EVOLUTION OF THE FAIRY DEPOSITED BY THE COMMITTEE ON (Srafcuate Studies.

\ W

No. LlDrary ol iflcii University MONTREAL. Receiyed

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAIRY WORLD

WITH 8PECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS TREATMHMT

IN ENGLISH LITERATURE,

by

Ariel Marguerlta Macnaughton

1910.

Thesis submitted for the Master of Arts* Degree* INDEX.

The Evolution of the Fairy World, With Special

Reference to its Treatment in English Literature.

Preface. p^ 1% Chapter 1. The theories ofthe origin of the fairy race, • 1. Former theories* 2. Agricultural ritualistic origin . Fg. 5. Chapter II. The fairy world in early Celtic Literature. 1. Its creation , its Qualities an* its influence upon English Literature. Pg% 26 Chapter in. The medieval conception of fairyland. 1. The new features literature developed in the fairy of the Spenserian portrayal. 2. Oberon. Chapter IV. Shakespearia3. The fairn ytreatment mythology. of England. Pg% 33. l% r£?e influences that moulded his conceptions. 2. The nature of Shakespearian presentment. Pg.66 Chapter V. ffilsn1^ of fal^nd in 1. Its imitative nature and revival of oltf traditions. 2. The new attributes it bestowed on the fairy.Pgf6 Chapter VI. The nineteenth-century foix-lore revivals and UtJmSS8006 ln StePlng falr^ intern

X' ftSSK.!* feStUre b6CaUSe effib0<^ contemporary 2. The latest aspect of the fairy wana and its part in modern life. pi ., The Evolution of the Fairy World with special reference to its treatment in English Literature.

Few things have been more lovely in the marvellous English poetry of the last three centuries than its pictures of the fairy world, real to our ancestors. So persistent was the fairy note throughout the evolution of our literature, that from ShaKespeare, Drayton and HerricK, to Swinburne, Tennyson and Rossetti the tribute to the elfin realm was paid, and to-day in Ireland and Gaelic Scotland the horns of Elfland still blow "of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn." No other literature save Greece has given us glimpses of the mysterious land of phantasy and charm that equal the pictures of the English poets. Why then the fairy world should be especially prominent in English literature is a question whose answer lies deep not only in the psychology but the history of the race. National temperament and historical conditions have both played their part in developing the folK beliefs of the -2-

people. Eighteen hundred years ago the fairy creed of Europe was identical with that of Ireland and England. Yet it is only England and Ireland to-day whose literature can show an uninterrupted chain in the development of the fairy conception. Why Europe so lost the distinct reality of her folK belief that it found no embodiment in the writings of her people is answered by her history. Wile Gaeldom was unaffected by Roman influence, the tribal system survived and preserved local mythology, - hence the continued existence among the Celts of the reality of their belief. But Europe, on the contrary, peopled by one and the same Aryan family of similar temperament, so developed that one tribal community, Greece and Rome, c forced its peculiar and individual mythology upon all the others,and we have the vast pantheon of classical literature accepted by the ancient civilized world. The result was a confusion in the minds of the borrowers: for when the brief flower of "Classical Faery" had withered beneath the sturdy blast of Christian zeal, no other European family, save the Gaels, had sufficient tenacity of imagination to embody their belief in their literature. On the other hand, owing to historical conditions, Celtic mythology, which had sprung from -3-

the same origin as all Aryan folk-lore, was left at liberty to develop upon its own lines, and portray the truth and living charm of its own racial peculiarity. To this Celtic treasure-house, through the Arthur saga, England fell heir;

and her poets? through the inspiration of the ancient

narratives;gave life and form to their own peasant lore. Therefore since the close link between the fairy of old heroic saga, whom they met in Arthurian romance, and the fairy of the peasant, celebrated in every country neighbourhood was recognized by English writers, their productions are alive and vivid while those of the Continent seem alien and unreal. English writers have caught the living beauty of the belief as it existed among the people of their day. The elf world of the Elizabethans is a realm of poetry and fancy, yet so much of the spirit of the age breathes out from such fanciful pictures that we§ feel their truth to life, and the fairy world becomes almost as real and alluring to us as it was to the fifteenth century Bnglishman. To understand the position which the fairy poetry of Shakespeare and modern writers occupies in the history of

Faery is here used in its right sense, The land of fairies"; KeIghtley;page*9 -4-

literature, it will be necessary to trace the conception of the fairy world, from its earliest presentations of fairy belief, at a time in the history of our people previous to the most ancient records of earth1 s races, to its £*. final presentation in the poetry of the nineteenth century Yeats and Tennyson. In the treatment from century to century we shall see what are the qualities it has retained of its early nature, as it undergoes change in the hands of generations of bards. Each successive epoch gives something, each historical change leaves its mark; and each singer moulds afresh the influences of preceding creations. From its origin in Aryan mythology it took certain characteristics that it never lost. Lt Later, the Celtic romance singers peopled this fairy realm with a race of Fay-dwellers, who were distinguished by theold ritual qualities of Aryan custom* Ttoen came the Medieval story-tellers to enrich the Land of Fa6ry with the exuberant illusion of an age that produced the extravagance of Chivalry. With Shakespeare^ a union of the beauties of a past inspiration with the simple beliefs 10T the people of his day*, came to English poetry. He, for all time, till fairies reign again, established a tradition for later English poets to follow. At last the nineteenth -5-

century, because the living belief in fairies had departed, ushers in revivals and echoes of a past in its poetry. Tennyson returns to medieval "Avalon" and "Arthur", and Yeats to the Celtic "Land of Youth" and "Oisin".

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF THE FAIRY RACE

An examination of the qualities of the fairy race forces us to consider theorigin of this belief in a fairyland,- -a belief which is so old, and so universal, that the Russ in his wintry dwelling, or the Irish peasant by his fire of turf, tells to those around the same tale of fairy pranks and plays as those which hush the Japanese to sleep. Such an identity suggests a common origin in the tradition and rights of a common family in a primitive state. Among the many theories advanced to account for the diffusion of the fairy conception among the nations is the borrowing of stories from one another. Equally satisfactory is the explanation of the similarity of the tales in different parts of the world by the pyschologlcal reasoning in men's minds that similar conditions will produce similar results. -6-

Therefore at certain stages of civilization early man reasoned himself into a belief in fairies and their doings, because at that time his mind had reached a certain stage of develop­ ment which existing circumstances aided him in controlling usee and classifying. This psychological factAto account for the diffusion of tales is based on the same reasoning as an explanation to account for the origin of the fairies. The Naturalistic theory has found many tsuppdrfcers •

The Naturalistic Theory Such eminent scientists as Grimm, Max Miiller and John Fiske have considered the belief in fairies to be primitive man1 s explanation of the causes of natural phenomena. They claim that the fairies are the inhabitants of a vast pantheon, which was the direct result of man's attempts to account for nature. This hypothesis is very plausible^ for in man, imagination is a strong faculty, and -rwhen he cannot understand a thing imagination pictures it for him and supplies a reason. Storm winds are gnomes or demons who destroy, and gentle breezes are fairies. To him all nature is alive, and here is the first step towards his creation of an elfin world.

In the Iliad we see a grand old fairy-tale where each tree -7- has its fairy, each pool its elusive sprite, and where nymph and dryad are wooed and loved by mortal, and appear in the m most beautiful forms the human imagination can picture. The naturalistic or Aryan theory of origin proves that in the Latin and Greek writings the old classical mytholgoy was identical with the religion of thepeople. So the first stage of any mythology is its existence as the religious creed of the race. When in such primitive reasoning man begins to realize a personality in separation from the natural object , which exists as the inhabitant of mountain, tree, or river, he has begun to perceive the importance of matter, and yet has to refer whatever life the object apparently possessed to some outside supernatural being. Thus to hirn^at first, the hamadryad dwells in her tree, feels its injuries, and dies with it; but as time goes on, man considers her i apart from the natural object, and endows her with mortal and supernatural qualities. Then our world holds beings, such as the German elves and gnomes, who are spirits of the mountain but not identical with it. After the spirits hatL become separated from their association:, and bounds of locality, they developed in powe» until they from differed A man only in moral character, and a certain delight­ ful independence of the laws of gravity. When this stage had -8-

been reached in the creation of a supernatural race, it was but a step for the simple Aryan people to surround with adventures and characteristics the fairy race they had evolved. The tafes grew and were circulated by word of mouth ever becoming more and more adapted to existing needs as time went on. When the inevitable emigration of Aryan tribes took place, the stories were carried to all parts of Europe. But by this time the fairy world was an established reality, which had found a place In the inmost belief of the people, and where diffusion of a common stock of stories did not occur the generation of similar thought by people of the same mental development, under similar conditions, accounted for the growth of the fairy in the folk tale and literature of the nations* Such is the Aryan and Naturalistic theory, - for they are one, - of the origin of the fairy belief and the cause of the treatment in literature. 1 From this theory and the data it used, Max Muller was led to a different conclusion. He thought that the myths did not arise from religion but from language. He tried to prove that the words themselves, and the names of the powers

1. Max Muller: Chips from a Geman Workshop, Vol.Il,3g. The philological theory is well expounded here. -9- of nature gave rise to stories about nature, and from a philological standpoint are responsible for the creation of the fairy race. For the names of natural phenomena , he

considers;gave life to stories about the loves and feuds, first of nature, then of gods, then of heroes, and, finally, of the flirting and teasing of fairies and lesser deities; yet from the time the gods were thought of as dead the stories 2 livedon. Strange to sajr, Dasent, the Scandinavian scholar agrees with him in attributing the origin to philological working . These theories, however, are too vague and too general to account for the particular antiiret universal qualities of the fairy tribe. Their characteristics are so distinctly retained, and so unvarying throughout the succeeding ages, that some particular force, inherent in the fairy creed and valuable to the peasant, who gave it all his faith, must have been the influence which shaped its origin in the folklore of to-day. Scholars^who have investigated the Celtic folklore of two thousand years and compared it wilh the Irish fairy stories of to-day;find that there has been little change In the qualities and attributes bestowed on the fairy. This led investigators like Rkys , Crofton Croker, Yeats and MacRltchie to consider that there might be an historical memory which

2. Dasent: Scandinavian Tales , See Preface. -10- had moulded the fairy and been instrumental in supplying it with qualities ready-made and not evolved. Investigating I a suggestion of Pliny's and the reputed modern discovery 2 of pigmy tribes, they conceived the idea that the whole fairy

1. Pliny Bartholomoeus de proprietatibus Rerum, fol.Lond.1582 "Plgmei be little men of a cublte long, and the Greeks call them Pigmeos, and they dwell in mountains of Inde, and the sea of ocean is nigh to them, as Papias sayth. And Austen sayth in this wise, that plgmei bee unr.eth a cubite long, and bee perfect of age in the thirde years, and ware old in the Seaventh yere, and it is said, that they fight with cranes. Plinius speaketh of Pigmeis, and sayth, that plgmei be armed in yron, and overcome cranes, and passe not their bounds, and dwell in temperate lande under a merrye parte of heaven, in mountains on the north side. And the fame is, that cranes pursue them, and plgmei armed, ride on goat bucks, with arowes in springing time, and gather an hoast, and come to the sea and destroy their egs and birds with all their might and strength, and doe such voyages in three moneths, and except they did so, cranes should increase, and be so many, that plgmei should not withstand them, and they make them houses to dwell in of feathers, and with the pens of cranes, and of shells of their egges, as he sayth, and saith also, that Aristotle meaneth, that Plgmei live in dennes." 2. sir Henry Johnston,- in Pall Mall Magazine, February, 1902.- who has encountered the Congo dwarfs, states "That pygmy races (like the Congo pygmies), belonging to the white or Mongolian ' species, may have inhabited Northern Europe in ancient times Then the conclusion is Inevitable that it gave rise to most of the myths and beliefs connected with gnome s, ho bo Ids and fairies. The demeanour and actions of the little Congo dwarfs at the present day remind one over and over of the traits attributed to the Brownies and Goblins in our fairy stories Their remarkable power of becoming invisible by adroit hiding in herbage and behind rocks, their probable habits in sterile osupernaturatheitofor suggesthopere mischieviousness nstofie countriet ltha attributesst o sfit oTeuto waf smakin ,nsom. an anedgd ractheibtheiCeletr r lik homeregardinprankise sthi ihsng whichole gooa dpeoplsh natur anInspireed oefcavern al quasi^ua»jd lmos sees.t- m -11- belief had grown up out of a folk-memory of an actual pigmy 1 race. Such a race, according to Mr. David MacRitchie^ is supposed to have been a prehistoric Mongolian family which inhabited the British Isles and many parts of Continental Eurppe. When the Celtic nations appeared,these pigmies were driven into mountain fastnesses and into the most inaccessible places, where a few of them may have survived until comparatively historical times. Then to this real race of people all kinds of attributes possible and impossible have been given, in the course of uncounted centuries of Story-telling by races endowed with a lively imagination, until we have them figuring as the fairies of modern belief. The key to the fairy idea 2 is the existence of such an historical memory^2 Associated with the Pygmy theory are the investigators who have tried to prove the Druids and their magic practices as 3 alone responsible for the fairy faith; and who have postulated

"••• MacRitchie: The Testimony of Tradition* 2. Sir John Rhys of Oxford, Nineteenth Century, Vol.10. 3. "The first suggestion of this was made by Patrick Graham in his "Sketches Descriptive of Picturesque Scenery on the Southern Confines of Perthshire"m published in 1806. Alfred du Maury in Les Fe^es du Moyen Age. (pub. 1843,Pans has also made liberal use of Patrick Graham's suggestions in setting up his theory that the Fees oT Fairy-women of the Middle Ages are due to a folk-memory of the Druidesses. One of Mr. Wentz's witnesses states that the fairies of any one race are the people of the preceding races. -12- what some scholars term our Druid origin theory. But the method of investigation , which has involved collecting the modern data of fairy lore andworking back to form a theory for the existence and characteristics of the material at their command, has led no one to so startling a conclusion as Wentz, whose view claims to be the fundamental one, which includes or absorbs all the others.

