The allusion by Shakespeare to the "Will-o'-the-Wisp," where he speaks of Puck as "sometime a fire," is noticed elsewhere, this being one of the forms under which this fairy was supposed to play his midnight pranks.
Referring, in the next place, to the several names of Shakespeare's fairies, we may quote from "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 3), where Mrs. Page speaks of "urchins, ouphes, and fairies"--urchin having been an appellation for one class of fairies. In the "Maydes' Metamorphosis" of Lyly (1600), we find fairies, elves, and urchins separately accommodated with dances for their use. The following is the _urchin's_ dance:
"By the moone we sport and play, With the night begins our day; As we frisk the dew doth fall, Trip it, little urchins all, Lightly as the little bee, Two by two, and three by three, And about goe wee, goe wee."
In "The Tempest" (i. 2) their actions are also limited to the night:
"Urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee."
The children employed to torment Falstaff, in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (iv. 4), were to be dressed in these fairy shapes.
Mr. Douce regards the word _urchin_, when used to designate a fairy, as of Celtic origin, with which view Mr. Thoms[19] compares the _urisks_ of Highland fairies.
[19] "Three Notelets on Shakespeare," pp. 79-82.
The term _ouphe_, according to Grimm, is only another form of the cognate _elf_, which corresponds with the Middle High-German _ulf_, in the plural _ulve_. He further proves the identity of this _ulf_ with _alp_, and with our English _elf_, from a Swedish song published by Asdwiddson, in his "Collection of Swedish Ballads," in one version of which the elfin king is called Herr _Elfver_, and in the second Herr _Ulfver_.
The name _elf_, which is frequently used by Shakespeare, is the same as the Anglo-Saxon _alf_, the Old High-German and the Middle High-German _ulf_. "Fairies and elvs," says Tollet, "are frequently mentioned together in the poets without any distinction of character that I can recollect."
The other fairies, Peas-blossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed probably owe their appellations to the poet himself.
How fully Shakespeare has described the characteristics of the fairy tribe, besides giving a detailed account of their habits and doings, may be gathered from the following pages, in which we have briefly enumerated the various items of fairy lore as scattered through the poet's writings.