THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

84 APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS
greene, and black." 72 According to The Discovery of
Witchcraft, there were " white spirits and blacke spirits,
gray spirits and red spirits," 73 and in Macbeth, beings
with the same varied complexions were invoked.74
When any man hath caught a fall upon the ground [William
camden related in the Britannia], forthwith hee starteth uppe
againe on his feete, and turneth himselfe round three times toward
his right hand, with his sworde, skein, or knife hee diggeth into
the earth, and fetcheth up a turfe, for that, they say, the earth doth
yeelde a spirite: and if within some two or three daies he fell sicke,
there is sent a woman skilful1 in that kinde unto the said place, and
there she saith on this wise. I call thee P. from the East and
West, South, and North, from the forests, woods, rivers, meeres,
the wilde wood-fayries, white, redde, blacke, &c.~~
Be thou ghost that cannot rest,
Or a shadow of the bless'd,
Be thou black, or white, or green,
Be thou heard, or to be seen -
was the prayer used to exorcise the spirit or fairy in
Monsieur Thomas.76
In 161 8 the fairies were referred to as blue. '' . . .
tell me how thou are us'd amongst ye faries, those little
ringleaders, those white and blew faries " -Bob, the
Buttrie Spirit, asked of Robin Goodfellow in A Masque
at C~le-Orton.~~
72 Examination of John Walsh, rpt. in M. A. Murray, The Witch-
Cult in Western Europe, Oxford, 1921, p. 240.
7"cot, 1651 ed., p. 388.
74 IV, I.
75 Ireland, Holland trans., pp. 146-147.
713 Fletcher, V, 8.
77 Die Maske von Cole-Orton, in R. Brotanek, " Die Englischen
Maskenspiele," in Wiener Beitrage zur Englischen Philologie, Vol.
XV, Wien and Leipzig, 1902, p. 330.