As they did in the golden world...

Why is Robin Hood linked to Nottingham?  Now although in A Lyttell Geste of Robyn Hode Child Ballad 117 we find Robin linked to Barnsdale Forest in South Yorkshire (“Robyn stode in Bernesdale,...”) still his great witherling (=adversary) is:

“The hy sherif of Notyingham,|

Hym holde ye in your mynde.’” 

In “Robin Hood and the Monk” (Cambridge University handwrit Ff.5.48) (Child 119) however, Sherwood in Nottinghamshire is seemingly Robin's home:

The scheref made to seke Notyngham,

Bothe be strete and stye,

And Robyn was in mery Scherwode,

As liȝt as lef on lynde.

Now as Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire are next to one another there is no great hardship in outfolding this.  For must not an hunted outlaw have fared far and wide at need?  And they are both such as to still make Nottingham a likely backdrop for some of the tale that is being told. But why Nottingham?  The wyrdwriters who believe in a flesh and blood Robin Hood have their own thoughts on this, but what of those of us who believe that Robin Hood is truly an old god in hidlock?   Why might a god be linked to Nottingham rather than to anywhere else in England?   The answer is: Caves.

 

Bishop Asser, in his Life of King Alfred (Cotton handwrit Otho A xii, burnt in 1731), doth tell us that Nottingham, or as it was then called, Snotengaham, meaneth “house of caves”:

“30. Eodem anno praedictus paganorum exercitus Northanhymbros relinquens, in Merciam venit, et Snotengaham adiit (quod Britannice 'Tig-guocobauc' interpretatur, Latine autem 'speluncarum domus'), et in eodem loco eodem anno hiemaverunt. Quibus illic advenientibus, confestim Burhred, Merciorum rex, et omnes eiusdem gentis optimates nuncios ad Aethered, Occidentalium Saxonum regem, et Aelfred, fratrem, dirigunt, suppliciter obsecrantes, ut illi illis auxiliarentur, quo possent contra praefatum pugnare exercitum. Quod et facile impetraverunt. Nam illi fratres, non segnius promissione, congregato ex omni parte sui immenso exercitu, Merciam adeunt, et usque ad Snotengaham, bellum unanimiter quaerentes, perveniunt. Cumque pagani, tuitione arcis muniti, bellum dare negarent et Christianis frangere murum non suppeteret, pace inter Mercios et paganos facta, duo illi fratres Aethered et Aelfred cum suis cohortibus domum reversi sunt.”

“In the same year, the above-named army of pagans, leaving Northumberland, invaded Mercia and advanced to Nottingham, which is called in the British tongue, "Tiggocobauc," but in Latin, the "House of Caves," and they wintered there that same year. Immediately on their approach, Burhred, king of Mercia, and all the nobles of that nation, sent messengers to Ethelred, king of the West-Saxons, and his brother Alfred, suppliantly entreating them to come and aid them in fighting against the aforesaid army. Their request was easily obtained; for the brothers, as soon as promised, assembled an immense army from all parts of their dominions, and entering Mercia, came to Nottingham, all eager for battle, and when the pagans, defended by the castle, refused to fight, and the Christians were unable to destroy the wall, peace was made between the Mercians and pagans, and the two brothers, Ethelred and Alfred, returned home with their troops.” (awending by Dr. J.A. Giles in his "Six Old English Chronicles" London, 1847).

Asser's Welsh, would be now something like Ty-gogovawc or Ty-gogovawg and meaneth straightly “a cave-like house”, =gogovawg from ogo[f]- cave.

Now notwithstanding the unlikeliness of Asser's awending of the English stow name, no other town in England doth have such a “labyrinth” of caves underneath it, and this it doth seem was acknowledged at least as early as the days of Alfred.

