THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

INTRODUCTION 19
In connection with the sources which contain the fairy
lore of the 16th and 17th centuries, it is well to call attention
to the fact, as did Robert Burton in the footnotes
appended to his statements concerning the fairies in The
Anatomy of Melancholy, that in the 16th century the
terms fairies and elves, and later fairy elves, were used
to denote the same being^."^
It is well to note also that, in specific instances, there
was an implied or expressed distinction made in the use
of the two terms.49 The word elves in particular, had a
number of meanings. In some cases, elves seem to have
been regarded as beings more wicked than fairies. This
distinction is most apparent in those localities where oral
tradition and folk tales concerning elves and fairies, instead
of romance.; and scholars' treatises about them,
prevailed, as, in Scotland, where the terms the Queen of
Elfame and the Elf Queen, elf folk and elf boys were
used almost exclusively by the common folk in the evidence
given in witchcraft trials. This is true also in the
early literature of the 16th century, where the term elf
was used to denote a wicked person or being, as for instance,
in the Historie of Jacob and E~au,~' Godly Queen
He~ter,~' The Palice of Honour by Gawin Dougla~,~~
Three Laws," Stanyhurst's translation of the Aeneid of
48 Shilleto ed., 1896, Vol. I, pp. 219 and 220.
49The following note from Dr. Johnson's definition of elf in his
Dictionary, is as pertinent now as in 1755: '' Still, an exact definition,
stating how an elf differed from a fairy on the one side, and from a
goblin on the other, not to mention dwarfs and fiends, is impracti-
cable."
50 Farmer, Early English Dramatists, ad ser., 1906, IT, 2 & 4; V,
10.
51 Farmer, Early English Dramatists, 2d ser., 1906, p. 262.
62 Pinkerton, Scotish Poems, 1792, Vol. I, p. 60.
53 John Bale, Farmer ed., 1907, p. 23.