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FOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE
BY THE
REV. T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A. OXON.
AUTHOR OF "BRITISH POPULAR CUSTOMS, PAST AND PRESENT," ETC.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1884
PREFACE.
It would be difficult to overestimate the value which must be attached
to the plays of Shakespeare in connection with the social life of the
Elizabethan age. Possessed of a rich treasury of knowledge of a most
varied kind, much of which he may be said to have picked up almost
intuitively, he embellished his writings with a choice store of
illustrations descriptive of the period in which he lived. Apart, too,
from his copious references to the manners and customs of the time, he
seems to have had not only a wide knowledge of many technical subjects,
but also an intimate acquaintance with the folk-lore of bygone days. How
far this was the case may be gathered from the following pages, in which
are collected and grouped together, as far as arrangement would permit,
the various subjects relating to this interesting and popular branch of
our domestic history. It only remains for me to add that the edition of
the poet's plays made use of is the "Globe," published by Messrs.
Macmillan.
T. F. THISELTON DYER.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE.
I. FAIRIES 1
II. WITCHES 25
III. GHOSTS 43
IV. DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE 52
V. NATURAL PHENOMENA 62
VI. BIRDS 97
VII. ANIMALS 161
VIII. PLANTS 201
IX. INSECTS AND REPTILES 250
X. FOLK-MEDICINE 264
XI. CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH THE CALENDAR 296
XII. BIRTH AND BAPTISM 332
XIII. MARRIAGE 342
XIV. DEATH AND BURIAL 362
XV. RINGS AND PRECIOUS STONES 386
XVI. SPORTS AND PASTIMES 394
XVII. DANCES 424
XVIII. PUNISHMENTS 433
XIX. PROVERBS 444
XX. HUMAN BODY 475
XXI. FISHES 497
XXII. SUNDRY SUPERSTITIONS 505
XXIII. MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS, ETC. 521
INDEX 549
FOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE.
CHAPTER I.
FAIRIES.
The wealth of Shakespeare's luxuriant imagination and glowing language
seems to have been poured forth in the graphic accounts which he has
given us of the fairy tribe. Indeed, the profusion of poetic imagery
with which he has so richly clad his fairy characters is unrivalled, and
the "Midsummer-Night's Dream" holds a unique position in so far as it
contains the finest modern artistic realization of the fairy kingdom.
Mr. Dowden, in his "Shakspere Primer" (1877, pp. 71, 72) justly remarks:
"As the two extremes of exquisite delicacy, of dainty elegance, and, on
the other hand, of thick-witted grossness and clumsiness, stand the
fairy tribe and the group of Athenian handicraftsmen. The world of the
poet's dream includes the two--a Titania, and a Bottom the weaver--and can
bring them into grotesque conjunction. No such fairy poetry existed
anywhere in English literature before Shakspere. The tiny elves, to whom
a cowslip is tall, for whom the third part of a minute is an important
division of time, have a miniature perfection which is charming. They
delight in all beautiful and dainty things, and war with things that
creep and things that fly, if they be uncomely; their lives are gay with
fine frolic and delicate revelry." Puck, the jester of fairyland, stands
apart from the rest, the recognizable "lob of spirits," a rough,
"fawn-faced, shock-pated little fellow, dainty-limbed shapes around
him." Judging, then, from the elaborate account which the poet has
bequeathed us of the fairies, it is evident that the subject was one in
which he took a special interest. Indeed, the graphic pictures he has
handed down to us of
"Elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves;
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot,
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demy-puppets that
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make
Whereof the ewe not bites," etc.,
show how intimately he was acquainted with the history of these little
people, and what a complete knowledge he possessed of the superstitious
fancies which had clustered round them. In Shakespeare's day, too, it
must be remembered, fairies were much in fashion; and, as Johnson
remarks, common tradition had made them familiar. It has also been
observed that, well acquainted, from the rural habits of his early life,
with the notions of the peasantry respecting these beings, he saw that
they were capable of being applied to a production of a species of the
wonderful. Hence, as Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps[1] has so aptly written,
"he founded his elfin world on the prettiest of the people's traditions,
and has clothed it in the ever-living flowers of his own exuberant
fancy." Referring to the fairy mythology in the "Midsummer-Night's
Dream," it is described by Mr. Keightley[2] as an attempt to blend "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. There is a court and chivalry; Oberon would have the
queen's sweet changeling to be a "knight of his train, to trace the
forests wild." Like earthly monarchs, he has his jester, "that shrewd
and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow."
