After the appearance of the Faerie Queene, all distinctions were confounded, the name and attributes of the real Fays or Fairies of romance were completely transferred to the little beings who, according to the popular belief, made 'the green sour ringlets whereof the ewe not bites.' The change thus operated by the poets established itself firmly among the people; a strong proof, if this idea be correct, of the power of the poetry of a nation in altering the phraseology of even the lowest classes[20] of its society.

Shakspeare must be regarded as a principal agent in this revolution; yet even he uses Fairy once in the proper sense of Fay; a sense it seems to have nearly lost, till it was again brought into use by the translators of the French Contes des Fees in the last century.

To this great Fairy I'll commend thy acts.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, act iv. sc. 8.

And Milton speaks

Of Faery damsels met in forests wide By knights of Logres or of Lyones, Lancelot, or Pelleas, or Pellinore.

Yet he elsewhere mentions the

Faery elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side Or fountain some belated peasant sees.

Finally, Randolph, in his Amyntas, employs it, for perhaps the last time, in its second sense, Fairy-land:

I do think There will be of Jocastus' brood in Fairy.

Act i. sc. 3.

We must not here omit to mention that the Germans, along with the French romances, early adopted the name of the Fees. They called them Feen and Feinen.[21] In the Tristram of Gottfried von Strazburg we are told that Duke Gylan had a syren-like little dog,

Dez wart dem Herzoge gesandt 'Twas sent unto the duke, parde, Uz Avalun, der _Feinen_ land, From Avalun, the Fays' countrie, Von einer Gottinne.--V. 1673. By a gentle goddess.

In the old German romance of Isotte and Blanscheflur, the hunter who sees Isotte asleep says, I doubt

Dez sie menschlich sei, If she human be, Sie ist schoner denn eine _Feine_, She is fairer than a Fay.

Von Fleische noch von Beine Of flesh or bone, I say, Kunte nit gewerden Never could have birth So schones auf der erden. A thing so fair on earth.

Our subject naturally divides itself into two principal branches, corresponding to the different classes of beings to which the name Fairy has been applied. The first, beings of the human race, but endowed with powers beyond those usually allotted to men, whom we shall term FAYS, or FAIRIES OF ROMANCE. The second, those little beings of the popular creeds, whose descent we propose to trace from the cunning and ingenious Duergar or dwarfs of northern mythology, and whom we shall denominate ELVES or POPULAR FAIRIES.

It cannot be expected that our classifications should vie in accuracy and determinateness with those of natural science. The human imagination, of which these beings are the offspring, works not, at least that we can discover, like nature, by fixed and invariable laws; and it would be hard indeed to exact from the Fairy historian the rigid distinction of classes and orders which we expect from the botanist or chemist. The various species so run into and are confounded with one another; the actions and attributes of one kind are so frequently ascribed to another, that scarcely have we begun to erect our system, when we find the foundation crumbling under our feet. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings once formed parts of ancient and exploded systems of religion, and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved.

We will now proceed to consider the Fairies of romance; and as they are indebted, though not for their name, yet perhaps for some of their attributes, to the Peries of Persia, we will commence with that country. We will thence pursue our course through Arabia, till we arrive at the middle-age romance of Europe, and the gorgeous realms of Fairy-land; and thence, casting a glance at the Faerie Queene, advance to the mountains and forests of the North, there to trace the origin of the light-hearted, night-tripping elves.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The mark on Adam's Peak in Ceylon is, by the Buddhists, ascribed to Buddha; by the Mohammedans, to Adam. It reminds one of the story of the lady and the vicar, viewing the moon through a telescope; they saw in it, as they thought, two figures inclined toward each other: "Methinks,"

says the lady, "they are two fond lovers, meeting to pour forth their vows by earth-light." "Not at all," says the vicar, taking his turn at the glass; "they are the steeples of two neighbouring churches."

