At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.”[73]It is not easy to reconcile the conflicting details of the disposition, manners,
habits, and influence of these liliputian spirits which we meet with in the early
writers. But on a general survey it appears that they were very diminutive; in
their intercourse with mortals sometimes good-tempered, sometimes malignant;
that they loved and married, and had offspring; that they were very merry, and
loved to dance upon the green, and fill the air with choral music; that they
possessed stores of gold and silver, which they distributed freely; that they were
invisible, but could at will present themselves to mortals; that they were very
timid, and would inflict a summary punishment upon intruders. Their influence
was at its highest on Friday, at noon, and at midnight.
Kirk, the Scotch minister of Aberfoyle, who died in 1688, relates some other
particulars of the “good people.” Their substance, he says, is denser than air; too
subtle to be pierced, and, like that of Milton’s angels, reuniting when divided, or
when any attempt is made to cleave it asunder. Their voice is like unto whistling.
They change their places of abode every quarter of the year, floating near the
surface of the earth; and persons gifted with the second sight have often had
fierce encounters with them. The Highlanders, to preserve themselves and their
cattle against them, went regularly to church on the first Sunday of every
quarter, though they might not return during the interval. At the name of GOD or
JESUS they vanished into thin air. They were of both sexes, and like mankind,
they were mortal.
“Some meagre allusions appear to the Queen of the Fairies, and especially by
King James, whose immediate knowledge may have been derived from the
vignettes in Olaus Magnus, and the words of his own unhappy subjects, who
perished on account of their credulity. Alexoun Perisoma was convicted, on her
confession, of repairing to the ‘queen of Elfame,’ with whom she was familiar.
Jean Wire (1670) declared that, while she taught a school at Dalkeith, a woman
desired to be employed ‘to speik to the Queen of Fairie, and strike ane battell in
hir behalf with the said Queen.’” The name of Titania is familiar enough to all
lovers of English literature. There was a necromancer or wizard, in the reign of
Charles I., who affirmed he had an incantation—“O Micol, Micol, regina
Pigmiorum, veni,”—that Titania could not resist. Lilly tells us that when it was
tested at Hurst wood, first a gentle murmurous sound was heard; then rose a
violent whirlwind, which swelled into a hurricane; and lastly the Fairy Queen
appeared in all her radiance.