Psychical Theory of Origin The latest word on the question of origin is his. He explains the origin of the fairy faith as psychical , i.e. as implying the existence of invisible intelligences or entities able to influence man and nature. So this is nothing less than a re-statement in mo-dern terms of the old belief that fairies are veritably supernatural or non-human beings, and that fairyland has to-day a real existence. Anthropological Theory of Origin. unanswerable as the psychological theory appeals, yet when we come to the anthropological views of certain 1 students we see how widely the investigations in their efforts to explain its rise and growth, have hovered around the root Idea of the fairy conception. *U Wentz: The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries: Its Psychological Origin and Nature. Page 62» See also ADukaury: Les Fees du Mbyen Age. Slightly earlier is the Rev. Dr. Currie's ref. in his "Scottish Scenery",London 1803.Fafces 3*4-7-S» 1. Andrew I&ng: Modern Mythology- C/ Essay in the "Nation" Vol. 46, -13- They allude to Totemlsm, ancestor-worship, and oth»r early custom* of uncivilized man as explaining the belief in a fairy world. Stories of the existence of such supernatural realm, as well as the foundation of all fairy tales, they trace back to a savage state when accounts of speaking animals and magical powers were universally accepted Such a conclusion, though of course involving the 2 question ofthe existence of Faery , is yet more satisfactory when applied to a comparative study of the values in certain fairy tales than to a general theory explaining the existence of the elf of the popular and lifeerary world. Yet ancestor-worship and the reverence paid to the souls of the dead may have given to the fairy belief, as it developed, certain qualities which it absorbed into itself, as it grew and strengthened. The folklore of some parts of Ireland, still identifies the fairy race with the souls of the dead* Numerous tales have been collected by Boswell and otherrfolk -lorists in which the dead are described as 3 dancing with the fairies during "All Souls' Festivals". Some festivals even are common to both, and in many cases identical observances are followed to propitiate the dead and the fairies, for Instance thecustom of placing meat and drink offerings outside houses,with water to wash in, and

2 Hartland: Science of Fairy Tales ,Pg. 45 3. Boswell: National Review Vol,IX. other gifts, equally placatory to a supernatural terror. But this is not all. Similar superstitions surround ghosts and fairies. Eating is forbidden in the very old tales to the chance sojourner in fairyland as much as to the visitor in Hades. The old classics tell of Proserpina, who ate seven grains of pomegranate in the Elysian Fields, and had to remain among the shades forever. And in medieval story Morgan the Fay gets control of Ogier the Dane by similar means. Later we find medieval writers making Pluto and 1 Proserpine, the old Classic Powers of death , King and Queen of the Fairies. Modern folk-lore has given us also the Devonshire superstition that the Pixies are considered 2 by the folk to be the unbaptised souls of dead infants. Again the stories, so current throughout all Irish tales, of the carrying of women away to Fairyland there to become wives and mothers among a new race, shows how closely the fairy creed has been used to account for and interpret sudden death. As to death or abduction,- the Irish peasant of to-day often believes that the two terms are synonymous, and that instead of death it is an envious fairy who has 3 stolen away his loved one

1. Chaucer: Merchant's Tale • «.-n ^ ,.., ^ ^ ^ Full often time he Pluto and his queen. „ Proserpina and all hire Faerie 2. Keightley: Fairy Mythology .pg.298 etc. Compare with this the same superstition of identifying fairies with the souls of the dead given in Paul's Grundries.Pg.273 3m Hartland: Science of Fairy Tales.Pg. 45 etc. Yeats: Nineteenth Century.Article on Irish Iblk-lore. - 15 - Therefore it is with some reason that Hart land has followed up the ancestor-worship theory, and claims the fairy belief to have arisen from the doctrine of transformations among the spirits of the dead* coloured by the belief in the super­ natural held by savage tribes. But he is mistaking modern manifestations of Fairy lore for the ancient conception of it as it appeared to the early people before evolution developed its characteristics-, and he has ignored the basic idea as to what rite, or what custom of our savage ancestral religion, was responsible for such qualities in the fairy as we see he possesses to-day, Theory of an Agricultural Origin. A careful examination of the preceding theories, accounting for the origin of the fairy race, shows conclusively that they have one common principle, - for all are based upon the survival in the memory of peoples of some ancient rites and customs closely connected with their earliest leliglous ideas. This, as time went on, evolved a belief in the guardianship of such rites by an invisible but Quite real race, and so arose the fairy world. This basic principle is 1 clearly put by Celtic scholars , who have given us the most complete and comprehansive statement of such an hypothesis• They show that the fairies are but the diminished figures

1. Nutt: ®2fc Happy Otherworld , in The Tfoyage of Bran,Vol.2 Pg*lM-5 and Crofton Croker. - 16 - of the old pagan divinities sacred to the early Celts. These gods took form originally as guardians of agricultural rites. Then from such an agricultural origin sprang the view of fairy land as we see it portrayed in literature.

m In the light of this theory we can underhand the fondness of the fairy for cream-bowl, or meat kitchen, peculiarities which he always exhibits. We can understand , too, how the origin in agricultural ritual secured for the tradition such a tenacious hold on the hearts of the people, that"still, the Irish country-folk cherish a belief in fairies almost as strong as that which eighteen hundred years ago incited their ancestors to propitiate the fairy lord of 1 Increase with milk offerings. Such a theory of origin enables us to prove that sixteenth century folk-belief, the Elizabethan writings, Medieval fairy-romance, and the old ballad sagds of the Irish, owe their ultimate origin to one and the same set of beliefs and rites. What differences exist between them are due to historical and psychological causes, whose working we can trace; so , also, in the re-union of all the varying conceptions , just mentioned in modern English poetry after ages of separation^may be seen the continued working of these causes. Thus, as the result of such re-union, which takes place in England, because alone in England it can take place.

1. See Yeats. - 17 -

English poetry has treated every phase of fairyland^and has been enabled to preserve for the modern world a source of 1 joy and beauty which must otherwise have perished. The endeavor of this thesis then, will be to follow up the manifestations of the fairy world from its proved origin in a ritual worship, along the line of its develop­ ment in the sagas of the fairy Tuatha de Danann, and thende through its conception in Medieval and late English poetry, until we read its final presentation in such*lovely lyric as that of the twentieth century poet:-

"UP the airy mountain Down the rushy glen We daren't go ahuntlng For fear of little men. Wee folk, good folk, Trooping altogether, Green jacket, red cap , And white owl's feather". 2

1. Alfred Nutt: The Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare.Pg. % 2. William Ailingham: The Fairies. - IS -

The Early Aryan Agricultural Ritual.

If we were to examine all the fairy literature of the world we should see its chief feature is the emphasis laid on the fairy aid given man in his daily struggle with nature, as long as he performs with due ceremony the ancient rites handed down bn his forefathers. But woe betide him if he did not observe these. Were he careless of such eustoms Fairy wrath followed him in hindrance and punishment. To understand the importance of this fact in our investigation^ we must examine the part this tradition played in Celtic mythology. The earliest remains of Celtic mythology have common features with the G-reek, and go to show that a sacrificial rite to the Powers of Life and Increase, in the effort to re-inforce the vitality alike of nature and of the worshipper, was practised by all the Aryan-speaking people of Europe. The theory was life for life. Greek and Roman , Teuton and Celt, in their pre-historic days, took part in the sacrifice but the Celts and the Greeks have alone preserved the ceremony in its earliest form, and embodied it most largely in the fabric of their mythology.

Among theareeks, Dionysus, in his oldest aspect, was this divinity of growth,vegetable and animal, worshipped,

1. Alfred imuT~l£i5Fiin^^ #Pg% 2$: - - 19 -

placated, andstrengtheaed for his task by ritual sacrifice. While in the land of the Celt, the Tuatha de Danann race of gods come before us as the protector cfsimilar agricultural ceremonies. A tradition,which is at least as old as the eighth century of-our era, ascribes t Patrickthe destruction of Cromun Cruaich and his twelve fellow-idols, that stood on 2 the plains of May Slech. Here is what Irish mythic legend has to tell of the worshiio paid to the Cromun, the beings afterwards known as the Tuatha de Danann. "He was their god.

To him without glory They would kill their piteous wretched

offspring r With much wailing and pent, To pour their blood around Cromun Cruaich. Milk and Corn. Milk and Corn They would ask of him, 3 In return for oae-thlrd of their healthy issue.

1. Manhardt is followed in this theory. 2. Nutt: Fairy mythology of-Shakespeare. 3. Alfred Nutt: The Voyage of Bran. Vol. 2. pg. 3o*f. - 20 -

From this we see the Irish did possess an organized ritual, and that this ritual was of an agricultural and sacrificial nature. An analogy with the accounts that have come down to us of the Greek performance of such a cermony enables us to picture the whole scene. All the members of the community would share the flesh of the victim, and so obtain lnvigoratlon from communion with the god. The circumstances would be full of savage horror, for the 1 participants were wrought up to a pitch of the wildest frenzy. Their vital energies, as a race, were being renewed by the seizure and utilization for the survivor of the stock of life in the victim. Just as the Greek Dionysus cult developed with the philosophy of the people until its ancient character was lost to sight,and only the rirstic fawns and satyrs attendant on « Dionysus remain to show its early nature, so with the Celts the resultant mythology outlives the official recognition and practice of the ritual. And it is from these primitive ritualistic spirits of vegetation that the deities were gradually elaborated who are the lineal ancestry of the fairy world, - that world which to this day retains in its qualities 2 the distinctive elements of such agricultural worship. 1. Nutt: The Voyage of"Bran, Ritual Sacrificed Compare also Hartland: The Science of Fairy Tales, in the Legend of Perseus; and RDbertsonSmith: Sacrifice, (an article in ninth aaxafctan edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. 2. Nutt: Voyage of Bran, Vol. 2: 157. - 21 - So these Irish Tuatha de Danann, the race worshipped at the outset with bloody sacrifices, in return for the increase of flock, and herd, and vegetable growth, and associated in the oldest mythological tales with the origin and welfare of agriculture, preside in Irish ritual over rustic festival and ceremony. Evidence of such a relation is found in the remain­ ing fragments of the old m$it. In one of these the Tuatha de Danann are struggling against another supernatural clan. They overcome their adversaries and capture the king. About to be slain, he seeks to save his life; he offers that the kine of Ireland shall always be in milk, but this does not avail him; then that the men of Ireland should reap a harvest every quarter of the year, but his foes are inexorable; finally he names the lucky days for sowing and reaping, and for this he is spared. The mythology which relates the triumph of the Tuatha de Danann also chronicles their discomfiture at the hands of the sons of Mil; but even after these have established their sway over the whole of invisible Ireland, and driven the Tuatha de Danann into the shelter of the hollow hill, they still have to make terms with them. The chief of the Tuatha de Danann is the Dagda, and this is what an early story-teller says of him: "Sreat was the power of the Dagda over the sons of Mil even after the conquest of Ireland, for his subjects destroyed their - 22- corn and milk, so that they must needs make a treaty of peace with the Dagda. Not until then, and thanks to his goodwill, were they able to harvest corn and drink the milk of their cows .» Even the fairy name and attributes and stories can be traced to this mythical line, not only in the surviving 1 taaditions of the Irish-speaking population of to-day, but in the romantic literature preserved in Irish manuscripts of irreat age. There we meet the same race of supernatural personages, who figure In contemporary folklore as fairies, where they often play the same paa?t and are endowed with characteristics of a similar kind. Century by century the records of the Tuatha de Danann come down, their attributes varying in detail from the oldest aspect of them in mythology, where they figure as the dispossessed Inmates of an Irish pantheon and the original agricultural powers of sacrifice, to the next conception of them as the folk of the goddess Danu, the "aes sidhe" - , the folk of the sidhe, (fairy hillock which is the name of the modern Irish fairy. Here we see two conceptions regarding the natur of the fairy world developing in the minds of the people out of the old traditions of the Tuatha de Danann as Promoters

1. Modern fairy-lore allowing for the inevitable changes brought about by Christianity is found to be of the same nature - to involve the same conceptions- to rest upon the same basis as the Pre-Christian Tuatha de Danann Mythology. Nutt: Voyage of Bran'Vol* 1 Fg. 246. - 23- of Increase. In the first, the tradition in the folk mind is oneonly of material prosperity and aid. And this is the view of the fairy which came down in the peasant folklore; this is the side of the fairy we find immortalized in the fairy tale. For though fairy tales have been told for

hundreds of years ,Ait ls only tne last two centuries that they have been written down and become part of the literature of the world, because the growing Importance of folklore was realized as a link in the history of mankind. The qualities of the fairies such as love of neatness, the propensities to substitute changelings, or the custom of receiving offerings ofmilk are all to be traced back to this agricultural view of the fairies in the popular conception. But this consideration 6f them and their surroundings did not find any presentment in poetry until Shakespeare took the tradition of the people , and united it with the qualities of the fairy of romance,- the second great aspect under which the Tuatha de Danann tradition exhibits Itself. By far the larger part of the old Irish tales present the wizard race in a romantic vein . Here the Tuatha de Danann figure in heroic saga in adventures describing and exalting the prowess, valour, or cunning of famous Celtic chiefs. Among the several well-defined cycles of heroic saga in Irish tradition, centuries apart, they may be found undying and unfading master and imi stress of inexhaustible realms - 24 - of delight. Now they appear as opponents, and now as protectors of mortal heroes. They woo mortal maidens and are even the lady-loves of valiant champions. They exist in the story solely to serve man, whose weakness is in contrast to their fairy strength. Their gift is the boon of immortal love, and f»eely they offer it to knight or lovely lady. Numerous as are the stories, yet they appear as variations of one set of themes, the love of immortal f

Origin in Agricultural Rite proved by Fairy Qualities.

