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[ “Wife of Bath’s Tale.”]
When we see the opinion which Chaucer has expressed of the regular clergy of his time, in some of his other tales, we are tempted to suspect some mixture of irony in the compliment which ascribes the exile of the fairies, with whih the land was “fulfilled” in King Arthur’s time, to the warmth and zeal of the devotion of the limitary friars. Individual instances of scepticism there might exist among scholars, but a more modern poet, with a vein of humour not unworthy of Geoffrey himself, has with greater probability delayed the final banishment of the fairies from England, that is, from popular faith, till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and has represented their expulsion as a consequence of the change of religion. Two or three verses of this lively satire may be very well worth the reader’s notice, who must, at the same time, be informed that the author, Dr. Corbett, was nothing less than the Bishop of Oxford and Norwich in the beginning of the seventeenth century. The poem is named “A proper new Ballad, entitled the Fairies’ Farewell, to be sung or whistled to the tune of the Meadow Brow by the learned; by the unlearned to the tune of Fortune:”—
“Farewell, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they;
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
“Lament, lament, old abbies,
The fairies’ lost command;
They did but change priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land;
And all your children sprung from hence
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your domains.
“At morning and at evening both,
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep and sloth
Those pretty ladies had.
When Tom came home from labour.
Or Cis to milking rose,
Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,
And merrily went their toes.
“Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed, in Queen Mary’s days,
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late Elizabeth,
And later James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath bin.
“By which we note, the fairies
Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave Maries,
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.”
The remaining part of the poem is dedicated to the praise and glory of old William Chourne of Staffordshire, who remained a true and stanch evidence in behalf of the departed elves, and kept, much it would seem to the amusement of the witty bishop, an inexhaustible record of their pranks and feats, whence the concluding verse—
“To William all give audience,
And pray ye for his noddle,
For all the fairies’ evidence
Were lost if that were addle."[41]
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[ Corbett’s Poems, edited by Octavuis Gilchrist, p. 213.]
This William Chourne appears to have attended Dr. Corbett’s party on the iter septentrionale, “two of which were, and two desired to be, doctors;” but whether William was guide, friend, or domestic seems uncertain. The travellers lose themselves in the mazes of Chorley Forest on their way to Bosworth, and their route becomes so confused that they return on their steps and labour—
“As in a conjuror’s circle—William found
A mean for our deliverance,—‘Turn your cloaks,’
Quoth he, ‘for Puck is busy in these oaks;
If ever you at Bosworth would be found,
Then turn your cloaks, for this is fairy ground.’
But ere this witchcraft was performed, we meet
A very man who had no cloven feet.
Though William, still of little faith, has doubt,
‘Tis Robin, or some sprite that walks about.
‘Strike him,’ quoth he, ‘and it will turn to air—
Cross yourselves thrice and strike it.’—‘Strike that dare,’
Thought I, ‘for sure this massy forester,
In strokes will prove the better conjuror.’
But ‘twas a gentle keeper, one that knew
Humanity and manners, where they grew,
And rode along so far, till he could say,
‘See, yonder Bosworth stands, and this your way.’”[42]