Virtual Grub Street: Mr. Thoms on Shakespeare’s Urchins

This on Shakespeare’s meaning when he used the word “urchin” in his plays from William J. Thoms’ delightful “The Folk-Lore of Shakespeare” (1847) as reprinted in his Three Notelets on Shakespeare (1865). The Bard’s knowledge of the realm of fairy is a vein that has not yet been tapped out by any means.

Urchin, another name applied by Shakespeare to the fairies, has served to vex the commentators, and this because it is an old name for a hedgehog. Thus, we find Steevens interpreting the first passage in "The Tempest," in which it occurs —

Urchins

Shall, for that vast of night that they may work.

All exercise on thee.

"Urchins, i. e. hedgehogs"—adding, "Urchins are enumerated by Reginald Scot among other terrific beings." And again, "Urchins are, perhaps, here put for fairies." Milton in his "Masque" speaks of "urchin blasts;" and we still call any dwarfish child an urchin. The word occurs again in the next act. Malone, not altogether satisfied with Steevens's note, says—" In 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' we have urchins, ouphes, and fairies; " and a passage, to which Mr. Steevens alludes inclines me to think that urchins here signify beings of the fairy kind

His spirits hear me,

And I need must curse ; but they'll nor pinch.

Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' the mire,

Nor lead me, like a fire-brand in the dark.

Out of my way, unless he bids them.

How Steevens and Malone could read this latter passage, which forms so admirable an illustration of the manner in which the urchins were, for the vast of night that they might work, to exercise on Caliban,— and remembering as they did the combination of "urchins, ouphes, and fairies " in " The Merry "Wives of Windsor," could yet doubt that urchin was used by Shakespeare as synonymous with elf and fairy, is most extraordinary. Lest, however, any of my readers should share that doubt, I subjoin in a note[1] the passage from Reginald Scot to which Steevens alluded,—and which should certainly have satisfied him that Shakespeare did not use the word urchin in the sense of hedgehog.

I furnish them, too, with the following passage from Rowland, in which urchins and elves are as closely identified as by Shakespeare—

In old wives daies, that in old time did live,

(To whose odde tales much credit men did give)

Great store of goblins, fairies, bugs, nightmares,

Urchins and elves to many a house repaires.

And, lastly, I quote from my lamented friend, the late Mr. Douce's admirable "Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners," (vol. i., p. 11), "The Urchins' Dance," copied by him from a rare old collection of songs set to music by John Bennett, Edward Piers or Peirce, and Thomas Ravenscroft, composers in the time of Shakespeare, and entitled "Hunting, Hawking, Dauncing, Drinking, Enamoring," 4to., no date, which contains also the Elves' dance and the Fairies' dance—

The Urchins' Dance.

By the moone we sport and play,

With the night begins our day;

As we friske the dew doth fall,

Trip it little urchins all.

Lightly as the little bee,

Two by two, and three by three,

And about goe wee, goe wee.

In the note from which this extract is taken, Mr. Douce, after remarking that " Mr. Steevens has observed that the primitive sense of urchin is a hedgehog, whence it came," says he, " to signify anything dwarfish," proceeds to remark, " There is, however, good reason for supposing it of Celtic origin. Erch in Welch is terrible, and urzen a superior intelligence. In the Bas-Breton language urcha signifies to howl." Urthin-wadd Elgin, says Scot, in his " Discoverie of Witchcraft," (p. 224, ed. 1665,) "was a spirit in the days of King Solomon, came over with Julius Caesar, and remained many hundred years in Wales, where he got the above name."

In confirmation of the accuracy of Mr. Douce's views as to the Celtic origin of the word urchin when used to designate a fairy, we may call attention to the urisks or Highland fairies, mentioned in Graham's “Sketches of Perthshire." We may add, too, that near Inverness is a remarkable oblong mound, the name of which illustrates the present subject. It is called Tom-na-Heurich, or the Hill of the Fairies: and when we visited it in 1839 we were gravely told that it was once the dwelling-place of the fairies; and it seemed extremely doubtful whether our informant did not believe that they were still seen to issue from it occasionally.

[1] Scot, Reginald Discoveries of Witchcraft. (1584). Thoms quotes from the 1665 edition.

"But certainly some one knave in a white sheet hath cozened and abused many thousands that way; specially when Robin Goodfellow kept such a coil in the countrey; but you shall understand that these bugs specially are spyed and feared of sick folk, children, women, and cowards, which, through weakness of mind and body, are shaken with vain dreams and continual fear. The Scythians, being a stout and warlike nation (as divers writers report), never see any vain sights or spirits. It is a common saying, 'A Lyon feareth no Bugs.' But in our childhood, our mothers' maids have so terrified us with an ugly Devil having horns on his head, fire in his mouth, and a tail in his breech, eyes like a bason, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear,… and a voice roaring like a lyon, whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry Bough: and they have so frayed us with Bul-beggars, Spirits, Witches, Urchens, Elves, Hags, Faeries, Satyrs, Pans, Faunes, Sylens, Kit-with-the-Can-Stick, Tritons, Centaures, Dwarfes, Gyants, Imps, Calcars, Conjurors, Nymphes, Changelings, Incubus, Robin Goodfellow, the Spoorn, the Mare, the Man-in-the-Oak, the Hell-wain, the Firedrake, the Puckle, Tom-thombe, Hobgoblin, Tomtumbler, Boneless, and such other Bugs, that we are afraid of our shadows:…”