THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

102 APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS
evening of midsummer, or failed to put primroses (in
Ireland, at least) over all the entrances to his house and
to his cowbarn on the first of May. The fairies on these
two festival days held high revel over the whole land,
which, for the time being, became their absolute domain.
Though these two feasts of the year were under their
control, the Christmas season, according to Shakespeare,
no matter what the weather, was exempt from their
power :
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.lG7
The fairies' hour was usually at twelve midnight and
noon. Not that they did not appear at other times!
One could see them in Scotland " Ay trottand in trowpes
from the twylycht," lG8 and they were known to be busy
in the daytime. But these occasions, in England in the
16th century, were few.
The night, however, was peculiarly the fairies' own.
This preference seems to have been emphasized in the
16th century when, according to Nashe, " The Robbin-
good-fellowes, Elfes, Fairies, Hobgoblins . . . did most
167 Ham., I, I. The fairies experienced another limitation also to
their earthly appearances, according to Reginald Scot, for: "The
Rabbines, and namely Rabbie Abraham, writing upon the second of
Genesis, doe say, that God made the fairies, bugs, Incubus, Robin
good fellow, and other familiar or domestical spirits and divels on the
friday; and being prevented with the evening of the sabbath, finished
them not, but left them unperfect; and therefore, that ever since they
use to flie the holinesse of the sabbath, seeking dark holes in mountains
and woods, wherein they hide themselves ti1 the end of the sabbath,
and then come abroad to trouble and molest men." Dis. of
Witch., 1651 ed., p. 364.
la@ Montgomerie, p. 151.