“Where round the bed, whence Achelöus springs, The wat’ry Fairies dance in mazy rings.” (_Iliad_, B. xxiv. 617.) These Nymphs he supposes to frequent or reside in woods, hills, the sea, fountains, grottos etc., whence they are peculiarly called Naiads, Dryads and Nereids: “What sounds are those that gather from the shores, The voice of nymphs that haunt the sylvan bowers, The fair–hair’d dryads of the shady wood, Or azure daughters of the silver flood?” (_Odyss._ B. vi. 122.) The original word, indeed, is _nymphs_, which, it must be confessed, furnishes an accurate idea of the _fays_ (_fées_ or _fates_) of the ancient French and Italian romances; wherein they are represented as females of inexpressible beauty, elegance, and every kind of personal accomplishment, united with magic or supernatural power; such, for instance, as the Calypso of Homer, or the Alcina of Ariosto. Agreeably to this idea it is that Shakespeare makes Antony say in allusion to Cleopatra— “To this great fairy I’ll commend thy acts,” meaning this grand assemblage of power and beauty. Such, also, is the character of the ancient nymphs, spoken of by the Roman poets, as Virgil, for instance: “Fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestes, Panaque, Sylvanumque senem, Nymphasque sorores.” (_Geor._ ii. 493.) They, likewise, occur in other passages as well as in Horace— “——gelidum nemus Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori.” (_Carmina_, I., O. 1, v. 30.) and, still more frequently, in Ovid. Not far from Rome, as we are told by Chorier, was a place formerly called “Ad Nymphas,” and, at this day, “Santa Ninfa,” which without doubt, he adds, in the language of our ancestors, would have been called “The Place of Fays” (_Recherches des Antiquitez, de Vienne_, Lyon, 1659). The word _faée_, or _fée_, among the French, is derived, according to Du Cange, from the barbarous Latin _fadus_ or _fada_, in Italian _fata_. Gervase of Tilbury, in his _Otia Imperialia_ (D. 3, c. 88), speaks of “some of this kind of _larvæ_, which they named _fadœ_, we have heard to be lovers,” and in his relation of a nocturnal contest between two knights (c. 94) he exclaims, “What shall I say? I know not if it were a true _horse_, or if it were a fairy (_fadus_), as men assert.” From the _Roman de Partenay_, or _de Lezignan_, MS. Du Cange cites— “Le chasteau fut fait d’une fée Si comme il est partout retrait.” Hence, he says, _faërie_ for spectres: “Plusieurs parlant de Guenart, Du Lou, de l’Asne, et de Renart, De faëries, et de songes, De fantosmes, et de mensonges.” The same Gervase explains the Latin _fata_ (_fée_, French) a divining woman, an enchantress, or a witch (D. 3, c. 88). Master Wace, in his _Histoire des Ducs de Normendie_ (confounded by many with the _Roman de Rou_), describing the fountain of Berenton, in Bretagne, says—