chievously inclined by shooting at cattle with arrows headed with flint stones. These were often found, and called elf-shots. (15)

The animal affected was, in order to a cure, to be touched with one of these, or made to drink the water in which one of them had been dipped.

The genius of Shakspeare, converting whatever it handled into gold, has been singularly happy in its display of the Fairy Mythology. (16) I know not whether anything can be imagined to go beyond the flights of his imagination on this subject; and it seems to realize all that has been fabled of magic when he exerts his creative fancy in giving to

Lilly, in his "Life and Times," tells us that fairies love the southern sides of hills, mountains, groves, neatness and cleanness of apparel, a strict diet, and upright life; "fervent prayers unto God," he adds, "conduce much to the assistance of those who are curious these ways.' He means, it should seem, those who wish to cultivate an acquaintance with them.

Chaucer, through the gloom of a darker age, saw clearer into this matter. He is very facetious concerning them in his “ 'Canterbury Tales," where he puts his creed of Fairy Mythology into the mouth of the Wife of Bath, thus:

"In old dayes of the King Artour

Of which that Bretons speken gret honour,
All was this lond fulfilled of faerie;
The Elf-Quene with hire jolie company
Daunsed full oft in many a grene mede;
This was the old opinion as I rede.
I speke of many hundred yeres agoe,

But now can no man see non elves mo.
For now the grete charite and prayers
Of limitours and other holy freres,
That serchen every lond and every streme,
As thik as motes in the sunne beme,

In every bush, and under every tree, There nis none other incubus but he;" &c. In Poole's "Parnassus," voce FAIRIES, are given the names of the fairy court: "Oberon the emperor, Mab (17) the empress.

"Perriwiggin, Perriwinckle, Puck, Hob-goblin, Tomalin, Tom Thumb, courtiers.

"Hop, Mop, Drop, Pip, Trip, Skip, Tub, Tib, Tick, Pink, Pin, Quick, Gill, Im, Tit, Wap, Win, Nit, the maids of honour.

Nymphidia, the mother of the maids."

Dr. Grey, in his Notes on Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 50, gives us a description from other writers of fairy-land, a fairy entertainment, and fairy hunting.

The first is from Randolph's pastoral entitled "Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry," p. 36. It is not destitute of humour. A curious park paled round about with pickteeth-a house made all with mother of pearle -an ivory tennis-court-a nutmeg parloura saphyre dairy-room-a ginger hall-chambers of agate-kitchens all of chrystal-the jacks are gold-the spits are all of Spanish needles."

The following, fitted for the above jacks and spits, is Dr. King's description of Orpheus' fairy entertainment :

"A roasted ant that's nicely done

By one small atom of the sun;
These are flies' eggs in moonshine poach'd;
This a flea's thigh in collops scotch'd,-
'Twas hunted(18) yesterday i' th' park,
And like t' have scap'd us in the dark.
This is a dish entirely new,

Butterflies' brains dissolv'd in dew;
These lovers' vows, these courtiers' hopes,
Things to be eat by microscopes:
These sucking mites, a glow-worm's heart,
This a delicious rainbow-tart."

King's Works, ed. 1776, vol. iii.
p. 112.

The following, entitled "Oberon's Clothing," and "Oberon's Diet," found in Poole's "English Parnassus," (already quoted in a note,) almost exhaust the subject of fairy

economy.

"Oberon's Clothing.

"Then did the dwarfish fairy elves (Having first attir'd themselves)

Prepare to dress their Oberon king In light robes of revelling. In a cob-web shirt, more thin Than ever spider since could spin, Bleach'd by the whiteness of the snow, As the stormy winds did blow It through the vast and freezing air; No shirt half so fine, so fair. A rich waistcoat they did bring Made of the trout-fly's gilded wing: At this his elveship 'gan to fret, Swearing it would make him sweat Even with its weight; and needs would wear His wast-coat wove of downy hair New shaven from an Eunuch's chin; That pleas'd him well, 'twas wondrous thin. The outside of his doublet was Made of the four-leav'd true-love grass, On which was set a comely gloss By the oyl of crisped moss; That thro' a mist of starry light It made a rainbow in the night: On each seam there was a lace, Drawn by the unctuous snail's slow trace, To which the purest silver thread Compar'd did look like slubber'd lead: Each button was a sparkling eye Ta'en from the speckled adder's fry, Which in a gloomy night and dark, Twinkled like a fiery spark: And, for coolness, next his skin, 'Twas with white poppy lin'd within. His breeches of that fleece were wrought Which from Colchos Jason brought; Spun into so fine a yearn, Mortals might it not discern: Wove by Arachne on her loom Just before she had her doom: Died crimson with a maiden's blush, And lin❜d with soft Dandalion plush. A rich mantle he did wear Made of silver gossamere, Bestrowed over with a few Diamond drops of morning dew. His cap was all of ladies' love, So passing light that it could move If any humming gnat or flye But puff'd the air in passing by. About it was a wreath of pearl, Dropp'd from the eyes of some poor girl Was pinch'd because she had forgot To leave clean water in the pot.

