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The letter full of gratitude never went as far as the post-office, and how comes it now? D'abord, a bottle of claret. It is on the table yonder, and I don't like, somehow, to disturb it, but the delight and gratitude! You have made me as happy as I was as a child with the Arabian Nights, every step I have walked in Elfland has been a sort of Paradise to me.
It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular tradition.
These were rough arches made of a transparent rock, incrusted with sheepsilver and rock spar, and other bright stones. But though it was rock, the air was quite warm, as it always is in Elfland. So he went through this passage till at last he came to two wide and high folding-doors which stood ajar. And when he opened them, there he saw a most wonderful and glorious sight.
"My heart is sair," sighed his mother, "wi' greeting over sich a son." "He hates our auld cottage and our muckle wark," said the poor father. "Ah, weel! I could a'maist wish the fairies had him for a season, to teach him better manners." This the gudeman said heedlessly, little knowing there was any danger of Robin's being carried away to Elfland.
One such story, however, is recorded from the Island of Kimolos, one of the Cyclades, but without the human captivity in Elfland, without the acts of charity, and without the gratitude. The Nereids of the Kimoliote caves are of a grimmer humour than the kindly-natured underground folk of Celtic and Teutonic lands, or than the heroine of Palermo.
It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised the earth. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon. This was at one with all popular tradition.
The shell of her old self-engrossment cracked, and the call of a wider life came to her. It pierced clear and arresting through the fairy flutings of "the horns of elfland" that were all she had heretofore heard. The desire to live as an experiment in happiness, to extract from life all there was for her own enjoying, left her.
Next morning Ginnifer's lover came riding back to tell her that his father forbade the match, but that he meant to marry her whether or no. And lo and behold! he found her at the door of a pixie palace, and directly he set foot inside it, it sank through the ground and carried them both with it into Elfland.
Sometimes the mound contains a splendid palace, adorned with gold and silver and precious stones, like the palace of the King of Elfland in the tale of "Childe Rowland." In the Scandinavian mound-stories we find a curious incident, for they are described as being capable of being raised upon red pillars, and as being so raised when the occupants gave a feast to their neighbours.
The Elves of Elfland followed, having constructed a float that resembled Egor's fantastic Funhouse out of hundreds of carnations. A gray spotlight shot out of the windows at certain intervals to circle around the Funhouse and resemble a cyclone. No one knew how the Elves had managed to make the light do this trick, but it was an Elven secret, so no one asked.
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