Good Neighbours: how, of
yore, the powerful sprites, by rending athwart a huge rocky mound,
opened an _innocuous channel_ for _the torrent_, which used with its
overflow to lay desolate arable ground and pasturage: how they were
looked upon as being, in a general sense, _the protectors_ against
harm of the country: and, in fine, how the two orders of neighbours
lived in long and happy communion of kind offices with one another;
until, upon one unfortunate day, the ill-renowned freebooter,
Aymerigot Marcel, with his ruffianly men-at-arms, having approached,
by stealth, from his near-lying hold, stormed the romantically seated
rock-mansion of the bountiful pigmies: who, scared, and in anger,
forsook the land. Ever since the foul outrage, only a straggler may,
now and then, be seen at a distance.

Thus, too, the late _Brillat-Savarin_, from a sprightly, acute,
brilliant Belles-letteriste, turned, for an hour, honest antiquary,
lets us know how, upon the southern bank of the Rhone, flowing out
from Switzerland, in the narrowly-bounded and, when he first quitted
it, yet hidden valley of his birth:--The FAIRIES--elderly, not
beautiful, but benevolent unmarried ladies--kept, while time was,
open school in THE GROTTO, which was their habitation, for the young
girls of the vicinity, whom they taught--SEWING.

3. We go on to exemplifying--ELFIN _Frequentation of, and Settlement
with,_ MAN.

The Fairies are drawn into the houses and to the haunts of men by
manifold occasions and impulses. They halt on a journey. They
celebrate marriages. They use the implements of handicraft. They
purchase at the Tavern--from the Shambles, or in open Market. They
_steal_ from oven and field. They go through a house, blessing the
rooms, the marriage-bed--and stand beside the unconscious cradle.
They give dreams. They take part in the evening mirth. They pray in
the churches. They seem to work in the mines. Drawn by magical
constraint into the garden, they invite themselves within doors. They
dance in the churchyard.[29] They make themselves the wives and the
paramours of men; or the serviceable hobgoblin fixes himself, like a
cat, in the house--once and for ever.

We present traditions for illustrating some of these points, as they
offer themselves to us.

[Footnote 29:

"Part fenced by man, part by the ragged steep
That curbs a foaming brook, a GRAVE-YARD lies;
The hare's best couching-place for fearless sleep!
Where MOONLIT F