erstition, concerning the.
Fairies, received from the chivalrous sentiments of the middle ages.

[Footnote A:

Ne'er be I found by thee unawed,
On that thrice hallowed eve abroad,
When goblins haunt, from fire and fen.
And wood and lake, the steps of men.
COLLINS'S _Ode to Fear._

The whole history of St John the Baptist was, by our ancestors,
accounted mysterious, and connected with their own superstitions.
The fairy queen was sometimes identified with Herodias.--DELRII
_Disquisitiones Magicae,_ pp. 168. 807. It is amusing to observe with
what gravity the learned Jesuit contends, that it is heresy to believe
that this celebrated figurante (_saltatricula_) still leads choral
dances upon earth!]

[Footnote B: This is alluded to by Shakespeare, and other authors of his
time:

"We have the receipt of _fern-seed_; we walk invisible."
_Henry IV. Part 1st, Act 2d, Sc. 3_.]

IV. An absurd belief in the fables of classical antiquity lent an
additional feature to the character of the woodland spirits of whom we
treat. Greece and Rome had not only assigned tutelary deities to each
province and city, but had peopled, with peculiar spirits, the Seas, the
Rivers, the Woods, and the Mountains. The memory of the pagan creed was
not speedily eradicated, in the extensive provinces through which it was
once universally received; and, in many particulars, it continued long
to mingle with, and influence, the original superstitions of the Gothic
nations. Hence, we find the elves occasionally arrayed in the costume of
Greece and Rome, and the Fairy Queen and her attendants transformed into
Diana and her nymphs, and invested with their attributes and appropriate
insignia.--DELRIUS, pp. 168, 807. According to the same author, the
Fairy Queen was also called _Habundia_. Like Diana, who, in one
capacity, was denominated _Hecate_, the goddess of enchantment, the
Fairy Queen is identified in popular tradition, with the _Gyre-Carline,
Gay Carline_, or mother witch, of the Scottish peasantry. Of this
personage, as an individual, we have but few notices. She is sometimes
termed _Nicneven_, and is mentioned in the _Complaynt of Scotland_, by
Lindsay in his _Dreme_, p. 225, edit. 1590, and in his _Interludes_,
apud PINKERTON'S _Scottish Poems_, Vol. II. p. 18. But the traditionary
accounts regarding her are too obscure to admit of explanation. In the
burlesque fragment subjoined, which is copied from the Bannatyne MS. the