CHAPTER VIII.
MISCHIEF-MAKERS.
THE fairy-fellows who made a regular business of mischief-making seemedto have two favorite ways of setting to work. They either saddledthemselves with little boys and spilled them, sooner or later, into thewater, or else they danced along holding a twinkling light, and led anyone so foolish as to follow them a pretty march into chasms andquagmires. Their jokes were grim and hurtful, and not merely funny, likeBrownie's; for Brownie usually gave his victims (except in Molly Jones'scase) nothing much worse than a pinch. So people came to have great aweand horror of the heartless goblins who waylaid travellers, and leftthem broken-limbed or dead.
Very often quarrelsome, disobedient or vicious folk fell into the snareof a Kelpie, or a Will-o'-the-Wisp; for the little whipper-snappers hada fine eye for poetical justice, and dealt out punishments with thenicest discrimination. We never hear that they troubled good, steadymortals; but only that sometimes they beguiled them, for sheer love,into Fairyland.
We know that all "ouphes and elves" could change their shapes at will;therefore when we spy fairy-horses, fairy-lambs, and such quadrupeds, weguess at once that they are only roguish small gentlemen masquerading.Never for the innocent fun of it, either; but alas! to bring sillypersons to grief.
In Hampshire, in England, was a spirit known as Coltpixy, which, itselfshaped like a miniature neighing horse, beguiled other horses into bogsand morasses. The Irish Pooka or Phooka was a horse too, and a famousrascal. He lived on land, and was something like the Welsh Gwyll: atiny, black, wicked-faced wild colt, with chains dangling about him.Again, he frisked around in the shape of a goat or a bat. Spenser hashim:
"Ne let the Pouke, ne other evill spright, . . . Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not."
"Fray," as you are likely to guess, means to frighten or to scare.
THE IRISH POOKA WAS A HORSE TOO.]
Kelpies, who were Scotch, haunted fords and ferries, especially instorms; allured bystanders into the water, or swelled the river so thatit broke the roads, and overwhelmed travellers.
Very like them were the Brag, the little Shoopil-tree of the ShetlandIslands, and the Nick, who was the Icelandic Nykkur-horse; gamesomedeceivers all, who enticed children and others to bestride them, and whowere treacherous as a quicksand, every time. And there were many more ofthe Kelpie kingdom, of whom we can hunt up no clews.
A man who saw a Kelpie gave himself up for lost; for he was sure, byhook or crook, to meet his death by drowning. Kelpie, familiar so faraway as China, never stayed in the next-door countries, Ireland orEngland, long enough to be recognized. They knew nothing of him bysight, nor of the Nix his cousin, nor of anything resembling them. InIreland lived the merrow; but she was only an amiable mermaid.
WILL-O'-THE-WISP.]
The Japanese had a water-dragon called Kappa, "whose office it was toswallow bad boys who went to swim in disobedience to their parents'commands, and at improper times and places." In the River Tees was agreen-haired lady named Peg Powler, and in some streams in Lancashireone christened Jenny Greenteeth; two hungry goblins whose onlydelight was to drown and devour unlucky travellers. But we know alreadythat the water-sprites were more than likely so to behave.
In Provence there is a tale told of seven little boys who went out atnight against their grandmother's wishes. A little dark pony cameprancing up to them, and the youngest clambered on his sleek back, andafter him, the whole seven, one after the other, which was quite awonderful weight for the wee creature; but his back meanwhile keptgrowing longer and larger to accommodate them. As they galloped along,the children called such of their playmates as were out of doors, tojoin them, the obliging nag stretching and stretching until thirty pairsof young legs dangled at his sides! when he made straight for the sea,and plunged in, and drowned them all.
The Piskies, or Pigseys, of Cornwall, were naughty and unsociable. Theirgreat trick was to entice people into marshes, by making themselves looklike a light held in a man's hand, or a light in a friendly cottagewindow. Pisky also rode the farmers' colts hard, and chased thefarmers' cows. For all his diabolics, you had to excuse him in part,when you heard his hearty fearless laugh; it was so merry and sweet. "Tolaugh like a Pisky," passed into a proverb. The Barguest of Yorkshire,like the Osschaert of the Netherlands, was an open-air bugaboo whosepresence always portended disaster. Sometimes he appeared as a horse ordog, merely to play the old trick with a false light, and to vanish,laughing.
