GLOSSARY.

Winsome, engaging; giving Lift, sky, firmament; air.

8. Bowster, bolster; cushion; 25. Buskil, dressed.

Bowt, bolt; elastic spring, like Glaist, ghost.

NOTE L.

Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak,
Our moonlight circle's screen?

Or who comes here to chase the deer,

Beloved of our Elfin Queen? - P. 153.

It has been already observed, that fairies, if not positively malevolent, are capricious, and easily offended. They are, like other proprietors of forests, peculiarly jealous of their rights of vert and venison, as appears from the cause of offence taken, in the original Danish ballad. This jealousy was also an attribute of the northern Duergar, or dwarfs; to many of whose distinctions the fairies seem to have succeeded, if, indeed, they are not the same class of beings. In the huge metrical record of German chivalry, entitled the Helden-Buch, Sir Hildebrand, and the other heroes of whom it treats, are engaged in one of their most desperate adventures, from a rash violation of the rose-garden of an Elfin, or Dwarf King.

There are yet traces of a belief in this worst and most malicious order of Fairies, among the Border wilds. Dr. Leyden has introduced such a dwarf into his ballad entitled the Cout of Keeldar, and has not forgot his characteristic detestation of the chase.

"The third blast that young Keeldar blew,

Still stood the limber fern,

And a wee man, of swarthy hue,

Upstarted by a cairn.

"His russet weeds were brown as heath,

That clothes the upland fell;

And the hair of his head was frizzly red
As the purple heather-bell.

"An urchin clad in prickles red,

Clung cow'ring to his arm;

The hounds they howl'd, and backward fled,
As struck by fairy charm.

"Why rises high the stag-hound's cry,
Where stag-hound ne'er should be?
Why wakes that horn the silent morn,
Without the leave of me?'-

Brown dwarf, that o'er the muirland strays,
Thy name to Keeldar tell!'-

"The Brown Man of the Muirs, who stays
Beneath the heather-bell.

The poetical picture here given of the Duergar corresponds exactly with the following Northumbrian legend, with which I was lately favoured by my learned and kind friend, Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth, who has bestowed indefatigable labour upon the antiquities of the English Border counties. The subject is in itself so curious, that the length of the note will, I hope, be pardoned.

"I have only one record to offer of the appearance of our Northumbrian Duergar. My narratrix is Elizabeth Cockburn, an old wife of Offerton, in this county, whose credit, in a case of this kind, will not, I hope, be much impeached, when I add, that she is, by her dull neighbours, supposed to be occasionally insane, but by herself, to be at those times endowed with a faculty of seeing visions, and spectral appearances, which shun the common ken.

"In the year before the great rebellion, two young men from Newcastle were sporting on the high moors above Elsdon, and after pursuing their game several hours, sat down to dine in a green glen, near one of the mountain streams. After this repast, the younger lad ran to the brook for water, and after stopping to drink, was surprised, on lifting his head again, by the appearance of a brown dwarf, who stood on a crag covered with brackens, across the burn. This extraordinary personage did not appear to be above half the stature of a common man, but was uncommonly stout and broad-built, having the appearance of vast strength. His dress was entirely brown, the colour of the brackens, and his head covered with frizzled red hair. His countenance was expressive of the most savage ferocity, and his eyes glared like a bull. It VOL. III.

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seems he addressed the young man first, threatening him with his vengeance, for having trespassed on his demesnes, and asking him if he knew in whose presence he stood? The youth replied, that he now supposed him to be the lord of the moors; that he offended through ignorance; and offered to bring him the game he had killed. The dwarf was a little mollified by this submission, but remarked, that nothing could be more offensive to him than such an offer, as he considered the wild animals as his subjects, and never failed to avenge their destruction. He condescended further to inform him, that he was, like himself, mortal, though of years far exceeding the lot of common humanity; and (what I should not have had an idea of) that he hoped for salvation. He never, he added, fed on any thing that had life, but lived, in the summer, on whortle-berries, and in winter, on nuts and apples, of which he had great store in the woods. Finally, he invited his new acquaintance to accompany him home, and partake his hospitality; an offer which the youth was on the point of accepting, and was just going to spring across the brook, (which if he had done, says Elizabeth, the dwarf would certainly have torn him in pieces,) when his foot was arrested by the voice of his companion, who thought he had tarried long: and on looking round again, 'the wee brown man was fled. The story adds, that he was imprudent enough to slight the admonition, and to sport over the moors on his way homewards: but soon after his return, he fell into a lingering disorder, and died within the year." NOTE M.

And gaily shines the Fairy-land

But all is glistening show. —P. 156.

No fact respecting Fairy-land seems to be better ascertained than the fantastic and illusory nature of their apparent pleasure and splendour. It has been already noticed in the former quotations from Dr. Grahame's entertaining volume, and may be confirmed by the following Highland tradition. "A woman, whose new-born child had been conveyed by them into their secret abodes, was also carried thither herself, to remain, however, only until she should suckle her infant. She, one day, during this period, observed the Shi'ichs busily employed in mixing various

ingredients in a boiling cauldron; and, as soon as the composition was prepared, she remarked that they all carefully anointed their eyes with it, laying the remainder aside for future use. In a moment when they were all absent, she also attempted to anoint her eyes with the precious drug, but had time to apply it to one eye only, when the Daoine Shi' returned. But with that eye she was henceforth enabled to see every thing as it really passed in their secret abodes: - She saw every object, not as she hitherto had done, in deceptive splendour and elegance, but in its genuine colours and form. The gaudy ornaments of the apartment were reduced to the walls of a gloomy cavern. Soon after, having discharged her office, she was dismissed to her own home. Still, however, she retained the faculty of seeing, with her medicated eye, every thing that was done, any where in her presence, by the deceptive art of the order. One day, amidst a throng of people, she chanced to observe the Shi'ich, or man of peace, in whose possession she had left her child; though to every other eye invisible. Prompted by maternal affection, she inadvertently accosted him, and began to enquire after the welfare of her child. The man of peace, astonished at being thus recognised by one of mortal race, demanded how she had been enabled to discover him. Awed by the terrible frown of his countenance, she acknowledged what she had done. He spat in her eye, and extinguished it for ever."— GRAHAME's Sketches, p. 116–118. It is very remarkable, that this story, translated by Dr. Grahame from popular Gaelic tradition, is to be found in the Otia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury.' A work of great interest might be com

[This story is still current in the moors of Staffordshire, and adapted by the peasantry to their own meridian. I have repeatedly heard it told, exactly as here, by rustics who could not read. My last authority was a nailer near Cheadle. R. JAMIESON.]

[One other legend, in a similar strain, lately communicated by a very intel. igent young lady, is given, principally because it furnishes an opportunity of pursuing an ingenious idea suggested by Mr. Scott, in one of his learned notes to the Lady of the Lake:

"A young man roaming one day through the forest, observed a number of persons all dressed in green, issuing from one of those round eminences which are commonly accounted fairy hills. Each of them in succession called upon a erson by name, to fetch his horse. A caparisoned steed instantly appeared; hey all mounted, and sallied forth into the regions of air. The young man, ike Ali Baba in the Arabian Nights, ventured to pronounce the same name, nd called for his horse. The steed immediately appeared; he mounted, and