Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream) Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream) Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream", based on the ancient figure of Puck found in English mythology. Puck is a clever, mischievous fairy, sprite, or jester. He is the first of the main fairy characters to appear, and creates the drama of the human lovers' story by splitting up a young couple lost in an enchanted forest. As a "shrewd and knavish sprite", he is an impish trickster and delights in pranks and practical jokes, like replacing Bottom's head with that of an ass.
Puck of Pook's Hill people magically plucked out of history by the elf Puck, or told by Puck himself. (Puck, who refers to himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", is better known as a character in William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream".) The genres of particular stories range from authentic historical novella (A Centurion of the Thirtieth, On the Great Wall) to children's fantasy (Dymchurch Flit). Each story is bracketed by a poem which relates in some manner to the theme or subject of the story. Donald Mackenzie, who wrote the introduction for the Oxford World's Classics edition of "Puck of