And for feather he did wear
Old Nisus' fatal purple hair.
A pair of buskins they did bring
Of the cow-lady's coral wing,
Inlaid with inky spots of jet,
And lin'd with purple violet.
His belt was made of yellow leaves
Pleated in small curious threaves,
Beset with amber cowslip studs,
And fring'd about with daisy-buds;
In which his bugle-horn was hung,
Made of the babbling echo's tongue,
Which, set unto his moon-burnt lips,
He winds, and then his fairies skips:
And whilst the lazy drone doth sound,
Each one doth trip a fairy round.”

"Oberon's Diet.

"A little mushroom table spread
After a dance, they set on bread.
A yellow corn of parkey wheat,
With some small sandy grits to eat
His choice bits with; and in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all this while his eye was serv'd,
We cannot think his ear was starv'd,
But that there was in place to stir
His ears the pittering grasshopper;
The merry cricket, the puling fly,
The piping gnat's shrill minstrelsie;
The humming dor, the dying swan,
And each a chief musitian.

But now we must imagine, first,
The elves present, to quench his thirst,
A chrystal pearl of infant dew,
Brought and besweeten'd in a blew
And pregnant violet; which done,
His kittling eyes began to run
Quite thro' the table, where he spies
The horns of papery butterflies;
Neat cool allay of cuckow-spittle,
Of which he eats, but with a little
A little furze-ball-pudding stands,
And yet not blessed with his hands,
That seem'd too coarse, but he not spares
To feed upon the candid hairs
Of a dried canker, and the lag
And well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag.
Stroking his palat with some store
Of emmett's eggs; what will he more,
But beards of mice and gnat's stew'd thigh,
A pickled maggot, and a dry

Hep, with a red-cap worm that's shut
Within the concave of a nut?
Brown as his tooth is, with the fat
Well-rooted eyeball of a bat;
A bloted earwig, and the pith
Of sugred rush, he glads him with.
But, most of all, the glow-worm's
As much betickling his desire
To burn his queen; mixt with the far-
Fetch'd binding jelly of a star:
With wither'd cherries, mandrake's ears,
Mole's eyes;
to these the slain stag's tears,

fire

The unctious dewlaps of a snail,
The broke-heart of a nightingale
O'ercome with musick; with a wine
Ne'er ravish'd with a cluster'd vine,
But gently strained from the side
Of a most sweet and dainty bride;
Brought in a daizy chalice, which
He fully quaffs up, to bewitch

His blood to height. This done, commends Grace to his priest, and the feast ends."(19)

(1) Antiq. Vulgares, chap. x. "Fairies and Elves are frequently, in the poets, mentioned together without any distinction of character that I can recollect. Keysler says that Alp and Alf, which is Elf with the Swedes and English, equally signified a mountain or a dæmon of the mountains. This seems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dictionary mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the sea and fountains, without any distinction between elves and fairies." Tollet. See Reed's edit. of Shaksp. vol. iv. p. 15.

(2) " It will afford entertainment," says Dr. Percy, ("Ancient Ballads," vol. iii. p. 207,) "to a contemplative mind to trace these whimsical opinions up to their origin. Whoever considers how early, how extensively, and how uniformly they have prevailed in these nations, will not readily assent to the hypothesis of those who fetch them from the East so late as the time of the Croisades. Whereas it is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed the existence of a kind of diminutive demons, or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called Duergar or dwarfs, and to whom they attributed many wonderful performances far exceeding human art. VideHervarer Olai Verelii,' 1675, Hickesii Thesaurus,' &c."

(3) The account given of them by Moresin (Papatus, p. 139) favours this etymology. Papatus" (says he) "credit albatas mulieres et id genus larvas," &c.

(*) "My grandmother" (says the author of "Round about our Coal Fire," p. 42) "has

often told me of fairies dancing upon our green, and that they were little creatures clothed in green."

I made strict inquiries after fairies in the uncultivated wilds of Northumberland, but even there I could only meet with a man who said that he had seen one that had seen fairies. Truth is hard to come at in most cases. None, I believe, ever came nearer to it than I have done.

The author of "Round about our Coal Fire" has these further particulars of the popular notions concerning them: "The moment any one saw them and took notice of them, they were struck blind of an eye. They lived under ground, and generally came out of a molehill."

Concerning fairies, King James, in his "Dæmonology," p. 132, has the following passages: "That there was a King and Queene of Phairie, that they had a jolly court and traine -they had a Teynd and Duetie, as it were of all goods-they naturally rode and went, eate and dranke, and did all other actions like natural men and women. Witches have been transported with the pharie to a hill, which opening, they went in and there saw a fairie queen, who being now lighter gave them a stone that had sundrie vertues."

There is reprinted in Morgan's "Phoenix Britannicus," p. 545, a curious tract on the subject of fairies, entitled "An Account of Anne Jefferies, now living in the county of Cornwall, who was fed for six months by a small sort of airy people called fairies: and of the strange and wonderful cures she performed with salves and medicines she re