[2] Faerie Queene, III. c. iii. st. 8, 9, 10, 11. Drayton, Poly-Olbion, Song VI. We fear, however, that there is only poetic authority for this belief. Mr. Todd merely quotes Warton, who says that Spenser borrowed it from Giraldus Cambrensis, who picked it up among the romantic traditions propagated by the Welsh bards. The reader will be, perhaps, surprised to hear that Giraldus says nothing of the demons. He mentions the sounds, and endeavours to explain them by natural causes. Hollingshed indeed (l. i. c. 24.) says, "whereof the superstitious sort do gather many toys."

[3] The Haddock.

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

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

[6] F?? is the Ionic form of ???, and is nearly related to the German _thier_, beast, animal. The Scandinavian _dyr_, and the Anglo-Saxon [Old English: deor], have the same signification; and it is curious to observe the restricted sense which this last has gotten in the English _deer_.

[7] Preface to Warton, p. 44; and Breton philologists furnish us with an etymon; not, indeed, of Fairy, but of Fada. "Fada, fata, etc.,"

says M. de Cambry (Monumens Celtiques), "come from the Breton _mat_ or _mad_, in construction _fat_, good; whence the English, _maid_."

[8] D'Herbelot _titre_ Mergian says, "C'est du nom de cette Fee que nos anciens romans ont forme celui de _Morgante la Deconnue_." He here confounds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his mistake. D'Herbelot also thinks it possible that _Feerie_ may come from _Peri_; but he regards the common derivation from _Fata_ as much more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is Mor Gwynn, the _White Maid_.

[9] These two instances are given by Mdlle. Amelie Bosquet (La Normandie Romanesque, etc. p. 91.) from Dom Martin, _Rel. des Gaulois_, ii. ch. 23 and 24.

[10] Gryphus ternarii numeri.

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

[12] See below, _France_. It is also remarked that in some of the tales of the Pentamerone, the number of the _Fate_ is three; but to this it may be replied, that in Italy every thing took a classic tinge, and that the Fate of those tales are only Maghe; so in the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso we meet with La _Fata_ Urganda. In Spain and France the number would rather seem to have been seven. Cervantes speaks of "los siete castillos de las _siete_ fadas;" in the Rom. de la Infantina it is said, "_siete_ fadas me _fadaron_, en brazos de una ama mia," and the _Fees_ are _seven_ in La Belle au Bois dormant. In the romance, however, of Guillaume au Court-nez, the _Fees_ who carry the sleeping Renoart out of the boat are _three_ in number.--See Grimm Deutsche Mythologie, p. 383.

[13] A MS. of the 13th century, quoted by Grimm (_ut sup._ p. 405), thus relates the origin of Aquisgrani (Aix la Chapelle): Aquisgrani dicitur Ays, et dicitur eo, quod Karolus tenebat ibi quandam _mulierem fatatam_, sive quandam _fatam_, quae alio nomine _nimpha_ vel _dea_ vel _adriades_ (l. _dryas_) appellatur, et ad hanc consuetudinem habebat, et eam cognoscebat; et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad eam vivebat ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur. Contigit dum quadam vice ad ipsam accessisset ut cum ea delectaretur, radius solis intravit os ejus, et tunc Karolus vidit _granum auri_ lingue ejus affixum, quod fecit abscindi et contingenti (l. in continenti) mortua est, nec postea revixit.

[14]

"Aissim _fadaro_ tres serors En aquella ora qu' ieu sui natz Que totz temps fos enamoratz."--_Folquet de Romans._

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

"Aissi fuy de nueitz _fadatz_ sobr' un puegau."--_Guilh. de Poitou._ (Thus was I _fated_ by night on a hill.)--Grimm, _ut sup._ p. 383.

[15] See our Virgil, Excurs. ix.

[16] Following the analogy of the Gotho-German tongues, _zauberei_, Germ. _trylleri_, Dan. _trolleri_, Swed. illusion, enchantment. The Italian word is _fattucchieria_.

[17] Here too there is _perhaps_ an analogy with _cavalry_, _infantry_, _squierie_, and similar collective terms.

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

Go buy some ballad of the FAERY KING.--_Ad Lectorem._

Out steps some Faery with quick motion, And tells him wonders of some flowerie vale-- Awakes, straight rubs his eyes, and prints his tale.

B. III. Sat. 6."

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

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

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

ORIENTAL ROMANCE.[22]

[Illustration: SADEE.]