All was this Lond fulfilled of Faerie,
The Elf-Quene with hire jolie company
Daunsed full oft in many a grene mede,
This was the old opinion as I rede.
I speke of many hundred yeres agoe."[313:A]
After the death of Chaucer, indeed, who treated these beautiful credulities with a pleasant vein of ridicule, the fate of the Gothic System of Fairies seems to have been considerably different in two opposite quarters of our island; for, while in Scotland the original character of this mythology, and especially that of its harsher features, was closely preserved, it received in England, and principally through the medium of our great dramatic bard, a milder aspect, and a more fanciful and sportive texture. The dissimilarity thus resulting has been noticed by a late elegant tourist, who observes, that "the Scottish Fairy is described with more terrific attributes than are to be found in the traces of a belief in such beings in England[313:B];" a remark which is corroborated by Mr. Scott, who, after noticing this stricter retention of the ancient character of the Gothic Fairy in North Britain, assigns two causes for its occurrence, the enmity of the Presbyterian clergy to this supposed "light infantry of Satan," and the aspect of the country, "as we should naturally attribute," he adds, "a less malicious disposition, and a less frightful appearance, to the fays who glide by moon-light through the oaks of Windsor, than to those who haunt the solitary heaths and lofty mountains of the North."[313:C] In fact, while the English, through Shakspeare, seem chiefly to have adopted and improved that part of the Gothic Mythology
which relates to the Bright or Benignant race of Fairies, the Scotch have, with few exceptions, received and fostered that wilder and more gloomy portion of the creed which developes the agency and disposition of the Swart or Malignant tribe. A short detail, therefore, of the two systems, as they appear to have existed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, if compared with the features of the Scandinavian Mythology which we have just enumerated, will exhaust the subject of our present enquiry, placing the sources of our popular superstitions on these topics, and the poetical embellishments of Shakspeare, in a perspicuous point of view.
Of the Scottish Elves, two kinds have been uniformly handed down by tradition, the Fair and the Swart, but both are alike represented as prone to evil, and analogous therefore to the Illar Norner, or Evil Fairies of the Scandinavians. They were also often termed the Good Neighbours or People, as a kind of deprecatory compliment, in order to soften and appease the malignancy of their temper.[314:A] In a rare treatise written towards the close of the seventeenth century, by Mr. Robert Kirk, minister at Aberfoill, and entitled, "The Nature and Actions of the Subterranean, and for the most part, Invisible People, heretofoir going under the Name of Elves, Faunes, and Fairies, or the lyke, &c. &c.[314:B]," a very curious detail is given of the
Fairy Superstitions of Scotland, as they have prevailed in that country, from the earliest period to the year 1690, a work which we may safely take as our text and guide in delineating the character of the Scottish Fairy, as it existed in the days of Shakspeare.
To the gloomy and unhallowed nature and disposition of these North British Elves, Mr. Kirk bears the most unqualified testimony:—"These Siths or Fairies," he observes, "they call Sleagh Maith, or the Good People, it would seem, to prevent the dint of their ill Atempts, (for the Irish use to bless all they fear Harme of;) and are said to be of a middle Nature betuixt Man and Angel, as were Dæmons thought to be of old;—they are said to have no discernible Religion, Love, or Devotion towards God, the blessed Maker of all: they disappear whenever they hear his Name invocked, or the Name of Jesus, nor can they act ought at that Time after hearing of that sacred Name.—Some say their continual Sadnesse is because of their pendulous state, as uncertain what at the last Revolution will become of them, when they are locked up into ane unchangeable Condition; and if they have any frolic Fitts of Mirth, 'tis as the constrained grinning of a Mort-head, or rather as acted on a stage, and moved by another, ther (than?) cordially comeing of themselves."[315:A]