The Fairies, which gave in old times one of the most interesting and poetical2 features to the country, have all vanished clean away. Of those supernatural and airy beings who used to haunt the woodlands, hamlets, and solitary3 houses of Old England, they were the first to depart. “They were of the old profession”—true Catholics; and with Catholicism they departed; and have only left their interest in the pages of our poets, who still cling with fondness to the fairy mythology4. Bogards, barguests, ghosts, and hobgoblins, still, in many an obscure hamlet and the more primitive5 parts of the country, maintain much of their ancient power, and continue to quicken the steps of the clown in lonely places, of the schoolboy past the churchyard, and to add a fearful interest to the winter fireside stories in cottages and farms. Witchcraft7, spite of what Sir Walter Scott asserted in his Demonology, is far from having ceased to have stanch9 believers in numerous places. Are not many of the Methodists firmly persuaded of demoniacal possession? It is not long ago that Mr. Heaton, one of their ministers, published a volume in support of this doctrine10, and detailed11 a very extraordinary case of possession of a boy who mounted on the surbase of the room, and danced there, on a space where he could not for a moment support himself when not under this influence. In this curious book, which I sent to Sir Walter Scott, and which he assured me he meant to make use of, but was, no doubt, prevented by his quickly succeeding decline, is a minute[474] account of all the process of praying the spirit out of the lad, of the dogged resistance of the demon8, and their final triumph over him. John Wesley was strongly impressed with a belief of such things, as may be seen in his “News from the Invisible World,” and in the pages of the old series of the Wesleyan Magazine. And if recent demoniacal possession be a living faith of the nineteenth century, witchcraft has no lack of votaries12. In Nottingham, a town of seventy thousand inhabitants, I knew a shoemaker who stood six feet in height, and “might dance in iron mail,” who lately lived, and probably still lives, in constant dread13 of the evil arts of witches and wizards. On the lintel and sill of his door, he had the ancient charm of reversed horse-shoes nailed; but he said, he found them of little use against the audacious malice14 of witchcraft. He had standing15 regularly by his fireside a sack-bag of salt, for he bought it by a sack at a time for the purpose, and of this he frequently, during the day, but more especially on dark and stormy nights, took a handful, with a few horsenail stumps16, and crooked17 pins, and casting them into the fire together, prayed to the Lord to torment18 all witches and wizards in the neighbourhood, and he believed that they were tormented19. As I stood by the man’s fire while he related this, it was burning with the beautiful purple hue20 of salt. On all other subjects he appeared as grave and sober as his neighbours.
In the obscure alleys21 of large towns, as well as in solitary situations, fortunetellers still live, and to my own knowledge draw many customers, besides the gipsies, who haunt there in winter time, and are the regular professors of palmistry. Witches, spectres, gipsies, and cunning people, still remain to diversify22 common life, spite of all the spread of education; but the fairies, pleasant little people, are gone for ever, and have been gone long. Chaucer, indeed, says that they were gone in his day.
In olde dayes of the king Artour,
Of which that Bretons speke gret honour,
All was this land ful filled of faerie;
The elf-quene, with her joly compagnie
Danced ful oft in many a grene mede.
This was the old opinion as I rede;
I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo,[475]
For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limitoures and other holy freeres,
That serchen every land and every streme,
Blissing halles, chambres, kitchenes and boures,
Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no fairies;
Ther walketh now the limitour himself.
FAREWELL TO THE FAIRIES.
Farewell rewards and fairies!
Good housewives now may say;
For now foule sluts in dairies,
Doe fare as well as they;
Than mayds were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?
The Fairies’ lost command;
They did but change priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land:
And all your children stolen from thence
Are now growne Puritanes,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your demesnes.
At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
Those pretty ladies had.
When Tom came home from labour,
Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabour,
And merrily went their toes.
Witness those rings and roundelayes
Of theirs which yet remain;
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
But since of late Elizabeth,
And later James came in,
They never danced on any heath
By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave Maries,
Their dances were procession.
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.
A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure;
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth was punished sure.
To pinch such black and blue;
O how the commonwealth34 doth need
Such justices as you.
Now they have left our quarters;
A Register they have,
A man both wise and grave.
By one that I could name
To William for the same.
To William Churne of Staffordshire
Who every meal can mend your cheer
With tales both old and true:
To William all give audience,
And pray ye for his noddle;
For all the fairies’ evidence
Possibly the fairies may yet linger in the dales of Ettrick Forest, where poor Hogg used to see them, and sung so many beautiful lays in their honour that he may be styled the Poet Laureate of the Fairies. But he is gone now—gone after many another great and shining light of the age, having made the shepherd’s plaid almost as glorious as the prophet’s mantle—and they may not choose to reveal themselves to another. They may possibly yet pay an occasional visit to Staffordshire, the county of William Churne; and we have, indeed, heard of them doing some pleasant miracles on Midsummer-eve on Calden-Low. If we are[477] to believe the report of a certain little damsel, as given in Tait’s Magazine, of June 1835—
Some, they played with the water,
And rolled it down the hill;
And this, they said, shall merrily turn
For there has been no water
Ever since the first of May,
By the dawning of the day.
O, the miller, how he will laugh
As he sees the mill-dam rise—
The jolly old miller how he will laugh
Till the tears fill both his eyes.
And some they seized the little winds,
That sounded over the hill,
And each put a horn into his mouth,
“And there,” said one, “the merry winds go
Away from every horn,
From the blind old widow’s corn.”
