always brought their Gods with them. England is a bad
country for Gods. Now, I began as I mean to go on. A
bowl of porridge, a dish of milk, and a little quiet fun with
the country folk in the lanes was enough for me then, as it
is now. I belong here, you see, and I have been mixed up
with people all my days. But most of the others insisted
on being Gods, and having temples, and altars, and
priests, and sacrifices of their own.'

'People burned in wicker baskets?' said Dan. 'Like
Miss Blake tells us about?'

'All sorts of sacrifices,' said Puck. 'If it wasn't men, it
was horses, or cattle, or pigs, or metheglin - that's a
sticky, sweet sort of beer. I never liked it. They were a
stiff-necked, extravagant set of idols, the Old Things. But
what was the result? Men don't like being sacrificed at the
best of times; they don't even like sacrificing their farm-
horses. After a while, men simply left the Old Things
alone, and the roofs of their temples fell in, and the Old
Things had to scuttle out and pick up a living as they
could. Some of them took to hanging about trees, and
hiding in graves and groaning o' nights. If they groaned
loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor
countryman into sacrificing a hen, or leaving a pound
of butter for them. I remember one Goddess called
Belisama. She became a common wet water-spirit somewhere
in Lancashire. And there were hundreds of other
friends of mine. First they were Gods. Then they were
People of the Hills, and then they flitted to other