Brownies and Bogles

and dolphins, its palaces, its subaqueous music, and its happy-hearted maids and men, faded wholly out of memory. No one dominant race came to replace them. Merpeople, Tritons a

nd their glossy tails tapering from the waist. The Danish Mermaid was gold-haired, cunning and treac

hose on shore, or passing in boats, in

, she laid it by; but if it were stolen from her, she lost the power of returning to the sea. So that if her cap were taken by a young man, she very often could do nothing better than to marry him, and spend her time hunting for it up and down over his house. An

-FO

hetland Islands, who divested themselves of a shining fish-skin, and could not find the way to their ocean-beds if it were kept out of their reach. It was the Danish sailor's belief that seals laid by their

his mouth, his teeth as well were green; he appeared to girls wh

ch for smaller s

s and brooks, were called Nixies in Germany, Korrigans (for this was part of their office) in Britta

OLD NIX N

dress or apron being perpetually wet. The dark-eyed Nix-man with his seaweed hair and his wide hat, was known by his slit ears and feet, which he was very careful to conceal. Once in a while he was observed to be half-fish. The naked Nixen were draped with moss and kelp; but when they were clothed, they seemed merely little men and women, save that the borders of their garments, dripping water, betrayed them. They did thei

K OF TH

, and did mischief to no one. It grieved him when children ran away from him, yet

ond of beckoning to strangers. If they came to him, he bestowed gifts upon them; i

man with no head. About the magical Isle of Rügen lived the Nickel. His favori

nhabited clear pools and streams, and floated along in the shape of gold rings an

ing in appearance, and wicked in disposition. They

own submerged towns and battlements; and from their little sunken city the fairy-bells sent out, ever and anon, muffled silver voices. The Gwragedd Ann

ssy, cool, tr

a leaf, he seemed a fair child, harping, with yellow ringlets falling from beneath a high red cap to his shoulders. Both fairies had a genius for music; and the Str?mkarl, especially, had one most marvellous tune to which he put eleven variations. Now, to ten of them any one might dance decorously, and with safety; but

anged her shape into that of an innocent brown wren. And because she had been so treacherous, a spell was cast upon her, inasmuch as she was obliged every New Year's Day to fly about as that same bird, until she should be killed by a human hand. And from sunrise to sunset, therefore, on the first bleak day of January, all the men and boys of the island fired at the poor wrens, and stoned them, and entrapped them, in the hope of reaching the one guilty fairy among t

was to desolate peaceful homes, and bring destruction on gallant ships. They, dwelling in streams and in the ocean, the world over, were like the water

IN H

; for ugliness seems, somehow, not so shocking when allied with evil as does beauty, which was destined for all men's delight and uplifting. As the air-elves had their Fairyland whither mortal children wandered, and whence they returned after an unmeasured lapse of time, st

rmless, as were the Flemish and Grecian Nixies, put himself to work to do good, and charm away some of the worries and ills that burd

for he set up an opposition, and his specialty was the cure of whooping-cough. Many a Scotch mothe

ole

gotten t'

ff! tak

a. For Hobhole Hob's small sake, we can afford to pa