The Testimony of Tradition

CHAPTER IX.

While the Picts, or Pechts, are remembered to a great extent as the builders of the subterranean and half-subterranean dwellings with which they are associated, these are far from being the only structures which popular tradition has stamped as the work of their hands. The architectural skill, of a kind, which they displayed in the construction of their own "Pechts' houses" may be seen from such a casual reference as this, gleaned from among certain specimens of Clydesdale folk-lore: "Our milkhouse," says a Clydesdale peasant, "whilk stude on the side of a dentie burn, and was ane o' thae auld vowts [vaults] whilk the Pechs biggit langsyne, had wa's sae doons strang that ane waud hae thocht it micht hae stude to the last day; but its found had been onnerminit by the last Lammas-spait."[102] If the "Pechts' houses" lacked, as they certainly did, evidences of high culture in the designers, or outward beauty of design in themselves, they were at least remarkable for their great strength and durability; so that, were it not for such accidents as a Lammas-flood, they might well have stood "to the last day." But the great bodily strength of this race, and their turn for masonry, were made use of in other ways than in the construction of the dwellings referred to; that is, if there is any truth in the popular ideas upon this subject.

The late Robert Chambers, in putting together the popular Scotch beliefs regarding these people,[103] not only states that they were "short, wee men," but he adds, still speaking as a Scottish peasant: "The Pechs were great builders; they built a' the auld castles in the kintry; and do ye ken the way they built them? I'll tell ye. They stood all in a row from the quarry to the place where they were building, and ilk ane handed forward the stanes to his neebor, till the hale was biggit." A special example of one of the buildings so reared is the Round Tower of Abernethy in Perthshire, well known as one of the two towers of this class still to be found in Scotland. "The story goes," says the Rev. Andrew Small, in his "Antiquities of Fife,"[104] "that it was built by the Pechts,... and that, while the work was going on, they stood in a row all the way from the Lomond Hill to the building, handing the stones from one to another.... That it has been built of freestone from the Lomond Hill is clear to a demonstration, as the grist or nature of the stone points out the very spot where it has been taken from, namely, a little west, and up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile straight south from Meralsford." That Abernethy was long a seat of Pictish power is what no historian would deny, and the tower referred to is always denominated "Pictish." Of the way in which it was built we have just seen the local account.

Similar ideas are current in Northumberland. "The erection of several of these old castles [e.g., Dunstanborough Castle] is, by popular tradition, ascribed to the Picts.... The building of the Roman wall, which is by country people commonly called the Picts' wall, is also ascribed to them; and they are said to have formed the Catrail on the Scottish border, which is frequently called the Picts-work ditch. The Picts are described as men of low stature, but of superhuman strength; and on the moors of Northumberland the heaps of stone, which are supposed by antiquaries to mark the spot where 'bones of mighty chiefs lie hid,' are sometimes pointed out to the inquiring stranger as places where a Pict's apron-string had broken as he was carrying a load of stones to his work."[105]

Although the tower at Abernethy, and the "Pechts' houses" already spoken of, may be classed together as having been built for the use of the builders themselves, it is quite evident that if these people actually reared the many other structures attributed to them, in Scotland and in Northumberland, they did so in the character of serfs, working for people of other races. If Dunstanborough Castle, the Wall of Hadrian, and (perhaps also) the Catrail, not to speak of "a' the auld castles in the kintry," were built by the Pechts, the builders were evidently not working on their own behalf. This clearly must have been the case in the instance of the "Roman Wall," which was raised for the very purpose of checking the southward inroads of these fierce warriors. That it actually was a "Roman wall" is of course beyond question. But that fact does not interfere with the supposition that the drudgery was performed by captive Pechts, whose immense strength, and intimate acquaintance with the art of building such structures, would render them of the greatest use to their conquerors. That they, and not the Romans, were the actual builders of the wall, as Northumbrian tradition asserts, is therefore far from improbable. Indeed, there are one or two indications that the more northern "Wall of Antoninus" may also have been reared by kindred hands. And as with these early examples, so may the later buildings referred to have actually been unwillingly built by Pechts, at the command of other people.[106]

Not only walls and castles, or towers, but churches and cathedrals are also said to have been reared by the same dwarfish but powerful builders, as may be seen from the following instances.

