er lay on childe bedde
Sum dede and sum awedde._'

In the same way Chaucer calls Pluto 'King of Fayrie,' and speaks of
'Proserpine and all her fayrie,' in the _Merchant's Tale_. Moreover
Alison Pearson, when she visited Elfland, found there many of the dead,
among them Maitland of Lethington, and one of the Buccleughs. For all
this dealing with fairies and the dead was Alison burned (Scott, _Border
Minstrelsy_, ii. 137-152).

Because the mediaeval Fairies had fallen heir to much of the
pre-Christian theory of Hades, it does not follow, of course, that the
Fairies were originally ancestral ghosts. This origin has been claimed
for them, however, and it is pointed out that the stone arrow-heads of
an earlier race are, when found by peasants, called 'elf-shots,' and
attributed to the Fairies. Now the real owners and makers were certainly
a race dead and gone, as far as a race can die. But probably the
ownership of the arrows by elves is only the first explanation that
occurs to the rural fancy. On the other hand, it is candid to note that
the Zulu Amatongo, certainly 'ancestral ghosts,' have much in common
with Scotch and Irish fairies. 'It appears to be supposed,' says Dr.
Callaway, 'that the dead become "good people," as the dead among the
Amazulu become Amatongo, and, in the funeral processions of the "good
people" which some profess to see, are recognised the forms of those who
have lately died, as Umkatshana saw his relatives among the Abapansi,'
and as Alison saw Maitland of Lethington and Buccleuch in Elfland. This
Umkatshana followed a deer into a hole in the ground, where he found
dead men whom he knew[32]. Compare Campbell, _Tales from the West
Highlands_, ii. 56, 65, 66, 106, where it is written, 'the Red Book of
Clanranald is said not to have been dug up, but found _on_ the moss. It
seemed as if the ancestors sent it.'

Those rather gloomy fairies of the nether-world have little but the name
in common with the fairies of Herrick, of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_,
and of Drayton's _Nymphidia_. The gay and dancing elves have a way, in
Greece, of making girls 'dance with the Nereids' till they dance
themselves to death. In the same way it is told of Anne Jefferies, of
St. Teath in Cornwall (born 1626), that one had seen her 'dancing in the
orchard, among the trees, and that she informed him she was then dancing
with the Fairies.' She lived to be seventy, in spite of the Fairies and
the local magistrates who tr