further be observed, that not unfrequently a change of religious faith has invested with dark and malignant attributes beings once the objects of love, confidence, and veneration.* It is not our intention in the following pages to treat of the awful or lovely deities of Olympus, Valhalla, or Merû. Our subject is less aspiring; and we confine ourselves to those beings who are our fellow-inhabitants of earth, whose manners we aim to describe, and whose deeds we propose to record. We write of FAIRIES, FAYS, ELVES, aut alio quo nomine gaudent. ORIGIN OF THE WORD FAIRY. Like every other word in extensive use, whose derivation is not historically certain, the word Fairy has obtained. various and opposite etymons. Meyric Casaubon, and those who like him deduce everything from a classic source, however unlikely, derive Fairy from p, a Homeric name of the Centaurs; or think that fée, whence Fairy, is the last syllable of nympha. Sir W. Ouseley derives it from the Hebrew (peer), to adorn; Skinner, from the AngloSaxon papan, to fare, to go; others from Feres, companions, or think that Fairy-folk is quasi Fair-folk. Finally, it has been queried if it be not Celtic.‡ But no theory is so plausible, or is supported by such names, as that which deduces the English Fairy from the Persian Peri. It is said that the Paynim foe, whom the warriors of the Cross encountered in Palestine, spoke only Arabic; the alphabet of which language, it is well known, possesses no p, and therefore organically substitutes an ƒ in such foreign words as contain the former letter; consequently Peri became, in the mouth of an Arab, Feri, whence the crusaders and pilgrims, who carried back to Europe the marvellous * In the Middle Ages the gods of the heathens were all held to be devils. Php is the Ionic form of Ohp, and is nearly related to the German thier, beast, animal. The Scandinavian dyr, and the Anglo-Saxon deor, have the same signification; and it is curious to observe the restricted sense which this last has gotten in the English deer. Preface to Warton, p. 44; and Breton philologists furnish us with an etymon; not, indeed, of Fairy, but of Fada. "Fada, fata, etc.," says M. de Cambry (Monumens Celtiques), "come from the Breton mat or mad, in construction fat, good; whence the English, maid." tales of Asia, introduced into the West the Arabo-Persian word Fairy. It is further added, that the Morgain or Morgana, so celebrated in old romance, is. Merjan Peri, equally celebrated all over the East. All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology. Had Feërie, or Fairy, originally signified the individual in the French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we might feel disposed to acquiesce in it. But they do not: and even if they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have deduced Lutin from Lemurthe first letter being the same in both? As to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou*), we fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her. Her name, as far as we can learn, only occurs in the Cahermân Nâmeh, a Turkish romance, though perhaps translated from the Persian. The foregoing etymologies, it is to be observed, are all the conjectures of English scholars; for the English is the only language in which the name of the individual, Fairy, has the canine letter to afford any foundation for them. Leaving, then, these sports of fancy, we will discuss the true origin of the words used in the Romanic languages to express the being which we name Fairy of Romance. These are Faée, Fée, French; Fada, Provençal (whence Hada, Spanish); and Fata, Italian. The root is evidently, we think, the Latin fatum. In the fourth century of our æra we find this word made plural, and even feminine, and used as the equivalent of Parcæ. On the reverse of a gold medal of the Emperor Diocletian are three female figures, with the legend Fatis victricibus; a cippus, found at Valencia in Spain, has on one of its sides * D'Herbelot titre Mergian says, "C'est du nom de cette Fée que nos anciens romans ont formé celui de Morgante la Déconnue." He here confounds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his mistake. D'Herbelot also thinks it possible that Féerie may come from Peri; but he regards the common derivation from Futa as much more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is Mor Gwynn, the White Maid. Fatis Q. Fabius ex voto, and on the other, three female figures, with the attributes of the Mæræ or Parcæ.* In this last place the gender is uncertain, but the figures would lead us to suppose it feminine. On the other hand, Ausonius has tres Charites, tria Fata; and Procopius names a building at the Roman Forum rà rpía pára, adding οὕτω γὰρ 'Ρωμαῖοι τὰς μοῖρας νενομίκασι καλεῖν. The Fate or Fata, then, being persons, and their name coinciding so exactly with the modern terms, and it being observed that the Mæræ were, at the birth of Meleager, just as the Fées were at that of Ogier le Danois, and other heroes of romance and tale, their identity has been at once asserted, and this is now, we believe, the most prevalent theory. this it may be added, that in Gervase of Tilbury, and other writers of the thirteenth century, the Fada or Fée seems to be regarded as a being different from human kind.