One part of Scotland that continued to be a "reservation" of the Pechts, after that people had ceased to hold sway, is the hilly country lying to the south of Edinburgh, and known as "the Pentlands." Like the "Pentland Firth" on the north-east of Scotland, this district was so called because it was associated with the Pechts. We need not here concern ourselves as to the causes which made the name, in both instances, assume the modern form of "Pentland." But, in each case, the name was formerly "Pehtland," and it signified "the land of the Pehts, or Pechts." According to Dr. Skene, the Angles of Northumbria had, as early as the seventh century, established themselves pretty securely as the ruling caste throughout the south-east of what is now Scotland, then a part of "Northumbria." This territory seems to have reached as far on the north-west as the modern county of Linlithgow, and one of the chief Northumbrian strongholds in that neighbourhood has ever since been known by the name of the Northumbrian king, Edwin. Edinburgh, therefore, in the seventh century, appears as a seat of the Anglian race, which ruled from the Forth to the Humber. Three or four centuries later, the steadily growing power of "Scotia" annexed the whole of Northumbria lying north of the Borders. But the population, no doubt, remained little affected by this political change, and its speech and traditions continued the same.[107]

But, although those Angles were the rulers of south-eastern Scotland (in modern topography), there still remained a remnant of the Pechts in at least one part of that northern Northumbria.[108] And it was because of their residence there that the Angles spoke of the hilly region lying to the south and south-west of Edinburgh as "the Peht or Pecht land." How long the Pechts maintained some kind of individuality in that neighbourhood it is impossible to say. It is said that, after Kenneth's great victory over the Pechts at Forteviot or at Scone, in the middle of the ninth century, many of the fugitives sought refuge in England. And, as the Pentland Hills were then in "England," it is likely that they found shelter among their kindred there. In other parts of Scotland the Pechts are historically visible long after the seventh and ninth centuries. At the battle of the Standard, in 1138, the Galloway section formed one division of the Scottish army.[109] A popular tradition, to be presently referred to, also speaks of them as a distinct people in the Clyde valley, during the same century. It is therefore quite permissible to suppose that, once the people of the Midlothian "Pecht-lands" had realized that they were a conquered remnant, with no hope of ultimately recovering their lost power, they may have continued to live, if merely as serfs, not only to the twelfth century, but for several centuries longer.

That they did so is to be inferred from the following bit of "folk-lore," which relates to a locality that, though not strictly included in the district of the "Pecht-lands," is quite near enough to agree with this hypothesis.

The hill of Corstorphine, situated a little to the west of Edinburgh, is only about three miles north of the nearest point of the "Pecht-lands." Now, the village church of Corstorphine is one of the few churches in Scotland which are of interest to the antiquary. "Ancient it most unquestionably is," says a modern writer in the course of a description of the village and its church, and the foundation of the latter is placed in the year 1429. The fifteenth century is not very "ancient," as these things go, but perhaps the site has been occupied by a church from a much earlier period. At any rate, the writer just referred to, in visiting Corstorphine for the purpose of inspecting both church and village, obtained this piece of local tradition, believed to relate to the church of 1429. "Of this [church], in November 1881, an intelligent native assured the writer that it was 'wonderfully ancient, built by the Hottentots, who stood in a row and handed the stones on one to another from Ravelston quarry'"—on the adjacent hill of Corstorphine.[110]

Now, if one compares this account with the traditional description of the modus operandi of the Pechts, already instanced in the case of Abernethy, and generally accepted throughout Scotland, one hardly requires the historical testimony of the "Pecht-lands" to recognize in these "Hottentots" the Pechts of tradition. It is not necessary to take the expression here used by the Corstorphine villager as absolutely correct. His statement, it may be remarked, succeeded a conversation in which our various wars in South Africa had been discussed,[111] and it is not unlikely that this had suggested to the speaker the term "Hottentot" as aptly enough describing a race that to his ancestors, whose ideas he inherited, had seemed savage and inferior. That he absolutely believed the labourers who reared the walls of the church to be of a different race from his own is unquestionably indicated by the whole tenor of his remarks.[112]

