In a reference to the popular traditions of Northumberland, the Picts are spoken of as "a race of people who are represented, in such legends, as endowed with supernatural power, and holding, in the scale of beings, an intermediate rank between men and fairies."[121] Sir Walter Scott also corroborates this belief as existent in Northumberland ("Rob Roy," ch. xxiii). And the writer previously quoted, in describing the local tradition with regard to the building of the tower at Abernethy by the Pechts, explains that "the people always, when they speak of these Peghs, associate that idea with a notion that they were a preternatural sort of beings, such as fairies and brownies." Therefore, without entering into any discussion as to what is or was meant by "supernatural power," we have ascertained from these extracts that the Pechts were regarded, in Northumberland and in Scotland, as a race of people possessing or claiming "supernatural" attributes. And that they were akin to "fairies and brownies," if they were not identical with them. This also is the position of the "Feens" of Gaelic folk-lore, as the following references will show.

When the celebrated Irish king, Brian Borumha, defeated the Danes of Dublin and their allies, in the year 1000 A.D., it is stated that he appropriated all the vast treasures that the Danes had gathered together:—"gold and silver, and bronze, and precious stones, and carbuncle-gems, and buffalo-horns, and beautiful goblets," as well as "various vestures of all colours."[122] And the chronicler explains that "never was there a fortress, or a fastness, or a mound, or a church, or a sacred place, or a sanctuary," which the Danes had not plundered when it fell to their arms. The first three terms, which in the Gaelic are dÚn, daingean, and diongna, are closely allied, and each designates something akin to the "hollow mounds" of which we have been speaking.[123] But the succeeding sentence is quite explicit: "Neither was there in concealment under ground in Erinn, nor in the various solitudes belonging to Fians or to fairies, anything that was not discovered by these foreign, wonderful Denmarkians, through paganism and idol worship." With regard to which last allusion, Dr. Todd says: "The meaning is, that notwithstanding the potent spells employed by the Fians and fairies of old for the concealment of their hidden treasures, the Danes, by their pagan magic and the diabolical power of their idols, were enabled to find them out."[124] (The Gaelic from which Dr. Todd translates the above sentences is as follows:—"Ni raibh imorro dÚn no daingean, no diongna, no ceall, no cadhas, no neimedh do gabhadh ris an nglÁim nglifidhigh, nglonnmair, ngnuismhir do bhÍ ag teaglaim, ocus ag teaccar na hÉdala sin, Óir ni raibhe ifolach fo thalmain in Erinn ina fÁ dhiamhraibh dÍchealta ag fianaibh no ag sÍthcuiraibh nÍ na fuaratar na Danmargaigh allmardha ingantacha sin, tre geintlidhecht, ocus tre iodhaladhradh.")[125]

Like the Pechts in Northumbrian tradition, the Feens are here not absolutely identified with the fairies, although the two are so closely associated that it is difficult to distinguish between the one and the other. The traditions of the Feens themselves testify to a distinction between the two. Thus, in the "Dan an Fhir Shicair," or Ballad of the Fairy Man,[126] Fin and his six nobles, while walking out one evening, see a fairy-man coming towards them, who announces that he comes from the neighbouring Golden Doon (DÚn an oir), and that his purpose is to cause those Feens to come, by enchantment, to dine that day with him and his people in their "hill." Here, then, we have the Feens associating, to some extent (though not, as it appears, on a very friendly footing) with fairies, and yet not themselves regarded as identical with that people.

