modate some
of your ancient British names somewhat more to our English pronunciation.
This is what the Erse translator has done, and, I think, with great
judgment. The word might be a little smoothed and liquidated in the
text, and the original spelling retained in the margin. Thus Macpherson
has converted Lambhdearg into Lamderg, Geolchopack (a woman's name) into
the soft word Gealcossa, &c. This is a liberty assumed in all languages;
and indeed, without it, it would not be possible for the inhabitants of
one nation to pronounce the proper names of another.

You tell me you have read Bartholinus's book of Danish Antiquities; it is
a most excellent performance. There is a celebrated Frenchman, the
Chevalier Mallet, historiographer to the present King of Denmark, who has
lately published a work in French on the same subject, at the end of
which he has given a French translation of the famous Edda or Alcoran (if
you suffer me to use the word) of the ancient Teutonic nations. If I
have health and leisure, I intend to translate this book into English,
though it is a formidable undertaking, being a quarto of no small size.
I have got the book, which is a capital performance.

I should have one advantage over most others for such an attempt, which
is, that my learned neighbour, Mr. Lye, has got the Islandic original of
the Edda, and would compare my version with it. I have one thing still
to mention, and then I have done. I have lately been employed in a small
literary controversy with a learned friend, about the original and
antiquity of the popular notion concerning Fairies and Goblins. My
friend is for fetching that whimsical opinion from the East, so late as
the time of the Crusades, and derives the words Elf and Goblin from the
Guelfe and Gibbeline factions in Italy. But I think it would be
impossible for notions so arbitrary to have obtained so universally, so
uniformly, and so early (see Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale), if they had
not got possession of the minds of men many ages before. Nay, I make no
doubt but Fairies are derived from the _Daergar_ or Dwarfs, whose
existence was so generally believed among all the northern nations. Can
you, from any of your ancient British writers, enable me to ascertain any
of these disputed points, or any resemblance to the name of Fairy, Elf,
Goblin, in your language? I should think, that these popular
superstitions are aboriginal in the island, and are remains of the