A second feature of the poem is the danger of eating fairy food.
In the poem Laura receives a warning about the dangers of eating the fruit from the example of ❌
She is described as:
[meeting] them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
In these lines Jeanie seems as if she has completely ❌ herself to the goblin men in a way that would not have been seen as decorous for Victorian lady. As with Laura she doesn't seem to have had to pay for the fruit they are 'gifts'. As with Laura Jeanie has met them at a liminal moment at midnight. She like, Laura later 'pined and pined away; / ❌ them by night and day, / Found them no more'
As further warning 'no grass will grow / Where she lies low' and the daisies planted by Lizzie 'never blow' all of this suggests that nature has been damaged or that something unnatural has gone on.
A final feature identified by Katherine Briggs is the rescue from fairyland. This is effected in the poem by Lizzie. As she sees he sister pining away Lizzie resolves to visit the goblin men. In contrast to her sister though she visits the goblin men, she resists their magic because:
She ❌ for the fruit:
'Give me much and many:'--
Held out her apron,
Tossed them her penny.
She refuses to 'sit down and feast with' them. Instead, as they grow increasingly angry she resists them. In a conscious echo of earlier in the poem. She is described as:
Like a lily in a flood,--
Like a rock of blue-veined stone 410
Lashed by tides obstreperously,--
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
These similes show the danger she is in, how precarious her position is. The verbs used by the goblin men are increasingly ❌
goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
Kicked and knocked her,
Mauled and mocked her,
IN this example
Drag and drop to complete the text.
wants payment
wants payment
doesn't like
doesn't like
has no desire
has no desire
