43

IV. DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE 52

V. NATURAL PHENOMENA 62

VI. BIRDS 97

VII. ANIMALS 161

VIII. PLANTS 201

IX. INSECTS AND REPTILES 250

X. FOLK-MEDICINE 264

XI. CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH THE CALENDAR 296

XII. BIRTH AND BAPTISM 332

XIII. MARRIAGE 342

XIV. DEATH AND BURIAL 362

XV. RINGS AND PRECIOUS STONES 386

XVI. SPORTS AND PASTIMES 394

XVII. DANCES 424

XVIII. PUNISHMENTS 433

XIX. PROVERBS 444

XX. HUMAN BODY 475

XXI. FISHES 497

XXII. SUNDRY SUPERSTITIONS 505

XXIII. MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS, ETC. 521

INDEX 549

FOLK-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE.

CHAPTER I.

FAIRIES.

The wealth of Shakespeare's luxuriant imagination and glowing language
seems to have been poured forth in the graphic accounts which he has
given us of the fairy tribe. Indeed, the profusion of poetic imagery
with which he has so richly clad his fairy characters is unrivalled, and
the "Midsummer-Night's Dream" holds a unique position in so far as it
contains the finest modern artistic realization of the fairy kingdom.
Mr. Dowden, in his "Shakspere Primer" (1877, pp. 71, 72) justly remarks:
"As the two extremes of exquisite delicacy, of dainty elegance, and, on
the other hand, of thick-witted grossness and clumsiness, stand the
fairy tribe and the group of Athenian handicraftsmen. The world of the
poet's dream includes the two--a Titania, and a Bottom the weaver--and can
bring them into grotesque conjunction. No such fairy poetry existed
anywhere in English literature before Shakspere. The tiny elves, to whom
a cowslip is tall, for whom the third part of a minute is an important
division of time, have a miniature perfection which is charming. They
delight in all beautiful and dainty things, and war with things that
creep