whose arrow-heads of flint
were so long regarded as "elf-bolts." The fairies dwelt only in grassy
knolls, on the summits of high hills, and inside cliffs. Although
capable of living for several centuries, they were not immortal. They
required food, and borrowed meal and cooking utensils from human beings,
and always returned what they received on loan. They could be heard
within the knolls grinding corn and working at their anvils, and they
were adepts at spinning and weaving and harvesting. When they went on
long journeys they became invisible, and were carried through the air on
eddies of western wind.

At the seasonal changes of the year, "the wee folk" were for several
days on end inspired, like all other supernatural furies, with enmity
against mankind. Their evil influences were negatived by spells and
charms. We who still hang on our walls at Christmas the mystic holly,
are unconsciously perpetuating an old-world custom connected with belief
in the efficacy of the magical circle to protect us against evil
spirits. And in our concern about luck, our proneness to believe in
omens, the influence of colours and numbers, in dreams and in prophetic
warnings, we retain as much of the spirit as the poetry of the religion
of our remote ancestors.

THE HEROES.

The heroes, with the exception of Cuchullin, who appear in this volume,
figure in the tales and poems of the Ossianic or Fian Cycle, which is
common to Ireland and to Scotland. They have been neglected by our
Scottish poets since Gavin Douglas and Barbour. In Ireland the Fians are
a band of militia--the original Fenians. In Scotland the tales vary
considerably, and belong to the hunting period before the introduction
of agriculture. But in this country, as well as in Ireland, they are
evidently influenced by historic happenings. There are tales of Norse
conflicts, as well as tales of adventure among giants and spirits.

The cycle had evidently remote beginnings. When we find Diarmid and
Grainne, like Paris and Helen, the cause of conflict and disaster; and
Diarmid, like Achilles, charmed of body, and vulnerable only on his
heel-spot, we incline to the theory that from a mid-European centre
migrating "waves" swept over prehistoric Greece, and left traces of
their mythology and folk-lore in Homer, while other "waves," sweeping
northward, bequeathed to us as a literary inheritance the Celtic
folk-tales, in which the deeds and magical attributes of remote tribal