en Mab;[33] this is said to be of Celtic
derivation. Mercutio's catalogue of Mab's attributes and functions
corresponds closely with the description of Robin Goodfellow.

_Puck_ is strictly not a proper name; and in the quartos and folios of _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_, Puck, Robin, and Robin Goodfellow are used
indiscriminately. In no place in the text is he addressed as "Puck"; it is
always "Robin"[34] (once[35] "Goodfellow" is added). In the last lines of
the play he twice refers to himself as "_an_ honest Puck" and "_the_
Puck," [36] showing that the word is originally a substantive. Dr. J.A.H.
Murray has very kindly allowed the slips of the _New English Dictionary_
which contain notes for the article 'Puck' to be inspected; his treatment
of the word will be awaited with much interest. The earliest and most
important reference is to Prof. A.S. Napier's _Old English Glosses_ (1900),
191, where in a list of glosses of the eleventh century to Aldhelm's
_Aenigmata_ occurs "larbula [i. e. larvula], _puca_." Prof. Napier notes
that O.E. puca, "a goblin," whence N.E. _Puck_, is a well authenticated
word. Dr. Bradley suggests that the source might be a British word, from
which the Irish _puca_ would be borrowed; this word _pooka_, as well as the
allied _poker_, has already been treated in the _N.E.D._ _Puck_, _pouke_,
we find in O.E. (Old English Miscellany, _E.E.T.S._, 76), in Piers Plowman,
and surviving in Spenser; but there are countless analogous forms:
_puckle_, _pixy_, _pisgy_, in English, and perhaps (through Welsh) _bug_,
the old word for _bugbear_, _bogy_, _bogle_, etc.; _puki_ in Icelandic;
_pickel_ in German; and many more.[37]

We may note here the euphemistic tendency to call powerful spirits by
propitiatory names. Just as the Greeks called the Furies "Eumenides," the
benevolent ones, so is Robin called Good-fellow; the ballad of _Tam
Lin_[38] refers to them as "gude neighbours"; the Gaels[39] term a fairy "a
woman of peace"; and Professor Child points out the same fact in relation
to the neo-Greek nereids.[40] Hence also "_sweet_ puck."[41] The names of
the four attendant fairies, Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustard-seed,
are Shakespeare's invention, chosen perhaps to typify grace, lightness,
speed, and smallness.

The _literary_ sources on which Shakespeare, in writing of fairies,
probably drew--or those, at least, on which he could have drawn--can be
shortly stated. We have already mentioned Scot's _Di