Vengeance, however, is sometimes swift and sure upon these robberies. It is believed in Germany that the king of the snakes is wont to come out to sun himself at noon; and that he then lays aside his crown, a prize for any one who can seize it. A horseman, coming at the opportune moment, did so once; but the serpent-king called forth his subjects and pursued him. By the help of his good steed the man succeeded in arriving at home; and, thankful to have escaped the danger, he patted the beast's neck as he jumped down, saying: "Faithfully hast thou helped me!" At that instant a snake, which had hidden herself unnoticed in the horse's tail, bit the man; and little joy had he of his crime. In another story the girl who steals the crown is deafened by the cries of her victim; and elsewhere, when the serpent-king is unable to reach the robber, he batters his own head to pieces in ineffectual rage. Perhaps he deserved his fate in some of these cases, for it seems he had a foolish liking to lay down his crown on a white cloth, or a white, or blue, silk handkerchief,—a predilection which the robber did not fail to provide him with the opportunity of gratifying, and of repenting.[108]

Other tales represent the thief as compelled to restore the stolen goods. Thus a man who found the trolls on the Danish isle of Fuur carrying their treasures out into the air, shot thrice over them, and thereby forced the owners to quit them. He caught up the gold and silver and rode off with it, followed by the chief troll. But after he got into the house and shut the doors there was such a storming and hissing outside, that the whole house seemed ablaze. Terrified, he flung the bag wherein he had secured the treasures out into the night. The storm ceased, and he heard a voice crying: "Thou hast still enough." In the morning he found a heavy silver cup, which had fallen behind a chest of drawers. Again, a farm servant of South Kongerslev, in Denmark, who went at his master's instance, on Christmas Eve, to see what the trolls in a neighbouring hill were doing, was offered drink from a golden cup. He took the cup, and casting out its contents, spurred his horse from the spot, hotly pursued. On the way back he passed the dwelling of a band of trolls at enmity with those from whom he had stolen the cup. Counselled by them, he took to the ploughed field, where his pursuers were unable to follow him, and so escaped. The farmer kept the goblet until the following Christmas Eve, when his wife imprudently helped a tattered beggar to beer in it. It is not wonderful that both the cup and the beggar vanished; but we are to understand that the beggar was a troll. Perhaps he was. In Thyholm, a district of Denmark, there is a range of lofty mounds formerly inhabited by trolls. Some peasants who were once passing by these mounds prayed the trolls to give them some beer. In a moment a little creature came out and presented a large silver can to one of the men, who had no sooner grasped it than he set spurs to his horse, with the intention of keeping it. But the little man of the mound was too quick for him, for he speedily caught him and compelled him to return the can. In a Pomeranian story the underground folk forestalled the intention to rob them on the part of a farmer's boy whose thirst they had quenched with a can of delicious brown-beer. Having drunk, he hid the can itself, with the object of taking it home when his day's work was done, for it was of pure silver; but when he afterwards went to look for it, it had disappeared.[109]

Moreover, ungrateful mortals are sometimes punished, even when they are lucky enough to secure their prize. Thus it is told of a man of Zahren, in Mecklenburg, who was seized with thirst on his way home from Penzlin, that he heard music in a barrow known to be the haunt of the underground folk. People were then on familiar terms with the latter; and the man cried out and asked for a drink. Nor did he ask in vain; for his appeal was at once answered by the appearance of a little fellow with a flask of delicious drink. After slaking his thirst the man took the opportunity to make off with the flask; but he was pursued by the whole troop of elves, only one of whom, and he had only one leg, succeeded in keeping up with him. The thief, however, managed to get over a cross-road where One-leg could not follow him; and the latter then, making a virtue of necessity, cried out: "Thou mayst keep the flask; and henceforth always drink thereout, for it will never be empty; but beware of looking into it." For some years the elf's injunction was observed; but one day, in a fit of curiosity, the peasant looked into the bottom of the flask, and there sat a horrid toad! The toad disappeared, and so did the liquor; and the man in a short time fell miserably sick. In a Norse tale, a man whose bride is about to be carried off by Huldre-folk, rescues her by shooting over her head a pistol loaded with a silver bullet. This has the effect of dissolving the witchery; and he is forthwith enabled to seize her and gallop off, not unpursued. One of the trolls, to retard his flight, held out to him a well-filled golden horn. He took the horn, but cast the liquor away, and rode away with both horn and girl. The trolls, when they found themselves unable to catch him, cried after him in their exasperation: "The red cock shall crow over thy dwelling!" And behold! his house stood in a blaze. Similarly, a Swedish tradition relates that one of the serving-men of the lady of Liungby, in Scania, one night of Christmas in the year 1490, rode out to inquire the cause of the noise at the Magle stone. He found the trolls dancing and making merry. A fair troll-woman stepped forth and offered him a drinking-horn and a pipe, praying he would drink the troll-king's health and blow in the pipe. He snatched the horn and pipe from her, and spurring back to the mansion, delivered them into his lady's hands. The trolls followed and begged to have their treasures back, promising prosperity to the lady's race if she would restore them. She kept them, however; and they are said to be still preserved at Liungby as memorials of the adventure. But the serving-man who took them died three days after, and the horse on the second day; the mansion has been twice burnt, and the family never prospered after. On the eve of the first of May the witches of Germany hold high revel. Every year the fields and farmyards of a certain landowner were so injured by these nocturnal festivities that one of his servants determined to put a stop to the mischief. Going to the trysting-place, he found the witches eating and drinking around a large slab of marble which rested on four golden pillars; and on the slab lay a golden horn of wondrous form. The sorceresses invited him to join the feast; but a fellow-servant whom he met there warned him not to drink, for they only wished to poison him. Wherefore he flung the proffered beverage away, seized the horn, and galloped home as hard as he could. All doors and gates had been left open for him; and the witches consequently were unable to catch him. The next day a gentleman in fine clothes appeared and begged his master to restore the horn, promising in return to surround his property with a wall seven feet high, but threatening, in case of refusal, to burn his farms down thrice, and that just when he thought himself richest. Three days were allowed to the landowner for consideration, but he declined to restore the horn. The next harvest had hardly been housed when his barns were in flames. Three times did this happen, and the landowner was reduced to poverty. By the king's kindness he was enabled to rebuild; and he then made every effort to discover the owner of the horn, sending it about for that purpose even as far as Constantinople; but no one could be found to claim it.[110]

Somewhat more courteous was a Danish boy whom an Elf-maiden met and offered drink from a costly drinking-horn one evening as he rode homeward late from Ristrup to Siellevskov. He received the horn, but fearing to drink its contents, poured them out behind him, so that, as in several of these stories, they fell on the horse's back, and singed the hair off. The horn he held fast, and the horse probably needed no second hint to start at the top of its speed. The elf-damsel gave chase until horse and man reached a running water, across which she could not follow them. Seeing herself outwitted, she implored the youth to give her back the horn, promising him in reward the strength of twelve men. On this assurance he returned the horn to her, and got what she had promised him. But the exchange was not very profitable; for with the strength of twelve men he had unfortunately acquired the appetite of twelve. Here it may well be thought that the supernatural gift only took its appropriate abatement. In a story from the north of Scotland the cup was stolen for the purpose of undoing a certain spell, and was honourably returned when the purpose was accomplished. Uistean, we are told, was a great slayer of Fuathan, supernatural beings apparently akin to fairies. He shot one day into a wreath of mist, and a beautiful woman fell down at his side. He took her home; and she remained in his house for a year, speechless. On a day at the end of the year he was benighted in the mountains, and seeing a light in a hill, he drew nigh, and found the fairies feasting. He entered the hill, and heard the butler, as he was handing the drink round, say: "It is a year from this night's night that we lost the daughter of the Earl of Antrim. She has the power of the draught on her that she does not speak a word till she gets a drink from the cup that is in my hand." When the butler reached Uistean, he handed him the cup. The latter, on getting it in his hand, ran off, pursued by the fairies until the cock crew. When he got home, he gave the lady in his house to drink out of the cup; and immediately her speech returned. She then told him she was the Earl of Antrim's daughter, stolen by the fairies from child-bed. Uistean took back the cup to the hill whence he had brought it, and then restored the lady to her father safe and sound, the fairy woman who had been left in her place vanishing meantime in a flame of fire.[111]

