THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE 193
With their dignity thus diminished, their measurements
reduced, their characters redeemed, and their association
with flowers and insects established, the fairies of A Midsummer
Night's Dream, as has been said, became a
totally new race of spirits. Although they appeared but
in one play, introduced by Shakespeare as the creations of
a dream1102 and appeared, too, at a time when the fairies
of tradition were most familiar, the charm of their infinitesimal
persons caught the fancy of poets and playwrights,
and the ultimate adoption of their peculiar and characteristic
features as the characteristic features of the English
fairies, can be traced to their advent.
Had Shakespeare wished to destroy an ancient belief,
he could have found no more effective method than his
treatment of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
As long as they were regarded as wicked beings, they
survived as powerful and credible entities; but when they
became summer sprites and-took upon themselves the nature
of good spirits, they lost their hold upon the fear of
the folk. As long as they occupied dark and mysterious
portions of the earth and pursued careers of bewitchment
and child stealing as adult and substantial beings, they
were perforce characters to be reckoned with. When
they became infinitesimal creatures who toyed with dew
drops and hid in acorn cups, they vanished from reality.
The influence of the fairies of A Midsummer Night's
lo2 M. N. D., V, 2, 11. 54-61:
" If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, (and all is mended,)
That you have but slumber'd here,
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend."