But their very familiarity and colloquialism make them remarkably effective with English-speaking little ones. The rhythmical phrases stick in their memories; they can remember the exact phraseology of the English tales much better, I find, than that of the Grimms' tales, or even of the Celtic stories. They certainly have the quality of coming home to English children. Perhaps this may be partly due to the fact that a larger proportion of the tales are of native manufacture. If the researches contained in my Notes are to be trusted only i.-ix., xi., xvii., xxii., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xliv., l., liv., lv., lviii., lxi., lxii., lxv., lxvii., lxxviii., lxxxiv., lxxxvii. were imported; nearly all the remaining sixty are home produce, and have their roots in the hearts of the English people which naturally respond to them.

In the following Notes, I have continued my practice of giving (1) Source where I obtained the various tales. (2) Parallels, so far as possible, in full for the British Isles, with bibliographical references when they can be found; for occurrences abroad I generally refer to the list of incidents contained in my paper read before the International Folk-Lore Congress of 1891 and republished in the Transactions, 1892, pp. 87-98. (3) Remarks where the tale seems to need them. I have mainly been on the search for signs of diffusion rather than of "survivals" of antiquarian interest, though I trust it will be found I have not neglected these.

XLIV. THE PIED PIPER

Source.—Abraham Elder, Tales and Legends of the Isle of Wight (London, 1839), pp. 157-164. Mr. Nutt, who has abridged and partly rewritten the story from a copy of Elder's book in his possession, has introduced a couple of touches from Browning.

Parallels.—The well-known story of the Pied Piper of Hameln (Hamelin), immortalised by Browning, will at once recur to every reader's mind. Before Browning, it had been told in English in books as well known as Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1605; Howell's Familiar Letters (see my edition, p. 357, n.); and Wanley's Wonders of the Little World. Browning is said to have taken it from the last source (Furnivall, Browning Bibliography, 158), though there are touches which seem to me to come from Howell (see my note ad loc.), while it is not impossible he may have come across Elder's book, which was illustrated by Cruikshank. The Grimms give the legend in their Deutsche Sagen (ed. 1816, 330-33), and in its native land it has given rise to an elaborate poem a la Scheffel by Julius Wolff, which has in its turn been the occasion of an opera by Victor Nessler. Mrs. Gutch, in an interesting study of the myth in Folk-Lore iii., pp. 227-52, quotes a poem, The Sea Piece, published by Dr. Kirkpatrick in 1750, as showing that a similar legend was told of the Cave Hill, Belfast.

Here, as Tradition's hoary legend tells, A blinking Piper once with magic Spells And strains beyond a vulgar Bagpipe's sounds Gathered the dancing Country wide around. When hither as he drew the tripping Rear (Dreadful to think and difficult to swear!) The gaping Mountain yawned from side to side, A hideous Cavern, darksome, deep, and wide; In skipt th' exulting Demon, piping loud, With passive joy succeeded by the Crowd.

* * * * *

There firm and instant closed the greedy Womb, Where wide-born Thousands met a common Tomb.

Remarks.—Mr. Baring-Gould, in his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, has explained the Pied Piper as a wind myth. Mrs. Gutch is inclined to think there may be a substratum of fact at the root of the legend, basing her conclusions on a pamphlet of Dr. Meinardus, Der historische Kern, which I have not seen. She does not, however, give any well-authenticated historical event at Hameln in the thirteenth century which could have plausibly given rise to the legend, nor can I find any in the Urkundenbuch of Hameln (Luneberg, 1883). The chief question of interest attaching to the English form of the legend as given in 1839 by Elder, is whether it is independent of the German myth. It does not occur in any of the local histories of the Isle of Wight which I have been able to consult of a date previous to Elder's book—e.g., J. Hassel, Tour of the Isle of Wight, 1790. Mr. Shore, in his History of Hampshire, 1891, p. 185, refers to the legend, but evidently bases his reference on Elder, and so with all the modern references I have seen. Now Elder himself quotes Verstegan in his comments on the legend, pp. 168-9 and note, and it is impossible to avoid conjecturing that he adapted Verstegan to the locality. Newtown, when Hassel visited it in 1790, had only six or seven houses (l.c., i., 137-8), though it had the privilege of returning two members to Parliament; it had been a populous town by the name of Franchville before the French invasion of the island of temp. Ric. II. It is just possible that there may have been a local legend to account for the depopulation by an exodus of the children. But the expression "pied piper" which Elder used clearly came from Verstegan, and until evidence is shown to the contrary the whole of the legend was adapted from him. It is not without significance that Elder was writing in the days of the Ingoldsby Legends, and had possibly no more foundation for the localisation of his stories than Barham.

There still remains the curious parallel from Belfast to which Mrs. Gutch has drawn attention. Magic pipers are not unknown to English folk-lore, as in the Percy ballad of The Frere and the Boy, or in the nursery rhyme of Tom the Piper's son in its more extended form. But beguiling into a mountain is not known elsewhere except at Hameln, which was made widely known in England by Verstegan's and Howell's accounts, so that the Belfast variant is also probably to be traced to the Rattenfaenger. Here again, as in the case of Beddgellert (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xxi.), the Blinded Giant and the Pedlar of Swaffham (infra, Nos. lxi., lxiii.), we have an imported legend adapted to local conditions.

XLV. HEREAFTERTHIS

Source.—Sent me anonymously soon after the appearance of English Fairy Tales. From a gloss in the MS. "vitty" = Devonian for "decent," I conclude the tale is current in Devon. I should be obliged if the sender would communicate with me.

Parallels.—The latter part has a certain similarity with "Jack Hannaford" (No. viii.). Halliwell's story of the miser who kept his money "for luck" (p. 153) is of the same type. Halliwell remarks that the tale throws light on a passage in Ben Jonson:

Say we are robbed, If any come to borrow a spoon or so I will not have Good Fortune or God's Blessing Let in, while I am busy.

The earlier part of the tale has resemblance with "Lazy Jack" (No. xxvii), the European variants of which are given by M. Cosquin, Contes de Lorraine, i., 241. Jan's satisfaction with his wife's blunders is also European (Cosquin, l.c., i., 157). On minding the door and dispersing robbers by its aid see "Mr. Vinegar" (No. vi.).

Remarks.—"Hereafterthis" is thus a melange of droll incidents, yet has characteristic folkish touches ("can you milk-y, bake-y," "when I lived home") which give it much vivacity.