From the foregoing reference to the plunder of the Danes at Dublin, in the year 1000, it is evident that "the Feens and Fairies" were understood, in the traditional history of the Gaels, to be then actually inhabiting those underground and half-underground dwellings known as "Pechts' houses." There is another reference, in the same history, that corroborates this belief. The date when Brian Borumha became possessor of those "fairy-hoards," which the Danes had previously obtained by their well-known process of "how-breaking,"[127] was the close of the tenth century. Now, a son of this same Brian, and also one of his father's chief warriors, are both described as asserting (on a certain occasion, in the reign of the same Brian)[128] that they had been tempted by the fairies to forsake their ancestral cause. "Often," says Murchadh, "was I offered, in hills and in fairy mansions [i sithaib ocus i sithbrugaib], this world and these gifts; but I never abandoned for one night my country nor my inheritance for them." As Murchadh's response was evoked by a similar statement on the part of Dunlang, it thus appears that, in rifling the abodes of the "how-folk," the Danes were robbing a race then alive, and were not merely appropriating unclaimed treasure. And, indeed, the Scandinavian accounts of "how-breaking" distinctly point out that this pastime involved a struggle of life and death with the armed inmate of the "how."

The evidence of Murchadh and Dunlang, then, shows that intercourse with "the fairies" was not a matter for wonder; and, moreover, that, for one reason or another, the latter desired to seduce the Gaelic-speaking people from their allegiance. That they were eventually successful with Dunlang seems pointed out by the statement, made elsewhere, that this Dunlang was himself a fairy (sioguidhe).[129] And it is well known that "Fairies," as well as "Feens," while possessing distinct innate attributes, were not averse to obtaining adherents from other races, who thus became "Feens" and "Fairies" by adoption.

In the instance of Murchadh and Dunlang, however, the Feens are not named; and it is a matter for conjecture whether they ought to be included among the Fairies there spoken of. But, at any rate, the incident shows that the Fairies (if not the Feens) formed an active, existent caste or race, subsequent to the date of Brian's famous victory over the Danes; and that the Danish inroads on their doons, brochs, hows, etc., in the neighbourhood of Dublin had not by any means annihilated them as a people.

Of this robbery of the "how-folk" by the Danes in the Dublin district, something further may be said in passing. The date of these raids is stated to have been 861 or 862 A.D., when the Danes overran the whole district of the Boyne and Blackwater (co. Meath), and broke into the "fairy hills" of that region; one of which, that of New Grange, is probably the most interesting example of its class that is at present known to archÆologists.[130] Therefore, the booty which the Danes thus obtained in 862 must have formed a portion of that captured by King Brian, after his victory, in the year 1000. And it is clear enough that it was this special treasure that the chronicler referred to when he spoke of the hoards which the Danes sought out and discovered "in concealment under ground" and "in the various solitudes (or secret places) belonging to Feens or to Fairies."

Ought "Fairies," then, to be identified with the "Feens" and "Pechts" of history and tradition? We have already seen that, both in Scotland and in Northumberland, the Pechts are classed with the Fairies in the popular memory. And from the brief references just made, one would be disposed at the first glance to say that the two names applied to one people. But all the people who form the subject of consideration in these pages belong, even in their most modern and most modified phases, to the past; and in looking down that long vista one is often deceived by the "foreshortening" effects of distance, which seems to unite what is really distinct and separate. Still, it is evident that "Fairies" have so many points in common with "Feens" and "Pechts" that they must all, at least, be classed together.

The Ayrshire term Fane, which, according to Dr. Jamieson,[131] signifies "a fairy," offers itself as very probably a variant of the Gaelic Fian (pl. Feinne). But Brittany affords even a better instance. There, we are told, the peasantry have memories of a race of Fions, who were dwarfs in stature, and are described as "living with the fairies."[132] And although we have endeavoured, as far as possible, to restrict these remarks to the British Islands, and even to a few special districts, yet the folk-lore of Brittany coincides so closely with that of the districts just referred to, and is so corroborative of the theories here stated, that it may be permissible to quote a few of the Breton beliefs bearing upon this subject.

