Our poet seems to have forgotten himself also in the Legend of Sir Calidore; for though the knight is a Faerie himself, and though such we are to suppose were all the native inhabitants of Faerie-land, yet to the "gentle flood" that tumbled down from Mount Acidale,
ne mote the ruder clown
Thereto approach ne filth mote therein drown;
But Nymphs and Faeries on the banks did sit
In the woods shade which did the waters crown.
B. vi. c. 10. st. vii.
And a little farther, when Calidore gazes on the "hundred naked maidens lily white," that danced around the Graces, he wist not
Whether it were the train of beauty's queen,
Or Nymphs or Faeries, or enchanted show,
With which his eyes mote have deluded been.—St. xvii.
The popular Elves, who dance their circlets on the green, were evidently here in Spenser's mind.[88]
It is now, we think, if not certain, at least highly probable, that the Fairy-land and the Fairies of Spenser are those of romance, to which the term Fairy properly belongs, and that it is without just reason that the title of his poem has been styled a misnomer.[89] After the appearance of his Faerie Queene, all distinction between the different species was rapidly lost, and Fairies became the established name of the popular Elves.
Here, then, we will take our leave of the potent ladies of romance, and join the Elves of the popular creed, tracing their descent from the Duergar of northern mythology, till we meet them enlivening the cottage fireside with the tales of their pranks and gambols.