The Spaniards seem also to agree with the people of other countries in regarding the Fairies as being fallen angels. One of their most celebrated poets thus expresses himself:
Disputase por hombres entendidos
Si fué de los caidos este duende.
Some Spanish etymologists say that Duende is a contraction of Dueño de casa; others, that it comes from the Arabic Dûar, (dwelling) the term used for the Arab camps on the north-coast of Africa. To us it appears more probable that the Visigoths brought their ancient popular creed with them to Spain[528] also, and that as Duerg became Drac in Provence, it was converted into Duende in Spain.[529] It is further not quite impossible that Duerg may be also the original of Trasgo, a word for which we believe no etymon has been proposed.
[FRANCE.]
Pourquoi faut-il s'émerveiller
Que la raison la mieux sensée,
Lasse souvent de veiller,
Par des contes d'ogre et de fée
Ingenieusement bercée,
Prenne plaisir à sommeiller?
Perrault.
The Fairy mythology of France may be divided, as respects its locality, into two parts, that of Northern and that of Southern France, the Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc. We will commence with the latter, as adjacent to Spain. Of its mythology, Gervase of Tilbury, who resided in the kingdom of Arles, has left us some interesting particulars, and other authorities enable us to trace it down to the present day. Speaking of the inhabitants of Arles, Gervase thus expresses himself:
"They also commonly assert, that the Dracs assume the human form, and come early into the public market-place without any one being thereby disturbed. These, they say, have their abode in the caverns of rivers, and occasionally, floating along the stream in the form of gold rings or cups, entice women or boys who are bathing on the banks of the river; for, while they endeavour to grasp what they see, they are suddenly seized and dragged down to the bottom: and this, they say, happens to none more than to suckling women, who are taken by the Dracs to rear their unlucky offspring; and sometimes, after they have spent seven years there, they return to our hemisphere. These women say that they lived with the Dracs and their wives in ample palaces, in the caverns and banks of rivers. We have ourselves seen one of these women, who was taken away while washing clothes on the banks of the Rhone. A wooden bowl floated along by her, and, in endeavouring to catch it, having got out into the deep water, she was carried down by a Drac, and made nurse to his son below the water. She returned uninjured, and was hardly recognised by her husband and friends after seven years' absence.
"After her return she related very wonderful things, such as that the Dracs lived on people they had carried off, and turned themselves into human forms; and she said that one day, when the Drac gave her an eel-pasty to eat, she happened to put her fingers, that were greasy with the fat, to one of her eyes and one side of her face, and she immediately became endowed with most clear and distinct vision under the water. When the third year of her time was expired, and she had returned to her family, she very early one morning met the Drac in the market-place of Beaucaire. She knew him at once, and saluting him, inquired about the health of her mistress and the child. To this the Drac replied, 'Harkye,' said he, 'with which eye do you see me?' She pointed to the eye she had touched with the fat: the Drac immediately thrust his finger into it, and he was no longer visible to any one."[530]