A Remonstrance - Page 2

faeries to be pagan and wicked. You would like to
have them all up before the magistrate. In Ireland warlike mortals have
gone amongst them, and helped them in their battles, and they in turn
have taught men great skill with herbs, and permitted some few to hear
their tunes. Carolan slept upon a faery rath. Ever after their tunes
ran in his head, and made him the great musician he was. In Scotland
you have denounced them from the pulpit. In Ireland they have been
permitted by the priests to consult them on the state of their souls.
Unhappily the priests have decided that they have no souls, that they
will dry up like so much bright vapour at the last day; but more in
sadness than in anger they have said it. The Catholic religion likes to
keep on good terms with its neighbours.

These two different ways of looking at things have influenced in each
country the whole world of sprites and goblins. For their gay and
graceful doings you must go to Ireland; for their deeds of terror to
Scotland. Our Irish faery terrors have about them something of make-
believe. When a peasant strays into an enchanted hovel, and is made to
turn a corpse all night on a spit before the fire, we do not feel
anxious; we know he will wake in the midst of a green field, the dew on
his old coat. In Scotland it is altogether different. You have soured
the naturally excellent disposition of ghosts and goblins. The piper
M'Crimmon, of the Hebrides, shouldered his pipes, and marched into a
sea cavern, playing loudly, and followed by his dog. For a long time
the people could hear the pipes. He must have gone nearly a mile, when
they heard the sound of a struggle. Then the piping ceased suddenly.
Some time went by, and then his dog came out of the cavern completely
flayed, too weak even to howl. Nothing else ever came out of the
cavern. Then there is the tale of the man who dived into a lake where
treasure was thought to be. He saw a great coffer of iron. Close to the
coffer lay a monster, who warned him to return whence he came. He rose
to the surface; but the bystanders, when they heard he had seen the
treasure, persuaded him to dive again. He dived. In a little while his
heart and liver floated up, reddening the water. No man ever saw the
rest of his body.

These water-goblins and water-monsters are common in Scottish folk-
lore. We have them too, but take them much less dreadfully. Our tales
turn all their doings to favour and to prettiness, or hopelessly
humorize the creatures. A hole in the Sligo river is haunted by one of
these monsters. He is ardently believed in by many, but that does not
prevent the peasantry playing with the subject, and surrounding it with
conscious fantasies. When I was a small boy I fished one day for