THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

THE FAIRIES OF SHAKESPEARE 195
ceit of the fairy queen's smallness and that of her elabo-
rate and diminutive state chariot,lo6 furthered, no doubt,
by the influence of the infinitesimal and picturesque fair-
ies of A Midsummer Night's Dream, caught the atten-
tion of Shakespeare's contemporaries, and a new and
diminutive ruler was introduced into the fairy kingdom
who was gradually to usurp the name and office of the
traditional fairy queen, while the trappings and appurte-
nances of her coach initiated a concern with fairy ward-
robes and fairy coaches and fairy furniture which eventu-
Mab and of the various conclusions in regard to her identity, cf.
Modern Language Notes, 1902, Vol. 17, No. I, W. P. Reeves,
I' Shakespeare's Queen Mab."
A possible reference to the Mab used later by Shakespeare as the
fairies' mid-wife, may occur in The Historie of Jacob and Esau, S. R.
1557-1558, V, 6, in Esau's remark to Deborah:
"And come out, thou Mother Mab; out, old rotten witch!
As white as midnight's arsehole or virgin pitch.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Now, come on, thou old hag, what shall I say to thee? "
The following note from Keightley, Fairy Myth., Vol. 11, p. 135, is
very interesting:
" Mab,' says Voss, one of the German translators of Shakespeare,
'is not the Fairy-queen, the same with Titania, as some, misled by
the word queen, have thought. That word in old English, as in
Danish, designates the female sex.' " In the light of the fact that she
is represented as the fairies' mid-wife, and depicted further as the
night-mare, and is never represented with any of the attributes of
sovereignty, there may be more in the observation of Voss, than Mr.
Keightley, who scoffed at his remark, seemed to think.
106 Shakespeare may have derived the idea of the fairy queen's state
chariot from The Queenes Majesties Entertainment at Woodstocke,
where the fairy queen is brought upon the scene in a " waggon"
" drawen with 6. children."