Bot wild wormes bi bim striketh : He that had y-had plente Of mete and drinke, of ich deynte, Now may he al daye digge and wrote, Er he find his fille of rote.. In somer he liveth bi wilde fruit, And verien bot gode lite. In winter may he nothing find, Bot rotes, grasses, and the rinde. His here of his berd blac and rowe, He hidde in ane holwe tre : And, when the weder was clere and bright, He toke his harpe to him wel right, And harped at his owen will, To here his harping a fine, So miche melody was therein." At last he discovers, that he is not the sole inhabitant of this desert; for He might se him besides, Oft in hot undertides, The King of Fairi, with his rout, Com to hunt him al about, With dim cri and blowing, And houndes also with him berking: Ac no best thai no nome, No never he nist whider thai bi come. And other while he might hem se As a gret ost bi him te, Wel atourned ten hundred knightes, Ich y-armed to his rightes, Of cuntenaunce stout and fers, With mani desplaid baners; And ich his sword y-drawe hold, Tabours and trumpes gede hem bi, Nought o man amonges hem ther nis; The foules of the water ariseth, 'Par fay,' quoth he, 'there is fair game! Hider Ichil bi Godes name, Ich was y won swich work to se: He aros, and thider gan te; To a leuedi hi was y-come, Bihelde, and hath wel under nome, And seth, bi all thing, that is His owhen quen, dam Heurodis; Gern hi biheld her, and sche him eke, Ac nouther to other a word no speke : For messais that sche on him seighe, And maked her oway to ride, Sche most with him no longer obide. 'Allas!' quoth he, nowe is mi woe, Whi nil deth now me slo! Allas! to long last mi liif, When y no dare nought with mi wif, Nor hye to me o word speke; Allas whi nil miin hert breke! Par fay,' quoth he, tide what betide, Whider so this leuedis ride, The seive way Ichil streche; Of liif, no dethe, me no reche.'"' In consequence, therefore, of this discovery, Orfeo pursues the hawking damsels, among whom he has descried his lost queen. They enter a rock, the king continues the pursuit, and arrives at Fairy-Land, of which the following very poetical description is given: "In at roche the leuedis rideth, As bright soonne somers day, Was cler and schine of cristal; The werss piler onto biholde, Al that lond was ever light, For when it schuld be therk and night, The riche stonnes light gonne, "Than he gan beholde about al, And seighe ful liggeand with in the wal, of folk that wer thidder y-brought, And thought dede and nere nought; Sum stode with outen hadde; And some none armes nade; And sum thurch the bodi hadde wounde; And sum lay wode y-bounde; And sum armed on hors sete; And sum astrangled as thai ete; And sum war in water adreynt; Ther he seize his owhen wiif, It was perhaps from such description that Ariosto adopted his idea of the Lunar Paradise, containing every thing that on earth was stolen or lost. Dame Heurodis, his liif liif, Bi her clothes he knewe that it was sche. Ther in her maister king sete, And her quen fair and swete; Her crounes, her clothes shine so bright, Orfeo, as a minstrel, so charms the Fairy King with the music of his harp, that he promises to grant him whatever he should ask. He immediately demands his lost Heurodis; and, returning safely with her to Winchester, resumes his authority; a catastrophe, less pathetic indeed, but more pleasing, than that of the classical story. The circumstances, mentioned in this romantic legend, correspond very exactly with popular tradition. Almost all the writers on demonology mention, as a received opinion, that the power of the demons is most predominant at noon and midnight. The entrance to the Land of Faery is placed in the wilderness; a circumstance which coincides with a passage in Lindsay's Complaint of the Papingo: "Bot sen ny spreit mon from my bodyc go, In wilderness amang the holtis hair." LINDSAY'S Works, 1592, p. 222. Chaucer also agrees, in this particular, with our romancer: "In his sadel he clombe anon, Til he so long had riden and gone "Wherein he soughte north and south, And often spired with his mouth, In many a foreste wilde; For in that countree nas ther non, Neither wife ne childe." Rime of Sir Thopas. V. Other two causes, deeply affecting the superstition of which we treat, remain yet to be noticed. The first is derived from the Christian religion, which admits only of two classes of spirits, exclusive of the souls of men-Angels, namely, and devils. This doctrine had a necessary tendency to abolish the distinction among subordinate spirits, which had been introduced by the superstition of the Scandinavians. The existence of the Fairies was readily admitted; but as they had no pretensions to the angelic character, they were deemed to be of infernal origin. The union, also, which had been formed betwixt the elves and the Pagan deities, was probably of disservice to the former; since every one knows that the whole synod of Olympus were accounted demons. The fulminations of the church were, therefore, early directed against those, who consulted or consorted with the Fairies; and, according to the inquisitorial logic, the innocuous choristers of Oberon and Titania were, without remorse, confounded with the sable inhabitants of the orthodox Gehennim; while the rings, which marked their revels, were assimilated to the blasted sward on which the witches held their infernal sabbath.