There are also legends in which a hat conferring invisibility, or a glove, figures; but the stolen article is usually, as in most of the instances cited above, a cup or a drinking-horn. Many such articles are still preserved in various parts of Northern Europe. Of these the most celebrated are the Luck of Edenhall and the Oldenburg horn. But before discussing these I must refer to some other stories, the material evidence of which is no longer extant. Gervase of Tilbury relates that in a forest of Gloucestershire there is a glade in the midst whereof stands a hillock rising to the height of a man. Knights and hunters were wont, when fatigued with heat and thirst, to ascend the hillock in question to obtain relief. This had to be done singly and alone. The adventurous man then would say: "I thirst," when a cupbearer would appear and present him with a large drinking-horn adorned with gold and gems, as, says the writer, was the custom among the most ancient English, and containing liquor of some unknown but most delicious flavour. When he had drunk this, all heat and weariness fled from his body, and the cupbearer presented him with a towel to wipe his mouth withal; and then having performed his office he disappeared, waiting neither for recompense nor inquiry. One day an ill-conditioned knight of the city of Gloucester, having gotten the horn into his hands, contrary to custom and good manners kept it. But the Earl of Gloucester, having heard of it, condemned the robber to death, and gave the horn to King Henry I., lest he should be thought to have approved of such wickedness if he had added the rapine of another to the store of his own private property. Gervase of Tilbury wrote near the beginning of the thirteenth century. His contemporary, William of Newbury, relates a similar story, but lays its scene in Yorkshire. He says that a peasant coming home late at night, not very sober, and passing by a barrow, heard the noise of singing and feasting. Seeing a door open in the side of the barrow, he looked in, and beheld a great banquet. One of the attendants offered him a cup, which he took, but would not drink. Instead of doing so, he poured out the contents, and kept the vessel. The fleetness of his beast enabled him to distance all pursuit, and he escaped. We are told that the cup, described as of unknown material, of unusual colour and of extraordinary form, was presented to Henry I., who gave it to his brother-in-law, David, King of the Scots. After having been kept for several years in the Scottish treasury it was given by William the Lion to King Henry II., who wished to see it.[112]

By a fortune somewhat rare, this story, having been written down in the days of the early Plantagenet kings, has been lately found again among the folk in the East Riding. The how, or barrow, where it is now said to have occurred is Willey How, near Wold Newton, on the Bridlington road, a conspicuous mound about three hundred feet in circumference and sixty feet in height. The rustic to whom the adventure happened was an inhabitant of Wold Newton, who had been on a visit to the neighbouring village of North Burton, and was belated. Another tale resembling the Gloucestershire saga is found in Swabia, though the object of which the mysterious benefactor was deprived was not a cup, but a knife. Some farm servants, while at work in the fields, were approached by an unusually beautiful maiden clad in black. Every day about nine or ten o'clock in the morning, and again about four o'clock in the afternoon, she brought them a small pitcher of wine and a loaf of snow-white bread—greater luxuries, probably, to peasants then even than they would be now. She always brought a very pretty silver knife to cut the bread, and always begged them to be sure to give it back to her, else she were lost. Her visits continued until one of the servants took it into his head to keep the knife, which he was ungrateful enough to do in spite of her tears and prayers. Finding all entreaties vain, she uttered piercing cries of distress, tore her fair hair, rent her silken clothes, and vanished, never to be seen again. But often you may hear on the spot where she once appeared sobs and the sound of weeping.[113]

A Cornish tale relates that a farmer's boy of Portallow was one night sent to a neighbouring village for some household necessaries. On the way he fell in with some piskies, and by repeating the formula he heard them use, transported himself with them, first to Portallow Green, then to Seaton Beach, and finally to "the King of France's cellar," where he joined his mysterious companions in tasting that monarch's wines. They then passed through magnificent rooms, where the tables were laden for a feast. By way of taking some memorial of his travels he pocketed one of the rich silver goblets which stood on one of the tables. After a very short stay the word was passed to return, and presently he found himself again at home. The good wife complimented him on his despatch. "You'd say so, if you only know'd where I've been," he replied; "I've been wi' the piskies to Seaton Beach, and I've been to the King o' France's house, and all in five minutes." The farmer stared and said the boy was mazed. "I thought you'd say I was mazed, so I brort away this mug to show vor et," he answered, producing the goblet. With such undeniable evidence his story could not be any longer doubted. Stealing from a natural enemy like the King of France was probably rather meritorious than otherwise; and the goblet remained in the boy's family for generations, though unfortunately it is no longer forthcoming for the satisfaction of those who may still be sceptical.[114]

This story differs from the others I have detailed, in narrating a raid by supernatural beings on the dwelling of a human potentate—a raid in which a human creature joined and brought away a substantial trophy. In the seventeenth century there was in the possession of Lord Duffus an old silver cup, called the Fairy Cup, concerning which the following tradition was related to John Aubrey, the antiquary, by a correspondent writing from Scotland on the 25th of March 1695. An ancestor of the then Lord Duffus was walking in the fields near his house in Morayshire when he heard the noise of a whirlwind and of voices crying: "Horse and Hattock!" This was the exclamation fairies were said to use "when they remove from any place." Lord Duffus was bold enough to cry "Horse and Hattock" also, and was immediately caught up through the air with the fairies to the King of France's cellar at Paris, where, after he had heartily drunk, he fell asleep. There he was found lying the next morning with the silver cup in his hand, and was promptly brought before the King, to whom, on being questioned, he repeated this story; and the King, in dismissing him, presented him with the cup. Where it may be now I do not know, nor does Aubrey's correspondent furnish us with any description of it, save the negative but important remark that it had nothing engraven upon it beside the arms of the family.[115]

On this vessel, therefore, if it be yet in existence, there is nothing to warrant the name of Fairy Cup, or to connect it with the adventure just related. Nor does the Oldenburg Horn itself bear any greater marks of authenticity. That famous vessel is still exhibited at the palace of Rosenborg at Copenhagen. It is of silver gilt, and ornamented in paste with enamel. It bears coats of arms and inscriptions, showing that it was made for King Christian I. of Denmark in honour of the Three Kings of Cologne, and cannot therefore be older than the middle of the fifteenth century. The legend attached to it claims for it a much greater antiquity. The legend itself was narrated in Hamelmann's "Oldenburger Chronik" at the end of the sixteenth century, and is even yet current in the mouths of the Oldenburg folk. Hamelmann dates it in the year 990, when the then Count of Oldenburg was hunting in the forest of Bernefeuer. He had followed a roe from that forest to the Osenberg, and had distanced all his attendants. It was the twentieth of July, the weather was hot, and the count thirsty. He cried out for a draught of water, and had scarcely uttered the words, when the hill opened and a beautiful damsel appeared and offered him drink in this horn. Not liking the look of the beverage, he declined to drink. Whereupon she pressed him to do so, assuring him that it would go well with him and his thenceforth, and with the whole house of Oldenburg; but if the count would not believe her and drink there would be no unity from that time in the Oldenburg family. He had no faith in her words, and poured out the drink, which took the hair off his horse wherever it splashed him, and galloped away with the horn.[116]

Other drinking-horns, of which precisely analogous tales are told, are still to be seen in Norway. Of the one at Halsteengaard it is related that the posterity of the robber, down to the ninth generation, were afflicted, as a penalty, with some bodily blemish. This horn is described as holding nearly three quarts, and as being encircled by a strong gilt copper ring, about three inches broad, on which, in monkish characters, are to be read the names of the Three Kings of Cologne, Melchior, Baltazar, and Caspar. It is further ornamented with a small gilt copper plate, forming the setting of an oval crystal. Another horn, preserved in the museum at Arendal, was obtained in a similar manner. A father, pursuing his daughter and her lover, was stopped by a troll, and offered drink in it. Instead of drinking, he cast out the contents, with the usual result, and put spurs to his horse. He was counselled by another troll, who was not on good terms with the first, to ride through the rye and not through the wheat; but even when his pursuer was impeded by the tall rye-stalks, only the crowing of the cock before dawn rescued him. The vessel is encircled by three silver gilt rings, bearing an inscription, which seems not quite correctly reported, as follows: "Potum servorum benedic deus alme tuorum reliquam unus benede le un Caspar Melchior Baltazar."[117]