When we consider carefully the nature of the modern fairy, we see that many of its characteristics have undergone little change in the process of development from those which

1. For fuller illustration of this point see page 23-27 of the thesis. - 25 - the Tuatha de Danann under went in their agricultural origin. The influence of racial psychology has altered fairies very little,and we can clearly see in all their literature 1 the underlying ceremonial nature of early conception. The love of neatness so characteristic of the fairy world is referrable to a time when all the operations of rural life formed part of a definite religious ritual, every jot of which must be carried out with precision. The practice of carrying off human children has its roots in the view of the fairy as the lord and giver of life. "For", reasoned early man, "life is not an inexhaustible product. The fairy must be fed as well as the mortal, hence the necessity for a sacrifice to renew the stock of vita 11ty which the fairy doled out to his devotee. If the supply were deficient, the lords of life might, from the outset, be regarded as on the watch for fresh contribution. So when the practice of sacrifice was abandoned,the tolll&vied In the old days might come to wear the aspect of raids on human society. The leaving of a sick and ailing fairy child in the place of a human one might go back to the tradition of the alct and ailing child being debarred from sacrifice, and the healthy one becoming the accepted victim. Thus memory would come to consider the feeble and rejected child as abandoned

1. Nutt: Mythology of Shakespeare. Pg. 27 2b-

by the fairies until time accredited it as a changeling from the fairy kingdom. So while to the phenomena of fairydom the conceptions of a rustic cult contributed many imperishable qualities, the expression of the ritual itself contributed ot&ers* The worshippers met at night. All stories dwell on the importance of night to the fairy. This can be traced Back to the ritual belief regarding night as the time of growth for all forms of life. Rapid motion prolonged to exhaustion under the monotonous repetition of music maddened their senses. The blackness of night suddenly lit up by torch or bon^fire dazzled their perception. We know that the Dionyaus worship among the mountains of Thrace provoked the god-possessed ecstasy of Maenad and Bassarid until they became insensible. We notice the natural outcome of this in the belief in illusion and lapse of time in modern fairy lore. jDoes not the source of tales found everywhere in peasant tradition throughout Europe lie in some such rite as this? At night the belated wanderer sees the fairy host dancing their rounds on a green meadow, if he enters the ring, it is months before he re-appears; but they seem as minutes to him so keen and all- absorbing is the fairy dance. - 27 - Again the deities which had been elaborated out of the primitive spirits of vegetation were especially amorous and had the power of re-incarnation. In all mythology a vivid way of expressing this is to represent the god as husband of a mortal maiden, whose son partakes of the semi-divine nature of his father, in some stories he is portrayed as re­ incarnation of himssLf. The Incident was very popular in legend, and appears in such tales as those which surround

Cuchulirm, the son of the Irish Apollo- Dionjtsus , Lug# or Morgan, son of Manannan Mac Lir, the sea-god. So the most valuable attribute of their godhead wasitheir power of changing shape. Later in the Arthurian saga we find similar conditions surrounding Arthur. The tendency of modern literature to localize the fairy and give it an individual personality, like the Puck of Merry England or the Banshee of Ireland, arose from the semi- historic, semi-herole atmosphere cast about the Tuatha de Danann in Celtic literature. They dwelt in certain parts of the country, and certain members of the clan were rulers. Stoir^es created about these gradually clustered round particular districts and in this way the characteristic of localism found only in Irish fairy-lore to-day, took Its rise. Therefore since the qualities apparent in the fairy of modern portrayal can be shown to have also belonged to the early godlike race of the - 28 - of the Tuatha de Danann who grew out of the soil; since the va?y name fairy, or sidhe-dweller was given this race by theancient worshippers and corresponds with the name by which the Irish nineteenth century fairy is knowni - since ancient ritual and historical record can be made to testify to the identity of the modern fairy with the wizard Tautha de Danann tribe; and since we can prove clearlyflat thes e Tuatha de Danann came into being as the Protectors of an ancient agricultural ritual in an Aryan religious ceremony, we can see that the Tuatha de Danann are the fairies of outf ancestors. Also we not only are able to understand what the origin of thefairy race has been, but the reasons why the belief in such a supernatural family has lasted through the centuries. Therefore, we may in our examination of the treatment of the fairy world in literature, see how its origin has ever been the inspiration which lent it charm and vigor to retain its pristine attractiveness and reality

CHAPTER II The Storles of the Tuatha de Danann In Early Celtic Literat.u%

The mythical literature of the Celts portrays more or less clearly the evolution of the Tuatha de Danann from god to fairy. Here we find many interesting features brought out by the bards, who sing of fairyland from the earliest account in the "Voyage of Bran" to the modern renewal of the old tales in Yeats. - 29 - Originally the literature, judging from Greek analogy must have consisted merely of chants forming part of a ceremony and of legends accounting for and interpreting ritual acts. These grew into stories where the old gods figured as mortal heroes. And when the Tuatha de Danann had so developed as to be included in the heroic saga, we see two of their essential godlike attributes remain to influence the develop­ ment of the heroic epos. As holders and givers of life these gods are alike deathless and capable of manifestation under the most diverse forms,-hence the wizard nature and the possession of immortal youth are such important features of themselves a:.i their land. Again ,as bestowers of fertility and increase they are exceptionally liberal and amorous. So in developing along these lines laid down in the heroic saga the fairy god clan tended to break away from their primitive mythological basis and become figures of romance. Thus, in the mythic romances of the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries the tendency is to accentuate their courtly, amorous, and magic side, and picture them as attractive rulers of a happy otherworld. The happy otherworld is the Irish fairyland. Here the fairy loves of Etain or of Cuchulinn flourished; here the tales of the doings of Conla's hosts or of Cormac's battles borrowed sufficient enchantment to retain their hold on the Imagination of the Celts , undisturbed by the advent of Christian influence. - 30 - The first pictures we have of this land of Desire are in the Dinnshenchas of the eleventh and twelfth century, where the happy owners are the Tuatha de Danann, - powerful as gods. The next account in the annals shows the race, originally divine, now playing the role of mortal kings and queens. This was no doubt due to the influence of Christian teaching,which tried to minimize the supernatural elements in pagan belief, and present it as incidents in the history of pre-Christian kings. The early teachers of the Church could not root out the imagination of the people^and so tried to cast a romantic and quasi-historic glamour over the superstitions of the older faith. in the heroic legends of the time, however, the men of the Tuatha de Danann race were regarded as supernatural fairy beings; and their realm, as the abode of deathless delights, where fairy lovers and ravished mortals enjoyed •i 1 endless happiness. And this is the view of faery which inspired the romance treatment of medieval and modern poetry. How charming does the fairy world appear to mortal eyes! " A beauty of a wondrous land,- Whose aspects are lovely, Whose view is a fair country, Incomparable is its haze.

1. Fairyland, the old term was faery: Alfred Nutt. Keightley: Fairy Mythology.Pg. 9 - 31 - - wealth, treasure of every hue, Are in Cluin (Gentle Land), a beauty of freshness, Listening to sweet music, Drinking the best of wine, Without grlef,without sorrow, without Death, 2 Without any sickness, without debility." in all the poetry it is the beautiful and sensuous side of the otherworld that is emphasized. In regard to its exact nature the early texts differed. In the eighth century manuscripts appear two distinct conceptions in "the Oversea" and "the Hollow Hill" type of fairyland. In the fomfflir, the magic land lies across the Western sea, and is marked by wonderful natural beauties. Abundance of animals, fish and birds, and great riches, make glad the hearts of the inhabitants Women inhabit some part of the land alone. There are no ills, physical or mental; and decay, death or satiety are unknown. Love is the motive power. The lord of the land is Manannen. (Bran); or Conla (Boadag). Sometimes the Tuatha may summon mortals thither, alluring them with the magic charm of music or the taunting vision of fairy dainties, and then the time 3 passes with such supernatural rapidity that the mortal who has penetrated there may not return unscathed to earth . 2. Nutt: The Voyage of Bran. Vol. 1 Pg. 6. 3. Nutt: Voyage of Bran.Vol.1 Pg. 32. H-. Nutt: The Voyage of Bran.Voau 1 Pg. 32.stanza 6^-65. - 32 -

"Then they went until they arrived at a gathering at Scrub Bruin. The men asked of them who it was came over the sea. Said Bran "I am Bran, the sone of Febal, saith he. However, the other salth "We do not know such a one, though the Voyage of Bran is in our ancient stories". "The man leaps from them out of the coracle. As soon as he touched the earth of Ireland, forthwith he was a heap of ashes, as though he had been in* the earth for many years. * Another picture of the fairy world, which brings us close to the rath (mound) of modern folk belief in Ireland, is to be found in the Hollow Hill Conception, andne^e its habitat is in the Sid or fairy hills. This picture lays the same stress on material joys and sensuous pleasures as the Oversea Kingdom had done. It has the same delight in colour and music, and is drawn with the richness of descriptive painting, and artistic presentation,that are so characteristically found in all Celtic poetry and art. One of the important points in which the classes differ is that women are not as important here as they were in the Oversea type of faery, it is not the Dames of Faery now, but a prince of the land who allures hither mortal maiden. Perhaps in the "Wooing of Etain" we have our best treatment of such a fairyland. This tale was preserved in the Book of the Dun Cow. Etain,originally the wife of Mider; one of the Tuatha de Danann lives again as - IJ> - a mortal and weds Eochld Airem, High King of Ireland. Mider still loves her , and when she refuses to follow him he games for her with her husband and wins. But Etain is unwill­ ing to leave Eochld until in order to persuade her he sings this song: "Women of the white skin wilt thou come with me to the wonderland where reigns sweet-blended song; there primrose blossoms on the hair; snowfalr the bodies from top to toe. There neither turmoil nor silence, white the teeth there; black the eyebrows; a delight of the eye is the throng of our hosts; in every cheek the hue of the fairyiove "A wonder of a land, the land of which I speak, no youth there grows to old age. When thou comest, woman, to my strong fold, - a crown shall deck thhy brow," From such a description of the land of faery as Mider saw it, we are able to judge of the wealth of beauty and imagination the Irish lavished up$n these pictures. Equally rich in tone is the painting of the fairy people. As we have seen the characteristic of this fairy folk, who figured so largely in old Irish literature, was their power over death their ability to assume any shape, and their possession of immortal beauty. From their dwelling in the sidhe (fairy hill) the name sid-dweller became a synonymous term with fairy.

1. The selection is from "The Tochmarc Etain" Vol.1 Pe 17R Nutt: The Voyage of Bran. **•*(!>. - 3* - Sometimes the descriptions given of their personality is full of poetic feeling and luxurious sentiment. The bard tells us of Nlam, a princess of Fairyland,..."Redder was her cheek than the rose , Fairer her face than swan upon the waves, more sweet the taste of her balsam lips than the honey 1 mingled with red wine." The portraits of the male fairies show them to be of mortal stature, of great bravery and superior personal charm. They are more localized than the females of their race. Something of the nature of the*r conception is outlined in Leguire Mac Crumthainn's visit to the fairy realm of Mag Me 11. Here we have the beauty of the Sid men brought out. " Most beautiful of plains is the Plain of two mists On which a host of Sid men full of valour Stir up pools of blood, No wonder though their strength be great, Sons of Kings and Queens are one and all, On all their heads are Beautiful golden-yellow manes, With smooth comely bodies With bright blue starred eyes With pure crystal teeth, With thin red lips, Good they are at man's slaying,

1. Selection from the story of "Oisin in the Land of Youth Nutt:The Voyage of BBran. Vol . 1 Pg. 157. Note this story is late in date but sentiment and col- out are similar in earlier specimens from Irish Mss. - 35 - At all times melodious are they; Quick witted in song making, 1 Skilled at playing Fincheli"

The individual heroes who stand forth prominently among the Tuatha de are Bran and Conla. in "the Voyage of Bran", the adventurous career of Manann, chief of the fairies, is foretold in prophecy • The description of him follows the conventional lines of the development of the fairy in Irish heroic saga. He is a wonder-child, a descendant of Lifr, - and the power of transformation, so characteristic of the fairy in heroic romance, is to be his. "He will delight the company of every fairy knoll, He will be the darling of every goodly land, He will make known secrets a course of wisdom In the world, without being feared. He will be in the shape of every beast, Both on the azure sea and on land, He will be a dragon before hosts at the onset, He will be a wolf of every forest. He will be a stag with horns of silver. He will be a speckled salmon in a full pool.

1. Alfred Nutt: The Voyage of Bran.Vol.l.Pg. g. The story of Leguire Mac Crumthainn's visit is found ir: a fifteenth century MSS. 2. Alfred Nutt: The Voyage of Bran. Vol.1 Pg. 29. - 36 - That last figure of the speckled salmon in a full pool is glowing with poetic imagery. The early Celts had a feeling for poetry, and their effort to do justice to the super­ natural realm of their folk belief called forth the best qualities of the Celtic temperament. Though the concept they had of fairy land was a purely sensuous one, yet on it they have lavished the love of beauty, of colour, of warmth, and of life that was their gift. The time was early. Man's perceptions were still keenly sensitive, and it was through his senses that his Imagination and his intellect were stirred . It was natural for the early people to emphasize in theirr poetry the material joys of the fairy world. They pictured it in the likeness of their little kingdom, but beautified a hundredfold by all they held most valuable and lovely in this life. Yet it Is not only as the glorified likeness of a pagan Irish court that we see Faery . The Celtic imagination was too finely strung to be bound by limitations of geography, and the bards conjured up their realm overseas, or within the Hollow Hill where fancy had free play to weave her pictures. The occupations of the fairy Tuatha de Danann were those of the Irish of the day. This was also the view of the Medievalists of a later time, who make the desired race happy in the pursuits characteristic of the period at which they are portrayed. And so in spite of their godlike nature, the Tuatha - 37 - make love, fight, eat, sing, and dance in endless joy, much as the Selts of the time dreamed of doing as their ideal of complete happiness. Not only their pursuits but their personality reflected the tendencies of the age. In appearance^ the fairy race is as we have seen, rich and ornate. So was the tine for the Celts of those days dearly loved colour, and their courts were splendidly barbaric. But the pictures we have in this literature are in noted contrast to the simple and dignified coldness of the Greek ideals of luxurious beauty. If we were to compare "The Voyage of Bran" with the sixth book of the Odyssey, we should note that the simplicity of the description of the ridtoJ island home in the Greek epic is in contrast with the sensuous extravagance of Fairyland in the Irish saga. Again the Greek Nausikaa so tenderly conceived by Homer, is in striking contrast to the quoted portrait of the fairy Nairn. But as the Greeks carried into their literature their graver and finer conceptions of beauty, so the Irish, in writing of the supernatural world, had to colour it with the rich broidery of extravagant sensuousness, which sttfod to them for art. And the result is attractive,. Emphasis has beei. 1&1& upon the romance side of the Celtic treatment of fairyland, because this Is what the Irish gave to the medieval conception of Faery. - 33 - The essential qualities developed in the Irish portrayal, we shall find also come out in the medieval , but modified by Christian influence. Yet they have not been so changed but that we can trace their evolution back to the agricultural ritual which gave them birth, and made possible the creation of a race, deathless, and friendly to man.

Chapter III

The Medieval Aspect in the Fairyland of Literature

What we may call the medieval literature of fairyland shows distinct and original features of its own development. Though in this great body of writing many of the romances are Celtic in authorship and t one $»-st pries of lords of happy otherworlds, magic lands,, and fairy dames, just as we met with­ in the old Irish tales,-yet a new element has entered into them and changed the* whole atmosphere, we can see in these the forerunners of the Classical ladies and faery queens of late English poetry. Here at Spenser's hand will lie the material for his Faery Queene. A new race of fairies has been evolved from the old. Avalon is to be the new otherworld and modern heroes like Arthur and Hurn of Bordeaux are to be the chosen favourites of fairy sovereigns. The great Arthurian and Charlemagne cycles will be brightened by the imaginative glazwu* of fairy magic, and the old Inherent qualities of the - 39 - fay will be kept, but henceforward he will appear as a romantic figure of courtly grace. Resembling knight or lovely lady in form, yet his is to be more than mortal power, and still he shall ever be amorous and wealthy. To understand why Church and State played such an Important part in shaping the Imaginative creation of the poet, we shall have to dwell on the feudal and monastic elements in the treatment of fairyland. The poets and authors were men'"of a 4 new race, alien in temperament and upbringing to the old stories they were to find and adapt, and we shall see how their history and the historic circumstances of the time have been influential in shaping their literary creation, and giving it the thoroughly medieval tone it possesses. Nowhere more plainly than in medieval literature do we see how the history of the time affected the productions of its art. The irruptions of the Normans into France under Rollo did not take place till towards the beginning of the tenth century, at which time the sagas had arrived at the highest degree of perfection in Rollo'3 native country,aaad we can easily trace the descent of the French and the English romances of chivalry from them. The Norman conqueror doubtless carried many scalds with him from the north, who transmitted their skill to thlr children and successors. These,adopting the religion, opinion, and language of the new country, substituted the heroes of Christendom for those of their own pagan ancestry, and began to - 14-0 - celebrate the feats of Charlemagne, Roland and ©liver in song. Such true histories they set off and embellished with the scaldic fragments of dwarfs, ( duergars) dragons, and enchantments which they had brought from their Teuton homes. The Qualities of Medieval Fairyland.