This Corstorphine tradition points to a body of Pechts still surviving as a distinct type, in the Midlothian of 1429; and then regarded by the general population as a caste of drudges. This, too, is the position accorded to that race in one phase of Highland tradition. "I am informed," says Dr. Jamieson,[113] "that in Inverness-shire, the foundations of various houses have been discovered, of a round form,... and that when the Highlanders are asked to whom they belonged, they say that they were the houses of the Drinnich or Trinnich, i.e., of the labourers, a name which they give to the Picts." They may be seen in the Clyde valley, in the same position as those of Corstorphine, but three centuries earlier, on the testimony of tradition. "Throughout Scotland," says an antiquary previously quoted, "the vulgar account is, 'that the Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang'; that is, that they were of very small stature, but of prodigious strength. It is commonly added [he goes on] 'that the meal (oatmeal) was a penny the peck when they built the Hie Kirk [the Cathedral] of Glasgow;' for the building of all the cathedrals, and in general everything very ancient, is ascribed by the common people to the Pechs."[114] Now, the present Cathedral of Glasgow is said to have been built in the twelfth century, at which date the Pechts of Galloway formed a distinct and separate population in south-western Scotland. According to Reginald of Durham, as we have already seen, the town of Kirkcudbright was situated in the "Pecht-lands" (terra Pictorum), and the sermo Pictorum was still spoken there. In the same century the Galloway Pechts formed the van of the Scottish army at the battle of the Standard; and the Pechts of this period are remembered in the popular memory, assisted by a homely enough detail, as having been employed in the building of the "High Church" of Glasgow. Of course, the Clyde valley is not situated in Galloway; but the presence of Pechts in twelfth-century Glasgow may easily be explained by assuming that they belonged to another detachment of the race, or that it was worth while sending to Galloway for such famous builders. Belonging to a period less easily defined are the Pecht masons of the famous Round Tower at Brechin. Regarding this tower a local writer states: "Tradition, in Brechin, as well as at Abernethy, ascribes the erection to the Peghts," and he adds, that "it has stated they were only allowed a trifle for this work, and were cheated out of part of this trifle."[115] In this instance, also, the Pechts are remembered as working for people of another race; which is somewhat remarkable, as the tower itself is one of those which seem to have been built by the Pechts for their own purposes.

Without going much out of the way, it may be as well to point out that the popular idea of the Pechts being "men of low stature, but of superhuman strength," "unco wee bodies, but terrible strang," is not only supported by tradition on every side, but it is borne out by a consideration of the mementos they have left behind them. Much could be said on this subject; but it will perhaps be enough here to point to a hill-fortress in Forfarshire, which history and tradition agree in ascribing to these people. This is the stronghold known as the White Cater Thun, situated a few miles north-west of Brechin (which possesses the Pictish round-tower just referred to, and which was once a seat of Pictish monarchy). The fort crowns a hill which rises about 300 feet above the general level of the great valley of Strathmore, and is thus referred to:

"This is, perhaps, the strongest Pictish fortification extant. It is surrounded by a double rampart of an elliptical figure, being 436 feet long by about 200 broad, and containing about two imperial acres.... But the most wonderful thing that occurs in this Pictish fort is the extraordinary dimensions of the ramparts, composed entirely of large, loose stones, being 26 feet thick at the top, and upwards of 100 at the bottom, reckoning quite to the ditch, which, indeed, seems to be much filled up with the tumbling down of the walls. The vast labour that it must have cost to amass so enormous a quantity of large stones, and convey them to such a height, is astonishing.... In conveying the enormous quantity of large stones to the summit of White Cater Thun, the natives must doubtless have expended great labour, and much time. They seem, however, to have been familiar with a method of removing immense masses from considerable distances, and it is supposed they made use of hurdles on such occasions; it is not improbable they might have some kind of rude windlass for raising the larger stones from the bottom to the top of the hill."[116]

Whatever the method employed by the builders of this stronghold, the description just given will show the reader, what he cannot fail to be impressed with on a study of the Pechts, that these people and their buildings belonged to what is known as the "Cyclopean" type, and that they—the people—represented a race now quite extinct, in its purity, but which must undoubtedly have been remarkable for a prodigious strength of body, a strength that may well be spoken of as "superhuman," if it is to be compared with that of any existing race of men. It is this point that must always be borne in mind when one considers the traditions regarding the buildings of the Pechts, and this it is that justifies the very parts of those traditions which would otherwise appear utterly wild and incredible. Beyond question, there is much that demands criticism and inquiry in the traditional description of the way in which such edifices as Abernethy Tower and Corstorphine Church were reared. But two important points must not be overlooked. The one is that an immense number of people may have been simultaneously at work; the other is that the workers were of vast muscular strength.

CHAPTER X.

We find Oisin, therefore, accepted universally as the type of his race, unwillingly occupied in "dragging stones for priests to build churches," in his old age and after the downfall of his people. Nor was it only as the serf of another race that he had so worked; because, he explains to Patrick that this old age of drudgery had been foretold to him by his leader, Fin, on a previous occasion, before the coming of Patrick, and on that occasion not only Oisin, but a great number of the Feens of Ireland, were engaged in a similar task. The great difference was that then they were not working as the drudges of another people, but for themselves, and at the command of their leader. And it was not a church, but a hill-fortress, that they were building, "on Cuailgne's bare and rounded hill." Oisin speaks of it as Fin's "famous fort," and the hill on which it was built is "said to be in the county of Armagh," or, as another writer states, in County Louth. According to Oisin, two-thirds of the materials for the fort were brought thither by the Feens of Connaught and the west of Ireland, and the remainder by the Feens of Leinster and the east of Ulster, to which section both Oisin and Fin belonged. Assuming these traditional accounts to be correct, we thus see the Feens, in the day of their independence, "dragging stones" to the top of a hill, in order to build a fortress; and later on we see them, personified by Oisin, occupied in a similar manner, but as the drudges of Christian priests and the builders of Christian churches. The one account applies to Scotland and the other to Ireland; but the Pechts of the White Cater Thun have their counterparts in the Feens who reared the "famous fort" "on Cuailgne's bare and rounded hill;" and the Pechts who built the churches of Glasgow and Corstorphine are also duplicated in the conquered Feens, "weary dragging stones for priests to build churches," in Ireland. Consequently, the traditional fame of the Pechts of Scotland, as a great race of builders, is not at all at variance with the belief that they and the Feens were of one nation.[117]