The legend of which I am treating attaches also to a number of sacred chalices. At Aagerup, in Zealand, is one of these. The thief, nearly overtaken by the trolls he had robbed, prayed to God in his distress, and vowed to bestow the cup upon the church if his prayer were heard. The church of Vigersted, also in Zealand, possesses another. In the latter case the man took refuge in the church, where he was besieged by the trolls until morning. In Bornholm a chalice and paten belonging to the church are said to have been made out of a cup stolen in the same way by a peasant whose mother was a mermaid, and who had inherited some portion of her supernatural power; hence, probably, his intercourse with the trolls, of which he took so mean an advantage. At Vioel, near Flensborg, in Schleswig, is a beaker belonging to the church, and, like the chalice at Aagerup, of gold, of which it is narrated that it was presented full of a liquor resembling buttermilk to a man who was riding by a barrow where the underground folk were holding high festival. He emptied and rode off with it in the usual manner. A cry arose behind him: "Three-legs, come out!" and, looking round, he saw a monster pursuing him. Finding this creature unable to come up with him, he heard many voices calling: "Two-legs, come out!" But his horse was swifter than Two-legs. Then One-leg was summoned, as in the story already cited from Mecklenburg, and came after him with gigantic springs, and would have caught him, but the door of his own house luckily stood open. He had scarcely entered, and slammed it to, when One-leg stood outside, banging against it, and foiled. The beaker was presented to the church in fulfilment of a vow made by the robber in his fright; and it is now used as the communion-cup. At Rambin, on the island of Ruegen, is another cup, the story of which relates that the man to whom it was offered by the underground folk did not refuse to drink, but having drunk, he kept the vessel and took it home. A boy who was employed to watch horses by night on a turf moor near the village of Kritzemow, in Mecklenburg, annoyed the underground folk by the constant cracking of his whip. One night, as he was thus amusing himself, a mannikin came up to him and offered him drink in a silver-gilt beaker. The boy took the beaker, but being openly on bad terms with the elves, argued no good to himself from such an offering. So he instantly leaped on horseback and fled, with the vessel in his hand, along the road to Biestow and Rostock. The mannikin, of course, followed, but, coming to a crossway, was compelled to give up the chase. When the boy reached Biestow much of the liquid, as was to be expected, had been shaken out of the cup, and wherever on the horse it had fallen the hair had been burnt away. Glad of escaping this danger, the boy thanked God and handed the vessel over to the church at Biestow. In none of these instances, however, do I find any description of the goblet.[118]

Fortunately there is one, and that the most celebrated of all the cups to which a fairy origin has been ascribed, which has been often and accurately delineated both with pen and pencil. I refer to the Luck of Edenhall. It belongs to Sir George Musgrave of Edenhall in Cumberland, in the possession of whose family it has been for many generations. The tradition is that a butler, going to fetch water from a well in the garden, called St. Cuthbert's Well, came upon a company of fairies at their revels, and snatched it from them. As the little, ill-used folk disappeared, after an ineffectual attempt to recover it, they cried:

"If this glass do break or fall, Farewell the luck of Edenhall!"

The most recent account of it was written in the year 1880, by the Rev. Dr. Fitch, for "The Scarborough Gazette," from which it has been reprinted for private circulation in the shape of a dainty pamphlet. He speaks of it, from a personal examination, as "a glass stoup, a drinking vessel, about six inches in height, having a circular base, perfectly flat, two inches in diameter, gradually expanding upwards till it ends in a mouth four inches across. The material is by no means fine in quality, presenting, as it does on close inspection, several small cavities or air-bubbles. The general hue is a warm green, resembling the tone known by artists as brown pink. Upon the transparent glass is traced a geometric pattern in white and blue enamel, somewhat raised, aided by gold and a little crimson. It will, of course, stand on its base, but it would be far from wise to entrust it, when filled, to this support." Dr. Fitch is in accord with the common opinion of antiquaries in pronouncing it to be of Venetian origin, though Mr. Franks thought it Saracenic. He describes the case in which it is kept as evidently made for it, being of the same shape. "The lid of this case," he says, "rather unevenly fits the body by overlapping it. There is no hinge; the fastenings are certain hooks or catches, not in good condition; the security and better apposition of the lid is maintained by a piece of leather, not unlike a modern boot-lace, or thin thong. The case dates, probably, from the fifteenth century, as articles made of similar material, viz., cuir bouilli, softened or boiled leather, were much in use in that age. This case bears an elegantly varied pattern that has been recognized in an inkstand of Henry the Seventh's, yet extant. Upon the lid of this case, in very chaste and well-formed characters, is the sacred monogram I.H.S." These three letters, which do not really form a monogram, have possibly given rise to the surmise, or tradition, that the Luck was once used as a sacred vessel. Dr. Fitch goes on to quote several authorities, showing that chalices of glass were sanctioned by the church, and were, in fact, made and used; and the Luck may have been such a vessel. But I can see no sufficient evidence of it. There is nothing to show that the leathern case is of the same date as the glass itself; and it may have been made long afterwards. The earliest mention of the relic seems to have been by Francis Douce, the antiquary, who was at Edenhall in 1785, and wrote some verses upon it; nor is there any authentic family history attaching to it. The shape of the goblet, its unsteadiness when full, and the difficulty of drinking from it without spilling some of its contents, of which Dr. Fitch had some experience, would point to its being intended rather for convivial than sacred uses.

The hypothesis of the Luck's having once been a chalice explains nothing; because, as we have seen, several of the cups alleged to have been stolen from supernatural beings are chalices to this day. Moreover, what are we to think of the drinking-horns of which the same tale is told? Some of these already mentioned bear, not indeed the sacred letters, but prayers and the names of the sainted Kings of Cologne, though, unlike the cups, they are not found in churches. One drinking-horn, however, was preserved in the cathedral at Wexioe, in Sweden, until carried away by the Danes in 1570. This horn, stated to be of three hundred colours, was received by a knight on Christmas morning from a troll-wife, whose head he there and then cut off with his sword. The king dubbed him Trolle in memory of the deed, and bestowed on him a coat-of-arms containing a headless troll.[119] How the horn came into the possession of the cathedral I do not know; but at all events it could never have been a chalice.

A silver cup, perhaps still used for sacramental purposes at the parish church of Malew, in the Isle of Man, is the subject of the following legend. A farmer returning homeward to the parish of Malew from Peel was benighted and lost his way among the mountains. In the course of his wanderings he was drawn by the sound of sweet music into a large hall where a number of little people were banqueting. Among them were some faces he thought he had formerly seen; but he forbore to take any notice of them. Nor did they take any notice of him until he was offered drink, when one of them, whose features seemed not unknown to him, plucked him by the coat and forbade him, whatever he did, to taste anything he saw before him; "for if you do," he added, "you will be as I am, and return no more to your family." Accordingly, when a large silver beaker was put into his hand, filled with liquor, he found an opportunity to throw its contents on the ground. The music forthwith ceased, and the company disappeared, leaving the cup in his hand. On finding his way home, he told the minister of the parish what had occurred; and the latter, with the instincts of his profession, advised him to devote the cup to the service of the Church. We are indebted to Waldron's well-known "Description of the Isle of Man," originally published in 1731, for this story. A later writer, annotating Waldron's work rather more than a quarter of a century ago, refers to the vessel in question as a paten; he states that it was still preserved in the church, and that it bore engraved the legend: "Sancte Lupe ora pro nobis."[120] There are no fewer than eleven saints named Lupus in the calendar. Whichever of them was invoked here, the inscription points to a continental origin for the vessel, whether cup or paten, and is not inconsistent with its being of some antiquity.

Mr. Train, who quotes the tradition in his account of the Isle of Man, states that several similar tales had been placed at his disposal by friends in the island; but it was naturally beneath the dignity of an historian to do more than give a single specimen of this "shade of superstition," as he calls it. He does, however, mention (though apparently without being conscious of any close relationship with the cup of Kirk Malew) an antique crystal goblet in the possession, when he wrote, of Colonel Wilks, the proprietor of the Estate of Ballafletcher, four or five miles from Douglas. It is described as larger than a common bell-shaped tumbler, uncommonly light and chaste in appearance, and ornamented with floral scrolls, having between the designs, on two sides, upright columellae of five pillars. The history of this cup is interesting. It is said to have been taken by Magnus, the Norwegian King of Man, from St. Olave's shrine. On what ground this statement rests does not appear. What is really known about the goblet is that having belonged for at least a hundred years to the Fletcher family, the owners of Ballafletcher, it was sold with the effects of the last of the family in 1778, and was bought by Robert Caesar, Esq., who gave it to his niece for safe keeping. This niece was, perhaps, the "old lady, a connection of the family of Fletcher," who is mentioned by Train as having presented the cup to Colonel Wilks. The tradition is that it had been given to the first of the Fletcher family more than two centuries ago, with the injunction "that as long as he preserved it peace and plenty would follow; but woe to him who broke it, as he would surely be haunted by the lhiannan Shee," or "peaceful spirit" of Ballafletcher. It was kept in a recess, whence it was never taken except on Christmas and Easter days, or, according to Train's account, at Christmas alone. Then, we are told, it was "filled with wine, and quaffed off at a breath by the head of the house only, as a libation to the spirit for her protection."[121]

