Fairy Tales, Now First Collected/Dissertation 2

by Joseph Ritson

DISSERTATION II.

ON FAIRIES.

The earliest mention of Fairies is made by Homer, if, that is, his English translator have, in this instance, done him justice:

"Where round the bed, whence Achelöus springs,The wat'ry Fairies dance in mazy rings."^[1]

These nymphs he supposes to frequent or reside in woods, hills, the sea, fountains, grottos, &c.; whence they are peculiarly called Naiads, Dryads, and Nereids:

"What sounds are these that gather from the shores,The voice of nymphs that haunt the sylvan bow'rs,The fair-hair'd dryads of the shady wood,Or azure daughters of the silver flood!"Odys. B. 6, V. 122.

The original word, indeed, is nymphs, which, it must be confessed, furnishes an accurate idea of the fays (fees or fates) of the ancient French and Italian romances; wherein they are represented as females of inexpressible beauty, elegance, and every kind of personal accomplishment, united with magic, or supernatural power. Such, for instance, as the Calypso of Homer, or the Alcina of Ariosto. 'Agreeably' to this idea it is that Shakspeare makes Antony say, in allusion to Cleopatra,

"To this Great Fairy I'll commend thy acts,"

meaning this grand assemblage of power and beauty. Such, also, is the character of the ancient nymphs, spoken of by the Roman poets: as Virgil, for instance:

"Fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestes,Panaque, Sylvanumque senem, Nymphasque sorores."^[2]

They, likewise, occur in other passages, as well as in Horace:

"——— gelidum nemusNympharumque leves cum Satyris chori—:"^[3]

and, still more frequently, in Ovid.

Not far from Rome, as we are told by Chorier, was a place formerly called Ad Nymphas, and, at this day, Santa Ninfa; which, without doubt, he adds, in the language of our ancestors, would have been called The place of Fays.^[4]

The word faée, or fée, among the French, is derived, according to Du Cange, from the barbarous Latin fadus, or fada. In Italian fata. Gervase of Tilbury, in his Otia imperialia (D. 3, c. 88) speaks of "some of this kind of larvæ, which they named fadæ, we have heard to be lovers:" and, in his relation of a nocturnal contest between two knights (c. 94), he exclaims "What shall I say? I know not if it were a true horse, or if it were a fairy, (fadus), as men assert." From the Roman de Partenay, or de Lezignan, MS. Du Cange cites

"Le chastean fut fait d'une féeSi comme il est partout retrait."

Hence, he says, faërie for spectres:

"Plusieurs parlant de Guenart,Du Lou, de l'Asne, et de Renart,De faëries, et de songes,De fantosmes, et de mensonges."

The same Gervase explains the Latin Fata (fée, French) a divining woman, an inchantress, or a witch, (D. 3, c. 88).

Master Wace, in his Histoire des ducs de Normendie (confounded by many with the Roman de Rou), describing the fountain of Berenton, in Bretagne, says:

"En la forest et environ,Mais jo ne sais par quel raisonLa scut l'en les fées veeir,Se li Breton nos dient veir, &c."

(In the forest and around,I wot not by what reason foundThere may a man the fairies spy,If Britons do not tell a lie.)

but it may be difficult to conceive an accurate idea from the mere name, of the popular French Fays or fairys of the twelfth century.

In Vienne, in Dauphiny, is Le puit des fées, or Fairy-well. These fays, it must be confessed, have a strong resemblance to the nymphs of the ancients, who inhabited in caves, and fountains. Upon a little rock, which overlooks the Rhone, are three round holes, which Nature alone has formed, although it seem, at first sight, that Art has laboured after her. They say that they were formerly frequented by Fays; that they were full of water, when it rained; and that they there, frequently, took the pleasure of the bath; than which they had not one more charming.^[5]

Pomponius Mela, an eminent geographer, and, in point of time, far anterior to Pliny, relates, that beyond a mountain in Æthiopia, called by the Greeks the high mountain, burning, he says, with perpetual fire, is a hill spread over a long tract by extended shores, whence they rather go to see wide plains, than to behold [the habitations] of Pans and Satyrs. Hence, he adds, this opinion received faith, that, whereas, in these parts is nothing of culture, no seats of inhabitants, no footsteps; a waste solitude in the day, and a more waste silence; frequent fires shine, by night; and camps, as it were, are seen widely spread; cymbals and tympans sound, and sounding pipes are heard, more than human.^[6] These invisible essences, however, are both anonymous, and nondescript.

The penates of the Romans, according to honest Reginald Scot, were "the domesticall gods, or rather divels, that were said to make men live quietlie within doores. But some think that Lares are such as trouble private houses. Larvæ are said to be spirits that walke onélie by night. Vinculi terrei are such as was Robin Good-fellowe, that would supplie the office of servants, speciallie of maides; as to make a fier in the morning, sweepe the house, grind mustard and malt, drawe water, &c., these also rumble in houses, drawe latches, go up and downe staiers, &c."^[7] A more modern writer says "The Latins have called" the fairies "lares and larvæ, frequenting, as they say, houses, delighting in neatness, pinching the slut, and rewarding the good housewife with money in her shoe."^[8] This, however, is nothing but the character of an English fairy applied to the name of a Roman lar or larva. It might have been wished, too, that Scot, a man, unquestionably, of great learning had referred, by name, and work, and book and chapter, to those ancient authors from whom he derived his information upon the Roman penates, &c.

What idea our Saxon ancestors had of the Fairy, which they called ælp, a word explained by Lye as equivalent to "lamia, larva, incubus, ephialtes;" we are utterly at a loss to conceive.

The nymphs, the satyrs, and the fawns, are frequently noticed by the old traditional historians of the north: particularly Saxo-grammaticus, who has a curious story of three nymphs of the forest and Hother king of Sweden and Denmark, being apparently the originals of the weird, or wizard, sisters of Macbeth.^[9] Others are preserved by Olaus Magnus, who says they had so deeply impressed into the earth, that the place they have been used to, having been (apparently) eaten up, in a circular form, with flagrant heat, never brings forth fresh grass from the dry turf. This nocturnal sport of monsters, he adds, the natives call The dance of the elves.^[10]

"In John Milesius any man may readeOf divels in Sarmatia honored, Call'd Kottri, or Kibaldi; such as weePugs and Hob-goblins call. Their dwellings beeIn corners of old houses least frequented,Or beneath stacks of wood: and these convented,Make fearefull noise in buttries and in dairies;Robin Good-fellowes some, some call them fairies.In solitarie roomes these uprores keepe,And beat at dores to wake men from their sleepe;Seeming to force locks, be they ne're so strong,And keeping Christmasse gambols all night long.Pots, glasses, trenchers, dishes, pannés, and kettles,They will make dance about the shelves and settles,As if about the kitchen tost and cast,Yet in the morning nothing found misplac't."^[11]

Milton, a prodigious reader of romance, has, likewise, given an apt idea of the ancient fays:

"Fairer than famed of old, or fabled sinceOf Fairy damsels met in forest wideBy knights of Logres, and of Liones,Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellenore."