-DELRII Disq. Mag. p. 179. This transformation early took place; for among the many crimes for which the famous Joan of Arc was called upon to answer, it was not the least heinous, that she had frequented the Tree and Fountain, near Dompré, which formed the rendezvous of the Fairies, and bore their name; that she had joined in the festive dance with the elves, who haunted this charmed spot; had accepted of their magical bouquets, and availed herself of their talismans, for the deliverance of her country.-Vide Acta Judiciarii contra Johannam d'Arceam, vulgo vocatam Johanne la Pucelle. The Reformation swept away many of the corruptions of the church of Rome; but the purifying torrent remained itself somewhat tinctured by the superstitious impurities of the soil over which it had passed. The trials of sorcerers and witches, which disgrace our criminal records, become even more frequent, after the Reformation of the church; as if human credulity, no longer amused by the miracles of Rome, had sought for food in the traditionary records of popular superstition. A Judaical observation of the precepts of the Old Testament, also characterised the Presbyterian reformers: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," was a text, which at once (as they conceived) authorized their belief in sorcery, and sanctioned the penalty which they denounced against it. The Fairies were, therefore, in no better credit after the Reformation than before, being still regarded as actual demons, or something very little better. A famous divine, Doctor Jasper Brokeman, teaches us, in his system of divinity," that they inhabit in those places, that are polluted with any crying sin, as effusion of blood, or where unbelief or superstitione have gotten the upper hand."-Description of Feroe. The Fairies being on such bad terms with the divines, those who pretended to intercourse with them were without scruple punished as sorcerers; and such absurd charges are frequently stated as exaggeration of crimes, in themselves sufficiently heinous. Such is the case in the trial of the noted Major Weir, and his sister; where the following mummery interlards a criminal indictment, too infamously flagitious to be farther detailed: "9th April, 1670. Jean Weir, indicted of sorceries, committed by her when she lived and kept a school at Dalkeith; that she took employment from a woman, to speak in her behalf to the Queen of Fairii, meaning the devil; and that another woman gave her a piece of a tree, or root, the next day, and did tell her, that as long as she kept the same, she should be able to do what she pleased; and that same woman, from whom she got the tree, caused her spread a cloth before the door, and set her foot upon it, and to repeat thrice, in the posture foresaid, these words, All her crosses and losses go alongst the doors,' which was truly a consulting with the devil and an act of sorcery, etc. That after the spirit, in the shape of a woman, who gave her the piece of tree, had removed, she, addressing herself to spinning, and having spun but a short time, found more yarn upon the pirn than could possibly have come there by good means."1— Books of Adjournal. Neither was the judgment of the Criminal Court of Scotland less severe against another familiar of the Fairies, whose supposed correspondence with the court of Elfland seems to have constituted the sole crime for which she was burned alive. Her name was Alison Pearson, and she seems to have been a very noted person. In a bitter satire against Adamson, Bishop of St. Andrews, he is accused of consulting with sorcerers, particularly with this very woman; and an account is given of her travelling through Breadalbane in the company of the Queen of Faery, and of her descrying, in the court of Elfland, many persons, who had been supposed at rest in the peaceful grave. Among these we find two remarkable personages, the secretary, young Maitland of Lethington, and one of the old Lairds of Buccleuch. The cause of their being stationed in Elfland probably arose from the manner of their decease; which, being uncommon and violent, caused the vulgar to suppose they had been abstracted by the Fairies. Lethington, as is generally supposed, died a Roman death during his imprisonment in Leith; and the Buccleuch, whom I believe to be here meant, was slain in a nocturnal scuffle by the Kers, his hereditary enemies. Besides, they were both attached to the cause of Queen Mary, and to the ancient religion; and were thence, probably, considered as more immediately obnoxious to the assaults of the powers of darkness. The indictment of Alison Pearson notices her intercourse with the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and contains some particulars, worthy of notice, regarding the court of Elfland. It runs thus: It is observed in the record, that Major Weir, a man of the most vicious character, was at the same time ambitious of appearing eminently godly; and used to frequent the beds of sick persons, to assist them with his prayers. On such occasions, he put to his mouth a long staff, which he usually carried, and expressed himself with uncommon energy and fluency, of which he was utterly inca pable when the inspiring rod was withdrawn. This circumstance, the result, probably, of a trick or habit, appearing suspicious to the judges, the staff of the Sorcerer was burned along with his person. One hundred and thirty years have elapsed since his execution, yet no one has, during that space, ventured to inhabit the house of this celebrated criminal. 