Here is no mention of the theft of the goblet unless from St. Olave's sanctuary; but yet I think we have a glimpse of the real character of the cups to which the legend I am discussing attaches. They were probably sacrificial vessels dedicated to the old pagan worship of the house-spirits, of which we find so many traces among the Indo-European peoples. These house-spirits had their chief seat on the family hearth; and their great festival was that of the New Year, celebrated at the winter solstice. The policy of the Church in early and mediaeval times was to baptize to Christian uses as many of the heathen beliefs and ceremonies as possible. The New Year festival thus became united with the anniversary of the birth of Christ; and it is matter of history that as the Danes used, previously to their conversion, to drink to Odin and the Anses, so after that event they were in the habit of solemnly pledging Our Lord, His Apostles and the Saints. Such of the old beliefs and practices, however, as the Church could neither impress with a sacred character, nor destroy, lingered on. Among them were the superstitions of the fairies and the household spirits; and there is nothing unlikely in the supposition that special vessels were kept for the ceremonies in which these beings were propitiated. For this purpose a horn would serve as well as any goblet; if, indeed, it were not actually preferred, as being older, and therefore more sacred in shape and material. As these ceremonies gradually fell into desuetude, or were put down by clerical influence, it would be both natural and in accordance with policy that the cups devoted to the supposed rites should be transferred to the service of the Church.[122] They would all be old-fashioned, quaint, and, many of them, of foreign and unknown provenance. Already connected in the minds of the people with the spirit world, a supernatural origin would be ascribed to them; and gift or robbery would be the theory of acquisition most readily adopted. Now, theory in a certain stage of culture is indistinguishable from narrative.

In this chapter I have dealt entirely with stolen goods; but, as we have seen in previous chapters, tales of cups and other articles lent or given by elves in exchange for services rendered are by no means unknown. I cannot, however, recall any of such gifts which are now extant. It were much to be wished that all the drinking-vessels—nay, all the articles of every kind—to which legends of supernatural origin belong were actually figured and described. Much light would thereby be thrown upon their true history. I will only now point out, with regard to the Luck of Edenhall, and the three horns of Oldenburg, of Halsteengaard, and of Arendal, of which we have full descriptions, that what we know of them is all in confirmation of the theory suggested. In particular, the names of the Three Kings connect the horns with a Christmas, or Twelfth Night, festival, which is exactly what the theory of the sacrificial nature of these vessels would lead us to expect. If we turn from the actual beakers to the stories, it is surprising how many of these we find pointing to the same festival. The cup of South Kongerslev was won and lost on Christmas Eve. The horn and pipe of Liungby were stolen "one night of Christmas." It was at Christmas-time that the Danish boy acquired his supernatural strength by giving back to the elf-maiden the horn he had taken from her. The Halsteengaard horn and the golden beaker of Aagerup were both reft from the trolls on Christmas Eve, and the horn of Wexioe on Christmas morning. The night of St. John's Day is mentioned as the time when the horn now at Arendal was obtained. The saint here referred to is probably St. John the Evangelist, whose feast is on December the 27th. And in more than one case the incident is connected with a marriage, which would be an appropriate occasion for the propitiation of the household spirit. The only instance presenting any difficulty is that of the cup at Kirk Malew; and there the difficulty arises from the name of the saint to whom the cup was apparently dedicated. Nor is it lessened by the number of saints bearing the name of Lupus. The days on which these holy men are respectively commemorated range through the calendar from January to October; and until we know which of them was intended it is useless to attempt an explanation. The question, however, is of small account in the face of the probability called forth by the coincidences that remain.

There is one other matter to which I would call attention, namely, that while stories of the type discussed in the foregoing pages are common to both Celts and Teutons, the stolen cup is exclusively a Teutonic possession. More than that, no authentic record of the preservation of the relic itself is found save in the homes and conquests of the Scandinavian race. Is this to be accounted for by the late date of Christianity, and, therefore, the more recent survival of heathen rites among Teutonic, and especially Scandinavian, peoples?

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Girald. Cambr., l. i. c. 8.

[105] Davies, "Mythology," p. 155. Mr. Wirt Sikes quotes this story without acknowledgment, stating that the legend, "varying but little in phraseology, is current in the neighbourhood of a dozen different mountain lakes." As if he had collected it himself! (Sikes, p. 45). Compare an Eskimo story of a girl who, having acquired angakok power, visited the ingnersuit, or underground folk, "and received presents from them; but while carrying them homewards the gifts were wafted out of her hands and flew back to their first owners" (Rink, p. 460).

[106] Thorpe, vol. iii. p. 120, apparently quoting Harry's "Sagen, Maerchen und Legenden Niedersachsens"; Sebillot, "Trad. et Sup." vol. i. p. 115; "Zeits. f. Volksk." vol. ii. p. 415, quoting Vernaleken.

[107] Kuhn und Schwartz, pp. 305, 306; "Choice Notes," p. 76.

[108] Niederhoeffer, vol. iv. p. 130; Bartsch, vol. i. p. 278; Thorpe, vol. iii. p. 56, quoting Muellenhoff; Birlinger, "Volksthuemliches," vol. i. p. 103; Grimm, "Tales," vol. ii. p. 77. A Lusatian tradition quoted by Grimm in a note represents the watersnake-king's crown as not only valuable in itself, but like other fairy property, the bringer of great riches to its possessor. Ibid. 406. Cf. a Hindoo story to the same effect, Day, p. 17; and many other tales.

[109] Thorpe, vol. ii. pp. 148, 146, 121, quoting Thiele, "Danmarks Folkesagn;" Jahn, p. 75.

[110] Bartsch, vol. i. p. 83 (see also p. 41); Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 6, quoting Faye, "Norske Folkesagn"; ibid. p. 89, quoting Afzelius, "Svenske Folkets Sago-Haefder"; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 26.

[111] Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 142, quoting Thiele. See also Keightley, p. 88; Campbell, vol. ii. p. 97.

[112] Gerv. Tilb., Decis. iii. c. 60; Guil. Neub. "Chronica Rerum Anglic." lib. i. c. 28, quoted by Liebrecht in a note to Gerv. Tilb.

[113] Nicholson, p. 83. Mr. Nicholson in a letter to me says that he had the story as given by him from an old inhabitant of Bridlington, and that it is current in the neighbourhood. Birlinger, "Volkst." vol. i. pp. 3, 5.

[114] "Choice Notes," p. 73.

[115] Aubrey, "Miscellany," p. 149.

[116] Thorpe, vol. iii. p. 128; Kuhn und Schwartz, p. 280. The latter is the version still found as traditional. Its details are not so full, and are in some respects different.

[117] Thorpe, vol. ii. pp. 15, 14, apparently quoting Faye. Dr. Geo. Stephens of the University of Copenhagen very kindly made a great number of inquiries for me with a view to obtain information, and, if possible, drawings of the Scandinavian horns and cups, but unhappily with little success. The answer to his inquiries in reference to the horns of Halsteengaard and Arendal, sent by Prof. Olaf Rygh, the learned Keeper of the Norwegian Museum at Christiania, will be read with interest. He says: "Mr. Hartland's notice of 'Halsteengaard' in Norway doubtless refers to a local tale about a drinking-horn formerly in the hands of the owner of Holsteingaard, Aal parish, Hallingdal. It was first made public in the year 174-, in 'Ivar Wiels Beskriveke over Ringerige og Hallingdals Fogderi,' in 'Topografisk Journal for Norge,' Part XXXI., Christiania, 1804, pp. 179-183. I know nothing more as to the fate of this horn than what is said in Nicolaysen's 'Norske Fornlevninger,' p. 152, that it is said to have been sent to the Bergen Museum in 1845. Should this be so, it will be almost impossible to identify it among the many such horns in that collection. As described by Wiel, it was merely a very simple specimen of the kind with the common inscription JASPAR X MELCHIOR X BALTAZAR. This class of horn was largely imported to Norway from North Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries.

"Meanwhile I beg to point out that the oldest legend of this kind which has come down to us is found in 'Biskop Jens Nilssons Visitatsboeger og Reise-optegnelser, udgivne af Dr. Yngvar Nielsen,' p. 393. It was written by the bishop or his amanuensis during his visitation, 1595, in Flatdal parish, Telemarken. What has become of the horn spoken of by the bishop I cannot say.

"I have no idea of what is meant by Mr. Hartland's reference to Arendal. Possibly it may concern something in the museum there, but of which I never heard. The printed catalogue of the museum (Arendal, 1882) includes nothing from the middle age or later."

[118] Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 144, quoting Thiele. Keightley, pp. 109, 111, note; (The latter mentions another theft of a silver jug where the thief was saved by crossing running water.) Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 140; vol. iii. p. 70, quoting Muellenhoff; Jahn, p. 53; Bartsch, vol. i. p. 60.

[119] Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 91, quoting Afzelius.

[120] Waldron, pp. 28, 106.

