[B] But it may be
permitted to me to inquire how far Mr. MacRitchie's views tally with the
facts mentioned in the foregoing section. I shall therefore allude to a
few points which appear to me to show that the origin of the belief in
fairies cannot be settled in so simple a manner as has been suggested, but
is a question of much greater complexity--one in which, as Mr. Tylor
says, more than one mythic element combines to make up the whole.
[Footnote A: _Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland_, iii. 367.]
[Footnote A: _Folk and Hero Tales from Argyleshire_, p. 420.]
(1.) In the first place, then, it seems clear, so far as our present
knowledge teaches us, that there never was a really Pigmy race inhabiting
the northern parts of Scotland.
The scanty evidence which we have on this point, so far as it goes, proves
the truth of this assertion. Mr. Carter Blake found in the Muckle Heog of
the Island of Unst, one of the Shetlands, together with stone vessels,
human interments of persons of considerable stature and of great muscular
strength.
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