[1] "Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of 'A
Midsummer-Night's Dream,'" 1845, p. xiii.
[2] "Fairy Mythology," p. 325.
Of the fairy characters treated by Shakespeare may be mentioned Oberon,
king of fairyland, and Titania, his queen. They are represented as
keeping rival courts in consequence of a quarrel, the cause of which is
thus told by Puck ("Midsummer-Night's Dream," ii. 1):
"The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
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 starlight sheen," etc.
Oberon first appears in the old French romance of "Huon de Bourdeaux,"
and is identical with Elberich, the dwarf king of the German story of
Otuit in the "Heldenbuch." The name Elberich, or, as it appears in the
"Nibelungenlied," Albrich, was changed, in passing into French, first
into Auberich, then into Auberon, and finally became our Oberon. He is
introduced by Spenser in the "Fairy Queen" (book ii. cant. i. st. 6),
where he describes Sir Guyon:
"Well could he tournay, and in lists debate,
And knighthood tooke of good Sir Huon's hand,
When with King Oberon he came to faery land."
And in the tenth canto of the same book (stanza 75) he is the
allegorical representative of Henry VIII. The wise Elficleos left two
sons,
"of which faire Elferon,
The eldest brother, did untimely dy;
Whose emptie place the mightie Oberon
Doubly supplide, in spousall and dominion."
"Oboram, King of Fayeries," is one of the characters in Greene's "James
the Fourth."[3]
[3] Aldis Wright's "Midsummer-Night's Dream," 1877, Preface,
pp. xv., xvi.; Ritson's "Fairy Mythology," 1875, pp. 22, 23.
The name Titania for the queen of the fairies appears to have been the
invention of Shakespeare, for, as Mr. Ritson[4] remarks, she is not "so
called by any other writer." Why, however, the poet designated her by
this title, presents, according to Mr. Keightley,[5] no difficulty. "It
was," he says, "the belief of those days that the fairies were the same
as the classic nymphs, the attendants of Diana. The fairy queen was
therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania."
In Chaucer's "Merchant's Tale" Pluto is the king of faerie, and his
queen, Proserpina, "who danced and sang about the well under the laurel
in January's garden."[6]
[4] Essay on Fairies in "Fairy Mythology of Shakspeare," p. 23.
[5] "Fairy Mythology," 1878, p. 325.
[6] Notes to "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," by Aldis Wright,
1877, Preface, p. xvi.
In "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4) she is known by the more familiar
appellation, Queen Mab. "I dream'd a dream to-night," says Romeo,
whereupon Mercutio replies, in that well-known famous passage--
"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you,"
this being the earliest instance in which Mab is used to designate the
fairy queen. Mr. Thoms[7] thinks that the origin of this name is to be
found in the Celtic, and that it contains a distinct allusion to the
diminutive form of the elfin sovereign. _Mab_, both in Welsh and in the
kindred dialects of Brittany, signifies a child or infant, and hence it
is a befitting epithet to one who
"comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman."
Mr. Keightley suggests that Mab may be a contraction of Habundia, who,
Heywood says, ruled over the fairies; and another derivation is from
Mabel, of which Mab is an abbreviation.
[7] "Three Notelets on Shakespeare," pp. 100-107.
Among the references to Queen Mab we may mention Drayton's "Nymphidia:"
"Hence Oberon, him sport to make
(Their rest when weary mortals take,
And none but only fairies wake),
Descendeth for his pleasure:
And Mab, his merry queen, by night
Bestrides young folks that lie upright," etc.
Ben Jonson, in his "Entertainment of the Queen and Prince at Althrope,"
in 1603, describes as "tripping up the lawn a bevy of fairies, attending
on Mab, their queen, who, falling into an artificial ring that there was
cut in the path, began to dance around." In the same masque the queen is
thus characterized by a satyr.
"This is Mab, the mistress fairy,
That doth nightly rob the dairy,
And can help or hurt the cherning
As she please, without discerning," etc.
