The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-01
THE POETRY or FACT.

AAAN'N
fancy, to have had their origin in historical
fact; and, on the other, that many Others
which were and are really the products Of the
poetic imagination, have been in the
present, and will be in the future,
actualised by the ingenuity of science,
or the progress Of society. Even the fairies
have been traced to a specific birthplace, and
an actual race of dwarfish beings having
local habitation and a name. A shrewd OBJ
server has traced all the distinguishing marks
by which they are described to the settlements
of the Lapps. These, like what we are told
of the fairies, live in green mounds, pop up
their heads when disturbed by people treading
on their houses, steal children, are on familiar
terms with the people about them when they
treat them Well and punish them in return
for ILL treatment. A Lapp is a little flesh
eating mortal, having control over animals,
sometimes living in tent and sleeping out
Of doors, wrapped in his deer-skin shirt,
but generally in green mound, ex-
actly answering to a fairy retreat. One
sagacious traveller visited such home on
the most northern peninsula in Europe,
to the east of the North Cape close to the sea,
in a sandy hollow near burn. 1t was round,
about twelve feet in diameter, sunk three feet
in the sand, the roof being made of sticks and
covered with turf, and the whole structure, at
a short distance looking exactly like a conical
green mound about four feet high. There was
famous crop of grass on it, and children and
dogs ran out at the door, and up to the top
when the visitants approached, as ants run on
an ant-hill when disturbed. Their fire was in
the middle of the floor, and the pot hung over
it from the roof.
A house in South Uist, in the sand-hills close
to the sea, built of loose boulders circular, and
with recesses in the sides, bears corroborative
testimony. II was covered when found, and
full of sand, which, being removed, stone
querns and combs of bones were detected min
ged with ashes. Near the level of the top
there was a stratum of bones and teeth of
large grass-eating animals, the bones being
splintered and broken, blended with ashes and
shells, oysters cookies, and periwinllles,
showing clearly the original level of the
ground, and proving that this was dwelling
almost the same as Lapp "Gam" at Hop
seidet.
These descriptions tally exactly with our
fairy tales; and, indeed, travellers ad-
ventures read nearly as elvishly. The scene
is laid at QuickioB, and on Vallespik, Swedish
Lapland, and the Lapps and the deer are the
actors in it. A small man of fve-and-twenty
is seen from the opposite side of a river He
wears a high blue cap, yet he is so short that
both he and his cap could stand upright
under the arm of the observer. Aparty having
been formed to make better acquaintance with
the deer, the Lapp took from its hiding
place in a iI-tree a long birch pole, which
aided him in his pursuit, and enabled him
to outstrip his companions. One of these
looked after him through glass, and saw, like
a brown speck on the shoulder OF Vallespik,
small mortal with two dogs driving home
the door. They also visited ''cota, J"
which was permanent dwelling made in the
shape of a sugar-loaf, with birch sticks, and
long flat stones and turf it had a door, a
mere narrow slit, opening to the west, and
hole in the roof to let out the smoke. Inside
was girl of about fifteen, with very pretty
eyes, sitting crouched up in corner, and look
ing as scared as one of her own lawns. A
priest who attended the party remarked that
II they had not been accompanied by the
Lappe she would have tainted or run away to
the hills. The narrator of the adventure
began to sketch her, as she sat modestly in her
dark corner, and was rejoicing in the extreme
stiffness of his sitter, when, on looking up
from some careful touch, he found that she
had vanished through the doorway.
'~i"ntiuo nAnnle NAV have sat for
These uIni.ay'-'~ r~-F--, - tr
fhe fairies OF the hursery-tales, even for the
Puck of the Midsummer Nights Dream.
Our classical fairies-such as people Sponsors
great poetic allegOry-are not OF this class.
They are of full size, and have spiritual
powers corresponding. Nor has Shakespeare
painted his ''0beron' and "Ttania' as minute
beings; rather they have the stature and in
telligence of demi-gOds Spenser and our
dramatist contemplated them through tele-
scope, which, perhaps, more humble believers
had inverted, and thus the giants and fairies
were, after all, but one and the same set o.
beings viewed in different manner. 1t il
curious that whatever magic art giants may
have mustered, they were always, like Ole
Nick himself in the Icelandic legends, beaten
in the end by men, though they also arr
painted as man-eaters and owners of slaves
SOmelivedn in caves, some had houses and cattle
Like Hercules, they fought with clubs Ar,
these imagined beings men or myths II
either case, they are represented as strang
lubberly beings, whose dealings with mel
always end in their own discontinue. Littl
real resemblance have the weird sisters in tn
tragedy of Mabeth to the three strange hag
we meet with in the annals of Holinshead
They may have been intended by the legen
writer for the fates or valkyres of tn
northern mythology, but the historian doe
not say so. With eur great dramatist the
are simply the eXpOnents OF Macbeth
state of mind, who had meditated the mul
der of Duncan before he had seen tn
witches. The poet uses such materials, alway
crude under the best OF circumstances, j
accordance with his theme, and, by means
the most exquisite art works them into ha
mOny with il as illustrations of psychologist
motives of which the original iabulist nevt
dreamed In such manner they are refine
and elevated, and rendered fiji to become ia
tors in a drama designed to lay bare the bas
OF Ofsupersttious belief which they show bot
So ,rfncfpla and m action Shak