There is one variety of the underground dwellings which, in the northern counties of Scotland if not elsewhere, is more specially indicated by the term "Earth House," or "Eirde House." With regard to this class of structure, an experienced archÆologist[167] makes the following remarks:—

"The whole of these have been formed after one idea, viz. to secure an unobserved entrance, and to preserve a curved shape. From the entrance the first part of these structures is generally a low and narrow passage, growing in width and height from the point where the direction is changed, and terminating in a rounded extremity.

"The part of them last referred to is generally from five to nine feet in width, with a height barely sufficient to permit a man to stand erect. In some cases, however, they have been found to be of much more contracted dimensions throughout. The Eirde House at Migvie, in Cromar, only admits a single person to pass along; while that at Torrich, in Strathdonan, Sutherlandshire, is barely three feet in width.

"Dr. Mitchell has described another at Erribol, in that county, which is more like a large drain than anything else.

---

"These underground houses have occasionally smaller chambers, as offshoots from the main one, which are entered by openings of small size.

"They occur at times singly, and at others in groups. On a moor near Kildrummy, in Aberdeenshire, a group of nearly fifty were discovered.

---

"It has been doubted if these houses were ever really used as places of abode, a purpose for which they seem in no degree to be suited.

"But as to this there can be no real doubt. The substances found in many of them have been the accumulated dÉbris of food used by man, and indicate his presence as surely as the kindred kitchen-middens which have recently attracted so much attention, while their occurrence in groups marks the gregarious habits of the early people. The bones of the ox, deer, and other like creatures have been found, as well as the shells of fish, mixed with fatty earth and charred wood. Ornaments of bronze have been found in a few of them, and beads of streaked glass. In some cases the articles found would indicate that the occupation of these houses had come down to comparatively recent times, as in the case of the Irish crannogs, where objects of the rudest times are found alongside of those of the seventeenth century."

These underground passages or galleries are also known as Pechts' or Picts' houses; and they unquestionably belong to the same family as the other structures so denominated. But they are the rudest and most primitive of all. Between them and a chambered mound such as Maes-how, in Orkney, the difference is great; and still greater is the difference between them and a non-subterranean "broch," such as that of Mousa, in Shetland. Yet all these are so united by intermediate forms that it is difficult to say exactly where the one passes into the other. The nature of the difference may be expressed etymologically by saying that they are burrows, barrows, and brochs, or burgs; the "drain"-like Eirde House belonging to the first class, the chambered mound to the second, and the above-ground structure, such as that of Mousa, to the third. The three terms just used are radically one, as the buildings themselves are. But they represent different phases of one idea; and the last phase is very much in advance of the first. Whether the superiority of the one class of building over the other has been caused by the gradual advancement of one homogeneous race, during a long stretch of time, or by the blending of a higher race with a lower, within a limited period, must be regarded as an open question.[168]

But, although that crude form of earth-house which we have described as a burrow, is included among the Pechts' houses of Scotland, it differs in several respects from that variety which has been regarded as the typical "Pecht's house," namely, the chambered mound, or "hollow hillock." One of the salient features of the burrow, the "unobserved entrance," is equally a feature of the hollow mound; and the latter has also the same narrow, low, subterranean passage of approach, formed of huge stone slabs. In each, too, as in the more advanced and elaborate "broch," it is seen that the builders knew of no other kind of arch than that formed by the gradual convergence of the walls, by means of each course overlapping the course immediately below it, until only a single slab was required to crown the whole by way of "keystone." The better kind of "burrow," with its "smaller chambers, as offshoots from the main one," is also closely akin, in that respect, to the so-called "hollow hill." But, while having all these points of resemblance, the latter differs from the former in that its passage dispenses altogether with the curve which distinguishes the "burrow;" and, greater difference still, in that it is not merely an underground dwelling, but that the earth over it is heaped so high above the level of the adjoining ground that it presents exactly the appearance of a conical or rounded green hillock, when looked at from the outside. Moreover, it is only rendered an "underground" dwelling by the earth-heap imposed upon the original structure, which itself was built upon what was then the surface of the ground. Whereas the long, curved gallery, which has more specially been styled an "earth-house," is below the surface of the surrounding land, and is generally discovered by some ploughman whose plough happens to break or disarrange the stone slabs forming its roof.