XLVI. THE GOLDEN BALL

Source.—Contributed to the first edition of Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, pp. 333-5, by Rev. S. Baring-Gould.

Parallels.—Mr. Nutt gave a version in Folk-Lore Journal, vi., 144. The man in instalments occurs in "The Strange Visitor" (No. xxxii.). The latter part of the tale has been turned into a game for English children, "Mary Brown," given in Miss Plunket's Merry Games, but not included in Newell, Games and Songs of American Children.

Remarks.—This story is especially interesting as having given rise to a game. Capture and imprisonment are frequently the gruesome motif of children's games, as in "Prisoner's base." Here it has been used with romantic effect.

XLVII. MY OWN SELF

Source.—Told to Mrs. Balfour by Mrs. W., a native of North Sunderland, who had seen the cottage and heard the tale from persons who had known the widow and her boy, and had got the story direct from them. The title was "Me A'an Sel'," which I have altered to "My Own Self."

Parallels.—Notwithstanding Mrs. Balfour's informant, the same tale is widely spread in the North Country. Hugh Miller relates it, in his Scenes from my Childhood, as "Ainsel"; it is given in Mr. Hartland's English Folk and Fairy Tales; Mr. F.B. Jevons has heard it in the neighbourhood of Durham; while a further version appeared in Monthly Chronicle of North Country Folk-Lore. Further parallels abroad are enumerated by Mr. Clouston in his Book of Noodles, pp. 184-5, and by the late Prof. Koehler in Orient und Occident, ii., 331. The expedient by which Ulysses outwits Polyphemus in the Odyssey by calling himself [Greek: outis] is clearly of the same order.

Remarks.—The parallel with the Odyssey suggests the possibility that this is the ultimate source of the legend, as other parts of the epic have been adapted to local requirements in Great Britain, as in the "Blinded Giant" (No. lxi.), or "Conall Yellowclaw" (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. v.). The fact of Continental parallels disposes of the possibility of its being a merely local legend. The fairies might appear to be in a somewhat novel guise here as something to be afraid of. But this is the usual attitude of the folk towards the "Good People," as indeed their euphemistic name really implies.

XLVIII. THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY

Source.—Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland, much Anglicised in language, but otherwise unaltered.

Parallels.—Chambers, l.c., gave a variant with the title "The Red Bull o' Norroway." Kennedy, Legendary Fictions, p. 87, gives a variant with the title "The Brown Bear of Norway." Mr. Stewart gave a Leitrim version, in which "Norroway" becomes "Orange," in Folk-Lore for June, 1893, which Miss Peacock follows up with a Lincolnshire parallel (showing the same corruption of name) in the September number. A reference to the "Black Bull o' Norroway" occurs in Sidney's Arcadia, as also in the Complaynt of Scotland, 1548. The "sale of bed" incident at the end has been bibliographised by Miss Cox in her volume of variants of Cinderella, p. 481. It probably existed in one of the versions of Nix Nought Nothing (No. vii.).

Remarks.—The Black Bull is clearly a Beast who ultimately wins a Beauty. But the tale as is told is clearly not sufficiently motivated. Miss Peacock's version renders it likely that a fuller account may yet be recovered in England.

XLIX. YALLERY BROWN

Source.—Mrs. Balfour's "Legends of the Lincolnshire Fens," in Folk-Lore, ii. It was told to Mrs. Balfour by a labourer, who professed to be the hero of the story, and related it in the first person. I have given him a name, and changed the narration into the oblique narration, and toned down the dialect.

Parallels.—"Tiddy Mun," the hero of another of Mrs. Balfour's legends (l.c., p. 151) was "none bigger 'n a three years old bairn," and had no proper name.

Remarks.—One might almost suspect Mrs. Balfour of being the victim of a piece of invention on the part of her autobiographical informant. But the scrap of verse, especially in its original dialect, has such a folkish ring that it is probable he was only adapting a local legend to his own circumstances.

L. THE THREE FEATHERS

Source.—Collected by Mrs. Gomme from some hop-pickers near Deptford.

Parallels.—The beginning is a la Cupid and Psyche, on which Mr. Lang's monograph in the Carabas series is the classic authority. The remainder is an Eastern tale, the peregrinations of which have been studied by Mr. Clouston in his Pop. Tales and Fictions, ii., 289, seq. The Wright's Chaste Wife is the English fabliau on the subject. M. Bedier, in his recent work on Les Fabliaux, pp. 411-13, denies the Eastern origin of the fabliau, but in his Indiaphobia M. Bedier is capable de tout. In the Indian version the various messengers are sent by the king to test the chastity of a peerless wife of whom he has heard. The incident occurs in some versions of the "Battle of the Birds" story (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xxiv.), and considering the wide spread of this in the British Isles, it was possibly from this source that it came to Deptford.

LI. SIR GAMMER VANS

Source.—Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes and Tales.

Parallels.—There is a Yorkshire Lying Tale in Henderson's Folk-Lore, first edition, p. 337, a Suffolk one, "Happy Borz'l," in Suffolk Notes and Queries, while a similar jingle of inconsequent absurdities, commencing "So he died, and she unluckily married the barber, and a great bear coming up the street popped his head into the window, saying, 'Do you sell any soap'?" is said to have been invented by Charles James Fox to test Sheridan's memory, who repeated it after one hearing. (Others attribute it to Foote.) Similar Lugenmaerchen are given by the Grimms, and discussed by them in their Notes, Mrs. Hunt's translation, ii., pp. 424, 435, 442, 450, 452, cf. Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, p. 263.

Remarks.—The reference to venison warrants, and bows and arrows seems to argue considerable antiquity for this piece of nonsense. The honorific prefix "Sir" may in that case refer to clerkly qualities rather than to knighthood.

LII. TOM HICKATHRIFT

Source.—From the Chap-book, c. 1660, in the Pepysian Library, edited for the Villon Society by Mr. G.L. Gomme. Mr. Nutt, who kindly abridged it for me, writes, "Nothing in the shape of incident has been omitted, and there has been no rewriting beyond a phrase here and there rendered necessary by the process of abridgment. But I have in one case altered the sequence of events putting the fight with the giant last."

Parallels.—There are similar adventures of giants in Hunt's Cornish Drolls. Sir Francis Palgrave (Quart. Rev., vol. xxi.), and after him, Mr. Gomme, have drawn attention to certain similarities with the Grettir Saga, but they do not extend beyond general resemblances of great strength. Mr. Gomme, however, adds that the cartwheel "plays a not unimportant part in English folk-lore as a representative of old runic faith" (Villon Soc. edition, p. xv.).

