In describing the
haunts of his "Sad Shepherd," he says--
"There, in the stocks of trees, white fays do dwell,
And span-long elves that dance about a pool."
Shakspeare, too, in several of his plays, makes us quite familiar with the
fairy people. Shakspeare, you are aware, wrote in the time of Elizabeth,
and as late as that period, there were thousands in England and Scotland in
whose creed the existence of such a race of spirits was a very important
article. It was not long, however, after this, before the superstition
about the fairies--which, at the worst, was a very foolish affair--began to
decline. But that decline brought a dark night to thousands of poor,
innocent men and women; for then came the era of witchcraft, and persons of
every rank, convicted of this imaginary crime, were hurried to the scaffold
or the stake.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Dr. Corbett, Bishop of Oxford
and Norwich, wrote a very humorous satire on the fairy superstition, called
"The Fairies' Farewell, a proper new ballad to be sung or whistled to the
tune of Meadow Brow.
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