There is no special reason for limiting the term "earth-house" to the underground gallery just spoken of, because the chambered mound is also as much an "earth-house." In either case, the structure itself is of stone. Therefore, we need not here restrict the term "earth-house" to one of these two varieties, but apply it equally to both. Each variety is popularly known as a "Pecht's house," and the one is as much an "earth-house" as the other.

The "hollow hill," however, will be the variety of earth-dwelling chiefly considered in this place. But, before leaving the ruder structure, reference may be made to a Shetland specimen, examined in 1865. It is described as "of a semicircular form, two feet or so beneath the arable land, about thirty feet in length, three feet in breadth and height, widening out at the western extremity to the form of a chamber of five feet square; ponderous slabs of mica-slate form the lintels. These stones have been transported from Norwick, which is the nearest depÔt for such, and distant two miles." Like other similar structures this was locally known as a "Fairy Ha'."[169]

Thus, the two varieties of earth-house, each known popularly as a "Pecht's house," are also both remembered as the dwelling-place of fairies. For the chambered mound is equally a "Fairy Knowe"; in Gaelic, a "sheean" (sithean), or abode of fairies.

And as the "little people" of Scotland have been chiefly chronicled as "Pechts," or "Picts," we may further consider them in that twofold character; continuing also to regard them in the territories which have already been most frequently named. Of these, none are more worthy of examination than the districts—insulated or otherwise—in the neighbourhood of the Pecht-land Firth.

"By an authentic record of Thomas, Bishop of the Orkneys, dated 1443, and published in Wallace's "Orkneys," edit. 1700; when the Norwegians conquered these islands they found them possessed 'by two nations, the Pets [Pehts, or Pechts] and Papas'"[170] (i.e., popes or priests). The "popes" referred to are understood to have been the Irish missionaries from Iona, and of them there seems to be no distinct tradition surviving. But the other "nation" is well remembered in both of the Northern groups. "The first folks that ever were in our isles were the Picts," says Shetlandic folk-lore; "they were very small [people]."[171]

What appears to be a popular tradition relating to the time when the territory of the mound-dwelling Pechts was beginning to be invaded and settled by colonists of another race, is furnished us by Sir Walter Scott. The ballad of "Alice Brand," in "The Lady of the Lake," speaks of a "moody Elfin King, who won'd[172] within the hill." And we are told in the Appendix that this legend "is founded upon a very curious Danish Ballad, which occurs in the 'KÆmpe Viser,' a collection of heroic songs first published in 1591." It begins "Der ligger en vold i Vester Haf," which is rendered in English, "There lies a wold in Wester Haf." Scott says:—"As Wester Haf ... means the West Sea, in opposition to the Baltic or East Sea, Mr. Jamieson inclines to be of opinion that the scene ... is laid in one of the Orkney, or Hebride Islands." Both in this old ballad, and in Scott's adaptation, there is an element of the magical, or impossible, or, at least, unexplainable kind; but some of the leading facts are these:—A "husband," or yeoman, goes to this "wold in Wester Haf," taking his wife and all his belongings with him, and there he proceeds to settle down as a colonist. Like many other "backwoodsmen," he begins by felling the trees of the forest[173] for his new home, much to the indignation of the dwarfs who inhabit a certain "knock" (Gael. cnoc), or chambered mound, in that district, and who, indeed, are the owners of the soil.

The dwarfs are discomfited in their attempt to enter the "husband's" house, but finally one of them succeeds:—

However, the husband is not even temporarily bereft of his wife; and, indeed, after all the threatenings of the "how-folk," the settlers are allowed to remain quietly in possession of their homestead, and their daughter is afterwards married to the dwarf visitor.[180]

