Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/200

192 trace back long before that time for their origin. Our hero is the youngest of three brothers, yet he is called the childe or heir. Have we here a trace of the time when the youngest son was the heir? That custom has left traces even upon English land, where it is known as "Borough English", and exists still, I believe, in some few English manors. Yet it most probably traces from the very earliest times when Englishmen were still wandering, and had not settled into tuns.

IV. The taboo against taking food in the enemy's land has something savage and archaic about it, as is the case with all taboos. It is an incident tolerably frequent in folk-tales or fairy tales, and there is a classical example of it in the myth of Persephone. Mr. Hartland, who has recently studied the matter, comes to the conclusion that there is some relation between the taboo against taking food in Elfland and that against eating the food of the dead. If we carried out this explanation in the present instance, it would follow that the Dark Tower—if we may so call the hilly palace of the Erlkönig of our tale—is the Underworld peopled by the dead, and the King of Elfland is a variant of Pluto. Our story would thus be another instance of the well-known theme of the Descent to Hell. This involves, of course, that Fairies are Ghosts, which needs an explanation why people should believe both in fairies and ghosts.

V. Against this there are certain indications in our story that tell for a recent theory of fairies that is more substantial in so far as it supposes them to have really existed. I refer to the recently published work of Mr. D. MacRitchie, The Testimony of Tradition (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.) i.e., of tradition about the fairies and the rest. Briefly put, Mr. MacRitchie's view is that the elves, trolls, and fairies represented in popular tradition are really the mound-dwellers, whose remains have been discovered in some abundance in the form of