David MacRitchie

“ This, then, is what a fairy hill, of the larger class, looks like to the outsider. And it is clear that, when its entrance is concealed, as it once was, no stranger, ignorant of such a thing as a mound-dwelling, would ever think that this innocent-looking hill was artificially made, and that the chambers within it were the residence of a family or families. One might well begin to build, and even to fell trees, upon the outer "walls" of such a "house," without knowing that such a proceeding might be resented by "the moody elfin king that won'd within the hill." ”

“ The Fians are regarded as merely legendary—perhaps altogether mythical beings; and the Fairies as absolutely unreal. On the other hand, there are those who believe that the three terms all relate to historical people, closely akin to each other, if not actually one people under three names.
To those unacquainted with the views of the realists, or euhemerists, it is necessary to explain that the popular definition of Fairies as "little people" is one which that school is quite ready to accept. ”

“ One does not require to know much of Gaelic tradition—one need not know anything of it—to be well aware of the fact that that legendary lore is fairly alive with stories of the "Feinne," whatever may have been the ethnological position of the caste thus named. And, just as in modern Shetland we have people proclaiming with pride their descent from the Finns, so have we West Highlanders and Hebrideans boasting that the Feinne were among their forefathers. ”

“ Oisin, who is ever bemoaning the departed glories of his race, he laments the fact that he finds himself in his old age "wearily dragging stones along to the church on the hill of the priest." "Here, where he is a drudge, he has seen the Feinne in their glory.... Were they alive, shavelings would not hold this mound." Thus laments Oisin, the representative of the old heathen Feens, bitter in his denunciations of Patrick the priest, and the new order which he represents, and ever bewailing the vanished "glory of the Feinn." ”

“ But the point of all this is that these dwellings, whether above ground or below, are known as [Pg 52] Picts' Houses, Fairy Halls, Elf Hillocks, "the hidden places of Fians and Fairies." Thus, the three titles which I have shown to be associated in other ways are all given to the alleged builders and occupiers of those very archaic and peculiar structures.
It is true that, in their most modern form, some of those dwellings are still inhabited for months at a time. ”

“ I must acknowledge it seems a little unaccountable how these Finn-men should come on this coast, but they must probably be driven by storms from home, and cannot tell, when they are any way at sea, how to make their way home again; they have this advantage, that be the Seas never so boisterous, their boats being made of Fish Skins, are so contrived that he can never sink, but is like a Sea-gull swimming on the top of the watter. ”

“ But the conception of such "little people" as tiny beings of aërial and ethereal nature, able to fly on a bat's back, or to sip honey from the flowers "where the bee sucks," [Pg 24] is regarded by the realists as simply the outcome of the imagination, working upon a basis of fact. An illustration of this position may be seen in the Far East. There is a tradition among the Aïnos of Northern Japan that they were preceded by a race of "little people," only a few inches in height, whose pit-dwellings they still point out. ”

“ Hither we sometimes retire on a summer's evening.... But this is not the only reason why I speak of this hill; it is the weak credulity with which it is attended, that led me to this detail; for as anything ever so little extraordinary, may serve as a foundation (to such as are ignorant, heedless, or interested) for ridiculous stories and imaginations, so the fairies within it are innumerable, and witches find it the most convenient place for their frolics and gambols in the night time. ”

“ In regarding the Fians as a race of dwarfs, I do not overlook the fact that they are also spoken of as "giants." But to assume them to have been of gigantic stature is both totally at variance with the bulk of the evidence regarding them, and at variance with the fact that the word "giant" has very frequently been used to denote a savage, or a cave-dweller. [41] No more appropriate illustration [Pg 36] of this can be found than the local tradition that a certain artificially hollowed rock in the island of Hoy, Orkney, was the abode of "a giant and his wife." ”

“ Indeed, when one looks at those delicate little vessels, wholly dependent upon the thoroughness of the stitching that unites the various pieces of skin together, one can only wonder at the daring of the people who ventured in them a hundred miles and more from any land. "Nothing but a plank between one and Eternity" is not so dangerous as it sounds; for planks can float one when the worst happens. ”

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

“ If the modern Highland proprietor or large farmer should ever be induced to lead a pastoral life, and adopt a Pictish architecture in his residence, we might again see a tumulus of twenty feet in height, with its long low passage leading into a large hall with beehive cells on both sides. ”

“ The term "Picts' house" is unknown in the Hebrides, says [Pg 40] one writer. "In the Hebrides tradition is entirely silent concerning the Picts ... there the Fenian heroes are the builders of the duns." [49] Yet the self-same class of building is elsewhere assigned to the Picts. To these structures I shall presently refer more particularly; but it is enough to note in passing that, just as Oisin, King of the Fians, is translated into Ossian, King of the Picts, so the dwellings ascribed to the Fians in one locality, are in another said to have been made and inhabited by the Picts. ”