Like Puck, Shakespeare has invested Queen Mab with mischievous
properties, which "identify her with the night hag of popular
superstition," and she is represented as
"Platting the manes of horses in the night."
The merry Puck, who is so prominent an actor in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream," is the mischief-loving sprite, the jester of the fairy court,
whose characteristics are roguery and sportiveness. In his description
of him, Shakespeare, as Mr. Thoms points out, "has embodied almost every
attribute with which the imagination of the people has invested the
fairy race; and has neither omitted one trait necessary to give
brilliancy and distinctness to the likeness, nor sought to heighten its
effect by the slightest exaggeration. For, carefully and elaborately as
he has finished the picture, he has not in it invested the 'lob of
spirits' with one gift or quality which the popular voice of the age was
not unanimous in bestowing upon him." Thus (ii. 1) the fairy says:
"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are not you he?"
The name "Puck" was formerly applied to the whole race of fairies, and
not to any individual sprite--_puck_, or _pouke_, being an old word for
devil, in which sense it is used in the "Vision of Piers Plowman:"
"Out of the poukes pondfold
No maynprise may us fecche."
The Icelandic _puki_ is the same word, and in Friesland and Jutland the
domestic spirit is called Puk by the peasantry. In Devonshire, Piskey is
the name for a fairy, with which we may compare the Cornish Pixey. In
Worcestershire, too, we read how the peasantry are occasionally
"poake-ledden," that is, misled by a mischievous spirit called _poake_.
And, according to Grose's "Provincial Glossary," in Hampshire they give
the name of Colt-pixey to a supposed spirit or fairy, which, in the
shape of a horse, neighs, and misleads horses into bogs. The Irish,
again, have their Pooka,[8] and the Welsh their Pwcca--both words derived
from Pouke or Puck. Mr. Keightley[9] thinks, also, that the Scottish
_pawkey_, sly, knowing, may belong to the same list of words. It is
evident, then, that the term Puck was in bygone years extensively
applied to the fairy race, an appellation still found in the west of
England. Referring to its use in Wales, "there is a Welsh tradition to
the effect that Shakespeare received his knowledge of the Cambrian
fairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price, of the
Priory of Brecon." It is even claimed that Cwm Pwcca, or Puck Valley, a
part of the romantic glen of the Clydach, in Breconshire, is the
original scene of the "Midsummer-Night's Dream."[10]
[8] See Croker's "Fairy Legends of South of Ireland," 1862, p. 135.
[9] "Fairy Mythology," 1878, p. 316.
[10] Wirt Sikes's "British Goblins," 1880, p. 20.
Another of Puck's names was Robin Goodfellow, and one of the most
valuable illustrations we have of the "Midsummer-Night's Dream" is a
black-letter tract published in London, 1628, under the title of "Robin
Goodfellow: His Mad Pranks, and Merry Jests, full of honest mirth, and
is a fit medicine for melancholy."[11] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps,[12]
speaking of Robin Goodfellow, says, "there can be no doubt that in the
time of Shakespeare the fairies held a more prominent position in our
popular literature than can be now concluded from the pieces on the
subject that have descended to us." The author of "Tarlton's News out of
Purgatory," printed in 1590, assures us that Robin Goodfellow was
"famosed in every old wives chronicle for his mad merry pranks;" and we
learn from "Henslowe's Diary" that Chettle was the writer of a drama on
the adventures of that "merry wanderer of the night." These have
disappeared; and time has dealt so harshly with the memory of poor Robin
that we might almost imagine his spirit was still leading us astray over
massive volumes of antiquity, in a delusive search after documents
forever lost; or, rather, perhaps, it is his punishment for the useless
journeys he has given our ancestors, misleading night-wanderers, "and
laughing at their harm."[13] He is mentioned by Drayton in his
"Nymphidia:"
"He meeteth Puck, which most men call
Hob-goblin, and on him doth fall," etc.,
"hob being the familiar or diminutive form of Robert and Robin, so that
Hobgoblin is equivalent to Robin the Goblin. _i. e._, Robin
Goodfellow."[14] Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," alludes to him
thus: "A bigger kinde there is of them, called with us hobgoblins and
Robin Goodfellows, that would, in superstitious times, grinde corne for
a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work." Under his
name of Robin Goodfellow, Puck is well characterized in Jonson's masque
of "Love Restored."[15]
[11] This is reprinted in Hazlitt's "Fairy Tales, Legends, and
Romances, illustrating Shakespeare and other English Writers,"
1875, p. 173.
