lso of the Italian _fata_.

The word "fairy" was used in four senses. _Fairy_ represented:--

(1) Illusion, or enchantment.

(2) Abode of the Faes, the country of the Fays.

(3) Inhabitants collectively, the people of Fairyland.

(4) The individual in Fairyland, the fairy Knight, or Elf.

The word was used in the fourth sense before the time of Chaucer.
After the appearance of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ distinctions became
confused, and the name of the real fairies was transferred to "the
little beings who made the green, sour ringlets whereof the ewe not
bites." The change adopted by the poets gained currency among the
people. Fairies were identified with nymphs and elves. Shakespeare was
the principal means of effecting this revolution, and in his
_Midsummer Night's Dream_ he has incorporated most of the fairy lore
known in England at his time. But the tales are older than their name.

The origin of fairy tales is a question which has kept many very able
scholars busy and which has not yet been settled to the satisfaction
of many. What has been discovered resolves itself mainly into four
different origins of fairy tales:--

I. Fairy tales are detritus of myth, surviving echoes of gods and
heroes. Against this theory it may be said that, when popular tales
have incidents similar to Greek heroic myths, the tales are not
detritus of myth, but both have a more ancient tale as their original
source. There was:--

(1) A popular tale which reflected the condition of a rude
people, a tale full of the monstrous and the miraculous.

(2) The same tale, a series of incidents and plot, with the
monstrous element modified, which survived in the oral
traditions of illiterate peasantry.

(3) The same plot and incidents, as they existed in heroic
epics of cultivated people. A local and historical character
was given by the introduction of known places and native
heroes. Tone and manners were refined by literary
workmanship, in the _Rig Veda_, the Persian _King-book_, the
_Homeric Epics_, etc.

The Grimms noted that the evolution of the tale was from a strongly
marked, even ugly, but highly expressive form of its earlier stages,
to that which possessed external beauty of mold. The origin is in the
fancy of a primitive people, the survival is through _Maerchen_ of
peasantry, and the transfiguration into epics is by literary artists.
Therefore, one a