As Greek and Roman traditions waned in popularity, and the romance of knight errantry followed in the track of the barbarian inroads on the Roman Empires, the Roman and Greek nymphs ceased to be recognized as such, but their places were taken by other beings, not less interesting, not less beautiful, but partaking of the weird attributes which always characterized the faith of the invaders from the wild and frowning North. The fays of romance were beings of supernatural beauty and powers, able to become invisible at will, and transport themselves from place to place in a moment of time, often in assumed forms, and by enchantments and spells to subjugate humans to their will; they were, moreover, susceptible of human passions, and their intrigues with ordinary mortals form the staple of medieval romance. In these respects, the fays closely repeat the history of the nymphs, and when their name is traced to its origin the resemblance is as close as ever. The term "fay" (French, fée) has been traced to two derivatives, both worked out with considerable ingenuity and plausibility: they are probably both founded in fact. The Latin word fata was used for the parcæ or the fates, to whom reference has been already made, and this word appears to have passed into all the dialects of the romance language in use in the Middle Ages, and to have been then used to describe the beings whom we now

know as the fays of romance: fata, Italian; fada, Provençal; hada, Spanish; fée, French; fays, fairies, English. The other derivation is from Latin fatare (derived from fatum or fata) to enchant; this passed into French as faer to enchant; with the participle faé, and we read of chevaliers faés and dames faées. The modern expression to represent a fairy has become fée in French, and fay in English; their domain, faërie, and, finally, the denizens of faërie, fairies.1

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As a characteristic example of the fays of romance, may be mentioned a legend of the Dame du Lac, who was a pupil of Merlin the enchanter, from whom she learnt the art of magic, and who requited her instructor by entrapping him in a rock, and transporting him as a prisoner to fairy-land. At another time, King Ban was dying of grief caused by base treachery his queen, having placed her new-born babe on the margin of a lake, was soothing the monarch's last moments; she returns to the lake and finds the babe in the arms of a beautiful lady; no entreaties will prevail upon her to return it, and without a word she plunges into the lake with the child. The lady was the Dame du Lac; the lake itself was but an illusion raised by enchantment: the babe was trained by the fay, and became the Lancelot du Lac

of King Arthur's court. We trace here some of the mischief of the old lake nymphs, the limnads.

The fays of this period are not diminutive in size, as we now conceive the fairies, but resemble ordinary mortals so much as to be mistaken for them, and in fact to enter into matrimonial alliances and

intrigues with them. The fays of romance were, however, doomed to rapid degeneration. Running parallel with their history was that of another class of beings, brought in by the northern hordes, who had a folk-lore of their own, traced from a dim antiquity, and having an origin far removed from the classic mythology of the south. These were the elves, the dwarfs or little people, themselves a race of varied origin and varied attributes, and destined to coalesce with the fays or fairies, and practically to absorb them. The accomplishment of this union is best shown by the fact that, at the time of Shakespeare, Oberon is spoken of as the king of fairy-land, and Titania as its queen. Now Oberon is the same as Elberich, the chief of the dwarfs, or elves of German folk-lore,1 and Titania is the same as Diana,2 the principal leader of the nymphs, who had since been transformed into the fays.

The fairies of Shakespeare and our modern nurse

2 Ovid, "Metamor." b. 3. The poet records that the Goddess was taller than all her Nymphs.