THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

58 ORIGIN AND NATURE
The laws of Scotland pronounced the fairies " spretis
of the devil1 " and the records of the trials of witches
in England, and literature and dissertations on witchcraft
identified them with the devil, either as inhabitants
of Hell or as familiar spirits of the devil.l12
In spite of the nature assigned the fairies by law, a
large body of scholarly opinion tended to minimize their
identification with the devil himself, and seems to have
regarded them as spirits having no connection with
heaven and yet not absolutely wicked nor wholly in the
power of Satan or of his race, but, as their origins -
especially as fallen angels - would make them, spirits
connected with the devil and in his power because of their
former sins and " confined until the day of judgment to
this sublunary world." According to this conception
of them, they were specifically classified as sublunary
devils, and put in the ranks of watery spirits, terrestrial
spirits, or domestic devils.
It was as terrestrial spirits that they were more generally
accepted. In this category, they are put by
Nashe,l14 by Thomas Heyw~od,~~~ and by Robert Kirk.'le
Here, too, they are classified by Burton,ll' and by
Lavater,llB and by the author of A Discourse concerning
Devils and Spirits whose statement can be taken as representative
of this conception of the fairies:
11° Pitcairn, Crim. Trials, 1833, Vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 51 and 162,
See Chap. 11, pp. 72-73.
112 See Chap. IV, pp. 121-122.
lf3 Burton, Anat. of Mel., Vol. I, p. 216.
114 Pierce Penilesse, Vol. I, p. 238.
Hierarchie, pp. 503-504, 510.
Ile Sec. Comm., p. I I.
117Anat. of Mel., Vol. I, p. 217.
1x8 Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by nyght, Eng. trans. 1572, p. 49.