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n It is not wise to upset some things. Apple carts,nfor one. Or the Kindly Ones. That’s why we call them the Kindly Ones –nso as not to upset them. The Eumenides, that’s Greek for the Kindly Ones, werenreally the Furies, the Erinyes, but you don’t go around calling them that, notnif you know what’s good for you. No, you’re respectful, you give them a niceneuphemistic name and you hope that they don’t notice you. Bad things happen tonyou if you bring yourself to their attention, so speak softly and with a littlenrespect.
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| The Erinyes |
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nThe same is true of the Little People, or the Good Folk. You don’t goncalling them by their proper name either because they just might hear you. Andnthen they might come looking for you, just to see who is talking about them.nAnd you don’t want that to happen, not if you can avoid it. Puck is anothernone. Don’t speak his name aloud. Call him something else. Call him RobinnGoodfellow instead. Best be on the safe side. Just to be sure. Robin Goodfellownhas a long pedigree – he may even be the Green Man, and in Reginald Scot’s AnDiscouerie of Witchcraft (1584) he appears amongst a great list of menacingnthings that our ‘mother’s maids’ have named to scare us: –
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n“… bullnbeggers, spirits, witches, urchens, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes,nsylens, kit with the cansticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giants, imps,ncalcars, conjurors, nymphes, changlings. Incubus, Robin good-fellowe, thenspoorne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hell waine, the fierdrake, thenpuckle, Tom thombe, hob gobblin, Tom tumbler, boneles, and such other bugs,nthat we are afraid of our owne shadowes.”n
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| William Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – 1600 |
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nShakespeare used Scot’s book as anreference for his plays, it’s one of the places from which he got the model fornthe witches in Macbeth (… or The Scottish Play, if you prefer tonplay it safe), and Puck appears in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600),nwhere he gets up to his merry pranks along with the other Little People. RobinnGoodfellow had been around in print long before Shakespeare wrote about him,nand he almost certainly had read a pamphlet entitled Robin Goodfellow, hisnMad Prankes and Merry Jests, the earliest existing version of which we havennow have dating from 1628 but earlier versions existed to at least 1588.
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| Robin Goodfellow – His Mad Prankes and Merry Jests – 1628 |
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nAnwoodcut illustration on the pamphlet depicts a goatish satyr, holding a candlenand a broomstick and with a hunting horn hanging about his neck and surroundednby tiny, black, dancing figures, with a black cat, a jug and Tom Thumb playingnhis pipe set nearby. He looks very like someone else who we don’t speak of,njust in case he appears. In the verses and tales of the pamphlet are the saidnmischievous pranks and jests which Robin performs; blowing out candles, hidingnproperty, pinching people, knotting their hair, souring milk and so forth. Nonenof it is malicious and all are accompanied with Robin’s characteristic “Ho,nho, hoh,” laughter (there is a Norfolk proverb, ‘To laugh like RobinnGoodfellow’). Indeed, if someone pleases Robin, he will do their drudgerynfor them, cleaning hearths, sweeping chimneys, sweeping floors, leaving moneynin their shoes, and so on; as befits his goatlike appearance, he is capricious.
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| Richard Dadd – Puck |
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nThe name Robin Goodfellow also gives us many variations – Robin, a diminutivenof Robert, supplies us with hob, as in hob-goblin, hob-thrush and hob-in-the-lantern.nThere are the Yorkshire Dobbies, revived by J K Rowling as house-elves, thenDobbins of the Midlands and there are the Lancashire Hobbils, transformed bynTolkien, who was at Stonyhurst, into the Hobbits. Robin Redbreast, of course,nand Robin Goodfellow is one step away from Robin Hood, in turn one stepnaway from the Green Man. Fellow may derive from the Greek Φαλλος throughnthe French fallot, a lantern or candle affixed to a pole, (as seen innthe woodcut of Puck), with connections to phallus and thyrsus, and maybenindicating the bright and shining humour of a wit like Robin.
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| Rudyard Kipling – Puck of Pook’s Hill – 1906 |
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nPerhaps the mostnpleasing incarnation of Robin Goodfellow appears in Puck of Pook’s Hilln(1906) by Rudyard Kipling. Two children, Dan and Una, are acting out AnMidsummer Night’s Dream in a meadow when Puck himself appears, telling themnthat he is ‘the oldest Old Thing in England’, and begins to relate talesnof Old England, from Weland the Smith’s sword, a soldier on Hadrian’s Wall, anNorman who took part in the Conquest and so forth, culminating with the signingnof Magna Carta.
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| Rudyard Kipling – Rewards and Fairies – 1910 |
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nKipling returned to Puck four years later, in Rewards andnFairies, which continues the story of Dan and Una one year on, when theynmeet Puck again and he tells them more stories of Old England, this time with anmore supernatural slant. It was in Rewards and Fairies that Kiplingnfirst introduced the poem If- which has been voted the most popular poemnin English. If you haven’t read Puck of Pook’s Hill or Rewards andnFairies, you really should. They are a fantastic recreation of a lost time.
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| Puck, Dan and Una – Kipling – Puck of Pook’s Hill |
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