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,
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."[1]
Hamlet, too, notices this imputed malignity of the fairies:
Thus, also, in The comedy of errors:
- ↑ Otia imperialia, D. 1, c. 17. This is what is now called the night-mare.
