According to the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and never to many people at once.

It was only in the least frequented and most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even at night in the open air.

Those who had caught sight of any of them said that they had greatly altered in the course of generations; and no wonder, seeing they lived away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places.

They were now, not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous, or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form.

There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance.