The Fées are small and handsome in person; they are fond of dancing in the night-time, and in their dances which are circular they form the Cercles des Fées, or fairy-rings. If any one approaches their dance, he is irresistibly impelled to take part in it. He is admitted with the greatest courtesy; but as the whirling movement increases, and goes faster and faster, his head becomes giddy, and he falls to the ground utterly exhausted. Sometimes the fées amuse themselves by flinging him up to a great height in the air, and, if not killed by the fall, he is found next morning full of bruises. These little beings, it is also said, haunt solitary springs, where they wash their linen, which they then dry by way of preference on the Druidic stones, if at hand, and lay up in the hollows of rocks or barrows, thence named Chambres or Grottes des Fées. But, further, it is said of them, like the Lutins, they select particular farms to which they resort at night, and there making use of horses, harness and utensils of all kinds, they employ themselves at various kinds of work, of which, however, no traces remain in the morning. They are fond of mounting and galloping the horses; their seat is on the neck, and they tie together locks of the mane to form stirrups. Their presence, however, always brings luck, the cattle thrive where they are, the utensils of which they have made use, if broken are mended and made as good as new. They are altogether most kind and obliging, and have been known to give cakes to those to whom they have taken a fancy.
The Fées of Normandy are, like others, guilty of child-changing. A countrywoman as she was one day carrying her child on her arm met a Fée similarly engaged, who proposed an exchange. But she would not consent, even though, she said, the Fée's babe were nine times finer than her own. A few days after, having left her child in the house when she went to work in the fields, it appeared to her on her return that it had been changed. She immediately consulted a neighbour, who to put the matter to the proof, broke a dozen eggs and ranged the shells before the child, who instantly began to cry out, Oh! what a number of cream-pots! Oh! what a number of cream-pots! The matter was now beyond doubt, and the neighbour next advised to make it cry lustily in order to bring its real mother to it. This also succeeded; the Fée came imploring them to spare her child, and the real one should be restored.
There is another kind of Fées known in Normandy by the name of Dames Blanches, or White Ladies, who are of a less benevolent character. These lurk in narrow places, such as ravines, fords and bridges, where passengers cannot well avoid them, and there seek to attract their attention. The Dame Blanche sometimes requires him whom she thus meets to join her in a dance, or to hand her over a plank. If he does so she makes him many courtesies, and then vanishes. One of these ladies named La Dame d'Aprigny, used to appear in a winding narrow ravine which occupied the place of the present Rue Saint Quentin at Bayeux, where, by her involved dances, she prevented any one from passing. She meantime held out her hand, inviting him to join her, and if he did so she dismissed him after a round or two; but if he drew back, she seized him and flung him into one of the ditches which were full of briars and thorns. Another Dame Blanche took her station on a narrow wooden bridge over the Dive, in the district of Falaise, named the Pont d'Angot. She sat on it and would not allow any one to pass unless he went on his knees to her; if he refused, the Fée gave him over to the lutins, the cats, owls, and other beings which, under her sway, haunt the place, by whom he was cruelly tormented.
Near the village of Puys, half a league to the north-east of Dieppe, there is a high plateau, surrounded on all sides by large entrenchments, except that over the sea, where the cliffs render it inaccessible. It is named La Cité de Limes or La Camp de César or simply Le Catel or Castel. Tradition tells that the Fées used to hold a fair there, at which all sorts of magic articles from their secret stores were offered for sale, and the most courteous entreaties and blandishments were employed to induce those who frequented it to become purchasers. But the moment any one did so, and stretched forth his hand to take the article he had selected, the perfidious Fées seized him and hurled him down the cliffs.
Such are the accounts of the Fées still current in Normandy. To these we may add that of Dame Abonde or Habonde, current in the middle ages. William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, who died in the year 1248, thus writes:—
"Sunt et aliæ ludificationes malignorum spiritorum quas faciunt interdum in nemoribus et locis amœnis, et frondosis arboribus, ubi apparent in similitudine puellarum aut matronarum ornatu muliebri et candido; interdum etiam in stabulis, cum luminaribus cereis, ex quibus apparent distillationes in comis et collis equorum et comæ ipsorum diligenter tricatœ; et audies eos, qui talia se vidisse fatentur, dicentes veram ceram esse quæ de luminaribus hujusmodi stillaverat. De illis vero substantiis quæ apparent in domibus quas dominas nocturnas et principem earum vocant Dominam Abundiam pro eo quod domibus, quas frequentant, abundantiam bonorum temporalium præstare putantur non aliter tibi sentiendum est neque aliter quam quemadmodum de illis audivisti. Quapropter eo usque invaluit stultitia hominum et insania vetularum ut vasa vini et receptacula ciborum discooperta relinquant, et omnino nec obstruent neque claudant eis noctibus quibus ad domos suos eas credunt adventuras; ea de causa videlicet ut cibos et potus quasi paratos inveniant, et eos absque difficultate apparitionis pro beneplacito sumant."[547]
Dame Abonde is also mentioned in the same century in the celebrated Roman de la Rose as follows:—
Qui les cine sens ainsine deçoit
Par les fantosmes qu'il reçoit,
Dont maintes gens par lor folie
Cuident estre par nuit estries (allés)
Errans avecques Dame Habonde.
Et dient que par tout le monde
Si tiers enfant de nacion (naissance)
Sunt de ceste condicion,
Qu'ils vont trois fois en la semaine,
Li cum destinée les maine (mène),
Et par tous ces ostex (hôtels) se boutent,
Ne eles ne barres ne redoutent.
Ains sen entrent par les fendaces (fentes)
Par chatieres et par crevaces.
Et se partent des cors les ames
Et vont avec les bonnes dames
Par leur foraius et par maisons.
Et le preuvent par tiex (ces) raisons:
Que les diversités veues
Ne sont pas eu lor liz (lits) venues,
Ains (anzi It.) sunt lor ames que laborent
Et par le monde ainsinc sen corent.[548]
In these places we find that Abundia is a queen or ruler over a band of what we may call fairies, who enter houses at night, feast there, twist the horses' manes, etc. This may remind us at once of Shakespeare's Queen Mab, whom, though only acquainted with Habundia through a passage in Heywood,[549] we conjectured to have derived her name from that of this French dame.[550] Chaucer, by the way, always spells habundance with an h, which may have become m as it does n in Numps from Humphrey; so Edward makes Ned, Oliver Noll, etc.