The Masque of Love Restored presents us "Robin Good-fellow, he that sweeps the hearth and the house clean, riddles for the country maids, and does all their other drudgery, while they are at hot-cockles," and he appears therefore with his broom and his canles.
In Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess we read of
A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,
By the pale moonshine; dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.
And in the Little French Lawyer (iii. 1), one says, "You walk like Robin Goodfellow all the house over, and every man afraid of you."
In Randolph's Pastoral of Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry, a "knavish boy," called Dorylas, makes a fool of a "fantastique sheapherd," Jocastus, by pretending to be Oberon, king of Fairy. In Act i., Scene 3, Jocastus' brother, Mopsus, "a foolish augur," thus addresses him:—
Mop. Jocastus, I love Thestylis abominably,
The mouth of my affection waters at her.
Jo. Be wary, Mopsus, learn of me to scorn
The mortals; choose a better match: go love
Some fairy lady! Princely Oberon
Shall stand thy friend, and beauteous Mab, his queen,
Give thee a maid of honour.
Mop. How, Jocastus?
Marry a puppet? Wed a mote i' the sun?
Go look a wife in nutshells? Woo a gnat,
That's nothing but a voice? No, no, Jocastus,
I must have flesh and blood, and will have Thestylis:
A fig for fairies!
Thestylis enters, and while she and Mopsus converse, Jocastus muses. At length he exclaims,
Jo. It cannot choose but strangely please his highness.