[12] "Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of the
Midsummer-Night's Dream," printed for the Shakespeare Society,
p. viii.
[13] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 508-512.
[14] Thoms's "Three Notelets on Shakespeare," p. 88.
[15] See Nares's Glossary, vol. ii. p. 695.
Another epithet applied to Puck is "Lob," as in the "Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (ii. 1), where he is addressed by the fairy as
"Thou lob of spirits."[16]
With this we may compare the "lubber-fiend" of Milton, and the following
in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle" (iii. 4):
"There is a pretty tale of a witch that had the devil's mark about her,
that had a giant to be her son, that was called Lob-lye-by-the-Fire."
Grimm[17] mentions a spirit, named the "Good Lubber," to whom the bones
of animals used to be offered at Manseld, in Germany. Once more, the
phrase of "being in," or "getting into Lob's pound," is easy of
explanation, presuming Lob to be a fairy epithet--the term being
equivalent to Poake-ledden or Pixy-led.[18] In "Hudibras" this term is
employed as a name for the stocks in which the knight puts Crowdero:
"Crowdero, whom in irons bound,
Thou basely threw'st into _Lob's pound_."
[16] Mr. Dyce considers that Lob is descriptive of the contrast
between Puck's square figure and the airy shapes of the other
fairies.
[17] "Deutsche Mythologie," p. 492.
[18] See Keightley's "Fairy Mythology," pp. 318, 319.
It occurs, also, in Massinger's "Duke of Milan" (iii. 2), where it means
"behind the arras:"
"Who forc'd the gentleman, to save her credit,
To marry her, and say he was the party
Found in Lob's pound."
The allusion by Shakespeare to the "Will-o'-the-Wisp," where he speaks
of Puck as "sometime a fire," is noticed elsewhere, this being one of
the forms under which this fairy was supposed to play his midnight
pranks.
Referring, in the next place, to the several names of Shakespeare's
fairies, we may quote from "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 3), where
Mrs. Page speaks of "urchins, ouphes, and fairies"--urchin having been
an appellation for one class of fairies. In the "Maydes' Metamorphosis"
of Lyly (1600), we find fairies, elves, and urchins separately
accommodated with dances for their use. The following is the _urchin's_
dance:
"By the moone we sport and play,
With the night begins our day;
As we frisk the dew doth fall,
Trip it, little urchins all,
Lightly as the little bee,
Two by two, and three by three,
And about goe wee, goe wee."
In "The Tempest" (i. 2) their actions are also limited to the night:
"Urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee."
The children employed to torment Falstaff, in "The Merry Wives of
Windsor" (iv. 4), were to be dressed in these fairy shapes.
Mr. Douce regards the word _urchin_, when used to designate a fairy, as
of Celtic origin, with which view Mr. Thoms[19] compares the _urisks_ of
Highland fairies.
[19] "Three Notelets on Shakespeare," pp. 79-82.
The term _ouphe_, according to Grimm, is only another form of the
cognate _elf_, which corresponds with the Middle High-German _ulf_, in
the plural _ulve_. He further proves the identity of this _ulf_ with
_alp_, and with our English _elf_, from a Swedish song published by
Asdwiddson, in his "Collection of Swedish Ballads," in one version of
which the elfin king is called Herr _Elfver_, and in the second Herr
_Ulfver_.
The name _elf_, which is frequently used by Shakespeare, is the same as
the Anglo-Saxon _alf_, the Old High-German and the Middle High-German
_ulf_. "Fairies and elvs," says Tollet, "are frequently mentioned
together in the poets without any distinction of character that I can
recollect."
The other fairies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed probably
owe their appellations to the poet himself.
How fully Shakespeare has described the characteristics of the fairy
tribe, besides giving a detailed account of their habits and doings, may
be gathered from the following pages, in which we have briefly
enumerated the various items of fairy lore as scattered through the
poet's writings.