Remarks.—Mr. Gomme, in his interesting Introduction, points out several indications of considerable antiquity for the legend, various expressions in the Pepysian Chap-book ("in the marsh of the Isle of Ely," "good ground"), indicating that it could trace back to the sixteenth century. On the other hand, there is evidence of local tradition persisting from that time onward till the present day (Weaver, Funerall Monuments, 1631, pp. 866-7; Spelman, Icenia, 1640, p. 138; Dugdale, Imbanking, 1662 (ed. 1772, p. 244); Blomefield, Norfolk, 1808, ix., pp. 79, 80). These refer to a sepulchral monument in Tylney churchyard which had figured on a stone coffin an axle-tree and cart-wheel. The name in these versions of the legend is given as Hickifric, and he is there represented as a village Hampden who withstood the tyranny of the local lord of the manor. Mr. Gomme is inclined to believe, I understand him, that there is a certain amount of evidence for Tom Hickathrift being a historic personality round whom some of the Scandinavian mythical exploits have gathered. I must refer to his admirable Introduction for the ingenious line of reasoning on which he bases these conclusions. Under any circumstances no English child's library of folk-tales can be considered complete that does not present a version of Mr. Hickathrift's exploits.



LIII. THE HEDLEY KOW

Source.—Told to Mrs. Balfour by Mrs. M. of S. Northumberland. Mrs. M.'s mother told the tale as having happened to a person she had known when young: she had herself seen the Hedley Kow twice, once as a donkey and once as a wisp of straw. "Kow" must not be confounded with the more prosaic animal with a "C."

Parallels.—There is a short reference to the Hedley Kow in Henderson, l.c., first edition, pp. 234-5. Our story is shortly referred to thus: "He would present himself to some old dame gathering sticks, in the form of a truss of straw, which she would be sure to take up and carry away. Then it would become so heavy that she would have to lay her burden down, on which the straw would become 'quick,' rise upright and shuffle away before her, till at last it vanished from her sight with a laugh and shout." Some of Robin Goodfellow's pranks are similar to those of the Hedley Kow. The old woman's content with the changes is similar to that of "Mr. Vinegar." An ascending scale of changes has been studied by Prof. Crane, Italian Popular Tales, p. 373.

LIV. GOBBORN SEER

Source.—Collected by Mrs. Gomme from an old woman at Deptford. It is to be remarked that "Gobborn Seer" is Irish (Goban Saor = free carpenter), and is the Irish equivalent of Wayland Smith, and occurs in several place names in Ireland.

Parallels.—The essence of the tale occurs in Kennedy, l.c., p. 67, seq. Gobborn Seer's daughter was clearly the clever lass who is found in all parts of the Indo-European world. An instance in my Indian Fairy Tales, "Why the Fish Laughed" (No. xxiv.). She has been made a special study by Prof. Child, English and Scotch Ballads, i., 485, while an elaborate monograph by Prof. Benfey under the title "Die Kluge Dirne" (reprinted in his Kleine Schriften, ii., 156, seq.), formed the occasion for his first presentation of his now well-known hypothesis of the derivation of all folk-tales from India.

Remarks.—But for the accident of the title being preserved there would have been nothing to show that this tale had been imported into England from Ireland, whither it had probably been carried all the way from India.

LV. LAWKAMERCYME

Source.—Halliwell, Nursery Rhymes.

Parallels.—It is possible that this is an Eastern "sell": it occurs at any rate as the first episode in Fitzgerald's translation of Jami's Salaman and Absal. Jami, ob. 1492, introduces the story to illustrate the perplexities of the problem of individuality in a pantheistic system.

Lest, like the simple Arab in the tale, I grow perplext, O God! 'twixt ME and THEE, If I—this Spirit that inspires me whence? If THOU—then what this sensual impotence?

In other words, M. Bourget's Cruelle Enigme. The Arab yokel coming to Bagdad is fearful of losing his identity, and ties a pumpkin to his leg before going to sleep. His companion transfers it to his own leg. The yokel awaking is perplexed like the pantheist.

If I—the pumpkin why on YOU? If YOU—then where am I, and WHO?

LVI. TATTERCOATS

Source.—Told to Mrs. Balfour by a little girl named Sally Brown, when she lived in the Cars in Lincolnshire. Sally had got it from her mother, who worked for Mrs. Balfour. It was originally told in dialect, which Mrs. Balfour has omitted.

Parallels.—Miss Cox has included "Tattercoats" in her exhaustive collection of parallels of Cinderella (Folk-Lore Society Publications, 1892), No. 274 from the MS. which I had lent her. Miss Cox rightly classes it as "Indeterminate," and it has only the Menial Heroine and Happy Marriage episodes in common with stories of the Cinderella type.

Remarks.—Tattercoats is of interest chiefly as being without any "fairy" or supernatural elements, unless the magic pipe can be so considered; it certainly gives the tale a fairy-like element. It is practically a prose variant of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, and is thus an instance of the folk-novel pure and simple, without any admixture of those unnatural incidents which transform the folk-novel into the serious folk-tale as we are accustomed to have it. Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say.

LVII. THE WEE BANNOCK

Source.—Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland. I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, but the fun of the original tempted me. There still remain several technical trade terms requiring elucidation. I owe the following to the kindness of the Rev. Mr. Todd Martin, of Belfast. Lawtrod = lap board on which the tailor irons; tow cards, the comb with which tow is carded; the clove, a heavy wooden knife for breaking up the flax. Heckling is combing it with a heckle or wooden comb; binnings are halters for cattle made of sprit or rushes. Spurtle = spoon; whins = gorse.

Parallels.—This is clearly a variant of Johnny-cake = journey-cake, No. xxviii., where see Notes.

Remarks.—But here the interest is with the pursuers rather than with the pursued. The subtle characterisation of the various occupations reaches a high level of artistic merit. Mr. Barrie himself could scarcely have succeeded better in a very difficult task.

LVIII. JOHNNY GLOKE

Source.—Contributed by Mr. W. Gregor to Folk-Lore Journal, vii. I have rechristened "Johnny Glaik" for the sake of the rhyme, and anglicised the few Scotticisms.

Parallels.—This is clearly The Valiant Tailor of the Grimms: "x at a blow" has been bibliographised. (See my List of Incidents in Trans. Folk-Lore Congress, 1892, sub voce.)

