Chapter XIX: Act III: Scene 4 (1)

_Dorylas with a bevy of Fairies._

_Dor._ How like you now, my Grace? Is not my countenance
Royal and full of majesty? Walk not I
Like the young prince of pygmies? Ha, my knaves,
We'll fill our pockets. Look, look yonder, elves;
Would not yon apples tempt a better conscience
Than any we have, to rob an orchard? Ha!
Fairies, like nymphs with child, must have the things
They long for. You sing here a fairy catch
In that strange tongue I taught you, while ourself
Do climb the trees. Thus princely Oberon
Ascends his throne of state.

_Elves._ Nos beata Fauni proles,
Quibus non est magna moles,
Quamvis Lunam incolamus.
Hortos sæpe frequentamus.

Furto cuncta magis bella,
Furto dulcior puella,
Furto omnia decora,
Furto poma dulciora.

Cum mortales lecto jacent,
Nobis poma noctu placent;
Illa tamen sunt ingrata
Nisi furto sint parata.

Jocastus and his man Bromius come upon the Elves while plundering the orchard: the latter is for employing his cudgel on the occasion, but Jocastus is overwhelmed by the condescension of the princely Oberon in coming to his orchard, when

His Grace had orchards of his own more precious
Than mortals can have any.

The Elves, by his master's permission, pinch Bromius, singing,

Quoniam per te violamur,
Ungues hic experiamur;
Statim dices tibi datam
Cutem valde variatam.

Finally, when the coast is clear, Oberon cries,

So we are got clean off; come, noble peers
Of Fairy, come, attend our royal Grace.
Let's go and share our fruit with our queen Mab
And the other dairy-maids; where of this theme
We will discourse amidst our cakes and cream.

Cum tot poma habeamus,
Triumphos læti jam canamus;
Faunos ego credam ortos,
Tantum ut frequentent hortos.

I domum, Oberon, ad illas,
Quæ nos manent nunc, ancillas,
Quarum osculemur sinum,
Inter poma lac et vinum.

In the old play of Fuimus Troes are the following lines:[404]

Fairies small,
Two foot tall,
With caps red
On their head,
Danse around
On the ground.

The pastoral poets also employed the Fairy Mythology. Had they used it exclusively, giving up the Nymphs, Satyrs, and all the rural rout of antiquity, and joined with it faithful pictures of the scenery England then presented, with just delineations of the manners and character of the peasantry, the pastoral poetry of that age would have been as unrivalled as its drama. But a blind admiration of classic models, and a fondness for allegory, were the besetting sins of the poets. They have, however, left a few gems in this way.

Britannia's Pastorals furnish the following passages:[405]

Near to this wood there lay a pleasant mead,
Where fairies often did their measures tread,
Which in the meadows made such circles green,
As if with garlands it had crowned been;
Or like the circle where the signs we track,
And learned shepherds call 't the Zodiac;
Within one of these rounds was to be seen
A hillock rise, where oft the fairy-queen
At twilight sate, and did command her elves
To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves;
And, further, if, by maiden's oversight,
Within doors water was not brought at night,
Or if they spread no table, set no bread,
They should have nips from toe unto the head;
And for the maid who had perform'd each thing,
She in the water-pail bade leave a ring.
_Song 2._

Or of the faiery troops which nimbly play,
And by the springs dance out the summer's day,
Teaching the little birds to build their nests,
And in their singing how to keepen rests.
_Song 4._

As men by fairies led fallen in a dream.
_Ibid._

In his Shepherd's Pipe, also, Brown thus speaks of the Fairies:--

Many times he hath been seen
With the fairies on the green,
And to them his pipe did sound
While they danced in a round.
Mickle solace they would make him,
And at midnight often wake him
And convey him from his room
To a field of yellow-broom;
Or into the meadows where
Mints perfume the gentle air,
And where Flora spreads her treasure;
There they would begin their measure.
If it chanced night's sable shrouds
Muffled Cynthia up in clouds,
Safely home they then would see him,
And from brakes and quagmires free him.

But Drayton is the poet after Shakespeare for whom the Fairies had the greatest attractions. Even in the Polyolbion he does not neglect them. In Song xxi., Ringdale, in Cambridgeshire, says,

For in my very midst there is a swelling ground
About which Ceres' nymphs dance many a wanton round;
The frisking fairy there, as on the light air borne,
Oft run at barley-break upon the cars of corn;
And catching drops of dew in their lascivious chases,
Do cast the liquid pearl in one another's faces.

And in Song iv., he had spoken of

The feasts that underground the faëry did him (Arthur) make,
And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake.

Nymphidia is a delicious piece of airy and fanciful invention. The description of Oberon's palace in the air, Mab's amours with the gentle Pigwiggin, the mad freaks of the jealous Oberon, the pygmy Orlando, the mutual artifices of Puck and the Fairy maids of honour, Hop, Mop, Pip, Trip, and Co., and the furious combat of Oberon and the doughty Pigwiggin, mounted on their earwig chargers--present altogether an unequalled fancy-piece, set in the very best and most appropriate frame of metre.

It contains, moreover, several traits of traditionary Fairy lore, such as in these lines:--

Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes
Of little frisking elves and apes,
To earth do make their wanton skapes
As hope of pastime hastes them;
Which maids think on the hearth they see,
When fires well near consumed be,
There dancing hays by two and three,
Just as their fancy casts them.[406]

These make our girls their sluttery rue,
By pinching them both black and blue,
And put a penny in their shoe.
The house for cleanly sweeping;
And in their courses make that round,
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so call'd the fairy ground,
Of which they have the keeping.

These, when a child haps to be got,
That after proves an idiot,
When folk perceive it thriveth not,
The fault therein to smother,
Some silly, doating, brainless calf,
That understands things by the half,
Says that the fairy left this aulf,
And took away the other.

And in these:--

Scarce set on shore but therewithal
He meeteth Puck, whom most men call
Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall
With words from frenzy spoken;
"Ho! ho!" quoth Puck, "God save your Grace!
Who drest you in this piteous case?
He thus that spoiled my sovereign's face,
I would his neck were broken.

