Of Marie's unearthly beings, the predominant fancy CHAP. is that of affectionate fairy ladies; and we find them

description must resemble and exhibit the opinions and superstitions of the age and country. The fictions of the mind are but pictures of its hidden self, and therefore the supernatural machinery of every country will be peculiar to itself, and differ as much from that of others as their more common state of mind and manners is usually found to do.

GIANTS and DWARFS of more than human power were among the most ancient and popular superstitions of our country; and the oldest now alive may yet remember the nursery tales and books which in their childhood they heard and believed of those dissimilar monsters. They came with our Saxon and Danish ancestors into our island. The giants are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poem on Beowulf; and the Latin work on the conflict between Guy of Warwick and Colbrand the Giant, is noticed by Hearne as still subsisting. The ancient book of Heroes written by the knight Wolfran, who flourished about 1207, thus states in its preface the popular theory on the origin of the giants, dwarfs and heroes, which prevailed both in Scandinavia and the north of Germany. They are all referred to the creation of the Deity.

First, He produced the DWARFS, because the mountains lay waste and useless; and valuable stores of silver and gold, with gems and pearls, were concealed in them. He made them right wise and crafty. They knew the use of gems, and that some of them gave strength to the wearer, and others made him invisible, which were called fog caps. They built themselves hollow hills. They had kings and lords, and He gave them great riches.

'He created also the GIANTS, that they might slay the wild beasts and serpents; and thus enable the dwarfs to cultivate the mountains in safety. But after some time the giants became wicked and unfaithful, aud did much harm to the dwarfs. Then He made the HEROES, who were of a middle rank between the dwarfs and giants, to come to the assistance of the dwarfs against the unfaithful giants, the beasts and the serpents. Their mind was ever bent on manhood, battles and fights. Among the dwarfs were many kings, who had giants for their servants: for they possessed rough countries, waste forests, and mountains near their dwellings. The HEROLS paid all observance and honor to the ladies, protected widows and orphans, did no harm to women except when their life was in danger, and often shewed their manhood before them, both in sport and in earnest. The heroes were all noblemen, and no one was a peasant. From them are descended all lords and noblemen.' Weber North. Antiq. p. 42. The last part of the Book of Heroes exhibits the dwarfs and their subordinate giants in their traditional habits and activity. Ib. p. 146-166. The FAIRIES appear to have been a Celtic imagination, and first appear to us in the lays of the British colonists of Bretagne, as we have already shewn in the poems of Marie, in the preceding pages of this voJume. This province has still her fairy rock; her fairy grotto, a fairy valley; a fairy cavity and a fairy mountain: on this last, a MS, ancient poem says

In Bretagne we shall find

A fountain and steps,

On which if you throw water,

It blows; it thunders and it rains.

Roquef. Marie, v. 1. p. 33.
U 3

Our

VII.

LAYS AND
FABLES OF
MARIE, &C.

BOOK in her lays exhibited in one of these most pleasing VI. forms, and named "Fees;" so that this word is at LITERARY least as ancient as the year 1200. Our ancestors certainly believed their existence. But it is not necessary

HISTORY OF
ENGLAND.

Our British ancestors also cherished this fancy; for Arthur's sister was the fairy Morgana, whom Jeffry of Monmouth, in his MS. Latin poem, represents to have conveyed the dying king from the fatal field of Camlan to her magic isle of Avallonia. Fairies are also noticed in some of the earliest lays of the Troubadours, as if they had been an indigenous fancy of the Provençal regions. The count de Pestiers mentions them in one of his pieces: The fairies have so appointed it.' He calls them Fadaz.' Poetes François, v. 1. p. 5.

These ladies have also been a prominent part of the popular superstitions of the Irish, and are even acting upon their mind and conduct at the present day. They also appear in the tales and traditions of the Indians of North America.

There is no sufficient reason to suppose that these fairies originated to us from the Peris of Persia or Arabia, and to have been transplanted out of Spain with the Arabian literature. They have an anterior chronology, and it may be also said, that it is a mistake to suppose that any popular superstition arises in a country from any literary composition. It originates from the traditions of its earliest population; accompanies their migrations, and descends with their descent. It is retained because it is believed, and is only used and talked of for the same reason. Much as we like the Arabian Nights, nothing can engraft its Genii and other machinery on the public faith or mind; nor can our writers imitate them, for want of the actual credence. Both Dr. Hawkesworth and Dr. Johnson, and also Dr. Ridley, have made some interesting tales with personages to whom they have given the name of Genii, but they are not at all the genii of Arabian story.

The WITCHES and WIZARDS of the Middle Ages were the legacies left us by our Roman colonists and conquerors. This classical nation, and their Grecian preceptors, fully believed and have fully described these disagreeable beings. They are among the most revolting offspring of the imagination, without any of the graces or charms which usually attend the fictions of the fancy. Theocritus, Lucian, Plutarch and Apuleius so abundantly notice and pourtray them, that there is no difficulty in tracing them to this respectable origin.

The belief in APPARITIONS has never been absent in our island, from theScin-lac' of the Anglo-Saxons, to the ghosts and spectres so interesting to our childhood, and still not wholly discredited by a large portion of our maturer understanding. This offspring of our diseased or agitated fancy entered our island with our northern ancestors. It is one of the most fixed and native traditions of the Scandinavian tribes and their German descendants. We trace it alike in their tales and histories; and it may be seen in peculiar abundance in the latter part of the Eyrbiggia Saga, of which sir Walter Scott has given an able and interesting abstract, appended to the Illustrations of Northern Antiquities.'-See it from p. 505 to 509.

now to say seriously with Spenser in his pleasing CHAP.

