Note 1 — VIII.—WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY.

An accurate definition of the Chinese idea of elves and fairies is somewhat difficult. In many cases the word shin 神, spirit, or, as some will have it, God—can only be translated by “elf” or “brownie,” while on other occasions one is puzzled under what category to place creatures who play too important a part in Chinese belief to be omitted from these pages, while strictly answering to nothing known in the West. China, at all events, boasts an infinity of beings who are alleged to possess the general characteristics of our local sprites. As with us they are sometimes malicious and sometimes merely playful. But I fancy that, in the main, a more stern air of purpose runs through Chinese than through European fairy legend. The wildest native inventions have never endowed the fairy community with, “houses made all with mother-o’-pearl, an ivory tennis-court, a nutmeg parlour, a sapphire dairy-room, chambers of agate, &c., &c.”1 Still less do we find anything resembling Shakespeare’s Queen Mab:—