"Many wonderful and incredible things did he also relate of this Balkin, affirming that he was shaped like a satyr, and fed upon the air, having wife and children to the number of twelve thousand, which were the brood of the Northern Fairies, inhabiting Southerland and Catenes, with the adjacent islands. And that these were the companies of spirits that hold continual wars with the fiery spirits in the mountain Heckla, that vomits fire in Islandia. That their speech was ancient Irish, and their dwelling the caverns of the rocks and mountains, which relation is recorded in the antiquities of Pomonia."[235] Concerning Luridan, we are farther informed from the Book of Vanagastus, the Norwegian, that it is his nature to be always at enmity with fire; that he wages war with the fiery spirits of Hecla; and that in this contest they do often anticipate and destroy one another, killing and crushing when they meet in mighty and violent troops in the air upon the sea. And at such times, many of the fiery spirits are destroyed when the enemy hath brought them off the mountains to fight upon the water. On the contrary, when the battle is upon the mountain itself, the spirits of the air are often worsted, and then great moanings and doleful noises are heard in Iceland, and Russia, and Norway, for many days after.[236] * * * * * The Water-spirit called Tangie, from Tang, the sea-weed with which he is covered, appears sometimes as a little horse, other times as a man. FOOTNOTES: [234] Description of Orkney, Zetland, &c. Edin. 1703. [235] Reg. Scot. Discoverie of Witchcraft, b. 2. c. 4. Lond. 1665. [236] Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 367. ISLE OF RÜGEN. Des Tagscheins Blendung drückt, Nur Finsterniss beglückt; Drum hausen wir so gern Tief in des Erdballs Kern. MATTHISSON. Day's dazzling light annoys Us, darkness only joys; We therefore love to dwell Deep underneath earth's shell. We now return to the Baltic, to the Isle of Rügen, once a chief seat of the Vendish religion; but its priests were massacred by the Scandinavians, and all traces of their system effaced. Its fairy mythology now agrees with that of its Gothic neighbours, and Mr. Arndt,[237] a native of the island, has enabled us to give the following tolerably full account of it:-- The inhabitants of Rügen believe in three kinds of Dwarfs, or underground people, the White, the Brown, and the Black; so named from the colour of their several habiliments.[238]