[371] Jack-o'-the-lanthorn, Will-o'-the-wisp. In Worcestershire they call it Hob-and-his-lanthorn, and Hobany's- or Hobredy's-lanthorn. Allies, ut sup.
[372] Knight of the Burning Pestle: see above, p. 309.
[373] Ard is the German hart, and is, like it, depreciatory. It is not an Anglo-Saxon termination, but from the Anglo-Saxon old english doll, dull, we have dullard. May not haggard be hawk-ard, and the French hagard be derived from it, and not the reverse?
[374] For in Anglo-Saxon áttorcoppe (Poison-head?) is spider, and from áttorcoppe-web, by the usual aphœresis of the two first syllables we put coppe-web, cobweb. May not the same have been the case with lob? and may not the nasty bug be in a similar manner connected with Puck? As dvergsnat is in Swedish a cobweb, one might be tempted to suppose that this last, for which no good etymon has been offered, was lob-web; but the true etymon is cop-web, from its usual site.
[375] Deut. Mythol. p. 492.
[376] See France. In is a mere termination, perhaps, like on, a diminutive, as in Catin Kate, Robin Bob. Lutin was also spelt Luyton: see p. 42.
[377] The two lines which follow
are rather perplexing. We would explain them thus. Bergerac, as quoted by Brand (Pop. Antiq. i. 312. Bohn's edit.) makes a magician say "I teach the shepherds the wolf's paternoster," i. e. one that keeps off the wolf. Wite may then be i. q. wight, and wight paternoster be a safeguard against the wights, and we would read the verse thus: "Fro the nightes mare the wite paternoster" sc. blisse it or us. St. Peter's suster, i. e. wife (see I Cor. ix. 5) may have been canonised in the popular creed, and held to be potent against evil beings. The term suster was used probably to obviate the scandal of supposing the first Pope to have been a married man. This charm is given at greater length and with some variations by Cartwright in his Ordinary, Act iii. sc. 1.
[378] He derives it from the French oursin, but the Ang.-Sax. name of the hedgehog is eold english rold english scen.
[379] Athenæum, Oct. 9, 1847.
[380] Hist. of England, i. 478, 8vo edit.
[381] Deut. Mythol. p. 419.
[382] Layamon's Brut, etc., by Sir Frederick Madden.
[383] Tales and Popular Fictions, ch. viii. We do not wonder that this should have eluded previous observation, but it is really surprising that we should have been the first to observe the resemblance between Ariosto's tale of Giocondo and the introductory tale of the Thousand and One Nights. It is also strange that no one should have noticed the similarity between Ossian's Carthon and the tale of Soohrâb in the Shâh-nâmeh.
[384] Both here and lower down we would take faërie in its first sense.
[385] Thrope, thorpe, or dorp, is a village, the German dorf; Dutch dorp; we may still find it in the names of places, as Althorpe. Dorp occurs frequently in Drayton's Polyolbion; it is also used by Dryden, Hind and Panther, v. 1905.
[386] Undermeles i. e. undertide (p 51), aftermeal, afternoon.
[387] This is the third sense of Faërie. In the next passage it is doubtful whether it be the second or third sense; we think the latter.
[389] The derivation of Oberon has been already given (p. 208). The Shakspearean commentators have not thought fit to inform us why the poet designates the Fairy-queen, Titania. It, however, presents no difficulty. It was the belief of those days that the Fairies were the same as the classic Nymphs, the attendants of Diana: "That fourth kind of spritis," says King James, "quhilk be the gentilis was called Diana, and her wandering court, and amongst us called the Phairie." The Fairy-queen was therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania; Chaucer, as we have seen, calls her Proserpina.
Men of fashion, in that age, wore earrings.
[392] Ouph, Steevens complacently tells us, in the Teutonic language, is a fairy; if by Teutonic he means the German, and we know of no other, he merely showed his ignorance. Ouph is the same as oaf (formerly spelt aulf), and is probably to be pronounced in the same manner. It is formed from elf by the usual change of l into u.
