Worldwide Fairyland @ 59
rious variety of mannikin that looked as if it had been cast out of
bronze and then burnished. This type he considered a survival of a
primitive variety, representing an intermediate stage between the
gnome and the fairy.
Altitude above sea level appeared to affect the distribution of nature
spirits; those belonging to the mountains scarcely ever intermingled
with those of the plains. In Ireland Leadbeater noticed a definite line
of demarcation between different types.The lower slopes, like the sur-
rounding plains, "were alive with an intensely active and mischievous
little red-and-black race which swarms all over the south and west of
Ireland, being especially attracted to the magnetic centers established
nearly two thousand years ago by the magic-worhng priests of the old
Milesian race to ensure and perpetuate their domination over the
people by keeping them under the influence of the great Illusion." By
tradition, Milesians, led by two Spaniards, were the last invaders of
Ireland and are regarded as the ancestors of the present inhabitants.
Half an hour farther up the slopes, not one of the red-and-black
mannikins was to be seen. Instead the haside was "populous with the
gentler blue-and-brown type which long ago owed special allegiance
to the Tuatha-de-Danaan."The latter, in Irish tradition, invaded Ireland
before the Milesians and were reputed to have used great supernatural
forces by means of which they defeated their predecessors, the
Firbolgs. Defeated by the Milesians, the Tuatha-de-Danaan are said to
have retired into the sidhe, or fairy mounds, becoming confused in
Irish folklore with the fairies.
On the actual summit, says Leadbeater, no nature spirit of either
type ever trespasses on the space "sacred to the great green angels who
have watched there for more than two thousand years, guarding one of
the centers of living force that link the past to the future of that mys-
tic land of Erin."
Nature spirits, according to occult lore, have no phenomena cor-
responding to what humans mean by birth and death. A fairy, says
Leadbeater, appears in this world full-sized, as does an insect. It then
lives its life, short or long, without any appearance of fatigue or need
for rest, without any perceptible change of age as the years go by.