Fians, Fairies and Picts

The examination, therefore, of this interesting theory not only helped greatly to bear out its probable correctness, but it further began to appear that by following this method of inquiry new lights might be thrown upon history-perhaps upon very remote history. It was clear that the question was not a simple one. All tradition is obscured by the darkness of time, and genuine fact is mixed up with ideas which belong 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