[393] i. e. Pinch severely. The Ang.-Sax. old english to joined to a verb or part. answers to the German zu or zer. old english to-bold english recan is to break to pieces, old english to-old english dold english riold english fan to drive asunder, scatter. Verbs of this kind occur in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, in Chaucer and elsewhere. The part. is often preceded by all, in the sense of the German ganz, quite, with which some ignorantly join the to as all-to ruffled in Comus, 380, instead of all to-ruffled. In Golding's Ovid (p. 15) we meet "With rugged head as white as down, and garments all to-torn;" in Judges ix. 53, "and all to-brake his skull." See also Faerie Queene, iv. 7, 8; v. 8, 4, 43, 44; 9, 10.
[394] After all the commentators have written, this line is still nearly unintelligible to us. It may relate to the supposed origin of the fairies. For orphan, Warburton conjectured ouphen, from ouph.
[395] The Anglo-Saxon old english Miold english dan eaold english rold english d or old english geaold english rold english d; and is it not also plainly the Midgard of the Edda?
[396] The origin of Mab is very uncertain; it may be a contraction of Habundia, see below France. "Mab," says Voss, one of the German translators of Shakspeare, "is not the Fairy-queen, the same with Titania, as some, misled by the word queen, have thought. That word in old English, as in Danish, designates the female sex." He might have added the Ang.-Sax. cþen woman, whence both queen and quean. Voss is perhaps right and elf-queen may have been used in the same manner as the Danish Elle-quinde, Elle-kone for the female Elf. We find Phaer (see above, p. 11) using Fairy-queen, as a translation for Nympha.
[397] i. e., Night-mare. "Many times," says Gull the fairy, "I get on men and women, and so lie on their stomachs, that I cause them great pain; for which they call me by the name of Hagge or Night-mare." Merry Pranks, etc. p. 42.
Golding seems to have regarded, by chance or with knowledge, the Elves as a higher species than the Fairies. Misled by the word elves, Shakspeare makes sad confusion of classic and Gothic mythology.
[399] Take signifies here, to strike, to injure.
In our old poetry take also signifies, to give.
[401] We do not recollect having met with any account of this prank; but Jonson is usually so correct, that we may be certain it was a part of the popular belief.
[402] Whalley was certainly right in proposing to read Agnes. This ceremony is, we believe, still practised in the north of England on St. Agnes' night. See Brand, i. 34.
[403] Shakespeare gives different colours to the Fairies; and in some places they are still thought to be white. See p. 306.
[404] Act i. sc. 5. R. Dodsley's Old Plays, vii. p. 394. We quote this as the first notice we have met of the red caps of the fairies.
[405] Brown, their author, was a native of Devon, the Pixy region; hence their accordance with the Pixy legends given above.
[406] This is perhaps the dancing on the hearth of the fairy-ladies to which Milton alludes: see above, p. 42. "Doth not the warm zeal of an English-man's devotion make them maintain and defend the social 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?"—Paradoxical Assertions, etc. 1664, quoted by Brand, ii. p. 504.
[407] The reader will observe that the third sense of Fairy is the most usual one in Drayton. It occurs in its second sense two lines further on, twice in Nymphidia, and in the following passage of his third Eclogue,
[408] Mr. Chalmers does not seem to have known that the Crickets were family of note in Fairy. Shakspeare (Merry Wives of Windsor) mentions a Fairy named Cricket; and no hint of Shakspeare's was lost upon Drayton.
[409] In the Musarum Deliciæ.
[410] This is a palpable mistake of the poet's. The Friar (see above, p. 291) is the celebrated Friar Rush, who haunted houses, not fields, and was never the same with Jack-o'-the-Lanthorn. It was probably the name Rush, which suggested rushlight, that caused Milton's error. He is the Brüder Rausch of Germany, the Broder Ruus of Denmark. His name is either as Grimm thinks, noise, or as Wolf (Von Bruodor Rauschen, p. xxviii.) deems drunkenness, our old word, rouse. Sir Walter Scott in a note on Marmion, says also "Friar Rush, alias Will-o'-the-Wisp. He was also a sort of Robin Goodfellow and Jack-o'-Lanthorn," which is making precious confusion. Reginald Scot more correctly describes him as being "for all the world such another fellow as this Hudgin," i. e. Hödeken: see above, p. 255.
