Brownies and Bogles Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: PISKY ALSO CHASED THE FARMERS' COWS.]

There were some freakish fairies in old England, whose names were Puckerel, Hob Howland, Bygorn, Bogleboe, Rawhead or b.l.o.o.d.ybones; the last two were certainly scarers of nurseries.

The Boggart was a little spectre who haunted farms and houses, like Brownie or Nis; but he was usually a sorry busybody, tearing the bed-curtains, rattling the doors, whistling through the keyholes, s.n.a.t.c.hing his bread-and-b.u.t.ter from the baby, playing pranks upon the servants, and doing all manner of mischief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RED COMB WAS A TYRANT.]

The Dunnie, in Northumberland, was fond of annoying farmers. When night came, he gave them and himself a rest, and hung his long legs over the crags, whistling and banging his idle heels. Red Comb or b.l.o.o.d.y Cap was a tyrant who lived in every Border castle, dungeon and tower. He was short and thickset long-toothed and skinny-fingered, with big red eyes, grisly flowing hair, and iron boots; a pikestaff in his left hand, and a red cap on his ugly head.

The village of Hedley, near Ebchester, in England, was haunted by a churlish imp known far and wide as the Hedley Gow. He took the form of a cow, and amused himself at milking-time with kicking over the pails, scaring the maids, and calling the cats, of whom he was fond, to lick up the cream. Then he slipped the ropes and vanished, with a great laugh.

In Northern Germany we find the Hedley Gow's next-of-kin, and there, too, were little underground beings who accompanied maids and men to the milking, and drank up what was spilt; but if nothing happened to be spilt in measuring out the quarts, they got angry, overturned the pails, and ran away. These jackanapes were a foot and a half high, and dressed in black, with red caps.

Many ominous fairies, such as the Banshee, portended misfortune and death. The Banshee had a high shrill voice, and long hair. Once in a while she seemed to be as tall as an ordinary woman, very thin, with head uncovered, and a floating white cloak, wringing her hands and wailing. She attached herself only to certain ancient Irish families, and cried under their windows when one of their race was sick, and doomed to die. But she scorned families who had a dash of Saxon and Norman ancestry, and would have nothing to do with them.

Every single fairy that ever was known to the annals of this world was, at times, a mischief-maker. He could no more keep out of mischief than a trout out of water. What lives the dandiprats led our poor great-great-great-great grand-sires! As a very clever living writer put it:

"A man could not ride out without risking an encounter with a Puck or a Will-o'-the Wisp. He could not approach a stream in safety unless he closed his ears to the sirens' songs, and his eyes to the fair form of the mermaid. In the hillside were the dwarfs, in the forest Queen Mab and her court. Brownie ruled over him in his house, and Robin Goodfellow in his walks and wanderings. From the moment a Christian came into the world until his departure therefrom, he was at the mercy of the fairy-folk, and his devices to elude them were many. Unhappy was the mother who neglected to lay a pair of scissors or of tongs, a knife or her husband's breeches, in the cradle of her new-born infant; for if she forgot, then was she sure to receive a changeling in its place. Great was the loss of the child to whose baptism the fairies were not invited, or the bride to whose wedding the Nix, or water-spirit, was not bidden. If the inhabitants of Thale did not throw a black c.o.c.k annually into the Bode, one of them was claimed as his lawful victim by the Nickelmann dwelling in that stream. The Russian peasant who failed to present the Rusalka or water-sprite he met at Whitsuntide, with a handkerchief, or a piece torn from his or her clothing, was doomed to death."

One had to be ever on the lookout to escape the sharp little immortals, whose very kindness to men and women was a species of coquetry, and who never spared their friends' feelings at the expense of their own saucy delight.

CHAPTER IX.

PUCK; AND POETS' FAIRIES.

PUCK, as we said, is Shakespeare's fairy. There is some probability that he found in Cwm Pwca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glens of Clydach, in Breconshire, the original scenes of his fanciful _Midsummer Night's Dream_. This glen used to be crammed with goblins. There, and in many like-named Welsh places, Puck's pranks were well-remembered by old inhabitants. This Welsh Puck was a queer little figure, long and grotesque, and looked something like a chicken half out of his sh.e.l.l; at least, so a peasant drew him, from memory, with a bit of coal. Pwcca, or Pooka, in Wales, was but another name for Ellydan; and his favorite joke was also to travel along before a wayfarer, with a lantern held over his head, leading miles and miles, until he got to the brink of a precipice. Then the little wretch sprang over the chasm, shouted with wicked glee, blew out his lantern, and left the startled traveller to reach home as best he could. Old Reginald Scott must have had this sort of a Puck in mind when he put Kitt-with-the-Candlestick, whose ident.i.ty troubled the critics much, in his catalogue of "bugbears."

