See Diminutive Fairies.

The first very small traditional fairies that we know are the portunes recorded by Gervase of Tilbury. They were probably carried on in the stream of tradition by the fairies' connection with the dead, for the soul is often thought of as a tiny creature which comes out of a sleeping man and wanders about. Its adventures are the sleeper's dreams.

By this means or others the tradition continued, and came up into literature in the 16th century. The first poet to introduce these small fairies into drama was John Lyly in Endimion. They are brought in for a short time, to do justice on the villain by the pinching traditional to the fairies. They punish not only the wrong done to Endimion, but the infringement of fairy privacy. Corsites has been trying to move the sleeping Endimion when the fairies enter, and pinch him so that he falls asleep. They dance, sing and kiss Endimion:

Pinch him, pinch him, blacke and blue,

Sawcie mortalls must not view

What the Queene of Stars is doing,

Nor pry into our Fairy woing.