The Fairy Mythology

Appendix

The following tales are some of those which we contributed to the Irish Fairy Legends. Subjoined is a selection from the verses which we have written on various occasions, chiefly to oblige our lady-friends. They are inserted merely to show that the writer could compose well-rimed stanzas, while he lays no claim whatever to the title of poet.

The Harvest Dinner

It was Monday, and a fine October morning. The sun had been some time above the mountains, and the hoar frost and the dew-drops on the gossamers599 were glittering in the light, when Thady Byrne, on coming in to get his breakfast, saw his neighbour Paddy Cavenagh, who lived on the other side of the road, at his own door tying his brogues.

“A good morrow to you, Paddy, honey,” said Thady Byrne.

“Good morrow, kindly, Thady,” said Paddy.

“Why, thin, Paddy, avick, it isn’t your airly risin’, anyhow that ‘ill do you any harm this mornin’.”

“It’s thrue enough for you, Thady Byrne,” answered Paddy casting a look up at the sky; “for I b’leeve it’s purty late in the day. But I was up, you see, murdherin’ late last night.”

“To be shure, thin, Paddy, it was up at the great dinner, yisterday, above at the big house you wor.”

“Ay was it; an’ a rattlin’ fine dinner we had uv it, too.”

“Why, thin, Paddy, agrah, what’s to ail you now, but you’d jist sit yourself down here on this piece o’ green sod, an’ tell us all about it from beginnin’ to ind.”

“Niver say the word twist, man; I’ll give you the whole full an’ thrue account uv it, an’ welcome.”

They sat down on the roadside, and Paddy thus began.

“Well, you see, Thady, we’d a powerful great harvist uv it, you know, this year, an’ the min all worked like jewels, as they are; an’ the masther was in great sperits, an’ he promis’d he’d give us all a grand dinner whin the dhrawin’-in was over, an’ the corn all safe in the haggard. So this last week, you see, crown’d the business; an’ on Satherday night the last shafe was nately tied an’ sint in to the misthress, an’ everything was finisht, all to the tatchin’ o’ the ricks. Well, you see, jist as Larry Toole was come down from headin’ the last rick, an’ we war takin’ away the laddher, out comes the misthress herself—long life to her—by the light o’ the moon; an’, ‘Boys,’ sez she, ‘yez hav’ finish’d the harvist bravely, an’ I invite yez all to dinner here to-morrow; an’ if yez come airly, yez ‘ill git mass in the big hall, widout the throuble o’ goin’ up all the ways to the chapel for it.’”

“Why, thin, did she raally say so, Paddy?”

“That she did—the divil the word o’ lie in it.”

“Well, go on.”

“Well, if we didn’t set up a shout for her, it’s no matther!”

“Ay, an’ a good right yez had too, Paddy, avick.”

“Well, you see, yistherday mornin’—which, God be praised, was as fine a day as iver come out of the sky—whin I tuk the beard off o’ me, Tom Conner an’ I set off together for the big house. An’ I don’t know, Thady, whether it was the fineness o’ the day, or the thoughts o’ the good dinner we wor to have, or the kindness o’ the misthress, that med my heart so light, but I filt, anyhow, as gay as any skylark. Well, whin we got up to the house, there was every one o’ the people that’s in the work, min, women and childher, all come together in the yard; an’ a purty sight it was to luk upon, Thady: they wor all so nate an so clane, an’ so happy.”

“Thrue for you, Paddy, agrah; an’ a fine thing it is, too, to work wid a raal gintleman like the masther. But till us, avick, how was it the misthress conthrived to get the mass for yez: shure Father Miley himself, or the codjuthor, didn’t come over.”

“No, in troth didn’t they, but the misthress managed it betther nor all that. You see, Thady, there’s a priest, an ould friend o’ the family’s, one Father Mulhall’s on a visit, this fortnight past, up at the big house. He’s as gay a little man as iver spoke, only he’s a little too fond o’ the dhrop,—the more’s the pity,—an’ it’s whispered about among the sarvints that by manes uv it he lost a parish he had down the counthry; an’ he was an his way up to Dublin, whin he stopt to spind a few days wid his ould frinds the masther an’ misthress.

“Well, you see, the misthress on Satherday, widout sayin’ a single word uv it to any livin’ sowl, writes a letther wid her own hand, an’ sinds Tom Freen off wid it to Father Miley, to ax him for a loan o’ the vistmints. Father Miley, you know’s a mighty ginteel man intirely, and one that likes to obleege the quolity in anything that doesn’t go agin’ his juty; an’ glad he was to hav’ it in his power to sarve the misthress; an’ he sint off the vistmints wid all his heart an’ sowl an’ as civil a letther, Tommy Freen says, for he hard the misthress readin’ it, as ivir was pinned.”

“Well, there was an alther, you see, got up in the big hall, jist bechune the two doors—if ivir you wor in it—ladin’ into the store-room, an’ the room the childher sleep in; and whin iviry thing was ready we all come in, an’ the priest gev’ us as good mass iviry taste as if we wor up at the chapel for it. The misthress an’ all the family attinded thimsilves, an’ they stud jist widinside o’ the parlour-door; and it was raaly surprisin’, Thady, to see how dacently they behaved thimsilves. If they wor all their lives goin’ to chapel they cudn’t have behaved thimsilves betther nor they did.”

“Ay, Paddy, mavourneen; I’ll be bail they didn’t skit and laugh the way some people would be doin’.”

“Laugh! not thimsilves, indeed. They’d more manners, if nothin’ else, nor to do that. Well, to go an wid my story: whin the mass was ovir we wint sthrollin’ about the lawn an’ place till three o’clock come, an’ thin you see the big bell rung out for dinner, an’ may be it wasn’t we that wor glad to hear it. So away wid us to the long barn where the dinner was laid out; an’ ’pon my conscience, Thady Byrne, there’s not one word o’ lie in what I’m goin’ to tell you; but at the sight o’ so much vittles iviry taste uv appetite in the world lift me, an’ I thought I’d ha’ fainted down an the ground that was undher me. There was, you see, two rows o’ long tables laid the whole linth o’ the barn, an’ table cloths spred upon iviry inch o’ them; an’ there was rounds o’ beef, an’ rumps o’ beef, an’ ribs o’ beef, both biled an’ roast, an’ there was ligs o’ mootton, and han’s o’ pork, and pieces o’ fine bacon, an’ there was cabbage an’ pratees to no ind, an’ a knife an’ fork laid for iviry body; an’ barrils o’ beer an’ porther, with the cocks in iviry one o’ them, an’ moogs an’ porringirs in hapes. In all my born days, Thady dear, I nivir laid eyes on sich a load o’ vittles.”