Though this song is from a Danish collection, there is another of very similar nature in Unst, Shetland. It begins "Der lived a king into da aste," and it recounts how a certain "wedded wife" was carried off by "the King o' Ferrie." Her husband afterwards goes in search of her; and "one day, in his wandering quest, he sees a company passing along a hillside, and he recognizes among them his lost lady." They go into "a great 'ha'-house,' or castle," which is said to be on the hillside; but as nothing is visible but "a grey stane," after they have entered, it would seem that the hill itself was the castle, and the grey stone the entrance door, as in the case of the Orcadian Maes-how, or many another residence of the "how-folk." This assumption is quite borne out by the song itself. The same writer[181] indicates that such abductions were quite common in Shetland, when she states that a "witch" who married a dwarf returned once to her mother's house, and, while imparting to her various other counsels and warnings, "gave many instructions how to provide against the enchantments used by Trows for the purpose of decoying unsuspecting girls into their unhallowed domain." And her parting injunction was to be sure and have the maidens "weel cÖst about" (? protected by charms) "when the grey women-stealers are wandering." But instances of such intercourse between the dwarf races and others, the abduction being by no means confined to one side, could be quoted almost interminably.

The celebrated "how" known as Maes-how, in Orkney, has just been referred to. It is so admirable a specimen of the "Pecht's house" proper that no better selection can be made for a more particular description of such a dwelling. "It stands about a mile to the north-east of the great stone ring of Stennis. Its external appearance is that of a truncated conical mound of earth, about 300 feet in circumference at the base and thirty-six feet high, surrounded by a trench forty feet wide. Nothing was known of its internal structure till the year 1861, when it was opened by Mr. Farrer, M.P., but the common tradition of the country represented it as the abode of a goblin, who was named 'the Hogboy,' though no one knew why."[182] In Lincolnshire, this term "hog-boy" is pronounced as "shag-boy."[183] The word pronounced shag in one place and hog in another, is understood to be the same as haug or how; and the term is therefore a variant of the plural "how-folk." It was one of those "shag-boys" or "hog-boys," then, that local tradition remembered as the inhabitant of Maes-how. And nowhere is the tenacity of the popular memory more strongly illustrated than in this instance. For, during many centuries prior to 1861, this had been nothing more, to the passing stranger, than a grassy hillock, utterly void of any indication that its interior was "hollow," and that the whole structure—stone-built dwelling, and super-imposed earth—was entirely artificial,—the work of a vanished race. And yet, so full of vitality is tradition, that the descendants of those who had seen its inmate or inmates, knew, in spite of the lapse of a thousand years, that this was no ordinary grassy mound, but that once upon a time it had been the habitation of people of a certain race, whose characteristics are even yet remembered, if only in a confused and imperfect manner.

However important and necessary a written description may be, it is very incomplete without a personal inspection of the place described, or in lieu of that, the "counterfeit presentment," which is almost as serviceable. From the view here given of Maes-how, as it appears from the outside, and also from the following diagrams, one obtains an admirable idea of the exterior and interior of a sheean, Fairy Hillock, or Fairy Ha'.

After examining these pictures of this famous "how," one is able to fully understand the traditional accounts of the "hollow hillocks" of the dwarfs. One can fit any of the many stories that tell of visits paid to such "hills" into this particular scene. There is the small, concealed entrance at the base of the hill (at which, or beside which, the visitor used to knock until "the hill opened"—revealing a low, narrow, dark passage.

In this instance the aperture is two feet four inches in height, and of exactly the same breadth; and its dimensions continue the same for the first twenty-two and a half feet into the hill (for it will be seen that the mound of stone and earth that surrounded and covered the actual building gave the habitation a fictitious base, which had to be penetrated by this passage until the walls of the main building were reached—in the centre of the "hill.")[184]

In Maes-how the passage of approach is fully fifty-three feet long. Its height, as already stated, is only two feet four inches, during the first twenty-two feet of length; so that no one, unless an actual dwarf, could walk erect along this portion. After this the roof of the passage rises to four feet four inches; and it retains this height during the next twenty-eight feet of length. The remaining distance—scarcely three feet—is four inches higher; and then the passage "enters the middle of one of the four sides of a chamber which is fifteen feet square, and has, when complete, been about twenty feet high in the centre. The walls of this chamber are perpendicular for about six feet, after which the slabs, which generally extend the whole length of a side, project beyond the courses on which they rest, until in this way the roof has been completed in the shape of an inverted pyramid formed of successive steps."[185] In the three sides of this central hall (excluding the side at which the long passage emerges) there are respective entrances into three small chambers. The largest of these is less than seven feet long, less than five feet broad, and its roof is only three and a half feet from the floor.

