Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer (year 2 reading books .txt) đ
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We cannot dye, how old so eâer we grow.
Of paines and harmes of evârie other sort
We taste, onelie no death we nature ow.â
An important feature of the fairy race was their power of vanishing at will, and of assuming various forms. In âA Midsummer-Nightâs Dreamâ Oberon says:
And I will overhear their conference.â
Puck relates how he was in the habit of taking all kinds of outlandish forms; and in the âTempest,â Shakespeare has bequeathed to us a graphic account of Arielâs eccentricities. âBesides,â says Mr. Spalding,[23] âappearing in his natural shape, and dividing into flames, and behaving in such a manner as to cause young Ferdinand to leap into the sea, crying, âHell is empty, and all the devils are here!â he assumes the forms of a water nymph (i. 2), a harpy (iii. 3), and also the Goddess Ceres (iv. 1), while the strange shapes, masquers, and even the hounds that hunt and worry the would-be king and viceroys of the island, are Arielâs âmeaner fellows.ââ Poor Caliban complains of Prosperoâs spirits (ii. 2):
Sometimes like apes, that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me: then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount
Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.â
That fairies are sometimes exceedingly diminutive is fully shown by Shakespeare, who gives several instances of this peculiarity. Thus Queen Mab, in âRomeo and Juliet,â to which passage we have already had occasion to allude (i. 4), is said to come
On the fore-finger of an alderman.â[24]
And Puck tells us, in âA Midsummer-Nightâs Dreamâ (ii. 1), that when Oberon and Titania meet,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.â
Further on (ii. 3) the duties imposed by Titania upon her train point to their tiny character:
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats.â
And when enamoured of Bottom, she directs her elves that they shouldâ
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-wormâs eyes,
To have my love to bed, and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.â
We may compare, too, Arielâs well-known song in âThe Tempestâ (v. 1):
In a cowslipâs bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the batâs back I do fly
After summer merrily,
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.â
Again, from the following passage in âThe Merry Wives of Windsorâ (iv. 4) where Mrs. Page, after conferring with her husband, suggests thatâ
And three or four more of their growth, weâll dress
Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
And rattles in their handsâ
it is evident that in Shakespeareâs day fairies were supposed to be of the size of children. The notion of their diminutiveness, too, it appears was not confined to this country,[25] but existed in Denmark,[26] for in the ballad of âEline of Villenskovâ we read:
No bigger than an ant;â
Oh! here is come a Christian man,
His schemes Iâll sure prevent.â
Again, various stories are current in Germany descriptive of the fairy dwarfs; one of the most noted being that relating to Elberich, who aided the Emperor Otnit to gain the daughter of the Paynim Soldan of Syria.[27]
The haunt of the fairies on earth are generally supposed to be the most romantic and rural that can be selected; such a spot being the place of Titaniaâs repose described by Oberon in âA Midsummer-Nightâs Dreamâ (ii. 1):[28]
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lullâd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamellâd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.â
Titania also tells how the fairy race meet
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea.â
In âThe Tempestâ (v. 1), we have the following beautiful invocation by Prospero:
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes backââ
Their haunts, however, varied in different localities, but their favorite abode was in the interior of conical green hills, on the slopes of which they danced by moonlight. Milton, in the âParadise Lostâ (book i.), speaks of
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheels her pale course, they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.â
The Irish fairies occasionally inhabited the ancient burial-places known as tumuli or barrows, while some of the Scottish fairies took up their abode under the âdoor-staneâ or threshold of some particular house, to the inmates of which they administered good offices.[29]
The so-called fairy-rings in old pastures[30]âlittle circles of a brighter green, within which it was supposed the fairies dance by nightâare now known to result from the out-spreading propagation of a particular mushroom, the fairy-ringed fungus, by which the ground is manured for a richer following vegetation. An immense deal of legendary lore, however, has clustered round this curious phenomenon, popular superstition attributing it to the merry roundelays of the moonlight fairies.[31] In âThe Tempestâ (v. 1) Prospero invokes the fairies as the âdemy-puppetsâ that
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight-mushrooms.â
In âA Midsummer-Nightâs Dreamâ (ii. 1), the fairy says:
Swifter than the moonâs sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.â
Again, in the âMerry Wives of Windsorâ (v. 5), Anne Page says:
Like to the Garterâs compass, in a ring;
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.â
And once in âMacbethâ (v. 1), Hecate says:
Drayton, in his âNymphidiaâ (l. 69-72), mentions this superstition:
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the fayrie ground,
Of which they have the keeping.â
Cowley, too, in his âComplaint,â says:
And again, in his ode upon Dr. Harvey:
Pluquet, in his âContes Populaires de Bayeux,â tells us that the fairy rings, called by the peasants of Normandy âCercles des fĂ©es,â are said to be the work of fairies.
Among the numerous superstitions which have clustered round the fairy rings, we are told that when damsels of old gathered the May dew on the grass, which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings, apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty. Nor was it considered safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they should be liable to the fairiesâ power.[32] The âAthenian Oracleâ (i. 397) mentions a popular belief that âif a house be built upon the ground where fairy rings are, whoever shall inhabit therein does wonderfully prosper.â
Speaking of their dress, we are told that they constantly wore green vests, unless they had some reason for changing their attire. In the âMerry Wives of Windsorâ (iv. 4) they are spoken of asâ
And further on (v. 4):
The fairies of the moors were often clad in heath-brown or lichen-dyed garments, whence the epithet of âElfin-grey.â[33]
The legends of most countries are unanimous in ascribing to the fairies an inordinate love of music; such harmonious sounds as those which Caliban depicts in âThe Tempestâ (iii. 2) being generally ascribed to them:
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.â
In the âMidsummer-Nightâs Dreamâ (ii. 3), when Titania is desirous of taking a nap, she says to her attendants:
And further on (iii. 1) she tells Bottom:
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep.â
The author of âRound About our Coal Fireâ[34] tells us that âthey had fine musick always among themselves, and danced in a moonshiny night, around, or in, a ring.â
They were equally fond of dancing, and we are told how they meetâ
and in the âMaydesâ Metamorphosisâ of Lyly, the fairies, as they dance, sing:
Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing a,
Trip and go, to and fro, over this green a,
All about, in and out, for our brave queen a,â etc.
As Mr. Thoms says, in his âThree Notelets on Shakespeareâ (1865, pp. 40, 41), âthe writings of Shakespeare abound in graphic notices of these fairy revels, couched in the highest strains of poetry; and a comparison of these with some of the popular legends which the industry of Continental antiquaries has preserved will show us clearly that these delightful sketches of elfin enjoyment have been drawn by a hand as faithful as it is masterly.â
It would seem that the fairies disliked irreligious people: and so, in âMerry Wives of Windsorâ (v. 5), the mock fairies are said to chastise unchaste persons, and those who do not say their prayers.
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