28
ON FAIRIES.
(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"—