This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt.
Still walking like a ragged colt,
And oft out of a bush doth bolt,
Of purpose to deceive us;
And leading us, makes us to stray
Long winter nights out of the way;
And when we stick in mire and clay,
He doth with laughter leave us.

In his Poet's Elysium there is some beautiful Fairy poetry, which we do not recollect to have seen noticed any where. This work is divided into ten Nymphals, or pastoral dialogues. The Poet's Elysium is, we are told, a paradise upon earth, inhabited by Poets, Nymphs, and the Muses.

The poet's paradise this is,
To which but few can come,
The Muses' only bower of bliss,
Their dear Elysium.

In the eighth Nymphal,

A nymph is married to a fay,
Great preparations for the day,
All rites of nuptials they recite you
To the bridal, and invite you.

The dialogue commences between the nymphs Mertilla and Claia:--

_M._ But will our Tita wed this fay?

_C._ Yes, and to-morrow is the day.

_M._ But why should she bestow herself
Upon this dwarfish fairy elf?

_C._ Why, by her smallness, you may find
That she is of the fairy kind;
And therefore apt to choose her make
Whence she did her beginning take;
Besides he's deft and wondrous airy,
And of the noblest of the fairy,[407]
Chief of the Crickets,[408] of much fame,
In Fairy a most ancient name.

The nymphs now proceed to describe the bridal array of Tita: her jewels are to be dew-drops; her head-dress the "yellows in the full-blown rose;" her gown

Of pansy, pink, and primrose leaves,
Most curiously laid on in threaves;

her train the "cast slough of a snake;" her canopy composed of "moons from the peacock's tail," and "feathers from the pheasant's head;"

Mix'd with the plume (of so high price),
The precious bird of paradise;

and it shall be

Borne o'er our head (by our inquiry)
By elfs, the fittest of the fairy.

Her buskins of the "dainty shell" of the lady-cow. The musicians are to be the nightingale, lark, thrush, and other songsters of the grove.

But for still music, we will keep
The wren and titmouse, which to sleep
Shall sing the bride when she's alone,
The rest into their chambers gone;
And like those upon ropes that walk
On gossamer from stalk to stalk,
The tripping fairy tricks shall play
The evening of the wedding day.

Finally, the bride-bed is to be of roses; the curtains, tester, and all, of the "flower imperial;" the fringe hung with harebells; the pillows of lilies, "with down stuft of the butterfly;"

For our Tita is to-day,
To be married to a fay.

In Nymphal iii.,

The fairies are hopping,
The small flowers cropping,
And with dew dropping,
Skip thorow the greaves.

At barley-break they play
Merrily all the day:
At night themselves they lay
Upon the soft leaves.

And in Nymphal vi. the forester says,

The dryads, hamadryads, the satyrs, and the fawns,
Oft play at hide-and-seek before me on the lawns;
The frisking fairy oft, when horned Cynthia shines,
Before me as I walk dance wanton matachines.

Herrick is generally regarded as the Fairy-poet, _par excellence_; but, in our opinion, without sufficient reason, for Drayton's Fairy pieces are much superior to his. Indeed Herrick's Fairy-poetry is by no means his best; and we doubt if he has anything to exceed in that way, or perhaps equal, the light and fanciful King Oberon's Apparel of Smith.[409]

Milton disdained not to sing

How faëry Mab the junkets eat.
She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said;
And he, by _friar's_ lantern led,[410]
Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
To earn his _cream bowl duly set_,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,
And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And, crop-full, out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Regardless of Mr. Gifford's sneer at "those who may undertake the unprofitable drudgery of tracing out the property of every word, and phrase, and idea in Milton,"[411] we will venture to trace a little here, and beg the reader to compare this passage with one quoted above from Harsenet, and to say if the resemblance be accidental. The truth is, Milton, reared in London, probably knew the popular superstitions chiefly or altogether from books; and almost every idea in this passage may be found in books that he must have read.

In the hands of Dryden the Elves of Chaucer lose their indefiniteness. In the opening of the Wife of Bath her Tale,

The king of elves and _little_ fairy queen
Gamboled on heaths and danced on every green.

And

In vain the dairy now with mint is dressed,
The dairy-maid expects no fairy guest
To skim the bowls, and after pay the feast.
She sighs, and shakes her empty shoes in vain,
No silver penny to reward her pain.

In the Flower and the Leaf, unauthorised by the old bard, he makes the knights and dames, the servants of the Daisy and of the Agnus Castus, Fairies, subject, like the Italian Fate, to "cruel Demogorgon."

Pope took equal liberties with his original, as may be seen by a comparison of the following verses with those quoted above:--

About this spring, if ancient fame say true,
The dapper elves their moonlight sports pursue:
Their pigmy king and little fairy queen
In circling dances gamboled on the green,
While tuneful sprites a merry concert made,
And airy music warbled through the shade.
_January and May_, 459.

It so befel, in that fair morning tide,
The fairies sported on the garden's side,
And in the midst their monarch and his bride.
So featly tripp'd the light-foot ladies round,
The knight so nimbly o'er the greensward bound,
That scarce they bent the flowers or touch'd the ground.
The dances ended, all the fairy train
For pinks and daisies search'd the flowery plain.[412]
_Ibid._, 617.

With the Kensington Garden[413] of Tickell, Pope's contemporary, our Fairy-poetry may be said to have terminated.[414] Collins, Beattie, and a few other poets of the last century make occasional allusions to it, and some attempts to revive it have been made in the present century. But vain are such efforts, the belief is gone, and divested of it such poetry can produce no effect. The Fairies have shared the fate of the gods of ancient Hellas.

FOOTNOTES:

[317] The Anglo-Saxon Dweorg, Dworh, and the English Dwarf, do not seem ever to have had any other sense than that of the Latin _nanus_.

[318] As quoted by Picart in his Notes on William of Newbridge. We could not find it in the Collection of Histories, etc., by Martène and Durand,--the only place where, to our knowledge, this chronicler's works are printed.