These ladies, in fact, are by no means unfrequent in those fabulous, it must be confessed, but, at the same time, ingenious and entertaining histories; as, for instance, Melusine, or Merlusine, the heroine of a very ancient romance in French verse; and who was, occasionally, turned into a serpent^[12]; Morgan-la-faée, the reputed half-sister of king Arthur, and the lady of the lake, so frequently noticed in sir Thomas Malorys old history of that monarch.

Le Grand is of opinion that what is called Fairy comes to us from the orientals, and that it is their génies which have produced our fairies; a species of nymphs, of an order superior to these women magicians, to whom they nevertheless 'gave' the same name. In Asia, he says, where the women imprisoned in the harams, prove still, beyond the general servitude, a particular slavery, the romancers have imagined the Peris, who flying in the air, come to soften their captivity, and render them happy.^[13] Whether this be so, or not, it is certain that we call the aurora boreales, or active clouds, in the night, perry-dancers.^[14]

After all, sir William Ouseley finds it impossible to give an accurate idea of what the Persian poets designed by a perie; this aërial being not resembling our fairies. The strongest resemblance he can find is in the description of Milton in Comus. The sublime idea which Milton entertained of a fairy vision corresponds rather with that which the Persian poets have conceived of the peries:

"Their port was more 'than' human as they stood;I took it for a faëry visionOf some gay creatures of the elementThat in the colours of the rainbow live,And play i'th' plighted clouds."^[15]

It is, by no means, credible, however that Milton had any knowledge of the oriental peries; though his enthusiastic or poetical imagination might have easily peopled the air with spirits.

There are two sorts of fays, according to 'M. le Grand.' The one a species of nymphs or divinities; the others, more properly called sorceresses, or women instructed in magic. From time immemorial, in the abbey of Poissy, founded by St. Lewis, they said every year a mass to preserve the nuns from the power of the fays. When the process of the damsel of Orleans was made, the doctors demanded, for the first question, "If she had knowledge of those who went to the sabbath with the fays? or if she had not assisted at the assemblies held at the fountain of the fays, near Domprein, around which 'dance' malignant spirits?" The journal of Paris, under Charles VI. and Charles VII. pretends that she confessed that, at the age of twenty-seven years, she frequently went, in spite of her father and mother, to a fair fountain in the country of Lorraine, which 'she' named the good fountain to the fays our lord.^[16]

Gervase of Tilbury, in his chapter "Of Fauns and Satyrs," says "there are, likewise, others, whom the vulgar name Follets, who inhabit the houses of the simple rustics, and can be driven away neither by holy-water, nor exorcisms; and because they are not seen, they afflict those who are entering with stones, billets, and domestic furniture; whose words, for certain, are heard in the human manner, and their forms do not appear."^[17] He is speaking of England.

This Follet seems to resemble our Puck, or Robin Good-fellow, whose pranks are recorded in an old song, and who was sometimes useful, and sometimes mischievous. Whether or not he were the fairy-spirit of whom Milton

"Tells how the drudging goblin swet,To ern his cream-bowle duly set,When, in one night, ere glimps of morn,His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,That ten day-labourers could not end,Then lies him down, the lubbar fend;And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,Basks at the fire his hairy strength;And crop-full out of dores he flings,Ere the first cock his matin rings,"^[18]

is a matter of some difficulty. Perhaps the giant-son of the witch, that had the devils mark about her, (of whom "there is a pretty tale"), that was called Lob-lye-by-the-fire,^[19] was a very different personage from Robin Good-fellow, whom, however, he in some respects appears to resemble. A near female relation of the compiler, who was born and brought up in a small village in the bishopric of Durham, related to him many years ago several circumstances which confirmed the exactitude of Miltons description; she, particularly, told of his thrashing the corn, churning the butter, drinking the milk, &c. and, when all was done, "lying before the fire like a great rough hurgin bear."^[20]

In another chapter Gervase says, "As, among men, Nature produces certain wonderful things, so spirits, in airy bodies, who assume, by divine permission the mocks they make. For, behold, England has certain dæmons (dæmons, I call them, though I know not but I should say secret forms of unknown generation), whom the French call Neptunes, the English Portunes. With these it is natural that they take advantage of the simplicity of fortunate peasants;^[21] and when, by reason of their domestic labours, they perform their nocturnal vigils, of a sudden, the doors being shut, they warm themselves at the fire, and eat little frogs, cast out of their bosoms, and put upon the burning coals; with an antiquated countenance; a wrinkled face; diminutive in stature, not having [in length] half a thumb. They are clothed with rags patched together; and, if any thing should be to be carried on in the house, or any kind of laborious work to be done, they join themselves to the work, and expedite it with more than human facility. It is natural to these, that they may be obsequious, and may not be hurtful. But one little mode, as it were, they have of hurting. For when, among the ambiguous shades of night, the English, occasionally ride alone, the Portune, sometimes, unseen, couples himself to the rider;^[22] and, when he has accompanied him, going on, a very long time, at length, the bridle being seized, he leads him up to the hand in the mud, in which while, infixed, he wallows, the Portune, departing, sets up a laugh; and so, in this kind of way, derides human simplicity."^[23]

This spirit seems to have some resemblance to the Picktree brag,^[24] a mischievous barguest that used to haunt that part of the country, in the shape of different animals, particularly of a little galloway; in which shape a farmer, still or lately living thereabout, reported that it had come to him one night as he was going home; that he got upon it, and rode very quietly till it came to a great pond, to which it ran and threw him in, and went laughing away.