The Tueckebold was a very malicious chap, carrying a candle, who lived inHanover; his blood-relation in Scandinavia was the Lyktgubhe. Over inFlanders and Brabant was one Kludde, a fellow whisking here and there asa half-starved little mare, or a cat, or a frog, or a bat; but who wasalways accompanied by two dancing blue flames, and who could overtakeany one as swiftly as a snake. The Ellydan (dan is a Welsh word meaningfire, and also a lure or a snare: a luring elf-fire) was a rogue withwings, wide ears, a tall cap and two huge torches, who preciselyresembled the English Will-o'-the-Wisp, the Scandinavian Lyktgubhe andthe Breton Sand Yan y Tad. Our American negroes make him outJack-muh-Lantern: a vast, hairy, goggle-eyed, big-mouthed ogre, leapinglike a giant grasshopper, and forcing his victims into a swamp, wherethey died. The gentlemen of this tribe preferred to walk abroad atnight, like any other torchlight procession. Their little bodies wereinvisible, and the traveller who hurried towards the pleasant lampahead, never knew that he was being tricked by a grinning fairy, untilhe stumbled on the brink of a precipice, or found himself knee-deep in abog. Then the brazen little guide shouted outright with glee, put outhis mysterious flame, and somersaulted off, leaving the poor tourist tohelp himself. The only way to escape his arts was to turn your coatinside out.
You may guess that the ungodly wights had plenty of fun in them, by thisanecdote: A great many Scotch Jack-o'-Lanterns, as they are oftencalled, were once bothering the horse belonging to a clergyman, who withhis servant, was returning home late at night. The horse reared andwhinnied, and the clergyman was alarmed, for a thousand impish fireswere waltzing before the wheels. Like a good man, he began to prayaloud, to no avail. But the servant just roared: "Wull ye be aff noo, inthe deil's name!" and sure enough, in a wink, there was not a goblinwithin gunshot.
PISKY ALSO CHASED THE FARMERS' COWS.]
There were some freakish fairies in old England, whose names werePuckerel, Hob Howland, Bygorn, Bogleboe, Rawhead or Bloodybones; thelast two were certainly scarers of nurseries.
The Boggart was a little spectre who haunted farms and houses, likeBrownie or Nis; but he was usually a sorry busybody, tearing thebed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through the keyholes,snatching his bread-and-butter from the baby, playing pranks upon theservants, and doing all manner of mischief.
RED COMB WAS A TYRANT.]
The Dunnie, in Northumberland, was fond of annoying farmers. When nightcame, he gave them and himself a rest, and hung his long legs over thecrags, whistling and banging his idle heels. Red Comb or Bloody Cap wasa tyrant who lived in every Border castle, dungeon and tower. He wasshort and thickset long-toothed and skinny-fingered, with big red eyes,grisly flowing hair, and iron boots; a pikestaff in his left hand, and ared cap on his ugly head.
The village of Hedley, near Ebchester, in England, was haunted by achurlish imp known far and wide as the Hedley Gow. He took the form of acow, and amused himself at milking-time with kicking over the pails,scaring the maids, and calling the cats, of whom he was fond, to lick upthe cream. Then he slipped the ropes and vanished, with a great laugh.In Northern Germany we find the Hedley Gow's next-of-kin, and there,too, were little underground beings who accompanied maids and men to themilking, and drank up what was spilt; but if nothing happened to bespilt in measuring out the quarts, they got angry, overturned the pails,and ran away. These jackanapes were a foot and a half high, and dressedin black, with red caps.
Many ominous fairies, such as the Banshee, portended misfortune anddeath. The B
anshee had a high shrill voice, and long hair. Once in awhile she seemed to be as tall as an ordinary woman, very thin, withhead uncovered, and a floating white cloak, wringing her hands andwailing. She attached herself only to certain ancient Irish families,and cried under their windows when one of their race was sick, anddoomed to die. But she scorned families who had a dash of Saxon andNorman ancestry, and would have nothing to do with them.
Every single fairy that ever was known to the annals of this world was,at times, a mischief-maker. He could no more keep out of mischief than atrout out of water. What lives the dandiprats led our poorgreat-great-great-great grand-sires! As a very clever living writer putit:
"A man could not ride out without risking an encounter with a Puck or a Will-o'-the Wisp. He could not approach a stream in safety unless he closed his ears to the sirens' songs, and his eyes to the fair form of the mermaid. In the hillside were the dwarfs, in the forest Queen Mab and her court. Brownie ruled over him in his house, and Robin Goodfellow in his walks and wanderings. From the moment a Christian came into the world until his departure therefrom, he was at the mercy of the fairy-folk, and his devices to elude them were many. Unhappy was the mother who neglected to lay a pair of scissors or of tongs, a knife or her husband's breeches, in the cradle of her new-born infant; for if she forgot, then was she sure to receive a changeling in its place. Great was the loss of the child to whose baptism the fairies were not invited, or the bride to whose wedding the Nix, or water-spirit, was not bidden. If the inhabitants of Thale did not throw a black cock annually into the Bode, one of them was claimed as his lawful victim by the Nickelmann dwelling in that stream. The Russian peasant who failed to present the Rusalka or water-sprite he met at Whitsuntide, with a handkerchief, or a piece torn from his or her clothing, was doomed to death."
One had to be ever on the lookout to escape the sharp little immortals,whose very kindness to men and women was a species of coquetry, and whonever spared their friends' feelings at the expense of their own saucydelight.
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