"How _can_ they make up such stuff ?" "Not altogether such nonsense as you think," corrected Miss Bickford, who was a student of archaeology; "indeed _I_ find it intensely interesting.

It's a case of survival of tradition.

A few thousand years ago no doubt a race of little short dark Stone Age men actually lived in those caves, and took good care to avenge themselves on any of the taller, stronger tribes who interfered with them and tried to push them out of their territory.

The remembrance of them would be handed down long after they had become extinct, and, of course their doings were exaggerated, and their cunning tricks were set down to magic.

Just as the prehistoric monsters lingered as dragons and firedrakes, so the small early inhabitants of Europe have passed into dwarfs and brownies and pixies.