[319] _Guilielmi Neubrigensis Historia, sive Chronica Rerum Anglicarum._ Oxon. 1719, lib. i. c. 27.

[320] See above, p. 109.

[321] Otia Imperialia _apud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum_, vol. i. p. 981.

[322] Vice calicis.

[323] Otia Imperialia _apud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum_, vol. i. p. 980.

[324] There is, as far as we are aware, no vestige of these names remaining in either the French or English language, and we cannot conceive how the Latin names of sea-gods came to be applied to the Gotho-German Kobolds, etc.

[325] Dimidium _pollicis_. Should we not read _pedis_?

[326] Otia Imperialia _apud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum_, vol. i. p. 980.

[327] Can this name be connected with that of Grendel, the malignant spirit in Beówulf?

[328] Edited for the Percy Society by J. P. Collyer, Esq., 1841. Mr. Collyer says there is little doubt but that this work was printed before 1588, or even 1584. We think this is true only of the First Part; for the Second, which is of a different texture, must have been added some time after tobacco had come into common use in England: see the verses in p. 34.

[329] Mr. Collyer does not seem to have recollected that Huon de Bordeaux had been translated by Lord Berners; see above, p. 56.

[330] It is, according to this authority the man-fairy Gunn that steals children and leaves changelings.

[331] Discoverie of Witchcrafte, iv. ch. 10.

[332] R. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcrafte, ii. ch. 4.

[333] _Ib._ vii. 15.

[334] This appears to us to be rather a display of the author's learning than an actual enumeration of the objects of popular terror; for the maids hardly talked of Satyrs, Pans, etc. For Bull-beggar, see p. 316; for Urchin, p. 319. _Hag_ is the Anglo-Saxon [Old English: hægeise], German _hexe_, "witche," and hence the Nightmare (see p. 332) which was ascribed to witches; we still say _Hag-ridden_. Calcar and Sporn (spurs?) may be the same, from the idea of riding: the French call the Nightmare, _Cauchemare_, from _Caucher_, _calcare_. Kit-wi-the-Canstick is Jack-with-the-Lanthorn. The Man in the Oak is probably Puck, "Turn your cloakes, quoth hee, for Pucke is busy in these oakes."--Iter Boreale. The Hell-wain is perhaps the Death-coach, connected with Northern and German superstitions, and the Fire-drake an Ignis Fatuus. Boneless may have been some impalpable spectre; the other terms seem to be mere appellations of Puck.

[335] Anat. of Mel. p. 47.

[336] Chap. xx. p. 134. Lond. 1604.

[337] This is, we apprehend, an egg at Easter or on Good Friday. _Housle_ is the Anglo-Saxon [Old English: husel]; Goth. _hunsl_, sacrifice or offering, and thence the Eucharist.

[338] Terrors of the Night, 1594.

[339] Hutchinson, History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 269.

[340] As quoted by Thoms in his Essay on Popular Songs, in the Athenæum for 1847.

[341] Morgan, Phœnix Britannicus, Lond. 1732.

[342] Pandemonium, p. 207. Lond. 1684.

[343] Aubrey, Natural History of Surrey, iii 366, _ap._ Ritson, Fairy Tales, p. 166.

[344] The Local Historian's Table-Book, by M. A. Richardson, iii. 239. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1846.

[345] Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, 1725.

[346] Quoted by Brand in his Popular Antiquities, an enlarged edition of Bourne's work.

[347] This word Pixy, is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutive _sy_ being added to Puck, like Betsy, Nancy, Dixie. So Mrs. Trimmer in her Fabulous Histories--which we read with wonderful pleasure in our childhood, and would recommend to our young readers--calls her hen-robins Pecksy and Flapsy. Pisgy is only Pixy transposed. Mrs. Bray derives Pixy from Pygmy. At Truro, in Cornwall, as Mr. Thoms informs us, the _moths_, which some regard as departed souls, others as fairies, are called _Pisgies_. He observes the curious, but surely casual, resemblance between this and the Greek ψυχη, which is both soul and moth. Grimm (p. 430) tells us from an old glossary, that the caterpillar was named in Germany, _Alba_, i. e. _Elbe_, and that the Alp often takes the form of a butterfly.

[348] _Whip says he_, as Mrs. Bray conjectures.

[349] Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 513. Bohn's edit.

[350] Given in the Literary Gazette for 1825. No. 430.

[351] Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 503. Bohn's edit.

[352] The _Elfbore_ of Scotland, where it is likewise ascribed to the fairies, Jamieson, _s. v._ The same opinion prevails in Denmark, where it is said that any one who looks through it will see things he would not otherwise have known: see Thiele, ii. 18.

[353] The Anglo-Saxon _lǽan_, _laécan_, to play.

[354] We have abridged this legend from a well-written letter in the Literary Gazette, No. 430 (1825), the writer of which says, he knew the house in which it was said to have occurred. He also says he remembered an old tailor, who said the horn was often pitched at the head of himself and his apprentice, when in the North-country fashion they went to work at the farm-house. Its identity with other legends will be at once perceived.

[355] And true no doubt it is, _i. e._ the impression made on her imagination was as strong as if the objects had been actually before her. The narrator is the same person who told the preceding Boggart story.

[356] Fairy Tales, pp. 24, 56.

[357] In Northumberland the common people call a certain fungous excrescence, sometimes found about the roots of old trees, Fairy-butter. After great rains and in a certain degree of putrefaction, it is reduced to a consistency, which, together with its colour, makes it not unlike butter, and hence the name. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 492, Bohn's edit.

The Menyn Tylna Têg or Fairy-butter of Wales, we are told in the same place, is a substance found at a great depth in cavities of limestone-rocks when sinking for lead-ore.

[358] Comp. Milton, L'Allegro, 105 _seq._

[359] Richardson, Table-Book, iii. 45; see above, p. 297.