So what is so great about caves?   Luckily for us, the new belief did not fordo all the writings of the old in Greekland, and we have On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey (Περὶ τοῦ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ τῶν Νυμφῶν Ἄντρου) written by one Porphyry (Πορφύριος):

“Ἄντρα μὲν δὴ ἐπιεικῶς οἱ παλαιοὶ καὶ σπήλαια τῷ κόσμῳ καθιέρουν καθ' ὅλον τε αὐτὸν καὶ κατὰ μέρη λαμβάνοντες, σύμβολον μὲν τῆς ὕλης ἐξ ἧς ὁ κόσμος τὴν γῆν παραδιδόντες (διό τινες καὶ αὐτόθεν τὴν ὕλην τὴν γῆν εἶναι ἐτίθεντο), τὸν <δὲ> ἐκ τῆς ὕλης γινόμενον κόσμον διὰ τῶν ἄντρων παριστῶντες, ὅτι τε ὡς ἐπὶ πολὺ αὐτοφυῆ τὰ ἄντρα καὶ συμφυῆ τῇ γῇ ὑπὸ πέτρας περιεχόμενα μονοειδοῦς, ἧς τὰ μὲν ἔνδον κοῖλα, τὰ δ' ἔξω εἰς τὸ ἀπεριόριστον τῆς γῆς ἀνεῖται· αὐτοφυὴς δὲ ὁ κόσμος καὶ [αὐτοσυμφυὴς] προσπεφυκὼς τῇ ὕλῃ, ἣν λίθον καὶ πέτραν διὰ τὸ ἀργὸν καὶ ἀντίτυπον πρὸς τὸ εἶδος εἶναι ᾐνίττοντο, ἄπειρον κατὰ τὴν αὐτῆς ἀμορφίαν τιθέντες.

ῥευστῆς δ' οὔσης αὐτῆς καὶ τοῦ εἴδους δι' οὗ μορφοῦται καὶ φαίνεται καθ' ἑαυτὴν ἐστερημένης, τὸ ἔνυδρον καὶ ἔνικμον τῶν ἄντρων καὶ σκοτεινὸν καὶ ὡς ὁ ποιητὴς ἔφη ἠεροειδὲς οἰκείως ἐδέξαντο εἰς σύμβολον τῶν προσόντων τῷ κόσμῳ διὰ τὴν ὕλην. διὰ μὲν οὖν τὴν ὕλην ἠεροειδὴς καὶ σκοτεινὸς ὁ κόσμος, διὰ δὲ τὴν τοῦ εἴδους συμπλοκὴν καὶ διακόσμησιν, ἀφ' οὗ καὶ κόσμος ἐκλήθη, καλός τέ ἐστι καὶ ἐπέραστος. ὅθεν οἰκείως ἐπ' αὐτοῦ ἂν ῥηθείη ἄντρον ἐπήρατον μὲν τῷ εὐθὺς ἐντυγχάνοντι διὰ τὴν τῶν εἰδῶν μέθεξιν, ἠεροειδὲς δὲ σκοποῦντι τὴν ὑποβάθραν αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὴν εἰσιόντι τῷ νῷ· ὥστε τὰ μὲν ἔξω καὶ ἐπιπολαίως ἐπήρατα, τὰ δ' ἔνδον καὶ ἐν βάθει ἠεροειδῆ.

οὕτω καὶ Πέρσαι τὴν εἰς κάτω κάθοδον τῶν ψυχῶν καὶ πάλιν ἔξοδον μυσταγωγοῦντες τελοῦσι τὸν μύστην, ἐπονομάσαντες σπήλαιον <τὸν> τόπον· πρώτου μέν, ὡς ἔφη Εὔβουλος, Ζωροάστρου αὐτοφυὲς σπήλαιον ἐν τοῖς πλησίον ὄρεσι τῆς Περσίδος ἀνθηρὸν καὶ πηγὰς ἔχον ἀνιερώσαντος εἰς τιμὴν τοῦ πάντων ποιητοῦ καὶ πατρὸς Μίθρου, εἰκόνα φέροντος αὐτῷ τοῦ σπηλαίου τοῦ κόσμου, ὃν ὁ Μίθρας ἐδημιούργησε, τῶν δ' ἐντὸς κατὰ συμμέτρους ἀποστάσεις σύμβολα φερόντων τῶν κοσμικῶν στοιχείων καὶ κλιμάτων· μετὰ δὲ τοῦτον τὸν Ζωροάστρην κρατήσαντος καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις, δι' ἄντρων καὶ σπηλαίων εἴτ' οὖν αὐτοφυῶν εἴτε χειροποιήτων τὰς τελετὰς ἀποδιδόναι.”

