Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/355

Rh garden. So is it also with this accidental element, composed of thousands of patches, of which some may be older, others more modern; some taken from religious literature, others from romantic, and again others from classical literature.

Much more difficult is the study and investigation of this composed element; each part or parcel belong to a totally different origin than the next one, clustered only here by popular fancy round an equally different centre.

The most conspicuous amongst these elements are the fairies, and all that belongs to this aërial kingdom. They were and are almost generally considered to be of great antiquity, and in them the mythological school recognised the darkened reflex of the old goddesses dislodged from their Olympia or Walhalla, and changed to spirits of evil under influence of Christianity.

It would carry me now too far to enter here into any detailed research as to the origin of these beliefs among the peoples of Europe suffice it to say that in the form they appear in the tales and in the superstitions they are not older than the tenth or eleventh century, and can easily be traced back to their oriental and Christian sources. Not only they were not banished, but even they were actually introduced into Europe through religious movements, which however were not always in accordance with the ruling Church, and therefore persecuted. Whosoever has compared the northern elves with the Slavonic vilas, the neo-Greek καλαι αρχοντισαι, that is, the beautiful adies (the right translation of faye, hence fairie), and has followed out their connection with the legend of Herodias and her daughters, will see that they are of modern origin.

The zoological notions of miraculous animals together with other strange stories about curious dwarfish peoples (hence dwarfs and pigmées, &c.), are mostly due to the romantical history of Alexander the Great, and other similar works, as the Letter of the priest John and the Image du monde, together with the legends about St. Andreas in India and St. Macarius in his travel to the gates of Paradise. Of no less importance was the Physiologus with its tales of the peculiarities of animals, now-a-days the common property of all nations of Europe. Astrological and other superstitious creeds, as well