The Mythology of Fairies - Thomas Keightley

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of Tilbury, and other writers of the thirteenth century, the Fada or Fée seems to be regarded as a being different from human kind.12

      On the other hand, in a passage presently to be quoted from a celebrated old romance, we shall meet a definition of the word Fée, which expressly asserts that such a being was nothing more than a woman skilled in magic; and such, on examination, we shall find to have been all the Fées of the romances of chivalry and of the popular tales; in effect, that fée is a participle, and the words dame or femme is to be understood.

      In the middle ages there was in use a Latin verb, fatare,13 derived from fatum or fata, and signifying to enchant. This verb was adopted by the Italian, Provençal14 and Spanish languages; in French it became, according to the analogy of that tongue, faer, féer. Of this verb the past participle faé, fé; hence in the romances we continually meet with les chevaliers faés, les dames faées, Oberon la faé, le cheval étoit faé, la clef était fée, and such like. We have further, we think, demonstrated15 that it was the practice of the Latin language to elide accented syllables, especially in the past participle of verbs of the first conjugation, and that this practice had been transmitted to the Italian, whence fatato-a would form fato-a, and una donna fatata might thus become una fata. Whether the same was the case in the Provençal we cannot affirm, as our knowledge of that dialect is very slight; but, judging from analogy, we would say it was, for in Spanish Hadada and Hada are synonymous. In the Neapolitan Pentamerone Fata and Maga are the same, and a Fata sends the heroine of it to a sister of hers, pure fatata.

      Ariosto says of Medea—

      E perchè per virtù d' erbe e d'incanti

       Delle Fate una ed immortal fatta era.

       I Cinque Canti, ii. 106.

      The same poet, however, elsewhere says—

      Queste che or Fate e dagli antichi foro

       Già dette Ninfe e Dee con più bel nome.—Ibid. i. 9.

      and,

      Nascemmo ad un punto che d'ogni altro male

       Siamo capaci fuorchè della morte.—Orl. Fur. xliii. 48.

      which last, however, is not decisive. Bojardo also calls the water-nymphs Fate; and our old translators of the Classics named them fairies. From all this can only, we apprehend, be collected, that the ideas of the Italian poets, and others, were somewhat vague on the subject.

      From the verb faer, féer, to enchant, illude, the French made a substantive faerie, féerie,16 illusion, enchantment, the meaning of which was afterwards extended, particularly after it had been adopted into the English language.

      We find the word Faerie, in fact, to be employed in four different senses, which we will now arrange and exemplify.

      1. Illusion, enchantment.

      Plusieurs parlent de Guenart,

       Du Loup, de l'Asne, de Renart,

       De faeries et de songes, De phantosmes et de mensonges. Gul. Giar. ap. Ducange.

      Where we must observe, as Sir Walter Scott seems not to have been aware of it, that the four last substantives bear the same relation to each other as those in the two first verses do.

      Me bifel a ferly

       Of faërie, me thought. Vision of Piers Plowman, v. 11.

      Maius that sit with so benigne a chere,

       Hire to behold it seemed faërie. Chaucer, Marchante's Tale.

      It (the horse of brass) was of faërie, as the peple semed, Diversè folk diversëly han demed.—Squier's Tale.

      The Emperor said on high,

       Certes it is a faërie, Or elles a vanité.—Emare.

      With phantasme and faërie, Thus she bleredè his eye.—Libeaus Disconus.

      The God of her has made an end,

       And fro this worldès faërie Hath taken her into companie.—Gower, Constance.

      Mr. Ritson professes not to understand the meaning of faerie in this last passage. Mr. Ritson should, as Sir Hugh Evans says, have 'prayed his pible petter;' where, among other things that might have been of service to him, he would have learned that 'man walketh in a vain shew,' that 'all is vanity,' and that 'the fashion of this world passeth away;' and then he would have found no difficulty in comprehending the pious language of 'moral Gower,' in his allusion to the transitory and deceptive vanities of the world.

      2. From the sense of illusion simply, the transition was easy to that of the land of illusions, the abode of the Faés, who produced them; and Faerie next came to signify the country of the Fays. Analogy also was here aiding; for as a Nonnerie was a place inhabited by Nonnes, a Jewerie a place inhabited by Jews, so a Faerie was naturally a place inhabited by Fays. Its termination, too, corresponded with a usual one in the names of countries: Tartarie, for instance, and 'the regne of Feminie.'

      Here beside an elfish knight

       Hath taken my lord in fight,

       And hath him led with him away

       Into the Faërie, sir, parmafay.—Sir Guy.

      La puissance qu'il avoit sur toutes faeries du monde. Huon de Bordeaux.

      En effect, s'il me falloit retourner en faerie, je ne sçauroye ou prendre mon chemin.—Ogier le Dannoys.

      That Gawain with his oldè curtesie,

       Though he were come agen out of faërie. Squier's Tale.

      He (Arthur) is a king y-crowned in Faërie, With sceptre and pall, and with his regalty Shallè resort, as lord and sovereigne, Out of Faerie, and reignè in Bretaine, And repair again the ouldè Roundè Table. Lydgate, Fall of Princes, bk. viii. c. 24.

      3. From the country the appellation passed to the inhabitants in their collective capacity, and the Faerie now signified the people of Fairy-land.17

      Of the fourth kind of Spritis called the Phairie.

       K. James, Demonologie, 1. 3.

      Full often time he, Pluto, and his quene

       Proserpina, and alle hir faërie, Disporten hem, and maken melodie About that well.—Marchante's Tale.

      The feasts that underground the Faërie did him make, And there how he enjoyed the Lady of the Lake. Drayton, Poly-Olb., Song IV.

      4. Lastly, the word came to signify the individual denizen of Fairy-land, and was equally applied to the full-sized fairy knights and ladies of romance, and to the pygmy elves that haunt the woods and dells. At what precise period it got this its last, and subsequently most usual sense, we are unable to say positively; but it was probably posterior to Chaucer, in whom it never occurs, and certainly anterior to Spenser, to whom, however, it seems chiefly indebted for its future general currency.18 It was employed during the sixteenth century19 for the Fays of romance, and also, especially by translators, for the Elves, as corresponding to the Latin Nympha.

      They believed that king Arthur was not dead, but carried awaie by the Fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then returne again and reign in as great authority as ever.

      Hollingshed, bk. v. c. 14. Printed 1577.

      Semicaper Pan

       Nunc tenet, at quodam tenuerunt tempore nymphæ.

       Ovid, Met. xiv. 520.

      The halfe-goate Pan that howre

       Possessed it, but heretofore it was the Faries' bower.

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