Remarks.—How The Valiant Tailor got to Aberdeen one cannot tell, though the resemblance is close enough to suggest a direct "lifting" from some English version of Grimm's Goblins. At the same time it must be remembered that Jack the Giant Killer (see Notes on No. xix.) contains some of the incidents of The Valiant Tailor.

LIX. COAT O CLAY

Source.—Contributed by Mrs. Balfour originally to Longman's Magazine, and thence to Folk-Lore, Sept., 1890.

Remarks.—A rustic apologue, which is scarcely more than a prolonged pun on "Coat o' Clay." Mrs. Balfour's telling redeems it from the usual dulness of folk-tales with a moral or a double meaning.

LX. THE THREE COWS

Source.—Contributed to Henderson, l.c., pp. 321-2, by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould.

Parallels.—The incident "Bones together" occurs in Rushen Coatie (infra, No. lxx.), and has been discussed by the Grimms, i., 399, and by Prof. Koehler, Or. und Occ., ii., 680.

LXI. THE BLINDED GIANT

Source.—Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties. See also Folk-Lore.

Parallels.—Polyphemus in the Odyssey and the Celtic parallels in Celtic Fairy Tales, No. v., "Conall Yellowclaw." The same incident occurs in one of Sindbad's voyages.

Remarks.—Here we have another instance of the localisation of a well-known myth. There can be little doubt that the version is ultimately to be traced back to the Odyssey. The one-eyed giant, the barred door, the escape through the blinded giant's legs in the skin of a slaughtered animal, are a series of incidents that could not have arisen independently and casually. Yet till lately the mill stood to prove if the narrator lied, and every circumstance of local particularity seemed to vouch for the autochthonous character of the myth. The incident is an instructive one, and I have therefore included it in this volume, though it is little more than an anecdote in its present shape.

LXII. SCRAPEFOOT

Source.—Collected by Mr. Batten from Mrs. H., who heard it from her mother over forty years ago.

Parallels.—It is clearly a variant of Southey's Three Bears (No. xviii.).

Remarks.—This remarkable variant raises the question whether Southey did anything more than transform Scrapefoot into his naughty old woman, who in her turn has been transformed by popular tradition into the naughty girl Silver-hair. Mr. Nutt ingeniously suggests that Southey heard the story told of an old vixen, and mistook the rustic name of a female fox for the metaphorical application to women of fox-like temper. Mrs. H.'s version to my mind has all the marks of priority. It is throughout an animal tale, the touch at the end of the shaking the paws and the name Scrapefoot are too volkstuemlich to have been conscious variations on Southey's tale. In introducing the story in his Doctor, the poet laureate did not claim to do more than repeat a popular tale. I think that there can be little doubt that in Mrs. H.'s version we have now recovered this in its original form. If this is so, we may here have one more incident of the great Northern beast epic of bear and fox, on which Prof. Krohn has written an instructive monograph, Baer (Wolf.) und Fuchs (Helsingfors, 1889).

LXIII. THE PEDLAR OF SWAFFHAM

Source.—Diary of Abraham de la Pryme (Surtees Soc.) under date 10th November, 1699, but rewritten by Mr. Nutt, who has retained the few characteristic seventeenth century touches of Pryme's dull and colourless narration. There is a somewhat fuller account in Blomefield's History of Norfolk, vi., 211-13, from Twysden's Reminiscences, ed. Hearne, p. 299, in this there is a double treasure; the first in an iron pot with a Latin inscription, which the pedlar, whose name is John Chapman, does not understand. Inquiring its meaning from a learned friend, he is told—

Under me doth lie Another much richer than I.

He accordingly digs deeper and finds another pot of gold.

Parallels.—Blomefield refers to Fungerus, Etymologicum Latino-Graecum, pp. 1110-11, where the same story is told of a peasant of Dort, in Holland, who was similarly directed to go to Kempen Bridge. Prof. E.B. Cowell, who gives the passage from Fungerus in a special paper on the subject in the Journal of Philology, vi., 189-95, points out that the same story occurs in the Masnavi of the Persian port Jalaluddin, whose floruit is 1260 A.D. Here a young spendthrift of Bagdad is warned in a dream to repair to Cairo, with the usual result of being referred back.

Remarks.—The artificial character of the incident is sufficient to prevent its having occurred in reality or to more than one inventive imagination. It must therefore have been brought to Europe from the East and adapted to local conditions at Dort and Swaffham. Prof. Cowell suggests that it was possibly adapted at the latter place to account for the effigy of the pedlar and his dog.

LXIV. THE OLD WITCH

Source.—Collected by Mrs. Gomme at Deptford.

Parallels.—I have a dim memory of hearing a similar tale in Australia in 1860. It is clearly parallel with the Grimms' Frau Holle, where the good girl is rewarded and the bad punished in a similar way. Perrault's Toads and Diamonds is of the same genus.

LXV. THE THREE WISHES

Source.—Steinberg's Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire, 1851, but entirely rewritten by Mr. Nutt, who has introduced from other variants one touch at the close—viz., the readiness of the wife to allow her husband to remain disfigured.

Parallels.—Perrault's Trois Souhaits is the same tale, and Mr. Lang has shown in his edition of Perrault (pp. xlii.-li.) how widely spread is the theme throughout the climes and the ages. I do not, however, understand him to grant that they are all derived from one source—that represented in the Indian Pantschatantra. In my AEsop, i., 140-1, I have pointed out an earlier version in Phaedrus where it occurs (as in the prose versions) as the fable of Mercury and the two Women, one of whom wishes to see her babe when it has a beard; the other, that everything she touches which she would find useful in her profession, may follow her. The babe becomes bearded, and the other woman raising her hand to wipe her eyes finds her nose following her hand—denouement on which the scene closes. M. Bedier, as usual, denies the Indian origin, Les Fabliaux, pp. 177, seq.

Remarks.—I have endeavoured to show, l.c., that the Phaedrine form is ultimately to be derived from India, and there can be little doubt that all the other variants, which are only variations on one idea, and that an absurdly incongruous one, were derived from India in the last resort. The case is strongest for drolls of this kind.

LXVI. THE BURIED MOON

Source.—Mrs. Balfour's "Legends of the Lincolnshire Cars" in Folk-Lore, ii., somewhat abridged and the dialect removed. The story was derived from a little girl named Bratton, who declared she had heard it from her "grannie." Mrs. Balfour thinks the girl's own weird imagination had much to do with framing the details.

