THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

116 EARTHLY LIFE OF FAIRIES
eaten up a fat ox, and emptied a butt of malmesie, and a binne of
bread at some noble mans hou3ee, in the dead of the night, nothing
is missed of all this in the morning. For the lady Sibylla, Minerva,
or Diana with a golden rod striketh the vessel1 and the binne, and
they are fully replenished again. Yea, she causeth the bullockes
bones to be brought and laid together upon the hide. And lappeth
the four ends thereof together, laying her golden rod thereon, and
then riseth up the bullocke again in his former estate and con-
dition: and yet at their returne home they are like to starve for
hunger.lg
What the fairies most desired was milk and cream and
butter, and their appetite for these commodities was
notorious. So much so, that, with Robin Goodfellow,
whose propensity for cream amounted to an obsession,
they were termed " spirites . . . of the buttry," 20 or
" Dairy Sprites " 1 21
For Robin Goodfellow a cream bowl was set out each
night by benevolent households. The fairies " enter
into the Dairies, and Feast upon the Cream, which they
skim from the Milk," 22 or " Drink Dairies dry, and
stroke the Cattle." 23 At other times,
What Food they extract from us is conveyed to their Homes by
secret Paths, as sume skilful1 Women do the Pith and Milk from
their Neighbours Cows into their own Chiese-hold thorow a Hair-
tedder, at a great Distance, by Airt Magic, or by drawing a
spickot fastened to a Post, which will bring milk as farr of as a
Bull will be heard to roar.24
l9 Dis. of Witch., 1651 ed., p. 36.
20 Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie, Halliwell ed., 1844, Shak.
Soc. Publns., p. 55.
Poole, English Parnassus.
22 Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 546.
23 [James Farewell], Irish Hudibras, 1689 ed., p. 122.
24Kirk, Sec. Corn., p. 11. Cf. also Heywood and Broome, The
Late Lancashire Witches, where this method of obtaining food is at-
tributed to witches.