For the sake of those readers to whom Latin is an unknown tongue, we add the following translation by Thomas Creech:—
"I myself have known
Some Rocks and Hills return six words for one:
The dancing words from Hill to Hill rebound,
They all receive and all restore the sound.
The Vulgar and the Neighbours think, and tell,
That there the Nymphs and Fauns and Satyrs dwell;
And that their wanton sport, their loud delight
Breaks thro' the quiet silence of the Night;
There Music's softest Ayrs fill all the Plains,
And mighty Pan delights the list'ning Swains.
The Goat-faced Pan, whilst Flocks securely feed,
With long-hung lip he blows his Oaten Reed;
The horn'd, the half-beast God, when brisk and gay,
With Pine-leaves crown'd, provokes the Swains to play.
Ten thousand such Romants the Vulgar tell,
Perhaps lest men should think the Gods will dwell
In Towns alone, and scorn their Plains, and Cell:
Or somewhat; for Man, credulous and vain,
Delights to hear strange things—delights to feign."
Sir John Sinclair's "Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792," says:—"About eight miles to the eastward of Cailleachbear, a conical hill rises considerably above the neighbouring hills. It is called Siensluai, the fairy habitation of a multitude." He adds, in a note:—"A belief in fairies prevailed very much in the Highlands of old, nor at this day is it quite obliterated. The small, conical hill Siensluai was assigned them for a dwelling, from which melodious music was frequently heard, and gleams of light seen on dark nights." In the account of the parish of Kirkmichael, we read: "Not more firmly established in this country is the belief in ghosts than that in fairies. The legendary records of fancy, transmitted from age to age, have assigned their mansions to that class of genii in detached hillocks, covered with verdure, situated on the banks of purling brooks, or surrounded by thickets of wood. They derive this name from the practice of the Druids, who were wont occasionally to retire to green eminences to administer justice, establish peace, and compose differences between contending parties. As that venerable order taught a saogh hal, or world beyond the present, their followers, when they were no more, fondly imagined that seats, where they exercised a virtue so beneficial to mankind, were still inhabited by them in their disembodied state. In the autumnal season, when the moon shines from a serene sky, often is the wayfaring traveller arrested by the music of the hills, more melodious than the strains of Orpheus. Often struck with a more solemn scene, he beholds the visionary hunters engaged in the chase and pursuing the din of the clouds, while the hollow rocks, in long-sounding echoes, reverberate their cries. There are several now living who assert that they have been suddenly surrounded by visionary forms, have seen and heard their aerial hunting, and been assailed by a multitude of voices."
But it would be impossible, without very largely extending our limits, to give other than a meagre sketch of this interesting portion of folk lore. All our ancient poets and writers of fancy, Scotish and English, dealt largely with the subject, and quarried from this exhaustless mine. "Spenser was contented with the fairies of romance, but Shakespeare founded his elfin world on the frothiest of the people's traditions, and has clothed it in the ever-living flowers of his own exuberant fancy. How much is the invention of the great poet we shall probably never be informed, and his successors have not rendered the subject more clear by adopting the graceful world he has created, as though it had been interwoven with the popular mythology and formed a part of it."[C]
With the spread of education and increase of knowledge, the superstitious belief in fairies has almost died out, except in some very few localities and among very uneducated people. When the writer was a very young boy, he was acquainted with an old couple who related to him their having jointly and severally seen the "good people" in troops enter, in procession, the Castlehill of Inverugie; and the husband, a worthy, honest man, with the strongest declarations of verity, described his having spent part of a summer eve lying, with his ear on the turf, listening to the delighful music which was executed by the fairy minstrels within the mount.
That such things have been is still believed by many, and there are still those who assert that their appearance and mischievous exploits have ceased, or, at least, become less frequent, since the light of the Gospel was diffused in its purity, or that they have fled before the minister and the schoolmaster.
THE
GUIDMAN O' INGLISMILL.
At Martinmas, whan win's blew snell an' cauld,
An' beasts war' housed within their winter hauld,
An' stacks wi' thack an' rape war' happit ticht,
The taties up, an' a'thing snod an' richt,—
Then, by the wan licht o' the hint hairst moon,
The auld Guidman gaed roun' aboot the toun;
An' as he steppit o'er the stibble lan',—
"The wark," quo he, "is feckly a' byehan'.
Fair fa' oor folk! they've deen their very best;
We've a'thing safe an' soun'—sae Praise be blest!
This hairst, my certy! 's been a kittle lang ane,
Ae day nocht dein', an' the neist a thrang ane.
I sud be thankfu'; Gudeness kens I've rizzon!
A' thro', I haenae min' o' sic a sizzon;
Sic spates o' rain, syne mochy, dreepie weather,
I thocht wud surely waur us a'thegither;
Noo beast an' bodie will be brawly sair'd
An' something o'er, forbye what pays the laird.
It sets folk ill to be o'er crouse an' vaunty;
But, 'deed, I'm thankfu' an' sae unco canty
That, like the bairns, I'd like to get the play,
An' ware upo' mysel' ae idle day.
The morrow's morn' I'll early mak' me boun',
To see what's deein' i' the borrow's toun.
O'er muckle wark, withoot some little ploy,
Mak's auld or young a thowless donnart boy."