The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and...

The Maydes Metamorphosis of Lylie was acted in 1600, the year the oldest edition we possess of the Midsummer Night's Dream was printed. In Act II. of this piece, Mopso, Joculo, and Frisio are on the stage, and "Enter the Fairies singing and dancing."

Jo. What mawmets are these? Fris. O they be the faieries that haunt these woods. Mop. O we shall be pinched most cruelly! 1st Fai. Will you have any music, sir? 2d Fai. Will you have any fine music? 3d Fai. Most dainty music? Mop. We must set a face on it now; there is no flying. No, sir, we very much thank you. 1st Fai. O but you shall, sir. Fris. No, I pray you, save your labour. 2d Fai. O, sir! it shall not cost you a penny. Jo. Where be your fiddles? 3d Fai. You shall have most dainty instruments, sir? Mop. I pray you, what might I call you? 1st Fai. My name is Penny. Mop. I am sorry I cannot purse you. Fris. I pray you, sir, what might I call you? 2d Fai. My name is Cricket. Fris. I would I were a chimney for your sake. Jo. I pray you, you pretty little fellow, what's your name? 3d Fai. My name is little little Prick. Jo. Little little Prick? O you are a dangerous faierie! I care not whose hand I were in, so I were out of yours. 1st Fai. I do come about the coppes. Leaping upon flowers' toppes; Then I get upon a fly, She carries me about the sky, And trip and go. 2d Fai. When a dew-drop falleth down, And doth light upon my crown. Then I shake my head and skip, And about I trip. 3d Fai. When I feel a girl asleep, Underneath her frock I peep, There to sport, and there I play, Then I bite her like a flea, And about I skip. Jo. I thought where I should have you. 1st Fai. Will't please you dance, sir? Jo. Indeed, sir, I cannot handle my legs. 2d Fai. O you must needs dance and sing, Which if you refuse to do, We will pinch you black and blue; And about we go.

The next poet, in point of time, who employs the Fairies, is worthy, long-slandered, and maligned Ben Jonson. His beautiful entertainment of the Satyr was presented in 1603, to Anne, queen of James I. and prince Henry, at Althorpe, the seat of Lord Spenser, on their way from Edinburgh to London. As the queen and prince entered the park, a Satyr came forth from a "little spinet" or copse, and having gazed the "Queen and the Prince in the face" with admiration, again retired into the thicket; then "there came tripping up the lawn a bevy of Fairies attending on Mab, their queen, who, falling into an artificial ring, began to dance a round while their mistress spake as followeth:"

Mab. Hail and welcome, worthiest queen! Joy had never perfect been, To the nymphs that haunt this green, Had they not this evening seen. Now they print it on the ground With their feet, in figures round; Marks that will be ever found To remember this glad stound. Satyr (peeping out of the bush). Trust her not, you bonnibell, She will forty leasings tell; I do know her pranks right well. Mab. Satyr, we must have a spell, For your tongue it runs too fleet. Sat. Not so nimbly as your feet, When about the cream-bowls sweet You and all your elves do meet.

This is Mab, the mistress Fairy, That doth nightly rob the dairy; And can hurt or help the churning As she please, without discerning. 1st Fai. Pug, you will anon take warning. Sat. She that pinches country wenches, If they rub not clean their benches, And, with sharper nail, remembers When they rake not up their embers; But if so they chance to feast her, In a shoe she drops a tester. 2d Fai. Shall we strip the skipping jester? Sat. This is she that empties cradles, Takes out children, puts in ladles; Trains forth midwives in their slumber, With a sieve the holes to number, And then leads them from her burrows, Home through ponds and water-furrows.[401] 1st Fai. Shall not all this mocking stir us? Sat. She can start our Franklin's daughters In her sleep with shouts and laughters; And on sweet St. Anna's[402] night Feed them with a promised sight, Some of husbands, some of lovers, Which an empty dream discovers. 1st Fai. Satyr, vengeance near you hovers.

it is Oberon, the prince of Fairy-land, who, at the crowing of the cock, advances in a magnificent chariot drawn by white bears, attended by Knights and Fays. As the car advances, the Satyrs begin to leap and jump, and a Sylvan thus speaks:—

Give place, and silence; you were rude too late— This is a night of greatness and of state; Not to be mixed with light and skipping sport— A night of homage to the British court, And ceremony due to Arthur's chair, From our bright master, Oberon the Fair, Who with these knights, attendants here preserved In Fairy-land, for good they have deserved Of yond' high throne, are come of right to pay Their annual vows, and all their glories lay At 's feet.

The Masque of Love Restored presents us "Robin Good-fellow, he that sweeps the hearth and the house clean, riddles for the country maids, and does all their other drudgery, while they are at hot-cockles," and he appears therefore with his broom and his canles.

In Randolph's Pastoral of Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry, a "knavish boy," called Dorylas, makes a fool of a "fantastique sheapherd," Jocastus, by pretending to be Oberon, king of Fairy. In Act i., Scene 3, Jocastus' brother, Mopsus, "a foolish augur," thus addresses him:—