Or has she left me?--has she wholly left me-- Loving some other deer--and I forgotten?

Oh, if she has but lost her way, and wanders, Teach her to find it--bring her back to love me!

Oh, if she has been captured by the huntsman, Then may a fate as sad as mine await him!

But if she has forsaken me--if, faithless, She loves another deer, and I forgotten-- Then may the huntsman speedily o'ertake her."[583]

We have already observed how almost all nations compare female beauty to that of the beings of their legendary creed. With the Servians the object of comparison is the lovely Vila. "She is fairer than the mountain-Vila," is the highest praise of woman's beauty. In the ballad of The Sister of the Kapitan Leka, it is said of the heroine Rossandra, that in no country, either Turkey, or the land of the Kauran, or Jowrs, was her fellow to be found. No white Bula (Mohammedan), no Vlachin (Greek), no slender Latiness (Roman Catholic), could compare with her,

And who on the hills hath seen the Vila-- E'en the Vila, brother, must to her yield.

The swiftness of the Vila also affords a subject of comparison: a fleet horse is said to be "Vilaish," or "swift as a Vila."

The Morlacchi of Dalmatia, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson informs us,[584]

believe also in the Vila. They describe her as a handsome female, who accompanies the man who is her favourite everywhere he goes, and causes all his undertakings to prosper. One thus favoured is termed Vilenik. Another of their objects of belief is the Macieh, who appears in the form of a boy, with a cap on his head, and is always laughing.

Any one to whom he appears gets the power of commanding him. If ordered to bring money, he usually steals it from one of the neighbours, and if taxed with his dishonesty, he goes to the sea and comes back dripping and with money.

FOOTNOTES:

[574] Delrio, Lib. ii. Sect. 2. Boxhorn Resp. Moscov. Pars I.

[575] Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 447.

[576] Mone, vol. i. p. 144. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 460.

[577] Grimm, _ut sup._ p. 480.

[578] Published by Wuk and translated by Talvi and others into German, by Bowring into English.

[579] Bowring, p. 175. _Sabejam oblake_, Cloud-gatherer, is an epithet of the Vila, answering to the ?efe???e?et?? of the Grecian Zeus.

[580] Death of Kralwich Marko. Bowring, p. 97.

[581] The building of Skadra. Ibid. p. 64.

[582] We have made this translation from a German version in the Wiener Jahrbucher, vol. xxx. which is evidently more faithful than Bowring's.

[583] Bowring, This version differs considerably from the German one of Talvi. We feel quite convinced that the English translator has mistaken the sense.

[584] Dalmatia and Montenegro, etc.

AFRICANS, JEWS, Etc.

Lead from the hills the voice of riot comes, Where Yumboes shout and beat their Jaloff drums.

T. K.

This division of our work is somewhat miscellaneous, not being restricted to any particular race, or to any determinate part of the earth's surface. It contains merely such matters as appeared to us to be worthy of note, but which we could not include in any of the preceding sections.

AFRICANS.

When evening's shades o'er Goree's isle extend, The nimble Yumboes from the Paps descend, Slily approach the natives' huts, and steal, With secret hand, the pounded coos-coos meal.

T. K.

The Jaloff inhabitants of the mainland of Africa, opposite the isle of Goree, believe in a species of beings who have a striking and surprising correspondence with the Gothic Fairies. They call them Yumboes, and describe them as being about two feet high, of a white colour, as every thing preternatural is in Africa. It is remarkable that, acting on the same principle as the Greeks, who called their Furies Eumenides, and the Scots and Irish, who style the Fairies Good Neighbours, or Good People, the Africans call the Yumboes, Bakhna Rakhna, or Good People. The dress of the Yumboes exactly corresponds with that of the natives, and they imitate their actions in every particular. They attach themselves to particular families; and whenever any of their members die, the Yumboes are heard to lament them, and to dance upon their graves. The Moors believe the Yumboes to be the souls of their deceased friends.

The chief abode of the Yumboes is a subterraneous dwelling on the Paps, the hills about three miles distant from the coast. Here they dwell in great magnificence, and many wonderful stories are told of those persons, particularly Europeans, who have been received and entertained in the subterraneous residence of the Yumboes: of how they were placed at richly furnished tables; how nothing but hands and feet were to be seen, which laid and removed the various dishes; of the numerous stories the underground abode consisted of; the modes of passing from one to the other without stairs, etc., etc.

In the evening the Yumboes come down to the habitation of man, wrapped close in their _pangs_,[585] with only their eyes and nose visible.

They steal to the huts, where the women are pounding in mortars the coos-coos, or corn, watch till the pounders are gone for sieves to searce the meal, and then slily creep to the mortars, take out the meal, and carry it off in their pangs, looking every moment behind them, to see if they are observed or pursued; or they put it into calabashes, and arranging themselves in a row, like the monkeys, convey it from hand to hand, till it is placed in safety.

They are also seen at night in their canoes, out fishing in the bay.

They bring their fish to land, and, going to the fires kindled by the natives to keep away the wild beasts, they steal each as much fire as will roast his fish. They bury palm-wine, and when it becomes sour they drink of it till it intoxicates them, and then make a great noise, beating Jaloff drums on the hills.[586]

FOOTNOTES:

[585] The Pang (Span. _pano_, cloth) is an oblong piece of cotton cloth, which the natives manufacture and wear wrapped round their bodies.

[586] For the preceding account of the Yumboes we are indebted to a young lady, who spent several years of her childhood at Gorce. What she related to us she had heard from her maid, a Jaloff woman, who spoke no language but Jaloff.

JEWS.

PSALM xci. 5. _Chaldaice_

And the Mazikeen shall not come near thy tents.

It has long been an established article of belief among the Jews that there is a species of beings which they call Shedeem,[587]

Shehireem,[588] or Mazikeen.[589] These beings exactly correspond to the Arabian Jinn;[590] and the Jews hold that it is by means of them that all acts of magic and enchantment are performed.

The Talmud says that the Shedeem were the offspring of Adam. After he had eaten of the Tree of life, Adam was excommunicated for one hundred and thirty years. "In all those years," saith Rabbi Jeremiah Ben Eliezar, "during which Adam was under excommunication, he begat spirits, demons, and spectres of the night, as it is written, 'Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begat children in his likeness and in his image,' which teaches, that till that time he had not begotten them in his own likeness." In Berashith Rabba, R. Simon says, "During all the one hundred and thirty years that Adam was separate from Eve, male spirits lay with her, and she bare by them, and female spirits lay with Adam, and bare by him."

These Shedeem or Mazikeen are held to resemble the angels in three things. They can see and not be seen; they have wings and can fly; they know the future. In three respects they resemble mankind: they eat and drink; they marry and have children; they are subject to death. It may be added, they have the power of assuming any form they please; and so the agreement between them and the Jinn of the Arabs is complete.

Moses Edrehi, a learned Jew of Morocco, has translated into Spanish for us several of the tales of the Mazikeen contained in the Talmud and Rabbinical writings. We select the following as specimens; and according to our usual custom, adhere strictly to our original.

_The Broken Oaths._