He further says, there is, in England, a certain species of demons, which in their language they call Grant, like a one-year-old foal, with straight legs, and sparkling eyes. This kind of demons very often appears in the streets, in the very heat of the day, or about sun-set; and as often as it makes its appearance, portends that there is about to be a fire in that city or town. When, therefore, in the following day or night, the danger is urgent, in the streets, running to and fro, it provokes the dogs to bark, and, while it pretends flight, invites them, following, to pursue, in the vain hope of overtaking it. This kind of illusion creates caution to the watchmen who have the custody of fire, and so the officious race of demons, while they terrify the beholders, are wont to secure the ignorant by their arrival.^[25]

Gower, in his tale of Narcissus, professedly from Ovid, says

"—— As he cast his lokeInto the well,——He sawe the like of his visage,And wende there were an ymageOf suche a nymphe, as tho was faye."^[26]

In his legend of Constance is this passage:

"Thy wife which is of fairieOf suche a childe delivered is,Fro kinde, whiche stante all amis."^[27]

In another part of his book, is a story "Howe the kynge of Armenis daughter mette on a tyme a companie of the fairy." These "ladies," ride aside "on fayre [white] ambulende horses," clad, very magnificently, but all alike, in white and blue, and wore "corownes on their heades:" but they are not called fays in the poem, nor does the word fay or fairie once occur therein.

The fairies or elves of the British isles are peculiar to this part of the world, and are not, so far as literary information or oral tradition enables us to judge, to be found in any other country. For this fact the authority of father Chaucer will be decisive, till we acquire evidence of equal antiquity in favour of other nations:

"In olde dayes of the king Artour,Of which the Bretons speken gret honour,All was this lond fulfilled of faerie;The elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie, Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.^[28]This was the old opinion as I rede;I speke of many hundred yeres ago;But now can no man see non elves mo,For now the grete charitee and prayeresOf limitoures and other holy freres,That serchen every land, and every streme,As thikke as motes in the sunnebeme,Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,This maketh that ther ben no faeries."

The fairy may be defined as a species of being partly material, partly spiritual; with a power to change its appearance, and be, to mankind, visible or invisible, according to its pleasure. In the old song printed by Peck, Robin Good-fellow, a well-known fairy, professes that he had played his pranks from the time of Merlin, who was the contemporary of Arthur.

Chaucer uses the word faërie as well for the individual, as for the country or system, or what we should now call fairy-land, or fairyism. He knew nothing, it would seem of Oberon, Titania, or Mab, but speaks of

"Pluto, that is the king of Faerie,And many a ladie in his compagnie,Folwing his wif, the quene Proserpina, &c."

(The marchantes tale, 1. 10101.) From this passage of Chaucer, Mr. Tyrwhitt "cannot help thinking that his Pluto and Proserpina were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania."

In the progress of The wif of Bathes tale, it happed the knight

"——in his way.... to rideIn all his care, under a forest side,Whereas he saw upon a dance goOf ladies foure-and-twenty, and yet mo.Toward this ilke dance he drow ful yerne,In hope that he som wisdom shulde lerne,But, certainly, er he came fully there,Yvanished was this dance, he wiste not wher."

These ladies appear to have been fairies, though nothing is insinuated of their size. Milton seems to have been upon the prowl here for his "forestside."

In A midsummer-nights dream, a fairy addresses Bottom the weaver

"Hail, mortal, hail!"

which sufficiently shows she was not so herself.

Puck, or Robin Good-fellow, in the same play, calls Oberon,

"——king of shadows"—

and in the old song, just mentioned,

"The king of ghosts and shadows:"

and this mighty monarch asserts of himself, and his subjects,

"But we are spirits of another sort."

The fairies, as we already see, were male and female; but, it is not equally clear that they procreated children.

Their government was monarchical, and Oberon the king of Fairy-land, must have been a sovereign of very extensive territory. The name of his queen was Titania, both are mentioned by Shakspeare, being personages of no little importance in the above play: where they in an ill-humour, thus encounter:

"Obe. Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania.

Tita. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company."

That the name [Oberon] was not the invention of our great dramatist is sufficiently proved. The allegorical Spenser gives it to king Henry the eighth. Robert Greene was the author of a play entitled "The Scottishe history of James the fourthe...intermixed with a pleasant comedie presented by Oberon king of the fairies." He is, likewise, a character in the old French romances of Huon de Bourdeaux, and Ogier le Danois; and there even seems to be one upon his own exploits: "Roman d'Auberon." What authority, however, Shakspeare had for the name Titania, it does not appear, nor is she so called by any other writer. He himself, at the same time, as well as many others, gives to the queen of fairies the name of Mab, though no one, except Drayton, mentions her as the wife of Oberon:

"O then, I see, queen MAB hath been with you,She is the fairys midwife, and she comesIn shape no bigger than an agate-stoneOn the fore-finger of an alderman,Drawn with a team of little atomicsAthwart mens noses as they lie asleep :Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners legs;The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;The traces, of the smallest spiders web;The collars, of the moonshines wat'ry beams:Her whip, of crickets bone; the lash, of film:Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,Not half so big as a round little wormPrick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,Time out of mind the fairys coachmakers.And in this state she gallops night by night,Through lovers brains, and then they dream of love.———————— This is that very Mab, That plats the manes of horses in the night;And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes."^[29]

Ben Jonson, in his "Entertainment of the queen and prince at Althrope," in 1603, describes to come "tripping up the lawn a bevy of fairies attending on Mab their queen, who falling into an artificial ring that was there cut in the path, began to dance around."^[30]

In the same masque the queen is thus characterised by a satyr:

"This is Mab, the mistress fairy,That doth nightly rob the dairy,And can hurt or help the churning,(As she please) without discerning. She that pinches country-wenches,If they rub not clean their benches,^[31]And with sharper nails remembersWhen they rake not up their embers; But, if so they chance to feast her,In a shoe she drops a tester. This is she that empties cradles,Takes out children, puts in ladles;Trains forth midwives in their slumber,With a sieve the holes to number;And thus leads them from her boroughs,Home through ponds and water-furrows. She can start our franklin's daughters,In their' sleep, with shrieks and laughters,And on sweet St. Agnes' night,Feed them with a promis'd sight, Some of husbands, some of lovers,Which an empty dream discovers."

Fairies, they tell you, have frequently been heard and seen, nay that there are some living who were stolen away by them, and confined seven years. According to the description they give who pretend to have seen them, they are in the shape of men, exceeding little. They are always clad in green, and frequent the woods and fields; when they make cakes (which is a work they have been often heard at) they are very noisy; and when they have done, they are full of mirth and pastime. But generally they dance in moonlight when mortals are asleep, and not capable of seeing them, as may be observed on the following morn; their dancing places being very distinguishable. For as they dance hand in hand, and so make a circle in their dance, so next day there will be seen rings and circles on the grass.^[32]

These circles are thus described by Browne, the author of Britannias pastorals:

——"A pleasant meade,Where fairies often did their measures treade, Which in the meadow made such circles greene,As if with garlands it had crowned beene. Within one of these rounds was to be seeneA hillock rise, where oft the fairie queeneAt twy-light sate, and did command her elves,To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves:And further, if by maidens over-sight,Within doores water were not brought at night,Or if they spred no table, set no bread,They should have nips from toe unto the head;And for the maid that had perform'd each thing,She in the water-pail bad leave a ring."

