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Tyson, Edward, 1650-1708

"A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients"

[C]
[Footnote A: Smith, _Myths of Iroquois, ut supra._]
[Footnote B: _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, x. 261.]
[Footnote C: Hartland, _Science of Fairy Tales_, p. 351.]

6. The little people may have their habitation in forests or trees. Such
were the Skovtrolde, or Wood-Trolls of Thorlacius,[A] who made their home
on the earth in great thick woods, and the beings in South Germany who
resemble the dwarfs, and are called Wild, Wood, Timber and Moss People.[B]
"These generally live together in society, but they sometimes appear
singly. They are small in stature, yet somewhat larger than the Elf, being
the size of children of three years, grey and old-looking, hairy and clad
in moss. Their lives are attached, like those of the Hamadryads, to the
trees, and if any one causes by friction the inner bark to loosen, a
Wood-woman dies." In Scandinavia there is also a similarity between
certain of the Elves and Hamadryads. The Elves "not only frequent trees,
but they make an interchange of form with them.


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