What is Puck (Shakespeare)?
[[File:Puck 1629.JPG|thumb|Puck, or Robin Goodfellow from the title page of ''Robin Goodfellow: His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests'' (1629)]] '''Puck''' is a character in a play called ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]''. This play was written by [[William Shakespeare]]. In this play, Puck is a servant to the Fairy King, [[Oberon]]. Puck has some amazing abilities. For example, he can travel around the world in 40 minutes. In spite of his abilities, Puck makes a few mistakes in the play that create confusion for the other characters. For example, he puts a love potion into the wrong person's eyes. He also plays tricks. He puts a [[donkey]]'s head on one character. Puck was not Shakespeare's invention. He was a character in folklore called 'pouke'. He was known as early as 1000 AD. He was an evil, dangerous [[demon]]. By the time of [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], he had become linked with the Biblical [[devil]]. By Shakespeare's day, he was known as Puck, Robin Goodfellow, and Hobgoblin. He was a [[goblin]] who made mischief. By the time of Shakespeare and other Elizabethan poets, Puck had become a combination of English folklore and English country life. Shakespeare writes that Puck would frighten the village girls, ruin the butter, and lead travelers in the night the wrong way. [[Mickey Rooney]] played Puck in a 1935 movie adaptation of Shakespeare's play.<ref>{{cite book |last=Garber |first=Marjorie |year=2004 |title=Shakespeare After All |publisher=Random House LLC |page=223 |isbn=}}</ref> Shakespeare used a description of Puck from Reginald Scot's ''[[The Discoverie of Witchcraft]]'' (1584).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/midsummer.html |title=A Midsummer Night's Dream |access-date=2013-10-04 |archive-date=2013-06-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130626010723/http://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/midsummer.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Scot describes Puck with disapproval. He points out that people no longer believe in him. Scot also tells of a man whose head was replaced wi