[411] Ben Jonson's Works, vol. ii. p. 499. We shall never cease to regret that the state to which literature has come in this country almost precludes even a hope of our ever being able to publish our meditated edition of Milton's poems for which we have been collecting materials these five and twenty years. It would have been very different from Todd's. [Published in 1859.]
[412] Evidently drawn from Dryden's Flower and Leaf.
[413] We meet here for the last time with Fairy in its collective sense, or rather, perhaps, as the country:
[414] In Mr Halliwell's Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, will be found a good deal of Fairy poetry, for which we have not had space in this work.
[415] Mr. Cromek. There was, we believe, some false dealing on the part of Allan Cunningham toward this gentleman, such as palming on him his own verses as traditionary ones. But the legends are genuine.
[416] This answers to the Deenè Mâh, Good People, of the Highlands and Ireland. An old Scottish name, we may add, for a fairy seems to have been Bogle, akin to the English Pouke, Puck, Puckle; but differing from the Boggart. Thus Gawain Douglas says,
[417] Daemonologie, B. III. c. 5.
[418] These elf-arrows are triangular pieces of flint, supposed to have been the heads of the arrows used by the aborigines. Though more plentiful in Scotland they are also found in England and Ireland, and were there also attached to the fairies, and the wounds were also only to be discerned by gifted eyes. In an Anglo-Saxon poem, there occur the words æold english sa old english geold english scoold english t and ýlold english fa old english geold english scoold english t, i. e. arrow of the Gods, and arrow of the Elves. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 22.
[419] "It was till lately believed by the ploughmen of Clydesdale, that if they repeated the rhyme
three several times on turning their cattle at the terminations of ridges, they would find the said fare prepared for them on reaching the end of the fourth furrow."—Chambers' Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 33.
[420] See above, pp. 302, 311. Graham also relates this legend in his Picturesque Sketches of Perthshire.
[421] Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone, p. 251. We are happy to have an opportunity of expressing the high feelings of respect and esteem which we entertain for this extraordinary man. Born in the lowest rank of society, and commencing life as a workman in a stone-quarry, he has, by the mere force of natural genius, become not only a most able geologist but an elegant writer, and a sound and discerning critic. Scotland seems to stand alone in producing such men.
[422] He is named as we have seen (p. 351) by Gawain Douglas. King James says of him "The spirit called Brownie appeared like a rough man, and haunted divers houses without doing any evill, but doing, as it were, necessarie turns up and down the house; yet some are so blinded as to believe that their house was all the sonsier, as they called it, that such spirits resorted there."
[423] Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 33.
[424] Grimm (Deut. Mythol., p. 479) says it is the German Schellenrock, i. e., Bell-coat, from his coat being hung with bells like those of the fools. A Pūck he says, once served in a convent in Mecklenburg, for thirty years, in kitchen, and stable, and the only reward he asked was "tunicam de diversis coloribus et tintinnabulis plenam."
[425] Sketches of Perthshire, p. 245.
[426] In what precedes, we have chiefly followed Mr. Cromek. Those anxious for further information will meet it in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and other works.
[427] Mr. Croker says, that according to the Munster peasantry the ordinary attire of the Fairy is a black hat, green coat, white stockings, and red shoes.
[428] In Irish as in Erse, irish uncial dirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial ne mirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial t (deenè mâh).
[430] They are irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial a (shia), irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial airish uncial b dotirish uncial rirish uncial a (shifra), irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial acirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial re (shicârè), irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial g dot (shee), irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial g dote (sheeè), irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial g dotirish uncial ib (sheeidh) all denoting, spirit, fairy. The term irish uncial sirish uncial iirish uncial g dot also signifies a hag, and a hillock, and as an adjective, spiritual.
[431] We never heard a fairy-legend from any of the Connaught-men with whom we conversed in our boyhood. Their tales were all of Finn-mac-Cool and his heroes.
[432] In Irish, irish uncial dirish uncial iirish uncial a irish uncial aoirish uncial ine (dhia eenè). We are inclined to think that he must have added, irish uncial dirish uncial iirish uncial a irish uncial dirish uncial airish uncial rirish uncial dirish uncial aoirish uncial in, irish uncial dirish uncial iirish uncial a irish uncial aoirish uncial ine (dhia dhardheen, dhia eenè), i.e. Thursday, Friday; for we can see no reason for omitting Thursday.
