Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/157

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A somewhat slangy passage, methinks, to have been penned by Michael Drayton, Esquire.

After many adventures and misadventures the miserable monarch encountered Puck, "which most men call Hobgoblin. Of him our poet asserts—

Puck was "in this country in Shakespeare's days a generic name applied to the whole race of fairy"; but Hobgoblin—Hob and Rob being rustic abbreviations of Robert—seems to have been thought peculiarly appropriate to Robin Goodfollow, although it was not always exclusively reserved for him. "Nevertheless and notwithstanding" I should like to suggest that hobin, the M.E. word which gave a name for the wooden steeds of nursery stables, provided a prefix for this goblin of equine presence. Gervase of Tilbury's Grant, the "yearling foal" which appeared about sunset or "otherwhen," and ran about the streets when any danger was impending, may have been in the pedigree of Hobgoblin.

Oberon made Puck his confidant, and this servant to command engaged to bring the lady to her lord; forthwith