Brownies and Bogles
f two sorts; the Light or Good Elves who dwelt in air, or out-of-d
ause the division occurs to one naturally, because it saves time, and because everybody comprehends it, and sees that it is based upon law
the good fairies had many a sad failing to offset their grace and charm, the grim, dark-skinned manikins had sudden impulses towards honor and kindness.
took their fancy. Like others of the elf-kingdom, they loved to borrow from mortals. Once a little bowing Dwarf came to a lady for the loan of her silk gown for a fairy-bride. (You can imagine that, at the ceremony, the groom must have had a pretty hunt among the wilderness of finery to get at her ring-finge
AT BORROWED
f the south called Panis, may be considered the foster-parents of our dwindled minims, as the glorious Peris on t
rt, bulky bodies; fickle and irritable natures; and occupations as miners, misers, or metalsmiths. And because of their exceeding industry, on the old maxim's authority, where all work and no play made Jack a dull boy, they are curiously he
s gems; with cracked voices, and matted hair, and horns peering from it! and as if that were not enough adornment
r arms reached to the ground. They were clever and expert handlers of metal, and made of gold, silver and iron, the finest a
fheim, in the bowels of the earth, and were able, by their glance or
ES OF RüGEN PLA
ning by twos and threes to wreak mischief on mankind. They, as well, were once useful, if not beautiful; for in the days when heroes wore a panoply of steel, the Black Dwarves wrought fair helmets and corselets of cobwebby mail which no lance could pierce, and swords flexible as silk which could unhorse the mi
ting, in the old humdrum way. They made fortunes, and hoarded up heaps of money. But they were often obliging and benevolent; it gave them pleasure to bestow gifts, to lend and borrow, and sometimes, alas! to steal. They played prettily on musical instruments, and were very jolly. People used to see the stump
LL'S CH
ed radishes and carrots, and the Troll took the tops; and the following season he planted corn; and his queer partner gathered up the roots and marched off in triumph. Indeed, it was so easy to outwit the simple Troll that a generous farmer would never have played the game out, and we should have lost our
bed, or the cattle were carried away, or a hurricane swooped down on a Cornish village, the neighbors attributed their trouble to the Spriggans; whereby you may believe they had fine reputations for meddlesom
OBL
o lived away from the sun; they were busybodies, half-a-yard high, who imitated the dress of their friends the miners, and pegged away at the rocks, like them, with great noise and gus
y small fellow, whom the Bohemians named Hans-schmiedlein (little
rish celebrity who knew where pots of guineas were hidden, and who carried in his pocket a shilling often-spent and ever-renewed. He looked, in this banker-like capacity, a clumsy small boy, dressed in various ways, sometimes in a long coat and cocked hat, unlike
couple of crossed straws which had blown upon his coal; for anything in the shape of a cross seemed to shrivel up an elf's power in the most startling manner. So the little sprite turned, half-crying, and begged the pea
y took the least offence, or if the villagers about got "too knowing" for them. (An American poet once wro
iad from
from the g
they never saw so much as the vanishing shadow of a fairy.) A little dwarf-woman told two young Bavarians that she intended to
STAY AN
y might not be disturbed. The Prussian mites near Dardesheim were frightened away by the forge and the factory. Above all else, church-bells distressed them, and spoiled their tempers. A huckster once passed a Dani