subterraneous cavern, formed in a wonderful manner, without human art,
on the top of a lofty mountain. These were accustomed to surprise
benighted travellers, shepherds watching their herds and flocks, and
women newly delivered, with their children; and convey them into their
caverns, from which subterranean murmurs, the cries of children, the
groans and lamentations of men, and sometimes imperfect words, and all
kinds of musical sounds, were heard to proceed." The same superstition
is detailed by Bekker, in his _World Bewitch'd_, p. 196, of the English
translation. As the different classes of spirits were gradually
confounded, the abstraction of children seems to have been chiefly
ascribed to the elves, or Fairies; yet not so entirely, as to exclude
hags and witches from the occasional exertion of their ancient
privilege.--In Germany, the same confusion of classes has not taken
place. In the beautiful ballads of the _Erl King_, the _Water King_, and
the _Mer-Maid_, we still recognize the ancient traditions of the Goths,
concerning the _wald-elven_, and the _dracae_.

A similar superstition, concerning abstraction by daemons, seems, in
the time of Gervase of Tilbury, to have pervaded the greatest part of
Europe. "In Catalonia," says that author, "there is a lofty mountain,
named Cavagum, at the foot of which runs a river with golden sands, in
the vicinity of which there are likewise mines of silver. This mountain
is steep, and almost inaccessible. On its top, which is always covered
with ice and snow, is a black and bottomless lake, into which if a
stone be thrown, a tempest suddenly rises; and near this lake, though
invisible to men, is the porch of the palace of daemons. In a town
adjacent to this mountain, named Junchera, lived one Peter de Cabinam.
Being one day teazed with the fretfulness of his young daughter, he, in
his impatience, suddenly wished that the devil might take her; when she
was immediately borne away by the spirits. About seven years afterwards,