44
ON FAIRIES.
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."[1]
"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, where-
- ↑ Epithalamium.
