The King o’ the Cats explained simply

One winter's evening the sexton's wife was sitting by the fireside with her big black cat, Old Tom, on the other side, both half asleep and waiting for the master to come home. They waited and they waited, but still he didn't come, till at last he came rushing in, calling out, "Who's Tommy Tildrum?" in such a wild way that both his wife and his cat stared at him to know what was the matter. "Why, what's the matter?" said his wife, "and why do you want to know who Tommy Tildrum is?" "Oh, I've had such an adventure. I was digging away at old Mr. Fordyce's grave when I suppose I must have dropped asleep, and only woke up by hearing a cat's _Miaou_." "_Miaou!_" said Old Tom in answer. "Yes, just like that! So I looked over the edge of the grave, and what do you think I saw?" "Now, how can I tell?" said the sexton's wife. "Why, nine black cats all like our friend Tom here, all with a white spot on their chestesses. And what do you think they were carrying? Why, a small coffin covered with a black velvet pall, and on the pall was a small coronet all of gold, and at every third step they took they cried all together, _Miaou_--" "_Miaou!_" said Old Tom again. "Yes, just like that!" said the Sexton; "and as they came nearer and nearer to me I could see them more distinctly, because their eyes shone out with a sort of green light. Well, they all came towards me, eight of them carrying the coffin, and the biggest cat of all walking in front for all the world like--but look at our Tom, how he's looking at me. You'd think he knew all I was saying." "Go on, go on," said his wife; "never mind Old Tom." "Well, as I was a-saying, they came towards me slowly and solemnly, and at every third step crying all together, _Miaou!_--" "_Miaou!_" said Old Tom again. "Yes, just like that, till they came and stood right opposite Mr. Fordyce's grave, where I was, when they all stood still and looked straight at me. I did feel queer, that I did! But look at Old Tom; he's looking at me just like they did." "Go on, go on," said his wife; "never mind Old Tom." "Where was I? Oh, they all stood still looking at me, when the one that wasn't carrying the coffin came forward and, staring straight at me, said to me--yes, I tell 'ee, _said_ to me, with a squeaky voice, 'Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum's dead,' and that's why I asked you if you knew who Tom Tildrum was, for how can I tell Tom Tildrum Tim Toldrum's dead if I don't know who Tom Tildrum is?" "Look at Old Tom, look at Old Tom!" screamed his wife. And well he might look, for Tom was swelling and Tom was staring, and at last Tom shrieked out, "What--old Tim dead! then I'm the King o' the Cats!" and rushed up the chimney and was never more seen. Tamlane Young Tamlane was son of Earl Murray, and Burd Janet was daughter of Dunbar, Earl of March. And when they were young they loved one another and plighted their troth. But when the time came near for their marrying, Tamlane disappeared, and none knew what had become of him. Many, many days after he had disappeared, Burd Janet was wandering in Carterhaugh Wood, though she had been warned not to go there. And as she wandered she plucked the flowers from the bushes. She came at last to a bush of broom and began plucking it. She had not taken more than three flowerets when by her side up started young Tamlane. "Where come ye from, Tamlane, Tamlane?" Burd Janet said; "and why have you been away so long?" "From Elfland I come," said young Tamlane. "The Queen of Elfland has made me her knight." "But how did you get there, Tamlane?" said Burd Janet. "I was hunting one day, and as I rode widershins round yon hill, a deep drowsiness fell upon me, and when I awoke, behold! I was in Elfland. Fair is that land and gay, and fain would I stop but for thee and one other thing. Every seven years the Elves pay their tithe to the Nether world, and for all the Queen makes much of me, I fear it is myself that will be the tithe." "Oh can you not be saved? Tell me if aught I can do will save you, Tamlane?" "One only thing is there for my safety. To-morrow night is Hallowe'en, and the fairy court will then ride through England and Scotland, and if you would borrow me from Elfland you must take your stand by Miles Cross between twelve and one o' the night, and with holy water in your hand you must cast a compass all around you." "But how shall I know you, Tamlane?" quoth Burd Janet, "amid so many knights I've ne'er seen before?" "The first court of Elves that come by let pass. The next court you shall pay reverence to, but do naught nor say aught. But the third court that comes by is the chief court of them, and at the head rides the Queen of all Elfland. And I shall ride by her side upon a milk-white steed with a star in my crown; they give me this honour as being a christened knight. Watch my hands, Janet, the right one will be gloved but the left one will be bare, and by that token you will know me." "But how to save you, Tamlane?" quoth Burd Janet. "You must spring upon me suddenly, and I will fall to the ground. Then seize me quick, and whatever change befall me, for they will exercise all their magic on me, cling hold to me till they turn me into red-hot iron. Then cast me into this pool and I will be turned back into a mother-naked man. Cast then your green mantle over me, and I shall be yours, and be of the world again." So Burd Janet promised to do all for Tamlane, and next night at midnight she took her stand by Miles Cross and cast a compass round her with holy water. Soon there came riding by the Elfin court, first over the mound went a troop on black steeds, and then another troop on brown. But in the third court, all on milk-white steeds, she saw the Queen of Elfland, and by her side a knight with a star in his crown, with right hand gloved and the left bare. Then she knew this was her own Tamlane, and springing forward she seized the bridle of the milk-white steed and pulled its rider down. And as soon as he had touched the ground she let go the bridle and seized him in her arms. "He's won, he's won amongst us all," shrieked out the eldritch crew, and all came around her and tried their spells on young Tamlane. First they turned him in Janet's arms like frozen ice, then into a huge flame of roaring fire. Then, again, the fire vanished and an adder was skipping through her arms, but still she held on; and then they turned him into a snake that reared up as if to bite her, and yet she held on. Then suddenly a dove was struggling in her arms, and almost flew away. Then they turned him into a swan, but all was in vain, till at last he was turned into a red-hot glaive, and this she cast into a well of water and then he turned back into a mother-naked man. She quickly cast her green mantle over him, and young Tamlane was Burd Janet's for ever. Then sang the Queen of Elfland as the court turned away and began to resume its march: "She that has borrowed young Tamlane Has gotten a stately groom, She's taken away my bonniest knight, Left nothing in his room. "But had I known, Tamlane, Tamlane, A lady would borrow thee, I'd hae ta'en out thy two grey eyne, Put in two eyne of tree. "Had I but known, Tamlane, Tamlane, Before we came from home, I'd hae ta'en out thy heart o' flesh, Put in a heart of stone. "Had I but had the wit yestreen That I have got to-day, I'd paid the Fiend seven times his teind Ere you'd been won away." And then the Elfin court rode away, and Burd Janet and young Tamlane went their way homewards and were soon after married after young Tamlane had again been sained by the holy water and made Christian once more. The Stars in the Sky Once on a time and twice on a time, and all times together as ever I heard tell of, there was a tiny lassie who would weep all day to have the stars in the sky to play with; she wouldn't have this, and she wouldn't have that, but it was always the stars she would have. So one fine day off she went to find them. And she walked and she walked and she walked, till by-and-by she came to a mill-dam. "Goode'en to ye," says she, "I'm seeking the stars in the sky to play with. Have you seen any?" "Oh, yes, my bonnie lassie," said the mill-dam. "They shine in my own face o' nights till I can't sleep for them. Jump in and perhaps you'll find one." So she jumped in, and swam about and swam about and swam about, but ne'er a one could she see. So she went on till she came to a brooklet. "Goode'en to ye, Brooklet, Brooklet," says she; "I'm seeking the stars in the sky to play with. Have you seen any?" "Yes, indeed, my bonny lassie," said the Brooklet. "They glint on my banks at night. Paddle about, and maybe you'll find one." So she paddled and she paddled and she paddled, but ne'er a one did she find. So on she went till she came to the Good Folk. "Goode'en to ye, Good Folk," says she; "I'm looking for the stars in the sky to play with. Have ye seen e'er a one?" "Why, yes, my bonny lassie," said the Good Folk. "They shine on the grass here o' night. Dance with us, and maybe you'll find one." And she danced and she danced and she danced, but ne'er a one did she see. So down she sate; I suppose she wept. "Oh