72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



On this point Mr. Brand * has rightly remarked that the naturalists of 

 the dark ages " owed many obligations to our fairies, for, whatever 

 they found wonderful and could not account for, they easily got rid of 

 by charging to their account. Thus they called those which have 

 since been supposed to have been the heads of arrows or spears, before 

 the use of iron Avas known, JEIf shots.'''' In the same way Shakespeare 

 uses the expression " Elfish-marked " ; \ and also speaks of Elf-locks in 

 *' Romeo and Juliet " J : 



"... This is that very Mab 

 That plats the manes of horses in the night 

 And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, 

 "Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes." 



A disease, too, consisting of a hardness of the side w^as in days gone 

 by termed Elf-cake. Just, then, as the fairies were supposed to be 

 guilty of committing various pranks as seen in the sundry mishaps 

 that befall humanity, so the Will-o'-the-Wisp with its treacherous 

 light was reckoned among them. Thus Shakespeare represents Puck 

 as transforming himself into a fire, by which he clearly alluded to the 

 Will-o'-the-Wisp ; and it may be remembered how the fairy asks 



him 



"... Are you not he 

 That fright the maidens of the villagery, 

 Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? " 



We have already noticed, too, Shakespeare's allusion to Ariel's as- 

 suming this form, who, like Puck, is a fairy. The term Puck, w^hich is 

 evidently the same as the old word " Pouke," a devil or evil spirit, 

 still survives, although its spelling in lapse of years has become some- 

 what altered. The following passage from a modern writer || proves, 

 too, that in some places the idea of Puck as a delusive fairy haunting 

 the woods and fields is not yet extinct : " The peasants in certain dis- 

 tricts of Worcestershire say that they are sometimes what they call 

 * Poake-ledden,' that is, they are occasionally waylaid in the night by a 

 mischievous sprite whom they call Poake, who leads them into ditches, 

 bogs, pools, and other such scrapes, often sets up a loud laugh, and 

 leaves them, quite bewildered, in the lurch." This corresponds w^ith 

 w^hat in Devon is called being Pixy-led ; and various stories are told 

 how the frolicsome pixies deceive travelers with the AYill-o'-the-Wisp, 

 and chuckle over their dismay when they are lost for a time on the moor. 

 By moonlight the Pixy-Monarch was supposed to hold his court, where, 

 like Titania, he gave his subjects their several charges. Some were 

 sent to the mines, where they either good-naturedly led the miner to 

 the richest lode, or maliciously, by noises imitating the stroke of the 



* " Popular Antiquities," 1849, ii, 490. f " Richard III," Act'i, sc. 3. 

 % " Romeo and Juliet," Act i, sc. 4. " Midsummer-Xighfs Dream," Act i, sc. 1. 



I " Mr. J. Allies's " On the Ignis Fatuus." 



