The words printed in Italics are those whose origin or meaning is explained.
The word "Fairy" is inclusive of all similar beings.

[1] The mark on Adam's Peak in Ceylon is, by the Buddhists, ascribed to Buddha; by the Mohammedans, to Adam. It reminds one of the story of the lady and the vicar, viewing the moon through a telescope; they saw in it, as they thought, two figures inclined toward each other: "Methinks," says the lady, "they are two fond lovers, meeting to pour forth their vows by earth-light." "Not at all," says the vicar, taking his turn at the glass; "they are the steeples of two neighbouring churches."

[2] Faerie Queene, III. c. iii. st. 8, 9, 10, 11.

Drayton, Poly-Olbion, Song VI. We fear, however, that there is only poetic authority for this belief. Mr. Todd merely quotes Warton, who says that Spenser borrowed it from Giraldus Cambrensis, who picked it up among the romantic traditions propagated by the Welsh bards. The reader will be, perhaps, surprised to hear that Giraldus says nothing of the demons.

He mentions the sounds, and endeavours to explain them by natural causes. Hollingshed indeed (l. i. c. 24.

) says, "whereof the superstitious sort do gather many toys.

[3] The Haddock.

[4] For a well-chosen collection of examples, see the very learned and philosophical preface of the late Mr. Price to his edition of Warton's History of English Poetry, p. 28 et seq.

[5] In the Middle Ages the gods of the heathens were all held to be devils.

[6] Φηρ is the Ionic form of θηρ, and is nearly related to the German thier, beast, animal. The Scandinavian dyr, and the Anglo-Saxon eo, have the same signification; and it is curious to observe the restricted sense which this last has gotten in the English deer.

[7] Preface to Warton, p. 44; and Breton philologists furnish us with an etymon; not, indeed, of Fairy, but of Fada. "Fada, fata, etc.," says M. de Cambry (Monumens Celtiques), "come from the Breton mat or mad, in construction fat, good; whence the English, maid."

[8] D'Herbelot titre Mergian says, "C'est du nom de cette Fée que nos anciens romans ont formé celui de Morgante la Déconnue." He here confounds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his mistake. D'Herbelot also thinks it possible that Féerie may come from Peri; but he regards the common derivation from Fata as much more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is Mor Gwynn, the White Maid.

[9] These two instances are given by Mdlle. Amélie Bosquet (La Normandie Romanesque, etc. p. 91. ) from Dom Martin, Rel.

des Gaulois, ii. ch. 23 and 24.

[10] Gryphus ternarii numeri.

[11] De Bell. Got. i. 25.

[12] See below, France. It is also remarked that in some of the tales of the Pentamerone, the number of the Fate is three; but to this it may be replied, that in Italy every thing took a classic tinge, and that the Fate of those tales are only Maghe; so in the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso we meet with La Fata Urganda. In Spain and France the number would rather seem to have been seven. Cervantes speaks of "los siete castillos de las siete fadas;" in the Rom. de la Infantina it is said, "siete fadas me fadaron, en brazos de una ama mia," and the Fées are seven in La Belle au Bois dormant.

In the romance, however, of Guillaume au Court-nez, the Fées who carry the sleeping Renoart out of the boat are three in number. —See Grimm Deutsche Mythologie, p. 383.

[13] A MS. of the 13th century, quoted by Grimm (ut sup. p. 405), thus relates the origin of Aquisgrani (Aix la Chapelle): Aquisgrani dicitur Ays, et dicitur eo, quod Karolus tenebat ibi quandam mulierem fatatam, sive quandam fatam, quæ alio nomine nimpha vel dea vel adriades (l. dryas) appellatur, et ad hanc consuetudinem habebat, et eam cognoscebat; et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad eam vivebat ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur.

Contigit dum quadam vice ad ipsam accessisset ut cum ea delectaretur, radius solis intravit os ejus, et tunc Karolus vidit granum auri lingue ejus affixum, quod fecit abscindi et contingenti (l. in continenti) mortua est, nec postea revixit.

[14]

(Thus three sisters fated, in the hour that I was born, that I should be at all times in love.)

"Aissi fuy de nueitz fadatz sobr' un puegau. "—Guilh. de Poitou. (Thus was I fated by night on a hill. )—Grimm, ut sup.

p. 383.

[15] See our Virgil, Excurs. ix.

[16] Following the analogy of the Gotho-German tongues, zauberei, Germ. trylleri, Dan. trolleri, Swed. illusion, enchantment. The Italian word is fattucchieria.

[17] Here too there is perhaps an analogy with cavalry, infantry, squierie, and similar collective terms.

[18] The Faerie Queene was published some years before the Midsummer Night's Dream. Warton (Obs. on the Faerie Queene) observes: "It appears from Marston's Satires, printed 1598, that the Faerie Queene occasioned many publications in which Fairies were the principal actors.

[19] It is in this century that we first meet with Fairy as a dissyllable, and with a plural. It is then used in its fourth and last sense.

[20] The Fata Morgana of the Straits of Messina is an example; for the name of Morgana, whencesoever derived, was probably brought into Italy by the poets.

