That fairies, in particular, came from the East, we are assured by that learned orientalist, M. Herbelot, who tells us that the Persians called the fairies _Peri_, and the Arabs _Genies_, that according: to the Eastern fiction, there is a certain country inhabited by fairies, called Gennistan, which answers to our _fairy-land_.[23] Mr. Martin, in his observations on Spencer's Fairy Queen, is decided in his opinion, that the fairies came from the East; but he justly remarks, that they were introduced into the country long before the period of the crusades. The race of fairies, he informs us, was established in Europe in very early times, but, "_not universally_." The fairies were confined to the north of Europe--to the _ultima Thule_--to the _British isles_--to the _divisis orbe Britannis_. They were unknown at this remote era to the Gauls or the Germans: and they were probably familiar to the vallies of Scotland and Danmonium, when Gaul and Germany were yet unpeopled either by real or imaginary beings. The belief indeed, of such invisible agents assigned to different parts of nature, prevails at this very day in Scotland, Devonshire and Cornwall, regularly transmitted from the remotest antiquity to the present times, and totally unconnected with the spurious romance of the crusader or the pilgrim. Hence those superstitious notions now existing in our western villages, where the spriggian[24] are still believed to delude benighted travellers, to discover hidden treasures, to influence the weather, and to raise the winds. "This," says Warton, "strengthens the hypotheses of the northern, parts of Europe being peopled by colonies from the east!" The inhabitants of Shetland and the Isles pour libations of milk or beer through a holed-stone, in honour of the spirit Brownie; and it is probable the Danmonii were accustomed to sacrifice to the same spirit, since the Cornish and the Devonians on the border of Cornwall, invoke to this day the spirit Brownie, on the swarming of their bees.