[360] This word, as we may see, is spelt _faries_ in the following legends; so we may suppose that _fairy_ is pronounced _farry_ in the North, which has a curious coincidence with _Peri_: see above, p. 15.

[361] Probably pronounced _Poke_, as still in Worcestershire. Our ancestors frequently used _ou_, or _oo_ for the long _o_ while they expressed the sound of _oo_ by _o_ followed by _e_, as _rote_ root, _coke_ cook, _more_ moor, _pole_ pool.

[362] Passus xvii. _v._ 11,323 _seq._ ed. 1842. Comp. _vv._ 8363, 9300, 10,902.

[363] Mr. Todd is right, in reading _pouke_ for _ponke_, an evident typographic error: wrong in saying, "He is the Fairy, Robin Good-fellow, known by the name of Puck." Robin is the "hob-goblin" mentioned two lines after.

[364] We know nothing of the Oriental origin of Puck, and cannot give our full assent to the character of our ancestry, as expressed in the remaining part of Mr. Gifford's note: "but a fiend engendered in the moody minds, and rude and gloomy fancies of the barbarous invaders of the North." It is full time to have done with describing the old Gothic race as savages.

[365] _Der Putz würde uns über berg und thäler tragen._ To frighten children they say _Der Butz kommt!_ see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 474.

[366] The former made by adding the Anglo-Saxon and English _el_, _le_; the latter by adding the English _art_: see p. 318.

[367] By Sir F. Palgrave, from whose article in the Quarterly Review, we have derived many of the terms named above. He adds that the Anglo-Saxon _pæcan_ is to deceive, seduce; the Low-Saxon _picken_ to gambol; _pickeln_ to play the fool; _pukra_ in Icelandic to make a murmuring noise, to steal secretly; and _pukke_ in Danish to scold. He further adds the Swedish _poika_ boy, the Anglo-Saxon and Swedish _piga_ and Danish _pige_ girl. If, however, Pouke is connected with the Sclavonic Bog, these at the most can be only derivations from it. By the way _boy_ itself seems to be one of these terms; the Anglo-Saxon _piga_ was probably pronounced _piya_, and _a_ is a masculine termination in that language.

[368] See above, p. 291. In Low German, however, the Kobold is called Bullmann, Bullermann, Bullerkater, from _bullen_, _bullern_, to knock: see Grimm, _ut sup._ p. 473.

[369] Essay on the Ignis Fatuus, quoted by Thoms.

[370]

And you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms.--_Tempest_, v. 1.

[371] Jack-o'-the-lanthorn, Will-o'-the-wisp. In Worcestershire they call it Hob-and-his-lanthorn, and Hobany's- or Hobredy's-lanthorn. Allies, _ut sup._

[372] Knight of the Burning Pestle: see above, p. 309.

[373] _Ard_ is the German _hart_, and is, like it, depreciatory. It is not an Anglo-Saxon termination, but from the Anglo-Saxon [Old English: doll], _dull_, we have _dullard_. May not _haggard_ be _hawk-ard_, and the French _hagard_ be derived from it, and not the reverse?

[374] For in Anglo-Saxon _áttorcoppe_ (_Poison-head?_) is spider, and from _áttorcoppe-web_, by the usual aphœresis of the two first syllables we put _coppe-web_, cobweb. May not the same have been the case with _lob_? and may not the nasty _bug_ be in a similar manner connected with Puck? As _dvergsnat_ is in Swedish a cobweb, one might be tempted to suppose that this last, for which no good etymon has been offered, was _lob-web_; but the true etymon is _cop-web_, from its usual site.

Upon the _cop_ right of his nose he hedde
A wert.--Chaucer, _Cant. Tales_, _v._ 556.

[375] Deut. Mythol. p. 492.

[376] See _France_. _In_ is a mere termination, perhaps, like _on_, a diminutive, as in _Catin_ Kate, _Robin_ Bob. _Lutin_ was also spelt _Luyton_: see p. 42.

[377] The two lines which follow

Fro the nightes mare the witè Paternoster!
Where wonest thou Seint Peter's suster?

are rather perplexing. We would explain them thus. Bergerac, as quoted by Brand (Pop. Antiq. i. 312. Bohn's edit.) makes a magician say "I teach the shepherds the wolf's paternoster," _i. e._ one that keeps off the wolf. _Wite_ may then be _i. q. wight_, and _wight paternoster_ be a safeguard against the wights, and we would read the verse thus: "Fro the nightes mare the wite paternoster" _sc. blisse it_ or _us_. St. Peter's _suster_, _i. e._ wife (see I Cor. ix. 5) may have been canonised in the popular creed, and held to be potent against evil beings. The term _suster_ was used probably to obviate the scandal of supposing the first Pope to have been a married man. This charm is given at greater length and with some variations by Cartwright in his Ordinary, Act iii. sc. 1.

[378] He derives it from the French _oursin_, but the Ang.-Sax. name of the hedgehog is [Old English: erscen].

[379] Athenæum, Oct. 9, 1847.

[380] Hist. of England, i. 478, 8vo edit.

[381] Deut. Mythol. p. 419.

[382] Layamon's Brut, etc., by Sir Frederick Madden.

[383] Tales and Popular Fictions, ch. viii. We do not wonder that this should have eluded previous observation, but it is really surprising that we should have been the first to observe the resemblance between Ariosto's tale of Giocondo and the introductory tale of the Thousand and One Nights. It is also strange that no one should have noticed the similarity between Ossian's Carthon and the tale of Soohrâb in the Shâh-nâmeh.

[384] Both here and lower down we would take _faërie_ in its first sense.

[385] _Thrope_, _thorpe_, or _dorp_, is a village, the German _dorf_; Dutch _dorp_; we may still find it in the names of places, as Althorpe. _Dorp_ occurs frequently in Drayton's Polyolbion; it is also used by Dryden, Hind and Panther, _v._ 1905.

[386] _Undermeles_ i. e. _undertide_ (p 51), aftermeal, afternoon.

[387] This is the third sense of _Faërie_. In the next passage it is doubtful whether it be the second or third sense; we think the latter.