Remarks.—The tale is noteworthy as being distinctly mythical in character, and yet collected within the last ten years from one of the English peasantry. The conception of the moon as a beneficent being, the natural enemy of the bogles and other dwellers of the dark, is natural enough, but scarcely occurs, so far as I recollect, in other mythological systems. There is, at any rate, nothing analogous in the Grimms' treatment of the moon in their Teutonic Mythology, tr. Stallybrass, pp. 701-21.

LXVII. A SON OF ADAM

Source.—From memory, by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, as heard by him from his nurse in childhood.

Parallels.—Jacques de Vitry Exempla, ed. Prof. Crane, No. xiii., and references given in notes, p. 139. It occurs in Swift and in modern Italian folk-lore.

Remarks.—The Exempla were anecdotes, witty and otherwise, used by the monks in their sermons to season their discourse. Often they must have been derived from the folk of the period, and at first sight it might seem that we had found still extant among the folk the story that had been the original of Jacques de Vitry's Exemplum. But the theological basis of the story shows clearly that it was originally a monkish invention and came thence among the folk.

LXVIII. THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD

Source.—Percy, Reliques. The ballad form of the story has become such a nursery classic that I had not the heart to "prose" it. As Mr. Allingham remarks, it is the best of the ballads of the pedestrian order.

Parallels.—The second of R. Yarrington's Two Lamentable Tragedies, 1601, has the same plot as the ballad. Several chap-books have been made out of it, some of them enumerated by Halliwell's Popular Histories (Percy Soc.) No. 18. From one of these I am in the fortunate position of giving the names of the dramatis personae of this domestic tragedy. Androgus was the wicked uncle, Pisaurus his brother who married Eugenia, and their children in the wood were Cassander and little Kate. The ruffians were appropriately named Rawbones and Woudkill. According to a writer in 3 Notes and Queries, ix., 144, the traditional burial-place of the children is pointed out in Norfolk. The ballad was known before Percy, as it is mentioned in the Spectator, Nos. 80 and 179.

Remarks.—The only "fairy" touch—but what a touch!—the pall of leaves collected by the robins.

LXIX. THE HOBYAHS

Source.—American Folk-Lore Journal, iii., 173, contributed by Mr. S.V. Proudfit as current in a family deriving from Perth.

Remarks.—But for the assurance of the tale itself that Hobyahs are no more, Mr. Batten's portraits of them would have convinced me that they were the bogles or spirits of the comma bacillus. Mr. Proudfit remarks that the cry "Look me" was very impressive.

LXX. A POTTLE O' BRAINS

Source.—Contributed by Mrs. Balfour to Folk-Lore, II.

Parallels.—The fool's wife is clearly related to the Clever Lass of "Gobborn Seer," where see Notes.

Remarks.—The fool is obviously of the same family as he of the "Coat o' Clay" (No. lix.) if he is not actually identical with him. His adventures might be regarded as a sequel to the former ones. The Noodle family is strongly represented in English folk-tales, which would seem to confirm Carlyle's celebrated statistical remark.

LXXI. THE KING OF ENGLAND

Source.—Mr. F. Hindes Groome, In Gypsy Tents, told him by John Roberts, a Welsh gypsy, with a few slight changes and omission of passages insisting upon the gypsy origin of the three helpful brothers.

Parallels.—The king and his three sons are familiar figures in European maerchen. Slavonic parallels are enumerated by Leskien Brugman in their Lithauische Maerchen, notes on No. 11, p. 542. The Sleeping Beauty is of course found in Perrault.

Remarks.—The tale is scarcely a good example for Mr. Hindes Groome's contention (in Transactions Folk-Lore Congress) for the diffusion of all folk-tales by means of gypsies as colporteurs. This is merely a matter of evidence, and of evidence there is singularly little, though it is indeed curious that one of Campbell's best equipped informants should turn out to be a gypsy. Even this fact, however, is not too well substantiated.

LXXII. KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT

Source.—"Prosed" from the well-known ballad in Percy. I have changed the first query: What am I worth? Answer: Twenty-nine pence—one less, I ween, than the Lord. This would have sounded somewhat bold in prose.

Parallels.—Vincent of Beauvais has the story, but the English version comes from the German Joe Miller, Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst, No. lv., p. 46, ed. Oesterley, where see his notes. The question I have omitted exists there, and cannot have "independently arisen." Pauli was a fifteenth century worthy or unworthy.

Remarks.—Riddles were once on a time serious things to meddle with, as witness Samson and the Sphynx, and other instances duly noted with his customary erudition by Prof. Child in his comments on the ballad, English and Scotch Ballads, i, 403-14.

LXXIII. RUSHEN COATIE

Source.—I have concocted this English, or rather Scotch, Cinderella from the various versions given in Miss Cox's remarkable collection of 345 variants of Cinderella (Folk-Lore Society, 1892); see Parallels for an enumeration of those occurring in the British Isles. I have used Nos. 1-3, 8-10. I give my composite the title "Rushen Coatie," to differentiate it from any of the Scotch variants, and for the purposes of a folk-lore experiment. If this book becomes generally used among English-speaking peoples, it may possibly re-introduce this and other tales among the folk. We should be able to trace this re-introduction by the variation in titles. I have done the same with "Nix Nought Nothing," "Molly Whuppie," and "Johnny Gloke."

Parallels.—Miss Cox's volume gives no less than 113 variants of the pure type of Cinderella—her type A. "Cinderella, or the Fortunate Marriage of a Despised Scullery-maid by Aid of an Animal God-mother through the Test of a Slipper"—such might be the explanatory title of a chap-book dealing with the pure type of Cinderella. This is represented in Miss Cox's book, so far as the British Isles are concerned, by no less than seven variants, as follows: (1) Dr. Blind, in Archaeological Review, iii., 24-7, "Ashpitell" (from neighbourhood of Glasgow). (2) A. Lang, in Revue Celtique, t. iii., reprinted in Folk-Lore, September, 1890, "Rashin Coatie" (from Morayshire). (3) Mr. Gregor, in Folk-Lore Journal, ii., 72-4 (from Aberdeenshire), "The Red Calf"—all these in Lowland Scots. (4) Campbell, Popular Tales, No. xliii., ii., 286 seq., "The Sharp Grey Sheep." (5) Mr. Sinclair, in Celtic Mag., xiii., 454-65, "Snow-white Maiden." (6) Mr. Macleod's variant communicated through Mr. Nutt to Miss Cox's volume, p. 533; and (7) Curtin, Myths of Ireland, pp. 78-92. "Fair, Brown, and Trembling"—these four in Gaelic, the last in Erse. To these I would add (8, 9) Chambers's two versions in Pop. Rhymes of Scotland, pp. 66-8, "Rashie Coat," though Miss Cox assimilates them to Type B. Catskin; and (10) a variant of Dr. Blind's version, unknown to Miss Cox, but given in 7 Notes and Queries, x., 463 (Dumbartonshire). Mr. Clouston has remarks on the raven as omen-bird in his notes to Mrs. Saxby's Birds of Omen in Shetland (privately printed, 1893).