“By the powers o’ dilph! Paddy, ahaygar, an’ it was a grand sight shure enough. Tare an’ ayjirs! what ill loock I had not to be in the work this year! But go on, agra.”

“Well, you see, the masther himself stud up at the ind uv one o’ the tables, an’ coot up a fine piece o’ the beef for us; and right forenint him at the other ind, sot ould Paddy Byrne, for, though you know he is a farmer himself, yet the misthress is so fond uv him—he is sich a mighty dacint man—that she would by all manner o’ manes hav’ him there. Then the priest was at the head o’ th’ other table, an’ said grace for us, an’ thin fill to slashin’ up another piece o’ the beef for us: and forenint him sot Jim Murray the stchewart; an’ shure enough, Thady, it was oursilves that played away in grand style at the beef an’ the mootton, an’ the cabbage, an’ all th’ other fine things. An’ there was Tom Freen, and all th’ other sarvints waitin’ upon us an’ handin’ us dhrink, jist as if we wor so many grand gintlemin that wor dinin’ wid the masther. Well, you see, whin we wor about half doon, in walks the misthress hursilf, an’ the young masther, an’ the young ladies, an’ the ladies from Dublin that’s down on a visit wid the misthress, jist, as she said, to see that we wor happy and merry ovir our dinner; an’ thin, Thady, you see, widout anybody sayin’ a single word, we all stud up like one man, an’ iviry man an’ boy wid his full porringer o’ porther in his hand dhrank long life an’ success to the misthress and masther an’ iviry one o’ the family. I don’t know for others, Thady, but for mysilf, I nivir said a prayer in all my life more from the heart; and a good right I had, shure, and iviry one that was there, too; for, to say nothin’ o’ the dinner, is there the likes uv her in the whole side o’ the counthry for goodness to the poor, whethir they’re sick or they’re well. Wouldn’t I mysilf, if it worn’t but for her, be a lone an’ desolate man this blissed day?”

“It’s thrue for you, avick, for she brought Judy through it betther nor any docther o’ thim all.”

“Well, to make a long story short, we et, an’ we dhrank, an’ we laughed, an’ we talked, till we wor tirt, an’ as soon as it grew dusk, we wor all called agin into the hall: an’ there, you see, the misthress had got ovir Tim Connel, the blind piper, an’ had sint for all the women that could come, an’ the cook had tay for thim down below in the kitchen; an’ they come up to the hall, an’ there was chairs set round it for us all to sit upon, an’ the misthress come out o’ the parlour, an’ ‘Boys,’ says she, ‘I hope yez med a good dinnir, an’ I’ve bin thinkin’ uv yez, you see, an’ I’ve got yez plinty o’ partnirs, an’ it’s your own faults if yez don’t spind a pleasint evinin’.’ So wid that we set up another shout for the misthress, an’ Tim sthruck up, an’ the masther tuk out Nilly Mooney into the middle of the flure to dance a jig, and it was they that futted it nately. Thin the masther called out Dinny Moran, an’ dhragged him up to one o’ the Dublin young ladies, an’ bid Dinny be stout an’ ax her out to dance wid him. So Dinny, you see, though he was ashamed to make so free wid the lady, still he was afeard not to do as the masther bid him; so, by my conscience, he bowled up to her manfully, an’ hild out the fist an’ axed her out to dance wid him, an’ she gev’ him her hand in a crack, an’ Dinny whipt her out into the middle o’ the hall, forenint us all, an’ pulled up his breeches an’ called out to Tim to blow up ‘The Rocks of Cashel’ for thim. An’ thin my jewil if you wor but to see thim! Dinny flingin’ the ligs about as if they’d fly from off him, an’ the lady now here, now there, jist for all the world as if she was a sperit, for not a taste o’ n’ise did she make on the flure that ivir was hard; and Dinny callin’ out to Tim to play it up fasther an’ fasther, an’ Tim almost workin’ his elbow through the bag, till at last the lady was fairly tirt, an’ Dinny thin clapt his hands an’ up jumpt Piggy Reilly, an’ she attacked him bouldly, an’ danced down Dinny an’ thin up got Johnny Regan an’ put her down complately. An’ sence the world was a world, I b’leeve there nivir was such dancin’ seen.”

“The sarra the doubt uv it, avick I’m sartin’; they’re all o’ thim sich rael fine dancers. An’ only to think o’ the lady dancin’ wid the likes o’ Dinny!”

“Well, you see, poor ould Paddy Byrne, whin he hears that the womin wor all to be there, in he goes into the parlor to the misthress, an’ axes her if he might make so bould as to go home and fetch his woman. So the misthress, you see, though you know Katty Byrne’s no great favourite wid hur, was glad to obleege Paddy, an’ so Katty Byrne was there too. An’ thin ould Hugh Carr axt hur out to move a minnet wid him, an’ there was Hugh, as stiff as if he dined on one o’ the spits, wid his black wig an’ his long brown coat, an’ his blue stockin’s, movin’ about wid his hat in his hand, an’ ladin’ Katty about, an’ lukin’ so soft upon her; an’ Katty, in her stiff mob-cap, wid the ears pinned down undher her chin, an’ hur little black hat on the top uv her head; an’ she at one corner curcheyin’ to Hugh, an’ Hugh at another bowin’ to her, an’ iviry body wundherin’ at thim, they moved it so iligantly.”

“Troth, Paddy, avourneen, that was well worth goin’ a mile o’ ground to see.”

“Well, you see; whin the dancin’ was ovir they tuk to the singin’, an’ Bill Carey gev’ the ‘Wounded Hussar,’ an’ the ‘Poor but Honest So’dger,’ in sich style that yi’d have h’ard him up on the top o’ Slee Roo; an’ Dinny Moran an’ ould Tom Freen gev’ us the best songs they had, an’ the priest sung the ‘Cruiskeen Laun’ for us gaily, an’ one o’ the young ladies played an’ sung upon a thing widin in the parlor, like a table, that was purtier nor any pipes to listen to.”

