XVII
THE ELFIN SHAFT
“After the old gods had vanished,” says Olrik, “and before the Christian God was personally apprehended, arose the rich poetry which deals with Nature-Spirits.”
They always appear in the older Ballads under a grim and treacherous aspect; the Nixies, for instance, are such as we find in the “Ballad of Annan Water.”
“The bonnie grey mare did sweat with fear,
For she heard the water-kelpie roaring.”
This fear, natural to a human-kind as yet not master of the elements, was intensified by the teaching of the Church. In the Eddic mythology the Dwarfs had their own recognized place, whereas their semi-descendants, the Fairies or Nature-Spirits, not being Angels, were regarded as Devils by priestly eyes. Only in later Ballads, such as “Agnes and the Merman,” and “The Mermaid’s Soothsaying,” do we find any hint of compassion for the soulless fay.
The theme of this Ballad—the fairy’s fatal love for a mortal—originated in Northern France, whence it crept into the folk-lore of Europe in general. (Gervase of Tilbury has a warning word to young men on the dangers of elfin flirtations; and the Rev. — Kirk in his Secret Commonwealth (1691) points out their “inconvenience.”) The peasant of Annam, too, knows the “con-tinh,” the wild-haired feminine Genii who dance on a starless night, and lure mortal youths to their undoing.
To the Elfin Shaft or Elfin Bolt was attributed sudden death or seizure of pain, either in man or beast, among the Scandinavians.
The Icelandic form of the Ballad heightens the horror by the addition of those fiery portents associated with burial-houses containing treasure, guarded by fairies or by the dead. The “false fairy” stabs Sir Oluf with a sword, which, under cover of her cloak, she takes from her “treasure chest of gold.”