the Icelandic Sagas, as well as from the Edda itself, we learn the belief of the northern nations in a race of dwarfish spirits, inhabiting the rocky mountains, and approaching, in some respects, to the human nature.  Their attributes, amongst which we recognize the features of the modern Fairy, were, supernatural wisdom and prescience, and skill in the mechanical arts, especially in the fabrication of arms.  They are farther described, as capricious, vindictive, and easily irritated.  The story of the elfin sword, Tyrfing, may be the most pleasing illustration of this position.  Suafurlami, a Scandinavian monarch, returning from hunting, bewildered himself among the mountains.  About sun-set, he beheld a large rock, and two dwarfs, sitting before the mouth of a cavern.  The king drew his sword, and intercepted their retreat, by springing betwixt them and their recess, and imposed upon them the following condition of safety:—­that they should make for him a faulchion, with a baldric and scabbard of pure gold, and a blade, which should divide stones and iron as a garment, and which should render the wielder ever victorious in battle.  The elves complied with the requisition, and Suafurlami pursued his way home.  Returning at the time appointed, the dwarfs delivered to him the famous sword Tyrfing; then, standing in the entrance of their cavern, spoke thus:  “This sword, O king, shall “destroy a man every time it is brandished; but it shall “perform three atrocious deeds, and it shall be thy bane.”  The king rushed forward with the charmed sword, and buried both its edges in the rock; but the dwarfs escaped into their recesses.[A] This enchanted sword emitted rays like the sun, dazzling all against whom it was brandished; it divided steel like water, and was never unsheathed without slaying a man—­Hervarar Saga, p. 9.  Similar to this was the enchanted sword, Skoffhung, which was taken by a pirate out of the tomb of a Norwegian monarch.  Many such tales are narrated in the Sagas; but the most distinct account of the _-duergar_, or elves, and their attributes, is to be found in a preface of Torfaeus to the history of Hrolf Kraka, who cites a dissertation by Einar Gudmund, a learned native of Iceland.  “I am firmly of opinion,” says the Icelander, “that these beings are creatures of God, consisting, like human beings, of a body and rational soul; that they are of different sexes, and capable of producing children, and subject to all human affections, as sleeping and waking, laughing and crying, poverty and wealth; and that they possess cattle, and other effects, and are obnoxious to death, like other mortals.”  He proceeds to state, that the females of this race are capable of procreating with mankind; and gives an account of one who bore a child to an inhabitant of Iceland, for whom she claimed the privilege of baptism; depositing the infant, for that purpose, at the gate of the church-yard, together with a goblet of gold, as an offering.—­Historia Hrolfi Krakae, a TORFAEO.