Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

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      The so-called fairy-rings in old pastures30– little circles of a brighter green, within which it was supposed the fairies dance by night – are 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 “The Tempest” (v. 1) Prospero invokes the fairies as the “demy-puppets” that

      “By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,

      Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime

      Is to make midnight-mushrooms.”

      In “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 1), the fairy says:

      “I do wander everywhere,

      Swifter than the moon’s sphere;

      And I serve the fairy queen,

      To dew her orbs upon the green.”

      Again, in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), Anne Page says:

      “And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you sing

      Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring;

      The expressure that it bears, green let it be,

      More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.”

      And once in “Macbeth” (v. 1), Hecate says:

      “Like elves and fairies in a ring.”

      Drayton, in his “Nymphidia” (l. 69-72), mentions this superstition:

      “And in their courses make that round,

      In meadows and in marshes found,

      Of them so called the fayrie ground,

      Of which they have the keeping.”

      Cowley, too, in his “Complaint,” says:

      “Where once such fairies dance, no grass does ever grow.”

      And again, in his ode upon Dr. Harvey:

      “And dance, like fairies, a fantastic round.”

      Pluquet, in his “Contes Populaires de Bayeux,” tells us that the fairy rings, called by the peasants of Normandy “Cercles des fées,” 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 fairies’ power.32 The “Athenian Oracle” (i. 397) mentions a popular belief that “if a house be built upon the ground where fairy rings are, whoever shall inhabit therein does wonderfully prosper.”

      Speaking of their dress, we are told that they constantly wore green vests, unless they had some reason for changing their attire. In the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (iv. 4) they are spoken of as —

      “Urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white.”

      And further on (v. 4):

      “Fairies, black, grey, green, and white.”

      The fairies of the moors were often clad in heath-brown or lichen-dyed garments, whence the epithet of “Elfin-grey.”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 “The Tempest” (iii. 2) being generally ascribed to them:

      “The isle is full of noises,

      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.”

      In the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (ii. 3), when Titania is desirous of taking a nap, she says to her attendants:

      “Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song.”

      And further on (iii. 1) she tells Bottom:

      “I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee,

      And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,

      And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep.”

      The author of “Round About our Coal Fire”34 tells us that “they had fine musick always among themselves, and danced in a moonshiny night, around, or in, a ring.”

      They were equally fond of dancing, and we are told how they meet —

      “To dance their ringlets to the whistling wind;”

      and in the “Maydes’ Metamorphosis” of Lyly, the fairies, as they dance, sing:

      “Round about, round about, in a fine ring a,

      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,” etc.

      As Mr. Thoms says, in his “Three Notelets on Shakespeare” (1865, pp. 40, 41), “the 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.”

      It would seem that the fairies disliked irreligious people: and so, in “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), the mock fairies are said to chastise unchaste persons, and those who do not say their prayers. This coincides with what Lilly, in his “Life and Times,” says: “Fairies love a strict diet and upright life; fervent prayers unto God conduce much to the assistance of those who are curious hereways,” i. e., who wish to cultivate an acquaintance with them.

      Again, fairies are generally represented as great lovers and patrons of cleanliness and propriety, for the observance of which they were frequently said to reward good servants, by dropping money into their shoes in the night; and, on the other hand, they were reported to punish most severely the sluts and slovenly, by pinching them black and blue.35 Thus, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Puck says:

      “I am sent, with broom, before,

      To sweep the dust behind the door.”

      In “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 5), Pistol, speaking of the mock fairy queen, says:

      “Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery;”

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