t
sexes, and capable of producing children, and subject to all human
affections, as sleeping and waking, laughing and crying, poverty and
wealth; and that they possess cattle, and other effects, and are
obnoxious to death, like other mortals." He proceeds to state, that the
females of this race are capable of procreating with mankind; and gives
an account of one who bore a child to an inhabitant of Iceland, for whom
she claimed the privilege of baptism; depositing the infant, for that
purpose, at the gate of the church-yard, together with a goblet of gold,
as an offering.--_Historia Hrolfi Krakae, a_ TORFAEO.

[Footnote A: Perhaps in this, and similar tales, we may recognize
something of real history. That the Fins, or ancient natives of
Scandinavia, were driven into the mountains, by the invasion of Odin and
his Asiatics, is sufficiently probable; and there is reason to believe,
that the aboriginal inhabitants understood, better than the intruders,
how to manufacture the produce of their own mines. It is therefore
possible, that, in process of time, the oppressed Fins may have been
transformed into the supernatural _duergar_. A similar transformation
has taken place among the vulgar in Scotland, regarding the Picts, or
Pechs, to whom they ascribe various supernatural attributes.]

Similar to the traditions of the Icelanders, are those current among the
Laplanders of Finland, concerning a subterranean people, gifted with'
supernatural qualities, and inhabiting the recesses of the earth.
Resembling men in their general appearance, the manner of their
existence, and their habits of life, they far excel the miserable
Laplanders in perfection of nature, felicity of situation, and skill in
mechanical arts. From all these advantages, however, after the partial
conversion of the Laplanders, the subterranean people have derived no
farther credit, than to be confounded with the devils and magicians of
the dark ages of Christianity; a degradation which, as will shortly be
demonstrated, has been also suffered by the harmless Fairies of Albion,
and indeed by the whole host of deities of learned Greece and mighty
Rome. The ancient opinions are yet so firmly rooted, that the Laps of
Finland, at this day, boast of an intercourse with these beings, in
banquets, dances, and magical ceremonies, and even in the more intimate
commerce of gallantry. They talk, with triumph, of the feasts which
they have shared in the elfin caverns, where w