[418] Endymion, 1591, and in Wm. Bulleyn's Dialogue, 1564, where the minstrel daunces "Trenchmore" and "Heie de gie."—Chappell.]
XXV.
THE FAIRY QUEEN.
We have here a short display of the popular belief concerning Fairies. It will afford entertainment to a contemplative mind to trace these whimsical opinions up to their origin. Whoever considers, how early, how extensively, and how uniformly, they have prevailed in these nations, will not readily assent to the hypothesis of those, who fetch them from the east so late as the time of the Croisades. Whereas it is well known that our Saxon ancestors, long before they left their German forests, believed the existence of a kind of diminutive demons, or middle species between men and spirits, whom they called Duergar or Dwarfs, and to whom they attributed many wonderful performances, far exceeding human art. Vid. Hervarer Saga Olaj Verelj. 1675. Hickes' Thesaur., &c.
This Song is given (with some corrections by another copy) from a book intitled, The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, &c. Lond. 1658, 8vo.
[Dr. Rimbault points out that this song occurs in a rare tract published more than twenty years before the book mentioned above. It is entitled, A description of the King and Queen of the Fayries, their habit, fare, abode, pomp and state, being very delightful to the sense and full of mirth. London, 1635. The song was to be sung to the tune of the Spanish Gypsie, which began—
"O follow, follow me
For we be gypsies three."
Martin Parker wrote a sort of parody called The three merry Cobblers, commencing—