Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft

     '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]

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]

In this passage the bishop plainly shows the fairies maintained their influence in William's imagination, since the courteous keeper was mistaken by their associate champion for Puck or Robin Goodfellow. The spells resorted to to get rid of his supposed delusions are alternatively that of turning the cloak—(recommended in visions of the second-sight or similar illusions as a means of obtaining a certainty concerning the being which is before imperfectly seen[43])—and that of exorcising the spirit with a cudgel; which last, Corbett prudently thinks, ought not to be resorted to unless under an absolute conviction that the exorcist is the stronger party. Chaucer, therefore, could not be serious in averring that the fairy superstitions were obsolete in his day, since they were found current three centuries afterwards.

It is not the less certain that, as knowledge and religion became more widely and brightly displayed over any country, the superstitious fancies of the people sunk gradually in esteem and influence; and in the time of Queen Elizabeth the unceasing labour of many and popular preachers, who declaimed against the 'splendid miracles' of the Church of Rome, produced also its natural effect upon the other stock of superstitions. 'Certainly,' said Reginald Scot, talking of times before his own, 'some one knave in a white sheet hath cozened and abused many thousands, specially when Robin Goodfellow kept such a coil in the country. In our childhood our mothers' maids have so terrified us with an ugly devil having horns on his head, fire in his mouth, and a tail at his breech; eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear, a skin like a negro, and a voice roaring like a lion, whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry, Boh! and they have so frayd us with bull-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, Pans, faunes, sylvans, Kitt-with-the-candlestick, tritons, centaurs, dwarfs, giants, imps, calcars, conjurers, nymphs, changelings, incubus, Robin Goodfellow, the spoorn, the man-in-the-oak, the hellwain, the fire-drake, the puckle, Tom Thumb, Hobgoblin, Tom Tumbler, Boneless, and such other bugbears, that we are afraid of our own shadows, insomuch that some never fear the devil but on a dark night; and then a polled sheep is a perilous beast, and many times is taken for our father's soul, specially in a churchyard, where a right hardy man heretofore durst not to have passed by night but his hair would stand upright. Well, thanks be to God, this wretched and cowardly infidelity, since the preaching of the Gospel, is in part forgotten, and doubtless the rest of these illusions will in a short time, by God's grace, be detected and vanish away.'[44]

It would require a better demonologist than I am to explain the various obsolete superstitions which Reginald Scot has introduced as articles of the old English faith, into the preceding passage. I might indeed say the Phuca is a Celtic superstition, from which the word Pook or Puckle was doubtless derived; and I might conjecture