His antics ranged from ruining dinner parties by teasing guests, haunting people in their sleep and swapping human children for deformed elf-changelings (a particularly horrific fairy pastime). This site discusses the character's history and his appearances in ballads, plays, movies, modern novels and television shows.
Fairies could clean your home and keep your servants in check, however they were also used to explain mysterious events, were blamed for causing illnesses in children, and would steal food and water.
Think but this, and all is mended. "Imaginative Sources For Shakespeare's Puck", Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Why Does Puck Sweep?
Copyright © Historic UK Ltd. Company Registered in England No. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Reginald Scot referred to him as the ‘great and ancient bullbeggar’, Edward Dering blamed him for the ‘idle superstitions’ of medieval religion and Edmond Bicknoll claimed he was born from the ‘fruit of infidelity’ and was a conspirator of the devil. [3], The original texts of Shakespeare's plays do not have cast-lists, and are not always consistent with characters' names. And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;
This site is dedicated to Puck, that mischievous imp of English folklore, also known as Robin Goodfellow or as a Hobgoblin.
The religious context of the early modern period ensured that this was a dangerous time for the belief in spirits and the supernatural, yet it is evident that faith in these creatures remained significant in popular understanding and folklore. For example, it was believed that fairies could help tidy the home; hence Goodfellow was often depicted carrying a broom and supporting domestic workers with their chores. Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, Else the Puck a liar call: A merrier hour was never wasted there [2.1.32-57].[2]. "Imaginative Sources For Shakespeare's Puck", Arden Shakespeare introduction and text of, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream_(1918)_Yale/Text/Act_II, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream_(1918)_Yale/Text/Act_V, "Clive James: 'Mickey Rooney hammed it up rotten as Puck, "Shake up your Shakespeare: 10 innovative plays for today", "Meet the cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Review | This new 'Midsummer Night's Dream' movie is set in Hollywood. The punishment for neglecting the demands of the fairies continued, ‘we do not only punish them with pinching, but also in their goods, so that they never thrive till they have payd us’. Despite this conflict, there was a particular fairy, a spirit called Robin Goodfellow, whose existence withstood the contemporary attacks on folklore beliefs and continued to cause mischief in sixteenth and seventeenth-century households. • Puck, referred to as Robin Goodfellow and Hobgoblin, appears as a vassal of the Fairy King Oberon in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, and is responsible for the mischief that occurs. Shakespeare's characterization of "shrewd and knavish" Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream may have revived flagging interest in Puck.[5].
And Robin shall restore amends [5.1.433-48].
Consequently, the range of acts that Robin Goodfellow was responsible for, as well as his ability to simultaneously help and harm made him a problematic, yet incredibly interesting, creature in the early modern world. And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; In 1625, Ben Jonson published a ballad from Goodfellow’s perspective which described some of his favourite ways to cause mischief. [1] The modern English word is attested already in Old English as puca (with a diminutive form pucel). The name Robin is Middle English in origin, deriving from Old French Robin, the pet form for the name Robert. He contended, ‘a person would be thought impudently profane’ to go to bed ‘without having first set a tub, or pail full of clean water’, in order for ‘these guests to bathe themselves in’. Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Most commentators think that the word was borrowed from one of these neighbouring north-west European languages into the others, but it is not certain in what direction the borrowing went, and all vectors have been proposed by scholars. The etymology of puck is uncertain. The song proclaimed that he had been sent from Oberon to … That frights the maidens of the villagery;
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile Fairy, thou speak'st aright; Puck is told to apply some of it to the "disdainful youth" (2.1.261) in "Athenian garments" (2.1.264), and does so; but to Lysander, not Demetrius (the disdainful youth). Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck, This trickster was immortalized in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. PUCK: Goodfellow was, as far as historians are aware, a native British spirit who personified the medieval character of the ‘Puck’. Robin Goodfellow was also renowned for playing practical, and sometimes cruel, jokes. Based on the Puck of English mythology,[1] Puck is a mischievous fairy, sprite, or jester; the first of the main fairy characters to appear; and he significantly influences events in the play. Over a century later in 1731, George Waldron argued that this belief was still important. [2], The term pixie is in origin a diminutive of puck.[2]. [4][citation needed], Shakespeare's sources for Puck were assembled and analysed by Winifried Schleiner (1985). And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
Robin itself was a medieval nickname for the devil. In addition, in 1628 an anonymous author published a pamphlet from the perspective of Goodfellow and his fairy companions. In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, as with other supernatural beings, Goodfellow became the subject of negative texts written by Protestant polemicists.
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
Fairies were complex and problematic creatures in early modern England. Sportsmail's racing expert Robin Goodfellow dishes out his tips for Friday's meetings at Newmarket, Uttoxeter, Haydock and Newcastle. [4][citation needed] He may also do work for you if you leave him small gifts, such as a glass of milk or other such treats, otherwise he may do the opposite by "make[ing] the drink[beer] to bear no barm" and other such fiendish acts. He is portrayed as a lively trickster that could shape-shift to confuse the people he encountered, stating ‘sometimes I meet them like a man, sometimes an oxe, sometimes a hound, and to a horse I turn me can’. The earliest reference to "Robin Goodfellow" cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1531. And, as I'm an honest Puck, Puck, the jester of Fairy-court, is the same. In very likeness of a roasted crab;
Puck is sent to fetch a particular flower, the juice whereof "on sleeping eyelids laid / Will make or man or woman madly dote / Upon the next live creature that it sees" (2.1.170-72). William Shakespeare may have had access to the manuscript of Lewes Lewkenor's translation of The Spanish Mandevile of Miracles, or, The Garden of Curious Flowers (1600) a translation of Antonio de Torquemada's, Jardin Flores Curiosas.