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Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Volume 2 - Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, Collected in The - Southern Counties of Scotland; with a Few of Modern Date, Founded - Upon Local Tradition by Sir Walter Scott
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adopt the term according to their pronounciation. Neither will it be
considered as an objection to this opinion, that in Hesychius, the
Ionian term _Phereas_, or _Pheres_, denotes the satyrs of classical
antiquity, if the number of words of oriental origin in that
lexicographer be recollected. Of the Persian Peris, Ouseley, in his
_Persian Miscellanies_, has described some characteristic traits, with
all the luxuriance of a fancy, impregnated with the oriental association
of ideas. However vaguely their nature and appearance is described, they
are uniformly represented as gentle, amiable females, to whose character
beneficence and beauty are essential. None of them are mischievous or
malignant; none of them are deformed or diminutive, like the Gothic
fairy. Though they correspond in beauty with our ideas of angels, their
employments are dissimilar; and, as they have no place in heaven, their
abode is different. Neither do they resemble those intelligences, whom,
on account of their wisdom, the Platonists denominated Daemons; nor
do they correspond either to the guardian Genii of the Romans, or the
celestial virgins of paradise, whom the Arabs denominate Houri. But the
Peris hover in the balmy clouds, live in the colours of the rainbow,
and, as the exquisite purity of their nature rejects all nourishment
grosser than the odours of flowers, they subsist by inhaling the
fragrance of the jessamine and rose. Though their existence is not
commensurate with the bounds of human life, they are not exempted from
the common fate of mortals.--With the Peris, in Persian mythology, are
contrasted the Dives, a race of beings, who differ from them in sex,
appearance, and disposition. These are represented as of the male sex,
cruel, wicked, and of the most hideous aspect; or, as they are described
by Mr Finch, "with ugly shapes, long horns, staring eyes, shaggy hair,
great fangs, ugly paws, long tails, with such horrible difformity and
deformity, that I wonder the poor women are not frightened therewith."
Though they live very long, their lives are limited, and they are
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