Of those whom he states are called the Christian fairies of Brittany, M. Paul SÉbillot gives several particulars.[133] These so-called "Christian" fairies were, he says, "neither wholly Christian nor wholly pagan," and in the traditions relating to them he dimly recognizes their possible identification with the heathen priestesses[134] of Brittany, at the time when they were gradually becoming converted to Christianity. They are celebrated, like the Pechts of Scotland, as the builders of churches. And just as local tradition states that the Pechts who built the Round Tower of Abernethy, in the manner already described, accomplished their work in the course of a single night, so a certain chapel in the CÔtes-du-Nord is said to have been built in one night by the "fairies." Moreover, in two of the instances referred to by M. SÉbillot, the top stone of the building is or was lacking, for the reason that the daylight had surprised the builders at their work.[135] Now, this is precisely what is stated of the Pictish builders of the Round Tower at Abernethy, who are said to have been much irritated because an early riser in the village discovered them at work, and thus deprived the building and its builders of their claim to a "supernatural" origin.[136] Further, these Breton "fairies" are spoken of as carrying the stones in their aprons, like the Picts of Northumberland, the castle-building "genii" of Yorkshire, and the "witch" who helped to build the Forfarshire fort of Cater Thun.[137] And, as in the two latter instances, as well as in several of the others referred to, the stones were carried from "a great distance" by the Breton fairies, on at least one occasion.

To this Breton comparison one is tempted to add that of the Netherlands. In referring to the dwarfs who once inhabited the neighbourhood of Tienen, M. Pol de Mont states that "they were uncommonly small of stature, but of extraordinarily great strength"[138]; a statement which is paralleled by "the vulgar account" in Scotland, "that the Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang." And, in the Journal of Folk-lore just quoted from, the same kind of people are again suggested by the Gypnissen; "queer little women," who lived in a "castle" which had been reared in a single night, and who, like the Scotch "brownies" (with whom the Pechts are classed by the Scotch), were content to perform such everyday drudgery as washing the clothes of the taller race living near them, for no higher remuneration than their daily food.[139] The "castle" in which they dwelt is not spoken of as visible at the present day, but the probability is that it was of the same nature as the Aschberg, near CasterlÉ, which M. Pol de Mont states[140] is declared by tradition to be a chambered mound, capable of housing as many as fifty bergmannetjes, or mound-dwarfs (the Dutch term being equivalent to the Scotch "how-folk" or the English "hill-men").

Nor can one omit the following testimony from the island of Sylt, off the Schleswig coast, supplied by Mr. William George Black. Referring to a story of "Finn, the king of the dwarfs," Mr. Black explains as follows:—"These were an odd, small, tricky, people whom the Frisians found in Sylt when they took possession. They lived underground, wore red caps, and lived on berries and mussels, fish and birds, and wild eggs. They had stone axes and knives, and made pots of clay. They sang and danced by moonlight on the mounds of the plain which were their homes, worked little, were deceitful, and loved to steal children and pretty women: the children they exchanged for their own, the women they kept. Those who lived in the bushes, and later in the Frieslanders' own houses, like our own brownies, were called 'Pucks,' and a sandy dell near Braderup is still known as the Pukthal.... They had a language of their own, which lingers yet in proverbs and children's games. The story of King Finn's subjects is evidently one of those valuable legends which illuminate dark pages of history. It clearly bears testimony to the same small race having inhabited Friesland in times which we trace in the caves of the Neolithic age, and of which the Esquimaux are the only survivors." Mr. Black has himself visited one of those "green mounds" which are said to have been inhabited by this Sylt "Finn," and he states that when it was first scientifically examined, in 1868, it was found to contain "remains of a fireplace, bones of a small man, some clay urns, and stone weapons."[141]

These Continental instances may be regarded as relating rather to the "Feens of Lochlin" than to those of Ireland and Great Britain. But one thing quite evident from the foregoing references is that the "Fians and Fairies" of Ireland, the "Fions, or Feins, and Fairies" of Brittany, and the similar people in the Netherlands and in Friesland, were all nearly identical, if they were not quite identical, with the "preternatural sort of beings" known to Scotch folk-lore as Pechs, or Pechts, or Piks, and to history in general as Picts.