The very old word Pouke meant the devil, horns, tail, and all; from that word, as it grew more human and serviceable, came the Pixy of Devonshire, the Irish Phooka, the Scottish Bogle, and the Boggart in Yorkshire; and even one nursery-tale t.i.tle of Bugaboo. Oddest of all, the name Pug, which we give now to an amusing race of small dogs, is an every-day reminder of poor lost Puck, and of the queer changes which, through a century or two, may befall a word. Puck was considered court-jester, a mild, comic, playful creature:

A little random elf Born in the sport of Nature, like a weed, For simple sweet enjoyment of myself, But for no other purpose, worth or need; And yet withal of a most happy breed.

But he kept to the last his character of practical joker, and his alliance with his grim little cousins, the Lyktgubhe and the Kludde.

Glorious old Michael Drayton made a verse of his naughty tricks, which you shall hear:

This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bush doth bolt On purpose to deceive us; And leading us, makes us to stray Long winter nights out of the way: And when we stick in mire and clay, He doth with laughter leave us.

Shakespeare, who calls him a "merry wanderer of the night," and allows him to fly "swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow," was the first to make Puck into a house spirit. The poets were especially attentive to the offices of these house-spirits.

According to them, Mab and Puck do everything in-doors which we think characteristic of a Brownie. William Browne, born in Tavistock, in the county of Devon, where the Pixies lived, prettily puts it how the fairy-queen did--

----command her elves To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves; And further, if by maiden's oversight, Within doors water was not brought at night, Or if they spread no table, set no bread, They should have nips from toe unto the head!

And for the maid who had performed each thing She in the water-pail bade leave a ring.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WELSH PUCK.]

Herrick confirms what we have just heard:

If ye will with Mab find grace, Set each platter in its place; Rake the fire up, and get Water in ere the sun be set; Wash your pails, and cleanse your dairies; s.l.u.ts are loathsome to the fairies!

Sweep your house: who doth not so, Mab will pinch her by the toe.

John Lyly, in his very beautiful _Mayde's Metamorphosis_ has this charming fairy song, which takes us out to the gra.s.s, and the soft night air, and the softer starshine:

By the moon we sport and play; With the night begins our day; As we dance, the dew doth fall.

Trip it, little urchins all!

Lightly as the little bee, Two by two, and three by three, And about go we, and about go we.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MERRY NIGHT-WANDERER.]

What a picture of the wee tribe at their revels! Here is another, from Ben Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_:

Span-long elves that dance about a pool, With each a little changeling in her arms.

In what is thought to be Lyly's play, just mentioned, Mopso, Joculo, and Prisio have something in the way of a pun for each fairy they address:

_Mop._: I pray you, what might I call you?

_1st Fairy_: My name is Penny.

_Mop._: I am sorry I cannot purse you!

_Pris._: I pray you, sir, what might I call you?

_2nd Fairy_: My name is Cricket.

(Mr. Keightley says that the Crickets were a family of great note in Fairyland: many poets celebrated them.)

_Pris._: I would I were a chimney for your sake!

_Joc._: I pray you, you pretty little fellow, what's your name?

_3rd Fairy_: My name is Little Little p.r.i.c.k.

_Joc._: Little Little p.r.i.c.k! O you are a dangerous fairy, and fright all the little wenches in the country out of their beds. I care not whose hand I were in, so I were out of yours.

Drayton, again, gives us a list of tinkling elfin-ladies' names, which are pleasant to hear as the drip of an icicle:

Hop and Mop and Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab their sovereign ever dear, Her special maids-of-honor:

Pib and Tib and Pinck and Pin, Tick and Quick, and Jil and Jin, t.i.t and Nit, and Wap and Win, The train that wait upon her!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BY THE MOON WE SPORT AND PLAY."]

Young Randolph has an equally delightful account in the pastoral drama of _Amyntas_, of his wee folk orchard-robbing; whose chorused Latin Leigh Hunt thus translates, roguishly enough:

We the fairies blithe and antic, Of dimensions not gigantic, Tho' the moonshine mostly keep us, Oft in orchard frisk and peep us.