Indian Antiquary Vol 05

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 31

JANUARY, 1876.)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES.
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because Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, have with the popular beliefs and romance systems ing been forowarned that he should die of a of most of the European nations which are held snake bite, retreated to a barren island, hoping to be of Aryan descent, the position that such To serpent would cross the water; but one, mythology is alien to Aryan genius seems having assumed the form of a very fragrant debatable. If it were specially characteristic lemon, swam over, and, on Parikshit's smelling of a Turanian race, we ought to find it well it, bit his nose, of which he died.
developed amongst the Dravidian peoples, who Hindus have some carious notions of natural are typically Turanian; but-which discredits repulsions or anti-sympathies (virötam) existing the Tamil origin of "fairy'-I have never been between certain animals : such are said to exist able to find that those peoples know of any dibetween a peacock and a chameleon, a monse minutive beings corresponding to the Elves and a scorpion, besides others which I do not and Fairies of English and Irish legends, the remember. There is also a belief that when & little underground people, the Duergers or bear seizes a man it tickles him to death with- Dwarfs of Scandinavia, or the Trolls, Elle out biting or violence; it is popularly believed, people, and Elves of Germany. In the Madras too, of bears that they gain an additional pair of districts, though green circles are not uncomkidneys each year of their life; and on opening mon on grass after rain, no little beings dance a bear I have certainly seen appearances that round them by moonlight or creep into flowerseemed to bear out the notion. The hyæna cups; no Trolls or Dwarfs haunt rocks and is also believed to beat to death, or strangle, cavesand have wondrous places within the hills: with its tail, people whom it seizes. A tiger's trees are frequented by hideous Bhatas,-not, whiskers chopped up small are held to be a most as in Denmark, by delicate Elves. Sometimes I potent poison I hence when one is killed the have thought I had fallen upon a trace. The whiskers are often immediately singed off, to Pandu kális or kistvaens are in many places prevent possible mischief.
believed to have been built by a dwarf race a The origin of the word 'Fairy' is doubtful. cabit high, who could nevertheless lift the huge Some have plausibly derived it from the Persian stones with facility. I have heard, too, of a large Peri (s Pari); and Keightley, still more moand near Chingalpat, not far from probably, from the Italian Fata, through Madras, surrounded by kistvaens, and inhabited the old French Faée, Fée, Féerie,-English by a bearded race of Pânda yar three feet l'ay, Faëry, Fairy. Dr. Caldwell in his Com- high, ruled by a king who lives in the top of parative Grammar has suggested the Tamil
the mound: this seems very like a Norwegian Péy-devil or goblin,'--the objects of the devil
folk-story of the hill-dwarfs. Siva, appaworship so characteristic of Tinnevelli. The pri
rently a non-Aryan god, has a train of dwarfs, nary meaning would be some supernatural be- amongst them the three-legged Bhringi who ing, with infinite gradations between the beauti- dances nimbly; and Vishnu once appeared ful creations of Persian and European fancy as a dwarf, V a mana. Dwarfs are sculptured and the ugly malignant demons worshipped by profusely on Saiva, Vaishnava, and Jaina temSouth Indian Shânárs. Mr. Fergusson (Tree and ples. The great Muni of the south, Agastya, Serpent Worship, p. 79) thinks that "all dwarfs seems also to have been a dwarf, and dwelt on a und magicians--all the Fairy Mythology of | mountain. Some think him to have been the East and West-belong to the Turanian races, prototype of Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant-killer, which underlie the Aryan races, and crop up and Hop-o'-my-Thumb. Still I could not find at times through them, but are really antagon any organized popular belief in races and comistic to the genius of the latter.” Considering munities of beings resembling the European. how intimately the Fairy mythology is blended Such, however, may exist, -the primitive forest
"Which, like the courser's hair, hath got but life,
And not the serpent's poison." Shakespere. & The Edda says that the Duergar became animated in the clay below in the earth, like maggots in flesh: they were very wise and strong, skilful in all metal work and mithcraft, small of statare and long-armed. Analogies have been sought for them in the Devas and Devatas of Indra's Paradise, called Devergar in the South;
also in Durga, an aboriginal deity, and in one aspect mistress of mountain caves and underground places. Akin to the Duergar also may be the Yakshas,-like them the warders of hidden boards, and the servants of Kuvera, the god of riches and treasures in the earth, himself, moreover, of deformed and dwarf-like appearance, and the maker of self-moving chariote, as the Duerra were of wonderful things and weapons.