family which they haunted, and by which they were accordingly considered as an acquisition. Their grand rendezvous, as has been stated, was in Bennue. Coise-nan. Uriskin merits the notice of the traveller besides, for its magnificent scenery.

"But the most beautiful and perfect branch of Highland mythology, which is to this day retained in some degree of purity, is that which relates to Daoine Shith, or Shi (men of peace), or as they are sometimes styled, Daoine Matha (good men), apparently in order to propitiate their favour; on the same principle that the furies were called Eumenides by the Greeks.

"The mythology of the Daoine Shi, though generally considered as corresponding to that of the fairies of England, and perhaps too of the orientals, ought, as it should seem, to be regarded as very different in many important particulars. These will be best understood and appreciated by a short description.

"The Daoine Shi, or men of peace, of the Highlanders differ essentially from the fairies of Shakspeare, who, indeed, produced the wonderful mythology of The Midsummer Night's Dream,' from his own most creative imagination.

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Leaving it to others to institute the comparison, let it suffice to state a few of the particulars of the Celtic superstition on this subject.

"The Daoine Shi, or men of peace, the faries of the Highlanders, though not absolutely malevolent, are believed to be a peevish race of beings, who, possessing themselves but a scanty portion of happiness, are suppposed to envy mankind their more complete and substantial enjoyments. They are supposed to enjoy, in their subterraneous recesses, a sort of shadowy happiness, a tinsel grandeur, which, however, they would willingly exchange for the more solid joys of mortals.

"The men of peace are believed to be always dressed in green; and are supposed to take offence, when any of mortal race presume to wear their favourite colour.*

"The celebrated Viscount of Dundee was dressed in green when he commanded at the battle of Killicrankie; and to this circumstance the Highlanders ascribe the disastrous event of that day. It is still accounted peculiarly ominous to any person of his nane to assume this sacred colour.

"They are believed to inhabit certain round, grassy eminences, where they celebrate their nocturnal festivities by the light of the moon. About a mile beyond the source of the Forth, above Locheon, there is a place called Coirshi 'an, or the Cove of the Men of Peace, which is still supposed to be a favourite place of their residence. In the neighbourhood are to be seen many round, conical eminences, particularly one near the head of the lake, by the skirts of which many are still afraid to pass after sunset. It is believed that if on Hallow-evet

* Dr. Graham here states, in a foot-note, that "Green was probably the appropriate dress of the Druidical order. In the poem of Conn, the son of Dargo (who is styled the Druid of Bel), published by Dr. Smith, in his Seandans,' we read, that in the battle with the Fingallians, which according to tradition, finally decided the fortunes of the druidical order, their standard was green."

The author, in a foot-note, says: "The Samk-in, or fine of peace, of the Highlanders: a solemn seasou, appointed for the administration of justice by the Druids (the men of peace) when they met the people on these round hills, or laws; and the occasion was solemnized by kindling fires, and perhaps by offering sacrifices, on these eminences."

any person goes alone round one of these hills nine times, towards the left hand (Sinistrorsum), a door shall open, by which he will be admitted into their subterraneous abodes. Many, it is said, of mortal race, have been entertained in their secret recesses. There they have

been received into the most splendid apartments, and regaled with the most sumptuous banquets and delicious wines. Their females surpass the daughters of men in beauty; the seemingly happy inhabitants pass their time in festivity and in dancing to notes of the softest music. But unhappy is the mortal who joins in their joys, or ventures to partake of their dainties. By this indulgence he forfeits for ever the society of men, and is bound irrevocably to the condition of a Shi'ich, or Man of Peace."

"A woman," as is reported in Highland tradition, " was conveyed in days of yore into the secret recesses of the Men of Peace. There she was recognized by one who had formerly been an ordinary mortal, but who had, by some fatality, become associated with the Shi'ichs. This acquaintance, still retaining some portion of human benevolence, warned her of her danger, and counselled her, as she valued her liberty, to abstain from eating or drinking with them for a certain space of time. She complied with the counsel of her friend; and when the period assigned was elapsed, she found herself again upon earth, restored to the society of mortals. It is added that when she had examined the viands which had been presented to her, and which had appeared so tempting to the eye, they were found, now that the enchantment had been removed, to consist only of the refuse of the earth."

That there have been instances of persons who have been released from Fairy-land, and restored to the society of mortals, is very generally believed. Mr. Scott's story of Ethert Brand, so exquisitely told in the four.h canto of "The Lady of the Lake," is one. His intrepid sister was the instrument of his deliverance :

"She crossed him thrice, that lady bold :

He rode beneath her hand,

The fairest knight on Scottish mold,
Her brother Ethert Brand!"