[388]

This wife which is of _faërie_,
Of such a childe delivered is,
Fro kindè which stante all amis.
GOWER, _Legende of Constance_.

[389] The derivation of Oberon has been already given (p. 208). The Shakspearean commentators have not thought fit to inform us why the poet designates the Fairy-queen, Titania. It, however, presents no difficulty. It was the belief of those days that the Fairies were the same as the classic Nymphs, the attendants of Diana: "That fourth kind of spritis," says King James, "quhilk be the gentilis was called Diana, and her wandering court, and amongst us called the _Phairie_." The Fairy-queen was therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania; Chaucer, as we have seen, calls her Proserpina.

[390]

'Twas I that led you through the painted meads,
Where the light Fairies danced upon the flowers,
Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl.
_Wisdom of Dr. Dodypoll, 1600. Steevens._

Men of fashion, in that age, wore earrings.

[391]

And the yellow-skirted Fayes
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
MILTON, _Ode on the Nativity_, 235.

[392] _Ouph_, Steevens complacently tells us, in the Teutonic language, is a fairy; if by Teutonic he means the German, and we know of no other, he merely showed his ignorance. Ouph is the same as _oaf_ (formerly spelt _aulf_), and is probably to be pronounced in the same manner. It is formed from _elf_ by the usual change of _l_ into _u_.

[393] _i. e._ Pinch severely. The Ang.-Sax. [Old English: to] joined to a verb or part. answers to the German _zu_ or _zer_. [Old English: to-brecan] is to break to pieces, [Old English: to-drifan] to drive asunder, scatter. Verbs of this kind occur in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, in Chaucer and elsewhere. The part. is often preceded by _all_, in the sense of the German _ganz_, quite, with which some ignorantly join the _to_ as _all-to ruffled_ in Comus, 380, instead of _all to-ruffled_. In Golding's Ovid (p. 15) we meet "With rugged head as white as down, and garments _all to-torn_;" in Judges ix. 53, "and _all to-brake_ his skull." See also Faerie Queene, iv. 7, 8; v. 8, 4, 43, 44; 9, 10.

[394] After all the commentators have written, this line is still nearly unintelligible to us. It may relate to the supposed origin of the fairies. For _orphan_, Warburton conjectured _ouphen_, from _ouph_.

[395] The Anglo-Saxon [Old English: Midan eard] or [Old English: geard]; and is it not also plainly the Midgard of the Edda?

[396] The origin of Mab is very uncertain; it may be a contraction of Habundia, see below _France_. "Mab," says Voss, one of the German translators of Shakspeare, "is not the Fairy-queen, the same with Titania, as some, misled by the word _queen_, have thought. That word in old English, as in Danish, designates the female sex." He might have added the Ang.-Sax. [Old English: cþen] woman, whence both _queen_ and _quean_. Voss is perhaps right and _elf-queen_ may have been used in the same manner as the Danish _Elle-quinde_, _Elle-kone_ for the female Elf. We find Phaer (see above, p. 11) using _Fairy-queen_, as a translation for _Nympha_.

[397] _i. e._, Night-mare. "Many times," says Gull the fairy, "I get on men and women, and so lie on their stomachs, that I cause them great pain; for which they call me by the name of Hagge or Night-mare." _Merry Pranks_, etc. p. 42.

[398]

Auræque et venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,
Dîque omnes nemorum, dîque omnes noctis, adeste.
_Ovid, Met._ l. vii. 198.

Ye ayres and winds, ye _elves_ of hills, of brooks, of woods, alone,
Of standing lakes, and of the night--approach ye everich one.
GOLDING.

Golding seems to have regarded, by chance or with knowledge, the Elves as a higher species than the Fairies. Misled by the word _elves_, Shakspeare makes sad confusion of classic and Gothic mythology.

[399] _Take_ signifies here, to strike, to injure.

And there he blasts the tree and _takes_ the cattle.
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, iv. 4.

Thou farest as fruit that with the frost is taken.
SURREY, _Poems_, p. 13, Ald. edit.

In our old poetry _take_ also signifies, to give.

[400]

But not a word of it,--'tis fairies' treasure,
Which but revealed brings on the blabber's ruin.
MASSINGER, _Fatal Dowry_, Act iv. sc. 1.

A prince's secrets are like fairy favours,
Wholesome if kept, but poison if discovered.
_Honest Man's Fortune._

[401] We do not recollect having met with any account of this prank; but Jonson is usually so correct, that we may be certain it was a part of the popular belief.

[402] Whalley was certainly right in proposing to read Agnes. This ceremony is, we believe, still practised in the north of England on St. Agnes' night. See Brand, i. 34.

[403] Shakespeare gives different colours to the Fairies; and in some places they are still thought to be white. See p. 306.

[404] Act i. sc. 5. R. Dodsley's Old Plays, vii. p. 394. We quote this as the first notice we have met of the red caps of the fairies.

[405] Brown, their author, was a native of Devon, the Pixy region; hence their accordance with the Pixy legends given above.

[406] This is perhaps the dancing on the hearth of the fairy-ladies to which Milton alludes: see above, p. 42. "Doth not the warm zeal of an English-man's devotion make them maintain and defend the social hearth as the sanctuary and chief place of residence of the tutelary lares and household gods, and the only court where the _lady-fairies convene to dance and revel_?"--Paradoxical Assertions, etc. 1664, quoted by Brand, ii. p. 504.

[407] The reader will observe that the third sense of Fairy is the most usual one in Drayton. It occurs in its second sense two lines further on, twice in Nymphidia, and in the following passage of his third Eclogue,

For learned Colin (Spenser) lays his pipes to gage,
And is to _Fayrie_ gone a pilgrimage,
The more our moan.

[408] Mr. Chalmers does not seem to have known that the Crickets were family of note in Fairy. Shakspeare (_Merry Wives of Windsor_) mentions a Fairy named Cricket; and no hint of Shakspeare's was lost upon Drayton.

[409] In the Musarum Deliciæ.

