#auberon

It appears that at the time of the Domesday Book, the district was named Wandelmestrei or Wændelhelm, and there is some evidence that Wændel was the name of the figure itself, a superhuman being, "almost certainly a Germanic war-god." See Simpson, Jacqueline, "Wandel' and the Long Man of Wilmington," Folklore, 89, No. I (1978), 75-8.

According to local scholars, the form of the area on which the Long Man is carved ("Wendel's Mound") also gives it acoustic qualities akin to an amphitheater, lending credence to Dream's assertion of its history.

God Forbid a Woman Do Anything…

Here we see several of the actors donning female costume. Traditionally, in England, only men performed as actors. Only after the Restoration did females appear on the stage, perhaps because of the tastes of Charles 11, who had seen many female actors on the Continent. The first professional female actor in England was probably Margaret Hughes (1630-1685), who played Desdemona in Thomas Killigrew's 1660 production of Shakespeare's Othello.

Although the Great Plague of London did not occur until 1665, numerous smaller epidemics were recorded in London, as early as 1562, and in 1593 several parishes recorded significant outbreaks. Whether these were bubonic plague or another disease cannot be definitively determined at this distance in time.

Auberon & Puck

"Auberon" is a variant of Oberon or Alberon, traditionally the king of Færie. The name probably derives from the German Elberich or Elferich (elf-king). In the legendary history of the Merovingian dynasty, he is identified as a magician, the brother of Merowech (Mérovée). In the Nibelungenlied he guards the treasure of the Nibelungen but is overcome by Siegfried.

In German medieval poetry, he is named as Alberich, the king of the dwarfs. Oberon first appears in literature in the French chanson de geste "Huon de Bordeaux" (ca. 12th century).

Dom-Daniel is described in E. Cobham Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) as "The abode of evil spirits, gnomes, and enchanters, somewhere under the roots of the ocean, but not far from Babylon. (Continuation of the Arabian Tales [by Dom Chaves and Cazotte, 1788-1793])."

Puck himself becomes an instrument in the ultimate destruction of Dream (see Issue #66). Puck's first words here are "ho, ho, ho," the traditional refrain in various songs about Robin Goodfellow, including "The Pranks of Puck," usually attributed to Ben Jonson. NG points out in an interview that this is the first time in the series "that someone states flat out that there are seven Endless." (SC, p. 79)

According to E. Cobham Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898), Robin Goodfellow is "a ‘drudging fiend, and merry domestic fairy, famous for mischievous pranks and practical jokes. At night-time he will sometimes do little services for the family over which he presides.

The Scots call this domestic spirit a brownie; the Germans, kobold or Knecht Ruprecht. Scandinavians called it Nissë God-dreng. Puck, the jester of Fairy-court, is the same."

What Exactly Did Orpheus Sing About?

Titania's remark about "a boy with a lyre" may be taken to refer to Orpheus, who may have sung of the relationship between his father Morpheus and Titania herself.

Later, in the same scene, Oberon and Titania, who have had a quarrel, come upon one another in the wood.

Shakespeare—Hamnet mirroring Morpheus—Orpheus nearly didn’t happen (it took a woman to point it out)

Although many comment that the relationship between Hamnet and his father is the thematic core of the story, NG explains in an interview that this scene wasn't in the original version and was introduced (replacing a scene of on-stage clowning) at the behest of editor Karen Berger (SC, p. 83).

Titania, Hamnet & The Books of Magic

The real Titania here seduces Hamnet with descriptions of life in Farie, mirroring Titania's relationship with the young orphan in Shakespeare's play. Note that she gives him an apple. In The Books of Magic #3, we learn that one of the rules of Farie is that acceptance of a gift binds the recipient to give a gift equal in value in return or face a lifetime of servitude to the donor. Titania is seen there with a young page named Hamnet, presumably as a result of his acceptance of her gift in this panel.

In The Books of Magic extended series (supervised by NG), Titania eventually is revealed to be a mortal woman who has ruled for time immemorial in Farie and is the mother of Timothy Hunter, the protagonist of the series.

Traditionally, the Queen of Farie was not named, but Shakespeare applied the name Titania to her, and subsequent writers adopted it. The epithet ("daughter of the Titans") is applied to Diana (goddess of the hunt), Circe, Diana's mother Latona (who wed Jupiter), and others in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 C.E.). According to Katherine Briggs's An Encyclopedia of Fairies, "It was a name not commonly used for the Fairy Queen, though in one of the magical manuscripts in the British Museum (Sloane 1727) 'Tyton, Florella and Mabb' are mentioned as 'the treasures of the earth."

On Colouring the Issue: Day to Night, Stage & Real World

[Okay, I’m cheating a bit here since this isn’t from the Annotations but from Hy Bender’s Sandman Companion, but @marlowe-zara prompted us about the art, so I’ll add it in here because I don’t have the time for another post.]

Steve Oliff on the exceptional coloring job he did for "A Midsummer Night's Dream":

A colorist brings depth to a book. Colors can help define a time and place, and set the mood and aura of a story. On Sandman 19, my team tried to evoke the right feeling for each scene—bright peach schemes for the early part of the day, for example. The play begins in the morning and ends at night, so we keyed our colors to start out sunny and light, and very gradually evolved to darker schemes as the day went on, until night fell on page 23 and we ended with total black.

My favorite aspect of the issue, though, was the interplay among the different layers of the story. We used subtly different color effects for each: relatively bright, comic-bookish colors for the stage performances; a muted blue, fantasy-like color scheme for the audience; and a muted but naturalistic color scheme for the real-world backstage scenes.