We have, in recent tradition, a story nearly similar, except in its unfortunate catastrophe. The Reverend Robert Kirk, the first translator of the Psalms into Gaelic verse, had formerly been minister at Balquidder, and died minister of Aberfoyle in 1688, at the early age of 42. His gravestone, which may be seen near the east end of the church of Aberfoyle, bears this inscription :

"Robertus Kirk, A. M., Linguæ Hibernii, (c) bumen,
obiit, &c."

He was walking, it is said, one evening in his night-gown, upon the little eminence to the west of the present manse, which is still reckoned a Dun Shi,' when he fell down dead, as was believed: but this was not his fate:

"It was between the night and day,

When the fairy king has power,

That he sunk down (but not) in sinful fray,
And, 'twixt life and death, was snatched away,
To the joyless Elfin bower."

Mr. Kirk was the near relation of Graham, of Duchray, the ancestor of the present General Graham Stirling. Shortly after his funeral he appeared in the dress in which he had sunk down, to a mutual relation of his own and of Duchray. "Go," said he to him, "to my cousin Duchray, and tell him that I am not dead; I fell down in a swoon, and was carried into Fairy-land, where I now am. Tell him, that when he and my friends are assembled at the baptism of my child (for he had left his wife pregnant), I will appear in the room, and that if he throws the knife which he holds in his hand over my head, I will be released, and restored to human society." The man, it seems, neglected for some time to deliver the message. Mr. Kirk appeared to him a second time, threatening to haunt him night and day till he executed his commission, which at length he did. The time of the baptism arrived. They were seated at table. Mr. Kirk entered; but the laird of Duchray, by some unaccountable fatality, neglected to perform the prescribed ceremony. Mr. Kirk retired by another door, and was seen no more. It is firmly believed that he is, at this day, in Fairy-land.

One other legend, in a similar strain, lately communicated by a very intelligent young lady, is given, principally because it furnishes an opportunity of pursuing an ingenious idea suggested by Mr. Scott in one of his learned notes to the Lady of the Lake: "A young man, roaming one day through the forest, observed a number of persons all dressed in green, issuing from one of those round eminences which are accounted fairy-hills. Each of them, in succession, called upon a person by name to fetch his horse. A caparisoned steed instantly appeared: they all mounted, and sallied forth into the regions of air. The young man, like Ali Baba, in the Arabian Nights, ventured to pronounce the same name, and called for his horse. The steed immediately appeared he mounted, and was soon joined to the fairy choir. He remained with them for a year, going about with them to fairs and weddings, and feasting, though unseen by mortal eyes, on the victuals that were exhibited on those occasions. They had, one day, gone to a wedding, where the cheer was abundant. During the feast the bridegroom sneezed. The young man, according to the usual custom, said, "God bless you." The fairies were offended at the pronunciation of the sacred name, and assured him, that if he dared to repeat it, they would punish him. The bridegroom sneezed a second time. The second time he repeated his blessing: they threatened more tremendous vengeance. He sneezed a third time he blessed him as before. The fairies were enraged; they tumbled him from a precipice; but he found himself unhurt, and was restored to the society of mortals."

Mr. Scott, in note 11 to canto IV., after having remarked that "One of these stories, now translated from popular Gaelic tradition, is to be found in the Olia Imperialia of Gervase of Tilbury," adds, that "a work of great interest might be compiled upon the origin of popular fiction, and the transmission of similar tales (and customs) from age to age, and from country to country." As a small contribution to a design, the proper execution of which might throw light upon the history of the human mind, the following observations are offered upon the antiquity and universality of blessing a person when he sneezes. The practice of this custom is mentioned by Apuleius, in his Metamorphosis of the Golden Ass. In the Greek Anthologia, a collection of

very great antiquity, this custom is recorded in a verse which speaks of the withholding of this blessing by an evil-minded person :

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« Ουδε λέγει, ξεν σῶσον ἐαν πταρη.”

