ORIGIN OF THE WORD FAIRY.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Keightley, Thomas
Semicaper Pan Nunc tenet, at quodam tenuerunt tempore nymphæ. Ovid, Met. xiv. 520.
The halfe-goate Pan that howre Possessed it, but heretofore it was the Faries' bower. Golding, 1567.
Hæc nemora indigenæ fauni nymphæque tenebant, Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata. Virgil, Æneis, viii. 314.
With nymphis and faunis apoun every side, Qwhilk Farefolkis or than Elfis clepen we. Gawin Dowglas.
The woods (quoth he) sometime both fauns and nymphs, and gods of ground, And Fairy-queens did keep, and under them a nation rough. Phaer, 1562.
Inter Hamadryadas celeberrima Nonacrinas Naïas una fuit.—Ovid, Met. l. i. 690.
Of all the nymphes of Nonacris and Fairie ferre and neere, In beautie and in personage this ladie had no peere. Golding.
Pan ibi dum teneris jactat sua carmina nymphis. Ov. Ib. xi. 153.
There Pan among the Fairie-elves, that daunced round togither. Golding.
Solaque Naïadum celeri non nota Dianæ.—Ov. Ib. iv. 304.
Of all the water-fayries, she alonely was unknowne To swift Diana.—Golding.
Nymphis latura coronas.—Ov. Ib. ix. 337.
Was to the fairies of the lake fresh garlands for to bear. Golding.
Thus we have endeavoured to trace out the origin, and mark the progress of the word Fairy, through its varying significations, and trust that the subject will now appear placed in a clear and intelligible light.
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 Fées 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 Fées. 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, pardé,
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 schöner 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 schönes auf der erden.