“ The ancients, indeed, very properly consecrated a cave to the world, whether assumed collectively, according to the whole of itself, or separately, according to its parts. Hence they considered earth as a symbol of that matter of which the world consists; on which account some thought that matter and earth are the same; through the cave indicating the world, which was generated from matter. For caves are, for the most part, spontaneous productions, and connascent with the earth, being comprehended by one uniform mass of stone; the interior parts of which are concave, but the exterior parts are extended over an indefinite portion of land. And the world being spontaneously produced (i.e., being produced by no external, but from an internal cause), and being also self-adherent, is allied to matter; which, according to a secret signification, is denominated a stone and a rock, on account of its sluggish and repercussive nature with respect to form; the ancients, at the same time, asserting that matter is infinite through its privation of form. Since, however, it is continually flowing, and is of itself destitute of the supervening investments of form, through which it participates of morphe, and becomes visible, the flowing waters, darkness, or, as the poet says, obscurity of the cavern. were considered by the ancients as apt symbols of what the world contains, on account of the matter with which it is connected. Through matter, therefore, the world is obscure and dark; but through the connecting power, and orderly distribution of form, from which also it is called world, it is beautiful and delightful. Hence it may very properly be denominated a cave; as being lovely, indeed, to him who first enters into it, through its participation of forms, but obscure to him who surveys its foundation and examines it with an intellectual eye. So that its exterior and superficial parts, indeed, are pleasant, but its interior and profound parts are obscure (and its very bottomis darkness itself). Thus also the Persians, mystically signifying the descent of the soul into the sublunary regions, and its regression from it, initiate the mystic (or him who is admitted to the arcane sacred rites) in a place which they denominate a cavern. For, as Eubulus says, Zoroaster was the first who consecrated in the neighbouring mountains of Persia, a spontaneously produced cave, florid, and having fountains, in honour of Mithra, the maker and father of all things; a cave, according to Zoroaster, bearing a resemblance of the world, which was fabricated by Mithra. But the things contained in the cavern being arranged according to commensurate intervals, were symbols of the mundane elements and climates.”(awending ThomasTaylor)

From which the still awake reader will see that the god was linked to Nottingham above all other towns for that its caves made it a fitting token for the world.  And when Robin goeth into Nottingham it is as much to say as a god goeth into the world.

Whan Robyn came to Notyngham,

Sertenly withouten layn,

He prayed to God and myld Mary

To bryng hym out saue agayn.

“The hy sherif of Notyingham” is the witherling of this god, and doth belike stand in the stead of some ettin who in the old tales were the foes of the gods.  That Robin mainly goeth into Nottingham, in hidlock, rather than openly, is also what we might ween if we were talking of a god going into the borough of his foes. But the hidlock might also be understood in a less stavewise way as meaning no more than the god taking upon himself a man's body so his godhead is unknown. Thus Euripides in the Bacchae sayeth of Dionysus:

 

 μορφὴν δ᾽ ἀμείψας ἐκ θεοῦ βροτησίαν 4

 

And having taken a mortal form instead of a god's,

 

...

...ἵν᾽ εἴην ἐμφανὴς δαίμων βροτοῖς. 22

 

...so that I might be a deity manifest among men...

(awending T. A. Buckley).

