Queen Mab
In English folklore, Queen Mab is a fairy. She is memorably described in a famous speech by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, in which she is a miniature creature who drives her chariot across the faces of sleeping people and compels them to dream dreams of wish-fulfillment.
Mab's origins are uncertain. Shakespeare may have borrowed her name from a Celtic goddess, the Irish Medb or her Welsh counterpart Mabb both being possible candidates. After her literary debut in Romeo and Juliet, she appears in works of seventeenth-century poetry, notably Ben Jonson's "Queen Mab" and Michael Drayton's "Nymphidia". In Poole's work Parnassus, Mab is described as the Queen of the Fairies and consort to Oberon, Emperor of the Fairies.