§ To On the other hand, in a passage presently to be quoted from a celebrated old romance, we shall meet a definition of the word Fée, which expressly asserts that such a being was nothing more than a woman skilled in magic; and such, on examination, we shall find to have been all the Fées of the romances of chivalry and of the popular tales; in effect, that fée is a participle, and the words dame or femme is to be understood. In the middle ages there was in use a Latin verb, fatare,|| derived from fatum or fata, and signifying to enchant. This * These two instances are given by Mdlle. Amélie Bosquet (La Normandie Romanesque, etc. p. 91.) from Dom Martin, Rel. des Gaulois, ii. ch. 23 and 24. Gryphus ternarii numeri. De Bell. Got. i. 25. § See below, France. It is also remarked that in some of the tales of the Pentamerone, the number of the Fate is three; but to this it may be replied, that in Italy every thing took a classic tinge, and that the Fate of those tales are only Maghe; so in the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso we meet with La Fata Urganda. In Spain and France the number would rather seem to have been seven. Cervantes speaks of "los siete castillos de las siete fadas; in the Rom. de la Infantina it is said, "siete fadas me fadaron, en brazos de una ama mia," and the Fées are seven in La Belle au Bois dormant. In the romance, however, of Guillaume au Court-nez, the Fées who carry the sleeping Renoart out of the boat are three in number.-See Grimm Deutsche Mythologie, p. 383. A MS. of the 13th century, quoted by Grimm (ut sup. p. 405), thus relates the origin of Aquisgrani (Aix la Chapelle): Aquisgrani dicitur Ays, et verb was adopted by the Italian, Provençal* and Spanish languages; in French it became, according to the analogy of that tongue, faer, féer. Of this verb the past participle is faé, fé; hence in the romances we continually meet with les chevaliers faés, les dames faées, Oberon la faé, le cheval étoit faé, la clef était fée, and such like. We have further, we think, demonstrated † that it was the practice of the Latin language to elide accented syllables, especially in the past participle of verbs of the first conjugation, and that this practice had been transmitted to the Italian, whence fatato-a would form fato-a, and una donna fatata might thus become una fata. Whether the same was the case in the Provençal we cannot affirm, as our knowledge of that dialect is very slight; but, judging from analogy, we would say it was, for in Spanish Hadada and Hada are synonymous. In the Neapolitan Pentamerone Fata and Maga are the same, and a Fata sends the heroine of it to a sister of hers, pure fatata. Ariosto says of Medea E perchè per virtù d' erbe e d'incanti Queste che or Fate e dagli antichi foro The same poet, however, elsewhere says and, Già dette Ninfe e Dee con più bel nome.-Ibid. i. 9. Nascemmo ad un punto che d'ogni altro male dicitur eo, quod Karolus tenebat ibi quandam mulierem fatatam, sive quandam fatam, quæ alio nomine nimpha vel dea vel adriades (1. dryas) appellatur, et ad hanc consuetudinem habebat, et eam cognoscebat; et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad eam vivebat ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur. Contigit dum quadam vice ad ipsam accessisset ut cum ea delectaretur, radius solis intravit os ejus, et tunc Karolus vidit granum auri lingue ejus affixum, quod fecit abscindi et contingenti (1. in continenti) mortua est, nec postea revixit. "Aissim fadaro tres serors En aquella ora qu' ieu sui natz Que totz temps fos enamoratz."-Folquet de Romans. (Thus three sisters fated, in the hour that I was born, that I should be at all times in love.) "Aissi fuy de nueitz fadatz sobr' un puegau."-Guilh. de Poitou. which last, however, is not decisive. Bojardo also calls the water-nymphs Fate; and our old translators of the Classics named them fairies. From all this can only, we apprehend, be collected, that the ideas of the Italian poets, and others, were somewhat vague on the subject. From the verb faer, féer, to enchant, illude, the French made a substantive faerie, féerie,* illusion, enchantment, the meaning of which was afterwards extended, particularly after it had been adopted into the English language. We find the word Faerie, in fact, to be employed in four different senses, which we will now arrange and exemplify. 1. Illusion, enchantment. Plusieurs parlent de Guenart, Du Loup, de l'Asne, de Renart, D. phantosmes et de mensonges. Gul. Giar, ap. Ducange. Where we must observe, as Sir Walter Scott seems not to have been aware of it, that the four last substantives bear the same relation to each other as those in the two first verses do. Me bifel a ferly Of faërie, me thought, Vision of Piers Plowman, v. 11. Maius that sit with so benigne a chere, Hire to behold it seemed faërie. Chaucer, Marchante's Tale. It (the horse of brass) was of faërie, as the peple semed, The Emperor said on high, Or elles a vanité.-Emare. With phantasme and faërie, Thus she bleredè his eye.-Libeaus Disconus. The God of her has made an end, And fro this worldès faërie Hath taken her into companie.-Gower, Constance. Following the analogy of the Gotho-German tongues, zauberei, Germ. trylleri, Dan. trolleri, Swed. illusion, enchantment. The Italian word is fattucchieria. |