Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/419

 The Folklore of Shakespeare. 391

On the other side, at cockcrow the witch's power ceased. Thus Marcellus speaks :

" No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time." Hamlet, i. 1. He that could draw blood from a witch was free : " Devil, or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee: Blood will I draw on thee; thou art a witch."

I Henry VI. i. 5. 6. The " Wise Woman," a woman skilled in hidden arts, fortune-tellinc^, palmistry, etc., is often mentioned in the literature of the time, and is very nearly allied to the witch. She is mentioned in Twelfth Night (iii. 4), and the Wise Woman of Brentford in Meny Wives is also called in the same play " the witch of Brentford."

6. Magicians.

Magicians and sorcerers are so mixed up with super- natural devilry that it would be going over ground already paced in the previous divisions to describe them here, but Prospero, the great magician of Shakespeare, is so distinct a character that he cannot be entirely overlooked in the catalogue of folklore personages.

He was a magician with his familiar spirits, and his relations with one of these — the high-spirited Ariel — have already been referred to. Unlike the ordinary magician, his actions were beneficent and not evil. When, hov/ever, the time was come for giving up his occupation he was not loath to retire. His superhuman powers had their source in his garments, in his books of magic, and in his staff. These, therefore, he decided to destroy :

" Pluck my magic garments from me, — so; Lie there my art." He thus commands. His magic book must be drowned : " Deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book."