dispensers of misfortune, and consequently their attendance at a birth became the harbinger of a predominating portion of [310:A]evil; mischief, indeed, either in sport or anger, seems to have been their favourite employment. They, like those of the more friendly tribe, visited the surface of the earth at midnight, but the circular tracery of their revels was distinguished from the green ringlets of the beneficent kind, by the ground being burnt and blasted wherever their footsteps had been impressed.[310:B]
Among this species was also classed the Incubus, by the Scandinavians termed Mara, Meyar, or the Mare; by the Saxons Alf or Alp; by the Franconians Drud[310:C], a fairy who haunted those who slept, and oppressed them by sitting on their chest. This elf was likewise considered as exerting a baneful influence at noon-time over those who heedlessly gave themselves to sleep in the fields, and was deemed particularly dangerous, at this hour, to pregnant women.[310:D] To the mischievous power of these Swart-elves was also ascribed, by the Gothic nations, the loss or exchange of children, who were borne away from the parental roof previous to the rites of baptism, and oftentimes an idiotic or deformed bantling was substituted in the place of the stolen infant.[310:E] Generally were they found, indeed, spiteful and malicious in all their agency with mankind, whether in a playful or a serious mood; frequently injuring or destroying the
cattle, riding the horses, plaiting their manes in knots, terrifying and leading wandering or benighted peasants astray, by voices, cries, by peals of laughter or delusive lights.[311:A]
With all these evil propensities, however, they are uniformly represented by our Northern ancestors as singularly ingenious, and endowed with great mechanical skill, particularly that variety of the Suart-alfar termed Bergmanlein or Mountain-dwarfs, who were believed to inhabit caves and mines and barrows[311:B], and to be frequently and audibly employed in forging swords and armour of such excellent temper and strength as to be proof not only against the usual accidents of warfare, but against all the arts of magic and incantation.[311:C] This craft was denominated Duerga Smithi, or Fairy-Smithery[311:D], and was sometimes exercised in the formation of enchanted rings, and of automata which by the proper management of secret springs would transport their conductors through the air.[311:E] By the Swedes and Germans, also, these subterranean dwarfs, virunculi montani, were supposed to be sometimes busy in the laborious occupation of excavating the rocks, and to be occasionally useful to the miners in detecting latent veins of ore; but their agency was more generally deemed pernicious, and they were held to be the artificers of accident,
the raisers of exhalations, and the exploders of the fire-damp.[312:A] It should also be added, that, as the frequent inmates of barrows and sepulchral vaults, they were considered as the guardians of hidden treasures, which they protected under the form of diminutive old men with corrugated faces[312:B]; while as the haunters of the mine, they affected the dress of the workmen, appearing in a shirt or frock, with a leathern apron.[312:C]
Beside these two species of the fairy tribe, the Bright and Swart Elves, a larger kind was acknowledged by the ancient Germans, under the appellations of Guteli and Trulli, who were esteemed not only harmless, but so friendly to mankind, that they delighted in performing the domestic offices of the household, such as cleaning the dishes, bringing in wood, grooming the horses, &c.[312:D], labouring chiefly in the night-time, and often assuming the human stature, form, and garb.[312:E]
Such are the leading features of the Fairy Mythology of the Goths, which appears to have been introduced into Britain as early as the eleventh century, and to have gradually become a part of the popular creed, though subsequently modified by the influence of Christianity, by the intermixture of classical associations, the prevalence of feudal manners, and other causes. Accordingly, we find Gervase of Tilbury, in the thirteenth century, detailing, in his Otia Imperialia, many of the peculiar superstitions of the Scandinavian system as
common to this country; and in the following age, Chaucer, impressed with the high antiquity of these fables, refers even to the age of Arthur as the period of their full dominion:—
"In old Dayes of the King Artour
Of which that Bretons speken gret honour,