In assuming that the roof of this building, now open to the sky, was "completed in the shape of an inverted pyramid formed of successive steps," Colonel Leslie is at variance with the description given by an eighteenth-century writer (in connection with similar buildings), and at variance also with tradition. The difference is a slight one, but it ought to be referred to. The roof was not precisely completed in such buildings, according to the writer referred to; it "was carried on round about with long stones [each successive course projecting, and thus gradually narrowing the orifice], till it ended in an opening at the top, which served both for light and a vent to carry off the smoke of their fire." Without this opening the dwelling had very little light or air; for little of either could have straggled in from the mouth of the narrow, underground passage, which reached the open air at a distance of fifty-three feet from the dwelling, and whose entrance (besides) was nearly always closed during the day.[186]

While tradition seems clearly to indicate that the roof of the dwelling communicated with the open air above, there is necessarily some uncertainty on this point. The writer who speaks of the roof of such a building being "carried on round about with long stones, till it ended in an opening at the top," may have had in view a structure more resembling the open air "broch" than the sith-bhrog; although he mentions that the kind of building he describes often "looks outwardly like a heap without any design."[187] It is undoubted that many such mounds, for example, those of New Grange and Dowth, in the Boyne district, have their rude, "Pelasgian arch," crowned with one large stone as keystone; and that, therefore, any upward exit from the chamber must have led off in a slant from some portion of the wall. On the other hand, there are several indications that when one ascended the outside of a sheean, in the days when it was inhabited, one found oneself at the edge of a hollow or crater, at the foot of which was the narrow orifice that gave light and air to the chamber below. More than one fairy-hill of the present day, not yet explored, has a small hole on its summit, and when a stone is dropped therein, it is heard to rumble and fall into some unknown cavern below. And the existence of such "craters" was well known (we are told by Scott, in his Introduction to the Tale of Tamlane) to the people of Scotland. "Wells, or pits, on the top of hills were supposed to lead to the subterranean habitations of the Fairies." Legendary stories in connection with these there are many—of men descending such "pits," sometimes well knowing what to expect, and of having hand-to-hand fights with the natives of these abodes. At other times the attack was made by those "hillmen" themselves; who seem to have emerged by this entrance as often as by the other. "A savage issuing from a mount" was once a well-known bearing in Scottish heraldry. Mr. J. F. Campbell records a Ross-shire tradition of a dwarf who inhabited Tombuidhe Ghearrloch, "The Tawny Hillock of Gairloch," and who was the terror of the neighbourhood (whose chief inhabitants, in his day, belonged to another race). Before he was himself slain, this formidable dwarf had killed many of the latter race; none of whom (with one exception) dared to venture near his "hillock" after dusk. He was at length killed by a local champion, still remembered as "Big Hugh" (Uistean Mor, MacGhille Phadrig;) who was celebrated as a slayer of dwarfs; and who appears to have devoted himself to their extermination in that particular district. And in the story of the killing of this noted dwarf, it is stated that Uistean climbed to the top of the hillock (Tom-buidhe) and attacked its inhabitant, who emerged from the foot of its "crater" or "pit"; in other words, from the roof of his dwelling.[188]

Such a "sheean" is the Denghoog in the Danish island of Sylt, one of the mounds believed to have been the residence of Finn, the dwarf king. Mr. W. G. Black, who has visited this "how," describes it thus:[189]—

"Externally merely a swelling green mound, like so many others in Sylt, entrance is gained by a trap-door in the roof, and descending a steep ladder, one finds himself in a subterranean chamber some seventeen by ten feet in size, the walls of which are twelve huge blocks of Swedish granite; the height of the roof varies from five feet to six feet. The original entrance appears to have been a long narrow passage seventeen feet long and about two feet wide and high. This mound was examined by a Hamburg professor in 1868, who found remains of a fire-place, bones of a small man, some clay urns, and stone weapons."

This example, then, of the abode of one of the "Feens of Lochlan," corresponds exactly with Maes-how and all similar "sheeans." And, like them, it is locally remembered as the residence of a dwarf.

