In Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems (1664) we read: “Doth not the warm Zeal of an Englishman's Devotion (who was ever observed to contend most stifly pro aris et focis) make them maintain and defend the sacred Hearth, as the Sanctuary and chief place of Residence of the tutelary Lares and Household Gods, and the only Court where the Lady Fairies convene to dance and revel?"

Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, gives us the following most important piece of information respecting fairies: "When Fairies remove from place to place they are said to use the words Horse and Hattock."*

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1792) the minister of the parishes of Strachur and Stralachlan in Argyleshire deposes: "About eight miles to the eastward of Cailleach-vear, a small conical Hill rises considerably above the neighbouring Hills. It is seen from Inverary, and from many parts at a great distance. It is called Sien-Sluai, the fairy habitation of a multitude." A note is added: "A Belief in Fairies prevailed very much in the Highlands of old: nor at this Day is it quite obliterated. A small conical Hill, called Sien, was assigned them for a dwelling, from which melodious Music was frequently heard, and gleams of Light seen in dark nights."

Of the parish of Kirkmichael we read: "Not more firmly established in this country is the belief in Ghosts than that in Fairies. The legendary records of fancy, transmitted from age to age, have assigned their mansions to that class of Genii, in detached hillocks covered with verdure, situated on the banks of purling brooks, or surrounded by thickets of wood. These hillocks are called sioth-dhunan, abbreviated sioth-anan, from sioth, peace, and dun, a mound. They derive this name from the practice of the Druids, who were wont occasionally to retire to green eminences to administer justice, establish peace, and compose differences between contending parties. As that venerable order taught a Saoghl hal, or World beyond the present, their followers, when they were no more, fondly imagined, that seats where they exercised a virtue so beneficial to mankind, were still inhabited by them in their disembodied state. In the atumnal season, when the moon shines from a serene sky, often is the way-faring traveller arrested by the musick of the Hills, more melodious than the strains of Orpheus. Often struck with a more solemn scene, he beholds the visionary hunters engaged in the chase, and pursuing the deer of the louds, while the hollow rocks, in long-sounding echoes, reverberate heir cries.

* In the British Apollo (1708) we read: "The opinion of Fairies has been sserted by Pliny and several Historians, and Aristotle himself gave some ountenance to it, whose words are these: EσTI DE Ò TOTOS &c. i.e., Hic Locus t quem incolunt Pygmei, non est Fabula, sed pusillum Genus ut aiunt: whereAristotle plays the Sophist. For though by 'non est Fabula' he seems at st to confirm it, yet coming in at last with his ut aiunt,' he shakes the lief he had before put upon it. Our Society, therefore, are of opinion, at Homer was the first author of this conceit, who often used Similes, as well delight the ear as to illustrate his matter and in his third Iliad compares e Trojans to Cranes, when they descend against Fairies. So that, that which is only a pleasant fiction in the Fountain, became a solemn story in the ream, and Current still among us.

In the same work fairy rings are ascribed to lightning.

"There are several now living, who assert that they have seen and heard this aerial hunting, and that they have been suddenly surrounded by visionary forms, and assailed by a multitude of voices.

"About fifty years ago (1790) a clergyman in the neighbourhood, whose faith was more regulated by the scepticism of Philosophy than the credulity of Superstition, could not be prevailed upon to yield his assent to the opinion of the times. At length, however, he felt from experience that he doubted what he ought to have believed. One night as he was returning home, at a late hour, from a presbytery, he was seized by the Fairies, and carried aloft into the air. Through fields of æther and fleecy-clouds he journeyed many a mile, descrying, like Sancho Panza on his Clavileno, the earth far distant below him, and no bigger than a nut-shell. Being thus sufficiently convinced of the reality of their existence, they let him down at the door of his own house, where he afterward often recited to the wondering Circle the marvellous tale of his adventure." *

A note adds: “Notwithstanding the progressive increase of Knowledge, and proportional decay of superstition in the Highlands, these genii are still supposed by many of the people to exist in the woods and sequestered valleys of the mountains, where they frequently appear to the lonely traveller, clothed in green, with dishevelled hair floating over their shoulders, and with faces more blooming than the vermil blush of a summer morning. At night in particular, when fancy assimilates to its own preconceived ideas every appearance, and every sound, the wandering Enthusiast is frequently entertained by their musick, more melodious than he ever before heard. It is curious to observe how much this agreeable delusion corresponds with the superstitious opinion of the Romans, concerning the same class of genii, represented under different names.'

The Fauni are derived from the Eubates or Faidhin of the Celte Faidh is a prophet; hence is derived the Roman word fari, to prophesy.

Of Stronsay and Eday, two parishes in Orkney, we read: "The common people of this district remain to this day so credulous as to think that Fairies do exist; that an inferior species of Witchcraft is still practised, and that Houses have been haunted, not only in former ages, but that they are haunted, at least Noises are heard which cannot be accounted for on rational principles, even in our Days. An instance of the latter happened only three years ago (179 in the house of John Spence, boat-carpenter." +

In plain English, we should suspect that spirits of a different sort from fairies had taken the honest clergyman by the head; and, though he h omitted the circumstance in his marvellous narration, we have no doubt bu that the good man saw double on the occasion, and that his own mare, nak fairies, landed him safe at his own door.

