* * * * *

[The foregoing pages were all in type before the appearance of Vol.
VIII. of the _Bibliothèque de Carabas_, which contains several
criticisms by Mr. Andrew Lang on my "Testimony of Tradition" and
"Underground Life." The already excessive length of this Introduction
prevents me from now referring more particularly to these observations,
as I should otherwise have done. In the meantime, however, I beg to
refer Mr. Lang to the present work, and to ask him whether he thinks the
statements there quoted substantiate his conception of the _Fir Sidhe_
as a deathless people, occupying some region "unknown of earth."

An addition to the Bibliography of this subject is made in the
above-named volume (p. 88). "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." Mr.
Lang adds: "Dr. Cririe works out in some detail 'this marvellously
absurd supposition,' as the _Quarterly Review_ calls it (vol. lix. p.
280)."]


[Footnote 1: _The Testimony of Tradition_. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner &
Co., London, 1890.]

[Footnote 2: Such as at pp. ci.-cix. of Vol. I., and pp. 46, 101, and
275 of Vol. II.]