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Page 9
After a long conversation with his sister, the two folding doors were
burst open with tremendous violence, and in came the King of Elfland,
shouting--
"With _fi_, _fe_, _fa_, and _fum_,
I smell the blood of a Christian man,
Be he dead, be he living, with my brand
I'll clash his harns frae his harn pan."
Child Rowland drew his good claymore (_excalibar_) that never struck in
vain. A furious combat ensued, and the king was defeated; but Child
Rowland spared his life on condition that he would free his sister, Burd
Ellen, and his two brothers, who were lying in a trance in a corner of
the hall. The king then produced a small crystal phial containing a
bright red liquor, with which he anointed the lips, nostrils, ears and
finger tips of the two brothers, who thereupon awoke as from a profound
sleep, and all four returned in triumph to "merry Carlisle." The Rev.
Mr. Kirk's descriptions of the subterranean homes of the fairies and of
their social habits are just the counterparts of the fairyland of this
beautiful ballad legend. There can be little doubt that such beliefs are
but survivals in altered form of what were in still more ancient times
religious tenets. What were formerly divinities have given place to the
more lowly fairies, brownies, &c., and from the position of Pagan gods
they have, through the opposing influence of Christianity, been removed
to the other side, and became servants of the devil, actively opposing
the kingdom of Christ. Some have supposed that the fairies may have
originally been considered to be descendants of the Druids, for some
reason consigned to inhabit subterranean caves under green hills in wild
and lonely glens. Others have identified them with the fallen angels.
One thing is certain, that the notion that there exists supernatural
men, women, and animals who inhabit subterranean and submarine regions,
and yet can indulge in intercourse with the human race, is of very great
antiquity, and widely spread, existing in Arabia, Persia, India, Thibet,
among the Tartars, Swedes, Norwegians, British, and also among the
savage tribes of Africa. In the west of Scotland there was a class of
fairies who acted a friendly part towards their human neighbours,
helping the weak or ill-used, and generally busying themselves with acts
of kindness; these were called "brownies." The fairies proper were a
merry race, full of devilment, and malicious, tricky, and troublesome,
and the cause of much annoyance and fear among the people. Besides these
supernatural beings--brownies, fairies, &c.--there existed a belief in
persons who were possessed of supernatural powers--magicians, sorcerers,
&c. About the Reformation period, these persons were considered to be in
the actual service of the devil, who was then thought to be raising a
more determined opposition than ever to the spread of the kingdom of
God, and adopting the insidious means of enlisting men and women into
his service by conferring upon them supernatural powers; so that by this
contract they were bound to do mischief to all good Christian people;
and the more mischief they could do the greater would be the favours
they received from their master. This belief was not confined to the
ignorant, but was equally accepted by the educated and by the Church.
Measures were taken to frustrate the devil, and the faithful were
recommended to make search for those who had compacted with his Satanic
Majesty, and laws were enacted for the punishment of the compacters when
found. The faithful, under the belief that they were fighting the battle
of the Lord, brought numbers of poor wretches to trial, many of whom,
strangely enough, believed themselves guilty of the crime imputed to
them. After trial and conviction, they were put to death. The belief
that the devil could and did invest men and women with supernatural
powers affected all social relations, for everything strange and
unaccountable--and, in a non-scientific age, we can readily conceive how
almost everything would be brought into this category--was ascribed to
this cause, and each suspected his or her neighbour; even the truest
friendship was sometimes broken through this suspicion. The laws against
witchcraft in this country were abrogated last century, but the
abrogation of the law could not be expected to work any sudden change in
the belief of the people; at most, the alteration only paved the way for
the gradual departure of the superstition, and since the abrogation of
the law the belief has been decaying, but still in many parts of the
country it lingers on till the present time, instances of which appear
every now and again in the newspapers of the day.
CHAPTER II.
_BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD._
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