O then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes, In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies, Over men's noses as they lie asleep: Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers; The traces, of the smallest spider's web; The collars of the moonshine's watery beams: Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film: Her waggoner, a small gray-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid: Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coachmakers. * * * * * This is that very Mab _That plats the manes of horses in the night; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bode. This is the hag,[397] when maids lie on their backs, That presses them_. In an exquisite and well-known passage of the Tempest, higher and more awful powers are ascribed to the Elves: Prospero declares that by their aid he has "bedimmed the noon-tide sun;" called forth the winds and thunder; set roaring war "'twixt the green sea and the azured vault;" shaken promontories, and plucked up pines and cedars. He thus invokes them:-- Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;[398] And ye, that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him, When he comes back; you demi-puppets that _By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight-mushrooms_, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew. The other dramas of Shakspeare present a few more characteristic traits of the Fairies, which should not be omitted. Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planet strikes, _No fairy takes_,[399] no witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is that time. _Hamlet_, Act. i. sc. 1. King Henry IV. wishes it could be proved, _That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle-clothes our children where they lay_, And called mine--Percy, his--Plantagenet! The old shepherd in the Winter's Tale, when he finds Perdita, exclaims, It was told me, I should be rich, by the fairies: this is some changeling. And when his son tells him it is gold that is within the "bearing-cloth," he says,