Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in FairylandBunce, John Thackray
History
Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland
Bunce, John Thackray
Fairy tales -- History and criticism
Now we come to an entirely new region, in which, however, we find, under
other forms, the same creatures which have already been described.
From the sunny East we pass to the cold and frozen North. Here the
Scandinavian countries--Norway, Sweden, and Denmark--are wonderfully
rich in dwarfs, and giants, and trolls, and necks, and nisses, and other
inhabitants of Fairyland; and with these we must also class the Teutonic
beings of the same kind; and likewise the fairy creatures who were once
supposed to dwell in our islands. The Elves of Scandinavia, with whom
our own Fairies are closely allied, were a very interesting people. They
were of two kinds, the White and the Black. The white elves dwelt in
the air, amongst the leaves of trees, and in the long grass, and at
moonlight they came out from their lurking-places, and danced merrily
on the greensward, and played all manner of fantastic tricks. The black
elves lived underground, and, like the dwarfs, worked in metals, and
heaped up great stores of riches. When they came out amongst men they
were often of a malicious turn of mind; they caused sickness or death,
stole things from the houses, bewitched the cattle, and did a great deal
of mischief in all ways. The good elves were not only friendly to man,
but they had a great desire to get to heaven; and in the summer nights
they were heard singing sweetly but sadly about themselves, and their
hopes of future happiness; and there are many stories of their having
spoken to mortals, to ask what hope or chance they had of salvation.
This feeling is believed to have come from the sympathy felt by the
first converts to Christianity with their heathen forefathers, whose
spirits were supposed by them to wander about, in the air or in the
woods, or to sigh within their graves, waiting for the day of judgment.
In one place there is a story that on a hill at Garun people used to
hear very beautiful music. This was played by the elves, or hill folk,
and any one who had a fiddle, and went there, and promised the elves
that they should be saved, was taught in a moment how to play; but those
who mocked them, and told them they could never be saved, used to hear
the poor elves, inside the hill, breaking their fairy fiddles into
pieces, and weeping very sadly. There is a particular tune they play,
called the Elf-King's tune, which, the story-tellers say, some good
fiddlers know very well, but never venture to play, because everybody
who hears it is obliged to dance, and to go on dancing till somebody
comes behind the musician and cuts the fiddle-strings; and out of this
tradition we have the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Some of the
underground elves come up into the houses built above their dwellings,
and are fond of playing tricks upon servants; but they like only those
who are clean in their habits, and they do not like even these to laugh
at them. There is a story of a servant-girl whom the elves liked very
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