th flint-headed arrows; that melodies peculiar to them are
still sung by the peasants of certain localities; that words used by
them are still employed by children in their games; and that many
families in many districts are believed to have inherited some of their
blood.[19] Of this intercourse between the taller races and the dwarfs,
there are many records in old traditions. In the days of King Arthur,
when, as Chaucer tells us, the land was "ful-filled of faerie," the
knights errant had usually a dwarf as attendant. One of King Arthur's
own knights was a Fairy.[20] According to Highland tradition, every
high-caste family of pure Gaelic descent had an attendant dwarf. These
examples show the "little people" in a not unfriendly light. But many
other stories speak of them as "malignant" foes, and as dreaded
oppressors. Of which the rational explanation is that these various
tales relate to various localities and epochs.

The connection visible between Fians and Fairies, between Fians and
Picts, and between Picts and Fairies, may now briefly be stated.

The earliest known association of the first two classes occurs in an
Irish manuscript of the eleventh or twelfth century,[21] wherein it is
stated that when the ninth-century Danes overran and plundered Ireland,
there was nothing "in concealment under ground in Erinn, or in the
various secret places belonging to Fians or to Fairies" that they did
not discover and appropriate. This statement receives strong
confirmation from a Scandinavian record, the _Landnama-bok_, which
says[22] that, in or about the year 870, a well-known Norse chief named
Leif

"went on warfare in the west. He made war in Ireland, and there
found a large underground house; he went down into it, and it was
dark until light shone from a sword in the hand of a man. Leif
killed the man, and took the sword and much property.... He made
war widely in Ireland, and got much property. He took ten thralls."

Although the Scandinavian record does not speak of the owner of the
earth-house as either a "Fian" or a "Fairy," it is quite evident that
this is an example of the plundering referred to in the Irish chronicle,
and that the Gaels of Ireland seven or eight centuries ago, if not a
thousand years ago, regarded the underground people as indifferently
Fians and Fairies.[23]

Many other associations of Fians with Fairies are to be seen. In one of
the old traditional ballads regarding