they were believed to live in houses wholly or partly underground, the
latter kind being described as "hollow" mounds, or hills; that when
people of taller race entered such subterranean dwellings (as
occasionally they did) they found the domestic utensils of the dwarfs
were of the kind labelled "pre-historic" in our antiquarian museums;
that the copper vessels which dwarf women sometimes left behind them
when discovered surreptitiously milking the cows of their neighbours,
were likewise of an antique form; further, that they helped themselves
to the beef and mutton of their neighbours, after having shot the
animals with flint-headed arrows; that melodies peculiar to them are
still sung by the peasants of certain localities; that words used by
them are still employed by children in their games; and that many
families in many districts are believed to have inherited some of their
blood.[19] Of this intercourse between the taller races and the dwarfs,
there are many records in old traditions. In the days of King Arthur,
when, as Chaucer tells us, the land was "ful-filled of faërie," the
knights errant had usually a dwarf as attendant. One of King Arthur's
own knights was a Fairy.[20] According to Highland tradition, every
high-caste family of pure Gaelic descent had an attendant dwarf. These
examples show the "little people" in a not unfriendly light. But many
other stories speak of them as "malignant" foes, and as dreaded
oppressors. Of which the rational explanation is that these various
tales relate to various localities and epochs.

The connection visible between Fians and Fairies, between Fians and
Picts, and between Picts and Fairies, may now briefly be stated.

The earliest known association of the first two classes occurs in an
Irish manuscript of the eleventh or twelfth century,[21] wherein it is
stated that when the ninth-century Danes overran and plundered Ireland,