THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

78 APPEARANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS
The fairy rulers, as far as can be ascertained, were
always represented as full-grown women. ". . . ane
stout woman com in to hir, . . . That was the Quene of
Elfame," 44 was the testimony of Bessie Dunlop, given in
1576. " The king of Fearrie is a braw man, weill
favoured, and broad faced, &c." the witch, Issobell
Gowdie, confessed in 1667.~~
In England, also, only adult men and women seem to
have taken the part of fairy rulers. Do1 Common, full-
grown, played the Fairy Queen of the Alcherni~t,~~ as
did a man, the Fairy Queen in the Valiant Wel~hrnan.~~
An adult actor boasted to Greene that he was " as fa-
mous for Delphrigus, and the king of Fairies, as euer was
any of my time," 48 and Dame Quickly in the quarto,49
and Anne Page in the represented the Fairy
Queen in Merry Wives of Windsor. It is especially
noticeable, also, that Titania in A Midsummer Night's
Dream, surrounded by an infinitesimal court in the
diminutive rendition of fairyland, was represented as
large enough to wind the figure of Bottom in her arms.61
The one diminutive ruler of the fairy kingdom was
Queen Mab of Romeo and Juliet, whose rulership is ap-
parent only in her title. Every other fairy ruler
(Oberon was notoriously enchanted out of his growth)
till the second quarter of the 17th century, as far as can
be seen, was represented as of adult size.
44 Pitcairn, Crirn. Trials, Vol. I, pt. 2, p. 57.
45 Ibid., Gen. App., p. 604.
46 Jonson, Gifford ed., 111, 2.
47 11, I.
@ Greene, Groats-worth of Wit, Grosart ed., 1881-1886, Vo1. 12,
p. 131.
49 Scene xviii.
v, 5.
61 IV, I.