Joseph Jacobsthings may have happened and bear no such à priori marks
of impossibility as speaking animals, flying through the air,
and similar incidents of the folk-tale pure and simple. If, as
archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in North-
ern Europe, very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground
chambers artificially concealed by green hillocks, it does not
seem unlikely that odd survivors of the race should have
lived on after they had been conquered and nearly extermi-
nated by Aryan invaders and should occasionally have per-
formed something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls.
Certainly the description of the Dark Tower of the King
of Elfland in “Childe Rowland,” has a remarkable resem-
blance to the dwellings of the “good folk,” which recent ex-
cavations have revealed. By the kindness of Mr. MacRitchie,
I am enabled to give the reader illustrations of one of the
most interesting of these, the Maes-How of Orkney. This is
a green mound some 100 feet in length and 35 in breadth at
its broadest part. Tradition had long located a goblin in its
centre, but it was not till 1861 that it was discovered to be
pierced by a long passage 53 feet in length, and only two feet
four inches high, for half of its length. This led into a central
chamber 15 feet square and open to the sky.
Now it is remarkable how accurately all this corresponds
to the Dark Tower of “Childe Rowland,” allowing for a little
idealisation on the part of the narrator. We have the long
dark passage leading into the well-lit central chamber, and
all enclosed in a green hill or mound. It is of course curious
to contrast Mr. Batten’s frontispiece with the central cham-
ber of the How, but the essential features are the same. Even
such a minute touch as the terraces on the hill have their
bearing, I believe, on Mr. MacRitchie’s “realistic” views of
Faerie. For in quite another connection Mr. G. L. Gomme,
in his recent “Village Community” (W. Scott), pp. 75-98,
has given reasons and examples for believing that terrace
cultivation along the sides of hills was a practice of the non-
Aryan and pre-Aryan inhabitants of these isles. [Footnote:
To these may be added Iona (cf. Duke of Argyll, Iona, p.
109).] Here then from a quarter quite unexpected by Mr.
MacRitchie, we have evidence of the association of the King
of Elfland with a non-Aryan mode of cultivation of the soil.
By Mr. Gomme’s kindness I am enabled to give an illustra-
tion of this.