Research source

Kirk’s first chapter, “Of the Subterranean Inhabitants,” naturally suggests the recent speculations of Mr

Date of account: Written 1691; later edited edition
Source: The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies
Reference: The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies · selected passage 7
Rights: public_domain
Language: English/Scots historical text
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Mr. Kirk’s first chapter, “Of the Subterranean Inhabitants,” naturally suggests the recent speculations of Mr. MacRitchie. The gist of Mr. MacRitchie’s _Testimony of Tradition_ is that there once was a race of earth-dwellers in this island; that their artificial caves still exist; that this people survive in popular memory as “the legendary Feens,” and as the Pechts of popular tales, in which they are regarded as dwarfs. “The Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang.” Here, then, it might be thought that we have the origin of Fairy beliefs. There really was, on this showing, a dwarf race, who actually did live in the “fairy-hills,” or howes, now commonly looked on as sepulchral monuments.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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