Beauty, then, united with power, was one of the popular characteristics
of the fairy tribe. Such was that of the "Fairy Queen" of Spenser, and
of Titania in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." In "Antony and Cleopatra"
(iv. 8), Antony, on seeing Cleopatra enter, says to Scarus:
"To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,
Make her thanks bless thee."
In "Cymbeline" (iii. 6), when the two brothers find Imogen in their
cave, Belarius exclaims:
"But that it eats our victuals, I should think
Here were a fairy."[20]
And he then adds:
"By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
An earthly paragon! behold divineness
No elder than a boy."
[20] Showing, as Mr. Ritson says, that they never ate.
The fairies, as represented in many of our old legends and folk-tales,
are generally noticeable for their beauty, the same being the case with
all their surroundings. As Sir Walter Scott,[21] too, says, "Their
pageants and court entertainments comprehended all that the imagination
could conceive of what were accounted gallant and splendid. At their
processions they paraded more beautiful steeds than those of mere
earthly parentage. The hawks and hounds which they employed in their
chase were of the first race. At their daily banquets, the board was set
forth with a splendor which the proudest kings of the earth dared not
aspire to, and the hall of their dancers echoed to the most exquisite
music."
[21] "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft," 1831, p. 121.
Mr. Douce[22] quotes from the romance of "Lancelot of the Lake," where
the author, speaking of the days of King Arthur, says, "En celui temps
estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentre-mettoient
denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement
en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles,
des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenues et jeunesse et
en beaulte, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient."
[22] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 115.
"This perpetual youth and beauty," he adds, "cannot well be separated
from a state of immortality;" another characteristic ascribed to the
fairy race. It is probably alluded to by Titania in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (ii. 1):
"The human mortals want their winter here."
And further on (ii. 1), when speaking of the changeling's mother, she
says:
"But she, being mortal, of that boy did die."
Again, a fairy addresses Bottom the weaver (iii. 1)--
"Hail, mortal!"
--an indication that she was not so herself. The very fact, indeed, that
fairies "call themselves _spirits_, ghosts, or shadows, seems to be a
proof of their immortality." Thus Puck styles Oberon "king of shadows,"
and this monarch asserts of himself and his subjects--
"But we are spirits of another sort."
Fletcher, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," describes (i. 2)--
"A virtuous well, about whose flow'ry banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality."
Ariosto, in his "Orlando Furioso" (book xliii. stanza 98) says:
"I am a fayrie, and to make you know,
To be a fayrie what it doth import,
We cannot dye, how old so e'er we grow.
Of paines and harmes of ev'rie other sort
We taste, onelie no death we nature ow."
An important feature of the fairy race was their power of vanishing at
will, and of assuming various forms. In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream"
Oberon says:
"I am invisible,
And I will overhear their conference."
Puck relates how he was in the habit of taking all kinds of outlandish
forms; and in the "Tempest," Shakespeare has bequeathed to us a graphic
account of Ariel's eccentricities. "Besides," says Mr. Spalding,[23]
"appearing in his natural shape, and dividing into flames, and behaving
in such a manner as to cause young Ferdinand to leap into the sea,
crying, 'Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!' he assumes the
forms of a water nymph (i. 2), a harpy (iii. 3), and also the Goddess
Ceres (iv. 1), while the strange shapes, masquers, and even the hounds
that hunt and worry the would-be king and viceroys of the island, are
Ariel's 'meaner fellows.'" Poor Caliban complains of Prospero's spirits
(ii. 2):
"For every trifle are they set upon me;
Sometimes like apes, that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me: then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount
Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness."
[23] "Elizabethan Demonology," p. 50.
That fairies are sometimes exceedingly diminutive is fully shown by
Shakespeare, who gives several instances of this peculiarity. Thus Queen
Mab, in "Romeo and Juliet," to which passage we have already had
occasion to allude (i. 4), is said to come
"In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman."[24]
[24] Agate was used metaphorically for a very diminutive
person, in allusion to the small figures cut in agate for
rings. In "2 Henry IV." (i. 2), Falstaff says: "I was never
manned with an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in
gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again
to your master, for a jewel." In "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii.
1) Hero speaks of a man as being "low, an agate very vilely
cut."
And Puck tells us, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1), that when
Oberon and Titania meet,
"they do square, that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there."
Further on (ii. 3) the duties imposed by Titania upon her train point to
their tiny character:
"Come, now a roundel and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats."