But, if Fin and his Feens were builders of the hill-forts of the "Pechts," and were themselves veritable Pechts, it is evident that the Feens built and inhabited the dwellings known as "Pechts' houses." This is quite borne out when we regard that class of building which, although an archæologist already quoted (Mr. Petrie) does not hold it to be strictly entitled to the designation of "Pecht's house," is nevertheless a variety of the same species, and often receives the same title. The variety referred to differs from what has been accepted as the true "Pecht's house," in that it has no superimposed covering of earth or turf. But the two varieties undoubtedly belong to the same general class. Now, with regard to this second order of "Pecht's house," we have such a statement as the following: "Glenlyon, in Perthshire, is remarkable for the great number of remains of aboriginal works scattered through it, in the shape of circular castles built entirely of dry stones. The common people believe these structures to have belonged to their mythic hero, Fion,... and have a verse to that effect:

That is, Fion had twelve castles in the Crooked Glen of Stones (such being an old name for Glenlyon)."[118] And a like belief prevails in other Perthshire glens, such as Glenshee and Glenalmond, beside the latter of which, as every reader of Wordsworth knows, Oisin himself is said to be buried.

The true "Pecht's house," however, is not this dry-stone circular "castle," open to air and sun. These "castles" are, indeed, popularly included among "Pechts' houses," but such an archæologist as the one recently referred to prefers to speak of them as "brochs." This word "broch" (akin to burgh, etc.) has been adopted by Dr. Joseph Anderson and other eminent students of such buildings, to distinguish this special structure; and although, etymologically regarded, the distinction is arbitrary, it is very convenient. But the "broch," standing visibly exposed like any other ruin, its stone walls uncovered to the sun, is by no means the same thing as the "Pecht's house" described by Mr. Petrie and others. This, it may be remembered, is almost or altogether identical with the dwellings of the North-Greenland Eskimos, as portrayed by the explorers of seventy years ago. It is approached through a long, dark tunnel, entered from the face of a bank or brae, so low that one has to crawl along it, its sides and roofs composed of large stone slabs, and the roof itself flush with, or even underneath, the surface of the ground. At the end of this long, dark, narrow passage one enters the central chamber of the dwelling of the North-Greenlander and the ancient Pecht. It, too, would be in darkness, were it not for the rude stone lamp, fed with the oil of seal or whale, soaking through moss or the pith of rushes, which hangs from the roof and is always burning. Here and there at the side of this central chamber are openings in the wall which lead into small cavities used as sleeping-places. Briefly and imperfectly, that is the interior of the Pecht's house.[119]

Viewed from the outside, what does it resemble? The underground passage of approach is invisible. The "house" itself "is generally of a conical form, and externally closely resembles a large bowl-shaped barrow. It consists of a solid mass of masonry, covered with a layer of turf a foot or more in thickness, and has a central chamber surrounded by several smaller cells." Or, as another writer describes it, "all that meets the eye at first is a green, conical mound ... resting silently amid the moorland solitude." The entrance to this seeming hillock, situated sometimes at its base, more frequently, perhaps, at the extremity of a narrow, underground tunnel, was never very conspicuous, since it was only about a couple of feet high. In the days when the Pechts were actually inhabiting these "green hillocks," it is likely they took the precaution to conceal this outer orifice, small though it was, as well as possible. Thus, the adventurer or colonist of another race, arriving at a settlement of Pechts' houses, saw nothing but one or more grassy, conical hillocks rising out of the surrounding moor.

