,
Of which that Britons speken greet honour,
Al was this land fulfild of fayerye;
The elf-queen, with hir joly companye,
Daunced ful ofte in many a grene med.

And here again there is a reasonable probability that certain
features were borrowed from the wealth of story current in the
neighboring isle. Otherwise it is difficult to understand why the
queen of fayerye should bear an Irish name (Mab, from Irish Medb),
and curiously enough the form of the name rathef suggests that it was
borrowed through a written medium and not by oral tradition. On the
other hand it is incorrect to derive Puck from Irish _puca_, as the
latter is undoubtedly borrowed from some form of Teutonic speech.

So all embracing a mind as that of the greatest English dramatist
could not fail to be interested in the gossip that must have been
current in London at the time of the wars in Ulster. References to
kerns and gallowglasses are fairly frequent. He had evidently heard
of the marvellous powers with which the Irish bards were credited,
for, in _As You Like It_, Rosalind exclaims:

"I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish
rat, which I can hardly remember."

Similarly, in _King Richard III_, mention is made of the prophetic
utterance of an Irish bard, a trait which does not appear in the
poet's source. Any statements as to Irish influence in Shakespeare
that go beyond this belong to the realm of conjecture. Professor
Kittredge has attempted to show that in Syr Orfeo, upon which the
poet drew for portions of the plot of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_,
the Irish story of Etain and Mider was fused with the medieval form
of the classical tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Direct influence is
entirely wanting, and it is difficult to see how it could have been
otherwise.

Even in the case of the Elizabethan poet who spent many years in the
south of Ireland, there is no trace of Hibernian lore or legend.
Spenser, indeed, tells us himself that he had caused some of the
native poetry to be translated to him, and had found that it
"savoured of sweet wit and good invention." But Ireland plays an
infinitesimal part in the _Faerie Queene_. The scenery round
Kilcolman Castle forms the background of much of the incident in Book
V. "Marble far from Ireland brought" is mentioned in a simile in the
second Book, where we also read:

As when a swarme of gnats at eventide
Out of the fennes of Allan do a