And see Apollodorus' Bibliotheca 1.9.15, 3.10.4 where Apollo in hidlock mindeth the cows of Admetus as a swain (see The Winter's Tale, Act IV, scene IV), or Bibliotheca 2.5.9 where Apollo helpeth to build the walls of Troy to put the recklessness (ὕβρις hubris) of king Laomedon to fonding. This belief may also be seen as underlying the words of “The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men (οἱ θεοὶ ὁμοιωθέντες ἀνθρώποις κατέβησαν πρὸς ἡμᾶς)” found in  The Acts of the Apostles (Πράξεις τῶν Ἀποστόλων, Acta Apostolorum), Chapitle 14:

  

“11 And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. 

12 And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.”

And Homer singeth in the The Odyssey (Ὀδύσσεια, Odysseia) Book 17, lines 485 to 487 (awending S. H. Butcher & A. Lang ):

“καί τε θεοὶ ξείνοισιν ἐοικότες ἀλλοδαποῖσι, 485

παντοῖοι τελέθοντες, ἐπιστρωφῶσι πόληας,

ἀνθρώπων ὕβριν τε καὶ εὐνομίην ἐφορῶντες.”

“Yea and the gods, in the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all manner of shapes, and wander through the cities, beholding the violence (ὕβρις) and the righteousness of men.”

Which was borrowed by the new belief:

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels (ἀγγέλους) unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2)

For angels read gods.

And at length we may come to the understanding that the belief of what is known in India as an avatāraḥ ‎(अवतारः) and aṃśa-avatāraḥ ‎(अंशावतार:) is not unknown in The West.  See also what Macrobius writeth of Hercules in “The Saturnalia” I, xx.  Hercules being evened of yore with the god whom the folk of India worship, and where belike “Vishnu” ‎(विषणुः viṣaṇuḥ) is to be understood (see Strabo Geography Book XV, Chapter 1§58 and Pliny in his Naturales Historiae book, chapitle 24 on the folk of Taprobane who “coli herculem”).

Often Robin doth go into Nottingham only to free haftlings (=prisoners) (such as the good knight in A Lyttell Geste …) whom the sherriff hath unluckily laught (=caught) and locked up in his castle. This then would be the god warding (=protecting) his friends - the “good fellows” - from worldly harm and at length leading them to freedom: not only from their worldly foes but also from the antimber (=matter) of both the body and the world. To become one of Robin's “mery men” or “mery meyn” in “mery Scherwode” is to win the soul's hail  (=salvation).

As You Like It Act I, scene I:

OLIVER.  Where will the old duke live?

CHARLES.  They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and

a many merry men with him; and there they live like

the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young

gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time

carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Golden Eld about 1530.  Now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.ᛋ

Farewell.

And For Our Dear Lord...

All Hail!

The “elf-queen” and the “elf-king”, if we may call her match or make thus, are godheads in but the thinnest of hidlocks (=disguises), as will be seen from what followeth.

King James I in his Dæmonologie (1597):

PHILOMATHES. Now I pray you come on to that fourth kinde of spirites. 
EPI. That fourth kinde of spirites, which by the Gentiles was called Diana, and her wandring court, and amongst vs was called the Phairie (as I tould you) or our good neighboures, was one of the sortes of illusiones that was rifest in the time of Papistrie: for although it was holden odious to Prophesie by the deuill, yet whome these kinde of Spirites carryed awaie, and informed, they were thought to be sonsiest and of best life. To speake of the many vaine trattles founded vpon that illusion: How there was a King and Queene of Phairie, of such a iolly court & train as they had, how they had a teynd, & dutie, as it were, of all goods: how they naturallie rode and went, eate and drank, and did all other actiones like naturall men and women: I thinke it liker VIRGILS Campi Elysij, nor anie thing that ought to be beleeued by Christians,...

In the so-called “Flyting of Montgomerie & Polwart”:

THE SECUND INVECTIVE.
 