"Nor does he say, Jupiter save him, if he should sneeze,”

In the seventeenth book of the Odyssey of Homer, we find Penelope, led by the account which Eumenus had given of a stranger that had just arrived, to entertain some hope of the return of Ulysses, she expressed her expectations, when her son Telemachus sneezes aloud. Penelope, auguring favourably from this omen, smiles, and gives orders to conduct the stranger to the palace. "Dost thou not see," said she to Eumenus," that my son has sneezed at every word? Speedy destruction awaits the wooers." ""

Let it suffice to add that this appears also to be an oriental rite, and probably transmitted along with the druidical superstitions. In the "Voyage de Siam," of Père Tachard, abridged by Le Clerk in "Bibliotheque Universelle de l'Annie 1687," we have a not unelegant mythology on this subject. "The Siamese," says he, "believe that in the other world there is an angel whose name is Prayompaban, who has a book before him, in which the life of every individual upon earth is written. He is incessantly employed in reading this book, and when he arrives at the page which contains the history of any particular person, that person infallibly sneezes. This," say the Siamese, "is the reason why we sneeze upon earth, and that we used to wish a long and happy life to those who sneeze."

"OTHER DAYS."

BY ATHELWODE.

No. XII.

"Nimium ne crede colori."-VIRGIL.

Trust not too much to colour.

The number of horses in the world is estimated at 58,000,000, of which between 36,000,000 and 37,000,000 may be approximated in figures and location, according to the statistical returns rendered, and deemed reliable, thus:-18,000,000 to 20,000,000 in the Russian Empire; 6,000,000 in the United States of America; 3,500,000 in Austria; 3,000,000 in France; 2,500,000 in Great Britain and Ireland; 1,500,000 in Prussia; 600,000 in Denmark; 500,000 in English American colonies; 500,000 in Australia; 400,000 in Bavaria; and 250,000 in Southern Africa.

The native country of the horse remaining unknown to us, it follows that we are ignorant of the migratory movements of the animal in the very earliest periods. Of the wide-spreading propagation of the animal when the requirements of man elicited the use it might be put to, beyond the first object it was probably sought for-its flesh as foodwe may imagine, but whence, or at what date this might have been we

are utterly at a loss to conjecture. We know, inferentially, that in Egypt seventeen hundred years before the Christian era, it was domesticated there, while fourteen hundred and ninety years prior circumstantial evidence on the point exists.

The details given by us here are additionally interesting to note, as proving how erroneous is the idea that the labour market, whether supplied by man or beast must necessarily be curtailed or otherwise injuriously affected by the introduction of machinery and other scientific aids or contrivances to economise that labour. In the year 1812 there were from 2,818,400 horses in France; and, notwithstanding the transit of people and things by railways, there are now no less than 3,000,000-one example that may suffice to manifest the fallacy of the assertion occasionally advanced to the above effect.

With the returns we much wish that colour were given, and hope for the future this may be done where practicable, nothing being immaterial as contributing to data; for though it may be urged that in considering the higher attributes of a horse the colour would not affect the judgment, and which in the majority of cases where actual inspection occurs holds good, yet the general estimation or the reverse in which certain colours are held would lead to conclusions which might be of more or less utility. An Arab would gallop many hundred miles to secure that prize of the desert, a bay, when he wouldn't canter possibly as many yards to look at a black horse or mare-the one being renowned, from its colour, for exploits of endurance and speed-the other not a tribe probably having a story to boast of about. The colours of horses made mention of, in the sacred records, are red (doubtless roans), black, speckled, white, grizzled, and bay, about 500 B.C., and white, red, and pale 96 A.C., the latter certainly not being white, but presumably cream> colour: white is specially named just before, and which artists should bear in mind.

In Job's fine description of the war-horse, and which was written about 1,520 B.C., no allusion is made by him to colour; but permitting our imagination to idealize it by association with that of another animal so frequently mentioned for its strength and terrible aspect-the lion, we picture it to the mind's eye as dun-the "neck clothed with thunder," having the dark mane dishevelled falling in clusters on either side, and tossed to and fro, while "he paweth the valley "as "he goeth to meet the armed men," or "swalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage," and which really means covering-annihilatingthe space passed over rapidly with his mighty stride, for we are told that to this day" he swalloweth the ground" is an expression for extraordinary swiftness, in use amongst the Arabs (Job's countrymen.) The white horse has been devoted to the highest purposes and significance. We shall not, however, dilate upon these, nor in its employment in pageants and triumphs during the classic epochs of antiquity. Poets innumerable have sung of "milk-white steeds" in the later ages of chivalry, bestrode by gallant knights, or bearing the dainty burthens of their "ladye loves."

In "Timon of Athens," an attendant says

"May it please your honour, the Lord Lucius
Out of his free love hath presented to you
Four milk-white horses trapp'd in silver."