The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies

Telfair (the minister of Rerrick), the Wesleys, Dr. Adam Clarke, and Increase Mather were not modern students of psychic research. Modern psychic researchers, we fear, are not students of ancient legendary tradition; they tend to dismiss it because the evidence is not firsthand or scientifically valid. Consequently, they do not seem to realize that they are describing—in almost identical terms—phenomena identical to those described in older literature.

1 Many examples can be read in a small anonymous work titled Obeah. The setting is Haiti. original: "Obeah" refers to a system of spiritual and healing practices developed among enslaved West Africans in the West Indies.

The ancients attributed these phenomena to demons, just as Telfair, Mather, Lavater, and others did. Modern chroniclers do not consciously copy from ancient accounts; therefore, the coincidences are valuable, as they prove that certain phenomena have occurred and repeated themselves. Now, these phenomena may be due to conscious or hysterical imposture, but they have been frequent and common enough to keep alive—and probably originate—a portion of the belief in fairies: specifically the part concerning household spirits, goblins, and gnomes, or Domovoys original: "Domovoys" are protective house spirits in Slavic folklore.. These, in turn, correspond to the "cunning beings" described by Mr. Leland in his Etruscan Remains as survivals of ancient Roman and Etruscan folk religions. We find similar cases in the Inca Empire shortly after the Spanish conquest of Peru. 2

Beginning, then, with what is closest to us in time, we take the essays of Mr. F.W.H. Myers, "On the Alleged Movement of Objects Without Contact, Occurring Without the Presence of a Paid Medium." 3

The alleged phenomena are, of course, as common as blackberries in the presence of—

2 "Shortly after the Spanish conquest of Peru." The phenomena alluded to here are said to have occurred in 1549. The evidence is a mere report by Cieza de León, who does not claim to have been an eyewitness. However, as Mr. Clements Markham (the editor of Cieza's work) points out, the phenomena are analogous to those of spiritualism. At the very least, we find a belief in this type of manifestation at a remote date and in a strange place. Cieza says: "When the Governor Adelantado Belalcázar was governor of the province of Popayán, and when Gómez Hernández was his lieutenant in the town of Anzerma, there was a chief cacique in a village called Pirsa, nearly four leagues from the town. His brother, a handsome young man named Tamaraquanga, inspired by God, wished to go to the Christian town to receive baptism. But the demons did not want him to achieve his desire, fearing to lose what seemed certain; so they terrified this Tamaraquanga in such a way that he could do nothing. With God's permission, the demons stationed themselves in a place where only the chief could see them, in the form of birds called auras original: "auras" likely refers to turkey vultures or similar carrion birds.. Seeing himself so persecuted by demons, he sent in great haste for a Christian who lived nearby. The man came immediately and, hearing what the chief wanted, made the sign of the cross. But the demons then frightened him more than ever, appearing in horrible forms that made him feel he could do nothing. Only the bodies of the indigenous people were visible to him, and the Christian only saw stones falling from the air and heard whistling. A brother of one Juan Pacheco, a resident of the same town—who then held the office of Gómez Hernández, who had gone to Caramanta—came from Anzerma with another man to visit the indigenous chief. They say that Tamaraquanga was very frightened and mistreated by the demons, who carried him through the air from one place to another in the presence of the Christians, while he complained and the demons whistled and shouted. Sometimes, when the chief was sitting with a glass of liquor in front of him, the Christians saw the glass rise into the air and be left empty, and a short time later the wine was poured back into the cup from the air. Compare what Ibn Battuta, the old Arab traveler, saw at the court of the King of Delhi. The matter is discussed in Colonel Yule's Marco Polo. This may suffice as an example of the manifestations. They continued while the chief was heading to the church; they lifted him into the air and the Christians had to hold him down. In the church, the ghostly whistling was heard and stones fell around them, while the chief said he saw the demons standing upside down, and he himself was thrown into that unusual posture. The combination of convulsive movements with the other phenomena is what we have already observed in the cases of 'Mr. H.' and the grandson of William Morse. Cieza de León says that the chief was no longer troubled after his baptism. The illusions of new converts, so similar to those of the early Christian hermits, are described by Callaway in his Zulu Nursery Tales."