ed to be an
illusion; but it is so vividly presented that it fastens on our
imagination with remarkable tenacity. Wilkie Collins' short
story, _The Yellow Mask_, included in the series called _After
Dark_, is another experiment in the same kind. A jealous woman
appears among the dancers at a ball, wearing a waxen cast of the
face of the man's dead wife. The short story, in which the author
deliberately shakes our nerves and then soothes away our fears by
accounting naturally for startling phenomena, is an amazingly
popular type. It reappears continually in different guises.
Occasionally it merges into pleasant buffoonery. _Die
Geistertodtenglocke_, for instance, a story in the _Dublin
University Magazine_ (1862), is a burlesque, in which the
mysterious tolling of a bell is explained by the discovery that a
cow strolled into the ruin to eat the hay with which the rope was
mended. But, judiciously handled, this type of story makes a
strong appeal to human beings who like to know how much of the
terrible and painful they can endure, and who yet must ultimately
be reassured.

Another group of short tales of terror consists of those which
purport to be faithful renderings of the beliefs of simple
people. To this category belong Allan Cunningham's _Traditional
Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry_, which first
appeared, with one exception, in the _London Magazine_ (1821-23).
Cunningham has the tact to preserve the legends of elves,
fairies, ghosts and bogles, as they were passed down from one
generation to another on the lips of living beings. Later he
attempted, in a novel, _Sir Michael Scott_ (1828), a kind of
Gothic romance; but there is no trace in the _Traditional Tales_
of the influence of the terrormongers with whose works he was
familiar. Perhaps the finest story of the collection is _The
Haunted Ships_, in which are embodied the traditions associated
with two black and decayed hulls, half immersed in the quicksands
of the Solway. Lewis would have dragged us on board ship, and
would have shown us the devil in his own person. Cunningham
wisely keeps ashore, and repeats the tales that are told
concerning the fiendish mirth and revelry to be heard, when, at
certain seasons of the year, they arise in their former beauty,
with forecastle and deck, with sail and pennon and shroud. James
Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who was a friend of Cunningham, was
steeped in the same folk-lore. _The Mysterious Bride_, printed