In Celtic folklore, Puck is a mischievous nature sprite, demon, or
fairy. "Puck" is used as a proper name of such a character, in folklore also
known as Robin Goodfellow or by other names or euphemisms, but "puck" may also
be used as a common noun to other groups.
Origins and comparative folklore According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the etymology of the name Puck is "unsettled"; it is compared to
Old Norse puki. Celtic origins have also been proposed, but as the Old English
and Old Norse attestations are considerably older than the Celtic ones,
loan from Germanic to Celtic seems more probable. The Old English púcel is a
kind of half-tamed woodland spirit, leading folk astray with echoes and
lights in nighttime woodlands, or coming into the farmstead and souring milk in
the churn. The etymology of Puck is examined by Katharine Mary Briggs, in
Anatomy of Puck 1977. The term pixie is in origin a diminutive of puck.
Puck may also be called "Robin Goodfellow" or "Hobgoblin", in which
"Hob" may substitute for "Rob" or may simply refer to the "goblin of the
hearth" or hob. The name Robin is Middle English in origin, deriving from Old
French Robin, the pet form for the name Robert. The earliest reference to "Robin
Goodfellow" cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1531. After
Meyerbeer's successful opera Robert le Diable, neo-medievalists and occultists
began to apply the name Robin Goodfellow to the Devil, with appropriately
extravagant imagery. Characteristics
If you had the knack, Puck might do minor housework for you, quick fine
needlework or butter-churning, which could be undone in a moment by his
knavish tricks if you fell out of favour with him. He may also do work for you if
you leave him small gifts, such as a glass of milk or other such treats,
otherwise he may do the opposite by "make[ing] the drink[beer] to bear no
barm" and other such fiendish acts. Pucks are also known to be inherently
lonely creatures, and often share the goal of acquiring friends. "Those that
Hob-goblin call you, and sweet Puck, / You do their work, and they shall have
good luck" said one of William Shakespeare's fairies. Shakespeare's
characterization of "shrewd and knavish" Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream may
have revived flagging interest in Puck. According to Brewer's Dictionary of
Phrase and Fable: [Robin Goodfellow is a] "drudging
fiend", and merry domestic fairy, famous for mischievous pranks and practical
jokes. At night-time he will sometimes do little services for the family over
which he presides. The Scots call this domestic spirit a brownie; the Germans,
Kobold or Knecht Ruprecht. Scandinavians called it Nissë God-dreng. Puck, the
jester of Fairy-court, is the same. In English literature
Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's
play A Midsummer Night's Dream, whose nature has been so clearly fixed in the
English-speaking imagination that, as Katherine Briggs has remarked, "it no
longer seems natural to talk as Robert Burton does in the Anatomie of
Melancholy of a puck instead of 'Puck'". The audience is introduced to Puck in
Act II Scene I when Puck encounters one of Titania's fairies. She recognizes
Puck for It is Puck's mischievous and sometimes
mistaken doings that provide the convolutions of the plot.
Aside from Shakespeare's famous use of Puck, many other writers have referred
to the sprite as well. An early 17th century broadside ballad, "The Mad Merry
Pranks of Robin Goodfellow"—which is so deft and literate it has been taken for
the work of Ben Jonson—describes Puck/Robin Goodfellow as the emissary of
Oberon, the Fairy King of the Night, inspiring night-terrors in old women but
also carding their wool while they sleep, leading travelers astray, taking
the shape of animals, blowing out the candles to kiss the girls in the
darkness, twitching off their bedclothes, or making them fall out of
bed on the cold floor, tattling secrets, and changing babes in cradles with
elflings. All his work is done by moonlight, and his mocking, echoing
laugh is "Ho ho ho!" Robin Goodfellow is the main speaker in
Jonson's 1612 masque Love Restored. John Milton, in L'Allegro tells "how the
drudging Goblin swet / To earn his cream-bowle" by threshing a week's worth
of grain in a night, and then, "Basks at the fire his hairy strength." Milton's
Puck is not small and sprightly, but nearer to a Green Man or a hairy
woodwose. An illustration of Robin Goodfellow from 1639 reflects the
influence of Pan imagery giving Puck the hindquarters, cloven hooves and horns of
a goat. Puck's trademark laugh in the early
ballads is "Ho ho ho." The folklore of Puck was magisterially
assembled by William Bell, in two volumes that appeared in 1852 that have
been called a "monument to nineteenth-century antiquarianism gone
rampant." In Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's
Hill, Puck, the last of the People of the Hills and "the oldest Old Thing in
England", charms the children Dan and Una with a collection of tales and
visitors out of England's past. Harvey the invisible rabbit in the play
and film of the same name is identified as a pooka.
See also Bucca
Faunus Harvey
Leshy Lubber fiend
Puck Puck in popular culture
Púca Satyr
References External links
A Puck website gives the text of early 17th century ballads of Robin
Goodfellow. A folklore page, with a 1639 Puritan
image of a demonized Puck The Ballads of Robin Goodfellow
The Fairy Mythology