ENGLISH VARIANTS OF CINDERELLA

GREGOR. LANG. CHAMBERS, I. and II. BLIND.

Ill-treated Calf given by Heroine dislikes Ill-treated heroine dying mother. husband. heroine (by parents). (by step-mother).

Helpful Ill-treated Henwife aid. Menial heroine. animal heroine (by (red calf). stepmother and sisters).

Spy on Heroine disguise Countertasks. Helpful animal heroine. (rashin (black sheep). coatie).

Slaying of Hearth abode. Heroine Ear cornucopia. helpful disguise. animal threatened.

Heroine Helpful animal. Heroine Spy on heroine. flight. flight.

Heroine Slaying of Menial heroine. Slaying of disguise helpful animal. helpful animal. (rashin coatie).

Menial Revivified bones. (Fairy) aid. Old woman advice. heroine.

Help at grave. Revivified bones.

Dinner cooked Task performing (by helpful animal. animal).

Magic dresses Magic dresses. Magic dresses. Meeting-place (given by (church). calf).

Meeting-place Meeting-place Meeting-place Dresses (not (church). (church). (church). magic).

Flight. Flight Flight Flight twofold. threefold. threefold.

Lost shoe. Lost shoe. Lost shoe. Lost shoe.

Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Shoe marriage test. test. test. test.

Mutilated foot Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot (housewife's daughter).

Bird witness. False bride. False bride. False bride.

Happy Bird witness. Bird witness. Bird witness marriage. (raven).

House for Happy marriage. Happy marriage. Happy marriage. red calf.

Remarks.—In going over these various versions, the first and perhaps most striking thing that comes out is the substantial agreement of the variants in each language. The English—i.e., Scotch, variants go together; the Gaelic ones agree to differ from the English. I can best display this important agreement and difference by the accompanying two tables, which give, in parallel columns, Miss Cox's abstracts of her tabulations, in which each incident is shortly given in technical phraseology. It is practically impossible to use the long tabulations for comparative purposes without some such shorthand.

CELTIC VARIANTS OF CINDERELLA

MACLEOD. CAMPBELL. SINCLAIR. CURTIN.

Heroine, Ill-treated Ill-treated Ill-treated daughter heroine heroine heroine of sheep, (by stepmother). (by stepmother (by elder king's wife. and sisters). sisters).

Menial heroine. Menial heroine. Menial heroine.

Helpful animal. Helpful cantrips. Henwife aid.

Spy on heroine. Spy on heroine. Magic dresses Magic dresses (+ starlings on (honey-bird shoulders). finger and stud).

Eye sleep Eye sleep. Meeting-place Meeting place threefold. (church). (church).

Slaying of Slaying of Flight twofold. Flight threefold. helpful helpful animal animal. mother.

Revivified Revivified Lost shoe. Lost shoe. bones. bones.

Magic dresses. Step-sister Shoe marriage Shoe marriage substitute. test. test.

Golden shoe gift Heroine under Mutilated foot. (from hero). washtub.

Meeting-place Meeting-place Happy marriage. Happy marriage. (feast). (sermon).

Flight threefold. Flight Substituted Substituted bride threefold. bride. (eldest sister).

Lost shoe Lost shoe. Jonah heroine. Jonah heroine. (golden).

Shoe marriage Shoe marriage Three Three test. test. reappearances. reappearances.

Mutilated foot. Mutilated foot. Reunion. Reunion.

False bride. Villain Nemesis.

Bird witness. Bird witness.

Happy marriage. Happy marriage.

Now, in the "English" versions there is practical unanimity in the concluding portions of the tale. _Magic dresses—Meeting-place (Church)—Flight—Lost Shoe—Shoe Marriage-test—Mutilated foot—False Bride—_Bird witness—Happy Marriage_, follow one another with exemplary regularity in all four (six) versions.[2] The introductory incidents vary somewhat. Chambers has evidently a maimed version of the introduction of Catskin (see No. lxxxiii.). The remaining three enable us, however, to restore with some confidence the _Ur-_Cinderella in English somewhat as follows: _Helpful animal given by dying mother—Ill-treated heroine—Menial heroine—cornucopia—Spy on heroine—Slaying by helpful animal—Tasks—Revivified bones_. I have attempted in my version to reconstruct the "English" Cinderella according to these formulae. It will be observed that the helpful animal is helpful in two ways (a) in helping the heroine to perform tasks; (b) in providing her with magic dresses. It is the same with the Grimms' _Aschenputtel_ and other Continental variants.

Turning to the Celtic variants, these divide into two sets. Campbell's and Macleod's versions are practically at one with the English formula, the latter with an important variation which will concern us later. But the other two, Curtin's and Sinclair's, one collected in Ireland and the other in Scotland, both continue the formula with the conclusion of the Sea Maiden tale (on which see the Notes of my Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xvii.). This is a specifically Celtic formula, and would seem therefore to claim Cinderella for the Celts. But the welding of the Sea Maiden ending on to the Cinderella formula is clearly a later and inartistic junction, and implies rather imperfect assimilation of the Cinderella formula. To determine the question of origin we must turn to the purer type given by the other two Celtic versions.

Campbell's tale can clearly lay no claim to represent the original type of Cinderella. The golden shoes are a gift of the hero to the heroine which destroys the whole point of the Shoe marriage test, and cannot have been in the original, wherever it originated. Mr. Macleod's version, however, contains an incident which seems to bring us nearer to the original form than any version contained in Miss Cox's book. Throughout the variants it will be observed what an important function is played by the helpful animal. This in some of the versions is left as a legacy by the heroine's dying mother. But in Mr. Macleod's version the helpful animal, a sheep, is the heroine's mother herself! This is indeed an archaic touch, which seems to hark back to primitive times and totemistic beliefs. And more important still, it is a touch which vitalises the other variants in which the helpful animal is rather dragged in by the horns. Mr. Nutt's lucky find at the last moment seems to throw more light on the origin of the tale than almost the whole of the remaining collection.

