Note 294 — Chapter XVI

There is at least one detail overlooked in this picture by the artist. And another detail, which he has introduced, has not been referred to in these pages, viz., the miner's lamp worn by the dwarfs. In Cornwall, the earliest miners are understood to have been those "little people," whose subterranean habits would undoubtedly render them early acquainted with the use of metals. And the miner's lamp may reasonably be regarded as an inheritance from the dwarf races. It is noteworthy that the typical miner's dress, in seventeenth-century England, appears to have been "canvas breeches, red waistcoats and red caps," a garb closely in agreement with some versions of the dwarf attire. (See Hone's "Ancient Mysteries," p. 259.)