dearie me, oh dearie me," says she, "I've swam and I've paddled and I've danced, and if ye'll not help me I shall never find the stars in the sky to play with." But the Good Folk whispered together, and one of them came up to her and took her by the hand and said, "If you won't go home to your mother, go forward, go forward; mind you take the right road. Ask Four Feet to carry you to No Feet at all, and tell No Feet at all to carry you to the stairs without steps, and if you can climb that--" "Oh, shall I be among the stars in the sky then?" cried the lassie. "If you'll not be, then you'll be elsewhere," said the Good Folk, and set to dancing again. So on she went again with a light heart, and by-and-by she came to a saddled horse, tied to a tree. "Goode'en to ye, Beast," said she; "I'm seeking the stars in the sky to play with. Will you give me a lift, for all my bones are an-aching." "Nay," said the horse, "I know nought of the stars in the sky, and I'm here to do the bidding of the Good Folk, and not my own will." "Well," said she, "it's from the Good Folk I come, and they bade me tell Four Feet to carry me to No Feet at all." "That's another story," said he; "jump up and ride with me." So they rode and they rode and they rode, till they got out of the forest and found themselves at the edge of the sea. And on the water in front of them was a wide glistening path running straight out towards a beautiful thing that rose out of the water and went up into the sky, and was all the colours in the world, blue and red and green, and wonderful to look at. "Now get you down," said the horse; "I've brought ye to the end of the land, and that's as much as Four Feet can do. I must away home to my own folk." "But," said the lassie, "where's No Feet at all, and where's the stair without steps?" "I know not," said the horse, "it's none of my business neither. So goode'en to ye, my bonny lassie;" and off he went. So the lassie stood still and looked at the water, till a strange kind of fish came swimming up to her feet. "Goode'en to ye, big Fish," says she, "I'm looking for the stars in the sky, and for the stairs that climb up to them. Will ye show me the way?" "Nay," said the Fish, "I can't unless you bring me word from the Good Folk." "Yes, indeed," said she. "They said Four Feet would bring me to No Feet at all, and No Feet at all would carry me to the stairs without steps." "Ah, well," said the Fish; "that's all right then. Get on my back and hold fast." And off he went--Kerplash!--into the water, along the silver path, towards the bright arch. And the nearer they came the brighter the sheen of it, till she had to shade her eyes from the light of it. And as they came to the foot of it, she saw it was a broad bright road, sloping up and away into the sky, and at the far, far end of it she could see wee shining things dancing about. "Now," said the Fish, "here you are, and yon's the stair; climb up, if you can, but hold on fast. I'll warrant you find the stair easier at home than by such a way; 't was ne'er meant for lassies' feet to travel;" and off he splashed through the water. So she clomb and she clomb and she clomb, but ne'er a step higher did she get: the light was before her and around her, and the water behind her, and the more she struggled the more she was forced down into the dark and the cold, and the more she clomb the deeper she fell. But she clomb and she clomb, till she got dizzy in the light and shivered with the cold, and dazed with the fear; but still she clomb, till at last, quite dazed and silly-like, she let clean go, and sank down--down--down. And bang she came on to the hard boards, and found herself sitting, weeping and wailing, by the bedside at home all alone. News! MR. G. Ha! Steward, how are you, my old boy? How do things go on at home? STEWARD. Bad enough, your honour; the magpie's dead! MR. G. Poor mag! so he's gone. How came he to die? STEWARD. Over-ate himself, Sir. MR. G. Did he indeed? a greedy dog. Why, what did he get that he liked so well? STEWARD. Horseflesh; he died of eating horseflesh. MR. G. How came he to get so much horseflesh? STEWARD. All your father's horses, Sir. MR. G. What! are they dead too? STEWARD. Ay, Sir; they died of over-work. MR. G. And why were they over-worked? STEWARD. To carry water, Sir. MR. G. To carry water, and what were they carrying water for? STEWARD. Sure, Sir, to put out the fire. MR. G. Fire! what fire? STEWARD. Your father's house is burned down to the ground. MR. G. My father's house burnt down! and how came it to be on fire? STEWARD. I think, Sir, it must have been the torches. MR G. Torches! what torches? STEWARD. At your mother's funeral. MR. G. My mother dead? STEWARD. Ay, poor lady, she never looked up after it. MR. G. After what? STEWARD. The loss of your father. MR. G. My father gone too? STEWARD. Yes, poor gentleman, he took to his bed as soon as he heard of it. MR. G. Heard of what? STEWARD. The bad news, an' it please your honour. MR. G. What? more miseries, more bad news! STEWARD. Yes, Sir, your bank has failed, your credit is lost and you're not worth a shilling in the world. I make bold, Sir, to come and wait on you about it; for I thought you would like to hear the news. Puddock, Mousie, and Ratton There lived a Puddock in a well, And a merry Mousie in a mill. Puddock he would a-wooing rid Sword and pistol by his side. Puddock came to the Mousie's inn, "Mistress Mousie, are you within?" MOUSIE. "Yes, kind Sir, I am within, Softly do I sit and spin." PUDDOCK. "Madam, I am come to woo, Marriage I must have of you." MOUSIE. "Marriage I will grant you none Till Uncle Ratton he comes home." PUDDOCK. "See, Uncle Ratton's now come in Then go and bask the bride within." Who is it that sits next the wall But Lady Mousie both slim and small? Who is it that sits next the bride But Lord Puddock with yellow side? But soon came Duckie and with her Sir Drake; Duckie takes Puddock and makes him squeak. Then came in the old carl cat With a fiddle on his back: "Do ye any music lack?" Puddock he swam down the brook, Sir Drake he catched him in his fluke. The cat he pulled Lord Ratton down, The kittens they did claw his crown. But Lady Mousie, so slim and small, Crept into a hole beneath the wall; "Squeak," quoth she, "I'm out of it all." The Little Bull-Calf Centuries of years ago, when almost all this part of the country was wilderness, there was a little boy, who lived in a poor bit of property and his father gave him a little bull-calf, and with it he gave him everything he wanted for it. But soon after his father died, and his mother got married again to a man that turned out to be a very vicious step-father, who couldn't abide the little boy. So at last the step-father said: "If you bring that bull-calf into this house, I'll kill it." What a villain he was, wasn't he? Now this little boy used to go out and feed his bull-calf every day with barley bread, and when he did so this time, an old man came up to him--we can guess who that was, eh?--and said to him: "You and your bull-calf had better go away and seek your fortune." So he went on and he went on and he went on, as far as I could tell you till to-morrow night, and he went up to a farmhouse and begged a crust of bread, and when he got back he broke it in two and gave half of it to the bull-calf. And he went to another house and begged a bit of cheese crud, and when he went back he wanted to give half of it to the bull-calf. "No," says the bull-calf, "I'm going across the field, into the wild-wood wilderness country, where there'll be tigers, leopards, wolves, monkeys, and a fiery dragon, and I'll kill them all except the fiery dragon, and he'll kill me." The little boy did cry, and said: "Oh, no, my little bull-calf; I hope he won't kill you." "Yes, he will," said the little bull-calf, "so you climb up that tree, so that no one can come nigh you but the monkeys, and if they come the cheese crud will save you. And when I'm killed, the dragon will go away for a bit, then you must come down the tree and skin me, and take out my bladder and blow it out, and it will kill everything you hit with it. So when the fiery dragon comes back, you hit it with my bladder and cut its tongue out." (We know there were fiery dragons in those days, like George and his dragon in the legend; but, there! it's not the same world nowadays. The world is turned topsy-turvy since then, like as if you'd turn it over with a spade!) Of course, he did all the little bull-calf told him. He climbed up the tree, and the monkeys climbed up the tree after him. But he held the cheese crud in his hand, and said: "I'll squeeze your heart like the flint-stone." So the monkey cocked his eye as much as to say: "If you can squeeze a flint-stone to make the juice come out of it, you can squeeze me." But he didn't say anything, for a monkey's cunning, but down he went. And all the while the little bull-calf was fighting all the wild beasts on the ground, and the little lad was clapping his hands up the tree, and calling out: "Go in, my little bull-calf! Well fought, little bull-calf!" And he mastered everything except the fiery dragon, but the fiery dragon killed the little bull-calf. But