Since the Gaelic term broch (for it is Gaelic, though not exclusively so) is used to denote the one variety of these "Pictish" dwellings, let us employ, if only temporarily, the Gaelic term which denotes the other. That kind of broch, then, which is covered over with earth and turf so as to resemble a conical green mound, is known in Gaelic by the name of sith-bhrog, or sith-bhrugh; that is to say, the broch of the sith. Still more commonly, it is styled a sithean, or sith-place. When rendered in our modern English spelling, according to its pronunciation, this distinctive sith becomes spelt shee; as in the case of Gleann-sith, which is written "Glenshee." And, similarly, sithean becomes sheean. It is the "sheean," then, and not the "broch" proper, that is regarded by such archæologists as Mr. Petrie as peculiarly the dwelling of the Pechts.

Now, if any Highlander were asked his opinion as to the former inhabitants of the "sheeans," he would have but one answer to give. And the nature of that answer is very clearly shown by those Highlanders who have compiled the leading Scottish-Gaelic dictionaries. Brog (i.e., "broch") is itself defined as an obsolete term for "a house"; but bruth and other variants connect, if they do not identify, the "broch" with the "sheean." The various definitions are these: Bruth, "a house half under the surface," "the dwelling of fairies in a hill"; sith-bruth, sith-bhrugh, "a fairy hill or mansion"; sith-bhrog, sith-bhruach, sith-bhruth, "a fairy hill," "a fairy residence," "fairyland"; sithean, "a little hill or knoll," "a fairy hill"; sithain, "a green knoll or hillock, tenanted, according to superstitious belief, by fairies."[120]

Thus, the houses of the Pechts or dwarfs were inhabited by the people known as "fairies." As the fairies were "little people," there is here no contradiction in terms. We have, moreover, seen that the same "conical, green mounds" are remembered in Orkney and Shetland as the homes of the "trows." "Trow," however, is itself equivalent to droich, or dwarf. Therefore, the belief that those outward-seeming "green hillocks" were the abodes of Pechts is quite in agreement with the traditions that refer to those mound-dwellers as trows and fairies (otherwise "the little people"). Because pecht (or pech), trow, and fairy are all synonyms for "dwarf."

CHAPTER XI.

In a reference to the popular traditions of Northumberland, the Picts are spoken of as "a race of people who are represented, in such legends, as endowed with supernatural power, and holding, in the scale of beings, an intermediate rank between men and fairies."[121] Sir Walter Scott also corroborates this belief as existent in Northumberland ("Rob Roy," ch. xxiii). And the writer previously quoted, in describing the local tradition with regard to the building of the tower at Abernethy by the Pechts, explains that "the people always, when they speak of these Peghs, associate that idea with a notion that they were a preternatural sort of beings, such as fairies and brownies." Therefore, without entering into any discussion as to what is or was meant by "supernatural power," we have ascertained from these extracts that the Pechts were regarded, in Northumberland and in Scotland, as a race of people possessing or claiming "supernatural" attributes. And that they were akin to "fairies and brownies," if they were not identical with them. This also is the position of the "Feens" of Gaelic folk-lore, as the following references will show.

When the celebrated Irish king, Brian Borumha, defeated the Danes of Dublin and their allies, in the year 1000 A.D., it is stated that he appropriated all the vast treasures that the Danes had gathered together:—"gold and silver, and bronze, and precious stones, and carbuncle-gems, and buffalo-horns, and beautiful goblets," as well as "various vestures of all colours."[122] And the chronicler explains that "never was there a fortress, or a fastness, or a mound, or a church, or a sacred place, or a sanctuary," which the Danes had not plundered when it fell to their arms. The first three terms, which in the Gaelic are dún, daingean, and diongna, are closely allied, and each designates something akin to the "hollow mounds" of which we have been speaking.[123] But the succeeding sentence is quite explicit: "Neither was there in concealment under ground in Erinn, nor in the various solitudes belonging to Fians or to fairies, anything that was not discovered by these foreign, wonderful Denmarkians, through paganism and idol worship." With regard to which last allusion, Dr. Todd says: "The meaning is, that notwithstanding the potent spells employed by the Fians and fairies of old for the concealment of their hidden treasures, the Danes, by their pagan magic and the diabolical power of their idols, were enabled to find them out."[124] (The Gaelic from which Dr. Todd translates the above sentences is as follows:—"Ni raibh imorro dún no daingean, no diongna, no ceall, no cadhas, no neimedh do gabhadh ris an ngláim nglifidhigh, nglonnmair, ngnuismhir do bhí ag teaglaim, ocus ag teaccar na hédala sin, óir ni raibhe ifolach fo thalmain in Erinn ina fá dhiamhraibh díchealta ag fianaibh no ag síthcuiraibh ní na fuaratar na Danmargaigh allmardha ingantacha sin, tre geintlidhecht, ocus tre iodhaladhradh.")[125]

Like the Pechts in Northumbrian tradition, the Feens are here not absolutely identified with the fairies, although the two are so closely associated that it is difficult to distinguish between the one and the other. The traditions of the Feens themselves testify to a distinction between the two. Thus, in the "Dan an Fhir Shicair," or Ballad of the Fairy Man,[126] Fin and his six nobles, while walking out one evening, see a fairy-man coming towards them, who announces that he comes from the neighbouring Golden Doon (Dún an oir), and that his purpose is to cause those Feens to come, by enchantment, to dine that day with him and his people in their "hill." Here, then, we have the Feens associating, to some extent (though not, as it appears, on a very friendly footing) with fairies, and yet not themselves regarded as identical with that people.

