Note 50 — THE BLACK POOL.

Dreadful stories are told in many countries of the fiends inhabiting the undrained swamps. Monsters as terrible as those described in "Beowulf" are popularly believed to have haunted the English fens almost to the present day. Aino, in the Kalevala (Runo 4), was lured into a lake by the sight of some maidens bathing; and it is said that it is unsafe for sensitive people to venture near the banks of some of the Irish lakes in the evening, lest they should be lured into the water by the singing of the water-nymphs. In this connection, we may refer to the oft-quoted passage from the notes to Heywood's Hierarchies of the Blessed Angels (1635): "In Finland there is a castle, which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unsounded depth, the water black, and the fish therein very distasteful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which foreshow either the death of the Governor, or of some prime officer belonging to the place; and most often it appeareth in the shape of a harper, sweetly singing and dallying and playing under the water."—See Southey's Donica.