Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/278

 256 Reviews.

beneath every wave. The curious and instructive thing is, that the Breton, Hving in a very similar atmosphere and scenery, does not see fairies, he only sees ghosts. To my own mind, it is along the path of enquiry suggested by this fact, which the author under the guidance of Dr. Anatole Le Braz has touched upon, but of which he has not, we think, sufficiently considered all the bearings, that the true explanation of much of the fairy faith is to be found. As regards the testimony of the Irish "seer" upon which Dr. Wentz lays so much stress, more deduction is perhaps to be made for the effects of a pose than he would admit. We do not doubt that the "seer" sees fairies, but we cannot forget that it is interesting to be thought to do so. In his con- clusions. Dr. Wentz follows, in general, the hypothesis of M. Flammarion in his Mysterious Psychic Forces. In that book he says, — "Either it is we who produce these phenomena, (and this. Dr. Wentz adds, ' is not reasonable ') or it is spirits. But mark this well : these spirits are not necessarily the souls of the dead ; for other kinds of spiritual beings may exist, and space may be full of them without our ever knowing anything about it, except under unusual circumstances. Do we not find in the different ancient literatures, demons, angels, gnomes, goblins, sprites, spectres, elementals, etc. ? Perhaps these legends are not without some foundation of fact."

We do not know why Dr. Wentz interjects 'this is not reasonable,' considering that one of the most satisfactory explanations of many psychic phenomena is that we do, under certain conditions, ' produce the phenomena' ourselves, i.e. that they are subjective, not objective. But, putting this aside, we confess to a sense of humiliation in the suggestion that the Banshee, or the Ankou, or the Washer at the Ford, or the Hopper-noz, personages whom we have always believed took an intimate personal interest in the affairs of mankind, attached themselves to his destiny, and fore- warned him of his fate, should be mixed up and confounded with the ignorant and senseless ' spooks,' without heart or cohesion of idea, who agitate tables, make our sponges walk up and down our walls, or otherwise behave in the aimless manner of idiots. Fairies, in Ireland at least, have ideas of cleanliness and order which would put a sanitary inspector to shame, and their sense of morality