“ But, while it is probable that newer races very often built thus unconsciously upon the outer crust of the habitations of the mound-dwellers, it is still more likely that, in course of time, the central chamber of the mound became by slow degrees the dungeon of a fort or castle that had evolved itself from it. When a "how" of the larger class had been "broken" by invaders, and its inmates despoiled and killed or enslaved, their conquerors would quickly realize that this artificial mound, rising out of a level plain, formed an admirable site for a stronghold ”

“ Highland giants were not so big but that their conquerors wore their clothes; they were not so strong that men could not beat them, even by wrestling. They were not quite savages; for though some lived in caves, others had houses and cattle and hoards of spoil" (I. xcix.) . "And though I do not myself believe that fairies are ... I believe there once was a small race of people in these islands, who are remembered as fairies, for the fairy belief is not confined to the Highlanders of Scotland" (I. c.) ”

“ And it is in this aspect, as tyrannical sea-rovers, that the "Finns" are often remembered in Shetlandic tradition. It was their custom to pursue the boats of the Shetland fishermen, and to exact from them a tribute in "silver money." So much were they dreaded that "it was dangerous in the extreme to say anything against them." The original feeling of respect must have been very strong, since it has survived into the present century. ”

“ Fairies had hoards of treasure—so have Lapps. A man died shortly before one of my Tana trips, and the whole country side had been out searching for his buried wealth in vain. Some years ago the old silver shops of Bergen and Trondhjem overflowed with queer cups and spoons, and rings, silver plates for waist belts, old plate that had been hidden amongst the mountains, black old silver coins that had not seen the light for years. I saw the plate and bought some, and was told that, in consequence of a religious movement, the Lapps had dug up and sold their hoards. ”

“ The neighbouring countryfolk had expected that "the little people" inside the hill would resent this intrusion on their privacy, but, of course, nothing of this kind happened—as this occurred in the present century, when the mound-dwelling Pechts lived only in the memory of those by whose forefathers they had once been greatly dreaded. But there are various traditional accounts which point to a time when members of the intruding race, unaware that the hillock on which they began to build was itself a building, were obliged to desist by reason of the opposition of the dwarfs. ”

“ While the Picts, or Pechts, are remembered to a great extent as the builders of the subterranean and half-subterranean dwellings with which they are associated, these are far from being the only structures which popular tradition has stamped as the work of their hands. ”

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

“ Owing to the great mass of earth which was heaped over the dwelling—the actual "kernel" of the mound—it will be seen that new-comers of another race from the mound-dwellers might build houses, or bury their dead, above the homes of the "little people," without being aware that the hill they were so utilizing was entirely of artificial origin. Nor are there wanting illustrations of this in fact and in tradition. Legendary lore, indeed, is full of incidents arising from the contact, often unexpected on the one side, of the two races ”

“ The conclusion, therefore, to be drawn from what has been said upon this subject is that, although the term Pict or Pecht has been chosen by History as that by which a certain race of people, once found in Scotland, ought to be remembered, yet that term indicates nothing more [166] than Trow or Dwarf, either of which names might as reasonably have been chosen as their synonym Pecht. And that when one speaks of Pechts, Trows, or Dwarfs, one is speaking of the same kind of people—the mound-dwellers, or "underground" races of the past. ”

“ However, as he is, he is not a very bad representative of the bearded dwarf, with disproportionately large head, so familiar in tradition; and that he is one of the race of "shaggy men," we know without fuller evidence. His beard does not fall down to his waist, like that of his kinsman who figures as a ferryman in the foregoing quotation; but the heavy moustache and beard, and the shaggy eyebrows, strongly characterize this living race as well as the legendary dwarfs. The latter are again and again referred to as "little old [303] men, with long beards" ”

“ All that has been said as to the adaptability of Maes-how to any of the well-known fairy stories is equally applicable to this Irish "how." The Boyne mound, however, as will be seen from its measurements, is much larger than the Orkney one; though the stone structure in its interior is of much the same dimensions as the other. The interior of the "Broch of the Boyne," however, represents a much ruder and more primitive stage in such architecture, and compared with it, the Orkney "how" is a most finished and elaborate work. ”

“ Skene is precisely correct in stating that "race, and not territory, was the great bond of association," is a mere question of words. Because the Gaelic traditions emphatically show that although Ireland and other neighbouring lands were occupied by people of non-Feenic race, who were governed by their own kings, yet, as these kings were themselves subject to the Feens, who drew tribute from them, the real owners of these various territories were the powerful though scattered overlords, and not the races that were under their sway. ”

“ It is thus evident at the outset that we do not obviously make a false start in assuming that the Feens of Gaelic tradition ought to be regarded as forming a section of the Finns who visited Shetland in the seventeenth century. In 1684 Kirke regarded the Hebrides as the land of the Feens; in 1688 Wallace records the occasional arrival of Finns or Finnmen on the coasts of Orkney and Shetland. And we have already seen that skin kayaks, such as those which bore the Finn visitors to the islands of the north-east were employed at about the same period by inhabitants of the Hebrides. ”