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In a wood near Athens, the very same one mentioned in the previous act, two fairies appear. Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, asks the other sprite what she\'s up to. The fairy explains her activities. She wanders throughout the countryside, swifter than the moon, as an attendant of the fairy queen, Titania. Her mission at the moment is to place dew on the flowers. The cowslips (a yellow wildflower) are the queen\'s personal bodyguards, and the fairy is going to place a drop of dew in the \"ear\" of each, like a pearl.
NOTE: THE FAIRIES The fairies introduce another realm in this play of transformations and interlocking zones of reality. Shakespeare immediately gives us a clue to their other-worldly nature by associating them with flowers. Shakespeare drew on many traditions in the creation of his fairy folk. Midsummer\'s Eve was a customary time for strange happenings (midsummer madness it was called) and was associated in folklore with fairy people, as well as with general dancing and cavorting through the woods. Some critics feel that the tiny flower-sized fairies are Shakespeare\'s invention. It is also likely, though, that there were oral traditions of such creatures that he drew on. What is certain is that ever since Shakespeare wrote of them, his tiny spirits have created their own tradition, so that is how we tend to think of them even today. Note, however, that Oberon and Titania seem to be of human scale, so you might read Shakespeare\'s playing with the size of the fairies as a way of placing them in a strange other-worldly context.
The fairy must get on with her work, as the queen and her elves will be arriving shortly. This worries Puck. The king, Oberon, is also coming that evening, and it\'s important the king and queen don\'t meet. They have had a falling-out that is setting the natural world on edge. Titania has a little Indian boy as an attendant. He is the son of one of her mortal worshipers or \"votaries,\" and the queen has given him special attention, crowning him with flowers and taking him everywhere with her. (The boy is described as a \"changeling,\" traditionally a child left by the fairies in exchange for one they have stolen.) Oberon is furiously jealous. He\'d like this child to be in his train. The situation between the two has become so intense that anytime they meet of late they clash so violently that the elves crawl into acorn cups for fear.
Suddenly the fairy thinks she recognizes Puck. Isn\'t he the sprite also called Robin Goodfellow, who plays pranks on the villagers? This Robin has been known to mischievously interfere with the milling process, to make the housewife churn her butter in vain, to see that drink doesn\'t ferment properly, and generally to mislead people. Yes, answers Puck, he is that very same Hobgoblin, jester and companion to Oberon. He\'s a trickster all right. He doesn\'t really hurt people, but he loves to have fun at their expense. Do you know of someone like this? He can fool horses by neighing like a mare; he can pose as a crabapple bobbing in a drink and make it spill over the old woman drinking it. Sometimes he\'ll even pretend to be a stool--sit on him and down you go!
NOTE: Puck or Robin Goodfellow also had a rich tradition in folklore. He could be helpful as well as mischievous, though he seemed to prefer the latter. Puck is actually a general term for a spirit, often called \"the pook.\" Notice how thoroughly English his world is, a true country village. There\'s nothing much Athenian in it. Shakespeare seems content to call the place Athens, but to let the details speak of England. One contemporary of Shakespeare\'s, however, Thomas Nashe, suggested that the English elves and pooks were the counterpart to the Greek satyrs and nymphs, so that though the specific figures were different, the magical, mythical world was similar.
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