Into the hinderend of harvest, on ane alhallow evin,
quhen our goode nichtbouris ryddis, if I reid richt, 269
...
the king of pharie, with þe court of the elph quene,
with mony alrege incubus, ryddand that nicht. 275

MONTGOMERYES ANSWEIR TO POLUART.

In the hinder end of harvest, on ahallow even,
Quhen our good neighboures doth ryd, If I reid rycht, 275
...
The King of pharie, and his Court, with the elph queine, 280
With mony elrich Incubus, was rydand that nycht.

Elrich, or alrege, meaneth “otherworldly”.

Notwithstanding that the “elf-queen” was widely evened with the Romans' gyden Diana, Chaucer in the Merchant's Tale eveneth her with Proserpina and the “elf-king”with Proserpina's husband, Pluto:

Full often time he, Pluto, and his queen
Proserpina, and all their faerie,
Disported them and made melody
About that well, and danced, as men told.
....
Pluto, that is the king of Faerie,
And many a lady in his company
Following his wife, the queen Proserpina, --

And Thomas Campion (1567 – 1620) in his leeth (=poem) Harke, al you ladies that doth sleep ... hath “The fayry queen Proserpina”. In William Dunbar's The Goldyn Targe lines 125 to 126, the Roman god is almost lost sight of behind all the much more northerly tokening Dunbar is here borrowing:

“There was Pluto, the elrich incubus,
In cloke of grene...”.

It is worthwhile here to mark William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Truly indeed of Shakespeare it is written: “He was not of an age, but for all time!”  In this we meet the “fairy king” (so-called once in act 4 scene 1) and the “fairy queen” (so-called four times in act 2 scene 1, act 2 scene 2, act 3 scene 1, act 4 scene 1).  The king he further nameth Oberon and the queen Titania.  In calling the “elf-queen” Titania Shakespeare is hiding the name of Diana, as in Ovid's Metamorphoses book 3 line 173 Diana is so called.  Although in Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene IV it would seem he calleth her “Mab”:

“O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, …”.

Michael Drayton (1563 – 1631), another Warwickshire man, in his Nymphidia, The Court of Fairy would also seem to be of this mind:

Hence Oberon him sport to make,
Their rest when weary mortals take, 50
And none but only fairies wake,
Descendeth for his pleasure ;
And Mab, his merry Queen, …

And:

If Oberon had chanced to hear 150
That Mab his Queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.
...

“Mab” is not a word borrowed from Irish as some do say.  It is seemingly a shortening of the lady's name “Mabel”, yet here somewhat misbrooked (=misused) for a gyden or an elfen.  But as we have seen with the “Mag” of the magpie, such names often hide a much deeper and older meaning.  I think Thomas Keightley (The Fairy Mythology..., Deal II, (1833), lf. 135) is therefore right to make it stem from “dame Habonde” as she is called in the Roman de la Rose (see J. Grimm Teutonic Mythology, Deal I (1882), chap. 13, lvs. 286 to 288), and who we know from William of Auvergne's De Universo (written in the 1230s) still had a lingering worship in Frankland (=France) in his days.  “dame Habonde” being yet another name for the “elf-queen”.

  Sir Joseph Noel Paton FRSA, LL. D. (1821 – 1901) 

The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1849).  

