Next came our old friends, the Kabouters, whom we have met before. Living down in the earth, and in the mines, and always busy at forge fires, or in coal or ore, they were not expected to come daintily dressed. They seemed, however, to have brushed off the soot, washed away the grime, and scrubbed themselves up generally. Too much light seemed to disturb them and all the time they kept shading their eyes with their hands. The majority were dressed in suits, caps, and shoes of a butternut color. Each one was about a yard high. They were cousins to the Kobolds of Germany.
The Klabbers were easily picked out of the crowd, by their scarlet caps, and because they were dressed in red, from head to foot. Most of them had green faces and green hands. They were very polite and jolly, but sometimes they appeared to be surly and snarlish, according to the moods they were in, but more especially because of the way they were treated by others. It is said that there was more of human nature in these fellows, than in any other kind of Belgian fairies. These Klabbers, or Red Caps, were somewhat taller than the Kabouters. [[39]]
There were not many of the Kluddes, for these clownish fellows, who lived in the Campine, among the sand dunes, or by the sea shore, or loafed along country roads, or by the side of ditches, with no good purpose, hardly knew how to behave in the company of well bred, or even decent fairies. Even the Kabouters, not one of whom owned a dress coat, or a fashionable gown, had better manners than the Kludde rascals, whose one idea seemed to be to tumble farmers’ boys into the ditches. They had no originality, or variety in their tricks, beyond the single one of changing themselves into old “plugs,” or broken down horses; and they possessed no more powers of speech, than cows or cats, that say “moo” and “miouw.” They could understand the talk of the other fairies, but could not themselves speak, having no tongues.
When a fairy stood up that was fluent, and entertaining, and made a good speech, these sand snipes applauded so loudly, and kept on crying “Kludde” so noisily—the only word they knew—that the president of the meeting had to call them to order. He sternly told them to be silent, or he would have them put out. Notwithstanding this, they kept on mumbling, “Kludde, Kludde” to themselves.
The Wappers were out in full force, or at least a dozen of them. At first they sat folded [[40]]up, like jackknives; and all occupying one place together, like a lot of beetles; but when the place of meeting got crowded, by others wanting their room, the Wappers stretched themselves out and up, until they looked like a crowd of daddy longlegs, with their long, wiry limbs and their heads and bodies up in the air. They were told not to talk gibberish, except among themselves; but to address the chair, and speak in meeting only in correct and polite fairy language, which even then had to be interpreted.
No jokes or tricks, such as the different kinds of fairies play on human beings, were allowed during the meeting of the Congress.
Two big, fairy policemen, called Gog and Magog, dressed in the colors of the Belgian flag, black, yellow and red, were posted near the door, to make all Kabouters, Kludde, Wappers and Mannekens, behave. If any member of the Congress got too “fresh,” or obstreperous, he was immediately seized and thrown out of doors.
Both the policemen’s clubs, which were longer than barbers’ poles, were made of Flemish oak, wrapped round with black, yellow and red ribbons. Besides these bludgeons, each carried at his belt a coil of rope, to bind any of the big fairies that might give trouble.
No wash or bath tubs, aquariums, hogsheads, or barrels, having been provided, nor any salt [[41]]water being at hand, there were no mermaids or mermen present.
No ogres or giants came, for it could not be found that any of these big fairy folk lived in the Belgium of our time. Formerly, they were very numerous and troublesome, not only to men and women, but even to the pretty and respectable fairies.