The same opinions regarding the human soul prevailed among ancient peoples highly civilized, i. e. the Egyptians and Greeks, and may have thence directly influenced Celtic tradition. Thus, in bas-relief on the Egyptian temple of _Dêr el Bahri_, Queen Hatshepsû Rāmaka is making offerings of perfume to the gods, while just behind her stands her _Ka_ (soul) as a pygmy so little that the crown of its head is just on a level with her waist.[142] The _Ka_ is usually represented as about half the size of an ordinary man. In the _Book of the Dead_, the _Ba_, which like the _Ka_ is one of the many separable parts of the soul, is represented as a very little man with wings and bird-like body. On Greek vases the human soul is depicted as a pygmy issuing from the body through the mouth; and this conception existed among Romans and Teutons.[143] Like their predecessors the Egyptians, the Greeks also often represented the soul as a small winged human figure, and Romans, in turn, imagined the soul as a pygmy with butterfly wings. These ideas reappear in mediaeval reliefs and pictures wherein the soul is shown as a child or little naked man going out of the dying person's mouth;[144] and, according to Cædmon, who was educated by Celtic teachers, angels are small and beautiful[145]--quite like good fairies. _Alchemical and Mystical Theory_ In the positive doctrines of mediaeval alchemists and mystics, e. g. Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians, as well as their modern followers, the ancient metaphysical ideas of Egypt, Greece, and Rome find a new expression; and these doctrines raise the final problem--if there are any scientific grounds for believing in such pygmy nature-spirits as these remarkable thinkers of the Middle Ages claim to have studied as beings actually existing in nature. To some extent this interesting problem will be examined in our chapter entitled _Science and Fairies_; here we shall simply outline the metaphysical theory, adding the testimony of some of its living advocates to explain the smallness of elvish spirits and fairies.