the lad waited and waited till he saw the dragon go away, then he came down and skinned the little bull-calf, and took out its bladder and went after the dragon. And as he went on, what should he see but a king's daughter, staked down by the hair of her head, for she had been put there for the dragon to destroy her. So he went up and untied her hair, but she said: "My time has come for the dragon to destroy me; go away, you can do no good." But he said: "No! I can master it, and I won't go"; and for all her begging and praying he would stop. And soon he heard it coming, roaring and raging from afar off, and at last it came near, spitting fire, and with a tongue like a great spear, and you could hear it roaring for miles, and it was making for the place where the king's daughter was staked down. But when it came up to them, the lad just hit it on the head with the bladder and the dragon fell down dead, but before it died, it bit off the little boy's forefinger. Then the lad cut out the dragon's tongue and said to the king's daughter: "I've done all I can, I must leave you." And sorry she was he had to go, and before he went she tied a diamond ring in his hair, and said good-bye to him. By-and-by, who should come along but the old king, lamenting and weeping, expecting to see nothing of his daughter but the prints of the place where she had been. But he was surprised to find her there alive and safe, and he said: "How came you to be saved?" So she told him how she had been saved, and he took her home to his castle again. Well, he put it into all the papers to find out who saved his daughter, and who had the dragon's tongue and the princess's diamond ring, and was without his forefinger. Whoever could show these signs should marry his daughter and have his kingdom after his death. Well, any number of gentlemen came from all parts of England, with forefingers cut off, and with diamond rings and all kinds of tongues, wild beasts' tongues and foreign tongues. But they couldn't show any dragons' tongues, so they were turned away. At last the little boy turned up, looking very ragged and desolated like, and the king's daughter cast her eye on him, till her father grew very angry and ordered them to turn the little beggar boy away. "Father," says she; "I know something of that boy." Well, still the fine gentlemen came, bringing up their dragons' tongues that weren't dragons' tongues, and at last the little boy came up, dressed a little better. So the old king says: "I see you've got an eye on that boy. If it has to be him it must be him." But all the others were fit to kill him, and cried out: "Pooh, pooh, turn that boy out, it can't be him." But the king said: "Now, my boy, let's see what you have to show." Well, he showed the diamond ring with her name on it, and the fiery dragon's tongue. How the others were thunderstruck when he showed his proofs! But the king told him: "You shall have my daughter and my estate." So he married the princess, and afterwards got the king's estate. Then his step-father came and wanted to own him, but the young king didn't know such a man. The Wee, Wee Mannie Once upon a time, when all big folks were wee ones and all lies were true, there was a wee, wee Mannie that had a big, big Coo. And out he went to milk her of a morning, and said-- "Hold still, my Coo, my hinny, Hold still, my hinny, my Coo, And ye shall have for your dinner What but a milk white doo." But the big, big Coo wouldn't hold still. "Hout!" said the wee, wee Mannie-- "Hold still, my Coo, my dearie, And fill my bucket wi' milk, And if ye 'll be no contrairy I'll gi'e ye a gown o' silk." But the big, big Coo wouldn't hold still. "Look at that, now!" said the wee, wee Mannie-- "What's a wee, wee mannie to do, Wi' such a big contrairy Coo?" So off he went to his mother at the house. "Mother," said he, "Coo won't stand still, and wee, wee Mannie can't milk big, big Coo." "Hout!" says his mother, "take stick and beat Coo." So off he went to get a stick from the tree, and said-- "Break, stick, break, And I'll gi'e ye a cake." But the stick wouldn't break, so back he went to the house. "Mother," says he, "Coo won't hold still, stick won't break, wee, wee Mannie can't beat big, big Coo." "Hout!" says his mother, "go to the Butcher and bid him kill Coo." So off he went to the Butcher, and said-- "Butcher, kill the big, big Coo, She'll gi'e us no more milk noo." But the Butcher wouldn't kill the Coo without a silver penny, so back the Mannie went to the house. "Mother," says he, "Coo won't hold still, stick won't break, Butcher won't kill without a silver penny, and wee, wee Mannie can't milk big, big Coo." "Well," said his mother, "go to the Coo and tell her there's a weary, weary lady with long yellow hair weeping for a cup o' milk." So off he went and told the Coo, but she wouldn't hold still, so back he went and told his mother. "Well," said she, "tell the Coo there's a fine, fine laddie from the wars sitting by the weary, weary lady with golden hair, and she weeping for a sup o' milk." So off he went and told the Coo, but she wouldn't hold still, so back he went and told his mother. "Well," said his mother, "tell the big, big Coo there's a sharp, sharp sword at the belt of the fine, fine laddie from the wars who sits beside the weary, weary lady with the golden hair, and she weeping for a sup o' milk." And he told the big, big Coo, but she wouldn't hold still. Then said his mother, "Run quick and tell her that her head's going to be cut off by the sharp, sharp sword in the hands of the fine, fine laddie, if she doesn't give the sup o' milk the weary, weary lady weeps for." And wee, wee Mannie went off and told the big, big Coo. And when Coo saw the glint of the sharp, sharp sword in the hand of the fine, fine laddie come from the wars, and the weary, weary lady weeping for a sup o' milk, she reckoned she'd better hold still; so wee, wee Mannie milked big, big Coo, and the weary, weary lady with the golden hair hushed her weeping and got her sup o' milk, and the fine, fine laddie new come from the wars put by his sharp, sharp sword, and all went well that didn't go ill. Habetrot and Scantlie Mab A woman had one fair daughter, who loved play better than work, wandering in the meadows and lanes better than the spinning-wheel and distaff. The mother was heartily vexed at this, for in those days no lassie had any chance of a good husband unless she was an industrious spinster. So she coaxed, threatened, even beat her daughter, but all to no purpose; the girl remained what her mother called her, "an idle cuttie." At last, one spring morning, the gudewife gave her seven heads of lint, saying she would take no excuse; they must be returned in three days spun into yarn. The girl saw her mother was in earnest, so she plied her distaff as well as she could; but her hands were all untaught, and by the evening of the second day only a very small part of her task was done. She cried herself to sleep that night, and in the morning, throwing aside her work in despair, she strolled out into the fields, all sparkling with dew. At last she reached a knoll, at whose feet ran a little burn, shaded with woodbine and wild roses; and there she sat down, burying her face in her hands. When she looked up, she was surprised to see by the margin of the stream an old woman, quite unknown to her, drawing out the thread as she basked in the sun. There was nothing very remarkable in her appearance, except the length and thickness of her lips, only she was seated on a self-bored stone. The girl rose, went to the good dame, and gave her a friendly greeting, but could not help inquiring "What makes you so long lipped?" "Spinning thread, my hinnie," said the old woman, pleased with her. "I wet my fingers with my lips, as I draw the thread from the distaff." "Ah!" said the girl, "I should be spinning too, but it's all to no purpose. I shall ne'er do my task:" on which the old woman proposed to do it for her. Overjoyed, the maiden ran to fetch her lint, and placed it in her new friend's hand, asking where she should call for the yarn in the evening; but she received no reply; the old woman passed away from her among the trees and bushes. The girl, much bewildered, wandered about a little, sat down to rest, and finally fell asleep by the little knoll. When she awoke she was surprised to find that it was evening. Causleen, the evening star, was beaming with silvery light, soon to be lost in the moon's splendour. While watching these changes, the maiden was startled by the sound of an uncouth voice, which seemed to issue from below the self-bored stone, close beside her. She laid her ear to the stone and heard the words: "Hurry up, Scantlie Mab, for I've promised the yarn and Habetrot always keeps her promise." Then looking down the hole saw her friend, the old dame, walking backwards and forwards in a deep cavern among a group of spinsters all seated on colludie stones, and busy with distaff and spindle. An ugly company they were, with lips more or less disfigured, like old Habetrot's. Another of the sisterhood, who sat in a distant corner reeling the yarn, was marked, in addition, by grey eyes, which