The first of these words is evidently the same as the Iötunn or Giants of the northern mythology; the second is as plainly its Alfar, and we surely may be excused for supposing that the last may be the same as its Duergar.

Layamon, in the twelfth century, in his poetic paraphrase of Wace's Brut,[382] thus expands that poet's brief notice of the birth of Arthur:—

"Ertur son nom; de sa bunte
Ad grant parole puis este."

If we have made any discovery of importance in the department of romantic literature, it is our identification of Ogier le Danois with the Eddaic Helgi.[383] We have shown among other points of resemblance, that as the Norns were at the birth of the one, so the Fées were at that of the other. With this circumstance Layamon was apparently acquainted, and when he wished to transfer it to Arthur as[Pg 322] the Norns were no longer known and the Fees had not yet risen into importance, there only remained for him to employ the Elves, which had not yet acquired tiny dimensions. Hence then we see that the progress was Norns, Elves, Fées, and these last held their place in the subsequent Fairy tales of France and Italy.

These potent Elves are still superior to the popular Fairies which we first met with in Chaucer.

Yet nothing in the passages in which he speaks of them leads to the inference of his conceiving them to be of a diminutive stature. His notions, indeed, on the subject seem very vague and unsettled; and there is something like a confusion of the Elves and Fairies of Romance, as the following passages will show:—

The Wife of Bathes Tale is evidently a Fairy tale. It thus commences:

[Pg 323]

The Fairies therefore form a part of the tale, and they are thus introduced:

These ladies bear a great resemblance to the Elle-maids of Scandinavia. We need hardly inform our readers that this "foul wight" becomes the knight's deliverer from the imminent danger he is in, and that, when he has been forced to marry her, she is changed into a beautiful young maiden. But who or what she was the poet sayeth not.

In the Marchantes Tale we meet the Faerie attendant on Pluto and Proserpina, their king and queen, a sort of blending of classic and Gothic mythology:

Again, in the same Tale:

[Pg 324]

In the conversation which ensues between these august personages, great knowledge of Scripture is displayed; and the queen, speaking of the "sapient prince," passionately exclaims—

Some might suspect a mystery in the queen's thus emphatically styling herself a woman, but we lay no stress upon it, as Faire Damoselle Pertelote, the hen, who was certainly less entitled to it, does the same.

In the Man of Lawes Tale the word Elfe is employed, but whether as equivalent to witch or fairy is doubtful.

The Rime of Sir Thopas has been already considered as belonging to romance.

It thus appears that the works of manners-painting Chaucer give very little information respecting the popular belief in Fairies of his day. Were it not for the sly satire of the passage, we might be apt to suspect that, like one who lived away from the common people, he was willing to represent the superstition as extinct—"But now can no man see non elves mo." The only trait that he gives really characteristic of the popular elves is their love of dancing.

In the poets that intervene between Chaucer and the Maiden Reign, we do not recollect to have noticed anything of importance respecting Fairies, except the employment, already adverted to, of that term, and that of Elves, by[Pg 325] translators in rendering the Latin Nymphæ. Of the size of these beings, the passages in question give no information.

But in Elizabeth's days, "Fairies," as Johnson observes, "were much in fashion; common tradition had made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great." A just remark, no doubt, though Johnson fell into the common error of identifying Spenser's Fairies with the popular ones.

The three first books of the Faerie Queene were published in 1590, and, as Warton remarks, Fairies became a familiar and fashionable machinery with the poets and poetasters. Shakspeare, well acquainted, from the rural habits of his early life, with the notions of the peasantry respecting these beings, and highly gifted with the prescient power of genius, saw clearly how capable they were of being applied to the production of a species of the wonderful, as pleasing, or perhaps even more so, than the classic gods; and in the Midsummer-Night's Dream he presented them in combination with the heroes and heroines of the mythic age of Greece. But what cannot the magic wand of genius effect? We view with undisturbed delight the Elves of Gothic mythology sporting in the groves of Attica, the legitimate haunts of Nymphs and Satyrs.

Shakspeare, having the Faerie Queene before his eyes, seems to have attempted a blending of the Elves of the village with the Fays of romance. His Fairies agree with the former in their diminutive stature,—diminished, indeed, to dimensions inappreciable by village gossips,—in their fondness for dancing, their love of cleanliness, and their child-abstracting propensities. Like the Fays, they form a community, ruled over by the princely Oberon and the fair Titania.[389] There is a court and chivalry: Oberon would have the queen's sweet changeling to be a "Knight of his[Pg 326] train to trace the forest wild." Like earthly monarchs, he has his jester, "the shrewd and knavish sprite, called Robin Good-fellow."

The luxuriant imagination of the poet seemed to exult in pouring forth its wealth in the production of these new actors on the mimic scene, and a profusion of poetic imagery always appears in their train. Such lovely and truly British poetry cannot be too often brought to view; we will therefore insert in this part of our work several of these gems of our Parnassus, distinguishing by a different character such acts and attributes as appear properly to belong to the Fairy of popular belief.

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

ACT II.—SCENE I.

Puck and a Fairy.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you? Fai. Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire.

I do wander every where, Swifter than the moonès sphere, And I serve the Fairy-queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see. Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours. I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. [390] Farewell, thou lob of spirits!

I'll be gone; Our queen and all her elves come here anon. Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night. Take heed the queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is passing fell and wroth, Because that she, as her attendant, hath A lovely boy stolen from an Indian king,— [Pg 327]She never had so sweet a changeling; And jealous Oberon would have the child Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy, Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen, But they do square; that all their elves, for fear, Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there. Fai.

Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Good-fellow. Are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery, Skims milk, and sometimes labours in the quern, And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn; And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm; Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hob-goblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck, Are not you he? Puck. Thou speakest 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 gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometimes for three-foot stool mistaketh me: Then slip I from her bum,—down topples she, And tailor cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.

The haunts of the Fairies on earth are the most rural and romantic that can be selected. They meet

And the place of Titania's repose is

The powers of the poet are exerted to the utmost, to convey an idea of their minute dimensions; and time, with them, moves on lazy pinions. "Come," cries the queen,

And when enamoured of Bottom, she directs her Elves that they should

Puck goes "swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow;" he says, "he'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes;" and "We," says Oberon—

They are either not mortal, or their date of life is indeterminately long; they are of a nature superior to man, and speak with contempt of human follies. By night they revel beneath the light of the moon and stars, retiring at the approach of "Aurora's harbinger,"[391] but not compulsively like ghosts and "damned spirits."

[Pg 329]

In the Merry Wives of Windsor, we are introduced to mock-fairies, modelled, of course, after the real ones, but with such additions as the poet's fancy deemed itself authorised to adopt.

Act IV., Scene IV., Mrs. Page, after communicating to Mrs. Ford her plan of making the fat knight disguise himself as the ghost of Herne the hunter, adds—

And

In Act V., Scene V., the plot being all arranged, the Fairy[Pg 330] rout appears, headed by Sir Hugh, as a Satyr, by ancient Pistol as Hobgoblin, and by Dame Quickly.

Quick. Fairies black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,[394] Attend your office and your quality. Crier Hob-goblin, make the fairy O-yes. Pist. Elves, list your names!

silence, you airy toys! Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap; Where fires thou findest unraked, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry: Our radiant queen, hates sluts and sluttery. Fals. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die. I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.

Pist. Where's Bead? —Go you, and where you find a maid That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said, Raise up the organs of her fantasy, Sleep 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. Quick. About, about, Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out; Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room, That it may stand till the perpetual doom, In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit; Worthy the owner, and the owner it.