INTRODUCTORY NOTE

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The Lay of Sir Amps.

THE story of the following poem is somewhat similar to those of Sir Lanval and Sir Gruelan, which may be found in the collection of Fabliaux of M. Le Grand, and in the elegant translations of Mr. Way. The ancient poems and romances are full of tales of knights who had strange encounters with the fairy race, and many of the heroes of chivalry had the reputation of having had fairies for their wives or mistresses. These stories were not confined to works of poetical romance: they were commonly believed both in the north and south of Europe, a fact, abundantly proved by the serious manner in which they are related by other authors, besides the writers of fiction.

Gervaise of Tilbury, writing in the beginning of the thirteenth century, to the emperor Otho IV., says, « It has been asserted by persons of unexceptionable credit, that fairies used to choose

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themselves gallants from among men, and reward their attachment with an affluence of worldly goods; but if they married, or boasted of a fairy's favours, they severely smarted for such indiscretion.>>

Einer Gudmund, a native of Iceland, mentions as an undoubted fact, that a fairy bore a child to an Icelander, and claimed for the infant the rite of christian baptism, depositing him at the gate of a churchyard, with a golden cup as an offering.

Brantome relates that the famous Guy de Lusignan, Count of Poictou, was married to a fairy, whom he calls The Fairy Melusina, by which I suppose she was known in some other character than that of the wife of the hero of the crusades, though I do not find her name in any other faerie legend. She built him a beautiful castle, by the aid of magic, and was the mother of many children; a condition was attached to their union, that he was never to intrude on her solitude. In an unlucky moment he violated his promise, from a desire to see her in her enchanted bath, and she departed in the shape of a dragon, uttering the most woeful cries. No one ever beheld her afterwards, but her wailings were often heard by her descendants; and when the castle of Lusignan was destroyed, she was heard to utter the most touching lamentations around its towers.

Chaucer, in the Wife of Bathes Tale, writing about the middle of the fourteenth century, speaks of the fairy race as of a conquered people, driven from the land by the « grete charitee ana

prayeres of limitours and other holy freres.»> But he tells

us that

<< In old dayes of the King Artour

« Of which that Bretons speken gret honour,

<< All was this lond fulfilled of faerie,

<< The Elf-quene with hire joly compagnie

« Danced full oft in many a grene mede.>>

It was one of the charges against Joan of Arc, that she had frequented the fairy fountain at Dompré, and owed her power to talismans received from the fairy race; and although, by the above passage from Chaucer, it would appear that the belief in the influence of these beings had almost departed in his time, the following instance, amongst many that might be cited, from a judicial record in Scotland of the conviction of Alison Pearson, who suffered death for witchcraft in 1586, will shew how firm it was in the north at a much later period.

She was indicted, "For hanting and repairing with the gude neighbours and Queene of Elfland, thir divers years by-past as she had confessed; and that she had friends in that court which were of her own blude, who had gude acquaintance of the Queene of Elfland,»> &c.

The gude neighbours here alluded to are fairies, for, notwithstanding that these harmless spirits were included by the church in the general denunciation against witches-« Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live»-the fairies were very commonly called «the good people.>>