Through pools, through ponds,
I hurry laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets, and with junkets fine,
Unseen of all the company,

I eat their cakes, and sip their wine;
And to make sport,

I puff and snort,

And out the candles I do blow;

The maids I kiss ;

They shriek-Who's this?

I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho!

Yet, now and then, the maids to please,
I card, at midnight, up their wool;
And, while they sleep, and take their ease,
With wheel to thread their flax I pull;
I grind at mill

Their malt up still,

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow;

If any wake,

And would me take,

I wend me laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When house or hearth doth sluttish lie,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bed pull I,
And lay them naked all to view;
"Twixt sleep and wake,

I do them take,

And on the key-cold floor them throw;

If out they cry,

Then forth I fly,1

And loudly laugh I, ho, ho, ho!

1 "And would me spie."-Mr. Collier's MS.

Whenas my fellow elves and I

In circled ring do trip a round;
If that our sports by any eye

Do happen to be seen or found;
If that they

No words do say,

But mum continue as they go,

Each night I do

Put groat in shoe,

And wind out laughing, ho, ho, ho!"

When any need to borrow ought,

We lend them what they do require; And for the use demand we nought;

Our own is all we do desire:

If to repay

They make delay,

Abroad amongst them then I go;

And night by night

I them affright,

With pinches, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!

When lazy queans have nought to do,
But study how to cog and lie,
To make debate, and mischief too,
"Twixt one another secretly,
I mark their glose,

And it disclose

To them that they have wronged so;

When I have done

I get me gone,

And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!

1 This stanza is peculiar to Mr. Collier's MS.

When men do traps and engines set

In loop-holes, where the vermin creep,
Who from their folds and houses fet

Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep,
I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seem a vermin taken so;

But, when they there

Approach me near,

I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

By wells, and rills, in meadows green,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise ;
And, to our fairy king and queen,
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies :1
When larks 'gin sing

Away we fling,

And babes new-born steal as we go,

An elf instead

We leave in bed,

And wind out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

Since hag-bred Merlins time have I
Thus nightly revell'd to and fro;
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Good-fellow :
Fiends ghosts and sprites,
That haunt the nights,

1 Instead of these four lines, Mr. Collier's MS. reads:

"Thus do we pass, and see unseen

The actions of mortality;
When to our fairy king and queen

We chant our moonlight harmony."

IX. ROWLANDS ON GOBLINS.

From a curious tract by Rowlands, called "More Knaves yet? The Knaves of Spades and Diamonds," 4to. Lond. n.d. It has been reprinted entire by the Percy Society, under the care of Dr. Rimbault. The following is entitled, "Of Ghoasts and Goblins."

In old wives daies, that in old time did live
(To whose odde tales much credit men did give)
Great store of goblins, fairies, bugs, night-mares,
Urchins, and elves, to many a house repaires.
Yea far more sprites did haunt in divers places,
Then there be women now weare devils faces.
Amongst the rest was a Good Fellow devill,
So cal'd in kindnes, cause he did no evill,
Knowne by the name of Robin (as we heare),
And that his eyes as broad as sawcers were,
Who came a-nights, and would make kitchins cleane,
And in the bed bepinch a lazie queane.

Was much in mils about the grinding meale,

(And sure, I take it, taught the miller steale);

Amongst the creame-bowles and milke-pans would be,

And with the country wenches, who but he

To wash their dishes for some fresh cheese hire,

Or set their pots and kettles 'bout the fire.

'Twas a mad Robin that did divers pranckes,

For which with some good cheare they gave him thankes,

And that was all the kindnes he expected,

With gaine (it seemes) he was not much infected.
But as that time is past, that Robin's gone,
He and his night-mates are to us unknowne,
And in the stede of such good-fellow sprites
We meet with Robin Bad-Fellow a-nights,
That enters houses secret in the darke,

And only comes to pilfer, steale, and sharke,
And as the one made dishes cleane (they say),
The other takes them quite and cleane away,
What'ere it be that is within his reach,
The filching tricke he doth his fingers teach.
But as Good-Fellow Robin had reward

With milke and creame that friends for him prepar'd,
For being busie all the night in vaine,

(Though in the morning all things safe remaine),
Robin Bad-Fellow wanting such a supper,

Shall have his breakfast with a rope and butter,
To which let all his fellowes be invited,
That with such deeds of darknesse are delighted.

X. THE SHEPHERD'S DREAM.

From Warner's Albions England, 4to. Lond. 1612, Chap. 91. The copy in the British Museum has a fictitious autograph of Shakespeare on the title-page. This piece has been reprinted by Ritson, in his "Fairy Tales."

A shepheard, whilst his flock did feede,

him in his cloke did wrap,

Bids Patch his dog stand sentenell,

both to secure a nap,