A Useful Breed of Heathen

A Proper New Ballad Entitled
The Fairies' Farewell: or God-A-Mercy Will

To be sung or whistled to the Tune of "The Meadow Brow" by the learned; by the unlearned to the tune of "Fortune."

Farewell, rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.
And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds six-pence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,
The fairies lost command.
They did but change priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land,
And all your children, sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your demesnes.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had.
When Tom came home from labor,
Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary’s days
On many a grassy plain;
But, since of late Elizabeth,
And later James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the fairies
Were of the old Profession.
Their songs were Ave Maries,
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas, they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And who so kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished sure.
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue.
O, how the commonwealth doth want
Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters,
A register they have,
Who looketh to their charters,
A man both wise and grave.
An hundred of their merry pranks
By one that I could name
Are kept in store; con twenty thanks
To William for the same.

I marvel who his cloak would turn
When Puck had led him round,
Or where those walking-fires would burn
Where Cureton would be found.
How Broker would appear to be,
For whom this age doth mourn,
But that their spirits live in thee,
In thee, old William Chourne.

To William Chourne of Staffordshire,
Give laud and praises due,
Who every meal can mend your cheer
With tales both old and true.
To William, all give audience,
And pray ye for his noddle,
For all the fairies' evidence
Were lost if that were addle.

This ballad, written by clergyman and minor poet Richard Corbett (1582-1635), gives insight into the waning popularity of fairy beliefs that occurred during the Renaissance. While Corbett takes a humorous approach to the situation, and there is no clear evidence that he was a believer himself, he bemoans the loss of fairies on a practical front. Imagination is its own kind of magic, inspirational and entertaining, and the disposal of old lore has a stifling effect on those who have nothing better to fill its place.

It is obvious that Corbett is also using his lament for the fairies to mourn the fall of the Catholic Church of England to which he belonged. In the second verse, he references the tale of the changeling, supposedly used on a regular basis to explain away illegitimate children appearing on priests' doorsteps. Then he flips this imagery to compare to changelings those who converted to Puritanism for material gain. In short, Puritans are malignant outsiders disrupting the functional community.

In the fourth verse, he comments on the lack of fairies reported since the reigns of Elizabeth and James (both Protestants), by which, he claims in the fifth verse, we see that fairies must be Catholic. Of course this is not meant to be taken seriously, but it pinpoints the ridiculousness of the entire concept of outlawing fairies. Fairies are neither Catholics nor Protestants; they are stories. And they are not hurting anybody. They gave maids a reason to keep a good house, and they saved priests from scandal. They were useful. Why subject them to religion?

The William Chourne mentioned in the last verses was a servant of Corbett's. While traveling through what he believed to be fairy country, he advised his fellow travelers (including Corbett) to turn their cloaks inside out to avoid Puck's mischief. When they did so, a mysterious man appeared to lead them out of the woods. Corbett praises his sort, the last holdouts of the old traditions, "who every meal can mend your cheer." On the other hand, he can only hope that they should not be proven crazy. Once they are, all hope in the fairies will be gone for good.

We see here to what extreme fairy lore was wrapped up in religious matters, but at the same time, a new sense of modernity was chipping away at supernatural beliefs in general. Things were no longer so simple as ring dances and six-pence in the shoe. Reason was replacing imagination and literature was replacing lore. People could not return to the age of the fairies because they knew too much. As Corbett, they could only look back in nostalgia and bow their heads to its passing.

(A Midsummer Night's Dream: Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster and Skiles Howard. pp. 313-116)