“An’ didn’t Bill giv’ yez ‘As down by Banna’s Banks I sthrayed?’ Shure that’s one o’ the best songs he has.”

“An’ that he did, till he med the very sates shake undher us; but a body can’t remimber iviry thing, you know. Well, where was I? Oh, ay! You see, my dear, the poor little priest was all the night long goin’ backwards an’ forwards, iviry minit, bechune the parlor an’ the hall; an’ the sperits, you see, was lyin’ opin on the sideboord, an’ the dear little man he cudn’t, for the life uv him, keep himself from it, so he kipt helpin’ himself to a dhrop now an’ a dhrop thin, till at last he got all as one as tipsy. So thin he comes out into the hall among us, an’ goes about whisperin’ to us to go home, an’ not to be keepin’ the family out o’ their bids. But the misthress she saw what he was at, an’ she stud up, an’ she spoke out an’ she said, ‘Good people,’ sez she, ‘nivir mind what the priest says to yez; yez are my company, an’ not his, an’ yez are heartily welcum to stay as long as yez like.’ So whin he found he cud get no good uv us at all, he rowled off wid himself to his bid; an’ his head, you see, was so bothered wid the liquor he’d bin takin’, that he nivir once thought o’ takin’ off his boots, but tumbled into bed wid thim upon him, Tommy Freen tould us, whin he wint into the room to luk afther him; and divil be in Tim, when he h’ard it but he lilts up the ‘Priest in his Boots;’ and, God forgive us, we all burst out laughin’, for shure who could hilp it, if it was the bishop himsilf?”

“Troth, it was a shame for yez, anyhow. But Paddy, agrah, did yez come away at all?”

“Why at last we did, afther another round o’ the punch to the glory an’ success o’ the family. And now, Thady, comes the most surprisintest part o’ the whole story. I was all alone, you see, for my woman, you know, cudn’t lave the childher to come to the dance; so, as it was a fine moonshiny night, nothin’ ’ud sarve me but I must go out into the paddock, to luk afther poor Rainbow the plough bullock, that’s got a bad shouldher, and so by that manes, you see, I misst o’ the cumpany, an’ had to go home all alone by myself. Well, you see, it was out by the back gate I come, an’ it was thin about twelve in the night, as well as I cud jidge by the Plough, an’ the moon was shinin’ as bright as a silver dish, and there wasn’t a sound to be hard, barrin’ the screechin’ o’ the ould owl down in the ivy-wall; an’ I filt it all very pleasant, for I was sumhow rather hearty, you see, wid the dhrink I’d bin takin’; for you know, Thady Byrne, I’m a sober man.”

“That’s no lie for you, Paddy, avick. A little, as they say, goes a great way wid you.”

“Well, you see, an I wint whistlin’ to mysilf some o’ the chunes they wor singin’, and thinkin’ uv any thing, shure, but the good people; whin jist as I come to the cornir o’ the plantation, an’ got a sight o’ the big bush, I thought, faith, I seen sum things movin’ backwards an’ for’ards, an’ dancin’ like, up in the bush. I was quite sartin it was the fairies that, you know, resort to it, for I cud see, I thought, their little red caps an’ green jackits quite plain. Well, I was thinkin’, at first, o’ goin’ back an’ gittin’ home through the fields; but, says I to myself, says I, what sh’uld I be afeard uv? I’m an honest man that does nobody any harm; an’ I h’ard mass this mornin’; an’ it’s neither Holly eve nor St. John’s eve, nor any other o’ their great days, an’ they can do me no harm, I’m sartin. So I med the sign o’ the crass, an’ an I wint in God’s name, till I come right undher the bush; and what do you think they wor, Thady, afther all?”

“Arrah, how can I till? But you wor a stout man anyhow, Paddy, agrah!”

“Why, thin, what was it but the green laves o’ the ould bush, an’ the rid bunches o’ the haves that war wavin’ and shakin’ in the moonlight. Well on I goes till I come to the cornir o’ the Crab road, whin I happined to cast my eyes ovir tow’st the little moat in the Moatfield, an’ there, by my sowl! (God forgive me for swaerin’,) I seen the fairies in rael airnist.”

“You did, thin, did you?”

“Ay, by my faith, did I, an’ a mighty purty sight it was to see, too, I can tell you, Thady. The side o’ the moat, you see, that luks into the field was opin, and out uv it there come the darlintest little calvacade o’ the purtiest little fellows you ivir laid your eyes upon. They wor all dhrest in green huntin’ frocks, wid nice little rid caps on their heads, an’ they wor all mounted on purty little, long-tailed, white ponies, not so big as young kids, an’ they rode two and two so nicely. Well, you see, they tuk right acrass the field, jist abuv the san’pit, an’ I was wundherin’ in myself what they’d do whin they come to the big ditch, thinkin’ they’d nivir git ovir it. But I’ll tell you what it is, Thady. Misther Tom and the brown mare, though they’re both o’ thim gay good at either ditch or wall, they’re not to be talked uv in the same day wid thim. They tuk the ditch, you see, big as it is, in full sthroke; not a man o’ thim was shuk in his sate, nor lost his rank; it was pop, pop, pop, ovir wid thim; and thin, hurra, away wid thim like shot acrass the High Field, in the direction o’ the ould church. Well, my dear, while I was sthrainin’ my eyes lukin’ afther thim, I hears a great rumblin’ noise cumin’ out o’ the moat, an’ whin I turned about to luk at it, what did I see but a great ould family coach-an’-six comin’ out o’ the moat, and makin’ direct for the gate where I was stannin’. Well, says I, I’m a lost man now, anyhow. There was no use at all, you see, in thinkin’ to run for it, for they wor dhrivin’ at the rate uv a hunt; so down I got into the gripe o’ the ditch, thinkin’ to snake off wid mysilf while they war op’nin’ the gate. But, be the laws, the gate flew opin widout a sowl layin’ a finger to it, the very instant minnet they come up to it, an’ they wheeled down the road jist close to the spot where I was hidin’, an’ I seen thim as plain as I now see you; an’ a quare sight it was, too, to see; for not a morsel uv head that ivir was, was there upon one o’ the horses, nor on the coachman neither, and yit, for all that, Thady, the Lord Lef’nint’s coach cudn’t ha’ med a handier nor a shorter turn nor they med out o’ the gate; an’ the blind thief uv a coachman, jist as they wor makin’ the wheel, was near takin’ the eye out o’ me wid the lash uv his long whip, as he was cuttin’ up the horses to show off his dhrivin’. I’ve my doubts that the schamer knew I was there well enough, and that he did it all a purpose. Well, as it passed by me, I peept in at the quolity widinside, an’ not a head, no not as big as the head uv a pin, was there among the whole kit o’ thim, an’ four fine futmin that war stannin’ behind the coach war jist like the rest o’ thim.”