The same poet, in his "Shepheards pipe," having inserted Hoccleves tale of Jonathas, and conceiving a strange unnatural affection for that stupid fellow, describes him as a great favourite of the fairies, alleging, that

"Many times he hath been seeneWith the fairies on the greene,And to them his pipe did sound,While they danced in a round,Mickle solace would they make him,And at midnight often wake himAnd convey him from his roome,To a field of yellow broome;Or into the medowes, whereMints perfume the gentle aire,And where Flora shends her treasure,There they would begin their measure.If it chanc'd nights sable shrowdsMuffled Cynthia up in clowds; Safely home they then would see him,And from brakes and quagmires free him."

The fairies were exceedingly diminutive, but, it must be confessed, we shall not readily find their actual dimensions. They were small enough, however, if we may believe one of queen Titanias maids of honour, to conceal themselves in acorn shells; speaking of a difference between the king and queen, she says:

"But they do square; that all their elves for fear,Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there."

They, uniformly, and constantly, wore green vests, unless when they had some reason for changing their dress. Of this circumstance we meet with many proofs: Thus in The merry wives of windsor:

"Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies green."^[33]

In fact, we meet with them of all colours: as in the same play:

"Fairies black, grey, green, and white."

That white, on some occasions, was the dress of a female, we learn from Reginald Scot.^[34] He gives a charm "to go invisible, by [means of] these three sisters of fairies," Milia, Achilia, Sibylia: "I charge you that you doo appeare before me visible, in forme and shape of faire women, in white vestures, and to bring with you to me the ring of invisibilitie, by the which I may go invisible, at mine owne will and pleasure, and that in all hours and minutes."

It was fatal, if we may believe Shakspeare, to speak to a fairy: Falstaff, in The merry wives of windsor, is made to say, "They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall dye."

They were accustomed to enrich their favourites; as we learn from the clown in A winters tale: "It was told me I should be rich by the fairies." They delighted in neatness, could not endure sluts and even hated fibsters, tell-tales, and divulgers of secrets, whom they would slily and severely bepinch, when they little expected it. They were as generous and benevolent, on the contrary, to young women of a different description, procuring them the sweetest sleep, the pleasantest dreams, and, on their departure, in the morning, always slipping a tester in their shoe.

They are supposed by some to have been malignant, but this, it may be, was mere calumny, as being utterly inconsistent with their general character, which was singularly innocent and amiable. Imogen, in Shakspeares Cymbeline, prays, on going to sleep,

"From fairies, and the tempters of the night,Guard me beseech you."

It must have been the Incubus she was so afraid of. Old Gervase of Tilbury, in the twelfth century, says, in a more modest language than English: "Vidimus quosdam dæmones tanto zelo mulieres amare quod ad inaudita prorumpunt ludibria, et cum ad concubitum earum accedunt mirá mole eas opprimunt, nec ab aliis videntur."^[35]

Hamlet, too, notices this imputed malignity of the fairies:

"——Then no planets strike,No fairy takes, nor witch has power to charm."

Thus, also, in The comedy of errors:

"A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough.

They were amazingly expeditious in their journies: Puck, or Robin Good-fellow, answers Oberon, who was about to send him on a secret expedition:

"I'll put a girdle round about the earthIn forty minutes."

Again, the same goblin addresses him thus:

"Fairy king, attend and mark,I do hear the morning lark. Obe. Then, my queen, in silence sad,Trip we after the nights shade,We the globe can compass soon,Swifter than the wand'ring moon."

In another place Puck says:

"My fairy lord this must be done in haste;For Nights swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,And yonder shines Auroras harbinger;At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,Troop home to church-yards, &c."

To which Oberon replies:

"But we are spirits of another sort:I with the mornings love have oft made sport;And, like a forester, the groves may tread.Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,Turns into yellow gold his salt-green streams."

Compare, likewise, what Robin himself says on this subject in the old song of his exploits.

They never ate:

"But that it eats our victuals, I should think,Here were a fairy,"

says Belarius at the first sight of Imogen, as Fidele.^[36]

They were humanely attentive to the youthful dead. Thus Guiderius at the funeral of the above lady:

"With female fairies will his tomb be haunted."

Or, as in the pathetic dirge of Collins on the same occasion:

"No wither'd witch shall here be seen, No goblins lead their nightly crew;The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew."

This amiable quality is, likewise, thus beautifully alluded to by the same poet:

"By fairy hands their knell is rung,By forms unseen their dirge is sung."

Their employment is thus charmingly represented by Shakspeare, in the address of Prospero:

"Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,And ye, that on the sands, with printless foot,Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demy-puppets, thatBy moon-shine do the green-sour ringlets make,^[37]Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew"——

In The midsummer nights dream, the queen, Titania, being desirous to take a nap, says to her female attendants:

"Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song;Then, for the third part of a minute hence:Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rosebuds;Some, war with rear-mice, for their leathern wings,To make my small elves coats; and some, keep backThe clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders,At our quaint spirits^[38]: Sing me now asleep;Then to your offices, and let me rest."

Milton gives a most beautiful and accurate description of the little green-coats of his native soil, than which nothing can be more happily or justly expressed he had certainly seen them, in this situation, with "the poets eye:"

"——fairie elves,Whose midnight revels, by a forest sideOr fountain, some belated peasant sees,Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon,Sits arbitress, and neerer to the earthWheels her pale course, they, on thir mirth and danceIntent, with jocond music charm his ear;At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."^[39]

The impression they had made upon his imagination in early life appears from his "Vacation exercise," at the age of nineteen:

"Good luck befriend thee, son; for, at thy birth,The faiery ladies daunc't upon the hearth;The drowsie nurse hath sworn she did them spie,Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie;.And sweetly singing round about thy bed,Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head."

L'abbé Bourdelon, in his "Ridiculous extravagances of M. Oufle," describes "The fairies, of which," he says, " grandmothers and nurses tell so many tales to children; these fairies," adds he, "I mean, who are affirmed to be blind at home, and very clear-sighted abroad; who dance in the moonshine, when they have nothing else to do; who steal shepherds and children, to carry them up to their caves, &c."^[40]

The fairies have already called themselves spirits, ghosts, or shadows, and, consequently, they never died; a position, at the same time, of which there is every kind of proof that a fact can require. The reviser of Johnson and Steevens's edition of Shakspeare, in 1785, crows not a little, upon his dunghill, at having been able to turn the tables upon his adversary, by a ridiculous reference to the allegories of Spenser, and a palpably false one to Tickells "Kensington-gardens," which he affirms, will shew that the opinion of Fairies dying prevailed in the present century,' whereas, in fact, it is found, on the slightest glance into the poem, to maintain the direct reverse:

"Mean-while sad Kenna, loath to quit the grove,Hung o'er the body of her breathless love,Try'd every art, (vain arts!) to change his doom,And vow'd (vain vows!) to join him in the tomb.What could she do? the Fates alike denyThe dead to live, or fairy forms to die."