From the foregoing reference to the plunder of the Danes at Dublin, in the year 1000, it is evident that "the Feens and Fairies" were understood, in the traditional history of the Gaels, to be then actually inhabiting those underground and half-underground dwellings known as "Pechts' houses." There is another reference, in the same history, that corroborates this belief. The date when Brian Borumha became possessor of those "fairy-hoards," which the Danes had previously obtained by their well-known process of "how-breaking,"[127] was the close of the tenth century. Now, a son of this same Brian, and also one of his father's chief warriors, are both described as asserting (on a certain occasion, in the reign of the same Brian)[128] that they had been tempted by the fairies to forsake their ancestral cause. "Often," says Murchadh, "was I offered, in hills and in fairy mansions [i sithaib ocus i sithbrugaib], this world and these gifts; but I never abandoned for one night my country nor my inheritance for them." As Murchadh's response was evoked by a similar statement on the part of Dunlang, it thus appears that, in rifling the abodes of the "how-folk," the Danes were robbing a race then alive, and were not merely appropriating unclaimed treasure. And, indeed, the Scandinavian accounts of "how-breaking" distinctly point out that this pastime involved a struggle of life and death with the armed inmate of the "how."

The evidence of Murchadh and Dunlang, then, shows that intercourse with "the fairies" was not a matter for wonder; and, moreover, that, for one reason or another, the latter desired to seduce the Gaelic-speaking people from their allegiance. That they were eventually successful with Dunlang seems pointed out by the statement, made elsewhere, that this Dunlang was himself a fairy (sioguidhe).[129] And it is well known that "Fairies," as well as "Feens," while possessing distinct innate attributes, were not averse to obtaining adherents from other races, who thus became "Feens" and "Fairies" by adoption.

In the instance of Murchadh and Dunlang, however, the Feens are not named; and it is a matter for conjecture whether they ought to be included among the Fairies there spoken of. But, at any rate, the incident shows that the Fairies (if not the Feens) formed an active, existent caste or race, subsequent to the date of Brian's famous victory over the Danes; and that the Danish inroads on their doons, brochs, hows, etc., in the neighbourhood of Dublin had not by any means annihilated them as a people.

Of this robbery of the "how-folk" by the Danes in the Dublin district, something further may be said in passing. The date of these raids is stated to have been 861 or 862 A.D., when the Danes overran the whole district of the Boyne and Blackwater (co. Meath), and broke into the "fairy hills" of that region; one of which, that of New Grange, is probably the most interesting example of its class that is at present known to archæologists.[130] Therefore, the booty which the Danes thus obtained in 862 must have formed a portion of that captured by King Brian, after his victory, in the year 1000. And it is clear enough that it was this special treasure that the chronicler referred to when he spoke of the hoards which the Danes sought out and discovered "in concealment under ground" and "in the various solitudes (or secret places) belonging to Feens or to Fairies."

Ought "Fairies," then, to be identified with the "Feens" and "Pechts" of history and tradition? We have already seen that, both in Scotland and in Northumberland, the Pechts are classed with the Fairies in the popular memory. And from the brief references just made, one would be disposed at the first glance to say that the two names applied to one people. But all the people who form the subject of consideration in these pages belong, even in their most modern and most modified phases, to the past; and in looking down that long vista one is often deceived by the "foreshortening" effects of distance, which seems to unite what is really distinct and separate. Still, it is evident that "Fairies" have so many points in common with "Feens" and "Pechts" that they must all, at least, be classed together.

The Ayrshire term Fane, which, according to Dr. Jamieson,[131] signifies "a fairy," offers itself as very probably a variant of the Gaelic Fian (pl. Feinne). But Brittany affords even a better instance. There, we are told, the peasantry have memories of a race of Fions, who were dwarfs in stature, and are described as "living with the fairies."[132] And although we have endeavoured, as far as possible, to restrict these remarks to the British Islands, and even to a few special districts, yet the folk-lore of Brittany coincides so closely with that of the districts just referred to, and is so corroborative of the theories here stated, that it may be permissible to quote a few of the Breton beliefs bearing upon this subject.

Of those whom he states are called the Christian fairies of Brittany, M. Paul Sébillot gives several particulars.[133] These so-called "Christian" fairies were, he says, "neither wholly Christian nor wholly pagan," and in the traditions relating to them he dimly recognizes their possible identification with the heathen priestesses[134] of Brittany, at the time when they were gradually becoming converted to Christianity. They are celebrated, like the Pechts of Scotland, as the builders of churches. And just as local tradition states that the Pechts who built the Round Tower of Abernethy, in the manner already described, accomplished their work in the course of a single night, so a certain chapel in the Côtes-du-Nord is said to have been built in one night by the "fairies." Moreover, in two of the instances referred to by M. Sébillot, the top stone of the building is or was lacking, for the reason that the daylight had surprised the builders at their work.[135] Now, this is precisely what is stated of the Pictish builders of the Round Tower at Abernethy, who are said to have been much irritated because an early riser in the village discovered them at work, and thus deprived the building and its builders of their claim to a "supernatural" origin.[136] Further, these Breton "fairies" are spoken of as carrying the stones in their aprons, like the Picts of Northumberland, the castle-building "genii" of Yorkshire, and the "witch" who helped to build the Forfarshire fort of Cater Thun.[137] And, as in the two latter instances, as well as in several of the others referred to, the stones were carried from "a great distance" by the Breton fairies, on at least one occasion.

To this Breton comparison one is tempted to add that of the Netherlands. In referring to the dwarfs who once inhabited the neighbourhood of Tienen, M. Pol de Mont states that "they were uncommonly small of stature, but of extraordinarily great strength"[138]; a statement which is paralleled by "the vulgar account" in Scotland, "that the Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang." And, in the Journal of Folk-lore just quoted from, the same kind of people are again suggested by the Gypnissen; "queer little women," who lived in a "castle" which had been reared in a single night, and who, like the Scotch "brownies" (with whom the Pechts are classed by the Scotch), were content to perform such everyday drudgery as washing the clothes of the taller race living near them, for no higher remuneration than their daily food.[139] The "castle" in which they dwelt is not spoken of as visible at the present day, but the probability is that it was of the same nature as the Aschberg, near Casterlé, which M. Pol de Mont states[140] is declared by tradition to be a chambered mound, capable of housing as many as fifty bergmannetjes, or mound-dwarfs (the Dutch term being equivalent to the Scotch "how-folk" or the English "hill-men").

Nor can one omit the following testimony from the island of Sylt, off the Schleswig coast, supplied by Mr. William George Black. Referring to a story of "Finn, the king of the dwarfs," Mr. Black explains as follows:—"These were an odd, small, tricky, people whom the Frisians found in Sylt when they took possession. They lived underground, wore red caps, and lived on berries and mussels, fish and birds, and wild eggs. They had stone axes and knives, and made pots of clay. They sang and danced by moonlight on the mounds of the plain which were their homes, worked little, were deceitful, and loved to steal children and pretty women: the children they exchanged for their own, the women they kept. Those who lived in the bushes, and later in the Frieslanders' own houses, like our own brownies, were called 'Pucks,' and a sandy dell near Braderup is still known as the Pukthal.... They had a language of their own, which lingers yet in proverbs and children's games. The story of King Finn's subjects is evidently one of those valuable legends which illuminate dark pages of history. It clearly bears testimony to the same small race having inhabited Friesland in times which we trace in the caves of the Neolithic age, and of which the Esquimaux are the only survivors." Mr. Black has himself visited one of those "green mounds" which are said to have been inhabited by this Sylt "Finn," and he states that when it was first scientifically examined, in 1868, it was found to contain "remains of a fireplace, bones of a small man, some clay urns, and stone weapons."[141]

These Continental instances may be regarded as relating rather to the "Feens of Lochlin" than to those of Ireland and Great Britain. But one thing quite evident from the foregoing references is that the "Fians and Fairies" of Ireland, the "Fions, or Feins, and Fairies" of Brittany, and the similar people in the Netherlands and in Friesland, were all nearly identical, if they were not quite identical, with the "preternatural sort of beings" known to Scotch folk-lore as Pechs, or Pechts, or Piks, and to history in general as Picts.

CHAPTER XII.

