THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

THE FAIRIES: THEIR APPEARANCE AND
CHARACTERISTICS
When Dr. Johnson observed that common tradition
had made the fairies of Shakespeare's time familiar12 he
spoke more truly than he was probably aware. For one
of the most striking features of their Elizabethan exis-
tence is the general recognition of them by their mortal
contemporaries, and the intimate and universal knowl-
edge of their appearance and their characteristics. And
this, in spite of the fact that - unlike the modern fairies
of today- the fairies of the 16th century had few of
the very striking and distinctive features, as the gauzy
wings and diminutive stature of the modern fairies, which
would establish them at first sight as fairies!
Perhaps no better method of presenting the fairies, as
the Elizabethans saw them, can be followed than to con-
trast them with the picture of the fairies of today, found
in actual photographs, made or believed to have been
1 In most of the references to the fairies in the 16th century, they
are treated as real and existing entities. For this reason it is almost
impossible, when quoting or citing these references, to refer to the
fairies as a supposititious race or to treat them as mythical beings. In
this chapter, therefore, and in several of the subsequent chapters,
they are represented, according to the psychology of the folk who be-
lieved in them and saw them and in the style in which they were dis-
cussed and referred to in the 16th century, as living beings.
The Plays of William Shakspeare, 1778, notes by Johnson and
Steevens, M. N. D., V, 2, in Vol. 111, p. 127: 'I Fairies in his time
were much in fashion; common tradition had made them familiar, and
Spenser's poem had made them great."