Now in The National Gallery of Scotland.ᛋ

The name of Oberon is taken from the Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux done into English by Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners and first thrutched (=printed) about 1534.  Oberon or Auberon is meant to be a French awending of Alberich the king of the dwarves in Otnit (see J. Grimm Teut. Myth. Deal II (1883), chap 17, lvs. 452 to 453) although in Orendel inde Brîde we also find a helpful dwarf called Albân (“ein gidwerch dô zô zir quam,/ daz was giheizen Albân”) who is likely to be the same.  But be this as it may, the name Alberich is itself the same as our old man's name Ælfriċ (said “Alvrich”), and which meaneth no more than “elf-king”!  I believe however, that the German leeths (=poems) have formenged here dwarves and elves, and which to begin with were to be told asunder, although dwarves are indeed a kind of elf.  Thus among the Northerners Snorri Sturluson can, in his Edda, seemingly name dwarves as dark or swart elves (see Gylfaginning 17, 34 and Skáldskaparmál 46).  And maybe with us also, if we minn (=recall) here Iohn Walsh's “ther be. iii. kindes of Feries, white, greene, & black”. Likewise in England the short height of elves, which in Shakespeare's time had reached a laughworthy low stead (and maybe also the making of them dwell in the earth at times), is also from a formenging of elves with dwarves, but in the againward (=opposite) way to that of the Germans.  Also under the sway of those dull minds who held that a seldom seen thing, if it had any being at all, had to be small so as to blend into its background and be so often overlooked.

Now before we go any further it is well to know that under the heading of “elf-king” two seemingly unalike godheads are to be understood. The other (=second) must abide a later post, but the first is one and the same with the Northern god Freyur who, as a child was made the lord of “eluenlond” or Alfheimur as they call it, (see Grímnismál 5).  He is to be linked to the Romans' Pluto only in so much as Pluto was a god of earthly wealth: hence his name stemmeth from the Greek ὁ πλούτων meaning “the richman”.  Thus Snorri Sturlusson  in his Edda, Skáldskaparmál, chapitle (=chapter) 14 Freyskenningar nameth the Freyur  “fégjafi” “fee giver” “wealth giver”.  And in Gylfaginning 24 he writeth “Hann ræðr ok fésælu manna. ” “He wieldeth also the wealth-luck of men”.  I further mark here “skírum Frey” (see Grímnismál 43) “skír Freyur” “sheer Freyur”  “bright Freyur” which should be weighed with Gylfaginning 24 “Hann ræðr fyrir ... skini sólar...” “He wieldeth over ... the shinining of the sun...”.  Freyur's elves are therefore likely to be Snorri's light-elves ljósálfar of whom he doth write that they are “as fair as the seen sun” (“ljósálfar eru fegri en Sól sýnum” Gylfaginning 17).  They are also likely to be those elves who are sometimes found among the gods, and share in their woe or weal (see Völuspá 48, Þrymskviða 7, Lokasenna 30); and also those elves who are sprung from Álfur or Finn-Álfur and Svanhildur Gullfjöður “Gold-feather” the daughter of Dagur “Day” and Sól “Sun” (see Hversu Noregr byggðist in the Flateyjarbók).  And if the “elf-queen” is linked to the Romans' Diana, must not the  “elf-king” we are here writing about be evened with Diana's brother, Apollo?  Indeed I believe that the Romans' Apollo and Diana are the Northerners' Freyur and Freyja (see Hélène Adeline Guerber (1859–1929)  Myths of Northern Lands, American Book Co., New York, Cincinatti, Chicago, (1895), chap XXVIII, lf.284 who marketh the likeness of Apollo to Freyur).  Plutarch On Isis and Osiris (awending F. C. Babbitt):

“ … οὐχ ἑτέρους παρ᾽ ἑτέροις οὐδὲ βαρβάρους καὶ Ἕλληνας οὐδὲ νοτίους καὶ βορείους: ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη καὶ οὐρανὸς καὶ γῆ καὶ θάλασσα κοινὰ πᾶσιν, ὀνομάζεται δ᾽ ἄλλως ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων, οὕτως ἑνὸς λόγου τοῦ ταῦτα κοσμοῦντος καὶ μιᾶς προνοίας ἐπιτροπευούσης καὶ δυνάμεων ὑπουργῶν ἐπὶ πάντα τεταγμένων, ἕτεραι παρ᾽ ἑτέροις κατὰ νόμους γεγόνασι τιμαὶ καὶ προσηγορίαι: ...”

