Gower, in his tale of Narcissus, professedly from Ovid, says—
“——As he cast his loke
Into the well,——
He sawe the like of his visage,
And wende there were an ymage
Of such a nymphe, as tho was faye.”
(Confessio amantis, fo. 20, b.)
In his Legend of Constance is this passage:—
“Thy wife which is of fairie
Of suche a childe delivered is,
Fro kinde, whiche stante all amis.”
(Ibid. fo. 32, b.)
In another part of his book is a story “Howe the Kynge of Armenis daughter mette on a tyme a companie of the fairy.” These “ladies,” ride aside “on fayre [white] ambulende horses,” clad, very magnificently, but all alike, in white and blue, and wore “corownes on their heades;” but they are not called fays in the poem, nor does the word fay or fairie once occur therein.
The fairies or elves of the British isles are peculiar to this part of the world, and are not, so far as literary information or oral tradition enables us to judge, to be found in any other country. For this fact the authority of father Chaucer will be decisive, till we acquire evidence of equal antiquity in favour of other nations:—
“In olde dayes of the King Artour,
Of which the Bretons speken gret honour,
All was this lond fulfilled of faerie;
The elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie,
Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.
This was the old opinion as I rede;
I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo,
For now the grete charitee and prayers
Of limitoures and other holy freres,
That serchen every land, and every streme,
As thickke as motes in the sunnebeme,
Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,
Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries.”
(Wif of Bathes Tale.)