[19] Of this intercourse between the taller races and the dwarfs,
there are many records in old traditions. In the days of King Arthur,
when, as Chaucer tells us, the land was "ful-filled of faerie," the
knights errant had usually a dwarf as attendant. One of King Arthur's
own knights was a Fairy.[20] According to Highland tradition, every
high-caste family of pure Gaelic descent had an attendant dwarf. These
examples show the "little people" in a not unfriendly light. But many
other stories speak of them as "malignant" foes, and as dreaded
oppressors. Of which the rational explanation is that these various
tales relate to various localities and epochs.
The connection visible between Fians and Fairies, between Fians and
Picts, and between Picts and Fairies, may now briefly be stated.
The earliest known association of the first two classes occurs in an
Irish manuscript of the eleventh or twelfth century,[21] wherein it is
stated that when the ninth-century Danes overran and plundered Ireland,
there was nothing "in concealment under ground in Erinn, or in the
various secret places belonging to Fians or to Fairies" that they did
not discover and appropriate.
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