THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

EARTHLY LIFE OF FAIRIES 137
bereaved of their sences, and commonly of one of their Members to
boot.100
They were able to blast human beings with disease
and deformity and to spoil their cattle and blight their
crops. They could forespeak mortals into a dazed state,
as was apprehended in Gammer Gzlrtons Nedle,lol or re-
duce them to a speechlessness incurable by mortal aid, as
appeared in the trials for witchcraft, but none of these
crimes was overwhelmingly frequent.lo2
Yet had they exercised all their powers for evil con-
sistently and daily, it can be safely assumed that few
Elizabethans would have welcomed their banishment
from England, for, with all the terrors of their regime,
the presence of the fairies added immeasurably to the
joys of living.
No one needed to be ill who was in their favor, since
the race to which the fairies belonged could " cause and
cure most diseases," and knew " the virtues of herbs,
plants, stones, minerals, &c. of all creatures, birds, beasts,
the four elements, stars, planets " and could " aptly
apply and make use of them." lo'
Oberon, Titania, and the fairy train of A Midsummer
Night's Dream were not acting, therefore, under the
inspiration of a poetic imaginatioh when they made use
of herbs to cause love and to satisfy it. They were fol-
100 Pages 510-5 I I.
lol Brett-Smith ed., 1920, I, 2:
" By gogs soule there they syt as still as stones in the streite
As though they had ben take'with fairies or els wt some il sprite "
lo2 See Promptorium Parvulorum, Camden Soc. ed., p. 138, note I ;
Lupton, Thousand Notable Things, p. 157; Pitcairn, Crim. Trials,
Vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 51 & 53, and Gen. App. p. 607; Cockayne, Leechdoms,
Wortcunning, and Star-Craft of Early England, 1864; Pennant, Tour
of Scotland, rpt. in J. Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, Vol. 111, p.
51; Camden, Britannia, Holland trans., p. 147; Richard 111, I, 3.
103 Burton, Anat, of Mel., Vol. I, p. 212.