seemed starting from her head, and a long hooked nose. While the girl was still watching, she heard Habetrot address this dame by the name of Scantlie Mab, and say, "Bundle up the yarn, it is time the young lassie should give it to her mother." Delighted to hear this, the girl got up and returned homewards. Habetrot soon overtook her, and placed the yarn in her hands. "Oh, what can I do for ye in return?" exclaimed she, in delight. "Nothing--nothing," replied the dame; "but dinna tell your mother who spun the yarn." Scarcely believing her eyes, the girl went home, where she found her mother had been busy making sausters, and hanging them up in the chimney to dry, and then, tired out, had retired to rest. Finding herself very hungry after her long day on the knoll, the girl took down pudding after pudding, fried and ate them, and at last went to bed too. The mother was up first the next morning, and when she came into the kitchen and found her sausters all gone, and the seven hanks of yarn lying beautifully smooth and bright upon the table, she ran out of the house wildly, crying out-- "My daughter's spun seven, seven, seven, My daughter's eaten seven, seven, seven, And all before daylight." A laird who chanced to be riding by, heard the exclamation, but could not understand it; so he rode up and asked the gudewife what was the matter, on which she broke out again-- "My daughter's spun seven, seven, seven, My daughter's eaten seven, seven, seven before daylight; and if ye dinna believe me, why come in and see it." The laird, he alighted and went into the cottage, where he saw the yarn, and admired it so much he begged to see the spinner. The mother dragged in her girl. He vowed he was lonely without a wife, and had long been in search of one who was a good spinner. So their troth was plighted, and the wedding took place soon afterwards, though the bride was in great fear that she should not prove so clever at her spinning-wheel as he expected. But old Dame Habetrot came to her aid. "Bring your bonny bridegroom to my cell," said she to the young bride soon after her marriage; "he shall see what comes o' spinning, and never will he tie you to the spinning-wheel." Accordingly the bride led her husband the next day to the flowery knoll, and bade him look through the self-bored stone. Great was his surprise to behold Habetrot dancing and jumping over her rock, singing all the time this ditty to her sisterhood, while they kept time with their spindles:-- "We who live in dreary den, Are both rank and foul to see? Hidden from the glorious sun, That teems the fair earth's canopie: Ever must our evenings lone Be spent on the colludie stone. "Cheerless is the evening grey When Causleen hath died away, But ever bright and ever fair Are they who breathe this evening air, And lean upon the self-bored stone Unseen by all but me alone." The song ended, Scantlie Mab asked Habetrot what she meant by the last line, "Unseen by all but we alone." "There is one," replied Habetrot, "whom I bid to come here at this hour, and he has heard my song through the self-bored stone." So saying she rose, opened another door, which was concealed by the roots of an old tree, and invited the pair to come in and see her family. The laird was astonished at the weird-looking company, as he well might be, and inquired of one after another the cause of their strange lips. In a different tone of voice, and with a different twist of the mouth, each answered that it was occasioned by spinning. At least they tried to say so, but one grunted out "Nakasind," and another "Owkasaänd," while a third murmured "O-a-a-send." All, however, made the bridegroom understand what was the cause of their ugliness; while Habetrot slily hinted that if his wife were allowed to spin, her pretty lips would grow out of shape too, and her pretty face get an ugsome look. So before he left the cave he vowed that his little wife should never touch a spinning-wheel, and he kept his word. She used to wander in the meadows by his side, or ride behind him over the hills, but all the flax grown on his land was sent to old Habetrot to be converted into yarn. Old Mother Wiggle-Waggle The fox and his wife they had a great strife, They never ate mustard in all their whole life; They ate their meat without fork or knife And loved to be picking a bone, e-ho! The fox went out, one still, clear night, And he prayed the moon to give him light, For he'd a long way to travel that night, Before he got back to his den-o! The fox when he came to yonder stile, He lifted his lugs and he listened a while! "Oh, ho!" said the fox, "it's but a short mile From this unto yonder wee town, e-ho!" And first he arrived at a farmer's yard, Where the ducks and the geese declared it was hard, That their nerves should be shaken and their rest should be marred By the visits of Mister Fox-o! The fox when he came to the farmer's gate, Who should he see but the farmer's drake; "I love you well for your master's sake, And long to be picking your bones, e-ho!" The grey goose she ran round the hay-stack, "Oh, ho!" said the fox, "you are very fat; You'll grease my beard and ride on my back From this into yonder wee town, e-ho!" Then he took the grey goose by her sleeve, And said: "Madam Grey Goose, by your leave I'll take you away without reprieve, And carry you back to my den-o!" And he seized the black duck by the neck, And slung him all across his back, The black duck cried out "quack, quack, quack," With his legs all dangling down-o! Old Mother Wiggle-Waggle hopped out of bed, Out of the window she popped her old head; "Oh! husband, oh! husband, the grey goose is gone, And the fox is off to his den, oh!" Then the old man got up in his red cap, And swore he would catch the fox in a trap; But the fox was too cunning, and gave him the slip, And ran through the town, the town, oh! When he got to the top of the hill, He blew his trumpet both loud and shrill, For joy that he was safe and sound Through the town, oh! But at last he arrived at his home again, To his dear little foxes, eight, nine, ten, Says he "You're in luck, here's a fine fat duck With his legs all dangling down-o!" So he sat down together with his hungry wife, And they did very well without fork or knife, They never ate a better duck in all their life, And the little ones picked the bones-o! Catskin Well, there was once a gentleman who had fine lands and houses, and he very much wanted to have a son to be heir to them. So when his wife brought him a daughter, bonny as bonny could be, he cared nought for her, and said, "Let me never see her face." So she grew up a bonny girl, though her father never set eyes on her till she was fifteen years old and was ready to be married. But her father said, "Let her marry the first that comes for her." And when this was known, who should be first but a nasty rough old man. So she didn't know what to do, and went to the henwife and asked her advice. The henwife said, "Say you will not take him unless they give you a coat of silver cloth." Well, they gave her a coat of silver cloth, but she wouldn't take him for all that, but went again to the henwife, who said, "Say you will not take him unless they give you a coat of beaten gold." Well, they gave her a coat of beaten gold, but still she would not take him, but went to the henwife, who said, "Say you will not take him unless they give you a coat made of the feathers of all the birds of the air." So they sent a man with a great heap of pease; and the man cried to all the birds of the air, "Each bird take a pea, and put down a feather." So each bird took a pea and put down one of its feathers: and they took all the feathers and made a coat of them and gave it to her; but still she would not, but asked the henwife once again, who said, "Say they must first make you a coat of catskin." So they made her a coat of catskin; and she put it on, and tied up her other coats, and ran away into the woods. So she went along and went along and went along, till she came to the end of the wood, and saw a fine castle. So there she hid her fine dresses, and went up to the castle gates, and asked for work. The lady of the castle saw her, and told her, "I'm sorry I have no better place, but if you like you may be our scullion." So down she went into the kitchen, and they called her Catskin, because of her dress. But the cook was very cruel to her and led her a sad life. Well, it happened soon after that the young lord of the castle was coming home, and there was to be a grand ball in honour of the occasion. And when they were speaking about it among the servants, "Dear me, Mrs. Cook," said Catskin, "how much I should like to go." "What! you dirty impudent slut," said the cook, "you go among all the fine lords and ladies with your filthy catskin? a fine figure you'd cut!" and with that she took a basin of water and dashed it into Catskin's face. But she only briskly shook her ears, and said nothing. When the day of the ball arrived, Catskin slipped out of the house and went to the edge of the forest where she had hidden her dresses. So she bathed herself in a crystal waterfall, and then put on her coat of silver cloth, and hastened away