Empire unusual suggested

108 PASSPORT TO MAGONIA
passed a mound "where the elves were making merry." (Again,
we have here a description of the Little People close to the magical
object sometimes described as a large, flat, round table, sometimes
as a hillock. A disk or a large cone resting on the ground
would fit that description. In describing the fairy knoll, Hartland
writes: "The hillock was standing, as is usual on such occasions,
on red pillars!")
The "wee folk" offered the bride-to-be a cup of wine, and she
joined in a dance with them. Then she hastened back home,
where she could not find her family. Everything had changed in
the village.
Finally, on hearing her cries, a very old woman exclaimed:
"Was it you, then, who disappeared at my grandfather's brother's
wedding, a hundred years ago?"
At these words, the poor girl fell down and expired.
It is fascinating indeed to find such talcs, which antedate
Einstein's and Langcvin's rclativistic traveler by centuries!
The supernatural lapse of time in fairyland is often allied to
the theme of love between the abducted human being and one
of the fairies. Such is the pattern of the story of Ossian, or Oisin:
Once, when he was a young man, Oisin fell asleep under a tree.
He woke up suddenly and found a richly dressed lady "of more
than mortal beauty" looking at him. She was the queen of the
legendary land of Tir na n'Og, and she invited him to share her
palace. Oisin and the queen were in love and happy, but the hero
was warned not to go into the palace gardens or to stand on a
certain flat stone. Naturally, he transgressed the order, and when
he stood upon the stone, he beheld his native land, suffering from
oppression and violence, lie went to the queen and told her he
must return. "How long do you think you have been with me?"
she asked. "Thrice seven days," said he. "Thrice seven years," was
the answer. But he still wanted to go back. She then gave him a
black horse from whose back he must not alight during his trip
in the other world, for fear of seeing the power of time suddenly
fall on him. But he forgot the warning when an incident induced
him to dismount, and at once he became a feeble, blind, and
helpless old man.
It is not necessary to spend time here to point out in detail the
TO MACONIA AND BACK! 109
parallel traditions of the island of Avalon, Morgan the Fay, the
legend of Ogier the Dane, and the magical travels of King Arthur.
All these traditions insist on the peculiar nature of time in the
"other world." Nor is this limited to European history, as Hartland
again points out:
Many races having traditions of a Culture God—that is, of a
superior being who has taught them agriculture and the arts of life,
and led them to victory over their enemies—add that he has gone
away from them for awhile, and that he will some day come back
again. Quctzalcoatl and Viracocha, the culture gods of Mexico and
Peru, arc familiar instances of this.
Similarly, Vishnu has yet a tenth incarnation to accomplish
the final destruction of this world's wicked. At the end of the
present age, he will be revealed in the sky, seated on a white horse
and holding a blazing sword.
Such great traditions are common knowledge, like the abductions
of Enoch, Ezekiel, Elijah and others in the Bible. What is
not commonly known is that such legends have been built on the
popular belief in numerous actual stories of the less glorious, more
ordinary and "personal," type we have reviewed here. For instance,
while all the books about Mexico mention Quetzalcoatl,
they usually ignore the local beliefs in little black beings, the ikals,
whose pranks we have already mentioned, and who, while their
relationship with modern Latin American UFO lore is clear, also
provide an obvious parallel to the fairy-faith.
In his study of the tales of Tenejapa, Brian Stross reports
they are believed to be beings from another world, and some have
been seen flying with some kind of rocket-like thing attached to
the back. With this rocket they are said occasionally to have carried
off people. 12
Similarly, Gordon Creighton reports:
The ikal of the Tzotzils flies through the air. Sometimes he steals
women, and the women so taken are remarkably prolific, and may
bear a child once a week, or once a month, or even daily. The offspring
are black, and they learn the art of flying inside their father's
cavc. 1:i
Brian Stross's Indian informants reported that a flurry of ikals