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This *helpful attitude, however, is comparatively rare, and in mbst cases when they come in contact with man they either show indifference or dislike, or else take an impish delight in deceiving him and playing childish tricks upon him. Many a story illustrative of this curious characteristic may be found among the village gossip of the peasantry in almost any lonely mountainous district ; "and any one who has been in the habit of attending stances for physical phenomena will recollect instances of practical joking and silly though usually goodnatured horseplay, which almosf always indicate the presence of some of the ‘ lower orders of the nature-spirits.
They are greatly assisted in their tricks by the wonderful power which they possess of casting a glamour over those who yield themselves to their influence, so that such victims for the time see and hear only what these fairies impress upon them, exactly as the mesmerized subject sees, hears, feels, and believes whatever the magnotizer wishes. 1 he nature-spirits, however, have not the mesmerizer’s power of 8 o
dominating the human will, except in the case of quite unusually weak-minded people, or of those who allow themselves to fall into such a condition of helpless terror that their will is temporarily in abeyance. They tannot go beyond