“Well, to be shure, but it was a quare sight.”

“Well, away they wint tattherin’ along the road, makin’ the fire fly out o’ the stones at no rate. So whin I seen they’d no eyes, I knew it was onpossible they could ivir see me, so up I got out o’ the ditch, and afther thim wid me along the road as fast as ivir I culd lay fut to ground. But whin I got to the rise o’ the hill I seen they wor a great ways a-head o’ me, an’ they’d takin to the fields, an’ war makin’ off for the ould church too. I thought they might have some business o’ their own there, an’ that it might not be safe for sthrangers to be goin’ afther thim; so as I was by this time near my own house, I wint in and got quietly to bid, widout sayin’ anything to the woman about it; an’ long enough it was before I cud git to sleep for thinkin’ o’ thim, an’ that’s the raison, Thady, I was up so late this mornin’. But wasn’t it a sthrange thing, Thady?”

“Faith, an’ shure it was, Paddy ahayger, as sthrange a thing as ivir was. But are you quite sartin an’ shure that you seen thim?”

“Am I sartin an’ shure I seen thim? Am I sartin an’ shure I see the nose there on your face? What was to ail me not to see thim? Wasn’t the moon shinin’ as bright as day? An’ didn’t they pass widin a yard o’ me? And did ivir any one see me dhrunk, or hear me tell a lie?”

“It’s thrue for you, Paddy, no one ivir did, and myself doesn’t rightly know what to say to it?”600

The Young Piper

There was livin’, it’s not very long ago, on the bordhers o’ the county Wicklow, a dacint honest couple, whose names wor Mick Flanagan and Judy Muldoon. These poor people wor blist, as the saying is, wid four childher, all buys: three o’ them wor as fine, stout, healthy, goodlukin’ childher as ivir the sun shone upon; an’ it was enough to make any Irishman proud of the breed of his counthrymen to see thim about one o’clock on a find summer’s day stannin’ at their father’s cabin-door, wid their beautiful, fine flaxen hair hangin’ in curls about their heads, an’ their cheeks like two rosy apples, an’ a big, laughin’ potato smokin’ in their hand. A proud man, was Mick, o’ these fine childher, an’ a proud woman, too, was Judy; an’ raison enough they had to be so. But it was far otherwise wid the remainin’ one, which was the ouldest; he was the most miserable, ugly, ill-conditioned brat that ivir God put life into: he was so ill thriven, that he was nivir able to stand alone or to lave his cradle; he had long, shaggy, matted, curly hair, as black as the sut; his face was uv a greenish yollow colour; his eyes wor like two burnin’ coals, an’ wor for ever movin’ in his head, as if they had the parpaitual motion. Before he was a twel’month ould he had a mouth full o’ great teeth; his hands wor like kite’s claws, and his legs wor no thicker nor the handle of a whip, and about as straight as a rapin’ hook; to make the matther worse, he had the gut uv a cormorant, and the whinge, and the yelp, and the screech, and the yowl, was never out of his mouth.

The neighbours all suspicted that he was somethin’ not right, more especialy as it was obsarved, that whin people, as they use to do in the counthry, got about the fire, and begun to talk o’ religion and good things, the brat, as he lay in the cradle which his mother ginerally put near the fireplace that he might be snug, used to sit up, as they wor in the middle of their talk, and begin to bellow as if the divil was in him in right airnest: this, as I said, led the neighbours to think that all wasn’t right wid him, an’ there was a gineral consultashion held one day, about what id be best to do wid him. Some advised to put him out an the shovel, but Judy’s pride was up at that. A purty thing, indeed, that a child of her’s shud be put an a shovel, an’ flung out on the dunghill jist like a dead kitten or a pisoned rat; no, no, she wouldn’t hear to that at all. One ould woman, who was considhered mighty skilful an’ knowin’ intirely in fairy matthers sthrongly recomminded to put the tongs in the fire, an’ to hate thim rid hot, an’ thin to take his nose in thim, an’ that that id, beyant all manner o’ doubt, make him tell what he was, an’ whare he come from (for the gineral suspishion was, that he was changed by the good people); but Judy was too saft-harted, an’ too fond o’ the imp, so she wouldn’t giv’ into this plan neither, though iverybody said she was wrong; and may be so she was, but it’s a hard thing, you know, to blame a mother. Well some advised one thing and some another, at last one spoke of sindin fur the priest, who was a very holy an’ a very larned man, to see it; to this Judy uv ecorse had no objection, but one thing or another always purvinted her doing so, an’ the upshot o’ the business was that the priest niver seen him at all. Well, things wint on in the ould way for some time longer. The brat continued yelpin’ an’ yowlin’, an’ aitin’ more nor his three brothers put together, an’ playin’ all sorts uv unlucky thricks, for he was mighty mischievyously inclined, till it happened one day that Tim Carrol, the blind piper, goin’ his rounds, called in and sot down by the fire to hav’ a bit o’ chat wid the woman o’ the house. So afther some time, Tim, who was no churl uv his music, yoked an the pipes an’ begun to bellows away in high style; whin the instant minnit he begun, the young fellow, who was lyin’ as still as a mouse in his cradle, sot up, an’ begun to grin an’ to twist his ugly phiz, an’ to swing about his long tawny arms, an’ to kick out his crucked ligs, an’ to show signs o’ grate glee at the music. At last nothin’ id sarve him but he must git the pipes into his own hands, an’, to humour him, his mother axt Tim to lind thim to the child for a minnit. Tim, who was kind to childher, readily consinted; and, as Tim hadn’t his sight, Judy herself brought thim to the cradle, an’ wint to put thim an him, but she had no need, for the youth seemed quite up to the business. He buckled an the pipes, set the bellows undher one arm and the bag undher th’ other, an’ worked thim both as knowingly as iv he was twinty years at the thrade, an’ lilted up “Sheela na Guira,” in the finest style that iver was hard.

