THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

EARTHLY LIFE OF FAIRIES 121
They were no casual, ordinary pinches that were given,
but thorough and violent nips of a maximum intensity
which had for their avowed purpose a skin " as blue as
bilberry." 41 The efficiency and frequency with which
this result was achieved is evidenced by the fact that the
blueness from the fairy pinches was taken as the standard
for a perfect azure :
HEC. Are the flames blue enough?
Or shall I use a little seething more?
STAD. The nips of fairies upon maid's white hips
Are not more perfect azure.42
These nips were not to be lightly dismissed, as the fol-
lowing directions for a fairy pinching show:
I FAIRY. Pinch him blue.
2 FAIRY. And pinch him blacke.
3 FAIRY. Let him not lacke
Sharp nailes to pinch him blue and red,
Till sleepe has rock'd his addle head.
q FAIRY. For the trespasse hee hath done,
Spots ore all his flesh shall r ~nne.~~
After such an encounter, the victim was left " more like
a Leopard than a man," and could only be relieved of
"These spots" " if you rubbe them ouer with this
Lunarie." 44
Dyce ed., 1833, The Grateful Servant, I, I ; Jonson, Gifford ed.,
Alchemist, 11, 2; Jonson, Morley ed., The Satyr; and C. Middleton,
Chinon of England, p. 30.
The pinching of the fairies seems to have been wholly an English
trait. There is no record of their ~inching, as far as I have been able
to ascertain, in Scotland or Ireland.
41M. W. of W., V, 5.
42 Thomas Middleton, Bullen ed., 1885, Vol. 5, The Witch, I, 2.
43 LyIy, Endimion, IV, 3.
44 Ibid.