THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

118 EARTHLY LIFE OF FAIRIES
than I could eat," 29 though she paid for her repletion
with her life. And in the Scotland of 1739, the fairies
were still given to " stap those they met and are dis-
pleased with full of butter and hear awne."
For those mortals to whom they had taken an especial
fancy, they were given to providing banquets and feasts,
as, for instance, in The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll:
Enter Fairies bringing in a banquet.
0 daintie, 0 rare, a banquet, would to Christ,
I were one of their guests: Gods ad, a fine little
Dapper fellow has spyed me: what will he doo?
He comes to make me drinke. I thanke you sir; 31
or, in Robin Goodfellow; his mad prankes, and merry
Jests, where a female friend of " a hee fayrie " every
night " for meate . . . had capons, chickins, mutton,
lambe, phesant, snite, woodcocke, partridge, quailes.
. . . wine had shee of all sorts, muskadine, sacke, malm-
sie, clarret, white and bastard "; 32 or in Huon of Bur-
deux, in which Huon was banqueted as royally at the
hands of Ober~n.~~
It was a smaller need but equally as vital a one which
bound the fairies a second time to mortal society. With
the lakes and springs of England at their command, they
seemed unable to obtain bath water without human inter-
vention. This, and the receptacle in which it was con-
tained, they demanded both for their own baths, and
especially, for the baths of their small children, a fact
which was generally recognized.
29 Pitcairn, Crim. Trials, Gen. App., p. 604.
30 Robert Heron, Observations made on a Tour through the West-
ern Highlands of Scotland, 1793, Vol. 11, p. 227.
31 Act 111, E2.
32 Hazlitt rpt., p. 177.
V01. I, pt. I, pp. 74-75,