And when enamoured of Bottom, she directs her elves that they should--
"Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes."
We may compare, too, Ariel's well-known song in "The Tempest" (v. 1):
"Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily,
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."
Again, from the following passage in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv.
4) where Mrs. Page, after conferring with her husband, suggests that--
"Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their hands"
it is evident that in Shakespeare's day fairies were supposed to be of
the size of children. The notion of their diminutiveness, too, it
appears was not confined to this country,[25] but existed in
Denmark,[26] for in the ballad of "Eline of Villenskov" we read:
"Out then spake the smallest Trold;
No bigger than an ant;--
Oh! here is come a Christian man,
His schemes I'll sure prevent."
[25] See Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie."
[26] Thoms's "Three Notelets on Shakespeare," 1865, pp. 38, 39.
Again, various stories are current in Germany descriptive of the fairy
dwarfs; one of the most noted being that relating to Elberich, who aided
the Emperor Otnit to gain the daughter of the Paynim Soldan of
Syria.[27]
[27] See Keightley's "Fairy Mythology," 1878, p. 208.
The haunt of the fairies on earth are generally supposed to be the most
romantic and rural that can be selected; such a spot being the place of
Titania's repose described by Oberon in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii.
1):[28]
"a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in."
[28] See also Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," 1852, vol. iii. p.
32, etc.
Titania also tells how the fairy race meet
"on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea."
In "The Tempest" (v. 1), we have the following beautiful invocation by
Prospero:
"Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back--"
Their haunts, however, varied in different localities, but their
favorite abode was in the interior of conical green hills, on the slopes
of which they danced by moonlight. Milton, in the "Paradise Lost" (book
i.), speaks of
"fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheels her pale course, they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."
The Irish fairies occasionally inhabited the ancient burial-places known
as tumuli or barrows, while some of the Scottish fairies took up their
abode under the "door-stane" or threshold of some particular house, to
the inmates of which they administered good offices.[29]
[29] Gunyon's "Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and
Superstitions," p. 299.
The so-called fairy-rings in old pastures[30]--little circles of a
brighter green, within which it was supposed the fairies dance by
night--are now known to result from the out-spreading propagation of a
particular mushroom, the fairy-ringed fungus, by which the ground is
manured for a richer following vegetation. An immense deal of legendary
lore, however, has clustered round this curious phenomenon, popular
superstition attributing it to the merry roundelays of the moonlight
fairies.[31] In "The Tempest" (v. 1) Prospero invokes the fairies as the
"demy-puppets" that
"By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight-mushrooms."
[30] Chambers's "Book of Days," vol. i. p. 671.
[31] Among the various conjectures as to the cause of these
verdant circles, some have ascribed them to lightning; others
maintained that they are occasioned by ants. See Miss Baker's
"Northamptonshire Glossary," vol. i. p. 218; Brand's "Pop.
Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 480-483; and also the
"Phytologist," 1862, pp. 236-238.
In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1), the fairy says:
"I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green."
Again, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), Anne Page says:
"And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing
Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see."
And once in "Macbeth" (v. 1), Hecate says:
"Like elves and fairies in a ring."
Drayton, in his "Nymphidia" (l. 69-72), mentions this superstition:
"And in their courses make that round,
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the fayrie ground,
Of which they have the keeping."
Cowley, too, in his "Complaint," says:
"Where once such fairies dance, no grass does ever grow."
And again, in his ode upon Dr. Harvey:
"And dance, like fairies, a fantastic round."
Pluquet, in his "Contes Populaires de Bayeux," tells us that the fairy
rings, called by the peasants of Normandy "Cercles des fées," are said
to be the work of fairies.
Among the numerous superstitions which have clustered round the fairy
rings, we are told that when damsels of old gathered the May dew on the
grass, which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left
undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings,
apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty.
Nor was it considered safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they
should be liable to the fairies' power.[32] The "Athenian Oracle" (i.
397) mentions a popular belief that "if a house be built upon the ground
where fairy rings are, whoever shall inhabit therein does wonderfully
prosper."
[32] Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 112.
Speaking of their dress, we are told that they constantly wore green
vests, unless they had some reason for changing their attire. In the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 4) they are spoken of as--
"Urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white."
