Elfin music: an anthology of English fairy poetry

But on this point, it must also be remembered that the Crusades were undoubtedly the means of acquainting Western poets with the rich sources of Oriental romance. The general similarity between the Persian Peri and our own fairy, as well as the substantial identity of many supernatural fictions popular in both the West and the East, are sufficient justification for attributing part of this transformation to the glamorous influence of Arabian imaginations.

The classical alternative offered by the poet-chroniclers of Fairydom also has a basis in fact. The Elizabethan age commonly identified the fairies of Gothic superstition with the classic nymphs who attended Diana. Meanwhile, the elfin queen was Diana herself, and was called by one of the names of that goddess: Titania, which is found in Ovid's Metamorphoses as a title for the heavenly queen. This opinion originated with the romance writers. Chaucer identifies the fairies with the inhabitants of the Latin original: "Infernus" Underworld—

Pluto, who is King of Fairyland . . .
Proserpine and all her Fairyland, etc.

The tradition spread widely and, during the early part of the fourteenth century, found a voice of poetic beauty in the lovely Scotch fairy tale of "Orfeo and Heurodis." This story represents the Greek master of mystical song-craft as a "King in England, who lived in Thrace, or Winchester"—

The King had a queen of excellence
Who was called Dame Heurodis,
The finest lady for the occasion
Who might walk on body and bones,
Full of love and of goodness,
But no man may describe her beauty.

On a certain May morning, Heurodis (also known as Eurodis or Eurydice) went with two of her maidens "to play by an orchard side" near the palace—

To see the flowers spread and spring,
And to hear the birds sing.

She fell asleep on the grass, and when she awoke, she was in a state of frenzy that frightened her maidens away, and they ran back to alarm the entire palace.

She was carried from the orchard to her bed by a long train of knights and ladies and was visited by the distressed king. She informed him, amidst great lamentations, that she must leave him—

As I lay during the afternoon,
and slept beside an orchard,
There came to me two fair knights
Well armed in every right,
And bade me come in haste,