This, of course, is tradition. But the northern sagas (though "tradition" also) are accepted as "history," in some degree. And the sagas bear a like record. Their heroes break into those dwellings, make their entrance by the hole at the bottom of the "crater," and attack the inhabitants, who, seizing their weapons, defend their lives and (in many cases) their treasures. And before leaving the "hollow hill" of Maes-how, it may be stated that this particular broch, or sheean, is believed to have been invaded about a thousand years ago. It was entered in the twelfth century by some of those North-men who were on their way to the Holy Land; and these have incised various inscriptions on its inner walls. But at that date it was empty—and had been rifled many centuries before. One legendary tale places the date of its original despoliation as far back as the year 920; and states that "Olaf the Norseman" was its invader; and that he encountered its possessor, whom he overcame—after a deadly struggle. And, since "the common tradition of the country [up to the year 1861, when it was reopened] represented it as the abode of a goblin, who was named 'the Hog-boy'," it would seem that the prevailing blood of the country-people in that district is akin to that of this "Olaf the Norseman;" and that, therefore, in this instance, the popular memory reaches back for nearly a thousand years, with the most perfect precision.[190]

The Ross-shire Tombuidhe, the Sylt Denghoog; and this Orcadian broch are all specimens of the one class; and, both as regards the character of the dwellers and the dwellings, they have many counterparts. How many we do not yet know. It is probable that, in the British Islands alone, they may be numbered by thousands (and we need not here speculate as to the continent of Europe, and other parts of the globe). Colonel Forbes Leslie, referring only to Scotland, says that "even in the present day many a green mound ... is shunned by sturdy peasants who would not fear the hostility of any mortal"—and this because that mound once contained one or more people of a race of whom that peasant's ancestors stood greatly in awe. That the valleys of the Forth and Teith alone contain a great number of those "green hillocks," as yet unexamined, has been stated by an eminent investigator of the Scotch brochs, Dr. Joseph Anderson. How many other districts can tell a similar story is a problem that will some day be solved.

The collector (who is, to a great extent, the exponent also) of the "Popular Tales of the West Highlands," appends several very interesting remarks to one of these stories: that of "The Smith and the Fairies" (vol. ii. pp. 46-55). Among other things he says: "The belief that the 'hill' opened on a certain night, and that a light shone from the inside, where little people might be seen dancing, was too deeply grounded some years ago to be lightly spoken of; ... 'In the glebe of Kilbrandon in Lorn is a hill called Crocan Corr ... where the fairies ... were often seen dancing around their fire.'" And reference is also made to "a certain hill in Muckairn, known to be the residence of the fairies." The incident connected with it is capped with a similar one "told of a hill called Ben-cnock in Islay;" and "another hill, called Cnock-doun" (presumably in Islay), has a like history. But such "hills" are too numerous to mention in detail.

Owing to the great mass of earth which was heaped over the dwelling—the actual "kernel" of the mound—it will be seen that new-comers of another race from the mound-dwellers might build houses, or bury their dead, above the homes of the "little people," without being aware that the hill they were so utilizing was entirely of artificial origin. Nor are there wanting illustrations of this in fact and in tradition. Legendary lore, indeed, is full of incidents arising from the contact, often unexpected on the one side, of the two races; and many such tales reveal the mound-dwellers in a very homely light. The following story from the Hebridean island of Barra, for example:

"There was a woman in Baile Thangasdail, and she was out seeking a couple of calves; and the night and lateness caught her, and there came rain and tempest, and she was seeking shelter. She went to a knoll with the couple of calves, and she was striking the tether-peg into it. The knoll opened. She heard a gleegashing as if a pot-hook were clashing beside a pot. She took wonder, and she stopped striking the tether-peg. A woman put out her head and all above her middle, and she said, 'What business hast thou to be troubling this tulman in which I make my dwelling?' 'I am taking care of this couple of calves, and I am but weak. Where shall I go with them?' 'Thou shalt go with them to that breast down yonder. Thou wilt see a tuft of grass. If thy couple of calves eat that tuft of grass, thou wilt not be a day without a milk cow as long as thou art alive, because thou hast taken my counsel.'"[191]