Sith none that breatheth living air does know
Where is that happy lond of Faery,

Which I so much do vaunt yet no where show: '18

because every one now is satisfied, that "Fairy lond exists nowhere but in the records of the olden muses, and there it is yet pleasing to trace its unsubstantial inhabitants as our forefathers depicted them. No part of our ancient vernacular literature pourtrays them so fully or agreeably as Marie; and her representations may be contemplated as a part of the popular mind of our ancestors, as well as of the Bretons in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Extracts, shewing the more imaginative parts of Marie's Lays:

In the first, 'Gugemar,' she describes a white hart and her fawn, 'foun.' The knight drew his bow and wounded her foot; but his arrow flew back on himself from the fairy hart, and piercing his thigh, caused him to fall from his horse. As he lay on the ground. the moaning hart exclaimed, Ai me! alas! I am killed; and thou, Vassau! who hast wounded me, this shall be thy destiny! never shall you have medicine, neither by herb nor root, nor by mire, nor by potion, shall you be cured of the wound in your thigh, till one shall suffer for your love as great pain and grief as any woman has ever yet endured, and you shall feel as much for her; so that they who love and have loved shall wonder at it. Go, and leave me in peace.' 19

By the sea side Gugemar finds a vessel of ivory, with sails of silk. Nothing alive was in it. The bed was like the work of So

18 Spenser's Faery Queen, book 2. p. 1.

19 Marie's Lays, p. 56-8.

VI.

BOOK lomon, enriched with gold and precious stones, and made of cypres and ivory. Its quilt was African gold tissue. Its coverlet was a sebelin, cut from Alexandrine cloth. Two candelabras of fine gold, with gems worth a treasure, enlightened the apartment. It moved of itself over the sea.

LITERARY
HISTORY OF
ENGLAND.

20

Her Bisclaveret.

FORMERLY many men became garwalls, and had their houses in woods. A garwall is a savage beast; his rage is so great that he devours men, does great mischief, and lives in vast forests. The Bretons call them ' 'Bisclaveret.'

21

A 'ber' (a baron) and beau chevalier had married an amiable woman. He loved her, and she him; but every week she lost him for three entire days, and never knew where he went. She urged him to tell her why he was thus absent, and he at last confessed,

Lady, I become a bisclaveret, and go into yonder great forest, into the thickest of its woods, and live on prey and roots. I go quite naked.' She asked him where he put his clothes? Lady, I will not tell you this, because, if I should lose them, or be seen, I should remain always a bisclaveret.' She importuned him; and he then added, that in an old chapel in the forest, in the hollow of a great stone, under a bush, he placed his apparel until he resumed it to return home.

Abhorring such a husband, she revealed his secret to a young chevalier, who wert and seized the garments. The bisclaveret returned to her no more, and she married the chevalier.

A year afterwards, the king hunted in the forest where the bisclaveret dwelt; the dogs discovered and chased him, with all the company. He became much torn and wounded, and was nearly taken, when he ran to the king, and holding his stirrup, and kissing his leg and foot, implored his mercy. The king exclaimed, • See, my lords! this wonder; how this beast humbles himself; he has the sense of a man; he cries for mercy; drive the dogs behind; take care that no one hurts him; the brute has understanding; my peace shall remain with him, and I will hunt him here no more.'

The king turned back, and the bisclaveret followed him and would not leave him. The king became attached to him, and kept

20 Marie's Lays, p. 60-2.

21 Ib. p. 178. The French story of Mons. Oufle is built on the idea, that he fancied himself to be a loup-garouz, or man-wolf. The garwall of Mary is the loup-garouz of the more modern French.

.VII.

LAYS AND

FABLES OF

him in his palace. He was all day among the knights, and lay CHAP. down in the evening near the king. He was so frank and debonair, and so careful to hurt no one, that every body loved him. The king some time afterwards held his court, and summoned all his barons to it; his wife and her new husband came among MARTE,&c. them. As soon as the bisclaveret saw this knight, he flew upon him, and seized him with his teeth, till the king threatened him with his rod. Twice he again tried to bite his enemy. All wondered at this peculiar conduct; it was thought that he had lost his reason. When the feast ended, every one departed home.

Some time after, the king went to hunt in the forest where he was found; the bisclaveret accompanied him. The wife besought an audience of the king, and came richly dressed; the animal flew upon her, and tore off her nose. All were then going to cut him in pieces, when 'un sages hom,' a wise man, remarked to the king, that as the creature injured no one else, he must have some cause of complaint against the knight and lady, and counselled that she should be imprisoned till she discovered why the beast hated her. This was done; she confessed her conduct, and that he might be her husband.

The king had the clothes brought that had been taken, and gave them to the bisclaveret, who took no notice of them. The prudent man suggested that he would not put them on in public, and advised that he should be left alone in his own room, with the garments. This was done, and the king sometime afterwards entering his apartment, saw a baron sleeping in his bed."2

Her Lanval is founded on a fairy lady.

WHEN Arthur distributed his gifts to his counts and barons, and to those de la table raunde,' he gave none to the chevalier Lanval, the son of a distant king, who was serving him.

Lanval, mortified to be so overlooked, resolved to quit the court, and mounting his steed left the city, Carduel, and travelled till he reached a meadow, thro which a stream was flowing.

As he felt his horse tremble he dismounted, and letting the animal feed at its pleasure, he folded his mantle, reclined his head upon it, and lay in pensive meditation. Looking towards the river, he saw two damsels coming from it, more beautiful than were ever seen before, and richly clothed in purple. The eldest carried a basin of enamelled gold finely made, and the other a napkin.

Marie's Lays, 178-200.