THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE 189
Night's Dream. It has become almost a tradition to
point to the Portunes of Gervase of Tilbury, " statura
pussili, dimidium pollicis non habentes," and to the
race of little men, " homunculi duo staturae quasi
pigmeae," s7 described by Giraldus Cambrensis, as in-
stances of the diminutive fairies or elves, traditional in
England and Wales before Shakespeare. A careful ex-
amination of Chapter LXI, " De Neptunis sive Portunis,
qui homines illudunt," in the Tertia Decisio of Otia Im-
periale, and of the subsequent chapters in the same work
which treat of supernatural spirits or beings and wood-
gods or spirits, will show that Gervase did not identify
the Portunes with fays,ss or lamiae,89 fauns or satyrs,'"
of whose existence he was cognizant, but pointed out his
ignorance of their origin and classification:
Ecce enim Anglia daemones quosdam habet, daemones, inquam,
nescio dixerim, an secretas et ignotae generationis effigies, quos
Galli Neptunos, Angli Portunos n~minant.~~
A further examination makes evident that these beings
possessed none of the traditional traits of fairies, but,
except in stature, are more akin to Puck or Robin Good-
fellow, neither of whom traditionally was regarded as
a fairy."
There is very little, too, in the account of Elidorus by
Giraldus Cambrensis to denote that the two little men
g6 See Ritson, Dis. of Fairies, p. 23; E. K. Chambers, " The Fairy
World," p. 166; Keightley, Fairy Myth., Vol. 11, p. 107.
86 Otia Irnperialia, Liebrecht ed., Hannover, 1856, p. 29.
Itinerarium Cambriae, Powel ed., London, 1806, p. 65.
D3 C88.
Dg LXXXV and D3 LXXXVI.
DI XVIII.
91 Page 29.
" See Chap. VI, pp. 219-229.