An examination of the fairy element in medieval literature gives us pictures of enchanted castles which are feudal in tone,- fairy knights who resemble medieval barons, - fairy dames seeking out mortal lovers, and so like human maidens in size, appearance , and actions, that they are only seen to be fairy folk by their power of transformation and supply of inexhaustible wealth. The great Charlemagne and his epoch of strong empires- builders give us the evolution of a special ruler of Faery. The fairy folk come before us solely as courtly dames and knights attendant at the royal court of a fairy monarch. The Christian Church which had encouraged the romance side of old Celtic mythology transformed the dwellers of Faery into orthodox Christian Champions, and made Oberon their 1 King into a staunch son of the Church, wfeo leaves it money . The pagan point of view of the peasant, that bothered not afccorf the land of imagination whence issued the courtly fays of romance, and that regarded the fairies1 favour in the light

1. Huon of Bordeaux in Hazlitt: Fairy Mythology.Pg. 167. - H-l - of a business matter, was objectionable to the Church. It frowned on the peasant conception of the fairy as the so Promoter of increase. And we find this side of fairy folk-lore A silent, for it had no bard to sound its measure, and only the deep-rooted memory in the beliefs of the peasant to keep it alive. Keightley endeavours to prove the origin of this romance 1 aspect of Fairy as borrowed from the East . The point he lgn&res is fche clear analogy of the most prominent features of its conception to the Cejltic stories, and the absurdity of trying to prove that the Moors of Spain brought it into Europe at a time when such deadly enmity lay between Christian Europe and the invaders that we find the Spaniards had no knowledge even of the government or the literary traditions of the Moor at that flay. The romances in which the fairy idea found root are of three classes:- 1. Those of ^Arthur and His Round Table. 2. Stories of Charlemagne and his Paladins. 3. Tales of Amadls and Palmerin, etc. In the first class the fairies appear but seldom even if we include the account of them in "Isold le Triste". The second class exhibit them in all their brilliancy and power.

1. Keightley : Fair/ ethology.Pg. 30 - 4-2 - The imagination of man has ever portrayed for him a land of joy and beauty after death. For instance the Greeks had filled the Elyslan Fields and Islands of the Blest with flowers. The Celt* confusing his conception of the other-world after death with his living view of it as a fairy land of enticing adventure, conceived it as the abode of material plenty. And the romancer of the Middle Ages erected castles and palaces filled with knights and ladies, whose ideal realms present the chivalry of feudal pageant. And just as we have 1 three classes of fairyaands so we have three classes of 2 fairies I. Those of Avalon, an island placed far away in the ocean like the island of the Blest of Greek Mythology. 2 Those resembling the dwellers in the palace of Pari Banon are found under the earth. ^ Those that likefiberon's subject s are situated "in wilderness among the holtis hairy.11 The Isle of Avalon was the abode of Arthur of King Oberon, and of Morgan la Faye. We see from the Romance of Ogier le Danois, wh© was a protege of Morgan la Faye, just what was the appearance of this medieval fairyland. The spirit of religious faith and 3 1 trust in God breathes throughout the whole story and lends almost a monastic air to the narrative.

1. Faelre -from French verb to enchant came to mean illusion than land of illusion, the abode of the Faes, finally becoming applied to the people themselves. 2. Keightley: Fairy Mythology Page s. 3* Ogier Le Danols: "Dieute m% mande que si tost que seru nlut que tu allies en ung chasteau que tu verras liure et passe de bateau en bateau tant que tu soles en une isle que tu trouveras" Are the directions given Ogier by God when he Is near fairyland. - *3 - The fairy castle is of lodestoae, and there Ogier eats an apple which puts him in the power of Morgan la Jkye. Then Ogier who is a hundred years old, returns to the vigour and beauty of thirty* In this fairyland, the fays ever sing, dance, and lead a right joyous life, without meditating any evil to themselves or to mankind. From morning till night their sole pursuit is pleasure. («Adon vist plusieus dames Fae~es aourness et toutes couronnees de couronnes tres somptueusement falctes et moult riche et toute jour chantoient, dansoient et menoient vie tres joyeuse".) In the fairy castle Ogier meets Arthur, and after a long while is urged by him to return to earth and its cares, - So he takes the Lethean crown from Ikls head, and bids farewell to the happy land, to such sweet singing "que 11 semblolt proprement a Ogier qu 'il estoit en Paradis". From the story of Ogier then we see how completely Christianity has turned the old imaginative fairies of romance to its own uses. In it, t&ey must teach reverence and mystical worship of the good and pure, we meet this Christian side of Faery at every turn. That the theme of a mortal wooed to fairyland by a faijpyt lover was a constant feature of the old tales is seen if we compare the wanderings of Olsin in the Celtic land of Youth with the story of Ogier le Danois. Indeed they preserve the same essentials as the Irish tale, but have taken on the Christian atmosphere that hung over all medievalism. In contrast with - IMI- - the former depiction, we now have an earthly fairyland in the old romance of Orfeo and Herodls, the King am Queen of Winchester. In this story Herodis is ravished away to Faery in accordance with a dream she had had. And this gives the poet the opportunity to describe to us the elf world as it was popularily imagined to exist. And the picture is very medieval. Our King of the Faeries might be taken for a splendid baron.

"The King had a crown on his head; It was not silvertie gold red All it was of precious stone As bright as sun forsooth it shone." His knights, in mumber a thousand and more, occupy themselves with hunting and knightly sports; Their abode is in " A fair country as bright as some summer,s day Smooth and plain and alie green, Hllla and dale nas none y -seen, Amldde the lond a castel be seigh Rich and real and wondrous high, All the utmoste wall vias clear aUd shine or crystal, The worst pillar to behold Was all of burnished gold." And so the description of gorgeous richness carries us on for many lines. From this it is clear that the conception of Faery is now that as an enchanted castle, rich and ornate in the handicraft decoration so dear to medieval artist. This is the same characteristic of the art of the day which found expression in the ornamentation of Church missals, - *5- libraries or tapestries with beautiful colours and jewels. Further, In the story, of Thomas the Rhymer the same type ofmaglc castle appears. Here his hero is met by a lovely lady i with eyes of grey. As the story unfolds we havethe wooing ofmortal lover by fairy dame. The lapse of time too, seven years seeming three days, bring us closer to the Ifcish sagas. Mention has been iri§de of the three classes of medieval Faery, and it is the third and last distinct conception of Fairyland which we find In the romance of Sir Thopas the Rhymert- a book written to satirize the romancers, and its view of \ Faerie resembling Huon of Bordeaux. The poem itself is importantbecause it suggested ideas to Spenser -and perhaps the incident of hairing a queen ruler of Fairy land. Sir Thopas is a maiden knight, attractive and beautiful after the fashion of the coy Prioresse of Chancer's Tale. While pricking through the forest one day he decides to seek out the elf-queen whom he is told dwells "in "many a forest wilde Here is the Queen of Faerie , With harpe and pipe and symphonie 1 Dwelling in this place."

Not only the pen of Sir Thopas the Rhymerjbut all the earlier tales examined Indicate that the medieval conception of Fairyland was coloured by the chivalrous outlook of the age. When Fairyland is portrayed as a splendid castle then the

occupations of the Fairies will be those of the Nobles of 1. Keightley : Fairy Mythology Pg~ 51^ - 1*6 - the flay, jousting, hunting and flirting with mortal lovers, their appearance that of the wealthy of the period/md their attributes the old qualtities we have met before, shape- shifting , great wealth-, and an adventurous attitude toward mankind. iTne whole is a colour portrait of the historical and Church influences of the day. Again,history played a part in individualizing certaitn heroes round whose adventures all the themes centre. In Lancelot du Lac (1^95) we find the wizard quality of a type of elf-dame, coming out in Vivien,- 1 the celebrated Dame du Lac, who shut up Merlin in the Rock. These fays, such as Vivian , were wise women,skilled in magic, and come forward as frequentcharacters in medieval saga. For instance, In the Romance of Maugis D' Agremont , et de Vivien 2 son pere,we meet Criande la fe"e ', in "Perciforest" we encounter the Fay Tebille la Dame du lac" . In "Sir Lounfal " written by Thomas Chester in the reign of Henry VI,we have the whole fairy machinery ,- fays,- the fairy Queen,- a castle, knights, forests* jousts, a love match,- help to a mortal, introduced. Of the fays it is said:- "Thelr faces were white as snow on down Their rode was red, their eyea were brown." This romance is considerably above the average; and has rare spots of colour, and descriptive drawing of Launfaiand his days in faery throughout the poem. > \ 1. Datayton: Polyolbion song IV gives an account of her wiles. 2. Keightley: Mythology of Faeries Pg. 3*+. - 47- "Thus Launfal the Knight, Thus Launfal withouten fable That noble knight ofthe Round Table Was taken into Faery.1 Perhaps no romance is of m&e importance for understanding all the phases inwhich the medieval fairyland appeared than 2 the charming Huon de Bordeaux. Shakespeare took his inspiration for the Oberon of the Midsummer Night's Dream from this old French story. A careful study of this fairy is of importance since le petit roy Oberon appears to form a kind of connecting link between the fairies of romance and the elves or dwarfs of the Teutonic nations, for both are examples of evolution from one common base in early Aryan mythology. OBERON The Romance of Huon of Bordeaux was taken from the story of Otnit in the Heldenbuch ,where the Dwarf king Elberich performs nearly the same service to Otnit that Oberon does to Huon. Again the name Oberon is only Elberich slightly altered. Huon encounters in Asia an old follower of the family named Gerasmes, and when consulting with him as to roads to Babylon,is told there are two roads but one is full of danger "It is 16 leagues long and is so full of fairy and strange happenings that few people pass there withou being lost or stopped because therein dwelletn a King, Oberon the Fay." In the description of him we have a new characteristic bestowed

3. 1. Taken from Hazlitt: Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare.Pg.81. 2. Hazlitt: Mythology of Shakespeare pg. 139 otf Keightley: Fairy Mythology.Pg. 38 on the Fairy folk. He is beautiful in face but a dwarf. Strange to say the dwarf was a familiar figure in Teutonic mythology, due partly to the survival of an histdric tradition among the Teutonic peoples of a race

1. HazlettTi Fairy Mytgiology of Shakespeare, Huon of Bordeaux Pff. 139. - 49 - his neck, hung with two fine threads of Gold, "A single blast from this bugle is audible throughout Fairyland and summons the whole fairy clan, for it was once wrought by four fairies, who had given it wonderful properties. All this grandeur has its effect and Huon is compelled to answer Oberon. For his delectation, Oberon then recounts his history. He is the son of Julius Caesar, and the Lady of the Hidden Island afterwards called Cephalonia, Soon after his birth, this youngjtLady had a great feast for her son and invited the fairies. The only uninvited one in a fit of spite stipulated that Oberon should not grow after his third yearr; but repenting she qualified her wish by promising him he should be the most beautiful of nature's works. Other fairies gave him the power of transporting himself and his followers from place to place by the mere act of wishing. He is also to have the power to lift palaces and banquets without regard to gravitation. Oberon told Huon he was lord and King of Momur, and that he has been promised saltation on leaving this world, for his 1 seat was prepared in Paradise. This we see is the Christian element which gave a new dress to old inherent Celtic conceptions in fairy faith and made themliving pictures of the life of the day. Later additions to this romance have pictured Huon at the Court of Oberon; Huon has come to be crowned King of Faery at Bberon's request. Arthur, too, hastens thither with

1. Keightley: Fairy Mythology, pg. 33. - 50 - Morgan La Faye as a candidate for the government of the fairy realm, and is provided for by the gift of the Kingdom of Bouquant, with rule over all the faeries that were in Tartary. The business of the partition being concluded, Oberon dies,- attended by the Church, and troops of angels co nvey his soul to Paradise Oberon is again brought before us as the witty but deformed, dwarf Tronc in the Romance of Isaie Le Triste. Here he is compelled by the story to spend a certain period in that form* Later, on in this romance he proves to be the handsome dwarf- king Elberich. In "Isaie" the fairy ladies have qualities characteristic of the conventional literary presentment of the eighteenth century feTe of Perrault and of Madame D'Auliiolr. A complete development of this phase of the conception was to appear in the fairy tale literature which took artificial France of the Louis XIV court by storm, and which set the fashion for a conventional fairy dress to clothe a short story. We shall see later that it was to this we are indebted for the folk lore contributions of Grimm or the fanciful framework used by Hans Anderson. These old tales of romantic medievalism undoubtedly possess charm; and though their conception of fairyland is not as original or full of poetry as that which the Celtic imagination pictured, yet they stimulated the genius of writers like - 51 - Spenser and Shakespeare. Spenser for his "Fairy <$ueen", and Shakespeare for his royal court of Oberon, both drew inspiratio; from the old accounts, tfpln the English poetry which is the flower of fairy poetry the world over, Celtic and medieval interpretation of fairyland exerted a great influence. There we are to see that not only are the powers of the Tuatha de Danann ahadowed forth but that the person of Oberon appears. Not one of the qualities or aspects with which pagan Celt and medieval Teuton endowed their pictures of fairyland , is missing in the Englis htreatment.

THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY OF ENGLAND,

The Fairy mythology of England divides itself into two classes; on the one hand the tradition of the peasant, and on the other the conception of the poet. In the fifteenth century England there were many tales extant among the country people concerning the belief in fairies. Occasionally, these were written down and some of these stray historical, records we still possess. The folk-lore of the people presents the fairies as dwarfs or elves. TMs was due to the intermingling of the northern mythology brought in by the Saxons and Danes, with the older traditions of the Celts that had survived all change in the peasant heart. The fflngllsh peopled wood, fie id, mount a in and cavern with dwarfs and elvish inhabitants of small size. Retaining the memory of the old rustic nature of the fairy, they had created - 52 - hobgoblins and domestic house-spirits like Rabin Goodfellow or Puck to protect interests. Therefore , when the poets of England sang of Fairyland they not only possessed a treasure house of their own folklore to dra* from, but had the wealth of literature treatment from Celt or Medieval bard for inspiration. So our English fairy mythology is of two types; the fblk-lore proper, and the poetic fairy of literature. An examination of the English fairy mythology shows' that the folk-lore of the people was greatly influenced by their historic ancestry. Hence the varyingideas are a result of the mlxtmre of races in Great Britain, and of the modifications exerted by differing racial traditions. So we find characteristics of the fairy belief whlchare traceable to the Saxon duergars and alfs, becoming confused in the minds of the people with qualities peculiar to Celtic or medieval portrayal. Thus when the English poet touches on the fairy machinery he has a vast number of varying conceptions from which to inspire his imaglnate picture, and so in the early literature of our nation we have very widely differing views of the fairy race. Sometimes the poet pictures them as they lived to the peasant. Again, all influenced by literary example, he endows them with the A characteristics that the Celtic bards made real, or medieval romancers loved to Introduce. But in the earliest Saxon writers the fairy has the qualities of Northern Mythology, and as the English people come more and more under the Influence - 53 - of foreign culture the conceptions grow more and more apart. The elf reigns only in the superstitions of the country side, and the fairy in literature comes to be lifce the regular court fairy of the old romances, until a writer sufficiently great to feel the kinship of peasant elf and court fee united the characteristics of both, and gave us a fresher and more original picture of this creature of the imagination. The material for poetic use included, then Northern traditions, the Celtic and medieval tales, and the Latin and Greek mythology of the Classics, The earliest use of the fairy in English poetry shows the influence of the Northern tradition. In Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon poem of the seventh century, we have a reference to the water nicors,- creatures whom later peasant lore idealized into fairy—like spirits, and who never 1 found a place in literature . Again in the lines of Beowulf "Eotenas and Ylfe" And Orcneas, 1 The word Eotanas is evidently the same word as Iotum or giant of Northern mythology. "Ylfe is plainly its alfear, II and Arcneas must surely be the same as the Duergar of the Nbrtfc Accordingly in the early poetry, the only conception of the fairy has woraa that x found a place shows the influence of the con­ quering Northern superstition. Even the charms or runes on the handles of the old swords .bear the mark of northern 3 myth . 1. Sweet: Anglo-Saxon Reader, Beowulf 1. 125. 3. see the charms in Sweet: Anglo- Saxon Reader , The Riddles of Cynewulf . II. Keightley: Fairy Mythology. Pg. 231 . - 54 -

But other influences were already at work. The Celtic conceptio; of these little beings had developed and become the heroic romances in which the actors were haIf-mortals,- half-gods, and on the continent the medieval power of the Church had further modified and added new qualities, newcolour, to the fairy hero. In England, where the stories of Arthur and Charlemagne were popular, other romances and tales would be read, and the same influences would beinspiring men with all the accepted conceptions of elfland. Therefore even in the English Medieval writers elements of all these ideas are to be found. Layamon in his poetic paraphrase of Waces Brut" about the twelfth century portrays an aspect of fairies inWriting of Arthur*3 death thatr exhibits the characteristics of the romance fays. In this we se? the fairies give Arthur certain fairy-like attributes of their own kind. He is to be the best knight alive,"have great riches and live long." What Layamon took from the Northern mythology was the bringing of the old Norns of the Eddie Helgai, who preside at the birth of heroes, to the birth of Arthur. But as the Norns were personages of a past Mythology, and the same characteristics had not yet been developed in the fays of the Charlemagne saga, Layamon had to employ some supernatural beings to give birthday gifts to his hero. So he takesfche elves. But these elves were more powerful and more godlike than the 1 later tiny creatures of that name in England. !• Lagamon 1925^ "So soon he came on earth, Elves received him They enchanted that child With magic most strong. - 55 - They gave him might to be the best of all knights They gave him another thing, that he should be a rich king, They gave him the third that he should live long They gave to that kingly chiild virtues most good That he was most generous of all men alive, This the/elves him gave. Chaucer is our next poet who shows the growth of the fairy conception in English poetry. In his verse there is a certain blending of the qualities of the elves with those of the fairies of romance. In the Wife of Bath's Tale, wnich is evidently a Fairy story, the fairies play a part in the narrative, and Chaucer comments on how old the belief in them really is. He begins by telling us that in the old days of King Arthur "All was this land fulfilled of Faerie The elf queen with her jolly companie Danced full oft in many a grene mede, This was the old opinion as irede, I spoke of many hundred years ago, But now can no man see. Non elves mo ." Then he emphasises the disappearance of the belief as due to the many priests throughout the land and their enmity to the fairy race. The fairies are fcgain introduced where the four and twenty elf-ladies dance before the t$sgf©ller 1 in the forest* but disappear when he seeks to meet thftm. Kb thing daynted, the traveller hastens on.

1. Chaucer: Canterbury Tales,Wife of Bath's Tale. Whereas he s«w u&on a dance go, Of ladies four-and-twenty and yet mo, Toward this like dance he draw ful yerne In hope that he some wisdom shudde. lerne, But certainly ere he came fully there, (Con'td page 56) - 56 -

And "only a foulttitch i s left sitting for the knight to greet, yet she becomes his deliveree from the imminent danger he is in, and when he has been forced to marry her, turns into a beautiful young maiden. In the "Merchants"Tale" we meet the fairies attendant on Pluto and Proserpina, their King and Queen and we have, as it were, a blending of Classical and Gothic mythology. "For to tell The beautee of the gardin and the well That stood under a laurel alway grene Full often time, he Pluto and his quene Proserpina and alle his faerie Disport en hem and maken melodie about that well And danced as men told" Later In the poem we see Chaucer has taken the old Classical fable of Pluto and Proserpina and given it a modern dress by making it a fairy court and fairyland, " and so befel in that bright morue tide. That in the garden on the ferther aide Pluto that is the kind of Faerie, 4nd many a ladye in his compaynie Following his wife, the queen Proserpina Which\' that he ravished out of Ethna While that she gathered flowers in the mede (in Clandian ye may the story rede How that hire in his grisely cast he sette This King of Faerie adown him sette Upon a benche of turtoes fresh and grene." Again Chaucer uses the word elf in the Man Of Law's Tale but in such a curious sense that it may mean witch or fairy So also Gower in the "Legend of Constance" speaks of the elf, but here too the exact meaning of this u word is doubtful. Thus it appears that the writings of Manner- painting Chaucer " give very little information respecting the popular belief in faeries in his day. His reference to them at all,is to be given as the sly satirical thrust of a literary man, who wishes to lend charm to h$S writing,rather than an historian's testimonyvto the existence of the super­ stition. He affirms the belief is dying out in the lines:- •But now can no man see elves moe" The only trait that he gives really characteristic of the popular elves is their love of dancing.

INFLUENCE OF THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL

Between Chaucererian and Elizabethan times a new literary influence was at work. The Classical literature, which had all along been known more or less to the literary medievalists, now with the spread of printing poured into England in great volume* A new field to the imagination was opened up, and all the compositions of the age imitate and allude to the beauties and incidents of ancient Greece andRome. But amid thfe

1. Chaucer: Man of Law's Tale. The mother was an elfe by aventure Y come by c&armes or by sorcerie And everieh man ahteth hire compagnie 2. Gower: Legende of Constance. This wife which is of faerie Of euch a chllde delivered is Fro klnde which stante all amis" - 58 - great diffusion of Classic taste and knowledge, romance lost none of its old influence. The black-letter pages of"Launcelot** du Lac", of "Perceforest", and of "Morte de'Arthur", (known through Malory's efforts) were still listened to with solemn attention. Again the passion for allegory, so peculiarly a mark of medieval writing, and which found its highest interpretation in the Divine Comedy, was to exert its influence in shaping

the imagination of English writersJand English poets who succeeded Chaucer showed marks of the prevailing tendencies of the age. Though thelterm fairy was used by various translators of the Latin poetry as a more familiar name for the old Classical nymph, yet these can not be really considered as fairies, since they exert no influence on the growth of the fairy conception. Therefore we have to turn from such translation to Spenser, the first of the Elizabethan school who treats thw fairy world. It was natural for him in looking about for material that might shape into a great national epic, to compare the glories of his country to the fairyland of the ancient romances , and to paint his countrymen as fairy knights and ladies, m his great poem the fairy court is made to resemble the royal English court, and is enlivened by the manners and usages of sixteenth century England. It is not easy to say to what romance 3|pe«an»3*-*was chiefly Indebted for his faery-land. Some have conjectured thfe authority to be the "Huon of Bordeaux *$ translated preViously by Lord Berners, and known to Spenser - 59 - For the poet says of Sir Gutfon : - " He was elfin born, of noble state, And mickle worship in his native land, Well could he tournay, and in lists debate* And kni^ithood took of good Sir Huon's hand, 1 When with King Oberon &e came to Faeryland Where this land of faery lies it is as useless to seek as the Kingdom of Lilleput or Oberon's "Realm of Mbmmur* While shadowing forth England it is distinct from it. All we know of its nature is that Cleopolis is very splendid and that Elfin, the first fairy King, ruled over India and America. The idea of making a queen ruler of Fairy is partly due to the influence of such an old romance as Sir Thopas,in which we met the fay of romance, and also to the desire to pay a compliment to Elizabeth, the Maiden Queen of England. Spenser called these beings fays, farys or fairys, elfes elfins, indeed the term elfin as we have shown was one used by Chaucer to denote the supernatural. Spenser's account of

1. Spenser: The Faery Queene. Bk. 11 C.l. St. 6 2. Spenser: The Faery Queene,Bk.II e.g.Stanza LXX,LXXI,LXII "But faery land yet if he more enquire By certain signes here sett in sondrie place He may it fynd;ne let him then admyre But yield his sense to be too blunt and base That no 'to without an hound fine fooling trace. Note: j A man of many parts from beast deryved, That man so made he called elfe to weet, Quick, the first author of all elf in Kynd Who wandering thro1 the world with weary feet Did In the gardens of Adam fynd. A goodly creature whom he deemed in mind To be no earthly weight,but either spriglet or angell The author of all womankind. Therefore a fay be her according night (Oon'td pg. 60, - 60 *- the creation of his elves is mere invention and yet they appear to possess the characteristics of their race for the Red Cross Knight is stolen away by them. Whyleome by false faries stolne away Whyles yet an infant cradle he did crall Ne other to himself is known this day But that he by an elf was gotten of a fay." As in the Faery Queen the only fairy characters we meet with are earthly figures of chivalry, the conclusion is that the fairyland and the fairies of Spenser are those of romance only, and that after the appearance of his book all distinction between the different species was rapidly lost. And now we shall find the fairy race extending Its name to the popular elves whom we know to be descended from the Duergar of Northern Mythology and from the Alfor (alfs or elves), a development in the Eddaic pantheon of the same Aryan stock as produced the fays of Celtic romance. INFLUENCE UPON THE SHAKESPEARIAN CONCEPTION OF FAIRYLAND. „__ From the year of the publication of Spenser's epic the fairies became a popular machinery with the poets. The Faery Queene's success at once established the popularity of the theme, and the writer who was attracted by this realm of imagination had many fields lying open to kim for inspiration. At his command were the classical stories in translation, with their pictures of nymphs and graces and all the airy spirits of a bygone age. 'sroaznUlfo^Pftn-) Of whom all faryes sprung and fetch their language right Of those a might people shortly grew And peasant kings which all the world warrfcyd And to themselves all nations did subdue. - 61 - The Charlemagne cycle in Huon of Bordeaux and its represen­ tation of the fairy court of Oberon held for a Poet all the richness and fascination of romance.Then the Arthur Saga provided him with a whole gallery of portraits in Morgan la jfeye , La Dame Du Luc, andj-fther dwellers of Avalon which Malory's Morte d"Arthur had portrayed. Lastly the ancient and general folk beliefs of the people, and their fear of the rural elfs who blessed the crops and punished sloth, were familiar to every writer of the day. So widespread was the belief in the LOTS fairies as a class in England, that popular foLK-A associated certain traits with one particular supernatural being, and we have the individual fairy figuring in romance like the Portune and the Grant,beings known in tales as early as William of 1 2 Newbridge and Gervase of Tilbury .

ROBIN GOQDFELLOW But the most important of all the class was the celebrated Robin Goodfellow, or Puck. The name of Robin Goodfellow was familiar in England as early as the thirteenth century,as it was

1. The story of the Fairy Horn by Gervase of Tilbury: Otia Imperialia apud Leibritz Scryfotores serum Brunsvicarum Vol. 1-91S) where there is a folk-lore legend of a very famous fairy brinfclhng a drinking horn to travellers. (2) The Portunes are figures in England who lead the simple life of farmers,-sit up by theflre,warm little frogs and eat them. They are very small and look like old men - and lead men into ponds and mires when riding at night. " "Otia Imperialia apud Leibritz Sciptores serum Brunsvlc arum. Vol. 1-980 - 62 - mentioned in a tale of that date preserved in the Bodleian Library, and thus proving the antiquity of fairy mythology in the country of a nature similar to that used by Shakespeare. His name, Puck, was known to Spenser who says, We let the pouke, nor other evil wight j Ne let Hobgoblins , names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not."

But that Robin was "famous in everie old wive's chronicle for his mad merrie prankes, we see from the testimony of 1 Tarleton. And indeed there Is sufficient evidence, as was pointed out earlier, to show that there were fairy rhymes and fairy tales of beings like those in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in circulation, if not in print, before the play was written. Another anecdote from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, written in the year of Shakespeare's immortal conception of the fairy world, serves to show th& the common tradition at that period admitted the existence of fairy haunts, and it illustrates the common opinion regarding the nature of these beings. "A farmer hired a grange commonly reported to tie haunted by fairies, and paid a shrewd for it every half-year. A gentleman asked him how he durst live In the house and whether any spirits haunted him. "Truth" quoth he "there be two saints in Heaven do vex me more than all the devils in hell, namely the Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangell, on whose dales " 2 be paid his rent. 1. Tarleton: News out of Purgatory""prTnted 1589* ~ "~ Halllwell-Phillpp "Introduction to a Midsummers Night's ,,,„ , ^ Dream l»Pg. 38 2% MS Rawl Poet 66(Copied from Halliwell. Introduction to the Midsummer Night's Dream"Pg. 28 - 63 -

In the reign of Elizabeth a little work appeared "The 2 Mad Pranks andlierry jests of Robin Goodfellow" from which Shakespeare seems in a good measure to have derived his Puck. This work appeared in different forms, one as a black letter ballad probably known to Shakespeare and the puhllc previously, and the other as the curious old black-letter tract referred to earlier, in it we are informed that Kofein was the offspring of a proper young wench by a he-fayrie, a king, or something 3 of that kind among them" His chief quality was a propensity for mischief that led him to run away. Oneday he fell asleep and had a dream of fairies, and on awakening discovered a scroll lying beside him beginning "Robin, my only son, left by his fairy father, who is Oberon, King of Fairyland." This in verses written in gold informed him he should have anything he wished for, and have besides the power of turning himself.

"To horse, to hog, to dog, to ape "y but he was to harm none but knaves and queens andwas "to love those that honest be^and help them in necessity." He also was assured that good behaviour would enable him to visit Fairyland in the future. Whether he ever reached there is doubtful for all Rabin's adventures insist dn the mischevious side of his disposition.