1803. [This house is engraved as a frontispiece to Sir W. Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. 4830.] -"28th May, 1586. Alison Pearson, in Byrehill, convicted of witchcraft, and of consulting with evil spirits, in the form of one Mr. William Sympsoune, her cosin, who she affirmed was a gritt scollar, and doctor of medicine, that healed her of her diseases when she was twelve years of age; having lost the power of her syde, and having a familiarite with him for divers years, dealing with charms, and abuseing the common people by her arts of witchcraft, thir divers yeares by-past. "Item, For hanting and repairing with the gude neighbours, and Queene of Elfland, thir divers years by-past, as she had confest; and that she had friends in that court, which were of her own blude, who had gude acquaintance of the Queen of Elfland, which might have helped her ; but she was whiles well, and whiles ill, sometimes with them, and other times away frae them; and that she would be in her bed haile and feire, and would not wytt where she would be the morn; and that she saw not the Queene this seven years, and that she was seven years ill handled in the court of Elfland; that, however, she had gude friends there, and that it was the gude neighbours that healed her, under God; and that she was comeing and going to St. Andrews to haile foikes thir many years past. "Item, Convict of the said act of witchcraft, in as far as she confest that the said Mr. William Sympsoune, who was her guidsir sone, borne in Stirleing, who was the King's smith, who, when about eight years of age, was taken away by an Egyptian into Egypt; which Egyptian was a gyant, where he remained twelve years, and then came home. "Item, That she being in Grange Muir, with some other folke, she, being sick, lay downe; and, when alone, there came a man to her, clad in green, who said to her, if she would be faithful, he would do her good; but she, being feared, cried out, but naebodye came to her; so she said, if he came in God's name, and for the gude of her saule, it was well; but he gaid away: that he appeared to her another time like a lustie man, and many men and women Scho said scho saw thame weill aneugh, A thowsand maladeis scho has mendit; Without respect of worldЛie glamer, He past into the witches chalmer." Scottish Poems of XVI. C ntury, Edin. 1801. v. ii. p. 320. 3 Buccleuch was a violent enemy to the English, by whom his lands had been repeatedly plundered, (See Introduction, ante,) and a great advocate for the marriage betwixt Mary and the Dauphin, 4549. According to John Knox, he had recourse even to threats, in urging the Parliament to agree to the French match. Laird of Balcleuch," says the Reformer, "a bloody man, with many God's wounds, swore, they that would not consent should do worse." "The with him; that, at seeing him, she signed herself and prayed, and past with them, and saw them making merrie with pypes, and gude cheir and wine, and that she was carried with them; and that when she telled any of these things, she was sairlie tormentit by them; and that the first time she gaed with them, she gat a sair straike frae one of them, which took all the poustie1 of her syde frae her, and left ane illfar'd mark on her syde. "Item, That she saw the gude neighbours make their sawes with panns and fyres, and that they gathered the herbs before the sun was up, and they came verie fearful sometimes to her, and flaide' her very sair, which made her cry, and threatened they would use her worse than before; and, at last, they took away the power of her haile syde frae her, which made her lye manie weeks. Sometimes they would come and sitt by her, and promise all that she should never want, if she would be faithful, but if she would speak and telle of them, they should murther her; and that Mr. William Sympsoune is with them, who healed her, and telt her all things; that he is a young man not six years older than herself, and that he will appear to her before the court comes; that he told her he was taken away by them, and he bid her sign herself that she be not taken away, for the teind of them are tane to hell everie year. “Item, That the said Mr. William told her what herbs were fit to cure every disease, and how to use them; and particularlie tauld, that the Bishop of St. Andrews laboured under sindrie diseases, sic as the ripples, trembling, fever, flux, etc., and bade her make a sawe, and anoint several parts