Elves and Heroes | Page 2

four feet high. It may be that the
Gael's conception of humanised spirits may not have been uninfluenced
by the traditions of that earlier diminutive race 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
Grainnè, 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
heroes and humanised deities are co-mingled and perpetuated.
On fragments of these folk-tales the poet Macpherson reared his
Ossianic epic, in imitation of the Iliad and Paradise Lost.

The "Death of Cuchullin" is a rendering in verse of an Irish prose
translation of a fragment of the Cuchullin Cycle, which moves in the
Bronze Age period. Cuchullin, with "the light of heroes" on his
forehead, is also reminiscent of Achilles. One of the few Cuchullin
tales found in Scotland is that which relates his conflict with his son,
and bears a striking similarity to the legend of Sohrab and Rustum.
Macpherson also drew from this Cycle in composing his Ossian, and
mingled it with the other, with which it has no connection.
The third great Celtic Cycle--the Arthurian--bears close resemblances,
as Campbell, of "The West Highland Tales," has shown, to the Fian
Cycle, and had evidently a common origin. Its value as a source of
literary inspiration has been fully appreciated, but the Fian and
Cuchullin cycles still await, like virgin soil, to yield an abundant
harvest for the poets of the future.
Notes on the folk-beliefs and tales will be found at the end of this
volume.
Some of the short poems have appeared in the "Glasgow Herald" and
"Inverness Courier"; the three tales appeared in the "Celtic Review."
CONTENTS.
Preface
The Wee Folk
The Remnant Bannock
The Banshee
Conn, Son of the Red
The Song of Goll
The Blue Men of the Minch
The Urisk

The Nimble Men
My Gunna
The Gruagach
The Little Old Man of the Barn
Yon Fairy Dog
The Water-Horse
The Changeling
My Fairy Lover
The Fians of Knockfarrel
Her Evil Eye
A Cursing
Leobag's Warning
Tober Mhuire
Sleepy Song
Song of the Sea
The Death of Cuchullin
Lost Songs
OTHER POEMS.
The Dream
Free Will

Strife
Sonnet
"Out of the Mouths of Babes"
Notes
THE WEE FOLK.
In the knoll that is the greenest,
And the grey cliff side,
And on the
lonely ben-top
The wee folk bide;
They'll flit among the heather,

And trip upon the brae--
The wee folk, the green folk, the red folk
and grey.
As o'er the moor at midnight
The wee folk pass,
They whisper
'mong the rushes
And o'er the green grass;
All through the marshy
places
They glint and pass