WILLIAM ALLINGHAM—The Fairies; The Maids of Elfin Mere 263, 265 EPILOGUE. RICHARD CORBET—Farewell to the Fairies 269 FELICIA HEMANS—Fairy Song 270 PHILIP DAYRE—An Invocation 271 INTRODUCTION. This volume appears, I trust opportunely, during the initial signs of a revival of that romantic or supernatural element which is the first characteristic of primitive song-craft in every nation, and is, by a select section of discriminating literary critics, now welcomed as the salvation of modern poetry. Independently of this fact, there can be no need for apology in presenting for the first time to the lovers of phantasy an anthology of the fairy poetry which during six centuries has made beautiful by its gracious melody the minor paths of English song. I propose in this brief introduction to consider the Elfin mythology in its connection with poetry, without attempting an actually critical estimate of the literary value of the fairy flights which follow it; their poetic merit is, for the most part, sufficiently guaranteed by the names which are attached to them—Chaucer and Spenser in the aurora or day-spring of our literature; Shakespeare, Drayton, Herrick, and other masters of melody in the splendour of its meridian light; Hogg, Horne, and Allingham at our own epoch of inspired imaginings. From the days of Casaubon to Keightley, many conflicting derivations of the word fairy have been proposed by rival etymologists. It is now fairly established that it has come to us from the Latin _fatum_, through the Romance languages. A debased Latin verb, _fatere_, to enchant, was common in mediæval times, and was naturalised in Spain, Italy, and Provence. The French form was _faer_, _féer_. Of this verb, says Keightley, in his masterly _Fairy Mythology_, the past participle is _faé_, _fé_; hence in the romances we continually meet with _les chevaliers faés_, _les dames faées_, etc. From the verb _faér_, _féer_, to enchant, we are told by the same authority that the French made a substantive, _faerié_, _féerie_, illusion, enchantment, a word which was considerably extended in its meaning both before and after its assimilation into the English language, and which came to be employed, not only for illusion, but for the land which was _par excellence_ the home of all gramary, illusion, and _envoutement_, namely, the Land of the Fairies, for the people who dwell therein, and for every individual member of the elfin tribe.