"I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes."
"Fairy king, attend, and mark: I do hear the morning lark.
_Oberon._ Then, my queen, in silence sad, Trip we after the night's shade: We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wand'ring moon."
"My fairy lord, this must be done with haste, For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger," etc.
It was fatal, if we may believe Falstaff in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5) to speak to a fairy: "They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die."
Fairies are accustomed to enrich their favorites; and in "A Winter's Tale" (iii. 3) the shepherd says: "It was told me I should be rich by the fairies;"[38] and in "Cymbeline" (v. 4), Posthumus, on waking and finding the mysterious paper, exclaims:
"What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one! Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment Nobler than that it covers," etc.
[38] See Croker's "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland," p. 316.
At the same time, however, it was unlucky to reveal their acts of generosity, as the shepherd further tells us: "This is fairy gold, boy; and 'twill prove so; up with't, keep it close, home, home, the next way. We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy."
The necessity of secrecy in fairy transactions of this kind is illustrated in Massinger and Field's play of "The Fatal Dowry," 1632 (iv. 1),[39] where Romont says:
"But not a word o' it; 'tis fairies' treasure, Which, but reveal'd, brings on the blabber's ruin."
[39] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. ii. p. 493.
Among the many other good qualities belonging to the fairy tribe, we are told that they were humanely attentive to the youthful dead.[40] Thus Guiderius, in "Cymbeline," thinking that Imogen is dead (iv. 2), says:
"With female fairies will his tomb be haunted, And worms will not come to thee;"[41]
there having been a popular notion that where fairies resorted no noxious creature could be found.
[40] Ritson's "Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare," 1875, p. 29.
In the pathetic dirge of Collins a similar allusion is made:
"No wither'd witch shall here be seen, No goblin lead their nightly crew; The female fays shall haunt the green, And dress thy grave with pearly dew."
