THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

ORIGIN AND NATURE 63
Scot,lS1 by E. K.,la8 by James VI of Scotland,139 and by
many others. Nor did writers of the 17th century fail
to stress the fairies' connection with the Church of Rome,
as any examination of Fairfax's Discourse of Witch-
craft,140 the Leviathan of Hobbes,141 or the poems of
Bishop Corbet 142 will show.
The only difference between the beliefs of scholars
concerning;he nature of fairies and the idea of the fairies
held by the folk (as can be seen from a comparison of the
charms and spells against them, the popular practices
of the folk in regard to them and the statements of
James VI of Scotland, Scot, Burton and Fairfax quoted
above) was that of definition and of credulity. The
former endeavored to classify them in one of the learned
categories of spirits or mythological beings, to trace their
derivation and origin, and, in many instances, to disap-
187 Dis. of Witch., 1651 ed., " To the Readers."
la8 Spenser, Shep. Cal., June Glosse.
I39 Daemon., p. 132.
Preface to Reader, p. 17.
'41 Page 545.
142 The Faer~e's Farewell, Vol. 5, Chalmers ed., 1810, p. 582:
" By which we note the Faries
Were of the old profession;
Theyre songs were Ave Maryes;
Theyre daunces were procession :
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled,
Or elce they take theyre ease."
See also Bourne, Antiq. Yulgares, p. 84: "This Opinion, in the
benighted Ages of Popery, when Hobgoblins and Sprights were in
every City and Town and Village, by every Water and in every Wood,
was very common. But when that Cloud was dispell'd, and the Day
sprung up, those Spirits which wander'd in the Night of Ignorance
and Error, did really vanish at the Dawn of Truth and the Light of
Knowledge." Cf. also Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Vol. 111, p. 496.