THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

6 INTRODUCTION
dive of the Romance and Superstition of various Coun-
tries," first published in 1828, supplemented in several
important particulars the work of Drake. He collected
and arranged in chronological order the " few scattered
traditions " concerning the fairies of the people found in
the writings of Gervase of Tilbury, Burton, Harsnet, etc.,
and in contemporary folk tales, and the " passages, treat-
ing of fairies and their exploits, from our principal
poets " from Chaucer to George Darley.'l He extended
the study of the fairies of Shakespeare to all the plays of
Shakespeare in which fairies are mentioned, with the ex-
ception of Pericles, The Comedy of Errors, Richard II
and Macbeth, and pointed out specifically the contribu-
tions of Shakespeare and those of folklore to the concep-
tion of the fairies found in Shakespeare's plays and in
English Poetry."
His own idea of the fairies is particularly significant in
any investigation of the differences between the two con-
ceptions of fairyland, since, like his predecessors, he rep-
resented the fairies of England as diminutive beings more
20 Though Keightley regarded Shakespeare as the " principal agent "
in bringing about the change in the fairy mythology of England, he
attributed to the appearance of the Faerie Queene more,influence than
had been granted by his predecessors.
"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, ac-
cording 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 classes of its society." The Fairy Mythology, 1833,
London, Vol. I, p. 18.
Fairy Myth., Vol. 11, pp. 104-118, 121-158.
22 Zbid., Vol. 11, pp. 127-156.