2. Edited for the Percy Society by J.P. Collier,Esq., 1891. Mr, Collier says there is little doubt but that this work was printed before 1588 or even 158^. 3. Also in possession of Collier. See Halliwell:Intro.to Shakespeare's Fairy Mythology.Pg. 287* - 6M- - He works for the maids in the house, but like the Teutonic house-spirits, when the maid makes him a coat, he goes away and ceases his kindly efforts. This is a common incident of fairy stories, and we find frequent allusions to it in such lines as " »Tls not your garments new or old That Robin loves, I feel no cold, Had you left me milk or cream You should have had a pleasing dream, Because you left no drop nor crum, Robin never more will come." 1 The qualities of the fairies that we find in these tracts are essentially of the kind evolved from the belief of a rustic population. "The fairies dance in brave order in fayry rings on greene hilles with sweet music (sometimes invisible) in divers shapes. Many mad pranks would they play as pinching of sluts black and blue and misplacing things in ill-ordered houses, but lovingly would they use wenches that were neat, giving them silver and other pretty toys which they would leave for them, sometimes in their shoes , other times in their pocket, sometimes in bright basins and clear vessels. And , again in the same work, Sib says of the women fairies, "to walk nightly as do the men-fairies we are not given, but now and then we go together, and at good housewives* fires we warm our fairy children."

1. Rltson: Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare Pg.121 et seq* Hazlitt: Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare Pg. 76. 209 This ballad may be obtained in full from Halliwell "Intro. to Shakespeare's Fairy Mythology/' 2. Hazlitt: Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare,Pg. 176. - 65 - We have further testimony about the superstitions of 1 the race from Reginald Scott, concerning the belief in Robin Goodfellow in the lines - "Indeed your grandam's maids were wont to set a bowl of milk before him (Incubus) and his cousin Robin Goodfellow, for grinding of malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight, and you have* also heard that he would chafe exceedingly if the maid or goodwife of the house laid any clothes for him beside his mess of white bread and milk. For in that case he saith- "What have we here? Hempten hampten Here will I never more tread nor stampen." Frequently in Reginald Scott's book the same qualities of the fairies as the folk of the Shakespearian epocft imagined them to exist, are fgoquentlyj brought out; Another extract gives us an account of their dwelling:-"The fairies do principally inhabit the mountains and caverns of the earth, whose nature is to make strange apparitions on the earth in meadows or on mountains, being like men and women, soldiers and kings, ladies children and horsemen and clothed all in green. Such jocund and facetious spirits are said to sport themselves In the night by tumbling and fooling with servants and shepherds in country houses, and pinching them black and blue. " In short,all the writers of the epoch speak more or less of the rustic nature of the fairy belief as it existed among T7~Reginald Scott: "Dlscoverie of Witchcraft IV Ch.10 compare with this the tract preserved in the British museum. This affords further illustration of the popular character of Robin Goodfellow and it Is dated 1693. This tract is reprinted in Halliwell - Phillips: On a Midwummer Night's Dream- in appendix to the book. - 66 - 1 the people of England in Elizabeth's day. Even Burton and 2 Harsnet speak of Robin Goodfellow, his mad pranks and cream bowl propensities^

Chapter IV The Fairy World In Shakespeare In the bald and scanty references to fairies to which we can with certainty assign a date earlier than &The Midsummer Night's Dream", we have seen that what might be called the rus'tic element of the fairy creed is insisted on. Reginald Scott and the few writrrs who allude to the subject at all, ignore entirely the delicate fantastic traits that characterize the elves Shakespeare gives us in his Midsummer Night's Dream. was Indeed , at the very time this play being written or performed, A the conception of the true nature of these peasant deities found expression In Nash, and it take© us back to their agricultural origin in the ritual worship of the Aryan people. Nash wrote "The Robin Goodfellow eifs, fairies, hobgoblins of our century, which Idolatrous former days, and the fantastical of Greece ycleped Fauns, Satyrs, Dryads, Hamadryads, did most of their pranks in the night" - a passage in which the parallel suggested is far closer and weightier in import thanits author imagined* Whence then did Shakespeare draw his account of the fairy world? From at least two sources - the folk beliefs of his day, and the romance literature of the previous four centuries.

1. Burton: "Anatomy of Melancholy. "Pg.4-9. 2. Harsnet: "Declaration" XX .Pg. l3H-L6ndon 1604-. - - 67 - But as we have seen in our examination of the origin of the fairy myth,- sixteenth century folk-belief, and medieval fairy romance had their ultimate origin in one and the same set of beliefs and rites, and owe their difference to historical and Psychological causes. In the Midsummer Night's Dream we have the most imaginative and delicate picture the poets had yet given us of the fairy land, one enriched by all the romance and colour of the court and King , and etherealized by the lovely element of fancy and witchery in popular folk lore. There are two worlds in the play, - the human and the fairy. But the real one is the fairy realm of beauty and goodness, governed by proud Oberon and wilful Titania. Their little kingdom Is a hierarchy, governed by a King, and queen, and fairy court, founded on the romance models and yet the clumsy machinery of mortal size of horses, and armour, and knightly appanage, have been discarded, and we only havelthe tiny elves akin to the elements in their freedom. How well they control these airy elements working woe or weal to mankind according as their tiny world moves on harmoniously or not I Their work is to aid man, and ail the humoufr. of blind weakness In human affection is enjoyed by Oberon in the loves and aquabbles of the lovers of Athens. In the Fairy Mythology of the Midsummer Night.s Dream we have seen that Shakespeare has blended the elves of the village with the fays of romance. His fairies agree with the former in their tiny stature, their fondness for dancing,their love of cleanliness, and their child-abstracting propensities. - 68 - Like the fays they form a community ruled over by the princely 1- 2 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 and trace the forests wild. Like an earthy monarch he too has his jester, who is the merriest little elf imaginable and identical with, "That shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow." This bringing together of the Oberon of romance, and the Puck or Robin Goodfellow 3 of peasant belief is an inspiration of individual genius.

1. Oberon is another form of Elberich (from the usual change of 1 into u ( as al, au, col, cou in the French language Elbsrich or Albrich (derived from Alf) become Auberich, and "ach" not being a French termination it became Auberon andfinally Oberon. Oberon is identical with Elberich the dwarf king of the German story of Otint in the Heldenbuch. 2. What authority Shakespeare had for the name Titania does not appear, nor is she so called by^any other writer. He himself at the same time gives to the Queen of fairies the name of Mab though no one except Drayton connects Mab as the wife of Oberon: Dyer:it>lklore of Shakespeare Pg£l Height3y however, gives it that the beliefs of those days that fairies were the same as the classic nymphs or the attendants of Diana. The fairy queen was, therefore, the same as Diana,whom Ovid: Metamorphoses 173 styles Titania: Keightfcy; Fairy Mythology.Pg. 173 } 3. Nutt: Popular4iythology,Qf Shakespearev-pg. 12. Hazlitt: Fairy Mythology .Pg. 252. ' - 69 - 1 Oberon and Titania are represented as keeping rival courts in consequence of a quarrel, which Puck relates with mischevious delight, over a sweet changeling that the queen hath stolen from an Indian king. But Oberon like an earthly monarch desires the boy for a knight of his train and so Titania and Oberon are not on speaking terms. This is a touch of theold medieval court life andits feudal ceremonies. A characteristic brought out by Shakespeare is the small size of the elves and their Independence of the laws of gravity. They are so tiny that they war with rere- mice for their leathern wings to make small coats, and can "creep into corn- cups and hide them there." Though little they move about with extreme swiftness forPuck goes swifter than arrow from the Tartar'3 bow,and can put a girdle round about the earth ti in forty minutes If They are by nature elemental airy apritesj for their brawls incense the wind and moon to stir up tempests. Then, too, the elves take a share In the life of nature, live on fruit, deck the cowslip with dewdrops, war with noxious insects and reptiles,overcast the sky with fog, and play the role generally of a mediator between man and blind nature. With the descriptior lavished on this fairyland we have the most poetic conception that the theme has assumed. The lines between Puck and a fairy are so beautiful, that they deserve to be quoted In full, giving as they do, in charming verse, an idea of the delicate nature of the fairy occupations:-

1. Titania:for note.on origin of word Titania, see pg.«6«. of thesis. Note 2. WT= O* - 70 -

"Spirit! whither wander you Through bush-through briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire I do wander everywhere Swifter than the moon's 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 #p*U see,, Those be rtLbies, 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. Farewell,thou lob of spirits, I'll be goney- Oul? Queen and all her elves come here anon. tt Puck: The king doth keep his revels here tonight. In revels, the fairies dance in orbs upon the green, and their haunts on earth are the most rur*:l and romantic that can be selected to dance in. in airy thro&gs they meet: — On hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain, or by riiishy brooks, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind" There is a fine poetic quality to these elves that we have not found in former fairies. The other universal quality so characteristic of the fairy, is a fondness for substituting withered yellow little changelings for the sweet changeling over which Titania and Oberon quarrel. Shakespeare has noticed this trait. To effect harmony from the discord Oberon causes his queen to fall in love wfcfch a mortal. Here we see the popular quality of the old romancers, although satirically treatedjfor Bottom is anything but a desirable lover for a royal dame.

Shakespeare: Midsummer Night's Dream. Act.1T - 71- The fairies' final characteristic is the blessing of marriage. Shakespeare has touched upon it in the assistance they render to the confused lovers , - Heffmla, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena and the gifts they finally pour upon them. With fairy peace harmony reigns once more in the material world, storms ccease, and all is happiness. So while taking the universal qualities of the peasant belief for the endownment of hisejives, yet Shakeqoeare, in the romantic court of the haughty King Oberon and the queen whose weakness is mortal lovers, used the fairy machinery 1 of the old romances. In "Huon of Bordeaux" , and the play of "James the fourth.to both of which Shakespeare had access, Oberon was represented as king of fairyland. And this must be the source of Shakepeare»s inspiration for his tiny sovereign. But for his conception of Puck, he found material in the folk tales of his own land. These had endowed the gay 2 sprite Robin Goodfellow with the same fun-loving qualities as those of the naughty spirit in the "Midsummer Night's Dream". Shakespeare even calls him Robin,- "You are that shrewd and knavish sprite" called 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 house wife chusyi; And sometimes 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 you not he?" 1. Green: ^James the Fourth^Aldls Wright, i~v. XV, XVI. The Romance of Huon of Bordeaux) translated by Lord Berners, see Pg. ±$ of thesis,and following pages 2. Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream' - 72 - Puck:- "Thou speak'st 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 f HIT foal." This is very close to the character of Robin Goodfellow in the old tales. Thus all the merry pranks of Robin Ohak^spca-re which

were found current >/vgathered up and repeated. Sometimes this wicked fairy lurks in a gossip's bowl in likeness of a roasted crab, and bobs against her withered lip to spill the ale. He tips over respectable old ladies given to long-winded yarns, and causes commotion among the invited guests. For further testimony in literature to Robin.s shortcomings, we cannot do better than quote from the tract entitled "The life of Robin Goodfellow" where it speaks of "Little Fairies that doe pinch blacke and 1 prick mayds of the dairyes". In this it is the popular mischevious sideof the fairy that is again emphasized*In "The Merry Wives of Windsor", Shakespeare introduces a mock fairyland modelled after the real one, but with additions from his own fancy. Mrs.Page is. going to dress her little daughter like fairies green and white with rounds of waxen tapers in their heads and rattles in their hands." Then they"fairylike" will all encircle the unclean knight, to pinch him and ask him why "that hour of fairy revel - In these so sacred paths he dares to tread 2 in shape profane" Again Dame Quickly addresses Fairies black, grey, green and white. T7~~And litTTe~~~fairj:es that ISoe^plSSh black and prink mayds~bf the dairyes . Hazlitt: Mythology (Fairy) of Shakespeare .Pg.203 Life of Robin Goodfellow /'See Hazlitt :Myt ho logy of Shakespeare Pg. 176". This incident istaken almost entire from the life of "You moonshine revellers and shades ofnight, - You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Who are to pinch the maids as blue as bilberry," Although apparently harmless in such an aspect, yet the elves are so powerful in their fairy nature, that Falstaff witnesses "he who speaks to them must die." But in Romeo and Juliet we have a new fairy personage^the celebrated Queen Mab. Here is the most finished portrait Shakespeare has given us of fcn elfin personage, and she is the fairy who appealed to the 2 later poets, and whom they represented as the Queen of Oberon. This fairy presides at men's dreams^for Queen Mab "is the fairies' midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate on the forefinger of an alderman. Her chariot is drawn by a team of little atomies", and she tickles men'3 noses as the lie aaleep. The description of her waggon, "an empty hazelnut",-is full of fancy, and strives to show the exhuberint richness of Shakespeare's imaginative genius. "The waggon-spokes made of long spinners' tegs,- The carver of the wings of grasshoppers The traces of the smallest^ spider's web, The collars of the moonshines watery beams, Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, Her waggoner, a small gray coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm. l.Keightley:Fairy Mytho&ogy.Pg. 231»The origin of" Mab is un- certain-Voss says "the word is found old Danish-and aold English and designates the female sex-so also Anglo-Saxon-woman-whence both queen and quean. 2. See Romeo and Juliet"for Shakespearian use" Drayton makes Mab Oberon's wife. Continuation of notes 1 and 2 on page 72* Robin Goodfellow.Tract found reprinted in Hazlitt."Fairy Mythology. 2. Act 4,Scene 4. - n _

Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid, Her chariot is an empty hazel nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub- Time out of mind the fellies'watchmakers." 1 But it is the description cf Mab's mischevious nature that links her at once to the popular belief of the day, for "she plaits the manes of horses in the night and cakes the/elf locks in foull sluttish hairs, which once entangled , much misfortune bode,"- Just like Robin Goodfellow . The other plays of ^Shakespeare present a few more characteristic traits of the fairies. More awful powers are described to them In "The by Tempest", Prospero declares that their aid he has"bedimmed the noon-tide sun", called forth the;Winds and thunder,- set foamy war betwixt the green sea and the azured vault,shaken promontories, and plucked up pines and cedars." He thus invokes these dwellers of elfland- Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes,and groves, 2 And ye that on the sands with print less foot, Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moon-shine do the green sour ringlets make Whereof the ewe not bites; andyou whose pastine, Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew"- Considered from all points of view this is the highest manifestation of fairy power we have yet had ( . ; from Shakespeare few in this lovely drama, Ariel, who is not a fairy but an elemental being of fire and air, is the most imaginative creation the genius of the poet conceived.

