We thus may see that there are beings in Spain also answering to the various classes of Fairies. But none of these have obtained the same degree of reputation as the House-spirit, whose Spanish name is Duende or Trasgo. In Torquemada's Spanish Mandeville, as the old English version of it is named, there is a section devoted to the Duende, in which some of his feats, such as pelting people with stones, clay, and such like, are noticed, and in the last century the learned Father Feijoo wrote an essay on Duendes,[527] i.e. on House-spirits; for he says little of the proper Spanish Duende, and his examples are Hödiken and the Kobolds, of which he had read in Agricola and other writers. On the whole, perhaps, the best account of the Duende will be found in Calderon's spritely comedy, named La Dama Duende.
In this piece, when Cosme, who pretends that he had seen the Duende when he put out his candle, is asked by his master what he was like, he replies:
Era un fraile
Tamañito, y tenia puesto
Un cucurucho tamaño;
Que por estas señas creo
Que era duende capuchino.
This cucurucho was a long conical hat without a brim worn by the clergy in general, and not by the Capuchins alone. A little before, Cosme, when seeking to avert the appearance of the Duende, recites the following lines, which have the appearance of being formed from some popular charm against the House-spirit:
Señora dama duende,
Duelase de mi;
Que soy niño y solo,
Y nunca en tal me ví.
In De Solis' very amusing comedy of Un Bobo hace Ciento, Doña Ana makes the following extremely pretty application of the popular idea of the Duende:
Yo soy, don Luis, una dama
Que no conozco este duende
Del amor, si no es por fama.
In another of his plays (El Amor al Uso), a lady says:
Amor es duende importuno
Que al mundo asombrando trae;
Todos dicen que le ay,
Y no le ha visto ninguno.
The lines from Calderon prefixed to this section of our work, show that money given by the Duende was as unsubstantial as fairy-money in general. This is confirmed by Don Quixote, who tells his rather covetous squire, that "los tesoros de los caballeros andantes son, como los de los Duendes, aparentes y falsos."