Ashamed, however, of the public detection of his falsehood, he meanly omitted it in the next edition, without having a single word to allege in his defence: though he had still the confidence to represent it as "a misfortune to the commentators of Shakspeare, that so much of their [invaluable] time is obliged [for the sake of money] to be employed in explaining [by absurdity] and contradicting [by falsehood] unfounded conjectures and assertions;" which, in fact, (unfounded if they were, as is by no means true), though he was hardy enough to contradict, he was unable to explain, and did not, in reality, understand, contenting himself with an extract altogether foreign to the purpose, at second hand.

The fact, after all, is so positively proved, that no editor, or commentator, of Shakspeare, present or future, will ever have the folly or impudence to assert "that in Shakspeare's time the notion of fairies dying was generally known."

Ariosto informs us (in Haringtons translation, b. 10, s. 47) that

 ——"(either auncient folke believ'd a lie,Or this is true) a fayrie cannot die:"

and, again (b. 43, s. 92):

"I am a fayrie, and, to make you know,To be a fayrie what it doth import, We cannot dye, how old so ear we grow.Of paines and harmes of ev'rie other sortWe tast, onelie no death we nature ow."

Beaumont and Fletcher, in The faithful shepherdess, describe

"A virtuous well, about whose flow'ry banksThe nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,By the pale moon-shine, dipping oftentimesTheir stolen children, so to make 'em freeFrom dying flesh, and dull mortality."

Puck, alias Robin Good-fellow, is the most active and extraordinary fellow of a fairy that we anywhere meet with; and it is believed we find him no where but in our own country, and, peradventure also, only in the south. Spenser, it would seem, is the first that alludes to his name of Puck:

"Ne let the Pouke, nor other evill spright,Ne let Hob-goblins, names whose sense we see not,Fray us with things that be not."^[41]

"In our childhood," says Reginald Scot, "our mothers maids have so terrified us with an oughe divell, having hornes on his head, fier in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eies like a bason, fanges like a dog, clawes like a beare, a skin like a niger, and a voice roaring like a lion, whereby we start, and are afraid when we heare one crie Bough! and they have so fraied us with bull-beggers, spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, sylens, Kit with the cansticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giants, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changling, Incubus, Robin Good-fellow, the spoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell wain, the fier drake, the puckle,^[42] Tom Thombe, Hob gobblin,^[43] Tom Tumbler, boneles, and such other bugs, that we are afraid of our owne shadowes."^[44] "And know you this by the waie," he says, "that heretofore Robin Good-fellow, and Hob goblin, were as terrible, and also as credible to the people, as hags and witches be now... And in truth, they that mainteine walking spirits have no reason to denie Robin Good-fellow, upon whom there hath gone as manie, and as credible, tales, as upon witches; saving that it hath not pleased the translators of the bible to call spirits by the name of Robin Good-fellow."^[45]

"Your grandams maides," he says, "were woont to set a boll of milke before 'Incubus,' and his cousine Robin Good-fellow, for grinding of malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight; and you have also heard that he would chafe exceedingly, if the maid or good-wife of the house, having compassion of his nakednes, laid anie clothes for him, beesides his messe of white bread and milke, which was his standing fee. For in that case he saith, What have we here?

Hemton hamten,Here will I never more tread nor stampen."^[46]

Robin is thus characterised, in the Midsummer nights dream, by a female fairy:

"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,Or else you are that shrewd and knavish spriteCall'd Robin Good-fellow; are you not heThat fright the maidens of the villagery,Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;And sometime make the drink to bear ne barm,Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm.Those that Hob-goblin call you and sweet Puck,^[47]You do their work, and they shall have good luck."

To these questions Robin thus replies:

 ——"Thou speak'st aright,I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,When I a fat, and bean-fed horse beguile,Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:And sometimes lurk I in a gossips bowl,In very likeness of a roasted crab;And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me,Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,And 'rails or' cries,^[48] and falls into a cough,And then the whole quire hold their hips and lough, And 'yexen'^[49] in their mirth, and neeze, and swearA merrier hour was never wasted there."

His usual exclamation in this play, is Ho, ho, ho!

"Ho, ho, ho! Coward why com'st thou not."^[50]

So in Grim the collier of Croydon:

"Ho, ho, ho, my masters! No good fellowship!Is Robin Good-fellow a bug-bear grown,That he is not worthy to be bid sit down?"

In the song printed by Peck, he concludes every stanza with Ho, ho, ho!

 

"If that the bowle of curds and creame were not duly set out for Robin Good-fellow, the frier,^[51] and Sisse the dairy-maid, why then either the pottage was burnt-to next day in the pot, or the cheeses would not curdle, or the butter would not come, or the ale in the fat never would have good head. But if a Peter-penny, or an housle-egge were behind, or a patch of tythe unpaid,—then 'ware of bull-beggars, spirits, &c."

This frolicksome spirit thus describes himself in Jonsons masque of Love restored: "Robin Good-fellow, he that sweeps the hearth and the house clean, riddles for the country-maids, and does all their other drudgery, while they are at hot-cockles; one that has conversed with your court-spirits ere now." Having recounted several ineffectual attempts he had made to gain admittance, he adds: "In this despair, when all invention and translation too failed me, I e'en went back, and stuck to this shape you see me in of mine own, with my broom, and my canles, and came on confidently." The mention of his broom reminds us of a passage in another play, Midsummer nights dream, where he tells the audience,

"I am sent with broom before,To sweep the dust behind the door."

He is likewise one of the dramatis personæ in the old play of Wily beguiled, in which he says "Tush! fear not the dodge: I'll rather put on my flashing red nose, and my flaming face and come wrap'd in a calf-skin, and cry bo, bo: I'll pay the scholar I warrant thee."^[52] His character, however, in this piece, is so diabolical, and so different from any thing one could expect in Robin Good-fellow, that it is unworthy of further quotation.

He appears, likewise, in another, intitled Grim, the collier of Croydon, in which he enters "in a suit of leather close to his body; his face and hands coloured russet colour, with a 'flail.'"

