THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

186 THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE
tainment at Woodstocke, where a handmaid of the Fayry
Queene presented Elizabeth and her ladies with " many
excellente and fine smelling Nosegayes made of all
cullers." 63 And in the Entertainment at Elvetham,
again, the fairy queen had introduced herself to Eliza-
beth as one
That every night in rings of painted flowers
Turne round, and carrel1 out Elisaes name.64
But in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairies are
completely identified with buds and blossoms, dew-drops
and butterflies. Their similes are floral; their favors,
the gold spots of cowslips; their scent bottles, its
freckle^.'^ Their occupations, for the most part, con-
sist in watering the fairy ring, in hanging dewdrops in
each cowslip's ear,'' in killing canker in the musk rose
buds, in putting spells upon beetles and worms, snails
and spider^,'^ and in blessing mortal rooms with " field-
dew consecrate." " Their names are Cobweb, Mustard-
seed, Moth, and Peas-blossom.69 Their changeling and
their victim are crowned with flowers,'O and their charms
effected by means of " a little western flower."
The fairy queen who, as Diana, rode over the king-
doms of the earth followed by a multitude of wicked
women,72 now sleeps on
63 Page 99.
64 Nichols, Prog. of Eliz., Vol. 111, p. I 18.
'6 11, I, 11. IO--13.
66 11, I, 11. g and 15.
67 11, 3, 11. 3 and 19-22.
'' V, 2, 11. 45-48.
69 111, I, 1. 163.
70 11, I, 1. 27; Iv, I, 11. 52-53.
11, 2, 1. 107.
72 See " Paenetential " of Bartholomew Iscanus, rpt. Reliquiae An-
tiquae, Wright and Halliwell ed., 1845, Vol. I, p. 285.