THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

ROBIN GOODFELLOW 255
explain his mistakes and to suffer a sharp reproof from
Oberon because of his jokes.146
His position in Merry Wives of Windsor is similar to
his position in A Midsummer Night's Dream.14' In
Nimphidia his incongruity is magnified, and his power-
lessness before the charms of the fairy, Nimphidia, is
exaggerated until he becomes a most ridiculous and in-
effectual figure. In The Satyr of Ben Jonson, though
possessed of an intimate knowledge of the fairies and
a tongue which divulges all their secrets, he is made
curiously fearful of their pinches and powerless against
their banishment. The Masque at Cole-Orton of 1618
represents him in some sort of subserviency to the fairies,
as does the ballad, The Pranks of Puck. In Robin Good-
fellow; his mad prankes, and merry Jests, he owes all
of his powers and fame to " King Obreon," and takes
his orders from him:
Doe thus, and all the world shall know
The prankes of Robin Good-fellow ;
For by that name thou cald shalt be
To ages last posterity.
If thou observe my just command
One day thou shalt see Fayry Land!
This more I give: who tels thy prankes
From those that heare them shall have thankes.l4I
In spite of the fact that Robin Goodfellow lost his
independence and much of his power as a member of
the fairy kingdom, his own personality and his own in-
dividual characteristics remained intact in the plays and
poems where he was represented as a fairy. In folk
111, 2.
146 V, 5. The word, Puck, is applied to Sir Hugh in the quarto,
and Hobgoblin to Pistol in the folio.
147 Hazlitt rpt., p. 180.