to the ball. As soon as she entered all were overcome by her beauty and grace, while the young lord at once lost his heart to her. He asked her to be his partner for the first dance, and he would dance with none other the live-long night. When it came to parting time, the young lord said, "Pray tell me, fair maid, where you live." But Catskin curtsied and said: "Kind sir, if the truth I must tell, At the sign of the 'Basin of Water' I dwell." Then she flew from the castle and donned her catskin robe again, and slipped into the scullery again, unbeknown to the cook. The young lord went the very next day to his mother, the lady of the castle, and declared he would wed none other but the lady of the silver dress, and would never rest till he had found her. So another ball was soon arranged for in hope that the beautiful maid would appear again. So Catskin said to the cook, "Oh, how I should like to go!" Whereupon the cook screamed out in a rage, "What, you, you dirty impudent slut! you would cut a fine figure among all the fine lords and ladies." And with that she up with a ladle and broke it across Catskin's back. But she only shook her ears, and ran off to the forest, where she first of all bathed, and then put on her coat of beaten gold, and off she went to the ball-room. As soon as she entered all eyes were upon her; and the young lord soon recognised her as the lady of the "Basin of Water," and claimed her hand for the first dance, and did not leave her till the last. When that came, he again asked her where she lived. But all that she would say was: "Kind sir, if the truth I must tell, At the sign of the 'Broken Ladle' I dwell." and with that she curtsied, and flew from the ball, off with her golden robe, on with her catskin, and into the scullery without the cook's knowing. Next day when the young lord could not find where was the sign of the "Basin of Water," or of the "Broken Ladle," he begged his mother to have another grand ball, so that he might meet the beautiful maid once more. All happened as before. Catskin told the cook how much she would like to go to the ball, the cook called her "a dirty slut," and broke the skimmer across her head. But she only shook her ears, and went off to the forest, where she first bathed in the crystal spring, and then donned her coat of feathers, and so off to the ball-room. When she entered every one was surprised at so beautiful a face and form dressed in so rich and rare a dress; but the young lord soon recognised his beautiful sweetheart, and would dance with none but her the whole evening. When the ball came to an end, he pressed her to tell him where she lived, but all she would answer was: "Kind sir, if the truth I must tell, At the sign of the 'Broken Skimmer' I dwell;" and with that she curtsied, and was off to the forest. But this time the young lord followed her, and watched her change her fine dress of feathers for her catskin dress, and then he knew her for his own scullery-maid. Next day he went to his mother, the lady of the castle, and told her that he wished to marry the scullery-maid, Catskin. "Never," said the lady, and rushed from the room. Well, the young lord was so grieved at that, that he took to his bed and was very ill. The doctor tried to cure him, but he would not take any medicine unless from the hands of Catskin. So the doctor went to the lady of the castle, and told her her son would die if she did not consent to his marriage with Catskin. So she had to give way, and summoned Catskin to her. But she put on her coat of beaten gold, and went to the lady, who soon was glad to wed her son to so beautiful a maid. Well, so they were married, and after a time a dear little son came to them, and grew up a bonny lad; and one day, when he was four years old, a beggar woman came to the door, so Lady Catskin gave some money to the little lord and told him to go and give it to the beggar woman. So he went and gave it, but put it into the hand of the woman's child, who leant forward and kissed the little lord. Now the wicked old cook--why hadn't she been sent away?--was looking on, so she said, "Only see how beggars' brats take to one another." This insult went to Catskin's heart, so she went to her husband, the young lord, and told him all about her father, and begged he would go and find out what had become of her parents. So they set out in the lord's grand coach, and travelled through the forest till they came to Catskin's father's house, and put up at an inn near, where Catskin stopped, while her husband went to see if her father would own her. Now her father had never had any other child, and his wife had died; so he was all alone in the world and sate moping and miserable. When the young lord came in he hardly looked up, till he saw a chair close up to him, and asked him: "Pray, sir, had you not once a young daughter whom you would never see or own?" The old gentleman said: "It is true; I am a hardened sinner. But I would give all my worldly goods if I could but see her once before I die." Then the young lord told him what had happened to Catskin, and took him to the inn, and brought his father-in-law to his own castle, where they lived happy ever afterwards. Stupid's Cries There was once a little boy, and his mother sent him to buy a sheep's head and pluck; afraid he should forget it, the lad kept saying all the way along: "Sheep's head and pluck! Sheep's head and pluck!" Trudging along, he came to a stile; but in getting over he fell and hurt himself, and beginning to blubber, forgot what he was sent for. So he stood a little while to consider: at last he thought he recollected it, and began to repeat: "Liver and lights and gall and all! Liver and lights and gall and all!" Away he went again, and came to where a man had a pain in his liver, bawling out: "Liver and lights and gall and all! Liver and lights and gall and all!" Whereon the man laid hold of him and beat him, bidding him say: "Pray God send no more! Pray God send no more!" The youngster strode along, uttering these words, till he reached a field where a hind was sowing wheat: "Pray God send no more! Pray God send no more!" This was all his cry. So the sower began to thrash him, and charged him to repeat: "Pray God send plenty more! Pray God send plenty more!" Off the child scampered with these words in his mouth till he reached a churchyard and met a funeral, but he went on with his: "Pray God send plenty more! Pray God send plenty more!" The chief mourner seized and punished him, and bade him repeat: "Pray God send the soul to heaven! Pray God send the soul to heaven!" Away went the boy, and met a dog and a cat going to be hung, but his cry rang out: "Pray God send the soul to heaven! Pray God send the soul to heaven!" The good folk nearly were furious, seized and struck him, charging him to say: "A dog and a cat agoing to be hung! A dog and a cat agoing to be hung!" This the poor fellow did, till he overtook a man and a woman going to be married. "Oh! oh!" he shouted: "A dog and a cat agoing to be hung! A dog and a cat agoing to be hung!" The man was enraged, as we may well think, gave him many a thump, and ordered him to repeat: "I wish you much joy! I wish you much joy!" This he did, jogging along, till he came to two labourers who had fallen into a ditch. The lad kept bawling out: "I wish you much joy! I wish you much joy!" This vexed one of the folk so sorely that he used all his strength, scrambled out, beat the crier, and told him to say. "The one is out, I wish the other was! The one is out, I wish the other was!" On went young 'un till he found a fellow with only one eye; but he kept up his song: "The one is out, I wish the other was! The one is out, I wish the other was!" This was too much for Master One-eye, who grabbed him and chastised him, bidding him call: "The one side gives good light, I wish the other did! The one side gives good light, I wish the other did!" So he did, to be sure, till he came to a house, one side of which was on fire. The people here thought it was he who had set the place a-blazing, and straightway put him in prison. The end was, the judge put on his black cap, and condemned him to die. The Lambton Worm A wild young fellow was the heir of Lambton, the fine estate and hall by the side of the swift-flowing Wear. Not a Mass would he hear in Brugeford Chapel of a Sunday, but a-fishing he would go. And if he did not haul in anything, his curses could be heard by the folk as they went by to Brugeford. Well, one Sunday morning he was fishing as usual, and not a salmon had risen to him, his basket was bare of roach or dace. And the worse his luck, the worse grew his language, till the passers-by were horrified at his words as they went to listen to the Mass-priest. At last young Lambton felt a mighty tug at his line. "At last," quoth he, "a bite worth having!" and he pulled and he pulled, till what should appear above the water but a head like an elf's, with nine holes on each side of its mouth. But still he pulled till he had got the thing to land, when it turned out to be a Worm of hideous shape. If he had cursed before, his curses were enough to raise the hair on your head. "What ails thee, my