Page:The Allies Fairy Book.djvu/20

 leave it at certain times and under certain restrictions, and who squeak and gibber as they flit through the upper atmosphere. According to the best authorities, this kind of fairies is of a mild nature, between man and angel. They were described by Kirk, who wrote “The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies” in 1691, as having “bodies somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best seen in twilight.”

One thing seems to be universally admitted, that these supernatural beings are gentle and pacific. “People of peace” they were called by the ancient Scotch, and they faded away and were unseen during the clash of arms. There is no record of the appearance of fairies upon a battlefield. It is when the hearts of country-folk are hushed and silent that the mysterious voices of goblins are heard calling, at dewfall, from the terraces of the haunted hills. Yet they are not, as it would appear from the most instructed authorities, without a fantastic warfare of their own, nor unprepared with weapons of offence. It is, of course, difficult to find a trustworthy source of information. Not many a man, in these degenerate days, is held worthy of the honour of beholding these creatures with his mortal eyes, nor has had the good luck of Isabel Gowdie, whose confessions are given in Pitcairn’s “Scottish Criminal Trials,” a book beloved by Robert Louis Stevenson. Isabel reports that “as for elf-arrows, the Devil sharps them with his own hand and delivers them to elf-boys, who whittle and dight them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle; but when I was in Elf land, I saw them whittling and dighting them.” What an enviable experience!

“When I was in Elfland!” The sound of the words is music in itself, but unfortunately Isabel Gowdie was called a witch. She did not deny the charge; indeed she gloried in it, and was much surer of the fact than we can be. But in truth a measure of wizardry is essential to the fairy-tale. As we