Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs ...

mously agreed concerning these arbitrary | Sometimes I meete them like a man;

notions, if they had not prevailed among them for many ages. Indeed, a learned friend in Wales assures the Editor, that the existence of Fairies and Goblins is alluded to by the most ancient British Bards, who mention them under various names, one of the most common of which signifies "The spirits of the mountains." See also Preface to Song XXV.

This song, which Peck attributes to Ben Jonson (though it is not found among his works) is chiefly printed from an ancient black-letter copy in the British Museum. It seems to have been originally intended for some Masque.

This ballad is entitled, in the old blackletter copies, "The merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow. To the tune of Dulcina," &c.

(See No. XIII. above.)

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 winde 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 out the candles I do blow:
The maids I kiss ;

They shrieke-Who's this?

I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho! 50

Yet now and then, the maids to please,

At midnight I card up their wooll;
And while they sleepe, and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.

I grind at mill

Their malt up still;

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.

If any 'wake,

And would me take,

I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When house or harth doth sluttish lye,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bedd pull I
And lay them naked all to view.
'Twixt sleepe and wake,

I do them take,

And on the key-cold floor them throw.

If out they cry,

Then forth I fly,

And loudly laugh out, ho, ho, ho!

As from their night-sports they trudge When any need to borrowe ought,

And call them on, with mee to roame

Thro' woods, thro' lakes,

Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;

Or else, unseene, with them I go,

All in the nicke

And night by night,

The Fairy Queen.

WE have here a short display of the popular belief concerning Fairies. It will afford entertainment to a contemplative mind to trace these whimsical opinions up to their origin. Whoever considers, how early, how extensively, and how uniformly, they have prevailed in these nations, will not readily assent to the hypothesis of those who fetch them from the East so late as the time of the Croisades. Whereas it is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed the existence of a kind of diminutive demons, or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called Duergar or Dwarfs, and to whom they attributed many wonderful performances, far exceeding human art. Vid. Hervarer Saga Olaj Verelj. 1675. Hickes Thesaur. &c.

This Song is given (with some corrections by another copy) from a book entitled "The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, &c." Lond. 1648. 8vo.

COME, follow, follow me,
You, fairy elves that be:
Which circle on the greene,
Come follow Mab your queene.
Hand in hand let's dance around,'
For this place is fairye ground.

When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest ;
Unheard, and unespy'd,
Through key-holes we do glide;
Over tables, stools and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.

And, if the house be foul
With platter, dish, or bowl,
Up stairs we nimbly creep,

And find the sluts asleep:
There we pinch their armes and thighes;
None escapes, nor none espies.

THIS humorous old song fell from the hand of the witty Dr. Corbet (afterwards Bishop of Norwich, &c.), and is printed from his Poëtica Stromata, 1648, 12mo. (compared with the third edition of his poems, 1672). It is there called "A proper new Ballad, entitled, The Fairies Farewell, or God-a-mercy Will, to be sung or whistled to the tune of The Meddow Brow, by the learned; by the unlearned, to the tune of Fortune."

The departure of Fairies is here attributed to the abolition of monkery: Chaucer has, with equal humour, assigned a cause the very reverse, in his " Wife of Bath's Tale."

"In olde dayes of the King Artour, Of which that Bretons speken gret honour, All was this lond fulfilled of faerie; The elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie Danced ful oft in many a grene mede. This was the old opinion as I rede; I speke of many hundred yeres ago; But now can no man see non elves mo, For now the grete charitee and prayeres Of limitoures and other holy freres, That serchen every land and every streme, As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,

Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,

Citees and burghes, castles high, and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries:
For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
Ther walketh now the limitour himself,
In undermeles and in morweninges,
And sayth his Matines and his holy thinges,
As he goth in his limitatioun.
Women may now go safely up and doun,
In every bush, and under every tree,
Ther is non other incubus but he,
And he ne will don hem no dishonour."
Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, I. p. 255.

Dr. Richard Corbet, having been bishop of Oxford about three years, and afterwards as long bishop of Norwich, died in 1635, ætat 52.