O! the poor blind widow—
Though she has mourned so long,
She’ll be merry enough when the mildew’s gone,
And the corn stands stiff and strong.
And some they brought the brown lintseed,
And flung it down from the Low;
“And this,” said they, “by the sunrise,
All full of flowers by night.
With a long beard on his chin,
“And I want some more to spin.
And I want to spin another;
A little sheet for Mary’s bed,
And with that I could not help but laugh,
And I laugh’d out loud and free,
And then on the top of the Calden-Low
There was no one left but me.
And all on the top of the Calden-Low
The mists were cold and grey,
And nothing I saw but the mossy stones,
That round about me lay.
This deponent saith, that coming down from the Low, she saw all their benevolent50 intentions already realized. It is to be hoped that such visits may be again paid to Calden-Low, but we have our doubts.
The Pixies may possibly still haunt those caves and dells in Devonshire where Coleridge and Carrington saw them; but with those exceptions—and they received on the faith of poets, who take license—we believe they have all emigrated. In the lays of Shakspeare and Milton, they are made immortal51 denizens52 of our soil; and we shall never see moonlight, or come upon the VER-RINGS that still mark our plains and downs, without feeling and poetically53 believing that the fairies have been there. In Wales, however, the common people still declare that they abide54. Scotland may have given up the brownies, and kelpies, and urisks; and we may no longer have hobthrushes dwelling55 amongst our rocks, or Robin56 Goodfellow, alias57 Puck, alias Hobgoblin, playing his pranks, as in this confession58:
Whene’er night-wanderers I meet,
With counterfeiting60 voice I greete,
And call them on with me to roame,
Through woods, through lakes,
Or else unseen with them I go,
All in the nicke,
To play some tricke,
And frolicke it with ho, ho, ho!
Sometimes I meet them like a man;
Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;
And to a horse I turn me can,
But if to ride
My backe they stride,
More swift than wind away I go,
O’er hedge and lands,
Through pools and ponds
I winny, laughing ho, ho, ho!
[479]
He may not come to play those pranks, nor as Milton has described his visits to the farm:
To earn the cream-bowl duly set.
The thrashing-machine has thrown the lubber-fiend out of employment; but the Welsh still declare themselves honoured by the continuance of these night-wanderers. They have still the corpse-candles; and hear Gabriel’s hounds hunting over the hills by night, and stoutly63 avow64 that the fairies are as numerous there as ever. There is a waterfall at Aberpergum, called the Fairies’ Waterfall, where they are, almost any night to be heard singing; and I have heard a very grave Friend declare that he has seen them dancing in a green meadow, as he rode home at night. How long, indeed, this may continue, one cannot tell; for old Morgan Lewis, who for fifty years has acted as guide to the beautiful waterfalls of Neath Valley, and is a most firm believer in all the Fairy faith, especially of their luring65 children away by assuming the forms of their deceased relatives, and offering them fairy-bread to eat, which changes their natures, and they are compelled to join the Elfin troop—declares that they are now gone from that neighbourhood; that “the spirit of man is become too strong for them.” A fair friend has sketched66 for me, the old man in the attitude of describing to a party the exact spot on which his father saw their very last appearance. Behind him rises the D?nas Rock, from time immemorial the sanctum sanctorum of Welsh fairyland; and old Morgan is exclaiming, “They are gone! they are gone! and we’ll never see them more!”
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1
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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4
mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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5
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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6
con
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| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
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7
witchcraft
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| n.魔法，巫术 | |
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demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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9
stanch
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| v.止住（血等）；adj.坚固的；坚定的 | |
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10
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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11
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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12
votaries
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| n.信徒( votary的名词复数 )；追随者；（天主教）修士；修女 | |
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13
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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14
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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15
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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16
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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17
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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18
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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19
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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20
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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21
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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22
diversify
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| v.（使）不同，（使）变得多样化 | |
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23
motes
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| n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点 | |
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24
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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25
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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26
hearths
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| 壁炉前的地板，炉床，壁炉边( hearth的名词复数 ) | |
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27
lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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28
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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29
sloth
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| n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散 | |
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30
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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31
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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32
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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33
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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34
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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35
peruse
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| v.细读，精读 | |
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36
pranks
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| n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
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37
laud
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| n.颂歌；v.赞美 | |
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38
addle
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| v.使腐坏，使昏乱 | |
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39
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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40
blithe
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| adj.快乐的，无忧无虑的 | |
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41
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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42
mildew
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| n.发霉；v.（使）发霉 | |
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43
weaver
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| n.织布工；编织者 | |
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44
outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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45
dwindling
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| adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 ) | |
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46
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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47
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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48
hempen
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| adj. 大麻制的, 大麻的 | |
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49
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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50
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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51
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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52
denizens
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| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
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53
poetically
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| adv.有诗意地，用韵文 | |
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54
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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55
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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56
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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57
alias
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| n.化名；别名；adv.又名 | |
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58
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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59
trudge
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| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
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60
counterfeiting
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| n.伪造v.仿制，造假( counterfeit的现在分词 ) | |
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61
bogs
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| n.沼泽，泥塘( bog的名词复数 )；厕所v.（使）陷入泥沼， （使）陷入困境( bog的第三人称单数 )；妨碍，阻碍 | |
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62
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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63
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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64
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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65
luring
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的现在分词形式） | |
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66
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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