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Perhaps he was a spirit if one only knew it, but as no one did know it, it never entered anybody’s head to say so. He was hardly mortal though, for he not only hooted like an ordinary owl, but spoke like a Christian; at least so I suppose, or how would he have made himself understood by other beings who were not owls, and who yet had to communicate with him? For beings more extraordinary than owls inhabited the old castle. A large number of mannikins had taken possession of it some years after its abandonment by mortals, and here the merry little creatures would sport and gambol all the livelong day. They used to clamber about the strong ivy-trees that grew up the sides of the old walls, playing at hide and seek among the thick leaves, and making the place re-echo with their joyous shouts. They were wont to sport and play with the large lizards which basked upon the walls when the sun came out with rays bright and strong, and warm enough to tempt them to do so, and they would scamper up and down the whole place, trying their skill in ascending and descending the steepest and most perpendicular places in the old walls, where the stone was crumbling away from sheer age, and where no being of mortal frame and mould could have found a secure footing for a moment. Oh, they were merry little chaps, those mannikins!
Within the precincts of the castle itself, in the ancient courtyards which once reverberated with the shrill blast of trumpets calling men forth to war; where men-at-arms formerly strode boldly along, filled with warlike ardour, and where martial sounds rang out loud and oft in the days of old, grass was now growing long and rank, which was trodden under foot only by the lively mannikins in their daily and nightly dances, whilst their shrill and merry cries replaced those sterner sounds which had long since ceased, and those who had caused them had passed for ever from mortal ken and mortal vision. All was indeed changed; but I am not prepared to say that the change was not for the better, for I was never fond of the old feudal times myself; and the barons who used to possess such castles, and send forth their retainers to fight, were much more troublesome people to the world at large, and their neighbours in particular, than were the little mannikins who played around the old place, or the wise old owl who blinked his eyes cosily and comfortably in the stone window.
You would have thought that such innocent creatures as owls and mannikins could have had no enemies, but must have been on good terms with all their fellow-creatures of every description. True, they sometimes made themselves disagreeable in the way of taking new-laid eggs from farmyards which were within temptingly easy reach of their own abode, and now and then they were shrewdly suspected of having milked a cow with which they had no business, and stolen cream when the dairymaid had been careless enough to leave the dairy-door unlocked. In these particulars, though, they were, after all, no worse than mortals have frequently been, and in fact not half so bad, inasmuch as they made what return they could to the country people who might have now and then suffered from their depredations, sometimes going out in the moonlight nights and making their hay for them or finishing the cutting of a cornfield, and even condescending so far, on more than one occasion, as to sweep a chimney and thoroughly dust a kitchen floor. For they were very active little fellows, those mannikins, and could turn their hands to almost anything if they saw fit to do so.
They had some enemies no doubt, in wild and evil-disposed animals, for they loved to warn the lamb when the wolf was lying in wait for him, and often saved the poultry by a timely notice that the fox was coming, whereby they incurred the wrath and hatred of these midnight marauders. But the chief and principal of their enemies were the witches, who have during all ages been a plague to this otherwise favoured land. I say advisedly, in all ages, because this is indeed the truth, although in their form and shape, as well as in their method of doing mischief, persons of this class have wonderfully changed. In old times they were generally of repulsive appearance, oftentimes clad in a red cloak, generally with a stick in one hand, and almost invariably humpbacked or misshapen in some way, and attended by a familiar in the shape of a cat. They were consulted only on serious affairs, or when somebody wanted to be revenged upon somebody else; they were malicious in their words and actions; hated everything good, respectable, and handsome; and, if possible, transformed it as soon as they could into something quite the reverse. Nowadays, our English witches are entirely different: their shape is usually beautiful, their figure perfect, their eyes bright and full of expression, and their dress made in admirable good taste and after an exceedingly becoming fashion. They have no familiar spirit, and the best of them allow no one to be too familiar with them; neither do they change the form and shape of mankind into those of hideous creatures, but, on the contrary, rather prefer that men should be handsome and well shaped; but they still exercise over them an almost resistless sway, which, however, is far more willingly obeyed than was the power of the witches of the old times; and they are now consulted, not so much on matters of hate and revenge, as on those which concern feelings far more desirable to be cherished in the human breast.
But the witches of whom I have to speak to-day hated the mannikins as much as a certain person is said to hate holy water. The reason of this was sufficiently obvious, and arose from the entire and radical difference between the views of the two sets of beings. The mannikins were, as I have said, although mischievous, the friends of mankind; the witches were the enemies of everything human which was not as wicked as themselves: the mannikins found pleasure in the most innocent amusements; the witches had no satisfaction in anything which did not injure or give pain to somebody else: the mannikins were gay and cheerful, the witches dull and morose, save when under the influence of strong drink: the mannikins generally ran about on their own legs; the witches habitually rode broomsticks, or toads, or whatever else came in their way and could be made to serve as a horse—in fine, the mannikins and witches did not, could not, and were never likely to, agree upon any one point or in any one feature of resemblance, and therefore it was not unnatural that they should be animated by feelings of hostility the one against the other. I am bound to say, however, that the mannikins never wished to interfere with or annoy the witches, and would have been well content to keep out of their way altogether if they could only have managed to do so. It was the witches who went out of their way to tease and bully the mannikins whenever they could, and who were entirely responsible for all the troubles which occurred in consequence.
Not far from the owl’s castle was a large forest, in which all kinds of creatures dwelt, and of which the little people from the castle made great and frequent use. They dearly loved to wander amongst the enormous trees, climbing over their branches, and playing around their gigantic trunks. One tree in particular there was which they held very precious. It had fallen down, and lay in the forest, covering a prodigious space of ground. On, under, and around it, wherever they could do so, the little mannikins planted a large number of fungi, under which they sought shelter from the rays of the sun or the pelting of the storm, and which they called their summer palace. Here they would spend hour after hour when the weather was favourable, and I have often wandered up from my river to have a sly peep at the merry little creatures sporting and playing whilst the distant moon shone upon them from afar, lighting up the walls of the old castle in the distance, and bathing with a flood of light the forest and fallen tree and the mannikins’ playground around the latter. There they would be, sure enough, night after night, running one after the other round the tree and under the fungi, having sometimes coaxed a butterfly or two, a big blue-bottle fly, or some other lively insect, to sit up with them and make a night of it.
One would have thought that it would have been scarcely worth the witches’ while to have troubled themselves with these harmless people, when there was so much more mischief of a practical character to be done in the world without. But there is no accounting for tastes, and when the evil passion of malice once seizes upon any one, whether mortal or witch, no one can tell to what extremities it will lead. Accordingly, several of the most notorious witches in that part of the country (and ever since England was a country, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire have been the favourite abodes of witches) resolved to harass and worry the mannikins by every means within their power.