[433] See below, Brittany and Spain, in both of which the legend is more perfect; but it is impossible to say which is the original. Parnell's pleasing Fairy Tale is probably formed on this Irish version, yet it agrees more with the Breton legend.
[434] This story may remind one of the Wonderful Lamp, and others. There is something of the same kind in the Pentamerone.
[435] Inis, pronounced sometimes Inch, (like the Hebrew Ee (אי) and the Indian Dsib) is either island or coast, bank of sea or river. The Ang.-Sax. iold english g (ee) seems to have had the same extent of signification, hence Chelsea, Battersea, etc., which never could have been islands. Perhaps þeoold english rold english diold english g (worthy, worth) was similar, as werd, werth, in German is an island.
[436] Mr. Croker says this is moruach, sea-maid; the only word we find in O'Reilly is muirish uncial iirish uncial rirish uncial iṁmirish uncial geirish uncial aċ (múrirgach). We have met no term answering to merman.
[437] It is a rule of the Irish language, that the initial consonant of an oblique case, or of a word in regimine, becomes aspirated; thus Pooka (nom.), na Phooka (gen.), mac son, a mhic (vic) my son.
[438] In Irish lobirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial rcirish uncial iirish uncial n (lubárkin); the Ulster name is Logheryman, in Irish loċirish uncial airish uncial rmirish uncial airish uncial n (lucharman). For the Cork term Cluricaun, the Kerry Luricaun and the Tipperary Lurigadaun, we have found no equivalents in the Irish dictionaries. The short o in Irish, we may observe, is pronounced as in French and Spanish, i. e. as u in but, cut; ai nearly as a in fall. It may be added, on account of the following tales, that in Kildare and the adjoining counties the short English u, in but, cut, etc., is invariably pronounced as in pull, full, while this u, is pronounced as that in but, cut.
[439] The Ulster Lucharman also has such an English look, that we should be tempted to derive it from the Ang.-Sax. lácan, lǽcan, to play. Loki Löjemand, or Loki Playman, is a name of the Eddaic deity Loki in the Danish ballads.
[440] In the place of the Witch of Edmonton usually quoted with this, Lubrick is plainly the Latin lubricus.
[441] It will be observed that these, as well as the Young Piper in the Appendix, are related in the character of a peasant. This was in accordance with a frame that was proposed for the Fairy Legends, but which proved too difficult of execution to be adopted.
[442] Lit. Yellow-stick, the ragwort or ragweed, which grows to a great size in Ireland.
[443] A kind of spade with but one step, used in Leinster.
[444] All that is said in this legend about the beer is a pure fiction, for we never heard of a Leprechaun drinking or smoking. It is, however, a tradition of the peasantry, that the Danes used to make beer of the heath. It was a Protestant farmer in the county of Cavan, that showed such knowledge of the siege of Derry; the Catholic gardener who told us this story, knew far better. It is also the popular belief that the Danes keep up their claim on Ireland, and that a Danish father, when marrying his daughter, gives her a portion in Ireland.
[445] i. e. Felix. On account of the Romish custom of naming after Saints, Felix, Thaddæus, Terence, Augustine, etc., are common names among the peasantry.
[446] In our Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 16, we noticed the coincidence between this and a passage in an Arabic author. We did not then recollect the following verses of Milton,
The simile of the moon among the stars in the same place, we have since found in the Nibelungen Lied (st. 285), and in some of our old poets, and Hammer says (Sehirin i. note 7), that it occurs even to satiety in Oriental poetry. In like manner Camoens' simile of the mirror, mentioned in the same place, occurs in Poliziano's Stanze i. 64.
[447] Account of the Highlands, etc. iv. 358.
[448] Men of Peace, perhaps the Stille-folk, Still-people, or rather, merely Fairy- or Spirit-people. See above p. 364.
[449] See Stewart, The Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders. Edinburgh, 1823. As Mr. Stewart's mode of narrating is not the very best, we have taken the liberty of re-writing and abridging the legends.