Well, all was in amazemint; the poor woman crast herself. Tim, who, as I tould you afore, was dark an’ didn’t well know who was playin,’ was in grate delight; an’ whin he hard that it was a little prechaun,601 not aight years ould, that nivir seen a set of pipes in all his days afore, he wished the mother joy iv her son; offered to take him aff her han’s iv she’d part wid him, swore he was a born piper, a nath’ral jainus, an’ declared that in a little time more, wid the help uv a little good tachein’ frum himsilf, there wouldn’t be his match in the whole counthry round. The poor woman was grately delighted to hear all this, particklarly as what Tim sed about nath’ral jainises put an ind to some misgivin’s that war risin’ in hur mind, laist what the naybours sed about his not bein’ right might be only too thrue; an’ it gratified hur too to think that her dear child (for she raely loved the whelp) wouldn’t be forced to turn out an’ big, but might airn dacent, honest bread fur himsilf. So whin Miek come home in the evenin’ frum his work, she up an’ she tould him all that happined, an’ all that Tim Carrol sed; an Mick, as was nath’ral, was very glad to hear it, for the helpless condition o’ the poor crather was a grate throuble to him; so nixt fair-day he tuk the pig to the fair of Naas, and wid what it brought he whipt up, the nixt holiday that come, to Dublin, an’ bespoke a bran new set o’ pipes o’ the proper size fur him, an’ the nixt time Tom Doolan wint up wid the cars, in about a fortnight after, the pipes come home, an’ the minnit the chap in the cradle laid eyes on thim, he squealed wid delight, an’ threw up his purty legs, an’ bumped himsilf in his cradle, an’ wint an wid a grate many comical thricks; till at last, to quite him, they gev him the pipes, an’ immajetly he set to an’ pulled away at “Jig Polthog,” to th’ admirashin uv all that hard him.

Well, the fame uv his skill an the pipes soon spread far an’ near, for there wasn’t a piper in the nixt three counties cud come near him at all, in Ould Maudha Roo, or the Hare in the Corn, or The Fox Hunther’s Jig, or The Piper’s Maggot, or any uv the fine ould Irish jigs, that make people dance whether they will or no: an’ it was surprisin’ to hear him rattle away The Fox Hunt; you’d raaly think you hard the hounds givin’ tongue, an’ the tarriers yelpin’ always behind, an’ the huntsman an’ the whippers-in cheerin’ or correctin’ the dogs; it was, in short, the very nixt thing to seein’ the hunt itself. The best uv him was, he was no way stingy uv his music, an’ many’s the merry dance the boys an’ the girls o’ the neighbourhood used to hav’ in his father’s cabin; an’ he’d play up music fur thim that, they sed, used, as it wor, to put quicksilver in their feet; an’ they all declared they nivir moved so light an’ so airy to any piper’s playin’ that ivir they danced to.

But besides all his fine Irish music, he had one quare chune uv his own, the oddest that iver was hard; fur the minnit he begun to play it iverything in the house seemed disposed to dance; the plates an’ porringers used to jingle an the dhresser, the pots an’ pot-hooks used to rattle in the chimbley, an’ people used even to fancy they felt the stools movin’ frum undher thim; but, howiver it might be wid the stools, it is sartin that no one cud keep long sittin’ an them, fur both ould and young always fell to caperin’ as hard as ivir they cud. The girls complained that whin he begun this chune it always threw thim out in their dancin’, an’ that they nivir cud handle their feet rightly, fur they felt the flure like ice undher thim, an’ thimsilves ready iviry minnit to come sprawlin’ an their backs or their faces; the young bachelors that wanted to show aff their dancin’ an’ their new pumps, an’ their bright red or green an’ yellow garthers, swore that it confused thim so that they cud nivir go rightly through the heel-and-toe, or cover-the-buckle, or any uv their best steps, but felt thimsilves always bedizzied an’ bewildhered, au’ thin ould an’ young id go jostlin’ an’ knockin’ together in a frightful manner an’ whin the anlooky brat had thim all in this way whirligiggin’ about the flure, he’d grin an’ he’d chuckle an’ he’d chather, jist fur all the world like Jocko, the monkey, whin he’s played off sum uv his roguery.602

The oulder he grew the worse he grew, an’ by the time he was noine year ould there was no stannin’ the house for him; he was always makin’ his brothers burn or scald thimsilves, or brake their shins ovir the pots an’ stools. One time in harvist, he was left at home by himself, an’ whin his mother come in she found the cat a-horseback on the dog wid hur face to the tail, an’ hur legs tied round him, an’ the urchin playin’ his quare chune to thim, so that the dog wint barking an jumpin’ about, an’ puss was miowin’ fur the dear life, an’ slappin’ her tail backwards an’ forwards, which whin it id hit agin the dog’s chaps, he’d snap at it an’ bite it, an’ thin there was the philliloo. Another time the farmer Mick worked wid, a mighty dacint kind uv a man, happened to call in, an’ Judy wiped a stool wid her apron an’ axed him to sit down an rest himself afther his walk. He was sittin’ wid his back to the cradle, an’ behind him was a pan o’ blood, fur Judy was makin’ hog’s puddin’s; the lad lay quite still in his nist, an’ watched his opportunity till he got ready a hook at the ind uv a piece o’ packthread an’ he conthrived to fling it so handy that it cotcht in the bob o’ the man’s nice new wig, an’ soused it in the pan o’ blood. Another time his mother was comin’ in from milkin’ the cow, wid the pail an her head, an’ the very minnit he saw her, he lilted up his infernal chune, an’ the poor woman lettin’ go the pail, clapped her hands aside an’ begun to dance a jig, an’ tumbled the milk all atop uv her husband, who was bringin’ in some turf to bile the supper. In short there id be no ind to tellin’ all his pranks, an’ all the mischievyous tricks he played.

