THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE
Although the Elizabethan fairies continued to exist as
realities - both in the belief of the folk and in the liter-
ary records of the time - until the end of the 17th cen-
tury and later, the beginning of their decline as terrible
and credible entities took place in the I 6th century. This
was due, for the most part, not to the curtailment of the
power and influence of the Catholic Church in England,
as many an Elizabethan scholar was wont to contend, but,
indirectly, to the vogue of the fairies in literature and in
drama, and, directly, to the influence of the race of fairies
created by William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's
Dream.'
To these fairies can be traced the change in reputation
and appearance which the fairies of tradition and folk
belief sustained, and the subsidence of the race from the
1 Attention has already been called in the Introduction to this essay
to the conclusions reached by scholars since the 18th century concern-
ing the fairies of Shakespeare.
Following the conclusions of Thorndike and Neilson in The Facts
about Shakespeare, 1913, and of Tucker Brooke in Shakespeare of
Stratford, 1926, all of whom date M. N. D. in the year 1594, and of
E. K. Chambers who regards the dating of M. N. D. in 1594-1595 as
fairly certain (cf. M. N. D., Warwick ed., pp. 9-14), I have taken
the date of the play as that of 1594. Dated by Alden (Shakespeare,
1922), 1593-1595; Adams (A Life of William Shakespeare, 1923),
1596; Ward (A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death
of Queen Anne, 1899), 1594 or 1595; Malone (The Plays and Poems
of William Shakespeare), 1594; Fleay (A Chronicle History of the
Life and Works of Shakspere, 1886), 1595.
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