1% Act 5> Sc. 5* 2. Compare Goldlng's translation of Classic to&hology "Ye ayres and winds, ye elves of hills, of brooks alone,etc - 75 - What Shakespeare added to the fairy conception was the colour of hisown originality. He fully described the characteris­ tic of the race their habits and doings, dwelling on their 1 ; beauty, and on all the aspects that had been so well brought out by the treatment of medieval writers. And in Puck, the jester ofthe royal court,-the mischief loving sprite ,-he embodied, as Mr. Thorn points out, "Almost every attribute with which the imagination.of the people has invested the fairy race; yet, so accurately and carefully finished the picture, that he has not bestowed on the "lob of spirits" one gift or 2 quality the popular voice of the age did not approve. Thus, from the early use ofthe term Puck, which was applied to the whole race of fairies, Shakespeare, by a suggestion of genius, gave the name to the mischief-loving sprite Robin Goodfellow, and his PUCK light ens the drama with the vigorous and wholesome fun of the old legends. The great figures Shakespeare contributed to the literature of the Fairy world are of course Puck and Mab,-who are incomparably greater creations than any fairy hero previously

1. Douce: Folklore of Shakespeare Pg. 10 Walter Scott :Letters on Demondlgy and Wi'thcraft Pg. 121-1031 speaks of their splendour-the richness of their pageants and their entertainments and the exqulslteymusic to which tliey danced. 2. Thorn's "Three notelets to Shakespeare"Pg. 88-107 3. "Out of the Poukes pondfold No maynprise may us feeche. Piers Plowman Icelandic pukl i» the same'word. Compare Cornish Pixy$ ifrish, Pooka, Scotch panky. For discussion of the origin see Dyce,"R>lk lore of Shakespeare "Pg. 6 or Keightley: Fairy Mythology Pg. 316 - 76 -

evolved. The finer shadings of the picture as shown in the skill with which the poet paints in their green vests, or describes Puck "putting a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes", are a new feature in the literature, and are a mark of the exhuberant feeling of the Elizabethan?. The same material of the earlier writers is touched in Shakespeare with the finest spirit alike of grane &nd ;humour, and presented in a form exquisitely poetical. Naturally enough it is accidental and secondary characteristics of the fairyi world which have been emphasized by the poet, for he is solely concerned with what may heighten the beauty or enliven the humour of this scene. But with his unerring instinct for what is vital and permanent in that older world of legend and fancy to which he so often turned for inspiration, he has retained the essence of the fairy conception in the perfection of his own embodiment.

Chapter V

THE MODERN VIEW OF FAIRYLAND

With Shakespeare we have seen the fairy world receives the most poetic treatment of its many conceptions in literature, and the writers who follow him are indebted to his suggestive portrayal. Apart from any question of its relation to popular belief, Shakespeare's vision stood by itself, and was accepted as the ideal presentment - 77 - of fairydom, which for two centuries signified to the average Englishmannof culture the world depicted in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Works are still written, deriving form, and circumstance and inspiration,(such as it is) wholly from Shakespeare. Yet modern folk-lore differs from such literary versions of faery as are based upon the Elizabethan school., and where there is any trait in common, there is reason to suspect contamination of the popular form by the literary ideal, derived from and growing out of Shakespeare. His use of the fairy world, while true enough in painting, was purely fanciful. For him it was the quaintly fantastic parody of human circum­ stances that made the fairy community so delightful, and it is only incidentally that their share in the life of nature, and their sway over its benign and malign manifestations are brought out. His imitators tended to ignore this rural side altogether, and Puck becomes a merry mischief-maker not a helper. Lyly, Ben Johnson, and a host of lesser dramatists and poetasters adopted the fairy machinery but added nothing new. They took the qualities and the characters as they had been pictured in their model, and used them as dramatis personage for their works in the old same dress. Thus in "The Maydes Metamorphosis" of Lylle, acted in 1600, the fairies are brought in, dancing and singing, with the same attributes as had graced Peas-blossom , Puck, or Oberon , of "A Midsummer Night's Dream. " Maydes Metamorphosis" Lyly Act 2. - 18 - "By the moon we sport and play With the night begins our day, As we dance the dew doth full, Trip it little ucchins all." Ben Jonson in his "Entertainment of the Satyr, 1603$ introduces us to Queen Mab and a troop of fairies that possess similar borrowed qualities. They dance in fairy-rings, "Now they print it in the ground With their feet in figures round," andMab has the same fondness for human babies. "This is she that empties cradles Takes out children , puts in ladies." Not one essential quality in the peasant folk-lore is ignored in this picture. On the other hand in "the Masque of Oberon, of 1610, the old medieval fays are revi^dd , and the whole of Oberon's court with King Arthur plays its part in the pageaat. If these imitators added nothing new, yet they emphasized the old qualities, and we have more clearly cut pictures of the fairy race developing all the time. So Aiken brings out the appearance of the elves very distinctly, for though Shakespeare gave different colours to the fairies, our view of them always was of an indefinite richness. In the "Sad Shepherd" Aiken says of them "There in the stocks of trees white fays do dwell, And span-long elves that dance about a pool With each a little changeling in their arms." Also the old play of Fulmus Troes gives "Fairies smarll, Two foot tall, With caps red, On their head, Dance around OS the ground." 1 1. Fuimus~Troes, Act 1, scene 5; Dodsley's old~||5Srys~Vli pg.3Ji»- - 79 - These extracts show the growing tendency to heighten the portrait in the effort for distinct outline, that leflds to inevitable loss of the evanescent charm of the vaguely suggestive and imaginative. All this while Robin Goodfellow and Queen Mab are not forgotten, - Aiken's "Masque of Love Restored"; Fletchers "Faithful Shepherdess", and his "little French Lawyer" 1, all employ the fair loving sprite Robin to lend humour to their scenes. Obe,ron, too, and Mab appear intheir elf-like Shakes­ pearian nature in Randolph's "Pastoral of Amyntas." And here the "precieuse" touch is becoming more evident. There is a suggestion of straining a£ter an efrect in the 2 descriptions of the royal jointure, all In Fairyland . Even 3 the pastoral poets made use of fairy mythology . Had they used it exclusively, giving up the nymphs and all the rural rout of antiquity,and joined to it faithful pictures of the scenery England then presented, with just delineations of the manners and characters of the peasantry, the pastoral poetry of the age might have held an unrivalled position in literature to-day. But the fairy conception from the time of Shakespeare has been all copied material, and it is not till we come to Drayton

1. Fletcher:Little French Lawyer" Act 111,1 2. Randolph:Pastoral of Amyntas" act 1 sc. 3,6-act III sc 2-4 3. Brittannias Pastorals" (Brown) Song 2 and Song H- so also in "The Shepherd's Pipe-Brown introduces gairles see Keightley Pg. 3^3.ttFairy Mythology.* - so - and Herrick that it develops new features. They use the fairy - world not as incidental and decorative machinery for their poetry, but as the theme and inspiration for the whole. Fairyland is^magined and modelled on the scale of the real world, and the poets have exercised their cleverness and ingenuity in suggesting fanciful parallels for thei* picture. But the poetry of the old conceptions is being lost. There is not the same appeal to the imagination.Eteerything is in silhouette,-sharp and distinct,-like delicate Dresden China with the correct and pretty and cleverly-drawn Shepherds and Shepherdesses who yet lack the charm, the glamour, and the supernatural witchery of the appeal to the imagination that lies in some Eastern pottery. Sothe supernatural and the imaginative quality of elfland is being too carefully photo­ graphed in Herrick and Drayton for us to believe in fairies any more. 1 Though the "Nymphidla" is a delicious piece of airy and fanciful invention , in its description of Oberon's palace in the air, Mab's amours with the gentle Pigwiggin, the mad frdaks of jealous Oberon, the jollities of Puck and the combat of Pigwiggin and Oberon mounted on their ear-u/ig chargers, yet 1 Drayton's Nymphidia — — Drayton's Bolyojbion "Song H- and 21 both deal with fairies. Nymphtdia, of course is all taken up with the theme of fairyland. to Drayton's Peltry"Elysium'also^ has some clever fairy poetry. Where the wedding of Titaniaj&y and the preparations incident1 are dwelt on: Nymphal III,Vf,VIII. - si - not even such lines of traditional fairy-lore as portray the peasant belief in a more compact and catalogued fom than Shakespeare gave, can make the fairies live to us. We are becoming too familiar with them. 2 In Herrick we have the same great Ingenuity displajsed in portraying the meals of fairies. It is not high poetry but dainty in style; for to him there iskothing inartistic, "in a little salad of the broke heart of a nightingale ore-come in musike." The occupations, the daily life ofOberon and Mab, even their dwelling, are described with too much skill. Oberon has a church, too, with, friars, all tower in his little world. The ubiquitous beggar at its porch craves "an ant to 3 eat, or the cleft ear of a mouse, over-sour*d in drink of souce" The fairy world and its iffllnitiae appealed universally. The treatments in poetry it received were many. Milton evidently merely from his acquaintance with the superstition in books , disdained not to sing -

2. Herrick "Hesperides": Btoeroris Forest. 3. Herrick Hesperides; The Beggar to Bab, the dairies. ^. Compare with Herrick's and Drayton's work the l&ffrt and fanciful "King Oberon's apparel" of Smith which is of the same type, but better done. See Halliwell-Philipps"Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare" page 265 .and following pages for 11lustratlOftg. - 82- How fairy Mab the junkets eat She was pinched and pulled she said And he, by friar's lantern led, 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 threshed "the corn, That ten day-labourers could not end. Then lies him down the lubber-fiend, And stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And cropful out of doors he flings, E're the first cock his matin sings." 1 This is an evidence , since Milton was city-bred, that it had become a literary convention to introduce some reference to folk-lore superstitions of Mab, Puck, or other fairy during the-next hundred years. After later writers like Dryden and Pope and Tickell in his "Kensington Gardens", the fairy poetry declined. The belief in it was waning and though Collins, Beattie and a few poets of the last century, notably Macpherson, give us occasional allusions, It is not until we come to the nineteenth century that it takes on new life.

Chapter VI THE NINETEENTH - CENTURY REVIVALS.

.But every manifestation of fairies in the modern v/ritings has been a revival of some old source of inspiration. One phase of the fairy world after another has been treated in this way. In Percy and Chatterton there opened up the be- ginnings of a romantic revival of the ancient themes Swinburne

1. Milton "II Penseroso. - OD and Rossetti In their delicate reaching out after the apirit of the old beliefs come close in imaginative quality to the spirit poetry of Shelley. Tennyson through the Arthur tales draws us once more to Avalon, Arthur, and the three fairy queens. With his Vivien too, we are in touch with the old superstitions of La Dame du Lac in medieval story. We even have the Irish fairy-lore , which is so well known to all readers of Croker and Yeats reflecting and interpreting the old Celtic tales of the first fairies. Perhaps better than any other of the modern school Yeats has succeeded in giving s the life of the old narrative^ to his verse. To the melancholy strain of superstition in the Irish nature a belief in fairies is still possible. Folk-lore research prove the existence of 1 such a faith in Ireland . Accordingly, the Irish poetry bears constant reference to the fairy world and its tradition^. Echoes of the still living fairy qualities come back from such lines upon changelings among the Good people as:- "Within our magic halls of brightness Trips many a foot of snowy whiteness, Stolen maidens, queens of faery, And Kings and Queens, a sluagh shee airy." 2 We have delicate pictures of the fairy race itself in "Up the airy mountain Down the rushy glen We daren't go a hunting for fear of little men. Wee folk, good folk, Trooping altogether, Gre^n Jacket, red cap$ x* See the Folk-lore journals Vol -1 -Vlii (especially the second and seventh Vol. ) are full of testimony to existing belief). Compare with the carefully gathered tales of Crofton Croker: "Fairy legends of Ireland" and of Yeats:"Irish Fairy and Folk Tales. 2. "The Fairy Nurse" by Edward Walsh. - s^ - And white owl's feather. Down along the rocky shore, Some make their home They live on crispy pancakes. Or yellow tide goam. Some inthe reads, Of the bleak mountain lake. With frogs for their watch-dogs All night awake." 1 Occasionally the old bardic stories of the eaily sagas are revised, and the fairie-s of the ancient conception portaayed as they figured in the De Danaan days of Ireland. 8uch are the themes for which Yeats wrought out his fitful Danann rhymes, and the source of his inspiration was not only the old Tuatha de Danann but also the "Wise Ones" of 2 modern Irish folk-lore. Both to him are identical . In "The countess"Cathleen" when Maire, lamenting the famine,regrets "We have had no milk to leave of nights, To keep our own good people kind to us." Shamus replies - "I would eat my supper With no less mirth if chaired beside the hearth, Were Pooka, soulth or demon of the pit, Rubbing its hands before the flame of pine." And again 0on3., the drone, chants a song "About the Danann nations in their raths" to the Irish Cathleen who in her turn 3 tells us of Adene, my first forbears' daughter i; that followed once a twilight's piercing tune to go down" and dwell 1. William Allngham "The Fairies" — 2. N.B. The tendency is to dramatize the fairy creed in Modern Irish literature. Yeats-and Fiona MacLeod both dramatize-- "The Immortal Hour" by Fiona MacLeod revives the old tale of Mider and Etain. 3. Adene or Etain of old tale, lured away by Mider King of the Shee. - 85 - among the Shee in their old, ever-busy honied-land- where she hears the wild song of the dear Danann nations in their raths." But the bringing into the drama of the elemental spirits of air, ruddy-haired, and green-robed, and smaller than^the size of men and women" is an original feature quite modern in tone and feeling. That they are the old Folk of the Sidhe we can see, for they tell us Cathleen's men have "ever left, when night-fall comes , a hundred pairs of white ewe's milk, outside their doors to feed us, when the dawn has driven is out of Finbar»3 ancient house and broken the long dance under the 1 hill. Wherever Yeats brings in the fairy race he has succeeded in deepening the melancholy quality that underlies all Celtic poetry, and there is a feeling of supernatural awe in the whole portrayal of "the people of the raths"- the people that "know not the hard burden ofthe world, hatting but breath in their kind bodies," and no understanding of human care. Their old nature is brought out constantly in his poetry. " A Danann vintage makes a shower of moons". Here is the modern way of telling us their agricultural origin. 2 But in "The Wanderings of Oisin, one of the old fairy stories Is re-told, and the Danann princess, pearl-pale

1. Yeats: The Countess Cathleen Act 3. ii II if II Act *!•. 2. Yeats: "The wandering of Oisin". - S6 - Nairn appears again. The land of Hearts Desire is opened up for Oisin where "the blushes of first love never have flown- and he may know the Danann leisure." That the picture is ih the old vein of Celtic Saga we see from Naims promises. "There men have heaped no burial grounds And the day^ pass by like a wayward tune. And there I will give you a hundred hounds^ And a hundred robes of murmuring silk,. In this the matsriai phase of life is insisted upon* But the modern melody, and the deep feeling for beauty, and passion and the life of the soul, which the early bards had not grasped, is in such pictures as:- "Round every branch the song birds - While round the shore a million stood Like drops of frozen rainbow light" or this:- "Men and maidens hand in ahand And singing, singing all together, Their brows, were white as fragrant milk, Their cloaks were made of Yellow silk; And when they saw the cloak I wore Was dim with mire of a mortal shore They fingered it and gazed on me And laughed like murmurs of the sea." . .And in a wild and sudden dance We mocked at Time and Bite and Chance, Bent all our swaying bodies down, And to the waves that glimmer by, '* That sloping green De Danann sod, Sang God is joy and joy is God." But the note of unrest - the feeling of sadness over human futility, these are Yeats' own. In the old tale Oisin does return to earth to fight but the modern poet shows us that the "gray wandering osprey sorrow," whifch overtakes all mortals catches him, even in fairyland,and his eyes grow dim with all the ancient - 81 - sorrow of men, and he has to return to earth where sadness only can be understood. The modern Irish still believes in the Good people and we even get many oftheir qualities from the folk-lore superstitions embodied in such exquisite lyrics as, "Come away, oh human child To the water and the wild With a faery hand in hand, 5br the world's more full of weeping than You can understand, Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim grey sands wifehlight, Far off by furthest Rosses B3 foot it all the night, Wearing olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight To and fro we leap. And chase the frothy bubbles While the world is full of troubles, And is anxious in-Its sleep Gome away , oh human child "etc 1 Yeats is perhaps the most original of the fairy versifiers who give the old creed with its new dress of modern sadness and sense of the emptiness of the actual world by the side of dreamful fairy. His poem"The Land of Hearts Desire" shows the charm fairy land has for the soul of the poet. In it we see Yeat's vague longing foithe spirit world himself, for human life to him as to Maire Brain, — "Moves out of a red flare of dreams into a common light of common hours. Until old age bring the red flare again." And he cries out "Let me have all the freedom I have lost Work when I will and idle when I will, Fairies, come take me out of this dull warld,