Soon afther, some mischances begun to happen to the farmer’s cattle; a horse tuk the staggers, a fine vale calf died o’ the black-lig, an’ some uv his sheep o’ the rid wather; the cows begun to grow vicious, an’ to kick down the milkpails, an’ the roof o’ one ind o’ the barn fell in; an’ the farmer tuk it into his head that Mick Flannagan’s onlooky child was the cause uv all the mischief. So, one day, he called Mick aside, an’ sed to him, “Mick,” sez he, “you see things are not goin’ on wid me as they ought to go; an’ to be plain an’ honest wid you, Mick, I think that child o’ yours is the cause uv it. I am raaly fallin’ away to nothin’, wid frettin’, an’ I can hardly sleep an my bed at night for thinkin’ o’ what may happen afore the mornin’. So I’d be glad af you’d luk out fur work somewhare else; you’re as good a man as any in the whole counthry, there’s no denyin’ it, an’ there’s no fear but you’ll have yer choice o’ work.” To this Mick med answer, and sed, “that he was sorry indeed for his losses, and still sorrier that he or his shud be thought to be the cause o’ thim; that, for his own part, he wasn’t quite aisy in his mind about that child, but he had him, an’ so he must keep him;” an’ he promised to luk out fur another place immajetly.

So nixt Sunday at chapil, Mick gev out that he was about lavin’ the work at John Riordan’s, an’ immajetly a farmer, who lived a couple o’ miles aff, an’ who wanted a ploughman (the last one havin’ jist left him), come up to Mick, an’ offered him a house an’ garden, an’ work all the year round. Mick, who knew him to be a good employer, immajetly closed wid him. So it was agreed that the farmer shud sind his car to take his little bit o’ furniture, an’ that he shud remove an the following Thursday.

Whin Thursday come, the car come accordin’ to promise, an’ Mick loaded it, an’ put the cradle wid the child an’ his pipes an the top, an’ Judy sat beside it to take care uv him, laste he shud tumble out an’ be kilt; they druv the cow afore thim, the dog follied; but the cat, uv coorse, was lift behind: an’ the other three childer wint along the road, pickin’ haves and blackberries; for it was a fine day towst the latther ind uv harvist. They had to crass a river; but as it run through the bottom between two high banks, you didn’t see it till you wor close up an it. The young fellow was lyin’ purty quite in the bottom o’ the cradle, till they come to the head o’ the bridge, whin hearin’ the roarin’ o’ the wather (for there was a grate flood in the river, as there was heavy rain for the last two or three days), he sot up in his cradle, an’ luked about him; an’ the minnit he got a sight ov the wather, an’ found they wor goin’ to take him acrass it, oh! how he did bellow, an’ how he did squeal. “Whisht, alanna,” sed Judy, “there’s no fear o’ yer; shure it’s only ovir the stone bridge we’re goin’.” “Bad luck to yer, ye ould rip,” sez he, “what a purty thrick yuv played me, to bring me here;” an’ he still wint an yellin’, and the farther they got an the bridge, the loudher he yelled; till at last Mick cud hould out no longer; so givin’ him a skelp o’ the whip he had in his han’, “Divil choke you, you crukked brat,” sez he; “will you nivir stop bawlin’? a body can’t hear their ears for you.” Well, my dear, the instant minnit he felt the thong o’ the whip, he jumped up in the cradle, clapped the pipes undher his arm, an’ lept clane ovir the battlemints o’ the bridge down into the wather. “Oh, my child! my child!” shouted Judy; “he’s clane gone for ivir frum me.” Mick an’ the rest o’ the childher run to the other side o’ the bridge an’ lukt down, an’ they seen him comin’ out from undher the arch o’ the bridge, sittin’ crass-liggs an the top uv a big white-headed wave, an’ playin’ away an the pipes, jist as if nothin’ had happened at all. The river was runnin’ very hard, so he was whirled away at a grate rate; but he played away as fast, ay, and faster nor the river run. They set aff as hard as they cud along the bank; but as the river med a suddint turn round the hill, about a hundred yards below the bridge, by the time they got there he was out o’ sight, an’ no one ivir led eyes an him sence; but the gineral belief is, that he wint home wid the pipes to his own relations—the good people—to make music fur thim.

The Soul Cages

Jack Dogherty lived on the coast of the county Clare. Jack was a fisherman, as his father and his grandfather before him had been. Like them, too, he lived all alone (but for the wife), and just in the same spot, too. People used to wonder why the Dogherty family were so fond of that wild situation, so far away from all human kind, and in the midst of huge scattered rocks, with nothing but the wide ocean to look upon. But they had their own good reasons for it.

The place was just, in short, the only spot on that part of the coast where anybody could well live; there was a neat little creek, where a boat might lie as snug as a puffin in her nest, and out from this creek a ledge of sunken rocks ran into the sea. Now, when the Atlantic, according to custom, was raging with a storm, and a good westerly wind was blowing strong on the coast, many’s the richly-laden ship that went to pieces on these rocks; and then the fine bales of cotton and tobacco, and such like things; and the pipes of wine, and the puncheons of rum, and the casks of brandy, and the kegs of Hollands that used to come ashore. Why, bless you! Dunbeg Bay was just like a little estate to the Doghertys.

Not but that they were kind and humane to a distressed sailor, if ever one had the good luck to get to land; and many a time, indeed, did Jack put out in his little corragh, that would breast the billows like any gannet, to lend a hand towards bringing off the crew from a wreck. But when the ship was gone to pieces, and the crew were all lost, who would blame Jack for picking up all he could find? “And who’s the worse of it?” said he. “For as to the king, God bless him! everybody knows he’s rich enough already, without gettin’ what’s floatin’ in the say.”

Jack, though such a hermit, was a good-natured, jolly fellow. No other, sure, could ever have coaxed Biddy Mahony to quit her father’s snug and warm house in the middle of the town of Ennis, and to go so many miles off to live among the rocks, with the seals and sea-gulls for her next door neighbours. But Biddy knew what’s what, and she knew that Jack was the man for a woman who wished to be comfortable and happy; for, to say nothing of the fish, Jack had the supplying of half the gentlemen’s houses of the country with the Godsends that came into the bay. And she was right in her choice, for no woman ate, drank, or slept better, or made a prouder appearance at Chapel on Sundays than Mrs. Dogherty.

