THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

258 ROBIN GOODFELLOW
of country men and the canes of gentlemen.1s2 And his
amused contempt for mortals, and the jokes and pranks
which had marked his progress for a hundred years or
more, are replaced by a dense stupidity which makes
him the butt of servants and fools.153
Instead of going laughing away, as had been his traditional
method of departure, in both plays, he bursts into
prayers for an immediate transportation to Hell because
of his inability to compete with human intelligence.15*
No better illustration of the distance which lies between
Robin Goodfellow, " that great and antient bullbegger,"
and Robin Goodfellow, a lesser devil in the
plays of the 17th century, can be found than in the representation
of him in Grim, the Collier of Croydon.
Here, as a devil, he undergoes all the humiliations noted
above, but when he deserts his devilish companions, puts
on his native habit and runs away to pursue his usual
career of a plain and honest country spirit, he becomes
a dominant and forceful personality among mortals, upon
whom he enforces his idea of decency and of true love.
Whatever qualities or character remained to Robin
GoodfelIow after the representation of him as a minor
devil, vanished in the final r61e assigned him as a familiar
spirit of witches. He had earlier been associated. with
them both in the Discovery of Witchcr~ft,l~~ and in the
D~emonologie.~~~ But his connection with them had consisted,
in the first case, in the fact that his reputation
had been as terrible and credible as that of witches, and
that he was associated with familiar spirits and devils;
162 Devil is an Ass, Gifford ed., 11, I ; Wily Beguiled, 11. 2008-2012,
and 11. 2015-2020; Grim, the Collier, 11, I, and 111, I.
153 Devil is an Ass, Gifford ed., 111, 3; Grim, the Collier, 11, I.
la* Devil is an Ass, Gifford ed., IV, I ; Wily Beguiled, 11. 2066-2070.
lS6 Scot, 1651 ed., pp. 97 and 364.
lS6 James VI of Scotland, p. 127.