"We know now," says a recent writer, already quoted, "that the Sidhe were early peoples and their gods, incorporated into the following races.... We find under the Arctic Circle, and among the Finns and other 'Altaic' or Turanian tribes of Russia, the same belief in 'Tshuds' or vanished supernatural inhabitants of the land, pointing to the same mixture of ideas we find in Ireland concerning dispossessed peoples of a different tongue but high civilisation, whose record remains only in legend. The 'Shee' of Ireland is the same word we find in Asia, but softened down in pronunciation. Among the early Russians and Irish we can safely infer the Turanian underfolk with its myths and manners of life, its subterranean dwellings and repute as magicians; in both we perceive remarkably clever members of the Finno-Ugrian women-folk gaining a power over chiefs of the conquering hordes, and going down into legend as supernatural Sidhes or Tshuds."[142] According to this writer, then, the "Fairies," whose treasures were seized by the Danes of Dublin in the ninth century, belonged to the Turanian or Finno-Ugrian race of the Tshuds. And the traditions current in Ireland and Scotland regarding the Fir Sidhe, are counterparts of those current in the north of Europe with regard to the Tshuds. It does not certainly tend to the simplification of a very complex question to discover that the North Europeans, who remember so much about those Tshuds, are the very people who, of all modern Europeans, seem to have most resemblance to the Fir Sidhe. In reviewing a recent collection of Lapp folk-tales, Mr. Ralston states that "the traditions relating to the constant struggle maintained between the Lapp aborigines and their foreign enemies" forms an important portion of the collection. "The first nine stories all refer to the foes known as Tsjuderne, the Tsjuder—the Chudic Finns of the Baltic and other coasts. When these dreaded enemies appeared, the Lapps would take refuge in their underground retreats."[143] Thus, in accepting Tshud as identical with Side or Sidhe, we have to recognize that the people so named were the bitter foes of the very race that most resembles them—the "underground" folk of Lapland. Perhaps the explanation of this apparent contradiction is, that the fact of antagonism existing between two nations is no proof of any great racial difference between them.

Whether the word "Tshud" is, or is not, a variant of Sidhe, there seems good reason for believing that such a variant ought to be recognized in the seid of the Sagas. We are told by Thorpe that witchcraft was seidhr, which word some derive from siodha (modern seethe), to boil. "Boiling 'seid,' or the witches' broth, was the chief art in witchcraft," says Mr. Du Chaillu; who adds that "the witchcraft songs which were used for the seid" were called Vard-lokur,—"weird or fate songs." The "seid" platform and the rites performed on and around it are described at the same place (Viking Age, ii., 394-398:—"Seid was to be performed. A Seid-hjall, or platform consisting of a flat stone, was laid upon three or four posts, and women were to be found who knew how to recite or sing the so-called Vardlokur. When all this was ready, and the Volva [sibyl] on the platform, the women formed in a circle round it, and the effective song was chanted while the seeress, with the strangest gesticulations, made her conjurations and received her revelations." "Once at a feast, according to ancient custom, Ingjald prepared incantation (seid), that men might know their fates. There was a Finn woman skilled in witchcraft.... The Finn woman was placed high, and splendid preparations made for her; each of the men went from his seat to inquire of her about their fates."

Similar accounts are given by Thorpe, who states that it, seid, "was regarded as unseemly for men, and was usually practised by women only: we nevertheless meet with seid-men." And again:—"On account of its wickedness, it was held unworthy of a man to practise seid, and the seid-man was prosecuted and burned as an atrocious trollman.[144] The seid-women received money to make men hard, so that iron could not wound them." "The most remarkable class of seid-women were the so-called Valas, or Völvas. We find them present at the birth of children, when they seem to represent the Norns." "That the Norns, who appeared at the birth of children, were of the race of the dwarfs," is elsewhere suggested by Mr. Thorpe.[145]

Scott, also (The Pirate, Note R), quotes from Kaspar Bartholin a long account of one of those "Valas," as given in the Saga of Eric Rauda. From which it is seen that, according to the custom described by Thorpe and Du Chaillu, she stood "on a sort of elevated stage," when delivering her prophecy.[146] Scott adds that Bartholin "mentions similar instances" to that of "the little Vala" (as this one was called), "particularly of one Heida, celebrated for her predictions," who attended festivals for the purpose of telling fortunes, accompanied by "thirty male and fifteen female attendants."

In all these accounts we see the fairies of tradition, notably the "fairy godmother" who came to the birth or christening of children. The man who practised seid rendered himself liable to be prosecuted and burned as a trow, "an atrocious trollman;" or, in the Gaelic, a fear-side. If the words "seid" and "side" are not practically one, it is at least evident that they relate to the very same people. And the bean-side (banshee) of Gaelic tradition is simply the seid-woman, remembered chiefly in her less pleasing aspect, as the foreboder of death or misfortune.

Thus, whether side ought to be held as primarily denoting the incantations, or the enchanters themselves, it is this worship that is indicated in the metrical life of St. Patrick, which says of him (Skene's "Celt. Scot.," II. 108):—