THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

34 ORIGIN AND NATURE
This is apparent in the definitions and classifications
given them by scholars of the period; 38 in the connection
with witches and witchcraft ascribed to them; 39 in the
recognition by English and Scottish law of fairies as
spirits of the devil, and in the execution of mortals for
dealing with them; 40 in the practices, such as stealing
changelings and carrying away mortals, bewitching hu-
man beings with disease or blindness, blasting crops and
cattle, attributed to them; 41 in the residence in Hell as-
signed them; 42 and in the spells and charms known and
used against their power by mortals.43
In all the pages of their record, with the exception of
the fairies of Shakespeare's mythology, and the fairies of
Spen~er,~* the fairies as a race are never referred to as
38 See Chap. I, pp. 41-48 and 52-61.
See Chap. IV, pp. 163-175.
4O See Chap. IV, pp. 168-175.
See Chap. 111, pp. 123-129, 137; Chap. IV, pp. 151-154.
42 See Chap. 11, pp. 109-110.
43 See Chap. IV, p. 162; Chap. 111, 127-129; Chap. I, 37-39. Cf.
also Kirk, Sec. Cornm., pp. 7-8: "They remove to other Lodgings at
the Beginning of each Quarter of the Year, . . . and thereby have
made it a Custome to this Day among the Scottish-Irish to keep
Church duely evry first Sunday of the Quarter to sene or hallow
themselves, their Corns and Cattell, from the Shots and Stealth of
these wandring Tribes; and many of these superstitious People will
not be seen in Church againe till the nixt Quarter begin, as if no
Duty were to be learned or done by them, but all the Use of Worship
and Sermons were to save them from these Arrows that fly in the
Dark." Cf. also Ibid., pp. 15-16: "They are said to have . . . no
discernible Religion, Love, or Devotion towards God, the blessed
Maker of all: they disappear whenever they hear his Name invocked,
or the Name of JESUS, (at which all do bow willinglie, or by con-
straint, that dwell above or beneath within the Earth, Philip. 2. 10;)
nor can they act ought at that Time after hearing of that sacred
Name."
44 The friendly fairies of the June Eclogue of The Shepheardes