plicable emerald circles to supernatural
agency; if, indeed, anything connected with the "good folks" or "men of
peace" could properly be called supernatural in times when a belief in
fairies and every sort of fairy freak and frolic was deemed the most
correct and natural thing in the world. Did not these circles, it was
argued, appear in the course of a single night? In the sequestered
woodland glade, nor herd nor milkmaid could see anything odd or unusual
as the sun went down, and lo! next morning, as they drove their flocks
afield, there was the mysterious circle, round as the halo about the
wintry moon.... And if we know better nowadays than to believe these
green circles to be fairy-rings, we also know better than to give the
slightest credence to certain authors of our own day who have gravely
asserted that they are caused by electricity.... Fairy-rings ... are in
truth caused by a mushroom (_Agaricus pratensis_), the sporule dust or
seed of which, having fallen on a spot suitable for its growth,
instantly germinates, and, constantly propagating itself by sending out
a network of innumerable filaments and threads, forms the rich green
rings so common everywhere.'

Hardly more excusable than the electricity theorists, thinks this
writer, are those learned authors who tell us that the West received the
first hint of the existence of fairies from the East at the time of the
Crusades, and that almost all our fairy lore is traceable to the same
source, 'the fact being that Celt and Saxon, Scandinavian and Goth, Lapp
and Finn, had their "duergar," their "elfen" without number, such as
dun-elfen, berg-elfen, munt-elfen, feld-elfen, sae-elfen and
waeter-elfen--elves or spirits of downs, hills and mountains, of the
fields, of the woods, of the sea, and of the rivers, streams and
solitary pools--fairies, in short, and a complete fairy mythology, long
centuries before Peter the Hermit was born, or Frank and Moslem dreamt
of making the Holy Sepulchre a _casus belli_.'

There is something very suggestive in these remarks, and one thought
suggested is particularly in the direction of our inquiry, and that is,
may not the theory of the Aryan mythological origin of our folk-tales be
as imaginary and as groundless as the theory of the Oriental origin of
fairies? At the same time, let us admit that the superstitious belief in
capnomancy--_i.e._, divination by smoke--still said to be prevalent in
some parts of the Highlands, is pro