80
“Shakespeare and His Times,” vol. i. p. 378.
81
“Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 49.
82
Harsnet’s “Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures,” p. 225.
83
“Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. ii. pp. 517-519.
84
Ibid. vol. i. pp. 365-367.
85
See Jones’s “Credulities, Past and Present,” 1880, p. 133.
86
See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, p. 393; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 264.
87
Ibid. p. 378.
88
Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. x. p. 292.
89
“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, pp. 255, 256.
90
Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. viii. p. 208.
91
See Knight’s “Life of Shakespeare,” 1843, p. 63.
92
“Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 241.
93
See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” 1873, p. 176, for popular adages on the Continent.
94
“Weather-Lore,” pp. 175, 176.
95
Napier’s “Folk-Lore of West of Scotland,” 1879, p. 141.
96
Quoted in Southey’s “Commonplace Book,” 1849, 2d series, p. 462.
97
See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1871, vol. i. pp. 261, 296, 297, 321.
98
In “3 Henry VI.” (ii. 1), Edward says:
“henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair shining suns.”
99
“Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 283.
100
Ray gives the Latin equivalent “Ab equis ad asinos.”
101
Baring-Gould’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” 1877, p. 190.
102
Cf. “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (v. 2): “Yet still she is the moon, and I the man.”
103
Fiske, “Myths and Mythmakers,” 1873, p. 27.
104
“Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” 1877, p. 197.
105
Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 10.
106
For further information on this subject, see Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. pp. 288, 354-356; vol. ii. pp. 70, 202, 203.
107
See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” vol. iii. pp. 142, 143.
108
See “English Folk-lore,” pp. 43, 44.
109
“Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. pp. 354, 355.
110
The words “moonish” (“As You Like It,” iii. 2) and “moonlike” (“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” iv. 3) are used in the sense of inconstant.
111
See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 18.
112
Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 329.
113
“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 16.
114
See Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, pp. 174, 226, 227, 250.
115
For further examples, see Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” p. 17.
116
See Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 116.
117
See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” 1873, pp. 182-192.
118
See Tylor’s “Primitive Culture,” 1873, vol. i. p. 130; “English Folk-Lore,” 1878, pp. 41, 42.
119
See Swainson’s “Weather-Lore,” pp. 182, 183.
120
See Williams’s “Superstitions of Witchcraft,” pp. 123-125; Scot’s “Discovery of Witchcraft,” bk. iv. p. 145.
121
“Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 405.
122
Nares’s “Glossary,” 1872, vol. ii. p. 580.
123
“Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 131.
124
Cf. “Richard III.” (iv. 4); “1 Henry IV.” (i. 1, iii. 1); “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 13); “The Tempest” (i. 2); “Hamlet” (i. 4); “Cymbeline” (v. 4); “Winter’s Tale” (iii. 2); “Richard II.” (iv. 1).
125
“Primitive Culture,” vol. i. p. 131; see Brand’s “Popular Antiquities,” 1849, vol. iii. pp. 341-348.
126
“Walton’s Lives,” 1796, p. 113, note.
127
Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 397.
128
Ibid. p. 3.
129
See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 400.
130
Purchas, “His Pilgrimes” (1625, pt. i. lib. iii. p. 133), quoted by Mr. Aldis Wright in his “Notes to The Tempest,” 1875, p. 86.
131
See Puck as Will-o’-the-Wisp; chapter on “Fairy-Lore.”
132
See “Notes and Queries,” 5th series, vol. x. p. 499; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 410; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 309.
133
A “fire-drake” appears to have been also an artificial firework, perhaps what is now called a serpent. Thus, in Middleton’s “Your Five Gallants” (1607):
“But, like fire-drakes, Mounted a little, gave a crack and fell.”
134
“New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare,” vol. ii. p. 272.
135
See Thoms’s “Notelets on Shakespeare,” p. 59.
136
“Fairy Mythology,” edited by Hazlitt, 1875, p. 40.
137
Among the many other names given to this appearance may be mentioned the following: “Will-a-wisp,” “Joan-in-the-wad,” “Jacket-a-wad,” “Peg-a-lantern,” “Elf-fire,” etc. A correspondent of “Notes and Queries” (5th series, vol. x. p. 499) says: “The wandering meteor of the moss or fell appears to have been personified as Jack, Gill, Joan, Will, or Robin, indifferently, according as the supposed spirit of the lamp seemed to the particular rustic mind to be a male or female apparition.” In Worcestershire it is called “Hob-and-his-lanthorn,” and “Hobany’s” or “Hobnedy’s Lanthorn.”
138
Mr. Ritson says that Milton “is frequently content to pilfer a happy expression from Shakespeare – on this occasion, ‘night-wanderer.’” He elsewhere calls it “the friar’s lantern.”
139
Thorpe, “Northern Mythology,” 1852, vol. iii. pp. 85, 158, 220.
140
“Notelets on Shakespeare,” pp. 64, 65.
141
Ibid.
142
See Proctor’s “Myths of Astronomy;” Chambers’s “Domestic Annals of Scotland,” 1858, vol. ii. pp. 410-412;