Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton

13

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 508-512.

14

Thoms’s “Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” p. 88.

15

See Nares’s Glossary, vol. ii. p. 695.

16

Mr. Dyce considers that Lob is descriptive of the contrast between Puck’s square figure and the airy shapes of the other fairies.

17

“Deutsche Mythologie,” p. 492.

18

See Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology,” pp. 318, 319.

19

“Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” pp. 79-82.

20

Showing, as Mr. Ritson says, that they never ate.

21

“Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,” 1831, p. 121.

22

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 115.

23

“Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 50.

24

Agate was used metaphorically for a very diminutive person, in allusion to the small figures cut in agate for rings. In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 2), Falstaff says: “I was never manned with an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel.” In “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1) Hero speaks of a man as being “low, an agate very vilely cut.”

25

See Grimm’s “Deutsche Mythologie.”

26

Thoms’s “Three Notelets on Shakespeare,” 1865, pp. 38, 39.

27

See Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology,” 1878, p. 208.

28

See also Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology,” 1852, vol. iii. p. 32, etc.

29

Gunyon’s “Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and Superstitions,” p. 299.

30

Chambers’s “Book of Days,” vol. i. p. 671.

31

Among the various conjectures as to the cause of these verdant circles, some have ascribed them to lightning; others maintained that they are occasioned by ants. See Miss Baker’s “Northamptonshire Glossary,” vol. i. p. 218; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 480-483; and also the “Phytologist,” 1862, pp. 236-238.

32

Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 112.

33

Ritson’s “Fairy Mythology,” 1878, pp. 26, 27.

34

Quoted by Brand, “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 481.

35

Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. p. 483.

36

Halliwell-Phillipps’s “Illustrations of Fairy Mythology,” p. 167; see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 122, 123.

37

“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” pp. 126, 127.

38

See Croker’s “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland,” p. 316.

39

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 493.

40

Ritson’s “Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare,” 1875, p. 29.

41

Some copies read them.

42

“Fairy Mythology,” pp. 27, 28.

43

We may compare Banquo’s words in “Macbeth” (ii. 1):

“Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose.”

44

“Comedy of Errors” (iv. 2) some critics read:

“A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough.”

45

This superstition is fully described in chapter on Birth.

46

“Superstitions of Witchcraft,” 1865, p. 220.

47

“Shakspere Primer,” 1877, p. 63.

48

“Rationalism in Europe,” 1870, vol. i. p. 106.

49

“Demonology and Witchcraft,” 1881, pp. 192, 193.

50

“Shakespeare,” 1864, vol ii. p. 161.

51

See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 51.

52

Webster’s Works, edited by Dyce, 1857, p. 238.

53

“Illustrations of Scottish History, Life, and Superstition,” 1879, p. 322.

54

Spalding’s “Elizabethan Demonology,” 1880, p. 86.

55

“Notes to Macbeth” (Clark and Wright), 1877, p. 137.

56

Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, book iii. chap. 16. See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 235.

57

“Elizabethan Demonology,” pp. 102, 103. See Conway’s “Demonology and Devil-lore,” vol. ii. p. 253.

58

“Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 8.

59

Graymalkin – a gray cat.

60

Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” p. 181.

61

Olaus Magnus’s “History of the Goths,” 1638, p. 47. See note to “The Pirate.”

62

See Hardwick’s “Traditions and Folk-Lore,” pp. 108, 109; Kelly’s “Indo-European Folk-Lore,” pp. 214, 215.

63

In Greek, ἑπι ῥιπους πλειν, “to go to sea in a sieve,” was a proverbial expression for an enterprise of extreme hazard or impossible of achievement. – Clark and Wright’s “Notes to Macbeth,” 1877, p. 82.

64

“Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, book iii. chap. i. p. 40; see Spalding’s “Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 103.

65

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. iii. pp. 8-10.

66

Douce, “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 245, says: “See Adlington’s Translation (1596, p. 49), a book certainly used by Shakespeare on other occasions.”

67

See Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,” 1879, p. 181.

68

See Pig, chap. vi.

69

“Notes to Macbeth,” by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 84.

70

See Jones’s “Credulities, Past and Present,” 1880, pp. 256-289.

71

Allusions to this superstition occur in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (i. 2), “love is a familiar;” in “1 Henry VI.” (iii. 2), “I think her old familiar is asleep;” and in “2 Henry VI.” (iv. 7), “he has a familiar under his tongue.”

72

See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, p. 85.

73

Sec Dyce’s “Glossary,” pp. 18, 19.

74

“Notes to Macbeth” (Clark and Wright), pp. 81, 82.

75

We may compare the words “unquestionable spirit” in “As You Like It” (iii. 2), which means “a spirit averse to conversation.”

76

Douce’s “Illustrations