The Mythology of Fairies. Thomas Keightley

      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 classes20 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.	A thing so fair on earth.

      Our subject naturally divides itself into two principal branches, corresponding to the different classes of beings to which the name Fairy has been applied. The first, beings of the human race, but endowed with powers beyond those usually allotted to men, whom we shall term Fays, or Fairies of romance. The second, those little beings of the popular creeds, whose descent we propose to trace from the cunning and ingenious Duergar or dwarfs of northern mythology, and whom we shall denominate Elves or popular Fairies.

      It cannot be expected that our classifications should vie in accuracy and determinateness with those of natural science. The human imagination, of which these beings are the offspring, works not, at least that we can discover, like nature, by fixed and invariable laws; and it would be hard indeed to exact from the Fairy historian the rigid distinction of classes and orders which we expect from the botanist or chemist. The various species so run into and are confounded with one another; the actions and attributes of one kind are so frequently ascribed to another, that scarcely have we begun to erect our system, when we find the foundation crumbling under our feet. Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings once formed parts of ancient and exploded systems of religion, and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved.

      We will now proceed to consider the Fairies of romance; and as they are indebted, though not for their name, yet perhaps for some of their attributes, to the Peries of Persia, we will commence with that country. We will thence pursue our course through Arabia, till we arrive at the middle-age romance of Europe, and the gorgeous realms of Fairy-land; and thence, casting a glance at the Faerie Queene, advance to the mountains and forests of the North, there to trace the origin of the light-hearted, night-tripping elves.

      ORIENTAL ROMANCE.22

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      Sadee.

      All human beings must in beauty yield

       To you; a Peri I have ne'er beheld.

      PERSIAN ROMANCE.

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      The pure and simple religion of ancient Persia, originating, it is said, with a pastoral and hunting race among the lofty hills of Aderbijân, or, as others think, in the elevated plains of Bactria, in a region where light appears in all its splendour, took as its fundamental principle the opposition between light and darkness, and viewed that opposition as a conflict. Light was happiness; and the people of Irân, the land of light, were the favourites of Heaven; while those of Turân, the gloomy region beyond the mountains to the north, were its enemies. In the realms of supernal light sits enthroned Ormuzd, the first-born of beings; around him are the six Amshaspands, the twenty-eight Izeds, and the countless myriads of Ferohers.23 In the opposite kingdom of darkness Aherman is supreme, and his throne is encompassed by the six Arch-Deevs, and the numerous hosts of inferior Deevs. Between these