This story exemplifies the well-known prophetic or "supernatural" powers of the dwarf races, while at the same time it presents the "fairy abode" to us in a very matter-of-fact light. Equally homely and matter-of-fact is this story from Wigtownshire:—

"A shepherd's family had just taken possession of a newly-erected onstead, in a very secluded spot among 'the hills o' Gallowa,' when the goodwife was, one day, surprised by the entrance of a little woman, who hurriedly asked for the loan of a 'pickle saut.' This, of course, was readily granted; but the goodwife was so flurried by the appearance of 'a neibor' in such a lonely place, and at such a very great distance from all known habitations, that she did not observe when the little woman withdrew or which way she went. Next day, however, the same little woman re-entered the cottage, and duly paid the borrowed 'saut.' This time the goodwife was more alert, and as she turned to replace 'the saut in the sautkit' she observed 'wi' the tail o' her e'e' that the little woman moved off towards the door, and then made a sudden 'bolt out.' Following quickly, the goodwife saw her unceremonious visitor run down a small declivity towards a tree, which stood at 'the house en'.' [She passed behind the tree, but did not emerge on the other side, and the "goodwife," seeing no place of concealment, assumed she was a fairy.] In a few days her little 'neibor' again returned, and continued from time to time to make similar visits—borrowing and lending small articles, evidently with a view to produce an intimacy; and it was uniformly remarked that, on retiring, she proceeded straight to the tree, and then suddenly 'ga'ed out o' sight.' One day, while the goodwife was at the door, emptying some dirty water into the jaw-hole [sink, or cess-pool], her now familiar acquaintance came to her and said: 'Goodwife, ye're really a very obliging bodie! Wad ye be sae good as turn the lade o' your jaw-hole anither way, as a' your foul water rins directly in at my door? It stands in the howe there, on the aff side o' that tree, at the corner o' your house en'.' The mystery was now fully cleared up—the little woman was indeed a fairy; and the door of her invisible habitation, being situated 'on the aff side o' the tree at the house en',' it could easily be conceived how she must there necessarily 'gae out o' sight' as she entered her sight-eluding portal."

This story[192] relates to a district that is noted as being one of the very latest to retain a population that was distinctively Pictish, and it unquestionably offers a parallel to that of the "Gudeman o' Villenshaw," and the "elves i' the knock that bade." In either case, we have the arrival of a new-comer of another race, all unconscious that the place is already inhabited by an earlier, mound-dwelling[193] people.

Of houses built upon the summit or the slope of a fairy hill a modern instance is furnished by Hugh Miller, in his reminiscences of Sutherlandshire ("My Schools and Schoolmasters," 1881 ed., p. 108), wherein he mentions that a cousin of his had built his house "half-way up the slope of a beautiful tomhan,"[194] which was regarded as a fairy residence. This "tomhan" appears to have been near Lairg, and in "the Barony of Gruids." The neighbouring countryfolk had expected that "the little people" inside the hill would resent this intrusion on their privacy, but, of course, nothing of this kind happened—as this occurred in the present century, when the mound-dwelling Pechts lived only in the memory of those by whose forefathers they had once been greatly dreaded. But there are various traditional accounts which point to a time when members of the intruding race, unaware that the hillock on which they began to build was itself a building, were obliged to desist by reason of the opposition of the dwarfs. Thus, a former Grant of Ballindalloch, in Strathspey, who attempted to build his castle upon a mound, found every morning that the previous day's work had been undone, and the stones removed from the site. One night, while he watched for these disturbers, he heard a voice bid him to "build on the Cow Haugh," or meadow, which he accordingly did, without further interruption.[195] A similar account is given in connection with a hill in Aberdeenshire. "When the workmen were engaged in erecting the ancient church of Old Deer, in Aberdeenshire, upon a small hill called Bissau, they were surprised to find that the work was impeded by supernatural obstacles. At length the Spirit of the River (says Sir Walter Scott, who tells the story[196]) was heard to say,—

"It is not here, it is not here,
That ye shall build the church of Deer;
But on Taptillery,
Where many a corpse shall lie."