[450] "The goats are supposed to be upon a very good understanding with the fairies, and possessed of more cunning and knowledge than their appearance bespeaks."—Stewart: see Wales.
[452] There is a similar legend in Scandinavia. As a smith was at work in his forge late one evening, he heard great wailing out on the road, and by the light of the red-hot iron that he was hammering, he saw a woman whom a Troll was driving along, bawling at her "A little more! a little more!" He ran out, put the red-hot iron between them, and thus delivered her from the power of the Troll (see p. 108). He led her into his house and that night she was delivered of twins. In the morning he waited on her husband, who he supposed must be in great affliction at the loss of his wife. But to his surprise he saw there, in bed, a woman the very image of her he had saved from the Troll. Knowing at once what she must be, he raised an axe he had in his hand, and cleft her skull. The matter was soon explained to the satisfaction of the husband, who gladly received his real wife and her twins.—Thiele, i. 88. Oral.
[453] Told, without naming his authority, by the late W. S. Rose, in the Quarterly Review for 1825.
[454] Description of the Isle of Man. London, 1731.
[455] In his Essay on Fairies in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and in the notes on Peveril of the Peak.
[456] Train, Account of the Isle of Man, ii. p. 148.
[457] A lake, on whose banks Taliesin resided.
[458] These Mr. Davies thinks correspond to the Gallicenæ of Mela: see Brittany.
[459] Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriæ, l. i. c. 8, translated by Sir R. C. Hoare.
[460] Very likely indeed that Elidurus, or Giraldus either, should know any thing of Plato or of Marco Polo, especially as the latter was not yet born!
[461] Book i. chap. 12.
[462] Mythology and Rites of the British Druids.
[463] Abridged from "A Day at the Van Pools;" MS. of Miss Beale, the author of "Poems" and of "The Vale of the Towey," a most delightful volume. We have since received from our gifted friend the following additional information. "Since writing this letter, I have heard a new version of the last part of the Spirit of the Van. The third offence is said to be, that she and her husband were ploughing; he guiding the plough, and she driving the horses. The horses went wrong, and the husband took up something and threw it at them, which struck her. She seized the plough and went off, followed by the flocks and herds she had brought with her to Van Pool, where they all vanished, and the mark of the ploughshare is shown on the mountain at this present day. She left her children behind her, who became famous as doctors. Jones was their name, and they lived at a place called Muddfi. In them was said to have originated the tradition of the seventh son, or Septimus, being born for the healing art; as for many generations, seven sons were regularly born in each family, the seventh of whom became the doctor, and wonderful in his profession. It is said even now, that the Jones of Muddfi are, or were, until very recently, clever doctors."—A. B. A somewhat different version of this legend is given by Mr. Croker, iii. 256.
[464] For the chief part of our knowledge respecting the fairy lore of Wales we are indebted to the third or supplemental volume of the Fairy Legends, in which Mr. Croker, with the aid of Dr. Owen Pugh and other Welsh scholars, has given a fuller account of the superstitions of the people of the Principality, than is, we believe, to be found any where else.
[465] A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales, by the Rev. Edward Jones of the Tiarch.—For our extracts from this work we are indebted to Mr. Croker.
[466] The lady's name was Williams. The legends were originally intended for the present work, but circumstances caused them to appear in the supplemental volume of the Irish Fairy Legends. We have abridged them.
[467] Gitto is the dim. of Griffith: bach (beg Ir.) is little.
[469] Poésies de Marie de France, par De Roquefort. Paris, 1820. If any one should suspect that these are not genuine translations from the Breton, his doubts will be dispelled by reading the original of the Lai du Laustic in the Barzan-Breiz (i. 24) presently to be noticed.
[471] The Bas-Breton Korrigan or Korrigwen differs, as we may see, but little from Gallican. Strabo (i. p. 304) says that Demeter and Kora were worshipped in an island in these parts.
[472] Sena is supposed to be L'Isle des Saints, nearly opposite Brest.
[473] Pomp. Mela, iii. 6.
[474] It might seem hardly necessary to inform the reader that these verses and those that follow, are our own translations, from Marie de France. Yet some have taken them for old English verses.