And further on (v. 4):
"Fairies, black, grey, green, and white."
The fairies of the moors were often clad in heath-brown or lichen-dyed
garments, whence the epithet of "Elfin-grey."[33]
[33] Ritson's "Fairy Mythology," 1878, pp. 26, 27.
The legends of most countries are unanimous in ascribing to the fairies
an inordinate love of music; such harmonious sounds as those which
Caliban depicts in "The Tempest" (iii. 2) being generally ascribed to
them:
"The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again."
In the "Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 3), when Titania is desirous of
taking a nap, she says to her attendants:
"Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song."
And further on (iii. 1) she tells Bottom:
"I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep."
The author of "Round About our Coal Fire"[34] tells us that "they had
fine musick always among themselves, and danced in a moonshiny night,
around, or in, a ring."
[34] Quoted by Brand, "Pop. Antiq.," vol. ii. p. 481.
They were equally fond of dancing, and we are told how they meet--
"To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind;"
and in the "Maydes' Metamorphosis" of Lyly, the fairies, as they dance,
sing:
"Round about, round about, in a fine ring a,
Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing a,
Trip and go, to and fro, over this green a,
All about, in and out, for our brave queen a," etc.
As Mr. Thoms says, in his "Three Notelets on Shakespeare" (1865, pp. 40,
41), "the writings of Shakespeare abound in graphic notices of these
fairy revels, couched in the highest strains of poetry; and a comparison
of these with some of the popular legends which the industry of
Continental antiquaries has preserved will show us clearly that these
delightful sketches of elfin enjoyment have been drawn by a hand as
faithful as it is masterly."
It would seem that the fairies disliked irreligious people: and so, in
"Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), the mock fairies are said to chastise
unchaste persons, and those who do not say their prayers. This coincides
with what Lilly, in his "Life and Times," says: "Fairies love a strict
diet and upright life; fervent prayers unto God conduce much to the
assistance of those who are curious hereways," _i. e._, who wish to
cultivate an acquaintance with them.
Again, fairies are generally represented as great lovers and patrons of
cleanliness and propriety, for the observance of which they were
frequently said to reward good servants, by dropping money into their
shoes in the night; and, on the other hand, they were reported to punish
most severely the sluts and slovenly, by pinching them black and
blue.[35] Thus, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), Puck says:
"I am sent, with broom, before,
To sweep the dust behind the door."
[35] Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. p. 483.
In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), Pistol, speaking of the mock fairy
queen, says:
"Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery;"
and the fairies who haunt the towers of Windsor are enjoined:
"About, about,
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
* * * * *
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower."
In Ben Jonson's ballad of "Robin Goodfellow"[36] we have a further
illustration of this notion:
"When house or hearth cloth sluttish lie,
I pinch the maidens black and blue,
The bed clothes from the bed pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.
'Twixt sleep and wake
I do them take,
And on the key-cold floor them throw;
If out they cry,
Then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh I, ho, ho, ho!"
[36] Halliwell-Phillipps's "Illustrations of Fairy Mythology,"
p. 167; see Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," pp. 122, 123.
In "Round About our Coal Fire," we find the following passage bearing on
the subject: "When the master and mistress were laid on the pillows, the
men and maids, if they had a game at romps, and blundered up stairs, or
jumbled a chair, the next morning every one would swear 'twas the
fairies, and that they heard them stamping up and down stairs all night,
crying, 'Waters lock'd, waters lock'd!' when there was no water in every
pail in the kitchen." Herrick, too, in his "Hesperides," speaks of this
superstition:
"If ye will with Mab find grace,
Set each platter in his place;
Rake the fire up, and set
Water in, ere sun be set,
Wash your pales and cleanse your dairies,
Sluts are loathesome to the fairies:
Sweep your house; who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe."
While the belief in the power of fairies existed, they were supposed to
perform much good service to mankind. Thus, in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" (v. 1), Oberon says:
"With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest,
Ever shall in safety rest"--
the object of their blessing being to bring peace upon the house of
Theseus. Mr. Douce[37] remarks that the great influence which the belief
in fairies had on the popular mind "gave so much offence to the holy
monks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel
these imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the
office of the fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands;" a
proof of which we have in Chaucer's "Wife of Bath:"
"I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo,
For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limitoures and other holy freres
That serchen every land and every streme,
As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,
Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,
Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries:
For ther as wont to walken was an elf
Ther walketh now the limitour himself."
