Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, a mischievous spirit or elf in English folklore, tormented people, usually in fun. He was also called Hobgoblin, and in 1595, Edmund Spenser, in one of his poems, included the Pouke among evil spirits. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare presented him as a good-hearted elf. Enjoying his pranks on human beings, Puck exclaimed, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Puck figures prominently in Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill and Rewards and Fairies.
