People in the Legends
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet who left many plays still performed around the world, such as Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
His late work The Tempest (c. 1611) features Ariel, an air spirit who serves the magician Prospero. And A Midsummer Night’s Dream features the king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania, and the mischievous fairy Puck, playing a major role in spreading the image of fairies as “small and charming.”
The king of the fairies in European folklore. He appears as a dwarf king in a medieval French romance and became widely known as the fairy king in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Through a trick played by her husband, the fairy king Oberon, she falls in love with a craftsman whose head has been turned into a donkey's. A moon of Uranus is named after her.
An air spirit in Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Serving the magician Prospero, Ariel raises a storm and is finally granted freedom. A moon of Uranus is named after this spirit.