1. Yeats: The Stolen Child. - 38 - For I would ride with you uponthe wind. Run on the top of the dishevelled tide And dance upon the mountains like a flame. " From the time of the Shakespearian vision there has been no new and absorbing influence shaping the fairy conception that was not imitative, till the modern Irish school added to the majestic heraldry of the poets,some new heraldic images gathered from the lips of the common people. Christianity and the old nature faith have now lain down side by side in the cottages, yet the fairy creed has appealed to the faith and fancy of generations more countless than ever acknowledged the sway of any of the great world religions. Yeats feels its universal call. As a relief from the unrest of the world , its sadness and the weary burden of its sameness he has made the fairy nurture the soaring imaginative life of the soul. H& has shown the part fairies still play in stlmulat- ing the nameless longings of the people of his country, for the artistic and ideal*In life. For as long as th$ world shall endure, to mankind as to him,- Shall "The elemental beings go About my table to and fro, In flood and fire and day and wind They huddle from man's pondering mind; Yet he who trends in austere ways May surely meet their ancient gaze; Man ever journeys on with them After the red-rose bordered hem. Ah fairies dancing under the moon A druid land, a Druid tune." 1 So the Celt, answering the call ofthe wild, saved fairyland by this latest interpretation,from becoming a mere literary

1. Yeats "To Ireland in the - 89 - convention without life or savour, just as had threatened it in past Shakespearian treatment . For the universal interest in fairyland had embodied the folk beliefs inanother literary creation - the fairy-tale,and the French court of Louis XIV in Madame D'Aulnoy's stories brought out an artificial fairy-world modelled in its own court. But the collecting of the old developed folk-stories of the people in short single incidents , and the presenting them as narratives for children, set the fashion for a vast body of collected folk- material, and to-day we are swamped with fairy tales, ftufch treatment could not do other than reduce the fairies t& simpering puppets relieved here andthere only by such charmingly fresh folk marchen as Grimm's or Hans Anderson's tales. So though all the combined literary fashions for two centuries seemed butlto be destroying and cheapening the fairies,until nothing of their early fascination would remain, yet the 1 nineteenth century, both in its poetry and in its fairy tales, saved the fairy world from becoming the stock property of a 2 machine-made children's literature. Vandals like Kipling may use the tricksy Puck to Inculcate history to twentieth century youth,but the modern world recognizes the mighty force the fairies have been in shaping the imaginative life and faith of 1. For this the reader has only to indulge in a few pages of Crofton Croker:Fairy Legends of Ireland", of Yeats" "Irish Fairy andFolk-tales of Lang! "Fairy Books" of Dasent: "Scandinavian Tales of C. Klngsley: "The Water Babies" to see the originality and high literary quality of the modern fairy tale. For the Irish side see Lady Charlotte Guest's "Mablnogion". 2. "Puck of Pookh's Hill": Kipling. - 90 - countless generations. From their evolution out of an agricultural ritual, (luring two thousand years, the fairies' function has ever been to help man; at first in his struggles for food, they aided him ; and now they stand as an inspirative stmosphere to the unsatisfied soul-strivings of the race. Through the literature we have seen them as they really appeared to the men andv/omen who believed in them-beings of an ancient and awful aspect, elemental powers, mighty, capricious; cruel ,and benignant, as is Nature herself. how We have seen clearly the conception has ever been influenced by our history. Early Celtic and Medieval feudalism both gave imperishable qualities to the treatment which Inspired the Elizabethans • Then for a time the decadent spirit of the years following Shakespeare produced nothing. And now the new life this fairy creed put forth in the Celtic Revival, which is our latest vision, goes far to show that this ancient source of inspiration, this symbolic interpretation of man's relation to nature, is not yet dried up, and that English literature with its mixed strain of Teutonic and Celtic blood, with its inheritance in the mythologies of both these races, and with its possession of the sole body of mythology and romance, the Celtic, which grew up wholly unaffected by Classic culture, is destined to drink deeply of it in the future as In the past. The gift the fairy has ever held out to man is rest - rest in the early days from hard toil, and ' - 91 - - in these modern times belief in him still offers rest from the tired burthen of disillusioned materialism* "We who are old, old and gray, 0 so old! Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told. Give to these children, new from the world, Silence and love; And the long dew -droppingb-hours of the night, And the stars above. Give to these children, new from the world* Rest far from men,- Is anything better, anything better - Tell us it then. Us who are old, old and gray 0 so old. Thousands of years if all were told If all were told. So long as the fairies hold out such pledges of rest to man, so long will man be drawn to repay the fairy world in new creations of undying beauty.

Yeats: A Fairy Song sung by the people of faery over Dionnel and Grania.

C$\AJJL Qjy^o^^WKM^yCc^t ovt fr^r^c^A^oAst VVv ' - 92 -

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beaumont and Fletcher: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Act III, Scene H- gives account of Puck. Brewer: The Readers' Handbook of Allusion. ( 9» Boswell: The Origin of the Fairy Race, in National Review(Vol. Brandes; George: William Shakespeare ,(See account of mythology.) Campbell,J: Popular Tales of the West Highlands) 1S90. Brown: Britannia,s, Pastorals , Songs 3 & 4. : The Shepherd's Pipe, these give account of fairies' customs. Included in Keightley's Mythology. Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy , contains reference to Puck. Chaucer: Wife of Bath,s Tale, contains reference to fairies. : The Merchant's Tale, " » " " : The Han of Law's Tale, " « " " Croker,Crofton: Preface to Fairy Legends of Ireland, Swan,Sonnensehein Co. , London. : Fairy Legends of Ireland, 1S26. Corbet,Dr.: The Fairies' Farewell, p.ee Halliwell, 16^7. V Dyer: Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Pg, 1-2^. Douce: Illustrations of Shakespeare and Ancient Manners* See pages 122, 238, 127, 1W, 111 for fairy customs : Fairy Songs, Vol. 1, pg. 83( The Fairies' Dance, S? Dasent: Scandinavian Fairy Tales. ( Tne Elves' Dance. Y^ Drayton: Nymphidia . : Fairy Wedding, 1630, ( or Marriage of Titania, ) See reprint in Halliwell. , : The Poet's Elysium. Fouque , De la Mbtte; Undine( Nutt, London.) Grimm: trishe Elfenma^rchen, 1S26. Grimm; Wllkem and Jacob: Fairy Tales. Guest, Lady Charlotte: The Mabinogian. Gregory,Lady: Gods and Fighting Men. Hartland: The Science of Fairy Tales. Walter Scott,London,1891. : Fairy Mythology,in Saturday Review, Vol.71,pg. ij-9. Hazlitt : The Ifeiry Mythology of Shakespearef Wm. Kerslake,Lon.lS92 I an this book are included the following fairy poems:- 1. The Adventures of Sir Gawaine and the Enchanted Castle, a reprint from an old Chapbook of Henry VIII. This shows the Arthurian side of the fairy conception. 2. The Cozenages oftre. West. A tract of 1613, showing 3ij-.. "Puck$ DelicatthRobie populans Goodfellowe Nighfairr beliety Address","Thsong,f hiIsns fairies includinmad prankse* gFairy' "Titania. s Farewell"^ Lullaby"-. , BIBLIOIIAJHY 1. Halliwell - Philipps: On A Midsummer Night's Dream. Notes 21-45. In the appendix is a reprint of a tract in the British Museum upon "Robin Goodfellow". And on page 27 an anecdote on fairies from an MSS. at Bodiein 2.Library, Oxford. : Illustrations of the • Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare.( Shakespeare's Society Papers 1845. ) : 3«Fairy Mythology. In this book are to be found several reprints of fairy poetry and prose taken from old MSS. and tracts dealing with the Fairy-lore of England. See page 281. Also included are :- (a) Dr. Corbett: The Fairies 'Farewell (b ) Heywood: Hierarchy. (c) Herrick: Fairy Poetry,pg. 250. (d) The Famous History of Friar Bacon. Contains an account of Puck. jre) The Midnight Watch, Tract, London I6I3 , v ?&• 99% (f) The Ballad of Robin Goodfellow,pg.27, , , & 3S-39. (g) Lane: Triton's Trumpet, Speaks of Fairyland. This poem was never printed. found in MS. Bibl. Reg. 17,B XV. and reprinted in Halliwell. Henslowe: Diary, gives account of a lost draffia upQn ^^ Qf Chettles. ) Herrick: Fairy Poetry , see Jfclliwell-Fhillpps, pg. 250. Herbert, A.s.: Fairy Mytho]ogy of Europe in relation to early history. - Nineteenth Century, Vol. 63. J©hson,Ben: Satyr , 1603 • contains fairy song. : Masque of Entertainment , 1603,(Fairy Mab. ) Masque of Love Restored. ( Puck Introduced). See v, -,, ^„ fare's Glossary, Vol.2 page 695. Kipling,Rudyard: Puck of Pookh's Hill. Lang,Andrew:Keightley,ThomasLyly Layamon^lrL:Tales( : seeMaydeRefer:: art MytReview,lS9TicleThiteraturss: e h Metamorphosest FairRituaoBluin Elve eyNatione S lMythologyans o vg.anfd, dth v ,Religionve29 e Vol.46, 19254FairlesRe. ,Ac d(Georg tFair. 2.ha ,VK( Vo y ese tin.s Talesl Belea 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Maeterlinck: The Blue Bird. Macallum: Tennysonia Idylls and Arthur Stories. Macleod, Fiona: The imr.ortal Hour/a fairy drama.) Marston,John: The Masauetof the Twelve Months, (account of fairie Shake speare s Society Papers. Masstnger: Duke of Milan> Act ill scene 2 ) refers to Puck. : Fatal Dowery, Act I, scene 5, refers to Fairy g&ld. : Honest Man's Fortune, treats the necessity @f secrecy r^ith fairies. du Maury, Alfred: Les Fees du Moyen- Age. Paris ,1843. Muller> Max: Chips from a German Workshpp , Vol II. Milton,John: Ode on the Nativity,treats fairy customs : L'AllegroThe Voyag. e of Bran* Vol.1 & II. Meyer,Nutt,AlfredKun© :) Th) ;e Happy Otherworld. (David Nutt London) Nutt,Alfred : )Th e Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth. : The Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare.(Popular studies Nutt, David: in mytfe) Oliphant: Editor of Folk-lore Records , Vol 1-8. Percy : Collection of Madrigals. See fairy songs, Peel; Reliques of English Poetry,see Queen Mab*s Invitation, Perrault: Old Wives' Tale,f Depicts fairy land. Rhys,John: Les Contes des Fees » WelSh Fairies,article in iflneteenth Qentury,Vol30, pg. 564. : The Arthurian saga. Ritson,JosephRandolph; ('Pastora. : Dissertatiol op ^yntysn on ,Fairies,(se or the Impossible Hazlitt:Mythologe Dowry bringy s in Maofb Shakespea!and Obero-n , ,pg Ac.t _" II' I ,1-4 scen6 e) 2, 4. ana* Spenser: Act I , scene 3,6. The Faerie Queene. Oberon comes In In Bk.2 Canto 1,6. Smith: Bk.2 " 10,16 Tarleton: Musprlum Deliciae. ,- King Oberon's Apparel. Thorn: News out of Purgatory- contains account of Puck. Thorpe: Three Notelets on Shakespeare,pg. 38i39. Tickell: Northern Mythology, Vol.Ill,pg. 32 (1852). Kensington Gardens,gives modern fairy poetry. Walckenaer: Preface des Oontes de Perrault. : Lettres sur les Contes des Fees. Paris 1836. Yeats,waiter: Iris- —:T-*- Fairy and Folk Tales. (Walter Scott.) con'td pg. 95% - 95 - BIBLIOGRAPHY Yeatsj Walter: A Book of Irish Verse. : The Countess Cathleen. : The Land of Heart's Desire. : Oisin in the Land of Youth. : Prisoners of the Gods Nineteenth Century 1898 Pg. 95. : Irish Fairies ;Saturday Review ,Vol.73>PS«557. Thd'AuDloye Encyclopedi, Mme,; aLe sof Conte Practicas desl FeesQuotation. . DrydenAnderse:n ,HanParaphrass Christiane of Chaucer,contain: Fairytales. s fairy lore. n Fletcher: Faithful 'epherdeps. ( for changelings.) of fairies Wisdom of Dr. Dodypoll,. 1600 has reference to size

PERIODICAL LITERATURE ON FAIRIES.

Atlantic Monthly: Vol.48: Diffusion of Fairy Tales. Atlantic:Vol.54 pg. 457: Fairy Relations to Religion. All the Year: Vol 48, pg. 46l:Fairy Legends of Donnegal. MS. Ashinole 36, 37: Sports of the Fairies. MS. Ashinole 1600 : Conjurations ofor Fairies. Century:Vol 15 : Fairies and Druids of Ireland. The Celtic Review; October 15, 1909, pg. 160: On Fairies. Chamber's Journal; Vol.59,Pg. 454: Fairyland and Fairies. Chamber's Journal; Vol.52, pg. 574: The Fairy Folk. Chamber's Encyclopedia:Vol.3 t Demonology and Folklore. : Fairies. Folklore Records:Vol.8,pg. 29:Fairy Mythology of English Literature. ^ Tr n Ugs :Vol.7,Pg. 161 & 217:lrish Fairy Beliefs. Forum: Vol.4o,pg. J75 : Fairy Tales. Fraser:Vol.lO,pg. 51: Fairy Mythology of England. Edinburgh Review: Vol.123: The Relation of Aryan Tribes in Folk Marchen. : 189S: Fairy Tales as Literature. - 96 -

PERIODICAL LITERATURE ON FAIRIES.

Gentleman's Magazine: Vol.75,P&.377: Realms of Faery* International: Vol.5*pg. 316: Fairy-lore and Primitive Religion. Nation: Vol.64,pg. 740: Fairies of Ireland. (Newell (: International Monthly:Vol.5 ,pg. 316:Fairy-lore and Primitive Religion. The New Shakespeare Society Papers: S. 68.n. pg. 45,gives a reprint "The Song of Oberon;" Saturday Review: Vol.71; Fairy Mythology- Westminister : Vol.19, vg. 74: Fairy Mythology.