In the course of the evening the Black Dwarf had not been forgotten,
and the old shepherd, Bauldie, told so many stories of him, that they
excited a good deal of interest. It also appeared, though not till the
third punch-bowl was emptied, that much of the farmer's scepticism on
the subject was affected, as evincing a liberality of thinking, and a
freedom from ancient prejudices, becoming a man who paid three hundred
pounds a-year of rent, while, in fact, he had a lurking belief in the
traditions of his forefathers. After my usual manner, I made farther
enquiries of other persons connected with the wild and pastoral district
in which the scene of the following narrative is placed, and I was
fortunate enough to recover many links of the story, not generally
known, and which account, at least in some degree, for the circumstances
of exaggerated marvel with which superstition has attired it in the more
vulgar traditions.

[The Black Dwarf, now almost forgotten, was once held a formidable
personage by the dalesmen of the Border, where he got the blame of
whatever mischief befell the sheep or cattle. "He was," says Dr. Leyden,
who makes considerable use of him in the ballad called the Cowt of
Keeldar, "a fairy of the most malignant order--the genuine Northern
Duergar." The best and most authentic account of this dangerous and
mysterious being occurs in a tale communicated to the author by that
eminent antiquary, Richard Surtees, Esq. of Mainsforth, author of the
HISTORY OF THE BISHOPRIC OF DURHAM.

According to this well-attested legend, two young Northumbrians were
out on a shooting party, and had plunged deep among the mountainous
moorlands which border on Cumberland. They stopped for refreshment in
a little secluded dell by the side of a rivulet. There, after they had
partaken of such food as they brought with them, one of the party fell