A Dream...

Last night the Fairy Queen was very busy discussing with all the little one's in the garden how to cellebrate Midsummernight..in one thing they agreed with each other...it should be as beautiful as a dream....
Fairies in Elizabethan England were of the same basic size and shape as humans. People were often mistaken for fairies because the size of a fairy was thought to be that of a short human, so there would be no noticeable difference in physical size. Since Elizabethan fairies looked like humans, they, of course, did not have wings. Elizabethan folk also thought that fairies were beautiful and of dark complexion, which reflected their association with wickedness. They often dressed in green due to their association with nature. Shakespeare, who was of course familiar with these ideas of fairies, presents the fairies of A Midsummer Night's Dream as beautiful and associated with nature, but this is where the physical similarities to Elizabethan folk beliefs ends. In the play, Shakespeare describes his fairies as tiny creatures with wings, and this is the first time in literature that fairies are described in this manner...

Drawing Stephen Reid.