[410] This is a palpable mistake of the poet's. The Friar (see above, p. 291) is the celebrated Friar Rush, who haunted houses, not fields, and was never the same with Jack-o'-the-Lanthorn. It was probably the name Rush, which suggested _rushlight_, that caused Milton's error. He is the Brüder Rausch of Germany, the Broder Ruus of Denmark. His name is either as Grimm thinks, _noise_, or as Wolf (Von Bruodor Rauschen, p. xxviii.) deems _drunkenness_, our old word, _rouse_. Sir Walter Scott in a note on Marmion, says also "Friar Rush, _alias_ Will-o'-the-Wisp. He was also a sort of Robin Goodfellow and Jack-o'-Lanthorn," which is making precious confusion. Reginald Scot more correctly describes him as being "for all the world such another fellow as this Hudgin," _i. e._ Hödeken: see above, p. 255.

[411] Ben Jonson's Works, vol. ii. p. 499. We shall never cease to regret that the state to which literature has come in this country almost precludes even a hope of our ever being able to publish our meditated edition of Milton's poems for which we have been collecting materials these five and twenty years. It would have been very different from Todd's. [Published in 1859.]

[412] Evidently drawn from Dryden's Flower and Leaf.

[413] We meet here for the last time with Fairy in its collective sense, or rather, perhaps, as the country:

All Fairy shouted with a general voice

[414] In Mr Halliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, will be found a good deal of Fairy poetry, for which we have not had space in this work.

SCOTTISH LOWLANDS.

When from their hilly dens, at midnight hour,
Forth rush the airy elves in mimic state,
And o'er the moonlight heath with swiftness scour,
In glittering arms the little horsemen shine.
ERSKINE.

The Scottish Fairies scarcely differ in any essential point from those of England. Like them they are divided into the rural and the domestic. Their attire is green, their residence the interior of the hills. They appear more attached than their neighbours to the monarchical form of government, for the Fairy king and queen, who seem in England to have been known only by the poets, were recognised by law in Caledonia, and have at all times held a place in the popular creed. They would appear also to be more mischievously inclined than the Southrons, and less addicted to the practice of dancing. They have, however, had the advantage of not being treated with contempt and neglect by their human countrymen, and may well be proud of the attention shown them by the brightest genius of which their country can boast. There has also been long due from them an acknowledgment of the distinction conferred on them by the editor of the Nithsdale and Galloway Song,[415] for the very fanciful manner in which he has described their attributes and acts.

The Scottish Fairies have never been taken by the poets for their heroes or machinery, a circumstance probably to be attributed to the sterner character of Scottish religion. We cannot, therefore, as in England, make a distinction between popular and poetic fairies.

The earliest notice we have met with of the Fairies is in Montgomery's Flyting against Polwart, where he says,

In the hinder end of harvest, at All-hallowe'en,
When our _good neighbours_[416] dois ride, if I read right,
Some buckled on a beenwand, and some on a been,
Ay trottand in troops from the twilight;
Some saidled on a she-ape all graithed in green,
Some hobland on a hempstalk hovand to the sight;
The king of Phairie and his court, with the elf-queen,
With many elfish incubus, was ridand that night.

Elf-land was the name of the realm ruled by the king of Phairie. King James[417] speaks of him and his queen, and "of sic a jolie court and traine as they had; how they had a teinde and a dewtie, as it were, of all guidis; how they naturally raid and yeid, eat and drank, and did all other actions lyke natural men and women. I think," concludes the monarch, "it is lyker Virgilis _Campi Elysii_ nor anything that ought to be believed by Christianis." And one of the interlocutors in his dialogue asks how it was that witches have gone to death confessing that they had been "transported with the Phairie to such and such a hill, which, opening, they went in, and there saw a faire queene, who, being now lighter, gave them a stone which had sundry virtues."

According to Mr. Cromek, who, however, rather sedulously keeps their darker attributes out of view, and paints everything relating to them _couleur de rose_, the Lowland Fairies are of small stature, but finely proportioned; of a fair complexion, with long yellow hair hanging over their shoulders, and gathered above their heads with combs of gold. They wear a mantle of green cloth, inlaid with wild flowers; green pantaloons, buttoned with bobs of silk; and silver shoon. They carry quivers of "adder-slough," and bows made of the ribs of a man buried where _three lairds' lands meet_; their arrows are made of bog-reed, tipped with white flints, and dipped in the dew of hemlock; they ride on steeds whose hoofs "would not dash the dew from the cup of a harebell." With their arrows they shoot the cattle of those who offend them; the wound is imperceptible to common eyes, but there are gifted personages who can discern and cure it.[418]

In their intercourse with mankind they are frequently kind and generous. A young man of Nithsdale, when out on a love affair, heard most delicious music, far surpassing the utterance of 'any mortal mixture of earth's mould.' Courageously advancing to the spot whence the sound appeared to proceed, he suddenly found himself the spectator of a Fairy-banquet. A green table with feet of gold, was laid across a small rivulet, and supplied with the finest of bread and the richest of wines. The music proceeded from instruments formed of reeds and stalks of corn. He was invited to partake in the dance, and presented with a cup of wine. He was allowed to depart in safety, and ever after possessed the gift of second sight. He said he saw there several of his former acquaintances, who were become members of the Fairy society.

We give the following legend on account of its great similarity to a Swiss tradition already quoted:--

Two lads were ploughing in a field, in the middle of which was an old thorn-tree, a trysting place of the Fairy-folk. One of them described a circle round the thorn, within which the plough should not go. They were surprised, on ending the furrow, to behold a green table placed there, heaped up with excellent bread and cheese, and even wine. The lad who had drawn the circle sat down without hesitation, ate and drank heartily, saying, "Fair fa' the hands whilk gie." His companion whipped on the horses, refusing to partake of the Fairy-food. The other, said Mr. Cromek's informant, "thrave like a breckan," and was a proverb for wisdom, and an oracle for country knowledge ever after.[419]

The Fairies lend and borrow, and it is counted _uncanny_ to refuse them. A young woman was one day sifting meal warm from the mill, when a nicely dressed beautiful little woman came to her with a bowl of antique form, and requested the loan of as much meal as would fill it. Her request was complied with, and in a week she returned to make repayment. She set down the bowl and breathed over it, saying, "Be never toom." The woman lived to a great age, but never saw the bottom of the bowl.