son?" said a voice by his side, "and what hast thou caught, that thou shouldst stain the Lord's Day with such foul language?" Looking round, young Lambton saw a strange old man standing by him. "Why, truly," he said, "I think I have caught the devil himself. Look you and see if you know him." But the stranger shook his head, and said, "It bodes no good to thee or thine to bring such a monster to shore. Yet cast him not back into the Wear; thou has caught him, and thou must keep him," and with that away he turned, and was seen no more. The young heir of Lambton took up the gruesome thing, and, taking it off his hook, cast it into a well close by, and ever since that day that well has gone by the name of the Worm Well. For some time nothing more was seen or heard of the Worm, till one day it had outgrown the size of the well, and came forth full-grown. So it came forth from the well and betook itself to the Wear. And all day long it would lie coiled round a rock in the middle of the stream, while at night it came forth from the river and harried the country side. It sucked the cows' milk, devoured the lambs, worried the cattle, and frightened all the women and girls of the district, and then it would retire for the rest of the night to the hill, still called the Worm Hill, on the north side of the Wear, about a mile and a half from Lambton Hall. This terrible visitation brought young Lambton, of Lambton Hall, to his senses. He took upon himself the vows of the Cross, and departed for the Holy Land, in the hope that the scourge he had brought upon his district would disappear. But the grisly Worm took no heed, except that it crossed the river and came right up to Lambton Hall itself where the old lord lived on all alone, his only son having gone to the Holy Land. What to do? The Worm was coming closer and closer to the Hall; women were shrieking, men were gathering weapons, dogs were barking and horses neighing with terror. At last the steward called out to the dairy maids, "Bring all your milk hither," and when they did so, and had brought all the milk that the nine kye of the byre had yielded, he poured it all into the long stone trough in front of the Hall. The Worm drew nearer and nearer, till at last it came up to the trough. But when it sniffed the milk, it turned aside to the trough and swallowed all the milk up, and then slowly turned round and crossed the river Wear, and coiled its bulk three times round the Worm Hill for the night. Henceforth the Worm would cross the river every day, and woe betide the Hall if the trough contained the milk of less than nine kye. The Worm would hiss, and would rave, and lash its tail round the trees of the park, and in its fury it would uproot the stoutest oaks and the loftiest firs. So it went on for seven years. Many tried to destroy the Worm, but all had failed, and many a knight had lost his life in fighting with the monster, which slowly crushed the life out of all that came near it. At last the Childe of Lambton came home to his father's Hall, after seven long years spent in meditation and repentance on holy soil. Sad and desolate he found his folk: the lands untilled, the farms deserted, half the trees of the park uprooted, for none would stay to tend the nine kye that the monster needed for his food each day. The Childe sought his father, and begged his forgiveness for the curse he had brought on the Hall. "Thy sin is pardoned," said his father; "but go thou to the Wise Woman of Brugeford, and find if aught can free us from this monster." To the Wise Woman went the Childe, and asked her advice. "'T is thy fault, O Childe, for which we suffer," she said; "be it thine to release us." "I would give my life," said the Childe. "Mayhap thou wilt do so," said she. "But hear me, and mark me well. Thou, and thou alone, canst kill the Worm. But, to this end, go thou to the smithy and have thy armour studded with spear-heads. Then go to the Worm's Rock in the Wear, and station thyself there. Then, when the Worm comes to the Rock at dawn of day, try thy prowess on him, and God gi'e thee a good deliverance." "This I will do," said Childe Lambton. "But one thing more," said the Wise Woman, going back to her cell. "If thou slay the Worm, swear that thou wilt put to death the first thing that meets thee as thou crossest again the threshold of Lambton Hall. Do this, and all will be well with thee and thine. Fulfil not thou vow, and none of the Lambtons, for generations three times three, shall die in his bed. Swear, and fail not." The Childe swore as the Wise Woman bid, and went his way to the smithy. There he had his armour studded with spear-heads all over. Then he passed his vigils in Brugeford Chapel, and at dawn of day took his post on the Worm's Rock in the River Wear. As dawn broke, the Worm uncoiled its snaky twine from around the hill, and came to its rock in the river. When it perceived the Childe waiting for it, it lashed the waters in its fury and wound its coils round the Childe, and then attempted to crush him to death. But the more it pressed, the deeper dug the spear-heads into its sides. Still it pressed and pressed, till all the water around was crimsoned with its blood. Then the Worm unwound itself, and left the Childe free to use his sword. He raised it, brought it down, and cut the Worm in two. One half fell into the river, and was carried swiftly away. Once more the head and the remainder of the body encircled the Childe, but with less force, and the spear-heads did their work. At last the Worm uncoiled itself, snorted its last foam of blood and fire, and rolled dying into the river, and was never seen more. The Childe of Lambton swam ashore, and raising his bugle to his lips, sounded its note thrice. This was the signal to the Hall, where the servants and the old lord had shut themselves in to pray for the Childe's success. When the third sound of the bugle was heard, they were to release Boris, the Childe's favourite hound. But such was their joy at learning of the Childe's safety and the Worm's defeat, that they forgot orders, and when the Childe reached the threshold of the Hall his old father rushed out to meet him, and would have clasped him to his breast. "The vow! the vow!" cried out the Childe of Lambton, and blew still another blast upon his horn. This time the servants remembered, and released Boris, who came bounding to his young master. The Childe raised his shining sword, and severed the head of his faithful hound. But the vow was broken, and for nine generations of men none of the Lambtons died in his bed. The last of the Lambtons died in his carriage as he was crossing Brugeford Bridge, one hundred and thirty years ago. The Wise Men of Gotham _Of Buying of Sheep_ There were two men of Gotham, and one of them was going to market to Nottingham to buy sheep, and the other came from the market, and they both met together upon Nottingham bridge. "Where are you going?" said the one who came from Nottingham. "Marry," said he that was going to Nottingham, "I am going to buy sheep." "Buy sheep?" said the other, "and which way will you bring them home?" "Marry," said the other, "I will bring them over this bridge." "By Robin Hood," said he that came from Nottingham, "but thou shalt not." "By Maid Marion," said he that was going thither, "but I will." "You will not," said the one. "I will." Then they beat their staves against the ground one against the other, as if there had been a hundred sheep between them. "Hold in," said one; "beware lest my sheep leap over the bridge." "I care not," said the other; "they shall not come this way." "But they shall," said the other. Then the other said: "If that thou make much to do, I will put my fingers in thy mouth." "Will you?" said the other. Now, as they were at their contention, another man of Gotham came from the market with a sack of meal upon a horse, and seeing and hearing his neighbours at strife about sheep, though there were none between them, said: "Ah, fools! will you ever learn wisdom? Help me, and lay my sack upon my shoulders." They did so, and he went to the side of the bridge, unloosened the mouth of the sack, and shook all his meal out into the river. "Now, neighbours," he said, "how much meal is there in my sack?" "Marry," said they, "there is none at all." "Now, by my faith," said he, "even as much wit as is in your two heads to stir up strife about a thing you have not." Which was the wisest of these three persons, judge yourself. _Of Hedging a Cuckoo_ Once upon a time the men of Gotham would have kept the Cuckoo so that she might sing all the year, and in the midst of their town they made a hedge round in compass and they got a Cuckoo, and put her into it, and said, "Sing there all through the year, or thou shalt have neither meat nor water." The Cuckoo, as soon as she perceived herself within the hedge, flew away. "A vengeance on her!" said they. "We did not make our hedge high enough." _Of Sending Cheeses_ There was a man of Gotham who went to the market at Nottingham to sell cheese, and as he was going down the hill to Nottingham bridge, one of his cheeses fell out of his wallet and rolled down the hill. "Ah, gaffer," said the