The Fairy Mythology. Thomas Keightley

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СКАЧАТЬ of Asia, introduced into the West the Arabo-Persian word Fairy. It is further added, that the Morgain or Morgana, so celebrated in old romance, is Merjan Peri, equally celebrated all over the East.

      All that is wanting to this so very plausible theory is something like proof, and some slight agreement with the ordinary rules of etymology. Had Feërie, or Fairy, originally signified the individual in the French and English, the only languages in which the word occurs, we might feel disposed to acquiesce in it. But they do not: and even if they did, how should we deduce from them the Italian Fata, and the Spanish Fada or Hada, (words which unquestionably stand for the same imaginary being,) unless on the principle by which Menage must have deduced Lutin from Lemur—the first letter being the same in both? As to the fair Merjan Peri (D'Herbelot calls her Merjan Banou[8]), we fancy a little too much importance has been attached to her. Her name, as far as we can learn, only occurs in the Cahermân Nâmeh, a Turkish romance, though perhaps translated from the Persian.

      The foregoing etymologies, it is to be observed, are all the conjectures of English scholars; for the English is the only language in which the name of the individual, Fairy, has the canine letter to afford any foundation for them.

      Leaving, then, these sports of fancy, we will discuss the true origin of the words used in the Romanic languages to express the being which we name Fairy of Romance. These are Faée, Fée, French; Fada, Provençal (whence Hada, Spanish); and Fata, Italian.

      The root is evidently, we think, the Latin fatum. In the fourth century of our æra we find this word made plural, and even feminine, and used as the equivalent of Parcæ. On the reverse of a gold medal of the Emperor Diocletian are three female figures, with the legend Fatis victricibus; a cippus, found at Valencia in Spain, has on one of its sides Fatis Q. Fabius ex voto, and on the other, three female figures, with the attributes of the Mœræ or Parcæ.[9] In this last place the gender is uncertain, but the figures would lead us to suppose it feminine. On the other hand, Ausonius[10] has tres Charites, tria Fata; and Procopius[11] names a building at the Roman Forum τα τρια φατα, adding ουτω γαρ ῥωμαιοι τας μοιρας νενομικασι καλειν. The Fatæ or Fata, then, being persons, and their name coinciding so exactly with the modern terms, and it being observed that the Mœræ were, at the birth of Meleager, just as the Fées were at that of Ogier le Danois, and other heroes of romance and tale, their identity has been at once asserted, and this is now, we believe, the most prevalent theory. To this it may be added, that in Gervase of Tilbury, and other writers of the thirteenth century, the Fada or Fée seems to be regarded as a being different from human kind.[12]

      On the other hand, in a passage presently to be quoted from a celebrated old romance, we shall meet a definition of the word Fée, which expressly asserts that such a being was nothing more than a woman skilled in magic; and such, on examination, we shall find to have been all the Fées of the romances of chivalry and of the popular tales; in effect, that fée is a participle, and the words dame or femme is to be understood.

      In the middle ages there was in use a Latin verb, fatare,[13] derived from fatum or fata, and signifying to enchant. This verb was adopted by the Italian, Provençal[14] and Spanish languages; in French it became, according to the analogy of that tongue, faer, féer. Of this verb the past participle faé, fé; hence in the romances we continually meet with les chevaliers faés, les dames faées, Oberon la faé, le cheval étoit faé, la clef était fée, and such like. We have further, we think, demonstrated[15] that it was the practice of the Latin language to elide accented syllables, especially in the past participle of verbs of the first conjugation, and that this practice had been transmitted to the Italian, whence fatato-a would form fato-a, and una donna fatata might thus become una fata. Whether the same was the case in the Provençal we cannot affirm, as our knowledge of that dialect is very slight; but, judging from analogy, we would say it was, for in Spanish Hadada and Hada are synonymous. In the Neapolitan Pentamerone Fata and Maga are the same, and a Fata sends the heroine of it to a sister of hers, pure fatata.

      Ariosto says of Medea—

      E perchè per virtù d' erbe e d'incanti

       Delle Fate una ed immortal fatta era.

       I Cinque Canti, ii. 106.

      The same poet, however, elsewhere says—

      Queste che or Fate e dagli antichi foro

       Già dette Ninfe e Dee con più bel nome.—Ibid. i. 9.

      and,

      Nascemmo ad un punto che d'ogni altro male

       Siamo capaci fuorchè della morte.—Orl. Fur. xliii. 48.

      which last, however, is not decisive. Bojardo also calls the water-nymphs Fate; and our old translators of the Classics named them fairies. From all this can only, we apprehend, be collected, that the ideas of the Italian poets, and others, were somewhat vague on the subject.

      From the verb faer, féer, to enchant, illude, the French made a substantive faerie, féerie,[16] illusion, enchantment, the meaning of which was afterwards extended, particularly after it had been adopted into the English language.

      We find the word Faerie, in fact, to be employed in four different senses, which we will now arrange and exemplify.

      1. Illusion, enchantment.

      Plusieurs parlent de Guenart,

       Du Loup, de l'Asne, de Renart,

       De faeries et de songes, De phantosmes et de mensonges. Gul. Giar. ap. Ducange.

      Where we must observe, as Sir Walter Scott seems not to have been aware of it, that the four last substantives bear the same relation to each other as those in the two first verses do.

      Me bifel a ferly

       Of faërie, me thought. Vision of Piers Plowman, v. 11.

      Maius that sit with so benigne a chere,

       Hire to behold it seemed faërie. Chaucer, Marchante's Tale.

      It (the horse of brass) was of faërie, as the peple semed, Diversè folk diversëly han demed.—Squier's Tale.

      The Emperor said on high,

       Certes it is a faërie, Or elles a vanité.—Emare.

      With phantasme and faërie, Thus she bleredè his eye.—Libeaus Disconus.

      The God of her has made an end,

       And fro this worldès faërie Hath taken her into companie.—Gower, Constance.

      Mr. Ritson professes not to understand the meaning of faerie in this last passage. Mr. Ritson should, as Sir Hugh Evans says, have 'prayed his pible petter;' where, among other things that might have been of service to him, he would have learned that 'man walketh in a vain shew,' that 'all is vanity,' and that 'the fashion of this world passeth away;' and then he would have found no difficulty in comprehending the pious language of 'moral Gower,' in his allusion to the transitory and deceptive vanities of the world.

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