near him he opens his mouth and breathes upon them, and his breath causes sickness. It is easy to see what this tradition means: it is the damp marsh wind, laden with foul and dangerous odours; and the woman's harp is the wind playing across the marsh rushes at nightfall. Sometimes these elves take the shape of trees, which brings back to mind the Greek fairy tales of nymphs who live and die with the trees to which they are united.
These Scandinavian elves were like beings of the same kind who were once supposed to live in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and who are still believed in by some country people. Scattered about in the traditions which have been brought together at different times are many stories of these fanciful beings. One story is of some children of a green colour who were found in Suffolk, and who said they had lived in a country where all the people were of a green colour, and where they saw no sun, but had a light like the glow which comes after sunset. They said, also, that while tending their flocks they wandered into a great cavern, and heard the sound of delightful bells, which they followed, and so came out upon the upper world of the
