach love of order, and the need of perfect courtesy; the Nix betokened anything sweet and beguiling, which yet was hurtful, and to which it was, and is, a gallant heart's duty not to yield. And thus, from beginning to end, the elves at whom we laugh, help us toward larger knowledge, and a more chivalrous code of behavior. How shall we say, then, that there never was a fairy?

A miner, hearing the drip of subterranean water, took it to be a Duergar or a Bucca, swinging his tiny hammer over the shining ore. His notion of the Bucca, askew as it was, was one at bottom with our knowledge of the dark brooklet. You, the young heirs of mighty Science, can often outstrip the slow-gathered wisdom of dead philosophers. But do not despise that fine old imagination, which felt its way almost to the light. A sixteenth-century boy, who was all excitement once over the pranks of Robin Goodfellow, knew many precious things which our very great nineteenth-century acuteness has made us lose!

Good-bye, then, to the army of vanishing "gentry," and to their steadfast friends, and to you, children dear! who are the guardians of their wild unwritten records. Shall you not miss them when next the moon is high on the blossomy hillocks, and the thistledown, ready-saddled, plunges to be off and away? Merry fellows they were, and shrewd and just; and we were very fond of them; and now they are gone. And their going, like a mounting harmony, note by note, which ends in one noble chord, with a hush after it, leads us to a serious parting word. Keep the fairies in kindly memory; do not lose your interest in them. They and their history have an enchanting value, which need never be outgrown nor set aside; and to the gravest mind they bring much which is beautiful, humane and suggestive.

We have found that believers in the Little People were not so wrong, after all; and that the eye claiming to have seen a fairy saw, verily, a sight quite as astonishing. Let us think as gently of other myths to which men have given zeal, awe and admiration, of every faith hereafter which seems to us odd and mistaken. For many things which are not true in the exact sense, are yet dear to Truth; and follow her as a baby's tripping tongue lisps the language of its mother, not very successfully, but still with loyalty, and with a meaning which attentive ears can always catch.