THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

CHANGELING AND WITCH
I would haue stir'd from the darke dungeon
Of hell centre, as deepe as demag~rgon.~~
By 1584, in the Discovery of Witchcraft, the relation-
ship between witches and fairies was taken for granted:
What is not to be brought to passe by these incantations, if that be
true which is attributed to witches? and yet they are women that
never went to schoole in their lives, nor had any teachers: and
therefore without art or learning; poore, and therefore not able to
make any provision of metal or stones, kc. whereby to bring to
passe strange matters, by natural magicke; old and stiffe, and there-
fore not nimble-handed to deceive your eye with legierdemaine;
heavy, and commonly lame, and therefore unapt to flie in the aire;
or to dance with the fairies.67
Camden's Britannia of 1586 referred to a woman skill-
ful in curing and prophesying the outcome of the disease,
Esane, who, through the fairies, was able to form a
better judgment of the disorder than most physicians; 68
while George Giffard in A Dialogue concerning Witches
and Witchcrafts, of 1593, vouched for the connection of
witches and fairies :
There was another of my neighbours had his wife much troubled,
and he went to her, and she told him his wife was haunted with a
fairie. I cannot tell what she bad him do, but the woman is merrie
at this houre. I have heard, I aare not say it is so, that she weareth
about her S. Johns Gospell, or some part of it.69
G6 Vo1. 11, Stanzas 30 and 31, p. 121. Cf. also Stanza 14, pp. I 15-
116:
"Among which sort of those that bare most fame
There was a beldame called the witch of Ey,
Old mother Madge her neighbours did her name,
Which wrought wonders in countryes by here say,
Both feendes and fayries her charming would obay:
And dead corpsis from graue shee could vp rere,
Such an inchauntresse (as) that time had no peere."
Scot, 1651 ed., p. 158. Cf. also Booke 111, Chap. 11.
68 See Chap. 111, p. 139; also Chap. 11, p. 84.
59 Page 10. Cf. also pp. 35 and 54.