fellow, "can you run to market alone? I will send one after another after you." Then he laid down his wallet and took out the cheeses, and rolled them down the hill. Some went into one bush; and some went into another. "I charge you all to meet me near the market-place;" and when the fellow came to the market to meet his cheeses, he stayed there till the market was nearly done. Then he went about to inquire of his friends and neighbours, and other men, if they did see his cheeses come to the market. "Who should bring them?" said one of the market men. "Marry, themselves," said the fellow; "they know the way well enough." He said, "A vengeance on them all. I did fear, to see them run so fast, that they would run beyond the market. I am now fully persuaded that they must be now almost at York." Whereupon he forthwith hired a horse to ride to York, to seek his cheeses where they were not, but to this day no man can tell him of his cheeses. _Of Drowning Eels_ When Good Friday came, the men of Gotham cast their heads together what to do with their white herrings, their red herrings, their sprats, and other salt fish. One consulted with the other, and agreed that such fish should be cast into their pond (which was in the middle of the town), that they might breed against the next year, and every man that had salt fish left cast them into the pool. "I have many white herrings," said one. "I have many sprats," said another. "I have many red herrings," said the other. "I have much salt fish. Let all go into the pond or pool, and we shall fare like lords next year." At the beginning of next year following the men drew near the pond to have their fish, and there was nothing but a great eel. "Ah," said they all, "a mischief on this eel, for he has eaten up all our fish." "What shall we do to him?" said one to the others. "Kill him," said one. "Chop him into pieces," said another. "Not so," said another; "let us drown him." "Be it so," said all. And they went to another pond, and cast the eel into the pond. "Lie there and shift for yourself, for no help thou shalt have from us;" and they left the eel to drown. _Of Sending Rent_ Once on a time the men of Gotham had forgotten to pay their landlord. One said to the other, "To-morrow is our pay-day, and what shall we find to send our money to our landlord?" The one said, "This day I have caught a hare, and he shall carry it, for he is light of foot." "Be it so," said all; "he shall have a letter and a purse to put our money in, and we shall direct him the right way." So when the letters were written and the money put in a purse, they tied it round the hare's neck, saying, "First you go to Lancaster, then thou must go to Loughborough, and Newarke is our landlord, and commend us to him and there is his dues." The hare, as soon as he was out of their hands, ran on along the country way. Some cried, "Thou must go to Lancaster first." "Let the hare alone," said another; "he can tell a nearer way than the best of us all. Let him go." Another said, "It is a subtle hare, let her alone; she will not keep the highway for fear of dogs." _Of Counting_ On a certain time there were twelve men of Gotham who went fishing, and some went into the water and some on dry ground; and, as they were coming back, one of them said, "We have ventured much this day wading; I pray God that none of us that did come from home be drowned." "Marry," said one, "let us see about that. Twelve of us came out," and every man did count eleven, and the twelfth man did never count himself. "Alas!" said one to another, "one of us is drowned." They went back to the brook where they had been fishing, and looked up and down for him that was drowned, and made great lamentation. A courtier came riding by, and he did ask what they were seeking, and why they were so sorrowful. "Oh," said they, "this day we came to fish in this brook, and there were twelve of us, and one is drowned." "Why," said the courtier, "count me how many of you there be," and one counted eleven and did not count himself. "Well," said the courtier, "what will you give me if I find the twelfth man?" "Sir," said they, "all the money we have." "Give me the money," said the courtier; and he began with the first, and gave him a whack over the shoulders that he groaned, and said, "There is one," and he served all of them that they groaned; but when he came to the last he gave him a good blow, saying, "Here is the twelfth man." "God bless you on your heart," said all the company; "you have found our neighbour." Princess of Canterbury There lived formerly in the County of Cumberland a nobleman who had three sons, two of whom were comely and clever youths, but the other a natural fool, named Jack, who was generally engaged with the sheep: he was dressed in a parti-coloured coat, and a steeple-crowned hat with a tassel, as became his condition. Now the King of Canterbury had a beautiful daughter, who was distinguished by her great ingenuity and wit, and he issued a decree that whoever should answer three questions put to him by the princess should have her in marriage, and be heir to the crown at his decease. Shortly after this decree was published, news of it reached the ears of the nobleman's sons, and the two clever ones determined to have a trial, but they were sadly at a loss to prevent their idiot brother from going with them. They could not, by any means, get rid of him, and were compelled at length to let Jack accompany them. They had not gone far, before Jack shrieked with laughter, saying, "I've found an egg." "Put it in your pocket," said the brothers. A little while afterwards, he burst out into another fit of laughter on finding a crooked hazel stick, which he also put in his pocket; and a third time he again laughed extravagantly because he found a nut. That also was put with his other treasures. When they arrived at the palace, they were immediately admitted on mentioning the nature of their business, and were ushered into a room where the princess and her suite were sitting. Jack, who never stood on ceremony, bawled out, "What a troop of fair ladies we've got here!" "Yes," said the princess, "we are fair ladies, for we carry fire in our bosoms." "Do you?" said Jack, "then roast me an egg," pulling out the egg from his pocket. "How will you get it out again?" said the princess. "With a crooked stick," replied Jack, producing the hazel. "Where did that come from?" said the princess. "From a nut," answered Jack, pulling out the nut from his pocket. "I've answered the three questions, and now I'll have the lady." "No, no," said the king, "not so fast. You have still an ordeal to go through. You must come here in a week's time and watch for one whole night with the princess, my daughter. If you can manage to keep awake the whole night long you shall marry her next day." "But if I can't?" said Jack. "Then off goes your head," said the king. "But you need not try unless you like." Well, Jack went back home for a week, and thought over whether he should try and win the princess. At last he made up his mind. "Well," said Jack, "I'll try my vorton; zo now vor the king's daughter, or a headless shepherd!" And taking his bottle and bag, he trudged to the court. In his way thither, he was obliged to cross a river, and pulling off his shoes and stockings, while he was passing over he observed several pretty fish bobbing against his feet; so he caught some and put them into his pocket. When he reached the palace he knocked at the gate loudly with his crook, and having mentioned the object of his visit, he was immediately conducted to the hall where the king's daughter sat ready prepared to see her lovers. He was placed in a luxurious chair, and rich wines and spices were set before him, and all sorts of delicate meats. Jack, unused to such fare, ate and drank plentifully, so that he was nearly dozing before midnight. "Oh, shepherd," said the lady, "I have caught you napping!" "Noa, sweet ally, I was busy a-feeshing." "A fishing," said the princess in the utmost astonishment: "Nay, shepherd, there is no fish-pond in the hall." "No matter vor that, I have been fishing in my pocket, and have just caught one." "Oh me!" said she, "let me see it." The shepherd slyly drew the fish out of his pocket and pretending to have caught it, showed it her, and she declared it was the finest she ever saw. About half an hour afterwards, she said, "Shepherd, do you think you could get me one more?" He replied, "Mayhap I may, when I have baited my hook;" and after a little while he brought out another, which was finer than the first, and the princess was so delighted that she gave him leave to go to sleep, and promised to excuse him to her father. In the morning the princess told the king, to his great astonishment, that Jack must not be beheaded, for he had been fishing in the hall all night; but when he heard how Jack had caught such beautiful fish out of his pocket, he asked him to catch one in his own. Jack readily undertook the task, and bidding the king lie down, he pretended to fish in his pocket, having another fish concealed ready in his hand, and giving him a sly prick with a needle, he held up the fish, and showed it to