Another woman was returning late one night from a gossiping. A pretty little boy came up to her and said, "Coupe yere dish-water farther frae yere door-step, it pits out our fire." She complied with this reasonable request, and prospered ever after.

_The Fairies' Nurse._

The Fairies have a great fondness for getting their babes suckled by comely, healthy young women. A fine young woman of Nithsdale was one day spinning and rocking her first-born child. A pretty little lady in a green mantle, and bearing a beautiful babe, came into the cottage and said, "Gie my bonny thing a suck." The young woman did so, and the lady left her babe and disappeared, saying, "Nurse kin' and ne'er want." The young woman nursed the two children, and was astonished to find every morning, when she awoke, rich clothes for the children, and food of a most delicious flavour. Tradition says this food tasted like wheaten-bread, mixed with wine and honey.

When summer came, the Fairy lady came to see her child. She was delighted to see how it had thriven, and, taking it in her arms, desired the nurse to follow her. They passed through some scroggy woods skirting the side of a beautiful green hill, which they ascended half way. A door opened on the sunny side--they went in, and the sod closed after them. The Fairy then dropped three drops of a precious liquid on her companion's left eyelid, and she beheld a most delicious country, whose fields were yellow with ripening corn, watered by _looping burnies_, and bordered by trees laden with fruit. She was presented with webs of the finest cloth, and with boxes of precious ointments. The Fairy then moistened her right eye with a green fluid, and bid her look. She looked, and saw several of her friends and acquaintances at work, reaping the corn and gathering the fruit. "This," said the Fairy, "is the punishment of evil deeds!" She then passed her hand over the woman's eye, and restored it to its natural power. Leading her to the porch at which she had entered, she dismissed her; but the woman had secured the wonderful salve. From this time she possessed the faculty of discerning the Fairy people as they went about invisibly; till one day, happening to meet the Fairy-lady, she attempted to shake hands with her. "What ee d'ye see me wi'?" whispered she. "Wi' them baith," said the woman. The Fairy breathed on her eyes, and the salve lost its efficacy, and could never more endow her eyes with their preternatural power.[420]

_The Fairy Rade._

The _Fairy Rade_, or procession, was a matter of great importance. It took place on the coming in of summer, and the peasantry, by using the precaution of placing a branch of rowan over their door, might safely gaze on the cavalcade, as with music sounding, bridles ringing, and voices mingling, it pursued its way from place to place. An old woman of Nithsdale gave the following description of one of these processions:

"In the night afore Roodmass I had trysted with a neebor lass a Scots mile frae hame to talk anent buying braws i' the fair. We had nae sutten lang aneath the haw-buss till we heard the loud laugh of fowk riding, wi' the jingling o' bridles, and the clanking o' hoofs. We banged up, thinking they wad ride owre us. We kent nae but it was drunken fowk ridin' to the fair i' the forenight. We glowred roun' and roun', and sune saw it was the _Fairie-fowks Rade_. We cowred down till they passed by. A beam o' light was dancing owre them mair bonnie than moonshine: they were a' wee wee fowk wi' green scarfs on, but ane that rade foremost, and that ane was a good deal larger than the lave wi' bonnie lang hair, bun' about wi' a strap whilk glinted like stars. They rade on braw wee white naigs, wi' unco lang swooping tails, an' manes hung wi' whustles that the win' played on. This an' their tongue when they sang was like the soun' o' a far awa psalm. Marion an' me was in a brade lea fiel', where they came by us; a high hedge o' haw-trees keepit them frae gaun through Johnnie Corrie's corn, but they lap a' owre it like sparrows, and gallopt into a green know beyont it. We gaed i' the morning to look at the treddit corn; but the fient a hoof mark was there, nor a blade broken."

_The Changeling._

But the Fairies of Scotland were not, even according to Mr. Cromek, uniformly benevolent. Woman and child abstraction was by no means uncommon with them, and the substitutes they provided were, in general, but little attractive.

A fine child at Caerlaveroc, in Nithsdale, was observed on the second day after its birth, and before it was baptised, to have become quite ill-favoured and deformed. Its yelling every night deprived the whole family of rest; it bit and tore its mother's breasts, and would lie still neither in the cradle nor the arms. The mother being one day obliged to go from home, left it in charge of the servant girl. The poor lass was sitting bemoaning herself--"Were it nae for thy girning face, I would knock the big, winnow the corn, and grun the meal."--"Lowse the cradle-band," said the child, "and tent the neighbours, and I'll work yere work." Up he started--the wind arose--the corn was chopped--the outlyers were foddered--the hand-mill moved around, as by instinct--and the knocking-mill did its work with amazing rapidity. The lass and child then rested and diverted themselves, till, on the approach of the mistress, it was restored to the cradle, and renewed its cries. The girl took the first opportunity of telling the adventure to her mistress. "What'll we do with the wee diel?" said she. "I'll work it a pirn," replied the lass. At midnight the chimney-top was covered up, and every chink and cranny stopped. The fire was blown till it was glowing hot, and the maid speedily undressed the child, and tossed him on the burning coals. He shrieked and yelled in the most dreadful manner, and in an instant the Fairies were heard moaning on every side, and rattling at the windows, door, and chimney. "In the name of God bring back the bairn," cried the lass. The window flew up, the real child was laid on the mother's lap, and the _wee diel_ flew up the chimney laughing.

