Bestrides young folks that lie upright, (In elder times the mare that hight), Which plagues them out of measure.

Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes, Of little frisking elves and apes To earth do make their wanton scapes, As hope of pastime hastes them; Which maids think on the hearth they see When fires well-nigh consuméd be, There dancing hays [98] by two and three, Just as their fancy casts them.

These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, And put a penny in their shoe The house for cleanly sweeping; And in their courses make that round In meadows and in marshes found, Of them so called the Fairy Ground, Of which they have the keeping.

These when a child haps to be got Which after proves an idiot When folk perceive it thriveth not, The fault therein to smother, Some silly, doting, brainless calf That understands things by the half, Say that the Fairy left this oaf And took away the other.

But listen, and I shall you tell A chance in Faery that befell, Which certainly may please some well, In love and arms delighting, Of Oberon that jealous grew Of one of his own Fairy crew, Too well, he feared, his Queen that knew, His love but ill requiting.

Pigwiggin was this Fairy Knight, One wondrous gracious in the sight Of fair Queen Mab, which day and night He amorously observéd; Which made King Oberon suspect His service took too good effect, His sauciness had often checkt, And could have wished him stervéd.

Pigwiggin gladly would commend Some token to Queen Mab to send, If sea or land him aught could lend Were worthy of her wearing; At length this lover doth devise A bracelet made of emmets’ eyes, A thing he thought that she would prize, No whit her state impairing.

And to the Queen a letter writes, Which he most curiously indites, Conjuring her by all the rites Of love, she would be pleaséd To meet him, her true servant, where They might, without suspect or fear, Themselves to one another clear And have their poor hearts easéd.

At midnight, the appointed hour; “And for the Queen a fitting bower,” Quoth he, “is that fair cowslip flower On Hient Hill [100] that bloweth; In all your train there’s not a fay That ever went to gather may But she hath made it, in her way, The tallest there that groweth.”

When by Tom Thumb, a Fairy Page, He sent it, and doth him engage By promise of a mighty wage It secretly to carry; Which 

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