It is a depressing thing that there should be so few people who really appreciate fairy stories, and still fewer who allow themselves to believe them. In fact, there is even got to be a certain theory that not to believe them is a sign of intellectual enlightenment and freedom from superstition; than which nothing could be more false. It would be very much nearer the truth to say that it is a sign of intellectual darkness to reject the Daoine Shee, and a notable token of superstition to deny the royalty of Huon, once of Bordeaux and later of Fairyland.

We would not assert, indeed, that it is necessary to have for the world of elves the same certainty of belief that one has for the truths of religion; nor need one be able to dogmatise as positively about the motives of Titania as one is able to about those of Attila the Great, Anthemius, Heraclian, or any other historical characters of whom we know even less than we do of Titania. But there is no valid argument against the existence of fairies and fairyland which would not be equally valid against the existence of Kamschatka, in which, nevertheless, we most firmly believe. In fact, if we return to the days of the innocence of nations, before their characters had been vitiated, and their intellects depraved, by the horrors of education, we should find that, whereas it was exceedingly difficult to convince them of the existence of Kamschatka, it would have been even harder to convince them that there were no fairies.