like the Lapps in our day. Stories are told in
Sutherlandshire about a 'witch' who milked deer; a 'ghost' once became
acquainted with a forester, and at his suggestion packed all her
plenishing on a herd of deer, when forced to flit by another and a bigger
'ghost;' the green mounds in which 'fairies' are supposed to dwell closely
resemble the outside of Lapp huts. The fairies themselves are not
represented as airy creatures in gauze wings and spangles, but they appear
in tradition as small cunning people, eating and drinking, living close at
hand in their green mound, stealing children and cattle, milk and food,
from their bigger neighbours. They are uncanny, but so are the Lapps. My
own opinion is that these Scotch traditions relate to the tribes who made
kitchen-middens and lake-dwellings in Scotland, and that they were allied
to Lapps."[A] Such in essence is Mr. MacRitchie's theory, which has been
so admirably summarised by Mr. Jacobs in the first of that series of
fairy-tale books which has added a new joy to life, that I shall do myself
the pleasure of quoting his statement in this place. He says: "Briefly
put, Mr. MacRitchie's view is that the elves, trolls, and fairies
represented in popular tradition are really the mound-dwellers, whose
remains have been discovered in some abundance in the form of green
hillocks, which have been artificially raised over a long and low passage
leading to a central chamber open to the sky. Mr. MacRitchie shows that in
several instances traditions about trolls or 'good people' have attached
themselves to mounds which long afterwards, on investigation, turned out
to be evidently the former residence of men of smaller build than the
mortals of to-day. He goes on further to identify these with the Picts--
fairies are called 'Pechs' in Scotland--and other early races, but with
these ethnological equations we need not much concern ourselves. It is
otherwise with the mound traditions and their relation, if not to fairy
tales in general, to tales about fairies, trolls, elves, &c. These are
very few in number, and generally bear the character of anecdotes. The
fairies, &c., steal a child; they help a wanderer to a drink and then
disappear into a green hill; they help cottagers with their work at night,
but disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to
help fairy mothers; fairy maidens marry ordinary men, or girls marry and
live with fairy husbands. All such things may ha