A bowl of porridge , a dish of milk , and a little quiet fun with the country folk in the lanes was enough for me then , as it is now . I belong here , you see , and I have been mixed up with people all my days . But most of the others insisted on being Gods , and having temples , and altars , and priests , and sacrifices of their own . ' ` People burned in wicker baskets ? ' said Dan . ` Like Miss Blake tells us about ? ' ` All sorts of sacrifices , ' said Puck . ` If it was n't men , it was horses , or cattle , or pigs , or metheglin -- that 's a sticky , sweet sort of beer . I never liked it . They were a stiff-necked , extravagant set of idols , the Old Things . But what was the result ? Men do n't like being sacrificed at the best of times ; they do n't even like sacrificing their farm-horses . After a while , men simply left the Old Things alone , and the roofs of their temples fell in , and the Old Things had to scuttle out and pick up a living as they could . Some of them took to hanging about trees , and hiding in graves and groaning o ' nights . If they groaned loud enough and long enough they might frighten a poor countryman into sacrificing a hen , or leaving a pound of butter for them . I remember one Goddess called Belisama . She became a common wet water-spirit somewhere in Lancashire . And there were hundreds of other friends of mine . First they were Gods . Then they were People of the Hills , and then they flitted to other places because they could n't get on with the English for one reason or another .
There was only one Old Thing , I XXXXX , who honestly worked for his living after he came down in the world .
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