THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

28 ORIGIN AND NATURE
as long as they remained in fairyland. As may be seen,
they were not the fairies of sixpences and shoes.20
If it was understood in the 16th century that the fairies
were the contemporary fairies of tradition and of the
English folk, it was a matter of common belief that they
were real and actual beings. Not only were they be-
lieved to exist but they were known to appear in visible
and material form,21 or, as Robert Kirk stated in 1691,
they were
20 See L. F. A. Maury, Les Fkks Du Moyen Age, 1843, pp. 23-24:
" Femmes mystirieuses tenant i la fois du caractire de l'homme et
de Dieu, magiciennes auxquelles l'avenir ddvoilait parfois ses secrets,
enchanteresses aux mains desquelles dtait livrde la destinde des hu-
mains; sur leur tcte, en un mot, vinrent se confondre et se concentrer
les attributs de toutes les ddesses gauloises et des druidesses qui les
servaient. Ces femmes, le peuple leur donna le nom de magiciennes,
de fees, de sorcilrres; mais il les ddsigna spdcialement par le nom de
fata, sous lequel ses ancctres avaient honor; les parques identifiees
aux ddessesmGres, par celuis de fata, qui ne renfermait rien de plus,
au reste, i ses yeux, que l'idee d'enchantement. De fata, on avait
fait fae, fee, fieerie, comme de pratum, prata, on avait fait prae, pre,
prairie; et ce mot de fae voulut dire simplement ' enchante '; en ce
sens, il etait adjectif.
Lancelot du Lac, 1553 ed., p. v, rptd. in E. K. Chambers, " Fairy
World," p. 151: " En cellui temps estoient appelldes fdes toutes celles
qui s'entermettoient d'enchantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit
pour lors principallement en la Grand Bretagne, et scavoient la force
et la vertue de parolles, des pierres et des herbes, parquoy elles
estoient tenue en jeunesse, et en beaulte et en grandes richesses com-
ment elles divisoient. Et ce fut estably au temps de Merlin le
prophete."
Cf. also A. C. L. Brown, " Iwain," Harvard Studies and Notes in
Philology and Literature, Vol. 8; and Alfred Nutt, " Studies on the
Legend of the Holy Grail," Folk Lore, London, 1888, p. 232.
E. K. Chambers in "The Fairy World," p. 156, makes the state-
ment that " The fairies were supposed to exist, but no longer to ap-
pear," citing, as illustrations of his contention, Chaucer's remark in
" The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe " that they were driven away by the