court in Calmuck Tartary; and there, in
The Relations of Ssidi Kur, yet extant, she
originated marvellous stories of the
wandering Khan; of the glorified Naugasuna
Garbi, who was "radiant within and without;"
of the wonderful bird Ssidi, who came
from the middle kingdom of India ; of wishing-
caps, flying-swords, hobgoblins, and fairies
in abundance. In the East, Whittington and
his Cat first realised their price ; it rested in
Italy on its way northward ; and the merry
priest Piovano Arlotto had it from a
benevolent Brahmin, and told it in Florence
before there was ever a Lord Mayor in London.
The King of the Frogs— that of Doctor
Leyden and the Brothers Grimm — was a
tributary of Queen Mab in Lesser Thibet,
centuries ago ; and the fact of the same story
being found in the Gesta Romanorum, and in
the popular superstitions of Germany, only
proves the universality of Queen Mab's
dominion. It is no proof that, because Queen
Mab's fays and goblins hovered about the
rude incantations of Scandinavian mythology,
they were not associated likewise in the One
awful and mysterious monosyllable of the
Hindû Triad.

Before Queen Mab came to be a " case of
real distress," she was everywhere. She and
her sprites played their fairy games with
Bramah and Vishnu, and with the Ormuzd
of the Zendavesta. Her stories were told in
Denmark, where the trold-folk celebrated her
glories. The gib-cat eating his bread and
milk from the red earthenware pipkin of
Goodman Platte, and in deadly fear of Knune-
Marre, is the same Scottish gib-cat that so
rejoiced when Mader Watt was told that
"auld Girnegar o' Craigend, alias Rumble-
grumble, was dead." The Norman Fabliaux
of the Poor Scholar, the Three Thieves, and
the Sexton of Cluni, are all of Queen Mab's
kindred in Scotland. The German tales of
the Wicked Goldsmith, the Talking Bird, and
the Eating of the Bird's Heart, were written
in Queen Mab's own book of the Fable of
Sigurd, delighted in by those doughty
Scandinavian heroes, Thor and Odin. A
corresponding tradition has been seized upon by
that ardent lover of Queen Mab, Monsieur
Perrault, in his story of the Sleeping Beauty
in the Wood. The Golden Goose we have
read and laughed at when told us by the
Brothers Grimm in their Kinder-Märchen, is
but the tale well known to Queen Mab, of
Loke hanging on to the Giant Eagle, for
which you may consult (though I daresay
you won't) the Volsunga Saga, or the second
part of the edition of Resenius. Monk
Lewis's hideous tale of the Grim White
Woman, in which the spirit of the child
whistles to its father:

      "———- pew-wew — pew-wew
        My Minny he stew,"

is but the nether-Saxon tale of the Machandel
Boom or the Holly Tree. "My Minny he
stew" is but

     " Min Moder de mi schlacht,
       Min Vader de mi att."

The Queen Mab records of the Countess
d'Anois delighted children whose fathers'
fathers had anticipated their delight hundreds
of years before, in the Pentamerone of
Giovan' Battista Basile. The Moorish tales
of Melendo the man-eater were known of old
to the Welsh, and are recorded in their
Manobogion, or Myvyrian Archæology. The
boguey of our English nursery was found in
Spain in the days of Maricastana; and, under
the guise of a horse without a head, he yet
haunts the Moorish ramparts of the Alhambra,
in company with another nondescript
beast with a dreadful woolly hide, called the
Belludo. Belludo yet haunts Windsor Forest
as Herne the Hunter. I hear his hoarse
growl, awful to little children, in the old
streets of Rouen, where he is known as the
Gargouille. I have seen him — at least I have
seen those who have seen him — as the
headless hen of Dumbledowndeary.

I count as Queen Mab's subjects and as
part of her dominions, all persons and lands
not strictly mythological, but only fanciful.
Homer, Virgil, Ovid and Company, may keep
Mount Olympus, the ox-eyed Juno, the zoned
Venus, the limping Vulcan, the nimble-
fingered Mercury, for me. I envy not Milton
his "dreaded name of Demogorgon," his
Satans, Beelzebubs, Molochs, his tremendous
allegories of Sin and Death. Queen Mab
has no sympathy with these. Nay, nor for
Doctor Johnson's ponderous supernaturals
(fairies in full-bottomed wigs and buckles),
his happy valleys of Abyssinia, many-pillared
palaces, and genii spouting aphorisms full of
morality and latinity. Nay, and Queen Mab
has nought to do with courtly Joseph Addison
and his academic vision of Mirza, where the
shadowy beings of Mahometan fancy seem
turned into trochees and dactyls. Queen
Mab never heard of Exeter Hall; and never
made or encouraged dense platform eloquence.
I claim for Queen Mab, that she once — alas!
once — possessed the whole realm and region
of fairy and goblin fiction throughout the
world civilised and uncivilised. I claim as
hers the fairies, ghosts, and goblins of
William Shakespeare; Prospero with his
rough magic, the beast Caliban, the witch
Sycorax, the dainty Ariel, and the whole of
the Enchanted Island. I claim as hers Puck,
Peas-blossom, and Mustard-seed. As hers,
Puckle, Hecate, the little little airy spirits,
the spirits black white and grey, the whole
goblin corps of the Saturnalia in Macbeth.
These were wicked subjects of the Queen of
Fairyland — rebellious imps; but they were
hers. I likewise claim as hers, all the
witches, man-eaters, lavaudeuses, brucolaques,
loup-garous, pusses-in-boots, talking birds,