In 1846, the folklorist Jabez Allies wrote an intriguing treatise entitled On the Ignis Fatuus, or Will-o’-the-Wisp, and the Fairies. While studying sightings of the strange and sinister Wisp, Allies listed all of the areas, including hamlets, fields and hills, that owed their names to fairy lore and poetry. A quaint roll-call of Queen Mab’s diminutive courtiers from Michael Drayton’s Nymphidia and the “elves, urchins, goblins all, and little fairies” who inhabited the pages of The Life of Robin Goodfellow (anon) were to be found at all points of the compass. However, it was Robin Goodfellow in the guise of Puck, Shakespeare’s “Merry wanderer of the Night”, who was most prominent on England’s map of fairy.
According to Allies: “There are places called Upper Puck-Hill, and Lower Puck-Hill, in Acton Beauchamp, Puck Meadow, in Hallow, Puck Hall Field and Far Puck Hall Piece in Hartlebury, Puck Croft in Stock and Bradley, Upper and Lower Puck Close, in Himbleton; Puck Croft in Powick; Puck Lane in Stoke Prior…” In total, he counted over 50 places with Puck in the name, rounding off his list with Pucknell’s Close in Solihull, while Cwm Pwcca, or ‘The Devil’s Bridge’, in Wales got a special mention. Steeped in folklore, Ireland possessed its own variation upon the Puck theme, known as the Pookha/Phouka. Allies dutifully recorded the stairs, castles and waterfalls belonging to the shapeshifting Pookha, who most commonly took the form of a malevolent horse – woe betide anyone who tried to ride it – but could also morph into an eagle or a bat. Although Brownies were predominant in Scotland, Puck still had his place with a feral yet picturesque glen in Dunoon that bears his name to this day. DespiteEngland, Ireland, Scotland and Wales being wreathed in fairy references, Jabez Allies sounded a warning note in the essay’s brief preface with the hope that “it might elicit some further information relative to our fast expiring Fairy Mythology”.
