Page:The Science of Fairy Tales.djvu/350

 wood, animated by magical art, or sometimes one of themselves. In the former case the animation does not usually last very long, and the women is then supposed to die. Their females sometimes in turn become captive to men. Unions thus formed are, however, not lasting, until the husband has followed the wife to her own home, and conquered his right to her afresh by some great adventure. This is not always in the story: presumably, therefore, not always possible. On the other hand, he who enters Fairyland and partakes of fairy food is spell-bound: he cannot return—at least for many years, perhaps for ever—to the land of men. Fairies are grateful to men for benefits conferred, and resentful for injuries. They never fail to reward those who do them a kindness; but their gifts usually have conditions attached, which detract from their value and sometimes become a source of loss and misery. Nor do they forget to revenge themselves on those who offend them; and to watch them, when they do not desire to be manifested, is a mortal offence. Their chief distinction from men is in their unbounded magical powers, whereof we have had several illustrations. They make things seem other than they are; they appear and disappear at will; they make long time seem short, or short time long; they change their own forms; they cast spells over mortals, and keep them spell-bound for ages.

All these customs and all these powers are asserted of the Fairies properly so called. And when we look at the superstitions of other races than the Celts and Teutons, to which our inquiries have been primarily directed, we find the same things asserted of all sorts of creatures. Deities, ancestors, witches, ghosts, as well as animals of every kind, are endowed by the belief of nations all over the world with powers precisely similar to those of the Fairies, and with natures and social organizations corresponding with those of men. These beliefs can only be referred to the same origin as the