The hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition of an ancient race dwelling in subterranean homes, is…
- 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 68
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English/Scots historical text
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition of an ancient race dwelling in subterranean homes, is older than Mr
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 onlyThe hypothesis that the Fairy belief may be a tradition of an ancient race dwelling in subterranean homes, is older than Mr. McRitchie or Sir Walter Scott. In his _Scottish Scenery_ (1803), Dr. Cririe suggests that the germ of the Fairy myth is the existence of dispossessed aboriginals dwelling in subterranean houses, in some places called Picts’ houses, covered with artificial mounds. The lights seen near the mounds are lights actually carried by the mound-dwellers. Dr. Cririe works out in some detail “this marvellously absurd supposition,” as the _Quarterly Review_ calls it (vol. lix., p. 280).
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis 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 onlyLattice 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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