He is here, too, in most respects, the same strange and diabolical personage that he is represented in Wily beguiled; only there is a single passage which reminds us of his old habits:

"When as I list in this transform'd disguise,I'll fright the country people as I pass;And sometimes turn me to some other form,And so delude them with fantastic shews.But woe betide the silly dairy-maids,For I shall fleet their cream-bowls night by night."

In another scene he enters, while some of the other characters are at a bowl of cream, upon which he says,

"I love a mess of cream as well as they,I think it were best I stept in and made one:Ho, ho, ho, my masters! No good fellowship?Is Robin Good-fellow a bug-bear grown,That he is not worthy to be bid sit down."

There is, indeed, something characteristic in this passage, but all the rest is totally foreign.

Doctor Percy, bishop of Dromore, has reprinted in his Reliques of ancient English poetry, a very curious and excellent old ballad, originally published by Peck, who attributes it, but with no similitude, to Ben Jonson; in which Robin Good-fellow relates his exploits, with singular humour. To one of these copies, he says, "were prefixed two wooden cuts which seem to represent the dresses in which this whimsical character was formerly exhibited upon the stage." In this conjecture, however, the learned and ingenious editor was most egregiously mistaken: these cuts being manifestly printed from the identical blocks made use of by Bulwer in his "Artificial changeling," printed in 1615; the first being intended for one of the black and white gallants of Seale-bay, adorned with the moon, stars, &c. the other a hairy savage. After this discovery, originally made by the present compiler, the right reverend prelate changes his tone, but cannot prevail upon himself to part entirely with the dear illusion. Having mentioned that these two wooden cuts are "said to be taken from Bulwers Artificial change. ling, &c. [a book, by the way, of easy access, and, probably enough in his lordships own possession,] which, as they seem to correspond ["Seems! I know not seems"] with the notions then entertained of the whimsical appearances, of this fantastic spirit, and perhaps were copied in the dresses in which he was formerly exhibited on the stage, are, to gratify the curious [with an imposture] engraven below." Nothing, surely was ever more ridiculous and contemptible; we know by these extracts how "he was formerly exhibited upon the stage," and that it was not like a Seale-bay gallant or hairy savage; and moreover, that these blocks, manifestly engraved for Bulwers work, in which are many others of the same kind, were calculated merely to give an idea of some barbarous nations in foreign parts, and could not, possibly, have the most slight or distant allusion to the English stage. How, therefore, durst this learned but pertinacious prelate, (as, whatever he was when he first published his book, he is now, when he has given a new edition with alterations and additions,) affirm that "all confidence [had] been destroyed" by the inadvertent transposition of two syllables, and the omission of a note of interrogation; and that only in the preface to a book, in which the passage occurs, accurately printed; which passage, by the way he himself "being quoting," as he pretends " from memory," (though he is not willing to allow a similar apology to any one else, in the same case,) had already corrupted, "the better," in his own words, "to favour a position" that Maggy Lawder is an "old song."

Burton, speaking of fairies, says that "a bigger kind there is of them, called with Hobgoblins, and Robin Good-fellowes, that would in those superstitious times, grinde corne for a messe of milke, cut wood, or do any kind of drudgery worke." Afterward, of the dæmons that mislead men in the night, he says, "We commonly call them Pucks."^[53]

Cartwright, in The ordinary, introduces Moth, repeating this curious charm:

"Saint Francis, and Saint Benedight,Blesse this house from wicked wight;From the night-mare, and the goblinThat is hight Good-fellow Robin;Keep it from all evil spirits,Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets:   From curfew-time,   To the next prime."^[54]

This Puck, or Robin Good-fellow, seems, likewise, to be the illusory candle-holder, so fatal to travellers, and who is more usually called Jack-a-lantern, or Will-with-a-wisp; and, as it would seem from a passage elsewhere cited from Scot "Kit with the canstick." Thus a fairy, in a passage of Shakspeare, already quoted, asks Robin,

 "——Are you not heThat fright the maidens of the villagery,Mislead night-wanderers laughing at their harm?"

Milton alludes to this deceptive gleam in the following lines:

"——A wandering fire,Compact of unctuous vapour, which the nightCondenses, and the cold environs round,Kindled through agitation to a flame,Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,Hovering and blazing with delusive light,Misleads th' amaz'd night-wanderer from his wayTo bogs, and mires, and oft through pond and pool."^[55]

He elsewhere calls him "the friers lantern."^[56] This facetious spirit only misleads the benighted traveller (generally an honest farmer, in his way from the market, in a state of intoxication) for the jokes sake; as one, very seldom, if ever, hears any of his deluded followers (who take it to be the torch of Hero in some hospitable mansion, affording "provision for man and horse") perishing in these ponds or pools, through which they dance or plunge after him so merrily.

"There go as manie tales," says Reginald Scot, upon Hudgin, in some parts of Germanie, as there did in England of Robin Good-fellow.... Frier Rush was for all the world such another fellow as this Hudgin, and brought up even in the same schoole; to wit, in a kitchen: insomuch as the selfe-same tale is written of the one as of the other, concerning the skullian, who is said to have beene slaine, &c. for the reading whereof I referre you to frier Rush his storie, or else to John Wierus, De præstigis dæmonum."^[57]

In the old play of Gammer Gurtons needle, printed in 1575, Hodge, describing a "great black devil," which had been raised by Diccon the bedlam, and, being asked by Gammer,

——"But, Hodge, had he no horns to push?"

replies:

"As long as your two arms. Saw ye never fryer rushe,Painted on a cloth, with a side-long cowes tayle,And crooked cloven feet, and many a hoked nayle.For al the world (if I schuld judg) chould reckon him his brother;Loke even what face frier Rush had, the devil had such another."

The fairies frequented many parts of the bishopric of Durham. There is a hillock, or tumulus, near Bishopton, and a large hill near Billingham, both which used, in former time, to be "haunted by fairies." Even Ferry-hill, a well-known stage between Darlington and Durham, is evidently a corruption of Fairy-hill. When seen, by accident or favour, they are described as of the smallest size, and uniformly habited in green. They could, however, occasionally, assume a different size and appearance; as a woman, who had been admitted into their society, challenged one of the guests, whom she espied, in the market, selling fairy-butter.^[58] This freedom was deeply resented, and cost her the eye she first saw him with. Mr. Brand mentions his having met with a man, who said he had seen one that had seen fairies. Truth, he adds, is to come at, in most cases; none he believes ever came nearer to it, in this, than he has done. However that may be, the present editor cannot pretend to have been more fortunate. His informant related that an acquaintance, in Westmoreland, having a great desire, and praying earnestly to see a fairy, was told, by a friend, if not a fairy in disguise, that on the side of such a hill, at such a time of day, he should have a sight of one; and, accordingly, at the time and place appointed, "the hob goblin," in his own words, "stood before him in the likeness of a green-coat lad;" but, in the same instant, the spectators eye glancing, vanished into the hill. This, he said, the man told him.

