256 Whene'er such wanderers I meete, As from their night-sports they trudge home; With counterfeiting voice I greete And call them on, with me to roame Thro' woods, thro' lakes, Thro' bogs, thro' brakes; Or else, unseene, with them I go, All in the nicke To play some tricke And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho! Sometimes I meete them like a man; Sometimes, an ox, sometimes, a hound; To trip and trot about them round. But if, to ride, My backe they stride, More swift than wind away I go, Ore hedge and lands, Thro' pools and ponds 25 I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho! 40 When lads and lasses merry be, With possets and with juncates fine; Unseene of all the company, I eat their cakes and sip their wine; And, to make sport, I fart and snort; And out the candles I do blow: 45 The maids I kiss ; They shrieke-Who's this? I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho! Yet now and then, the maids to please, At midnight I card up their wooll; And while they sleepe, and take their ease, I grind at mill Their malt up still; I dress their hemp, I spin their tow. If any 'wake, And would me take, I wend me, laughing, ho, ho, ho! When house or harth doth sluttish lye, I pinch the maidens black and blue; I do them take, And on the key-cold floor them throw. If out they cry, Then forth I fly, And loudly laugh out, ho, ho, ho! When any need to borrowe ought, We lend them what they do require : And for the use demand we nought; Our owne is all we do desire. 50 55 60 65 70 If to repay, They do delay, Abroad amongst them then I go, And night by night, I them affright 75 With pinchings, dreames, and ho, ho, ho! 80 When lazie queans have nought to do, But study how to cog and lye; To make debate and mischief too, "Twixt one another secretlye: I marke their gloze, And it disclose, To them whom they have wronged so; When I have done, I get me gone, And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho! When men do traps and engins set In loop holes, where the vermine creepe, Who from their foldes and houses, get 85 90 Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe: I spy the gin, And enter in, And seeme a vermine taken so; But when they there Approach me neare, I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho! 95 100 By wells and rills, in meadowes greene, We chant our moon-light minstrelsies. 105 Away we fling; And babes new borne steal as we go, We leave instead, And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho! From hag-bred Merlin's time have I Thus nightly revell'd to and fro: And for my pranks men call me by The name of Robin Good-fellow. Fiends, ghosts, and sprites, Who haunt the nightes, The hags and goblins do me know; And beldames old My feates have told; So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho! 110 115 120 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. COME, follow, follow me, You, fairy elves that be: Come follow Mab your queene. When mortals are at rest, 5 Through key-holes we do glide; 10 |