+"The Queen of Fairie, mentioned in Jean Weir's Indictment, is probab the same Sovereign with the Queen of Elf-land, who makes a figure in Case of Alison Pearson, 15th May 1588; which I believe is the first of kind in the Record." Additions and Notes to Maclaurin's Arguments Decisions in remarkable Cases. Law Courts, Scotland, 1774

:

Dr Moore, of Wicklow, as related in a tract dated 1678, "was often told by his Mother, and several others of his Relations, of Spirits which they called Fairies, who used frequently to carry him away, and continue him with them for some time, without doing him the least prejudice but his Mother being very much frighted and concerned thereat, did, as often as he was missing, send to a certain old Woman, her neighbour in the country, who by repeating some Spells or Exorcisms, would suddenly cause his return." His friend very naturally disbelieved the facts, "while the Doctor did positively affirm the Truth thereof." But the most strange and wonderful part of the story is, that during the dispute the doctor was carried off suddenly by some of those invisible gentry, though forcibly held by two persons; nor did he return to the company till six o'clock the next morning both hungry and thirsty, having, as he asserted, "been hurried from place to place all that night." At the end of this marvellous narration is the following advertisement: "For satisfaction of the Licenser, I certifie this following" (it ought to have been preceding) "Relation was sent to me from Dublin by a person whom I credit, and recommended in a Letter bearing date the 23d of November last as true News much spoken of there. John Cother." The licenser of the day must have been satisfied, for the tract was printed; but who will undertake to give a similar satisfaction on the subject to the readers of the present age?

ROBIN GOODFELLOW; alias PUCK, alias HOBGOBLIN.

In the creed of ancient superstition, he was a kind of merry sprite hose character and achievements are recorded in the annexed ballad, hich has been attributed to the pen of Ben Jonson

With counterfeiting voice I greete
And call them on, with me to roame
Thro' woods, thro' lakes,
Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;

Or else, unseene, with them I go,
All in the nicke

To play some tricke

And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!

Sometimes I meete them like a man;
Sometimes, an ox; sometimes, a
hound;

And to a horse I turn me can;
To trip and trot about them round.
But if, to ride,

My backe they stride,
More swift than wind away I go,
Ore hedge and lands,
Thro' pools and ponds
I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!
When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets and with juncates fine;
Unseene of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine ;
And to make sport,

I fart and snort;

And seeme a Vermin taken so;
But when they there
Approach me neare,

I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!
By wells and rills, in meadowes greene,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise;
And to our fairye king, and queene,
We chaunt our moon-light minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling;

And babes new borne steal as we go,
And elfe in bed

We leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!
From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revell'd to and fro;
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Goodfellow.
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nightes,
The hags and goblins do me know:
And beldames old

My feates have told;

So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho!"

Shakespeare also has given us a description of Robin Goodfellow in the Midsummer-Night's Dream

"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin Good-fellow: are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villagery;
Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm;
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,

You do their work, and they shall have good luck."

This account, says Warton, corresponds exactly with that given of him in Harsenet's Declaration (1603): “And if that the bowle of curds and creame were not duly set out for Robin Good-fellow, the Frier, and Sisse the dairy-maid, why then either the pottage was burnt to next day in the pot, or the cheeses would not curdle, or the butter would not come, or the ale in the fat never would have good head. But, if a Peeter-penny, or an housle-egge were behind, or a patch of tythe

unpaid, then 'ware of bull-beggars, sprites, &c." Cartwright mentions him in his Ordinary, as a spirit particularly fond of disconcerting and disturbing domestic peace and economy.

Scot gives the same account of this frolicksome spirit, in his Discovery of Witchcraft (1584): "Your grandame's maids were wont to set a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding malt and mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight-this white bread, and bread and milk, was his standing fee."

A pleasant passage in Apothegms of King James, the Lord Bacon, &c. (1658), shows that in olden time persons of the first distinction were no strangers to the characters of fairies: "Sir Fulk Greenvil had much and private accesse to Queen Elizabeth, which he used honourably, and did many men good. Yet he would say merrily of himself that he was like Robin Good-fellow, for when the Maides spilt the Milk-pannes, or kept any racket, they would lay it upon Robin, so what Tales the Ladies about the Queen told her, or other bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him."

In Hampshire they give the name of Colt-pixy to a supposed spirit or fairy, which, in the shape of a horse, wickers, i.e. neighs, and misleads horses into bogs. Pixy may be presumed to be a corruption of "Puckes," which anciently signified little better than the Devil; whence, in Shakespeare, the epithet of "sweet" is given to Puck, by way of qualification.*

Casaubon derives Goblin from the Greek Koßaλos, a spirit that was supposed to lurk about houses; and the Hobgoblin was of that species, and so called because its motion was fabled to have been effected not so much by walking as hopping on one leg. Hob, however, is nothing more than the usual contraction for Robert.

Rowlands' More Knaves yet (about 1600) contains the following passage of "Ghoasts and Goblins"

"In old Wives daies, that in old Time did live

(To whose odde Tales much credit men did give)
Great store of Goblins, Fairies, Bugs, Night-mares,
Urchins, and Elves, to many a house repaires.
Yea far more Sprites did haunt in divers places
Then there be Women now weare devils faces.
Amongst the rest was a Good Fellow devill,
So cal'd in kindness, cause he did no evill,
Knowne by the name of Robin (as we heare)
And that his Eyes as broad as sawcers weare,

Who came at nights and would make Kitchens cleane,
And in the bed bepinch a lazy Queane.

So the author of Piers Ploughman puts the pouk for the devil: "none helle powke." It seems to have been an old Gothic word. Puke, puken; Sathanas: Gudm. And. Lexicon Island. In the Bugbears, an ancient MS comedy formerly in the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne, I likewise met with this appellation of a fiend

"Puckes, Puckerels, Hob Howlard, Bygorn, and Robin Goodfellow." But here, Puck and Robin Goodfellow are made distinct characters.