’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 Loch Con, there is a placed called Coirshi’an, or the Cove of the Men of Peace, which is still supposed to be a favorite place of their residence.  In the neighborhood 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-eve, any person, alone, goes 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 down irrevocably to the condition of Shi’ich, or Man of Peace.’”

301.  Why sounds, etc.  “It has been already observed that fairies, if not positively malevolent, are capricious, and easily offended.  They are, like other proprietors of forests, peculiarly jealous of their rights of vert and venison. ...  This jealousy was also an attribute of the northern Duergar, or dwarfs; to many of whose distinctions the fairies seem so have succeeded, if, indeed, they are not the same class of beings.  In the huge metrical record of German chivalry entitled the Helden-Buch, Sir Hildebrand, and the other heroes of whom it treats, are engaged in one of their most desperate adventures, from a rash violation of the rose-garden of an Elfin or Dwarf King.

“There are yet traces of a belief in this worst and most malicious order of fairies among the Border wilds.  Dr. Leyden has introduced such a dwarf into his ballad entitled The Cout of Keeldar, and has not forgot his characteristic detestation of the chase.

    ’The third blast that young Keeldar blew,
      Still stood the limber fern,
    And a wee man, of swarthy hue,
      Upstarted by a cairn.

    ’His russet weeds were brown as heath
      That clothes the upland fell,
    And the hair of his head was frizzy red
      As the purple heather-bell.

    ’An urchin, clad in prickles red,
      Clung cow’ring to his arm;
    The hounds they howl’d, and backward fled,
      As struck by fairy charm.

    ’"Why rises high the staghound’s cry,
      Where staghound ne’er should be? 
    Why wakes that horn the silent morn,
      Without the leave of me?”—­