THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

EARTHLY LIFE OF FAIRIES 145
and, as likely as not, if he behaved himself according to
the rules of fairy etiquette, which he well knew, he would
be presented with pieces of gold which multiplied, or with
other treasures.
So many opportunities for a fairy fortune had their
disadvantages, however, for the credulous Elizabethan
was sometimes gulled into believing that impostors were
the king and queen of fairies, as happened in The severall
notorious and lewd Cousonages of John West and Alice
West, 1613,'" by which Thomas Moore and his wife,
especially, were ruined. Here the impostor
takes upon her to bee familiarly acquainted with the king and
queene of fairies, two that had in their power the command of in-
estimable treasure; and . . . communicates [to her victims] a
strange revelation, how that the fayrie king and queene had ap-
peared to her in a vision, saying they had a purpose to bestow great
summes of gold upon this man and this woman, which . . . if it
were revealed to any save them three whom it did essentially con-
cerne, they should not onely hazard their good fortune, but incurre
the danger of the fayries, and so consequently be open to great
mishapes, and fearefull disasters.
. . . money to performe the due rites of sacrifice to his great patron,
the king of fayries [was obtained repeatedly from Thomas Moore],
. . . but all this was no charges in regard it should be returned
ten-fold; therefore the more they bestowed, the more wouId be
their gaines, in so much that their covetous simplicity so overswayed
their understanding, that at several times this Circe had enchanted
from them the sum of 40 pounds: and to encourage them the
further, they brought him into a vault, where they shewed him two
attired like the king and queene of fayries, and by them elves and
goblings, and in the same place an infinite company of bags, and
upon them written, " This is for Thomas Moore," " This is for
his wife."
199 Hazlitt rpt., pp. 223-238.
Ir0 Ibid., pp. 226-227.