of his body therewith, and gave directions for making a posset, which she made and gave him." gan's Phonix Britannicus, 4to, London, 1732. Anne Jefferies was born in the parish of St. Teath, in the county of Cornwall, in 1626. Being the daughtor of a poor man, she resided as servant in the house of the narrator's father, and waited upon the narrator himself, in his childhood. As she was knitting stockings in an arbour of the garden, “six small people, all in green clothes," came suddenly over the garden-wall; at the sight of whom, being much frightened, she was seized with convulsions, and continued so long sick, that she became as a changeling, and was unable to walk. During her sickness, she frequently exclaimed, "They are just gone out of the window! Do you not see them?" These expressions, as she afterwards declared, related to their disappearing. During the harvest, when every one was employed, her mistress walked out; and dreading that Anne, who was extremely weak and silly, might injure herself, or the house, by the fire, with some difficulty persuaded her to walk in the orchard till her return. She accidentally hurt her leg, and at her return Anne cured it, by stroking it with her hand. She appeared to be informed of every particular, and asserted, that she had this information from the Fairies, who had caused the misfortune. After this, she performed numerous cures, but would never receive money for them. From harvest time to Christmas, she was fed by the Fairies, and eat no other victuals but theirs. The narrator affirms, that looking one day through the key-hole of the door of her chamber, he saw her eating; and that she gave him a piece of bread, which was the most delicious he ever tasted. The Fairies always appeared to her in even numbers; never less than two, nor more than eight, at a time. She had always sufficient stock of salves and medicines, and yet neither made nor purchased any; nor did she ever appear to be in want of money. She, one day, gave a silver cup, contain For this idle story, the poor woman actually suffered death. Yet, notwithstanding the fervent arguments thus liberally used by the orthodox, the common people, though they dreaded even to thinking about a quart, to the daughter of her mistress, a or speak about the Fairies, by no means unanimously acquiesced in the doctrine which consigned them to eternal perdition. The inhabitants of the Isle of Man call them the "good people, and say they live in wilds and forests, and on mountains, and shun great cities, because of the wickedness acted therein: all the houses are blessed where they visit, for they fly vice. A person would be thought impudently profane, who should suffer his family to go to bed, without first having set a tub, or pail, full of clean water, for those guests to bathe themselves in, which the natives aver they constantly do, as soon as ever the eyes of the family are closed, wherever they vouchsafe to come."-WALDRON'S Works, p. 126. There are some curious, and perhaps anomalous facts, concerning the history of Fairies, in a sort of Cock-lane narrative, contained in a letter from Moses Pitt to Dr. Edward Fowler, Lord Bishop of Gloucester, printed at London in 1696, and preserved in Mor girl about four years old, to carry to her mother, who refused to receive it. The narrator adds, that he had seen her dancing in the orchard among the trees, and that she informed him she was then dancing with the Fairies. The report of the strange cures which she performed, soon attracted the attention of both ministers and magistrates. The ministers endeavoured to persuade her, that the Fairies by which she was haunted, were evil spirits, and that she was under the delusion of the devil. After they had left her, she was visited by the Fairies, while in great perplexity, who desired her to cause those who termed them evil spirits, to read that place of Scripture, First Epistle of John, chap. iv. 1.—Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, etc. Though Anne Jefferies could not read, she produced a Bible folded down at this passage. By the magistrates she was confined three months, without food, in Bodman jail, and af terwards for some time in the house of Justice Treg- | the hill opened, and they went in, and came to a fair eagle. Before the constable appeared to apprehend her, she was visited by the Fairies, who informed her what was intended, and advised her to go with him. When this account was given, on May 1, 1696, she was still alive; but refused to relate any particulars of her connexion with the Fairies, or the occasion on which they deserted her, lest she should again fall under the cognizance of the magistrates. Anne Jefferies' Fairies were not altogether singular in maintaining their good character, in opposition to the received opinion of the church. Aubrey and Lilly, unquestionably judges in such matters, had high opinion of these beings, if we may judge from the following succint and businesslike memorandum of a ghost-seer. "Anno 1670. Not far from Cirencester was an apparition. Being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad, returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume, and