_Fairies and Dwarfs._--Where Villemarqué draws a clear distinction is between these _korrigan_ and _fées_ on the one hand, and the _nains_ or dwarfs on the other. These last are what we have found associated or identified with _corrigans_ in the Morbihan. Villemarqué describes the _nains_ as a hideous race of beings with dark or even black hairy bodies, with voices like old men, and with little sparkling black eyes. They are fond of playing tricks on mortals who fall into their power; and are given to singing in a circular dance the weekday song. Very often _corrigans_ regarded as _nains_, equally with all kinds of _lutins_, are believed to be evil spirits or demons condemned to live here on earth in a penitential state for an indefinite time; and sometimes they seem not much different from what Irish Celts, when talking of fairies, call fallen angels. _Le Nain de Kerhuiton_, translated from Breton by Professor J. Loth, in part illustrates this:--Upon seeing water boiling in a number of egg-shells ranged before an open fire, a _polpegan_-changeling is so greatly astonished that he unwittingly speaks for the first time, and says, 'Here I am almost one hundred years old, and never such a thing have I yet seen!' 'Ah! son of Satan!' then cries out the mother, as she comes from her place of hiding and beats the _polpegan_--who thus by means of the egg-shell test has been tricked into revealing his demon nature.[99] In a parallel story, reported by Villemarqué in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 33 n.), a _nain_-changeling is equally astonished to see a similar row of egg-shells boiling before an open fire like so many pots of food, and gives himself away through the following remark:--'I have seen the acorn before the oak; I have seen the egg before the white chicken: I have never seen the equal to this.' _Nature of the 'Corrigans'._--As to the general ideas about the _corrigans_, M. Le Scour says:--'Formerly the _corrigans_ were the terror of the country-folk, especially in Finistère, in the Morbihan, and throughout the Côtes-du-Nord. They were believed to be souls in pain condemned to wander at night in waste lands and marshes. Sometimes they were seen as dwarfs; and often they were not seen at all, but were heard in houses making an infernal noise. Unlike the _lavandières de nuits_ (phantom washerwomen of the night), they were heard only in summer, never in winter.' THE BRETON LEGEND OF THE DEAD