So these
poor savages were driven out, till none were left, save the little Lapps
up in the north of Norway, where they live to this day.
But stories of them, and of how they dwelt in caves, and had strange
customs, and used poisoned weapons, and how the elf-bolts (as their flint
arrow-heads are still called) belonged to them, lingered on, and were
told round the fire on winter nights and added to, and played with half
in fun, till a hundred legends sprang up about them, which used once to
be believed by grown-up folk, but which now only amuse children. And
because some of these savages were very short, as the Lapps and Esquimaux
are now, the story grew of their being so small that they could make
themselves invisible; and because others of them were (but probably only
a few) very tall and terrible, the story grew that there were giants in
that old world, like that famous Gogmagog, whom Brutus and his Britons
met (so old fables tell), when they landed first at Plymouth, and fought
him, and threw him over the cliff. Ogres, too--of whom you read in fairy
tales--I am afraid that there were such people once, even here in Europe;
strong and terrible savages, who ate human beings. Of course, the
legends and tales about them became ridiculous and exaggerated as they
passed from mouth to mouth over the Christmas fire, in the days when no
one could read or write. But that the tales began by being true any one
may well believe who knows how many cannibal savages there are in the
world even now.
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