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Puck is a mischievous pre-Christian nature spirit. The pagan
trickster was reimagined in Old English puca (Christianized as "devil") as a
kind of half-tamed woodland sprite, leading folk
astray with echoes and lights in nighttime woodland, or coming into the
farmstead and souring milk in the churn.
Since, if you "speak of the Devil" he will appear, Puck's euphemistic
"disguised" name is "Robin Goodfellow" or "Hobgoblin," in which "Hob" may
substitute for "Rob" or may simply refer to the "goblin of the hearth" or hob.
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
favor with him.
For followers of neo-Pagan imagery, sometimes the influence of Pan imagery has
now given Puck the hindquarters and cloven hooves of a goat. He may even have
small horns.
Puck's trademark laugh in the early ballads is "Ho ho ho." In modern
mythology, the "merry old elf" who works with magical swiftness unseen in the
night, who can "descry each thing
that's done beneath the moone," whom we propitiate with a glass of milk, lest
he put lumps of coal in the stockings we hang by the hob with care, and whose
trademark laugh is "Ho ho
ho" - is Santa Claus.
Source:
Wikipedia.org
In William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream Puck is a fairy spirit
that serves Oberon. He freely admits to being "a shrewd and knavish sprite."
He is sent by Oberon to fetch the flower "love-in-idleness" and is told to
apply its juice to the
eyes of a youth "in Athenian garments." He erroneously administers the charm
to the sleeping Lysander. He provides Nick Bottom with a donkey's head, and
scatters the "mechanicals" with strange sounds. He enjoys the confusion
brought about by his blunders.
Later, he is ordered by Oberon to produce a dark fog, and to lead the rival
lovers astray within it by imitating their voices, and then to apply a
counter-charm to Lysander's eyes.
Source:
Wikipedia.org |