Many a strange sight, it may well be supposed, did Jack see, and many a strange sound did he hear, but nothing daunted him. So far was he from being afraid of Merrows, or such like beings, that the very first wish of his heart was fairly to meet with one. Jack had heard that they were mighty like Christians, and that luck had always come out of an acquaintance with them. Never, therefore, did he dimly discern the Merrows moving along the face of the waters in their robes of mist, but he made direct for them; and many a scolding did Biddy, in her own quiet way, bestow upon Jack for spending his whole day out at sea, and bringing home no fish. Little did poor Biddy know the fish Jack was after.

It was rather annoying to Jack that, though living in a place where the Merrows were as plenty as lobsters, he never could get a right view of one. What vexed him more was, that both his father and grandfather had often and often seen them; and he even remembered hearing, when a child, how his grandfather, who was the first of the family that had settled down at the Creek, had been so intimate with a Merrow, that, only for fear of vexing the priest, he would have had him stand for one of his children. This, however, Jack did not well know how to believe.

Fortune at length began to think that it was only right that Jack should know as much as his father and grandfather knew. Accordingly, one day, when he had strolled a little farther than usual along the coast to the northward, just as he was turning a point, he saw something, like to nothing he had ever seen before, perched upon a rock at a little distance out to sea: it looked green in the body, as well as he could discern at that distance, and he would have sworn, only the thing was impossible, that it had a cocked hat in his hand. Jack stood, for a good half hour, straining his eyes and wondering at it, and all the time the thing did not stir hand or foot. At last Jack’s patience was quite worn out, and he gave a loud whistle and a hail, when the Merrow (for such it was) started up, put the cocked hat on its head, and dived down, head foremost, from the rock.

Jack’s curiosity was now excited, and he constantly directed his steps toward the point; still he could never get a glimpse of the sea-gentleman with the cocked hat; and with thinking and thinking about the matter, he began at last to fancy he had been only dreaming. One very rough day, however, when the sea was running mountains high, Jack determined to give a look at the Merrow’s rock, (for he had always chosen a fine day before,) and then he saw the strange thing cutting capers upon the top of the rock, and then diving down, and then coming up, and then diving down again. Jack had now only to choose his time, (that is, a good blowing day,) and he might see the man of the sea as often as he pleased. All this, however, did not satisfy him,—“much will have more;”—he wished now to get acquainted with the Merrow, and even in this he succeeded. One tremendous blustery day, before he got to the point whence he had a view of the Merrow’s rock, the storm came on so furiously that Jack was obliged to take shelter in one of the caves which are so numerous along the coast, and there, to his astonishment, he saw, sitting before him, a thing with green hair, long green teeth, a red nose, and pig’s eyes. It had a fish’s tail, legs with scales on them, and short arms like fins. It wore no clothes, but had the cocked hat under its arm, and seemed engaged thinking very seriously about something. Jack, with all his courage, was a little daunted; but now or never, thought he; so up he went boldly to the cogitating fish-man, took off his hat, and made his best bow.

“Your sarvint, sir,” said Jack.—“Your servant, kindly, Jack Dogherty,” answered the Merrow.—“To be shure, thin, how well your honour knows my name,” said Jack.—“Is it I not know your name, Jack Dogherty? Why, man, I knew your grandfather long before he was married to Judy Regan, your grandmother. Ah, Jack, Jack, I was fond of that grandfather of yours; he was a mighty worthy man in his time. I never met his match above or below, before or since, for sucking in a shellful of brandy. I hope, my boy,” said the old fellow, “I hope you’re his own grandson.”—“Never fear me for that,” said Jack; “if my mother only reared me on brandy, ’tis myself that ’ud be a suckin infant to this hour.”—“Well, I like to hear you talk so manly; you and I must be better acquainted, if it were only for your grandfather’s sake. But, Jack, that father of yours was not the thing; he had no head at all, not he.”—“I’m shure,” said Jack, “sense your honour lives down undher the wather, you must be obleeged to dhrink a power to keep any hate in you, at all at all, in such a cruel, damp, cowld place. Well, I often hard of Christhens dhrinkin’ like fishes;—and might I be so bould as to ax where you get the sperits?”—“Where do you get them yourself, Jack?” said the Merrow, with a knowing look.—“Hubbubboo,” cries Jack, “now I see how it is; but I suppose, sir, your honour has got a fine dhry cellar below to keep them in.”—“Let me alone for that,” said the Merrow, with another knowing look.—“I’m shure,” continued Jack, “it must be mighty well worth the luking at.”—“You may say that, Jack, with your own pretty mouth,” said the Merrow; “and if you meet me here next Monday, just at this time of the day, we will have a little more talk with one another about the matter.”

Jack and the Merrow parted the best friends in the world; and on Monday they met, and Jack was not a little surprised to see that the Merrow had two cocked hats with him, one under each arm. “Might I make so bould as to ask you, sir,” said Jack, “why yer honour brought the two hats wid you to-day? You wouldn’t, shure, be goin’ to giv’ me one o’ them, to keep for the curosity of the thing?”—“No, no, Jack,” said he, “I don’t get my hats so easily, to part with them that way; but I want you to come down and eat a bit of dinner with me, and I brought you the hat to dive with.”—“The Lord bless and presarve us!” cried Jack, in amazement, “would you want me to go down to the bottom of the salt say ocean? Shure I’d be smoothered and choked up wid the wather, to say nothin’ of bein’ dhrownded! And what would poor Biddy do for me, and what would she say?”—“And what matter what she says, you pinkeen you? Who cares for Biddy’s squalling? It’s long before your grandfather would have talked in that way. Many’s the time he stuck that same hat on his head, and dived down boldly after me, and many’s the snug bit of dinner, and good shellful of brandy, he and I had together, below under the water.”—“Is it raally, sir, and no joke?” said Jack; “why, thin, sorra’ be from me for ivir and a day afther, if I’ll be a bit a worse man nor my grandfather was! So here goes; but play me fair now. Here’s nick or nothin’!” cried Jack.—“That’s your grandfather all over,” said the old fellow. “So come along, my boy, and do as I do.”

They both left the cave, walked into the sea, and then swam a piece until they got to the rock. The Merrow climbed to the top of it, and Jack followed him. On the far side it was as straight as the wall of a house, and the sea looked so deep that Jack was almost cowed.

