to the Dark Tower of "Childe Rowland," allowing for a little idealisation on the part of the narrator. We have the long dark passage leading into the well-lit central chamber, and all enclosed in a green hill or mound. It is, of course, curious to contrast Mr. Batten's frontispiece with the central chamber of the How, but the essential features are the same.
Even such a minute touch as the terraces on the hill hava their bearing, I believe, on Mr. MacRitchie's "realistic" views of Faerie. For in quite another connection, Mr. G. L. Gomme, in his book, The Village Community (W. Scott), pp. 75-98, has given reasons and examples[1] for believing that terrace
TERRACES AT NEWLANDS KIRK, PEEBLESHIRE
cultivation along the sides of hills was a practice of the non-Aryan and pre-Aryan inhabitants of these Isles. Here, then, from a quarter quite unexpected by Mr. MacRitchie, we have evidence of the association of the King of Elfland with a non-Aryan mode of cultivation of the soil. By Mr. Gomme's kindness I am enabled to give an illustration of this.
Altogether it seems not improbable that in such a tale as "Childe Rowland" we have an idealised picture of a "marriage by capture" of one of the diminutive non-Aryan dwellers of the green hills with an Aryan maiden, and her recapture by her brothers. It is otherwise difficult to account for such a circumstantial description of the interior of these mounds, and especially of such a detail as the terrace cultiva-
- ↑ To these may be added Iona (cf. Duke of Argyll, Iona, p. 109).
