ANCIENT AND MODERN BRITONS: a Retrospect. 2 vols., demy 8vo, 24s. ACCOUNTS OF THE GYPSIES OF INDIA. Collected and Edited. With Map and 2 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. THE BRUGH OF THE BOYNE, NEW GRANGE, COUNTY MEATH. (From the South.)...

A large portion of this work has already appeared in the form of a series of articles contributed to the Archæological Review (Aug.-Oct., 1889, and Jan., 1890), but these have here undergone some alteration and have been supplemented to a considerable extent. With regard to the correctness of the deductions drawn in the following pages from the facts and traditions there stated, there may easily be a difference of opinion. And indeed one writer, Mr. Alfred Nutt, in the course of a very learned d

In one of an interesting series of papers on "Scottish, Shetlandic, and Germanic Water Tales," [2] Dr. Karl Blind remarks as follows:— It is in the Shetland Tales that we hear a great deal of creatures partly more than human, partly less so, which appear in the interchangeable shape of men and seals. They are said to have often married ordinary mortals, so that there are, even now, some alleged descendants of them, who look upon themselves as superior to common people. In Shetland, and elsewhere

Anyone familiar with the shape of the long, narrow, skin-covered skiff of the Eskimo (which, as has just been pointed out, is completely "decked," with the exception of the round aperture in the middle, where the rower sits—his legs being thrust in front of him, underneath the "deck,") will see that when the Finn had fastened his seal-skin garment to the sides of the aperture, he and his boat were one. Thus not only could "no water come into his Boat to do him damage," but he appeared (to people

It is clear that those popular traditions and records, as well as the indisputable statements of Brand and Wallace, indicate two very different kinds of people, who, sometimes fighting, sometimes inter-marrying, occupied territories that were, in many cases, conterminous. That they were often enemies is evident. The Finn-man, when alone, was hunted from the non-Finnish islands by the natives: and, on the other hand, he was "wont to pursue boats at sea," and to demand tribute from the fishermen—w

But, admitting the existence, at so recent a date, of a visibly "Eskimo" caste in some parts of the Hebrides, what evidence is there that any of these people found their way to Shetland? One writer, we have seen, brings the Shetland Finns all the way from Davis Straits, another draws them from Finland, and the Shetlanders themselves say that they "came ow'r fa Norraway," especially from the neighbourhood of Bergen. The correctness of this last belief need not be questioned, as regards some of th

When the twelfth-century Norseman, Sigurd Slembe, with his twenty followers, spent a whole winter with the Lapps or Finns, as stated in the "Heimskringla" (Saga XIV ), it is evident that the two sets of men were in intimate association. Their life at that time is thus described in Sigurd's song: It was at that time, also, that the Lapps made for Sigurd those "sinew-fastened boats," in which he and his party voyaged southward in spring. In these accounts there is no mention made of the Lapp or Fi

The references made in the two preceding chapters bear specially upon those Finns who "came ow'r fa Norraway" to the islands of Shetland and Orkney. But if the assumption be correct that many of the Finns who landed in Shetland and fished in Shetlandic waters came thither direct from the Hebrides, it is to be presumed that Gaelic as well as English tradition has something to say regarding them. And as there are several words in use in Shetland which are also in use among West Highlanders, [57] i

"The Feens, then, belonged to the pre-Milesian races, and were connected, not only with Ireland, but likewise with Northern and Central Scotland, England and Wales, and the territory lying between the Rhine and the Elbe. [75] Now, there are just two people mentioned in the Irish records who had settlements in Ireland, and who yet were connected with Great Britain and the region between the Rhine and the Elbe. These were the people termed the Tuatha De Danann, and the Cruithné." So says the learn

But, if the legendary "Feens" are identical with, or closely akin to, the Picts of history, then the historical Picts must also belong to this stunted Eskimo-like race. Let us look at the people called "Picts." And, first of all, since the word "Pict" is admittedly the result of a pun or a misapprehension on the part of Latin-speaking people, it may be as well to discard that special spelling. The forms which the word appears to have most commonly taken in the mouths of the country-people of Sco

While the Picts, or Pechts, are remembered to a great extent as the builders of the subterranean and half-subterranean dwellings with which they are associated, these are far from being the only structures which popular tradition has stamped as the work of their hands. The architectural skill, of a kind, which they displayed in the construction of their own "Pechts' houses" may be seen from such a casual reference as this, gleaned from among certain specimens of Clydesdale folk-lore: "Our milkho

In the immediately preceding pages we have been considering the people known as "Pechts." But it is contended that the "Feens" of Gaelic story ought to be identified with the "Pechts." When the leader of the "Feens" landed in "the country of the big men," he was at once seized upon as eminently fitted to be the court dwarf, into which office he was duly installed; from which it was reasonably inferred that he was a "pegh," or dwarf. Now, in one of the many songs ascribed to the son of this "pegh

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 P

The Gaelic accounts do not, of course, refer to the "Fairies" under that name. It is therefore unnecessary to add anything here to the many attempted solutions of the etymology of "Fairy." But the Gaelic records speak of these people as the Fir Sithe , or Daoine Sithe —the Sithe -folk. As already pointed out, this word is pronounced as if spelt Shee or Sheeyĕ ]. It is also written Sidhe , and this brings us to the older spelling before the dental had been aspirated out of existence. The older fo

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 pass

So numerous are the mounds that, owing to the traditions attaching to them, invite their own destruction at the hands of the archæologist, that only a limited number of them can be specified in these pages. Among these were, until recent years, two "fairy knowes," long known by that term in the adjoining countryside. They lie between the rivers Forth and Teith, about four miles to the south of Doune. One of them was broken into a good many years ago, and it is now known to antiquaries as the "Br

Such barrows as these of the Boyne district belong to the largest class of these structures at present revealed to us. What may be taken as the average "fairy knowe" is very much smaller; therefore, when it is said that houses have, in all likelihood, been frequently built upon such artificial eminences, without the more modern builders being aware of their real nature, it is to be understood that the tumuli of the larger class are indicated. But, while it is probable that newer races very often

It is manifest that the traditions relating to "the little people" contain many statements which at the first sight seem to be irreconcilable with one another. In one aspect, the dwarf races appear as possessed of a higher culture than the race or races who were physically their superiors. They forge swords of "magic" temper, and armour of proof; beautifully-wrought goblets of gold and silver, silver-mounted bridles, garments of silk, and personal ornaments of precious metals and precious stones

There is yet another characteristic of the modern Aino which suggests the dwarf of the British Isles. "Mention must also be made of an anatomical peculiarity of the Aino skeleton, consisting of a remarkable flattening of the arm- and leg-bones." [318] This peculiarity, which is known scientifically as "platycnemism," forms a part of Herr von Siebold's "Ethnologische Studien über die Aino, auf der Insel Yesso." [319] Much may be learned with regard to platycnemism in a paper "On the Discovery of

The descriptions of the New Grange mound given by Llhwyd and Molyneux are of much importance, since they both belong to about the beginning of the eighteenth century; and as they are not very accessible to the general reader they may suitably be quoted here. The two writers do not altogether agree in their account of the appearance of the chamber, and their theories as to its origin are certainly different; but whatever may be the value of the latter, there can be no doubt that descriptions whic

There are many references to the North American Skrælings in Rafn's great work entitled "Antiquitates Americanæ: sive Scriptores Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America," published under the auspices of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries (Copenhagen, 1837). This is a collection of the accounts in the old Northern chronicles, relating to the Northmen's ( gamle Nordboers ) voyages of discovery to America, between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. And from these accounts it is