THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS 103
of their merry prankes in the Night," ls9 being " another
kind of elfes that daunce in darke." 170
Whenever the fairies appeared, they always appeared
together. This idiosyncrasy or racial characteristic or
whatever it may be called, was one of the most ancient,
and most unique features of their materialization, whether
they rushed through the air with Diana in the 12th cen-
tury, or " Disporten hem and maken melodye " with
Proserpina in the fourteenth,171 or guarded the sleep of
Titania in the sixteenth.'''
In all the records of their history in the 16th century,
the number of times they can be discovered as separate
individuals are comparatively few. If one appeared, all
appeared, as in " The Marchantes Tale," " Ech after
other, right as any lyne." 1 7 3 mortal might be mis-
taken for a fairy, strayed from fairyland, as in Cymbe-
line; or an individual changeling make miserable the life
of an unhappy 16th century mother; or a separate lady
of the fairy be conjured into a crystal ball; or two Fairies
appear to a Knight, as in The Famous Historie of Chinon
of England; but with rare exceptions like these, the num-
ber of the fairies was always plural. Nor was it as an
adventitious crowd that they came into sight, but the
commonwealth itself, like bees when swarming, appeared
with its ruler. " The elf-queen, with hir joly com-
pany= u ; 174 6 6 the Fayery Quene . . . dauncing with her
maides about her "; lT6
'' fairy Queenes . . . and vnder
169 Terr. of the night, Vol. I, p. 347.
17O Nichols, Prog. of Eliz., Vol. 11, p. 210.
171 Chaucer, " Marchantes Tale," 1. 796.
M. N. D., 11, 3.
173 Chaucer, 1. 986.
174 Chaucer, " The Tale of the Wyf of Bathe," Skeat ed., 1894, 1. 4.
176 Nichols, Prog. of Eliz., Vol. 111, p. I 18.