The streets of Newcastle, says Mr. Brand, "were formerly (so vulgar tradition has it) haunted by a nightly guest, which appeared in the shape of a mastiff dog, &c. and terrified such as were afraid of shadows. I have heard," he adds, "when a boy, many stories concerning it." It is to be lamented that, as this gentleman was endeavouring to illustrate a very dull book, on this and similar subjects, he did not think it worth his while to make it a little more interesting, or, at least, amusing, by a few of these pleasant tales.

The no less famous barguest^[59] of Durham, and the Picktree-brag, have been already alluded to. The former, beside its many other pranks, would, sometimes, at the dead of night, in passing through the different streets set up the most horrid and continuous shrieks in order to scare the poor girls who might happen to be out of bed. The compiler of the present sheets remembers, when very young, to have heard a respectable old woman, then a midwife at Stockton, relate, that, when, in her youthful days, she was a servant at Durham, being up late one Saturday-night, cleaning the irons in the kitchen, she heard these skrikes, first at a great, and then at a less, distance, till, at length, the loudest, and most horrible, that can be conceived, just at the kitchen-window, sent her up-stairs, she did not know how, where she fell into the arms of a fellow-servant, who could scarcely prevent her fainting away.

"Pioners or diggers for metal," according to Lavater, "do affirme, that, in many mines, there appeare straunge shapes and spirites, who are apparelled like unto other laborers in the pit. These wander up and down in caves and underminings, and seeme to bestuire themselves in all kinde of labour, as to digge after the veine, to carrie togither oare, to put it in baskets, and to turne the winding-whele to drawe it up, when, in very deede, they do nothing lesse. They very seldome hurte the laborers (as they say) except they provoke them by laughing and rayling at them: for then they threw gravel stones at them, or hurt them by some other means. These are especially haunting in pittes where mettall moste aboundeth."^[60]

This is our great Miltons

——"Swart faëry of the mine."^[61]

"Simple foolish men imagine, I know not howe, that there be certayne elves or fairies of the earth, and tell many straunge and marvellous tales of them, which they have heard of their grandmothers and mothers, howe they have appeared unto those of the house, have done service, have rocked the cradell, and (which is a signe of good lucke) do continually tary in the house."^[62]

Mallet, though without citing any authority, says "After all, the notion is not every where exploded that there are in the bowels of the earth fairies, or a kind of dwarfish and tiny beings, of human shape, and remarkable for their riches, their activity, and malevolence. In many countries of the north, the people are still firmly persuaded of their existence. In Ireland, at this day, the good folks shew the very rocks and hills, in which they maintain that there are swarms of these small subterraneous men, of the most tiny size, but the most delicate figures."^[63]

Sheringham, having mentioned the gods of the Germans, adds, "Among us, truly, this superstition, and foolish credulity, among the vulgar, is not yet left off; for I know not what fables old women suggest to boys and girls about elves (with us by another word called fairies), by which their tender minds they so imbue, that they never depose these old-wifish ravings, but deliver them to others, and vulgarly affirm that groups of elves sometimes dance in bed-chambers, sometimes (that they may benefit the maids) scour and cleanse the pavement, and sometimes are wont to grind with a hand-mill."^[64]

There is not a more generally received opinion, throughout the principality of Wales, than that of the existence of Fairies: amongst the commonalty it is, indeed, universal, and, by no means unfrequently, credited by the second ranks.^[65]

Fairies are said, at a distant period, "to have frequented Bussers-hill in St. Marys island; but their nightly pranks, aërial gambols, and cockleshell abodes, are now quite unknown."^[66]

"Evil spirits, called fairies, are frequently seen in several of the isles [of Orkney], dancing, and making merry, and sometimes seen in armour."^[67]

1. Iliad, B. 24, V. 776. The word Fairy, as used in our own language, is a mere blunder; the proper name of the French Fairy is Faée or Fée, or in English Fay; Faërie, or Féerie, which we apply to the person, being, in fact, the country, or kingdom, of the Fays, or what we call Fairyland. We have committed a similar mistake in the word barley; which signifies, in fact, the ley, or land upon which the bear grows (bene, hordeum, leag, a ley).
2. Geor. L. 2, V. 493.
3. Carmina, L. 1, O. 1, V. 30.
4. Recherches des antiquitez de Vienne, Lyon, 1659, p. 168.
5. Chorier, Recherches, &c. Oenone, in one of Ovids epistles, says—
   "Edita de magno flumine Nympha fui."
   

   See, also, Homers Odyssey, B. 13; and Porphyry De antro Nympharum. These watry nymphs were, likewise, called Naiades, others were, Oreades, &c. according to the objects to which they were attached or over which they presided.

6. B. 3, c. 9.
7. Discoverie of witchcraft, London, 1584, p. 521.
8. Pleasuunt treatise of witches, 1673, p. 53.
9. B. 3, p. 39.
10. B. 3, c. 10.
11. Heywoods Hierarchic of angells, 1635, fo. p. 574.
12. Peter Loyer says, he can no more believe the history of Melusine than those "olde wives tales, and idle toyes, and fictions of the fayrie Pedagua," &c. (Treatise of Spectres, 1605, fo. 19.) "Certainly," he adds, "if all the nymphes [or fays], of which I have spoken, have at any time appeared unto men, it cannot be imagined but that they must needs be spirits and divels: and the truth is, that, even at this day, it is thought, in some of the northern regions, they do yet appeare to divers persons; and the report is, that they have a care and doe diligently attend little infantes lying in the cradle; that they doe dresse and undresse them in their swathling clothes, and do performe all that which careful nurses can do unto their children."
13. [Fabliaux. 12mo. i. 112.]
14. V. Caylus, Mem. de l'aca. des belles let. xx.
15. D'Israelis Romances, p. 13.
16. [Ib. p. 75.]
17. Otia imperialia, D. 1, c. 18.
18. L'allegro.
19. Beaumont and Fletchers Knight of the burning pestle, A. 3, S. 1. A female fairy, in Midsummer nights dream says to Robin Good-fellow: "Farewell, thou lob of spirits."
20. See the tale of the Maath doog.
21. It should rather be unfortunate.
22. That is, gets up behind him.
23. Otia imperialia, D. 3, c. 61.
24. Picktree, in the bishopric of Durham, is a small collection of huts, erected for the colliers, about two miles to the north-east of Chester.
25. Gervase, D. 3, c. 62.
26. Confessio amantis, fo. 20, b.
27. Ibi. fo. 32, b. These are the first instances faye or fairie is mentioned in English; but the whole of Gowers work is suspected to be made up of licentious translations from the Latin or French.
28. Wif of Bathes tale.
29. Romeo and Juliet.
30. Works, V, 201.
31. Thus, too, Shakspeare, in The M. W. of W.
    "Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap:Where fires thou find'st unraked, and hearths unswept,There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry:Our radiant queen hates sluts, and sluttery."
    