[121] Train, vol. ii. p. 154; and see a note by Harrison to his edition of Waldron, p. 106. The cup is stated by Harrison to have been, when he wrote, in the possession of Major Bacon, of Seafield House. Mrs. Russell, of Oxford, kindly made inquiries for me in the Isle of Man as to its present whereabouts, and that of the cup of Kirk Malew, and inserted a query in Yn Livar Manninagh, the organ of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, but without eliciting any information.

[122] It is not irrelevant to observe in this connection that several of the chalices in Sweden are said to have been presented to the churches by priests to whom a Berg-woman had offered drink in these very cups or bowls (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 90, quoting Afzelius).



CHAPTER VII.

THE SUPERNATURAL LAPSE OF TIME IN FAIRYLAND.

The story of Rhys and Llewelyn—Dancing for a twelvemonth—British variants—Lapse of time among the Siberian Tartars—German and Slavonic stories—The penalty of curiosity and greed—A Lapp tale—The mother leaving her child in the mysterious cave—Rip van Winkle—Eastern variants—King Herla—The Adalantado of the Seven Cities—The Seven Sleepers—King Wenzel and the smith—Lost brides and bridegrooms—The Monk Felix—Visits to Paradise—A Japanese tale.

In previous chapters we have seen that human beings are sometimes taken by fairies into Fairyland, and that they are there kept for a longer or shorter period, or, it may be, are never permitted to return to earth at all. We have noted cases in which they are led down for temporary purposes and, if they are prudent, are enabled to return when those purposes are accomplished. We have noted other cases in which babes or grown women have been stolen and retained until their kindred have compelled restoration. The story cited in the last chapter from Giraldus describes a seduction of a different kind. There the visit to Fairyland was of a more voluntary character, and the hero was able to go to and fro as he pleased. We have also met with tales in which the temptation of food, or more usually of drink, has been held out to the wayfarer; and we have learned that the result of yielding would be to give himself wholly into the fairies' hands. I propose now to examine instances in which temptation of one kind or other has been successful, or in which a spell has been cast over man or woman, not merely preventing the bewitched person from regaining his home and human society, but also rendering him, while under the spell, impervious to the attacks of time and unconscious of its flight.

These stories are of many types. The first type comes, so far as I know, only from Celtic sources. It is very widely known in Wales, and we may call it, from its best-known example, the "Rhys and Llewelyn type." A story obtained between sixty and seventy years ago in the Vale of Neath relates that Rhys and Llewelyn were fellow-servants to a farmer; and they had been engaged one day in carrying lime for their master. As they were going home, driving their mountain ponies before them in the twilight, Rhys suddenly called to his companion to stop and listen to the music. It was a tune, he said, to which he had danced a hundred times, and he must go and have a dance now. So he told his companion to go on with the horses and he would soon overtake him. Llewelyn could hear nothing, and began to remonstrate; but away sprang Rhys, and he called after him in vain. Accordingly he went home, put up the ponies, ate his supper and went to bed, thinking that Rhys had only made a pretext for going to the alehouse. But when morning came, and still no sign of Rhys, he told his master what had occurred. Search proving fruitless, suspicion fell on Llewelyn of having murdered his fellow-servant; and he was accordingly imprisoned. A farmer in the neighbourhood, skilled in fairy matters, guessing how things might have been, proposed that himself and some others, including the narrator of the story, should accompany Llewelyn to the place where he parted with Rhys. On coming to it, "Hush!" cried Llewelyn, "I hear music, I hear sweet harps." All listened, but could hear nothing. But Llewelyn's foot was on the outward edge of the fairy-ring. "Put your foot on mine, David," he said to the narrator. The latter did so, and so did each of the party, one after the other, and then heard the sound of many harps, and saw within a circle, about twenty feet across, great numbers of little people dancing round and round. Among them was Rhys, whom Llewelyn caught by the smock-frock, as he came by him, and pulled him out of the circle. "Where are the horses? where are the horses?" cried he. "Horses, indeed!" said Llewelyn. Rhys urged him to go home and let him finish his dance, in which he averred he had not been engaged more than five minutes. It was only by main force they got him away; and the sequel was that he could not be persuaded of the time that had passed in the dance: he became melancholy, took to his bed, and soon after died.[123]

Variants of this tale are found all over Wales. At Pwllheli, Professor Rhys was told of two youths who went out to fetch cattle and came at dusk upon a party of fairies dancing. One was drawn into the circle; and the other was suspected of murdering him, until, at a wizard's suggestion, he went again to the same spot at the end of a year and a day. There he found his friend dancing, and managed to get him out, reduced to a mere skeleton. The first question put by the rescued man was as to the cattle he was driving. Again, at Trefriw, Professor Rhys found a belief that when a young man got into a fairy-ring the fairy damsels took him away; but he could be got out unharmed at the end of a year and a day, when he would be found dancing with them in the same ring. The mode of recovery was to touch him with a piece of iron and to drag him out at once. We shall consider hereafter the reason for touching the captive with iron. In this way was recovered, after the expiration of a year and a day, a youth who had wandered into a fairy-ring. He had new shoes on at the time he was lost; and he could not be made to understand that he had been there more than five minutes until he was asked to look at his new shoes, which were by that time in pieces. Near Aberystwyth, Professor Rhys was told of a servant-maid who was lost while looking for some calves. Her fellow-servant, a man, was taken into custody on a charge of murdering her. A "wise man," however, found out that she was with the fairies; and by his directions the servant-man was successful at the end of the usual period of twelve months and a day in drawing her out of the fairy-ring at the place where she was lost. As soon as she was released and saw her fellow-servant (who was carefully dressed in the same clothes as he had on when she left him), she asked about the calves. On their way home she told her master, the servant-man, and the others, that she would stay with them until her master should strike her with iron. One day, therefore, when she was helping her master to harness a horse the bit touched her, and she disappeared instantly and was never seen from that time forth. In another case, said to have happened in Anglesea, a girl got into a fairy-circle while looking, with her father, for a lost cow. By a "wise man's" advice, however, he rescued her by pulling her out of the circle the very hour of the night of the anniversary of his loss. The first inquiry she then made was after the cow, for she had not the slightest recollection of the time she had spent with the fairies.[124]

A ghastly sequel, more frequently found in a type of the story considered later on, sometimes occurs. In Carmarthenshire it is said that a farmer going out one morning very early was lost; nor were any tidings heard of him for more than twelve months afterwards, until one day a man passing by a lonely spot saw him dancing, and spoke to him. This broke the spell; and the farmer, as if waking out of a dream, exclaimed: "Oh dear! where are my horses?" Stepping out of the magical circle, he fell down and mingled his dust with the earth. In North Wales a story was generally current a couple of generations since of two men travelling together who were benighted in a wood. One of them slept, but the other fell into the hands of the fairies. With the help of a wizard's advice, some of his relatives rescued him at the end of a year. They went to the place where his companion had missed him, there found him dancing with the fairies and dragged him out of the ring. The unfortunate man, imagining it was the same night and that he was with his companion, immediately asked if it were not better to go home. He was offered some food, which he began to eat; but he had no sooner done so than he mouldered away. A similar tradition attaches to a certain yew-tree near Mathafarn in the parish of Llanwrin. One of two farm-servants was lost at that spot, and found again, a year after, dancing in a fairy-circle. On being dragged out he was asked if he did not feel hungry. "No," he replied, "and if I did, have I not here in my wallet the remains of my dinner that I had before I fell asleep?" He did not know that a year had passed by. His look was like a skeleton; and as soon as he had tasted food he too mouldered away.[125]

In Scotland the story is told without this terrible end. For example, in Sutherlandshire we learn that a man who had been with a friend to the town of Lairg to enter his first child's birth in the session-books, and to buy a keg of whisky against the christening, sat down to rest at the foot of the hill of Durcha, near a large hole from which they soon heard a sound of piping and dancing. Feeling curious, he entered the cavern, and disappeared. His friend was accused of murder, but being allowed a year and a day to vindicate himself, he used to repair at dusk to the fatal spot and call and pray. One day before the term ran out, he sat, as usual, in the gloaming by the cavern, when, what seemed his friend's shadow passed within it. It was his friend himself, tripping merrily with the fairies. The accused man succeeded in catching him by the sleeve and pulling him out. "Why could you not let me finish my reel, Sandy?" asked the bewitched man. "Bless me!" rejoined Sandy, "have you not had enough of reeling this last twelvemonth?" But the other would not believe in this lapse of time until he found his wife sitting by the door with a yearling child in her arms. In Kirkcudbrightshire, one night about Hallowe'en two young ploughmen, returning from an errand, passed by an old ruined mill and heard within music and dancing. One of them went in; and nothing was seen of him again until a year after, when his companion went to the same place, Bible in hand, and delivered him from the evil beings into whose power he had fallen.[126]