most melodious twang. M. W. Lilly believes it was a fairie. So Propertius, 'Omnia finierat; tenues secessit in auras, AUBREY'S Miscellanies, p. 80. Webster gives an account of a person who cured diseases by means of a white powder. "To this I shall only add thus much, that the man was accused for invoking and calling upon evil spirits, and was a very simple and illiterate person to any man's judgment, and had formerly been very poor, but had gotten some pretty little means to maintain himself, his wife, and diverse small children, by his cures done with his white powder, of which there were sufficient proofs; and the judge asking him how he came by the powder, he told a story to this effect: That one night, before day was gone, as he was going home from his labour, being very sad and full of heavy thoughts, not knowing how to get meat and drink for his wife and children, be met a fair woman in fine clothes, who asked him why he was so sad, and he told her that it was by reason of his poverty; to which she said, that if he would follow her counsel, she would help him to that which would serve to get him a good living; to which he said he would consent with all his heart, so it were not by unlawful ways: She told him that it should not be by any such ways, but by doing good, and curing of sick people; and so warning him strictly to meet her there the next night, at the same time, she departed from him, and he went home. And the next night, at the time appointed, he duly waited, and she (according to promise) came, and told him that it was well that he came so duly, otherwise he had missed that benefit that she intended to do unto him, and so bade him follow her, and not be afraid. Thereupon she led him to a little hill, and she knocked three times, and Robin Goodfellow, or Hobgoblin, possesses the frolicsome qualities of the French Lutin. For his full character, the reader is referred to the Reliques of Ancient Poetry. The proper livery of hall, wherein was a Queen sitting in great state, and many people about her, and the gentlewoman that brought him presented him to the Queen, and she said he was welcome, and bid the gentlewoman give him some of the white powder, and teach him how to use it, which she did, and gave him a little wood box full of the white powder, and bade him give two or three grains of it to any that were sick, and it would heal them; and so she brought him forth of the hill, and so they parted. And, being asked by the judge, whether the place within the hill, which he called a hall, were light or dark, he said, indifferent, as it is with us in the twilight; and being asked how he got more powder, he said, when he wanted, he went to that hill, and knocked three times, and said every time, I am coming, I am coming, whereupon it opened, and he, going in, was conducted by the aforesaid woman to the Queen, and so had more powder given him. This was the plain and simple story (however it may be judged of) that he told before the judge, the whole court, and the jury; and there being to proofs, but what cures he had done to very many, the jury did acquit him and I remember the judge said, when all the evidence was heard, that if he were to assign his punishment, he should be whipped from thence to Fairy-hall; and did seem to judge it to be a delusion, or an imposture."-WEBSTER'S Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, p. 301. A rustic, also, whom Jackson taxed with magical practices, about 1620, obstinately denied that the good King of the Fairies had any connexion with the devil; and some of the Highland seers, even in our day, have boasted of their intimacy with the elves, as an innocent and advantageous connexion. One Macoan, in Appin, the last person eminently gifted with the second sight, professed to my learned and excellent friend, Mr. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, that he owed his prophetic visions to their intervention. VI. There remains yet another cause to be noticed, which seems to have induced a considerable alteration into the popular creed of England, respecting Fairies. Many poets of the sixteenth century, and, above all, our immortal Shakspeare, deserting the hackneyed fictions of Greece and Rome, sought for machinery in the superstitions of their native country. "The fays, which nightly dance upon the wold," were an interesting subject, and the creative imagination of the bard, improving upon the vulgar belief, assigned to them many of those fanciful attributes and occupations, which posterity have since associated with the name of Fairy. In such employments, as raising the drooping flower, and arranging the disordered chamber, the Fairies of South Britain gradually lost the harsher character of the dwarfs, or elves. Their choral dances were enlivened by the introduction of the merry goblin Puck,' for whose freakish pranks this silvan Momus is to be found in an old play. "Enter Robin Goodfellow, in a suit of leather, close to his body, his hands and face coloured russet colour, with a flail."—Grim the Collier of |