THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

ROBIN GOODFELLOW 245
the practical jokes of Robin Goodfellow, especially from
being misled by him. In Tyndale's Exposition of the
First Epistle of St. John, this belief is set down as fol-
lows :
. . . the scripture is locked up and become so dark unto them, that
they grope for the door, and can find no way in; and is become a
maze unto them, in which they wander as in a mist, or (as we say)
led by Robin Goodfellow, that they cannot come to the right way,
no, though they turn their caps; Io4
while the Zter Boreale of Bishop Corbet of nearly a cen-
tury later contains the admonition
. . . . . . 'I Turne your cloakes,"
Quoth he, " for Puck is busy in these oakes." lo6
However Robin Goodfellow's clothes might vary, one
item of his costume never changed. This was the broom
or threshing flail which he habitually carried. Find him
in whatever company you may, his broom especially is in
easy reach. In Love Restored, he " e'en went back, and
stuck to this shape . . . of mine own, with my broom
and my candles, and came on confidently." la6 In Grim,
the Collier of Croydon,lo7 and in L'Allegro,lo8 he carries
a flail. One of his chief occupations, according to Jon-
son,lo9 Scot,ll0 and Tyndale,ll' was sweeping. And
104 Expositions and Notes, p. 139.
lo6 Page 579. It is interesting to note in this connection that the
small screech owls whose habit it is to appear at twilight and dart
down upon the head of any unwary pedestrian are called in some
counties of England Puckridge, and that the superstition still pre-
vails among the negroes of the South that turning one's cap or some
portion of wearing apparel inside out will drive away screech owls.
lo6 Jonson, Morley ed., p. 169.
lo7 IV, I.
lo8 Milton, 1. 108.
lo9 Love Restored, Morley ed., p. 167.
11° Dis. of Witch., 1651 ed., p. 66.
Ill " Obed. of a Chr. Man," in Doctrinal Treatises, p. 321.
17