THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

EARTHLY LIFE OF FAIRIES 113
The fairy bread was " the most delicious Bread that
ever I did eat, either before or since," * and had the
added property of being able to keep people alive with-
out the aid of any other food, if the case of Anne Jef-
feries be true. She " was fed by these Fairies from that
Harvest-time to the next Christmas-Day," and being ar-
rested on a warrant for having been fed by the fairies,
she went with the Constable to the Justice, and he sent her to
Bodmin Jayl, and ordered the Prison-Keeper that she should be
kept without Victuals; and she was so kept, and yet she lived, and
that without complaining.1°
The flour for the fairies' bread, originally, seems to
have been made out of the corn which they grew them-
selves. According to Robert Kirk,
when severall Countreys were unhabitated by ws, these had their
easy Tillage above Ground, as we now. The Print of those
Furrous do yet remaine to be seen on the Shoulders of very high
Hills, which was done when the champayn Ground was Wood and
F0rrest.l l
In the 16th century, there is no record of the actual
grain fields of the fairies. Instead, they were believed
to subsist, in the main, on mortal crops and mortal food
which they obtained by thievery and by terrorism, making
Cf. also The Tempest, The Works of Shakspeare by Mr. Theobald,
1772, Vol. I, p. 75: '' 'Where the bee sucks, there suck I.' I have
ventured to vary from the printed copies here. Could Ariel, a spirit
of a refin'd aetherial essence, be intended to want food! " Changed
by Theobald to: "Where the bee sucks, there lurk I."
J. Morgan, Phoenix Brit., p. 549.
O Ibid., p. 549.
Ibid., p. 550.
l1 Sec. Comm., p. 7.