King James VI/I, in his "Daemonologie" discusses incubi/succubi
(horrifying sexual creatures with cold sperm stolen from dead bodies) and
fairies (not real, illusions created by papists, and activated by the
devil, I think).

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, dmiller wrote:

> Charles Butler's post reminds me of Stephen Orgel's discussion of the early
> 17-century marginalia in a copy of FQ that he owns.  The Puritan revaluation
> of faerie clearly informs these marginal notes, which include some
> indignation early in Book I:  doesn't this writer know that all faeries are
> demons?!
>
> I suppose it's a big leap, but one trajectory for this whole problem would
> lead us to Milton, who invokes the spiritual ambiguity of the faerie world
> pretty strikingly at the end of his own first book.  It's striking because
> Paradise Lost tends so to polarize good and evil so impressively; but when
> Milton wants to evoke human uncertainty about the supernatural, he turns to
> that figure of the moonlit rustic laborer, distracted on his way home by
> something that might be the dance of the faeries.  The location of this
> simile just at that point in the narrative when the Satanic powers are
> gathering in supreme council is ominous, to say the least, but the
> indirectness of the connection is also interesting.  Although he suspends it
> in the hypothetical status of a simile, Milton seems to want the beguiling
> atmosphere of folk imagination, half-magical and half-superstitious, as much
> as he wants the Puritan judgment on such matters.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Charles Butler
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 5:01 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: forward from Thomas Herron
>
>
> Katharine Briggs' ever-useful *Dictionary of Fairies*  is interesting on
> Hobgoblins, though rather tantalizingly so. It points out that the word was
> originally applied, somewhat affectionately, to mischievous or brownie-type
> spirits, as in *Midsummer Night's Dream* ('Those that Hobgoblin call you,
> and sweet Puck,/ You do their work, and they shall have good luck'), and
> that its application to wicked spirits was a Puritan usage: she gives the
> example of Bunyan's 'Hobgoblin nor foul fiend'.
>
> If we accept that basic distinction it seems probable that Harvey's
> Hobgoblin/Apollo comparison belongs to the first type, garland-stealing
> being the kind of thing that might be expected of a mischievous Puck, and
> Spenser's later drery-accented frayers to the second. We could have fun
> speculating whether this indicates a definitive shift in usage between the
> composition of the two texts, or a distinction between Harvey's and
> Spenser's religious affiliations, but more likely both meanings were
> current, and either could be used depending on context, as was certainly the
> case with a word like 'fairy'.
>
> I wonder, incidentally, whether Anne's demons are specifically incubi and
> succubi (certainly an object of fascinaton for Spenser, and a worldwide
> phenomenon as far as I can see, though their activities don't form part of
> the hobgoblin's usual job description), or workers of more general-purpose
> marriage-wrecking illusions?
>
> Charlie
>