“Nor do we think of the gods as different gods among different peoples, nor as barbarian gods and Greek gods, nor as southern and northern gods; but, just as the sun and the moon and the heavens and the earth and the sea are common to all, but are called by different names by different peoples, so for that one rationality which keeps all these things in order and the one Providence which watches over them and the ancillary powers that are set over all, there have arisen among different peoples, in accordance with their customs, different honours and appellations.”

With all this in mind then, what Oberon sayeth in A Midsummer Night's Dream Act III, scene ii is well worth marking:

PUCK.  My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
They willfully themselves exile from light
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.

OBERON.  But we are spirits of another sort:
I with the morning's love have oft made sport,
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
But, notwithstanding, haste; make no delay:
We may effect this business yet ere day.

Likewise, understanding Freyur as Adam of Bremen's “Fricco” from his Descriptio insularum aquilonis, his wardship there of weddings (see chapitle 27 “si nuptiae celebrandae sunt, Fricconi [lybatur]” “if a wedding is frellsed (=celebrated) they yeet (=pour) a drink-offering to Fricco”) maketh what Oberon sayeth in A Midsummer Night's Dream Act V, scene I most fyrwit:

OBERON Now, until the break of day,
Through this house each fairy stray.
To the best bride-bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be;
And the issue there create
Ever shall be fortunate.
So shall all the couples three
Ever true in loving be;
And the blots of Nature's hand
Shall not in their issue stand;
Never mole, hare lip, nor scar,
Nor mark prodigious, such as are
Despised in nativity,
Shall upon their children be.
With this field-dew consecrate,
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace, with sweet peace;
And the owner of it blest
Ever shall in safety rest.
Trip away; make no stay;
Meet me all by break of day.

In the 1601 outlaying of Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux, Chap. XXI Oberon is araught (=described) thus:

“Then they alighted vnder a great Oake, to the entent to search for some fruit to eate, they glad thereof let their horses goe to pasture. When they were thus alighted, the Dwarfe of the Fayry Kinge Oberon came ryding by, and had on a Gowne so rich, that it were maruaile to recount the riches and fashion thereof, & it was so garnished with precious stones, that the clearnesse of them shined like the Sonne.”
 

I also mark Gerames' words in the same work (chapitle XX) about Oberon:

“... he hath an Angell-like visage, so that there is no mortal man that séeth him, but that taketh great pleasure to behold his face, ”

And this bringeth us to Androw Man's “Devill”:

“ The said Androw confessis that Crystsunday cum to hym in liknes of ane fair angell, and clad in quhyt claythis, and said that he was ane angell, and that he suld put his trust in hym, and call hym his lord and kyng, and markit hym on the thrid fynger, quhilk mark he beris as yitt.”

“... that Crystsunday rydis all the tyme that he is in thair cumpanie...”.

“... the Devill, thy maister, quhom thow termes Christsonday, and supponis to be ane angell, and Goddis godsone, albeit he hes a thraw by God, and swyis to the Quene of Elphen, ...”

And some of what Marioun Grant had to say is worth etching (=adding) here:

“... the Devill thy maister, com to the, quhom thow calis Christsonday, in the scheap of a man, and baid the call him lord, and becom his servand, and thow suld nocht want, and callit the dame; and at that tyme, had carnall deall with the, and thow becom than his servand...” (lvs.170 to 171)

“Thow confessit that ance everie moneth sensyn, the Devill apperit to the, sumtyme in a hous, and sumtyme in the fieldis, in dyvers scheappis and liknes; sumtyme in the scheap of a beist, and sumtyme in the scheap of a man, and causit the kis him in dyvers pairtis, and worship him on thy kneis as thy lord.

... Thow confessit that the Devill thy maister, quhome thow termes Christsonday, causit the dans sindrie tymes with him and with Our Ladye, quha, as thow sayes, was a fine woman, clad in a quhyt walicot, and sindrie vtheris of Christsondayes servands with the, quhais names thow knawis not, ...”. (lf.171).

Farewell.