[21] Dobenek, des deutschen Mittelalters und Volksglauben. Berlin, 1816.

[22] See D'Herbelot, Richardson's Dissertation, Ouseley's Persian Miscellanies, Wahl in the Mines de l'Orient, Lane, Thousand and One Nights, Forbes, Hatim Taï, etc., etc.

[23] Ormuzd employed himself for three thousand years in making the heavens and their celestial inhabitants, the Ferohers, which are the angels and the unembodied souls of all intelligent beings. All nature is filled with Ferohers, or guardian angels, who watch over its various departments, and are occupied in performing their various tasks for the benefit of mankind. —Erskine on the Sacred Books and Religion of the Parsis, in the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. ii. p.

318. The Feroher bears in fact a very strong resemblance to the Genius of the ancient Roman religion: see our Mythology of Greece and Italy.

[24] This word is pronounced Perry or rather Parry.

[25] Hence it follows that the very plausible idea of the Peri having been the same with the Feroher cannot be correct.

[26] Translated by Mr. Duncan Forbes. It is to be regretted that he has employed the terms Fairies and Demons instead of Peries and Deevs.

[27] See Lane, Thousand and One Nights, i. p. 21, seq.

[28] The Cahermân Nâmeh is a romance in Turkish. Cahermân was the father of Sâm, the grandfather of the celebrated Roostem.

[29] It is in the Cahermân Nâmeh that this circumstance occurs.

[30] The Tahmuras Nâmeh is also in Turkish. It and the Cahermân Nâmeh are probably translations from the Persian. As far as we are aware, Richardson is the only orientalist who mentions these two romances.

[31] It signifies 'thirty birds' and is thought to be the roc of the Arabs. The poet Sâdee, to express the bounty of the Almighty says

The Seemurgh probably belongs to the original mythology of Persia, for she appears in the early part of the Shâh Nâmeh. When Zâl was born to Sâm Nerimân, his hair proved to be white. The father regarding this as a proof of Deev origin, resolved to expose him, and sent him for that purpose to Mount Elburz. Here the poor babe lay crying and sucking his fingers till he was found by the Seemurgh, who abode on the summit of Elburz, as she was looking for food for her young ones. But God put pity into her heart, and she took him to her nest and reared him with her young.

As he grew up, the caravans that passed by, spread the fame of his beauty and his strength, and a vision having informed Sâm that he was his son, he set out for Elburz to claim him from the Seemurgh. It was with grief that Zâl quitted the maternal nest. The Seemurgh, when parting with her foster-son, gave him one of her feathers, and bade him, whenever he should be in trouble or danger, to cast it into the fire, and he would have proof of her power; and she charged him at the same time strictly never to forget his nurse.

[32] See Arabian Romance.

[33] a pearl. Life, soul also, according to Wilkins.

[34] Ferdousee's great heroic poem. It is remarkable that the Peries are very rarely spoken of in this poem. They merely appear in it with the birds and beasts among the subjects of the first Iranian monarchs.

[35] Chap. xx. translation of Jonathan Scott, 1799.

[36] See below, Shetland.

[37] i. e. possessed, insane. It is like the νυμφοληπτος of the Greeks.

[38] It must be recollected that the Peries are of both sexes: we have just spoken of Peri kings, and of the brothers of Merjân.

[39] In the Shâh Nâmeh it is said of Prince Siyawush, that when he was born he was bright as a Peri. We find the poets everywhere comparing female beauty to that of superior beings. The Greeks and Romans compared a lovely woman to Venus, Diana, or the nymphs; the Persians to a Peri; the ancient Scandinavians would say she was Frith sem Alfkone, "fair as an Alf-woman;" and an Anglo-Saxon poet says of Judith that she was Elf-sheen, or fair as an Elf. In the Lay of Gugemer it is said,

The same expression occurs in Méon (3, 412); and in the Romant de la Rose we meet, jure que plus belle est que fée (10, 425). In the Pentamerone it is said of a king's son, lo quale essenno bello comme a no fato.

[40] Mines de l'Orient, vol. iii. p. 40. To make his version completely English, M.

von Hammer uses the word Fairies; we have ventured to change it.

[41] In Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i., quoted by Sir W. Ouseley.

[42] Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W. Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the court-poet of Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the Arabs of the Desert.

[43] The Jinn are mentioned in the Kurân and also in Antar.

[44] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, seq. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, passim.

[45] Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence. The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius.

[46] "When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn. "—Kurân. chap. xviii. v.

48. Worship is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, "Thou hast created me of fire, and hast created him of earth. "—Ib. vii.

11; xxxviii. 77.

[47] It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say, "God speed you, gentlemen!" For the power of iron, see Scandinavia.

[48] The Arabs when they pour water on the ground, let down a bucket into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, "Permission!" (Destoor!) or, Permission, ye blessed! (Destoor, yâ mubârakeen!)

[49] For the preceding account of the Jinn, we are wholly indebted to Lane's valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30, seq.

[50] The first is given by Lane, the other two by D'Herbelot.

[51] On the subjects mentioned in this paragraph, see Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ii. and iii.

[52] In the Amadigi of B. Tasso, she is La Fata Urganda.