the _Brownies_ and
the _Fairies_. The Brownies were so called from their tawny colour, and
the Fairies from their fairness. The _Portuni_ of Gervase appear to have
corresponded in character to the Brownies, who were said to have employed
themselves in the night in the discharge of laborious undertakings
acceptable to the family to whose service they had devoted themselves.
The Fairies proper of Scotland strongly resembled the Fairies of Wales.

The term _Brownie_, or swarthy elve, suggests a connection between them
and the _Gwylliaid Cochion_, or Red Fairies of Wales.

FAIRY LADIES MARRYING MORTALS.

In the mythology of the Greeks, and other nations, gods and goddesses are
spoken of as falling in love with human beings, and many an ancient
genealogy began with a celestial ancestor. Much the same thing is said
of the Fairies. Tradition speaks of them as being enamoured of the
inhabitants of this earth, and content, for awhile, to be wedded to
mortals. And there are families in Wales who are said to have Fairy
blood coursing through their veins, but they are, or were, not so highly
esteemed as were the offspring of the gods among the Greeks. The famous
physicians of Myddfai, who owed their talent and supposed supernatural
knowledge to their Fairy origin, are, however, an exception; for their
renown, notwithstanding their parentage, was always great, and increased
in greatness, as the rolling years removed them from their traditionary
parent, the Fairy lady of the Van Pool.

The _Pellings_ are said to have sprung from a Fairy Mother, and the
author of _Observations on the Snowdon Mountains_ states that the best
blood in his veins is fairy blood. There are in some parts of Wales
reputed descendants on the female side of the _Gwylliaid Cochion_ race;
and there are other families among us whom the aged of fifty years ago,
with an ominous shake of the head, would say were of Fairy extraction.
We are not, therefore, in Wales void of families of doubtful parentage or
origin.

All the current tales of men marrying Fairy ladies belong to a class of
stories called, technically, Taboo stories. In these tales the lady
marries her lover conditionally, and when this condition is broken she
deserts husband and children, and hies back to Fairy land.

This kind of tale is current among many people. Max Muller in _Chips
from a German Workshop_, vol. ii, pp. 104-6, records one of these ancient
stories, which is found i