cottage
opened, and a loud voice was heard, calling upon some one within, by a
strange and uncouth name, which I have forgotten. The terrified cottager
ejaculated a prayer, which, we may suppose, insured her personal
safety; while the enchanted implement of housewifery, tumbling from the
bed-stead, departed by the window with no small noise and precipitation.
In a humorous fugitive tract, the late Dr Johnson is introduced as
disputing the authenticity of an apparition, merely because the spirit
assumed the shape of a tea-pot, and of a shoulder of mutton. No doubt,
a case so much in point, as that we have now quoted, would have removed
his incredulity.]

The following Frisian superstition, related by Schott, in his _Physica
Curiosa_, p. 362, on the authority of Cornelius a Kempen, coincides more
accurately with the popular opinions concerning the Fairies, than even
the _dracae_ of Gervase, or the water-spirits of Thomas Heywood.--"In
the time of the emperor Lotharius, in 830," says he, "many spectres
infested Frieseland, particularly the white nymphs of the ancients,
which the moderns denominate _witte wiven_, who inhabited a
subterraneous cavern, formed in a wonderful manner, without human art,
on the top of a lofty mountain. These were accustomed to surprise
benighted travellers, shepherds watching their herds and flocks, and
women newly delivered, with their children; and convey them into their
caverns, from which subterranean murmurs, the cries of children, the
groans and lamentations of men, and sometimes imperfect words, and all
kinds of musical sounds, were heard to proceed." The same superstition
is detailed by Bekker, in his _World Bewitch'd_, p. 196, of the English
translation. As the different classes of spirits were gradually
confounded, the abstraction of children seems to have been chiefly
ascribed to the elves, or Fairies; yet not so entirely, as to exclude
hags and witches from the occasional exertion of their ancient
privilege.--In Germany, the same confusion of classes has not taken
place. In the beautiful ballads of the _Erl King_, the _Water King_, and
the _Mer-Maid_, we still recognize the ancient traditions of the Goths,
concerning the _wald-elven_, and the _dracae_.

A similar superstition, concerning abstraction by daemons, seems, in
the time of Gervase of Tilbury, to have pervaded the greatest part of
Europe. "In Catalonia," says that author, "there is a lofty mountain,
named Cavagum, at the f