charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born."

In the days of chivalry, the champion's arms were ceremoniously blessed,
each taking an oath that he used no charmed weapon. In Spenser's "Fairy
Queen" (book i. canto 4) we read:

"he bears a charmed shield,
And eke enchanted arms, that none can pierce."

Fairies were amazingly expeditious in their journeys. Thus, Puck goes
"swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow," and in "A Midsummer-Night's
Dream" he answers Oberon, who was about to send him on a secret
expedition:

"I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes."

Again, the same fairy addresses him:

"Fairy king, attend, and mark:
I do hear the morning lark.

_Oberon._ Then, my queen, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade:
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon."

Once more, Puck says:

"My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger," etc.

It was fatal, if we may believe Falstaff in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v.
5) to speak to a fairy: "They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall
die."

Fairies are accustomed to enrich their favorites; and in "A Winter's
Tale" (iii. 3) the shepherd says: "It was told me I should be rich by
the fairies;"[38] and in "Cymbeline" (v. 4), Posthumus, on waking and
finding the mysterious paper, exclaims:

"What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers," etc.

[38] See Croker's "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of
Ireland," p. 316.

At the same time, however, it was unlucky to reveal their acts of
generosity, as the shepherd further tells us: "This is fairy gold, boy;
and 'twill prove so; up with't, keep it close, home, home, the next way.
We are lucky, boy; and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy."

The necessity of secrecy in fairy transactions of this kind is
illustrated in Massinger and Field's play of "The Fatal Dowry," 1632
(iv. 1),[39] where Romont says:

"But not a word o' it; 'tis fairies' treasure,
Which, but reveal'd, brings on the blabber's ruin."

[39] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," vol. ii. p. 493.

Among the many other good qualities belonging to the fairy tribe, we are
told that they were humanely attentive to the you