The captive, however, does not always require to be sought for: he is sometimes released voluntarily by his captors. A man who lived at Ystradgynlais, in Brecknockshire, going out one day to look after his cattle and sheep on the mountain, disappeared. In about three weeks, after search had been made in vain for him and his wife had given him up for dead, he came home. His wife asked him where he had been for the past three weeks. "Three weeks! Is it three weeks you call three hours?" said he. Pressed to say where he had been, he told her he had been playing on his flute (which he usually took with him on the mountain) at the Llorfa, a spot near the Van Pool, when he was surrounded at a distance by little beings like men, who closed nearer and nearer to him until they became a very small circle. They sang and danced, and so affected him that he quite lost himself. They offered him some small cakes to eat, of which he partook; and he had never enjoyed himself so well in his life. Near Bridgend is a place where a woman is said to have lived who was absent ten years with the fairies, and thought she was not out of the house more than ten minutes. With a woman's proverbial persistency, she would not believe her husband's assurances that it was ten years since she disappeared; and the serious disagreement between them which ensued was so notorious that it gave a name to the place where they lived. A happier result is believed to have attended an adventure that foreboded much worse to a man at Dornoch, in Sutherlandshire. He was present at a funeral in the churchyard on New Year's Day, and was so piqued at not being invited, as all the others were, to some of the New Year's festivities, that in his vexation, happening to see a skull lying at his feet, he struck it with his staff and said: "Thou seemest to be forsaken and uncared-for, like myself. I have been bidden by none; neither have I invited any: I now invite thee!" That night as he and his wife were sitting down alone to supper, a venerable old man entered the room in silence and took his share of the delicacies provided. In those days the New Year's feast was kept up for eleven days together; and the stranger's visit was repeated in the same absolute silence for six nights. At last the host, alarmed and uneasy, sought the priest's advice as to how he was to get rid of his unwelcome guest. The reverend father bade him, in laying the bannocks in the basket for the seventh day's supper, reverse the last-baked one. This, he declared, would induce the old man to speak. It did; and the speech was an invitation—nay, rather a command—to spend the remainder of the festival with him in the churchyard. The priest, again consulted, advised compliance; and the man went trembling to the tryst. He found in the churchyard a great house, brilliantly illuminated, where he enjoyed himself, eating, drinking, piping and dancing. After what seemed the lapse of a few hours, the grey master of the house came to him, and bade him hasten home, or his wife would be married to another; and in parting he advised him always to respect the remains of the dead. Scarcely had he done speaking when the grey old man himself, the guests, the house, and all that it contained, vanished, leaving the man to crawl home alone in the moonlight as best he might after so long a debauch. For he had been absent a year and a day; and when he got home he found his wife in a bride's dress, and the whole house gay with a bridal party. His entrance broke in upon the mirth: his wife swooned, and the new bridegroom scrambled up the chimney. But when she got over her fright, and her husband had recovered from the fatigue of his year-long dance, they made it up, and lived happily ever after.[127]

A story of this type has been elaborated by a Welsh writer who is known as "Glasynys" into a little romance, in which the hero is a shepherd lad, and the heroine a fairy maiden whom he weds and brings home with him. This need not detain us; but a more authentic story from the Vale of Neath may be mentioned. It concerns a boy called Gitto Bach, or Little Griffith, a farmer's son, who disappeared. During two whole years nothing was heard of him; but at length one morning when his mother, who had long and bitterly mourned for him as dead, opened the door, whom should she see sitting on the threshold but Gitto with a bundle under his arm. He was dressed and looked exactly as when she last saw him, for he had not grown a bit. "Where have you been all this time?" asked his mother. "Why, it was only yesterday I went away," he replied; and opening the bundle, he showed her a dress the "little children," as he called them, had given him for dancing with them. The dress was of white paper without seam. With maternal caution she put it into the fire.[128]

I am not aware of many foreign examples of this type; but among the Siberian Tartars their extravagant heroes sometimes feast overlong with friends as mythical as themselves. On one occasion

"They caroused, they feasted. That a month had flown They knew not; That a year had gone by They knew not. As a year went by It seemed like a day; As two years went by It seemed like two days; As three years went by It seemed like three days."

Again, when a hero was married the time very naturally passed rapidly. "One day he thought he had lived here—he had lived a month; two days he believed he had lived—he had lived two months; three days he believed he had lived—he had lived three months." And he was much surprised to learn from his bride how long it really was, though time seems always to have gone wrong with him. For after he was born it is recorded that in one day he became a year old, in two days two years, and in seven days seven years old; after which he performed some heroic feats, ate fourteen sheep and three cows, and then lying down slept for seven days and seven nights—in other words, until he was fourteen years old. In a Breton tale a girl who goes down underground, to become godmother to a fairy child, thinks, when she returns, that she has been away but two days, though in the meantime her god-child has grown big: she has been in fact ten years. In a Hessian legend the time of absence is seven years.[129]

Turning away from this type, in which pleasure, and especially the pleasure of music and dancing, is the motive, let us look at what seem to be some specially German and Slavonic types of the tale. In the latter it is rather an act of service (sometimes under compulsion), curiosity or greed, which leads the mortal into the mysterious regions where time has so little power. At Eldena, in Pomerania, are the ruins of a monastery and church, formerly very wealthy, under which are said to be some remarkable chambers. Two Capuchin monks came from Rome many years ago, and inquired of the head of the police after a hidden door which led under the ruins. He lent them his servant-boy, who, under their direction, removed the rubbish and found the door. It opened at the touch of the monks, and they entered with the servant. Passing through several rooms they reached one in which many persons were sitting and writing. Here they were courteously received; and after a good deal of secret conference between the monks and their hosts, they were dismissed. When the servant came back to the upper air, he found he had been absent three whole years. Blanik is the name of a mountain in Bohemia, beneath which are lofty halls whose walls are entirely fashioned of rock-crystal. In these halls the Bohemian hero, the holy King Wenzel, sleeps with a chosen band of his knights, until some day the utmost need of his country shall summon him and them to her aid. A smith, who dwelt near the mountain, was once mowing his meadow, when a stranger came and bade him follow him. The stranger led him into the mountain, where he beheld the sleeping knights, each one upon his horse, his head bent down upon the horse's neck. His guide then brought him tools that he might shoe the horses, but told him to beware in his work of knocking against any of the knights. The smith skilfully performed his work, but as he was shoeing the last horse he accidentally touched the rider, who started up, crying out: "Is it time?" "Not yet," replied he who had brought the smith thither, motioning the latter to keep quiet. When the task was done, the smith received the old shoes by way of reward. On returning home he was astonished to find two mowers at work in his meadow, whereas he had only left one there. From them he learned that he had been away a whole year; and when he opened his bag, behold the old horse-shoes were all of solid gold! On Easter Sunday, during mass, the grey horse belonging to another peasant living at the foot of the Blanik disappeared. While in quest of him the owner found the mountain open, and, entering, arrived in the hall where the knights sat round a large table of stone and slept. Each of them wore black armour, save their chief, who shone in gold and bore three herons' feathers in his helm. Ever and anon one or other of the knights would look up and ask: "Is it time?" But on their chief shaking his head he would sink again to rest. While the peasant was in the midst of his astonishment he heard a neighing behind him; and turning round he left the cavern. His horse was quietly grazing outside; but when he got home every one shrank in fright away from him. His wife sat at the table in deep mourning. On seeing him she shrieked and asked: "Where have you been for a whole year?" He thought he had only been absent a single hour. A servant-man driving two horses over the Blanik heard the trampling of steeds and a battle-march played. It was the knights returning from their mimic combat; and the horses he was driving were so excited that he was compelled to follow with them into the mountain, which then closed upon them. Nor did he reach home until ten years had passed away, though he thought it had only been as many days.[130]

We shall have occasion to return to Blanik and its knights. Parallel traditions attach, as is well known, to the Kyffhaeuser, a mountain in Thuringia, where Frederick Barbarossa sleeps. A peasant going with corn to market at Nordhausen, drove by the Kyffhaeuser, where he was met by a little grey man, who asked him whither he was going, and offered to reward him if he would accompany him instead. The little grey man led him through a great gateway into the mountain till they came at last to a castle. There he took from the peasant his waggon and horses, and led him into a hall gorgeously illuminated and filled with people, where he was well entertained. At last the little grey man told him it was now time he went home, and rewarding him bountifully he led him forth. His waggon and horses were given to him again, and he trudged homeward well pleased. Arrived there, however, his wife opened her eyes wide to see him, for he had been absent a year, and she had long accounted him dead. It fared not quite so well with a journeyman joiner from Nordhausen, by name Thiele, who found the mountain open, as it is every seven years, and went in. There he saw the Marquis John (whoever he may have been), with his beard spreading over the table and his nails grown through it. Around the walls lay great wine-vats, whose hoops and wood had alike rolled away; but the wine had formed its own shell and was blood-red. A little drop remained in the wine-glass which stood before the Marquis John. The joiner made bold to drain it off, and thereupon fell asleep. When he awoke again he had slept for seven years in the mountain.[131]