    Milton, likewise, gives her the same name:
    "With stories told of many a feat,How faery Mab the junkets eat."
    

    So, too, Jonson, in the above entertainment:

    "Fairies, pinch him black and blue,Now you have him, make him true."
    

    And, in Miltons Allegro:

    "She was pincht, and pull'd she sed."
    

    Again, in the same play:

    "Where's Pead?—Go you, and where you find a maid,That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers say'd,Raise up the organs of her fantasySleep she as sound as careless infancy;But those as sleep, and think not on their sins,Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins."
    
32. Bournes Antiquitates vulgares, Newcastle, 1725, 8vo. p. 82.
33. In the same play is this line
    "You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny,"
    

    for which Warburton proposes to read "ouphen-heirs."

34. P. 408.
35. Otia imperialia, D. 1, c. 17. This is what is now called the night-mare.
36. They, nevertheless, sometimes haunted the buttery: "Have you nothing to do [quoth the widow to her husband Jack, after she had, by a trick, got him to the wrong side of the door, and locked him out] but dance about the street at this time of night, and, like a spirit of the buttery hunt after crickets?" (Jack of Newbury.)
37. Thus, also, in The merry wives of windsor:
    "You moon-shine revellers, and shades of night."
    
38. Sports.
39. Paradise lost, B. 1.
40. English translation, p. 190. He cites, in a note, that Cornelius van Kempen assures us, that, in the reign of the emperor Lotharius, about the year 830, there appeared in Friesland a great number of fairies, who took up their residence in caves, or on the tops of hills, and mountains, whence they descended in the night, to steal away the shepherds from their flocks, snatch away children out of their cradles, and carry both away to their caves: referring to Bekkers World bewitched, p. 1, 290. These fairies only agree with ours in their fondness for children.
41. Epithalamium.
42. Perhaps a typographical error for Pucke.
43. Not, as mr. Tyrwhitt has supposed, Hop goblin, Hob being a well-known diminutive of Robin; and even this learned gentleman seems to have forgotten a still more notorious character of his own time,—Hob in the well.
44. Discoverie of witchcraft, London, 1584, 4to. p. 153.
45. P. 131.
46. Discoverie of witchcraft, p. 85.
47. Puck, in fact.
48. This is Warburtons reading, which has, surely, more sense than the, apparently, corrupted reading of the old and new editions, "tailor cries," which doctor Johnson, miserably, attempts to defend by asserting, that "the trick of the fairy is represented as producing rather merriment than anger."—Had, however, the worthy doctor ever chanced to fall by the removal from under him, of a three-foot stool, it is very doubtful whether he himself would have expressed much pleasure on feeling the pain of the fall, and finding himself the laughing-stock of the whole company. He would have been more ready, like the frogs in the fable, to exclaim "This may be sport to you, but it is death to me." The old woman had reason both to rail and cry, as she would naturally suspect the stool had been plucked from under her just as she was going to sit down; than which there cannot well be a more disagreeable accident, as the incredulous reader who doubts the fact, may be easily convinced of, by trying the experiment.
49. Yexen is to hiccup; a much better reading than waxen. It was originally suggested by doctor Farmer, but never adopted.
50. It is officiously altered, in the last edition, to Ho, ho! ho, ho!
51. Frier Rush.
52. Harsnets Declaration, London, 1604, 4to.
53. Anatomy of melancholic.
54. Act 3, scene 1.
55. Paradise lost, B. 9. This great poet is frequently content to pilfer a happy expression from Shakspeare—On this occasion "night-wanderer," on a former "the easterngate."
56. L'allegro:
    "And by the friers lantern led."
    
57. Discoverie of witchcraft, p. 521. The historie of frier Rushe, a common stall, or chap, book, in the time of queen Elizabeth, and even down to the fire of London; since which event it has never been met with. The story of Hudgin will be found among the Tales.
58. This is well known, and frequently found on old trees, gate-posts, &c.
59. The etymology of this word is, most probably, from the Saxon bung, a city, and zart, a spirit: or, possibly, from a bar, or gate, in York, which was, likewise, once haunted by a goblin of this name.
60. Of ghostes, &c. London, 1572, 4to. p. 73. He has this from Sebastian Munster: see Olaus Magnus, L. 6, c. 10. George Agricola, however, is the original author,—whose words are "Utut jocamur genus certè dæmonum in fodinis nonnullis versari compertum est; quorum quidem nihil damni metallicis inferunt, sed in puteis vagant, videntur se exercere: nunc cavando venam, nunc ingerendo in modulos id quod effossum est, nunc machinam versando tractoriam, nunc irritando operarios, idque potissimum faciunt in his specubus è quibus multum argenti effoditur, vel magna ejus inveniendi spes est." (Bermannus, 432.) He calls this demon metallicus, in German, "Das bergmelin."
61. Comus.
62. Of ghostes, &c. p. 49.
63. Northern Antiquities, &c. ii, 47.
64. De Anglorum origine, p. 320. This is the observation of a gloomy and malignant mind; as the idea of a fairy could never inspire any but pleasing sensations; these little people being always distinguished for their innocent mirth, and benevolent utility. It was far otherwise, indeed, with superstition and witchcraft, which, though equally false, were nevertheless, as firmly believed; as they induced ignorance and bigotry to commit horrid crimes; but nothing of this kind is imputable to the fairies. So strongly, according to Waldron, are the Manks possessed of the belief of fairies, and so frequently do they imagine to have seen and heard them, that they are not in the least terrified at them, but, on the contrary, rejoice whenever visited by them, as supposing them friends to mankind, and that they never come without bringing good fortune along with them. They call them the good people, all the houses are blessed where they visit. The Scots, likewise, call them the good neighbours.
65. Pratts Gleanings, &c. i, 137. He mentions a Welsh clergyman, who not only believes in Fairies, but is even so infatuated on the subject as to imagine they are continually in his presence, and has written a book about them.
66. Heaths Account of the islands of Scilly, p. 129.
67. Brands Description of Orkney, Edin. 1703, p. 61: at p. 112, is some account of a brouny.