_Departure of the Fairies._

On a Sabbath morning, all the inmates of a little hamlet had gone to church, except a herd-boy, and a little girl, his sister, who were lounging beside one of the cottages, when just as the shadow of the garden-dial had fallen on the line of noon, they saw a long cavalcade ascending out of the ravine, through the wooded hollow. It winded among the knolls and bushes, and turning round the northern gable of the cottage, beside which the sole spectators of the scene were stationed, began to ascend the eminence towards the south. The horses were shaggy diminutive things, speckled dun and grey; the riders stunted, misgrown, ugly creatures, attired in antique jerkins of plaid, long grey clokes, and little red caps, from under which their wild uncombed locks shot out over their cheeks and foreheads. The boy and his sister stood gazing in utter dismay and astonishment, as rider after rider, each more uncouth and dwarfish than the other which had preceded it, passed the cottage and disappeared among the brushwood, which at that period covered the hill, until at length the entire rout, except the last rider, who lingered a few yards behind the others, had gone by. "What are you, little manie? and where are ye going?" inquired the boy, his curiosity getting the better of his fears and his prudence. "Not of the race of Adam," said the creature, turning for a moment in its saddle, "the people of peace shall never more be seen in Scotland."[421]

_The Brownie._

The Nis, Kobold, or Goblin, appears in Scotland under the name of Brownie.[422] Brownie is a personage of small stature, wrinkled visage, covered with short curly brown hair, and wearing a brown mantle and hood. His residence is the hollow of an old tree, a ruined castle, or the abode of man. He is attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside, even for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and doing everything done by his northern and English brethren. He is, to a certain degree, disinterested; like many great personages, he is shocked at anything approaching to the name of a bribe or _douceur_, yet, like them, allows his scruples to be overcome if the thing be done in a genteel, delicate, and secret way. Thus, offer Brownie a piece of bread, a cup of drink, or a new coat and hood, and he flouted at it, and perhaps, in his huff, quitted the place for ever; but leave a nice bowl of cream, and some fresh honeycomb, in a snug private corner, and they soon disappeared, though Brownie, it was to be supposed, never knew anything of them.

A good woman had just made a web of linsey-woolsey, and, prompted by her good nature, had manufactured from it a snug mantle and hood for her little Brownie. Not content with laying the gift in one of his favourite spots, she indiscreetly called to tell him it was there. This was too direct, and Brownie quitted the place, crying,

A new mantle and a new hood;
Poor Brownie! ye'll ne'er do mair gude!

Another version of this legend says, that the gudeman of a farm-house in the parish of Glendevon having left out some clothes one night for Brownie, he was heard to depart, saying,

Gie Brownie coat, gie Brownie sark,
Ye'se get nae mair o' Brownie's wark![423]

At Leithin-hall, in Dumfrieshire, a Brownie had dwelt, as he himself declared, for three hundred years. He used to show himself but once to each master; to other persons he rarely discovered more than his hand. One master was greatly beloved by Brownie, who on his death bemoaned him exceedingly, even abstaining from food for many successive days. The heir returning from foreign parts to take possession of the estate, Brownie appeared to do him homage, but the Laird, offended at his mean, starved appearance, ordered him meat and drink, and new livery. Brownie departed, loudly crying,

Ca', cuttee, ca'!
A' the luck of Leithin Ha'
Gangs wi' me to Bodsbeck Ha'.

In a few years Leithin Ha' was in ruins, and "bonnie Bodsbeck" flourishing beneath the care of Brownie.

Others say that it was the gudeman of Bodsbeck that offended the Brownie by leaving out for him a mess of bread and milk, and that he went away, saying,

Ca, Brownie, ca',
A' the luck of Bodsbeck awa to Leithenha'.

Brownie was not without some roguery in his composition. Two lasses having made a fine bowlful of buttered brose, had taken it into the byre to sup in the dark. In their haste they brought but one spoon, so, placing the bowl between them, they supped by turns. "I hae got but three sups," cried the one, "and it's a' dune."--"It's a' dune, indeed," cried the other.--"Ha, ha, ha!" cried a third voice, "Brownie has got the maist o' it."--And Brownie it was who had placed himself between them, and gotten two sups for their one.

The following story will remind the reader of Hinzelmann. A Brownie once lived with Maxwell, Laird of Dalswinton, and was particularly attached to the Laird's daughter, the comeliest lass in all the holms of Nithsdale. In all her love affairs Brownie was her confidant and assistant; when she was married, it was Brownie who undressed her for the bridal bed; and when a mother's pains first seized her, and a servant, who was ordered to go fetch the _cannie wife_, who lived on the other side of the Nith, was slow in getting himself ready, Brownie, though it was one of dark December's stormy nights, and the wind was howling through the trees, wrapped his lady's fur cloak about him, mounted the servant's horse, and dashed through the waves of the foaming Nith. He went to the cannie wife, got her up behind him, and, to her terror and dismay, plunged again into the torrent. "Ride nae by the auld pool," said she, "lest we suld meet wi' Brownie." "Fear nae, dame," replied he, "ye've met a' the Brownies ye will meet." He set her down at the hall steps, and went to the stable. There finding the lad, whose embassy he had discharged, but drawing on his boots, he took off the bridle, and by its vigorous application instilled into the memory of the loitering loon the importance of dispatch. This was just at the time of the Reformation, and a zealous minister advised the Laird to have him baptised. The Laird consented, and the worthy minister hid himself in the barn. When Brownie was beginning his night's work, the man of God flung the holy water in his face, repeating at the same time the form of baptism. The terrified Brownie gave a yell of dismay, and disappeared for ever.

Another name by which the domestic spirit was known in some parts of Scotland was Shellycoat, of which the origin is uncertain.[424]

* * * * *

Scotland has also its water-spirit, called Kelpie, who in some respects corresponds with the Neck of the northern nations. "Every lake," says Graham,[425] "has its _Kelpie_, or Water-horse, often seen by the shepherd, as he sat in a summer's evening upon the brow of a rock, dashing along the surface of the deep, or browsing on the pasture-ground upon its verge. Often did this malignant genius of the waters allure women and children to his subaqueous haunts, there to be immediately devoured. Often did he also swell the torrent or lake beyond its usual limits, to overwhelm the hapless traveller in the flood."[426]

* * * * *