[Footnote A:  Keightley, 70.]

[Footnote B:  Folklore, iv. 49.]

[Footnote C:  Ritson, 106, quoting Aubrey’s Natural History of Surrey, iii. 366.]

[Footnote D:  Allies, Antiquities and Folk-Lore of Worcestershire, p.443.]

There is an Iroquois tale of dwarfs, in which the summons to the Pigmies was given by knocking upon a large stone.[A] The little people of Melanesia seem also to be associated in some measure with stones.  Speaking of these beings, Mr. Codrington says,[B] “There are certain Vuis having rather the nature of fairies.  The accounts of them are vague, but it is argued that they had never left the islands before the introduction of Christianity, and indeed have been seen since.  Not long ago there was a woman living at Mota who was the child of one, and a very few years ago a female Vui with a child was seen in Saddle Island.  Some of these were called Nopitu, which come invisibly, or possess those with whom they associate themselves.  The possessed are called Nopitu.  Such persons would lift a cocoa-nut to drink, and native shell money would run out instead of the juice and rattle against their teeth; they would vomit up money, or scratch and shake themselves on a mat, when money would pour from their fingers.  This was often seen, and believed to be the doing of a Nopitu.  In another manner of manifestation, a Nopitu would make himself known as a party were sitting round an evening fire.  A man would hear a voice in his thigh, ‘Here am I, give me food.’  He would roast a little red yam, and fold it in the corner of his mat.  He would soon find it gone, and the Nopitu would begin a song.  Its voice was so small and clear and sweet, that once heard it never could be forgotten; but it sang the ordinary Mota songs.  Such spirits as these, if seen or found, would disappear beside a stone; they were smaller than the native people, darker, and with long straight hair.  But they were mostly unseen, or seen only by those to whom they took a fancy.  They were the friendly Trolls or Robin Goodfellows of the islands; a man would find a fine red yam put for him on the seat beside the door, or the money which he paid away returned within his purse.  A woman working in her garden heard a voice from the fruit of a gourd asking for some food, and when she pulled up an arum or dug out a yam, another still remained; but when she listened to another spirit’s panpipes, the first in his jealousy conveyed away garden and all.”  Amongst the Australians also supernatural beings dwell amongst the rocks, and the Annamites and Arabians know of fairies living amongst the rocks and hills.[C]

[Footnote A:  Smith, Myths of Iroquois, ut supra.]

[Footnote B:  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst., x. 261.]

[Footnote C:  Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, p. 351.]