Lament, lament old Abbies,

To William Churne of Staffordshire Give laud and praises due,

The fairies lost command;
They did but change priests babies,

But some have chang'd your land:
And all your children stoln from thence
Are now growne Puritanes,
Who live as changelings ever since,
For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleepe and sloth,

These prettie ladies had.

When Tom came home from labour,
Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabour,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelayes

Of theirs, which yet remaine; Were footed in Queene Maries dayes On many a grassy playne. But since of late Elizabeth And later James came in ; They never danc'd on any heath, As when the time hath bin.

By which wee note the fairies
Were of the old profession:
Their songs were Ave Maries,
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,

Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure;
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punish'd sure:
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such blacke and blue:
O how the common-welth doth need
Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters ;
A Register they have,
Who can preserve their charters;

A man both wise and grave.
An hundred of their merry pranks,

By one that I could name

Are kept in store; con twenty thanks To William for the same.

Who every meale can mend your cheare
With tales both old and true:
To William all give audience,
And pray yee for his noddle:

15 For all the fairies evidence
Were lost, if it were addle.

** After these songs on the fairies, the reader may be curious to see the manner in which they were formerly invoked and bound 20 to human service. In Ashmole's collection of MSS. at Oxford [Num. 8259, 1406, 2,] are the papers of some Alchymist, which contain a variety of Incantations and Forms of Conjuring both Fairies, Witches, and Demons, principally, as it should seem, to assist him 25 in his great work of transmuting metals. Most of them are too impious to be reprinted; but the two following may be very innocently laughed at.

Whoever looks into Ben Jonson's "Alchy30 mist," will find that these imposters, among their other secrets, affected to have a power over Fairies: and that they were commonly expected to be seen in a crystal glass appears from that extraordinary book, "The Relation of Dr. John Dee's action with Spirits, 1659," folio.

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"R. A pint of sallet-oyle, and put it into a viall glasse: but first wash it with rosewater, and marygold-water: the flowers 'to' be gathered towards the east. Wash it till the oyle come white; then put it into the glasse, ut supra: and then put thereto the budds of holyhocke, the flowers of marygold, the flowers or toppes of wild thime, the budds of young hazle: and the thime must be gathered neare the side of a hill where Fayries use to be: and 'take' the grasse of a fayrie throne, there. All these put into the oyle, into the glasse: and set it to dissolve

three dayes in the sunne, and then keep it for thy use; ut supra."

After this receipt for the unguent follows a Form of Incantation, wherein the Alchy mist conjures a Fairy, named Elaby Gathon, to appear to him in that chrystall glass, meekly and mildly; to resolve him truly in all manner of questions; and to be obedient to all his commands, under pain of damnation, &c.

One of the vulgar opinions about Fairies is, that they cannot be seen by human eyes, without a particular charm exerted in favour of the person who is to see them: and that they strike with blindness such as, having the gift of seeing them, take notice of them mal a-propos.

As for the hazle sticks mentioned above, they were to be probably of that species called the "Witch Hazle;" which received its name from this manner of applying it in incantations.

THE END OF BOOK THE SECOND.

SERIES THE THIRD.,

BOOK III.

The Birth of St. George.

THE incidents in this, and the other ballad, lar romance were written so early as the of "St. George and the Dragon," are chiefly Faery Queen. taken from the old story-book of the Seven Champions of Christendome; which, though now the plaything of children, was once in high repute. Bp. Hall, in his satires, published in 1597, ranks

"St. George's sorell, and his cross of blood,"

among the most popular stories of his time; and an ingenious critic thinks that Spenser himself did not disdain to borrow hints from it;* though I much doubt whether this popu

Mr. Wharton. Vid. Observations on the Fairy Queen, 2 vel. 1762, 12mo. passim.

The author of this book of the Seven Champions was one Richard Johnson, who lived in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, as we collect from his other publications; viz." The nine worthies of London: 1592," 4to. "The pleasant walks of Moor fields: 1607," 4to.-" A crown garland of Goulden and death of Rob. Cecill, E. of Salisbury, Roses, gathered, &c.: 1612," 8vo.-"The life 1612," 4to.-"The Hist. of Tom of Lincoln,” 4to., is also by R. J., who likewise reprinted "Don Flores of Greece," 4to.

The Seven Champions, though written in a wild inflated style, contains some strong

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