to the world of religion and of myth. Even in Mr. Campbell's own
statements there were seeming contradictions. These, however, it is not
my present purpose to discuss; since they do not vitally affect his main
contention.

The Lapp-Dwarf parallel was gone into very fully by Professor Nilsson in
his _Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia_, written twenty years before
the "West Highland Tales." Not that he, either, was the originator of
that theory, for it is frequently referred to by Sir Walter Scott, who
accepted it himself.[3] "In fact," he says, "there seems reason to
conclude that these _duergar_ [in English, _dwarfs_] were originally
nothing else than the diminutive natives of the Lappish, Lettish and
Finnish nations, who, flying before the conquering weapons of the Asae,
sought the most retired regions of the north, and there endeavoured to
hide themselves from their eastern invaders." Scott, again, refers us
back to Einar Gudmund, an Icelandic writer of the second half of the
sixteenth century, whom I would cite as the earliest "Euhemerus" of
northern lands, were it not for the fact that he is obviously much more
than a theorist, and is beyond all doubt speaking of an actual race, as
may be seen from an incident which he relates.

But, although the popular memory may retain for many centuries the
impress of historical facts, these become inevitably blurred and
modified by the lapse of time and the ignorance of the very people who
preserve the tradition. As an illustration of this, I may cite the
instance of the dwarfs of Yesso, referred to in the following pages.
These people still survived as a separate community until the first
half of the seventeenth century, if not later. They occupied
semi-subterranean or "pit" dwellings, and are said to have been under
four feet in height. But, although the modern inhabitants of that island