the Church has therefore constituted into the Feast of All the Saints. On this auspicious night the Queen of the "Seely Court" fortunately lighted down not far from the tree where the victim of the witch's revenge had been doomed to toddle. "She took me up in her milkwhite hand, And she straiked me three times o'er her knee; She changed me again to my ain proper shape, And I nae mair maun toddle about the tree." It is thus seen that in both of these ballads, while the witchcraft on which they are founded has not yet contracted its later vulgar characteristics, the horror of the story is mitigated, and thus rendered more poetical, in consequence of the witch's spell being broken by one of those more beneficent creatures of the fancy, who will be described presently as occupying a more pleasing niche in the Pantheon of the Teutons. In no other Scottish ballads that I remember does witchcraft obtrude itself into notice as guiding the course of the story; and the subject may, therefore, be dismissed with 1 Seely is identical with the Old English sely, modern silly, which originally, like the German selig, expressed the idea of blessed or happy. It seems that, of all the designations by which the fairies were known, that of the seely wichts was the one preferred by themselves. "Gin ye ca' me imp or elf, I rede ye look weel to yourself; Gin ye ca' me fairy, I'll work ye muckle tarrie; Gin guid neibour ye ca' me, Then guid neibour I will be ; But gin ye ca' me seelie wicht, I'll be your freend baith day and nicht." (See Chambers' "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," p. 324.) the remark, that if, in seeking to find out what influence the ballads and songs of Scotland have exerted, we shall be aided by knowing what they have not done, it may be worth while to observe that they cannot be charged with directly fostering the degrading belief in the vulgar witchcraft of later times. Witchcraft, as we have seen, retained its place among the beliefs of Christendom from its unfortunately finding a point of attachment in a dogma of the Church, with which it was made to harmonize. We now come to a prettier and pleasanter world of imaginary beings, which has retained its hold on the Christian mind mainly from there being no doctrine of Christianity with which it came into manifest conflict. The Elves, Fairies, Brownies, Mermaids, Kelpies, and that whole class of variously designated creations, could all live in the Christian mind outside the world of peculiarly Christian thought; and they have continued to hold their ground in popular belief for a much longer time and in a less altered form than any other fiction of ancient mythologies. For the deities of a more civilized heathendom suffered the same fate as the fetich of the savage: the heathen, unable to think, like the Hebrew Paul,1 of an idol as nothing, was content, after his conversion, to admit the existence of his old gods, but degraded them from the Pantheon to the Pandemonium. Thus Thor and his fellows of the Northern Asgard were sent packing to the same dismal limbo, to which the Fathers of the Church, with Milton after them, had banished the gods of Olympus and the East. In like manner the 1 See I Cor. viii. 4. 2" Paradise Lost," Book I. beings of the elfin world could not be ousted from the thought of the Teuton by the new religion; but though the anathemas of ecclesiastical authority would have consigned them heartily to the doom of their superiors, the only change in their position consisted in their being clothed with some less pleasing attributes than they seem to have originally possessed. The primitive elf, as the apparent connection of the name with the root of albus1 seems to imply, is essentially a being of light ; and though the Edda, elder as well as younger,2 distinguishes from the elves of light another species as elves of darkness, yet these seem to be named rather from their dwelling underground than from any malevolence of disposition. The beings of the elfin world, therefore, continued, even in Christian times, to be regarded as, if not positively benevolent, often extremely useful, and generally harmless; while the harm at times attributed to them arose either from the freakishness of a nature without moral characteristics, or from the connection into which the Church sought to bring them with the ecclesiastical world of devils. The fairy of the nursery tale, in any "dignus vindice nodus," is often called in to counteract the harmful doings of the witch; and in the two ballads cited above, the witch's charm is detected and broken,-in the one, by the good genius Billy Blind; in the other, by the Queen of the Fairies herself. It would seem, therefore, that the earth of Teutonic 1 See Grimm's "Deutsches Wörterbuch," under the word Alb. 2 See, in the former, the fifth song of the gods, Hrafnagaldr Odhins, and, in the latter, Gylfaginning, 17. Compare Simrock's "Deutsche Mythologie," § 124. heathendom-its woods and mountains, its lakes and streams—were peopled by a race of fanciful beings, perhaps as beautiful in their conception as the nymphs of the ancient Greek world; and it must be admitted that, on the whole, this superstition tended to soften the savage influence of the belief in witches, imparting to nature a happier aspect,—more of that Hellenic aspect, over the disappearance of which, under the dissolving processes of modern science, Schiller sings his celebrated dirge in the Götter Griechenlands.2 These observations may suffice to indicate the origin and general character of the superstitions which enter into Scottish ballad literature. Before proceeding to examine more closely the influence which these superstitions have exerted, through that literature, on the character of the Scottish people, it may be worth while to notice the value of the ballads as sources of information with reference to the superstitions, and the changes which these have undergone from the progress of civilization. An extremely interesting illustration may be found in the comparison of several ballads, in all of which the general outline of the legend is identical. It would lead too far into unnecessary details, to notice the numerous varieties of this legend in the literatures 1 The fairies have in fact been often identified, or more properly confounded, with the fictions of Greek and Latin mythology; and this confusion is among the influences which have modified the superstition. See Scott's well-known and still valuable Essay on the Fairies in the "Border Minstrelsy," vol. ii. pp. 279–291. 2 "Schöne Welt, wo bist du? Kehre wieder, Holdes Blüthenalter der Natur! Ach, nur in dem Feenland der Lieder Lebt noch deine fabelhafte Spur."--Verse 12. even of the Teutonic nations.1 In many of these varieties there is a prominent feature, in which most readers will recognize a likeness to the familiar Bluebeard of household story. Of the Scotch series of ballads on this legend, The Water o' Wearie's Well2 may be placed at the commencement. Here in a mysterious manner,-a manner the mystery of which is apparently enhanced by some imperfection in the opening verses, there is all at once ushered in a vaguely defined personage, gifted with extraordinary skill in the use of the harp, by which he soothes to sleep all his hearers, and charms a king's daughter on to his steed behind himself. "There cam a bird out o' a bush, On water for to dine; And sighing sair, says the King's daughter, "He's ta'en a harp into his hand, "He's luppen on his berry-brown steed, Then baith rade down to that water, That they ca' Wearie's Well." 1 An enumeration of similar legends, with a reference to sources of more detailed information, will be found in Child's "English and Scottish Ballads," vol. i. pp. 195 and 198; and vol. ii. pp. 271-3. Compare Jamieson's "Popular Ballads and Songs," vol. i. pp. 208-224. Are not all these legends perhaps merely separate rills which have trickled from the same primeval source, out of which has flowed the story of Paris and Helen? 2 Buchan's "Ballads of the North of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 201. |