[37] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," pp. 126, 127.
Macbeth, too (v. 8), in his encounter with Macduff, says:
"I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born."
In the days of chivalry, the champion's arms were ceremoniously blessed,
each taking an oath that he used no charmed weapon. In Spenser's "Fairy
Queen" (book i. canto 4) we read:
"he bears a charmed shield,
And eke enchanted arms, that none can pierce."
Fairies were amazingly expeditious in their journeys. Thus, Puck goes
"swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow," and in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" he answers Oberon, who was about to send him on a secret
expedition:
"I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes."
Again, the same fairy addresses him:
"Fairy king, attend, and mark:
I do hear the morning lark.
_Oberon._ Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon."
Once more, Puck says:
"My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger," etc.
It was fatal, if we may believe Falstaff in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v.
5) to speak to a fairy: "They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall
die."
Fairies are accustomed to enrich their favorites; and in "A Winter's
Tale" (iii. 3) the shepherd says: "It was told me I should be rich by
the fairies;"[38] and in "Cymbeline" (v. 4), Posthumus, on waking and
finding the mysterious paper, exclaims:
"What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers," etc.
[38] See Croker's "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of
Ireland," p. 316.
At the same time, however, it was unlucky to reveal their acts of
generosity, as the shepherd further tells us: "This is fairy gold, boy;
and 'twill prove so; up with't, keep it close, home, home, the next way.
We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy."
The necessity of secrecy in fairy transactions of this kind is
illustrated in Massinger and Field's play of "The Fatal Dowry," 1632
(iv. 1),[39] where Romont says:
"But not a word o' it; 'tis fairies' treasure,
Which, but reveal'd, brings on the blabber's ruin."
[39] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. ii. p. 493.
Among the many other good qualities belonging to the fairy tribe, we are
told that they were humanely attentive to the youthful dead.[40] Thus
Guiderius, in "Cymbeline," thinking that Imogen is dead (iv. 2), says:
"With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee;"[41]
there having been a popular notion that where fairies resorted no
noxious creature could be found.
[40] Ritson's "Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare," 1875, p. 29.
[41] Some copies read _them_.
In the pathetic dirge of Collins a similar allusion is made:
"No wither'd witch shall here be seen,
No goblin lead their nightly crew;
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew."
It seems, however, that they were also supposed to be malignant; but
this, "it may be," says Mr. Ritson, "was merely calumny, as being
utterly inconsistent with their general character, which was singularly
innocent and amiable." Thus, when Imogen, in "Cymbeline" (ii. 2), prays
on going to sleep,
"From fairies and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye,"[42]
it must have been, says Mr. Ritson,[43] the _incubus_ she was so afraid
of.
[42] We may compare Banquo's words in "Macbeth" (ii. 1):
"Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose."
[43] "Fairy Mythology," pp. 27, 28.
Hamlet, too, notices this imputed malignity of the fairies (i. 1):
"Then no planet strikes,
Nor fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm."[44]
[44] "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 2) some critics read:
"A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough."
That the fairies, however, were fond of indulging in mischievous sport
at the expense of mortals is beyond all doubt, the merry pranks of Puck
or Robin Goodfellow fully illustrating this item of our fairy-lore.
Thus, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1) this playful fairy says:
"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 sometime 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 wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough."
A fairy, in another passage, asks Robin:
"Are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
* * * * *
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?"
We have already mentioned how Queen Mab had the same mischievous humor
in her composition, which is described by Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet"
(i. 4):
"This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes."
Another reprehensible practice attributed to the fairies was that of
carrying off and exchanging children, such being designated
changelings.[45] The special agent in transactions of the sort was also
Queen Mab, and hence Mercutio says:
"She is the fairies' midwife."
And "she is so called," says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, "because it was
her supposed custom to steal new-born babes in the night and leave
others in their place." Mr. Steevens gives a different interpretation to
this line, and says, "It does not mean that she was the midwife to the
fairies, but that she was the person among the fairies whose department
it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men in their dreams, those
children of an idle brain."
[45] This superstition is fully described in chapter on _Birth_.