the king. His majesty did not much relish the operation, but he assented to the marvel of it, and the princess and Jack were united the same day, and lived for many years in happiness and prosperity. For some general remarks on the English Folk-Tale and previous collectors, I must refer to the introductory observations added to the Notes and References of _English Fairy Tales_, in the third edition. With the present instalment the tale of English Fairy Stories that are likely to obtain currency among the young folk is complete. I do not know of more than half-a-dozen "outsiders" that deserve to rank with those included in my two volumes which, for the present, at any rate, must serve as the best substitute that can be offered for an English Grimm. I do not despair of the future. After what Miss Fison (who, as I have recently learned, was the collector of _Tom Tit Tot_ and _Cap o' Rushes_), Mrs. Balfour, and Mrs. Gomme have done in the way of collecting among the folk, we may still hope for substantial additions to our stock to be garnered by ladies from the less frequented portions of English soil. And from the United States we have every reason to expect a rich harvest to be gathered by Mr. W.W. Newell, who is collecting the English folk-tales that still remain current in New England. If his forthcoming book equals in charm, scholarship, and thoroughness his delightful _Games and Songs of American Children_, the Anglo-American folk-tale will be enriched indeed. A further examination of English nursery rhymes may result in some additions to our stock. I reserve these for separate treatment in which I am especially interested, owing to the relations which I surmise between the folk-tale and the _cante-fable_. Meanwhile the eighty-seven tales (representing some hundred and twenty variants) in my two volumes must represent the English folk-tale as far as my diligence has been able to preserve it at this end of the nineteenth century. There is every indication that they form but a scanty survival of the whole _corpus_ of such tales which must have existed in this country. Of the seventy European story-radicles which I have enumerated in the Folk-Lore Society's _Handbook_, pp. 117-35, only forty are represented in our collection: I have little doubt that the majority of the remaining thirty or so also existed in these isles, and especially in England. If I had reckoned in the tales current in the English pale of Ireland, as well as those in Lowland Scots, there would have been even less missing. The result of my investigations confirms me in my impression that the scope of the English folk-tale should include all those current among the folk in English, no matter where spoken, in Ireland, the Lowlands, New England, or Australia. Wherever there is community of language, tales can spread, and it is more likely that tales should be preserved in those parts where English is spoken with most of dialect. Just as the Anglo-Irish Pale preserves more of the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time, so it is probable that Anglo-Irish stories preserve best those current in Shakespeare's time in English. On the other hand, it is possible that some, nay many, of the Anglo-Irish stories have been imported from the Celtic districts, and are positively folk-translations from the Gaelic. Further research is required to determine which is English and which Celtic among Anglo-Irish folk-tales. Meanwhile my collection must stand for the nucleus of the English folk-tale, and we can at any rate judge of its general spirit and tendencies from the eighty-seven tales now before the reader. Of these, thirty-eight are _märchen_ proper, _i.e._, tales with definite plot and evolution; ten are sagas or legends locating romantic stories in definite localities; no less than nineteen are drolls or comic anecdotes; four are cumulative stories: six beast tales; while ten are merely ingenious nonsense tales put together in such a form as to amuse children. The preponderance of the comic element is marked, and it is clear that humour is a characteristic of the English _folk_. The legends are not of a very romantic kind, and the _märchen_ are often humorous in character. So that a certain air of unromance is given by such a collection as that we are here considering. The English folk-muse wears homespun and plods afoot, albeit with a cheerful smile and a steady gaze. Some of this effect is produced by the manner in which the tales are told. The colloquial manner rarely rises to the dignified, and the essence of the folk-tale manner in English is colloquial. The opening formulæ are varied enough, but none of them has much play of fancy. "Once upon a time and a very good time it was, though it wasn't in my time nor in your time nor in any one else's time," is effective enough for a fairy epoch, and is common, according to Mayhew (_London Labour_. iii.), among tramps. We have the rhyming formula: Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme, And monkeys chewed tobacco, And hens took snuff to make them tough, And ducks went quack, quack, quack Oh! on which I have variants not so refined. Some stories start off without any preliminary formula, or with a simple "Well, there was once a ----". A Scotch formula reported by Mrs. Balfour runs, "Once on a time when a' muckle folk were wee and a' lees were true," while Mr. Lang gives us "There was a king and a queen as mony ane's been, few have we seen and as few may we see." Endings of stories are even less varied. "So they married and lived happy ever afterwards," comes from folk-tales, not from novels. "All went well that didn't go ill," is a somewhat cynical formula given by Mrs. Balfour, while the Scotch have "they lived happy and died happy, and never drank out of a dry cappie." In the course of the tale the chief thing to be noticed is the occurrence of rhymes in the prose narrative, tending to give the appearance of a _cante-fable_. I have enumerated those occurring in _English Fairy Tales_ in the notes to _Childe Rowland_ (No. xxi.). In the present volume, rhyme occurs in Nos. xlvi., xlviii., xlix., lviii., lx., lxiii. (see Note), lxiv., lxxiv., lxxxi., lxxxv., while lv., lxix., lxxiii., lxxvi., lxxxiii., lxxxiv., are either in verse themselves or derived from verse versions. Altogether one third of our collection gives evidence in favour of the _cante-fable_ theory which I adduced in my notes to _Childe Rowland_. Another point of interest in English folk-narrative is the repetition of verbs of motion, "So he went along and went along and went along." Still more curious is a frequent change of tense from the English present to the past. "So he gets up and went along." All this helps to give the colloquial and familiar air to the English fairy-tale not to mention the dialectal and archaic words and phrases which occur in them. 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 _à 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 _Rattenfänger_. 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 _mélange_ 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. Köhler in _Orient und Occident_, ii., 331. The expedient by which Ulysses outwits Polyphemus in the Odyssey by calling himself 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 _à 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. Bédier, in his recent work on _Les Fabliaux_, pp. 411-13, denies the Eastern origin of the _fabliau_, but in his Indiaphobia M. Bédier 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 _Lugenmärchen_ 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 _Salámán and Absál_. 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. Köhler, _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 _volkstümlich_ 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, _Bär (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-Græcum_, 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 _Masnávi_ 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 _Æsop_, i., 140-1, I have pointed out an earlier version in Phædrus 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--_dénouement_ on which the scene closes. M. Bédier, as usual, denies the Indian origin, _Les Fabliaux_, pp. 177, _seq._ _Remarks._--I have endeavoured to show, _l.c._, that the Phædrine 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 personæ_ 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 _märchen_. Slavonic parallels are enumerated by Leskien Brugman in their _Lithauische Märchen_, 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 _Archæological 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. 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 formulæ. 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. 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 (Köhler, _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 xiv_a_, "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 children the Buck of Beverland, 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, 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. 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. Rivière'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.