But does this find necessarily prove an original Celtic origin for Cinderella? Scarcely. It remains to be proved that this introductory part of the story with helpful animal was necessarily part of the original. Having regard to the feudal character underlying the whole conception, it remains possible that the earlier part was ingeniously dovetailed on to the latter from some pre-existing and more archaic tale, perhaps that represented by the Grimms' One Eyed, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes. The possibility of the introduction of an archaic formula which had become a convention of folk-telling cannot be left out of account.

The "Youngest-best" formula which occurs in Cinderella, and on which Mr. Lang laid much stress in his treatment of the subject in his "Perrault" as a survival of the old tenure of "junior right," does not throw much light on the subject. Mr. Ralston, in the Nineteenth Century, 1879, was equally unenlightening with his sun-myths.

[Footnote 2: Chamber's II. consists entirely and solely of these incidents.]



LXXIV. KING O' CATS

Source.—I have taken a point here and a point there from the various English versions mentioned in the next section.

I have expanded the names, so as to make a jingle from the Dildrum and Doldrum of Hartland.

Parallels.—Five variants of this quaint legend have been collected in England: (1) Halliwell, Pop. Rhymes, 167, "Molly Dixon"; (2) Choice Notes—Folk-Lore, p. 73, "Colman Grey"; (3) Folk-Lore Journal, ii., 22, "King o' the Cats"; (4) Folk-Lore—England (Gibbings), "Johnny Reed's Cat"; (5) Hartland and Wilkinson, Lancashire Legends, p. 13, "Dildrum Doldrum." Sir F. Palgrave gives a Danish parallel; cf. Halliwell, l.c.

Remarks.—An interesting example of the spread and development of a simple anecdote throughout England. Here again we can scarcely imagine more than a single origin for the tale which is, in its way, as weird and fantastic as E.A. Poe.

LXXV. TAMLANE

Source.—From Scott's Minstrelsy, with touches from the other variants given by Prof. Child in his Eng. and Scotch Ballads, i., 335-58.

Parallels.—Prof. Child gives no less than nine versions in his masterly edition, l.c., besides another fragment "Burd Ellen and Young Tamlane," i., 258. He parallels the marriage of Peleus and Thetis in Apollodorus III., xiii., 5, 6, which still persists in modern Greece as a Cretan ballad.

Remarks.—Prof. Child remarks that dipping into water or milk is necessary before transformation can take place, and gives examples, l.c., 338, to which may be added that of Catskin (see Notes infra). He gives as the reason why the Elf-queen would have "ta'en out Tamlane's two grey eyne," so that henceforth he should not be able to see the fairies. Was it not rather that he should not henceforth see Burd Janet?—a subtle touch of jealousy. On dwelling in fairyland Mr. Hartland has a monograph in his Science of Fairy Tales, pp. 161-254.

LXXVI. THE STARS IN THE SKY

Source.—Mrs. Balfour's old nurse, now in New Zealand. The original is in broad Scots, which I have anglicised.

Parallels.—The tradition is widespread that at the foot of the rainbow treasure is to be found; cf. Mr. John Payne's "Sir Edward's Questing" in his Songs of Life and Death.

Remarks.—The "sell" at the end is scarcely after the manner of the folk, and various touches throughout indicate a transmission through minds tainted with culture and introspection.

LXXVII. NEWS!

Source.—Bell's Speaker.

Parallels.—Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, ed. Crane, No. ccv., a servant being asked the news by his master returned from a pilgrimage to Compostella, says the dog is lame, and goes on to explain: "While the dog was running near the mule, the mule kicked him and broke his own halter and ran through the house, scattering the fire with his hoofs, and burning down your house with your wife." It occurs even earlier in Alfonsi's Disciplina Clericalis, No. xxx., at beginning of the twelfth century, among the Fabliaux, and in Bebel, Werke, iii., 71, whence probably it was reintroduced into England. See Prof. Crane's note ad loc.

Remarks.—Almost all Alfonsi's exempla are from the East. It is characteristic that the German version finishes up with a loss of honour, the English climax being loss of fortune.

LXXVIII. PUDDOCK, MOUSIE, AND RATTON

Source.—Kirkpatrick Sharpe's Ballad Book, 1824, slightly anglicised.

Parallels.—Mr. Bullen, in his Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books, p. 202, gives a version, "The Marriage of the Frog and the Mouse," from T. Ravenscroft's Melismata, 1611. The nursery rhyme of the frog who would a-wooing go is clearly a variant of this, and has thus a sure pedigree of three hundred years; cf. "Frog husband" in my List of Incidents, or notes to "The Well of the World's End" (No. xli.).

LXXIX. LITTLE BULL-CALF

Source.—Gypsy Lore Journal, iii., one of a number of tales told "In a Tent" to Mr. John Sampson. I have respelt and euphemised the bladder.

Parallels.—The Perseus and Andromeda incident is frequent in folk-tales; see my List of Incidents sub voce "Fight with Dragon." "Cheese squeezing," as a test of prowess, is also common, as in "Jack the Giant Killer" and elsewhere (Koehler, Jahrbuch, vii., 252).

LXXX. THE WEE WEE MANNIE

Source.—From Mrs. Balfour's old nurse. I have again anglicised.

Parallels.—This is one of the class of accumulative stories like The Old Woman and her Pig (No. iv.). The class is well represented in these isles.

LXXXI. HABETROT AND SCANTLIE MAB

Source.—Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, pp. 258-62 of Folk-Lore Society's edition. I have abridged and to some extent rewritten.

Parallels.—This in its early part is a parallel to the Tom Tit Tot, which see. The latter part is more novel, and is best compared with the Grimms' Spinners.

Remark.—Henderson makes out of Habetrot a goddess of the spinning-wheel, but with very little authority as it seems to me.

LXXXII. OLD MOTHER WIGGLE WAGGLE

Source.—I have inserted into Halliwell's version one current in Mr. Batten's family, except that I have substituted "Wiggle-Waggle" for "Slipper-Slopper." The two versions supplement one another.

Remarks.—This is a pure bit of animal satire, which might have come from a rural Jefferies with somewhat more of wit than the native writer.

LXXXIII. CATSKIN

Source.—From the chap-book reprinted in Halliwell I have introduced the demand for magic dresses from Chambers's Rashie Coat, into which it had clearly been interpolated from some version of Catskin.

