he fully recognised.  But it seemed equally obvious that the “matter-of-fact” element to which he refers could not have owed its origin to myth or fancy.  The question being fascinating, there was therefore no alternative but to make further inquiry.  And the more it was considered, the more did his theory proclaim its reasonableness.  He suggests, for example, that certain “fairy herds” in Sutherlandshire were probably reindeer, that the “fairies” who milked those reindeer were probably of the same race as Lapps, and that not unlikely they were the people historically known as Picts.  The fact that Picts once occupied northern Scotland formed no obstacle to his theory.  And when I learned that the reindeer was hunted in that part of Scotland as recently as the twelfth century, that remains of reindeer horns are still to be found in the counties of Sutherland, Ross, and Caithness, sometimes in the very structures ascribed to the Picts, then I perceived this to be a theory which, to quote his words, “hung well together.”  Further, the actual Lapps are a small-statured race, the fairies also were so described, and this, too, I found to be the traditional idea regarding the Picts.  Here the identification was closer still.  Then came the consideration:  The fairies lived in hollow hillocks and under the ground:  what kind of dwellings are the Picts supposed to have occupied?  The answer to this question still further strengthened Mr. Campbell’s conjecture.  There yet exist numerous underground structures and artificial mounds whose interior shows them to have been dwelling-places; and these are in some places known as “fairy halls” and in others as “Picts’ houses.” (Illustrations of these are shown in the present volume, and are specially referred to in the annexed paper.)

The examination, therefore, of this interesting theory not only helped greatly to bear out its probable correctness, but it further began to appear that by following this method of inquiry new lights might be thrown upon history—­perhaps upon very remote history.  It was clear that the question was not a simple one.  All tradition is obscured by the darkness of time, and genuine fact is mixed up with ideas which belong to the world of religion and of myth.  Even in Mr. Campbell’s own statements there were seeming contradictions.  These, however, it is not my present purpose to discuss; since they do not vitally affect his main contention.

The Lapp-Dwarf parallel was gone into very fully by Professor Nilsson in his Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, written twenty years before the “West Highland Tales.”  Not that he, either, was the originator of that theory, for it is frequently referred to by Sir Walter Scott, who accepted it himself.[3] “In fact,” he says, “there seems reason to conclude that these duergar [in English, dwarfs] were originally nothing else than the diminutive natives of the Lappish, Lettish and Finnish nations, who, flying before the conquering