Curiosity and greed caused this man to lose seven years of his life. This is a motive often met with in these stories. A young girl during the midday rest left a hayfield in the Lavantthal, Carinthia, to climb the Schoenofen, whence there is a fine view over the valley. As she reached the top she became aware of an open door in the rock. She entered, and found herself in a cellar-like room. Two fine black steeds stood at the fodder-trough and fed off the finest oats. Marvelling how they got there, she put a few handfuls of the oats into her pocket, and passed on into a second chamber. A chest stood there, and on the chest lay a black dog. Near him was a loaf of bread, in which a knife was stuck. With ready wit she divined, or recollected, the purpose of the bread; and cutting a good slice she threw it to the dog. While he was busy devouring it she filled her apron from the treasure contained in the chest. But meantime the door closed, and there was nothing for it but to lie down and sleep. She awoke to find the door wide open, and at once made the best of her way home. But she was not a little astounded to learn that she had been gone for a whole year.[132]

A Lapp tale presents this mysterious lapse of time as the sequel of an adventure similar to that of Ulysses with Polyphemus. An old Lapp, having lost his way while hunting, came to a cottage. The door was open; and he entered to remain there the night, and began to cook in a pot he carried with him the game he had caught that day. Suddenly a witch entered, and asked him: "What is your name?" "Myself," answered the Lapp; and taking a spoonful of the boiling liquid he flung it in her face. She cried out: "Myself has burnt me! Myself has burnt me!" "If you have burnt yourself you ought to suffer," answered her companion from the neighbouring mountain. The hunter was thus delivered for the moment from the witch, who, however, as she went away, exclaimed: "Self has burnt me; Self shall sleep till the new year!" When the Lapp had finished his repast he lay down to repose. On awaking he rummaged in his provision-sack: he found its contents mouldy and putrid. Nor could he understand this before he got home and learned that he had been missing for six months.[133]

This story is unlike the previous ones, inasmuch as it represents the six months' disappearance as in no way due to any enticements, either of supernatural beings or of the hero's own passions. Neither music, nor dancing, neither greed nor curiosity, led him astray. The aboriginal inhabitants of Japan in like manner tell of a certain man who went out in his boat to fish and was carried off by a storm to an unknown land. The chief, an old man of divine aspect, begged him to stay there for the night, promising to send him home to his own country on the morrow. The promise was fulfilled by his being sent with some of the old chief's subjects who were going thither; but the man was enjoined to lie down in the boat and cover up his head. When he reached his native place the sailors threw him into the water; and ere he came to himself sailors and boat had disappeared. He had been away for a whole year; and the chief appeared to him shortly afterwards in a dream, revealing himself as no human being, but the chief of the salmon, the divine fish; and he required the man thenceforth to worship him. Curiously similar to the Japanese tale is a tale told to M. Sebillot by a cabin-boy of Saint Cast in Brittany. A fisherman caught one day the king of the fishes, in the shape of a small gilded fish, but was persuaded to let him go under promise to send (such is the popular belief in the unselfishness of kings) at all times as many of his subjects as the fisherman wanted into his nets. The promise was royally fulfilled. More than this, when the fisherman's boat was once capsized by a storm the king of the fishes appeared, gave its drowning owner to drink from a bottle he had brought for the purpose, and conveyed him under the water to his capital,—a beautiful city whose streets, surpassing those of London in the traditions of English peasant children, were paved not only with gold but with diamonds and other gems. The fisherman promptly filled his pockets with these paving-stones; and then the king politely told him: "When you are tired of being with us, you have only to say so." There is a limit to hospitality; so the fisherman took the hint, and told the king how delighted he should be to remain there always, but that he had a wife and children at home who would think he was drowned. The king called a tunny and commanded him to take the fisherman on his back and deposit him on a rock near the shore, where the other fishers could see and rescue him. Then, with the parting gift of an inexhaustible purse, he dismissed his guest. When the fisherman got back to his village he found he had been away more than six months. In the chapter on Changelings I had occasion to refer to some instances of women being carried off at a critical time in their lives. One more such instance may be added here. Among the Bohemians a mythical female called Polednice is believed to be dangerous to women who have recently added to the population; and such women are accordingly warned to keep within doors, especially at noon and after the angelus in the evening. On one occasion a woman, who scorned the warnings she had received, was carried off by Polednice in the form of a whirlwind, as she sat in the harvest-field chatting with the reapers, to whom she had brought their dinner. Only after a year and a day was she permitted to return.[134]

In some of the German and Bohemian tales a curious incident occurs. Beneath the Rollberg, near Niemes, in Bohemia, is a treasure-vault, the door of which stands open for a short time every Palm Sunday. A woman once found it open thus and entered with her child. There she saw a number of Knights Templars sitting round a table, gambling. They did not notice her; so she helped herself from a pile of gold lying near them, having first set down her child. Beside the gold lay a black dog, which barked from time to time. The woman knew that the third time it barked the door would close; wherefore she hastened out. When she bethought herself of the child it was too late: she had left it behind in her haste, and the vault was closed. The following year she returned at the hour when the door was open, and found the little one safe and sound, in either hand a fair red apple. Frequently in these tales a beautiful lady comes and ministers to the child during its mother's absence; at other times, a man. The treasure of King Darius is believed to be buried beneath the Sattelburg in Transylvania. A Wallachian woman, with her yearling babe in her arms, once found the door open and went in. There sat an old, long-bearded man, and about him stood chests full of silver and gold. She asked him if she might take some of this treasure for herself. "Oh, yes," answered he, "as much as you like." She put down the child and filled her skirts with gold, put the gold outside and re-entered. Having obtained permission, she filled and emptied her skirts a second time. But when she turned to enter a third time the door banged-to, and she was left outside. She cried out for her child, and wept—in vain. Then she made her way to the priest and laid her case before him. He advised her to pray daily for a whole year, and she would then get her child again. She carried out his injunction; and the following year she went again to the Sattelburg. The door was open, and she found the babe still seated in the chest where she had put it down. It was playing with a golden apple, which it held up to her, crying: "Look, mother, look!" The mother was astonished to hear it speak, and asked: "Whence hast thou that beautiful apple?" "From the old man, who has given me to eat too." The man was, however, no longer to be seen; and as the mother took her child and left the place, the door closed behind her.[135]

But the most numerous, and assuredly the most weird and interesting, of these stories belong to a type which we may call, after the famous Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the "Rip van Winkle type." Here the hero remains under the spell of the supernatural until he passes the ordinary term of life; and he comes back to find all his friends dead and himself nothing but a dim memory. It will be needless here to recapitulate the tale of Rip van Winkle himself. Whether any such legend really lingers about the Kaatskill mountains I do not know; but I have a vehement suspicion that Washington Irving was indebted rather to Otmar's "Traditions of the Harz," a book published at Bremen in the year 1800. In this book the scene of the tale is laid on the Kyffhaeuser, and with the exception of such embellishments as the keen tongue of Dame van Winkle and a few others, the incidents in the adventures of Peter Claus the Goatherd are absolutely the same as those of Rip van Winkle.[136]

Of all the variants of this type it is in China that we find the one most resembling it. Wang Chih, afterwards one of the holy men of the Taoists, wandering one day in the mountains of Kue Chow to gather firewood, entered a grotto in which some aged men were playing at chess. He laid down his axe and watched their game, in the course of which one of them handed him something in size and shape like a date-stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. No sooner had he done so than hunger and thirst passed away. After some time had elapsed one of the players said: "It is long since you came here; you should go home now." Wang Chih accordingly proceeded to pick up his axe, but found that its handle had mouldered into dust; and on reaching home he became aware that not hours, nor days, but centuries had passed since he left it, and that no vestige of his kinsfolk remained. Another legend tells of a horseman who, riding over the hills, sees several old men playing a game with rushes. He ties his horse to a tree while he looks on at them. In a few minutes, as it seems to him, he turns to depart; but his horse is already a skeleton, and of the saddle and bridle rotten pieces only are left. He seeks his home; but that too is gone; and he lies down and dies broken-hearted. A similar story is told in Japan of a man who goes into the mountains to cut wood, and watches two mysterious ladies playing at chess while seven generations of mortal men pass away. Both these legends omit the supernatural food which seems to support life, not only in the case of Wang Chih, but also in that of Peter Claus. In another Chinese tale two friends, wandering in the T'ien-t'ai mountains, are entertained by two beautiful girls, who feed them on a kind of haschisch, a drug made from hemp; and when they return they find that they have passed seven generations of ordinary men in the society of these ladies. Another Taoist devotee was admitted for a while into the next world, where he was fed on cakes, and, as if he were a dyspeptic, he received much comfort from having all his digestive organs removed. After awhile he was sent back to this world, to find himself much younger than his youngest grandson.[137]