Parallels.—Miss Cox's admirable volume of variants of Cinderella also contains seventy-three variants of Catskin, besides thirteen "indeterminate" ones which approximate to that type. Of these eighty-six, five exist in the British Isles, two chap-books given in Halliwell and in Dixon's Songs of English Peasantry, two by Campbell, Nos. xiv. and xiva, "The King who Wished to Marry his Daughter," and one by Kennedy's Fireside Stories, "The Princess in the Catskins." Goldsmith knew the story by the name of "Catskin," as he refers to it in the Vicar. There is a fragment from Cornwall in Folk-Lore, i., App. p. 149.

Remarks.—Catskin, or the Wandering Gentlewomen, now exists in English only in two chap-book ballads. But Chambers's first variant of Rashie Coat begins with the Catskin formula in a euphemised form. The full formula may be said to run in abbreviated form—Death-bed promise—Deceased wife's resemblance marriage test—Unnatural father (desiring to marry his own daughter)—Helpful animal—Counter tasks—Magic dresses—Heroine flight—Heroine disguise—Menial heroine—Meeting-place—Token objects named—Threefold flight—Lovesick prince—Recognition ring—Happy marriage. Of these the chap-book versions contain scarcely anything of the opening motifs. Yet they existed in England, for Miss Isabella Barclay, in a variant which Miss Cox has overlooked (Folk-Lore, i., l.c.), remembers having heard the Unnatural Father incident from a Cornish servant-girl. Campbell's two versions also contain the incident, from which one of them receives its name. One wonders in what form Mr. Burchell knew Catskin, for "he gave the [Primrose] children the Buck of Beverland,[3] with the history of Patient Grissel, the adventures of Catskin and the Fair Rosamond's Bower" (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, c. vi.). Pity that "Goldy" did not tell the story himself, as he had probably heard it in Ireland, where Kennedy gives a poor version in his Fireside Stories.

Yet, imperfect as the chap-book versions are, they yet retain not a few archaic touches. It is clear from them, at any rate, that the Heroine was at one time transformed into a Cat. For when the basin of water is thrown in her face she "shakes her ears" just as a cat would. Again, before putting on her magic dresses she bathes in a pellucid pool. Now, Professor Child has pointed out in his notes on Tamlane and elsewhere (English and Scotch Ballads, i., 338; ii., 505; iii., 505) that dipping into water or milk is necessary before transformation can take place. It is clear, therefore, that Catskin was originally transformed into an animal by the spirit of her mother, also transformed into an animal.

If I understand Mr. Nutt rightly (Folk-Lore, iv, 135, seq.), he is inclined to think, from the evidence of the hero-tales which have the unsavoury motif of the Unnatural Father, that the original home of the story was England, where most of the hero-tales locate the incident. I would merely remark on this that there are only very slight traces of the story in these islands nowadays, while it abounds in Italy, which possesses one almost perfect version of the formula (Miss Cox, No. 142, from Sardinia).

Mr. Newell, on the other hand (American Folk-Lore Journal, ii., 160), considers Catskin the earliest of the three types contained in Miss Cox's book, and considers that Cinderella was derived from this as a softening of the original. His chief reason appears to be the earlier appearance of Catskin in Straparola,[4] 1550, a hundred years earlier than Cinderella in Basile, 1636. This appears to be a somewhat insufficient basis for such a conclusion. Nor is there, after all, so close a relation between the two types in their full development as to necessitate the derivation of one from the other.

[Footnote 3: Who knows the Buck of Beverland nowadays?]

[Footnote 4: It is practically in Des Perier's Recreations, 1544.]



LXXXIV. STUPID'S CRIES

Source.—Folk-Lore Record, iii., 152-5, by the veteran Prof. Stephens. I have changed "dog and bitch" of original to "dog and cat," and euphemised the liver and lights.

Parallels.—Prof. Stephens gives parallels from Denmark. Germany (the Grimms' Up Riesensohn) and Ireland (Kennedy, Fireside Stories, p. 30).

LXXXV. THE LAMBTON WORM

Source.—Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, pp. 287-9, I have rewritten, as the original was rather high falutin'.

Parallels.—Worms or dragons form the subject of the whole of the eighth chapter of Henderson. "The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh" (No. xxxiii.) also requires the milk of nine kye for its daily rations, and cow's milk is the ordinary provender of such kittle cattle (Grimms' Teut. Myth. 687), the mythological explanation being that cows = the clouds and the dragon = the storm. Jephtha vows are also frequent in folk-tales: Miss Cox gives many examples in her Cinderella, p. 511.

Remarks.—Nine generations back from the last of the Lambtons, Henry Lambton, M.P., ob. 1761, reaches Sir John Lambton, Knight of Rhodes, and several instances of violent death occur in the interim. Dragons are possibly survivals into historic times of antedeluvian monsters, or reminiscences of classical legend (Perseus, etc.). Who shall say which is which, as Mr. Lang would observe.

LXXXVI. WISE MEN OF GOTHAM

Source.—The chap-book contained in Mr. Hazlitt's Shaksperian Jest Book, vol. iii. I have selected the incidents and modernised the spelling; otherwise the droll remains as it was told in Elizabethan times.

Parallels.—Mr. Clouston's Book of Noodles is little else than a series of parallels to our droll. See my List of Incidents under the titles, "One cheese after another," "Hare postman," "Not counting self," "Drowning eels." In most cases Mr. Clouston quotes Eastern analogies.

Remarks.—All countries have their special crop of fools, Boeotians among the Greeks, the people of Hums among the Persians (how appropriate!), the Schildburgers in Germany, and so on. Gotham is the English representative, and as witticisms call to mind well-known wits, so Gotham has had heaped on its head all the stupidities of the Indo-European world. For there can be little doubt that these drolls have spread from East to West. This "Not counting self" is in the Gooroo Paramastan, the cheeses "one after another" in M. Riviere's collection of Kabyle tales, and so on. It is indeed curious how little originality there is among mankind in the matter of stupidity. Even such an inventive genius as the late Mr. Sothern had considerable difficulty in inventing a new "sell."

LXXXVII. PRINCESS OF CANTERBURY

Source.—I have inserted into the old chap-book version of the Four Kings of Colchester, Canterbury, &c., an incident entitled by Halliwell "The Three Questions."

Parallels.—The "riddle bride wager" is a frequent incident of folk-tales (see my List of Incidents); the sleeping tabu of the latter part is not so common, though it occurs, e.g., in the Grimms' Twelve Princesses, who wear out their shoes with dancing.

THE END