Feasts in Fairyland occupy an unconscionable length of time. Walter Map, writing in the latter half of the twelfth century, relates a legend concerning a mythical British king, Herla, who was on terms of friendship with the king of the pigmies. The latter appeared to him one day riding on a goat, a man such as Pan might have been described to be, with a very large head, a fiery face, and a long red beard. A spotted fawn-skin adorned his breast, but the lower part of his body was exposed and shaggy, and his legs degenerated into goat's feet. This queer little fellow declared himself very near akin to Herla, foretold that the king of the Franks was about to send ambassadors offering his daughter as wife to the king of the Britons, and invited himself to the wedding. He proposed a pact between them, that when he had attended Herla's wedding, Herla should the following year attend his. Accordingly at Herla's wedding the pigmy king appears with a vast train of courtiers and servants, and numbers of precious gifts. The next year he sends to bid Herla to his own wedding. Herla goes. Penetrating a mountain cavern, he and his followers emerge into the light, not of sun or moon, but of innumerable torches, and reach the pigmies' dwellings, whose splendour Map compares with Ovid's description of the palace of the sun. Having given so charming, and doubtless so accurate, a portrait of the pigmy king, it is a pity the courtier-like ecclesiastic has forgotten to inform us what his bride was like. He leaves us to guess that her attractions must have corresponded with those of her stately lord, telling us simply that when the wedding was over, and the gifts which Herla brought had been presented, he obtained leave to depart, and set out for home, laden, he too, with gifts, among which are enumerated horses, dogs, hawks, and other requisites of a handsome outfit for hunting or fowling. Indeed, the bridegroom himself accompanied them as far as the darkness of the cavern through which they had to pass; and at parting he added to his presentations that of a bloodhound, so small as to be carried, forbidding any of the train to alight anywhere until the hound should leap from his bearer. When Herla found himself once more within his own realm he met with an old shepherd, and inquired for tidings of his queen by name. The shepherd looked at him astonished, scarcely understanding his speech; for he was a Saxon, whereas Herla was a Briton. Nor, as he told the king, had he heard of such a queen, unless it were a queen of the former Britons, whose husband, Herla, was said to have disappeared at yonder rock with a dwarf, and never to have been seen again. That, however, was long ago, for it was now more than two hundred years since the Britons had been driven out and the Saxons had taken possession of the land. The king was stupefied, for he deemed he had only been away three days, and could hardly keep his seat. Some of his followers, forgetful of the pigmy king's prohibition, alighted without waiting for the dog to lead the way, and were at once crumbled into dust. Herla and those who were wiser took warning by the fate of their companions. One story declared that they were wandering still; and many persons asserted that they had often beheld the host upon its mad, its endless journey. But Map concludes that the last time it appeared was in the year of King Henry the Second's coronation, when it was seen by many Welshmen to plunge into the Wye in Herefordshire.[138]

Cases in which dancing endures for a whole twelvemonth have already been mentioned. This might be thought a moderate length of time for a ball, even for a fairy ball; but some have been known to last longer. Two celebrated fiddlers of Strathspey were inveigled by a venerable old man, who ought to have known better, into a little hill near Inverness, where they supplied the music for a brilliant assembly which lasted in fact for a hundred years, though to them it seemed but a few hours. They emerged into daylight again on a Sunday; and when they had learned the real state of affairs, and recovered from their astonishment at the miracle which had been wrought in them, they went, as was meet, to church. They sat listening for awhile to the ringing of the bells; but when the clergyman began to read the gospel, at the first word he uttered they both fell into dust. This is a favourite form of the legend in Wales as well as Scotland; but, pathetic and beautiful as the various versions are, they present no variations of importance.[139]

Often the stranger's festive visit to Fairyland is rounded with a sleep. We have seen this in the instance of Rip van Winkle. Another legend has been put into literary form by Washington Irving, this time from a Portuguese source. It relates the adventures of a noble youth who set out to find an island in which some of the former inhabitants of the Peninsula had taken refuge at the time of the Moorish conquest, and where their descendants still dwelt. The island was believed to contain seven cities; and the adventurer was appointed by the king of Portugal Adalantado, or governor, of the Seven Cities. He reached the island, and was received as Adalantado, was feasted, and then fell asleep. When he came to himself again he was on board a homeward-bound vessel, having been picked up senseless from a drifting wreck. He reached Lisbon, but no one knew him. His ancestral mansion was occupied by others: none of his name had dwelt in it for many a year. He hurried to his betrothed, only to fling himself, not, as he thought, at her feet, but at the feet of her great-granddaughter. In cases like this the supernatural lapse of time may be conceived as taking place during the enchanted sleep, rather than during the festivities. According to a Coptic Christian romance, Abimelek, the youthful favourite of King Zedekiah, preserved the prophet Jeremiah's life when he was thrown into prison, and afterwards persuaded his master to give him charge of the prophet, and to permit him to release him from the dungeon. In reward, Jeremiah promised him that he should never see the destruction of Jerusalem, nor experience the Babylonish captivity, and yet that he should not die. The sun should take care of him, the atmosphere nourish him; the earth on which he slept should give him repose, and he should taste of joy for seventy years until he should again see Jerusalem in its glory, flourishing as before. Accordingly, going out one day, as his custom was, into the royal garden to gather grapes and figs, God caused him to rest and fall asleep beneath the shadow of a rock. There he lay peacefully slumbering while the city was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, and during the horrors of its capture and the whole of the seventy sad years that followed. When he awoke, it was to meet the prophet Jeremiah returning from the captivity, and he entered the restored city with him in triumph. But the seventy years had seemed to him but a few hours; nor had he known anything of what passed while he slumbered. Mohammed in the Koran mentions a story referred by the commentators to Ezra. He is represented as passing by a village (said to mean Jerusalem) when it was desolate, and saying: "How will God revive this after its death?" And God made him die for a hundred years. Then He raised him and asked: "How long hast thou tarried?" Said the man: "I have tarried a day, or some part of a day." But God said: "Nay, thou hast tarried a hundred years. Look at thy food and drink, they are not spoiled; and look at thine ass; for we will make thee a sign to men. And look at the bones, how we scatter them and then clothe them with flesh." And when it was made manifest to him, he said: "I know that God is mighty over all."[140]

Mohammed probably was unconscious that this is to all intents and purposes the same story as that of the Seven Sleepers, to which he refers in the chapter on the Cave. Some of the phrases he uses are, indeed, identical. As usually told, this legend speaks of seven youths of Ephesus who had fled from the persecutions of the heathen emperor Decius, and taken refuge in a cave, where they slept for upwards of three hundred years. In Mohammed's time, however, it should be noted, the number of the sleepers was undetermined; they were credited with a dog who slept with them, like Ezra's ass; and Mohammed's notion of the time they slept was only one hundred years. One of the wild tribes on the northern frontier of Afghanistan is said to tell the following story concerning a cavern in the Hirak Valley, known as the cave of the Seven Sleepers. A king bearing the suspicious name of Dakianus, deceived by the devil, set himself up as a god. Six of his servants, however, having reason to think that his claim was unfounded, fled from him and fell in with a shepherd, who agreed to throw in his lot with theirs and to guide them to a cavern where they might all hide. The shepherd's dog followed his master; but the six fugitives insisted on his being driven back lest he should betray their whereabouts. The shepherd begged that he might go with them, as he had been his faithful companion for years; but in vain. So he struck the dog with his stick, breaking one of his legs. The dog still followed; and the shepherd repeated the blow, breaking a second leg. Finding that the dog continued to crawl after them notwithstanding this, the men were struck with pity and took it in turns to carry the poor animal. Arrived at the cave, they all lay down and slept for three hundred and nine years. Assuming the genuineness of the tradition, which perhaps rests on no very good authority, its form is obviously due to Mohammedan influence. But the belief in this miraculous sleep is traceable beyond Christian and Mohammedan legends into the Paganism of classical antiquity. Pliny, writing in the first century of our era, alludes to a story told of the Cretan poet Epimenides, who, when a boy, fell asleep in a cave, and continued in that state for fifty-seven years. On waking he was greatly surprised at the change in the appearance of everything around him, as he thought he had only slept for a few hours; and though he did not, as in the Welsh and Scottish tales, fall into dust, still old age came upon him in as many days as the years he had passed in slumber.[141]