“Now, do you see, Jack,” said the Merrow, “just put this hat on your head, and mind to keep your eyes wide open. Take hold of my tail, and follow after me, and you’ll see what you’ll see.” In he dashed, and in dashed Jack after him boldly. They went and they went, and Jack thought they’d never stop going. Many a time did he wish himself sitting at home by the fireside with Biddy; yet, where was the use of wishing now, when he was so many miles as he thought below the waves of the Atlantic? Still he held hard by the Merrow’s tail, slippery as it was. And, at last, to Jack’s great surprise, they got out of the water, and he actually found himself on dry land at the bottom of the sea. They landed just in front of a nice little house that was slated very neatly with oyster-shells; and the Merrow, turning about to Jack, welcomed him down. Jack could hardly speak, what with wonder, and what with being out of breath with travelling so fast through the water. He looked about him, and could see no living things, barring crabs and lobsters, of which there were plenty walking leisurely about on the sand. Overhead was the sea like a sky, and the fishes like birds swimming about in it.

“Why don’t you speak, man?” said the Merrow: “I dare say you had no notion that I had such a snug little concern as this? Are you smothered, or choked, or drowned, or are you fretting after Biddy, eh?” “Oh! not mysilf, indeed,” said Jack, showing his teeth with a good-humoured grin, “but who in the world ’ud ivir ha’ thought uv seein’ sich a thing?” “Well, come along my lad, and let’s see what they’ve got for us to eat?”

Jack was really hungry, and it gave him no small pleasure to perceive a fine column of smoke rising from the chimney, announcing what was going on within. Into the house he followed the Merrow, and there he saw a good kitchen, right well provided with everything. There was a noble dresser, and plenty of pots and pans, with two young Merrows cooking. His host then led him into the room, which was furnished shabbily enough. Not a table or a chair was there in it; nothing but planks and logs of wood to sit on, and eat off. There was, however, a good fire blazing on the hearth—a comfortable sight to Jack. “Come, now, and I’ll show you where I keep—you know what,” said the Merrow, with a sly look; and opening a little door, he led Jack into a fine long cellar, well filled with pipes, and kegs, and hogsheads, and barrels. “What do you say to that, Jack Dogherty?—Eh!—May-be a body can’t live snug down under the water!” “The divil the doubt of that,” said Jack, “anyhow.”

They went back to the room, and found dinner laid. There was no table-cloth, to be sure—but what matter? It was not always Jack had one at home. The dinner would have been no discredit to the first house in the county on a fast-day. The choicest of fish, and no wonder, was there. Turbots, and soles, and lobsters, and oysters, and twenty other kinds, were on the planks at once, and plenty of foreign spirits. The wines, the old fellow said, were too cold for his stomach. Jack ate and drank till he could eat no more: then, taking up a shell of brandy, “Here’s to your honour’s good health, sir,” said he, “though beggin’ your pardon, its mighty odd, that as long as we’re acquainted, I don’t know your name yit.” “That’s true, Jack,” replied he; “I never thought of it before, but better late than never. My name is Coomara.” “Coomara! And a mighty dacint sort of a name it is, too,” cried Jack, taking another shellful: “here’s, then, to your good health, Coomara, and may you live these fifty years.” “Fifty years!” repeated Coomara; “I’m obliged to you, indeed; if you had said five hundred, it would have been something worth wishing.” “By the laws, sir,” said Jack, “yez live to a powerful great age here undher the wather! Ye knew my grandfather, and he’s dead and gone betther nor sixty years. I’m shure it must be a mighty healthy place to live in.” “No doubt of it; but come, Jack, keep the liquor stirring.”

Shell after shell did they empty, and to Jack’s exceeding surprise, he found the drink never got into his head, owing, I suppose, to the sea being over them, which kept their noddles cool. Old Coomara got exceedingly comfortable, and sang several songs; but Jack, if his life had depended on it, never could remember any of them. At length said he to Jack, “Now, my dear boy, if you follow me, I’ll show you my curosities!” He opened a little door, and led Jack into a large room, where Jack saw a great many odds and ends that Coomara had picked up at one time or another. What chiefly took his attention, however, were things like lobster-pots, ranged on the ground along the wall.

“Well, Jack, how do you like my curosities?” said old Coo. “Upon my sowkins, sir,” said Jack, “they’re mighty well worth the lukin’ at; but might a body make so bould as to ax what thim things like lobster-pots are?” “Oh, the soul-cages, is it?” “The what, sir?” “These things here that I keep the souls in.” “Arrah! what sowls, sir?” said Jack in amazement: “shure the fish ha’ got no sowls in them?” “Oh, no,” replied Coo, quite coolly, “that they haven’t; but these are the souls of drowned sailors.” “The Lord presarve us from all harm!” muttered Jack, “how in the world did you conthrive to get thim?” “Easily enough. I’ve only when I see a good storm coming on, to set a couple of dozen of these, and then, when the sailors are drowned, and the souls get out of them under the water, the poor things are almost perished to death, not being used to the cold; so they make into my pots for shelter, and then I have them snug, and fetch them home, and keep them here dry and warm; and is it not well for them, poor souls, to get into such good quarters?”

Jack was so thunderstruck he did not know what to say, so he said nothing. They went back into the dining-room, and had some more brandy, which was excellent, and then, as Jack knew that it must be getting late, and as Biddy might be uneasy, he stood up, and said he thought it was time for him to be on the road.

“Just as you like, Jack,” said Coo, “but take a doch an durrus before you go; you’ve a cold journey before you.” Jack knew better manners than to refuse the parting glass. “I wondher” said he, “will I ivir be able to make out my way home.” “What should ail you,” said Coo, “when I show you the way?” Out they went before the house, and Coomara took one of the cocked hats, and put it on Jack’s head the wrong way, and then lifted him up on his shoulder that he might launch him up into the water. “Now,” says he, giving him a heave, “you’ll come up just in the same spot you came down in; and, Jack, mind and throw me back the hat.” He canted Jack off his shoulder, and up he shot like a bubble—whirr, whirr, whiz—away he went up through the water, till he came to the very rock he had jumped off, where he found a landing-place, and then in he threw the hat, which sunk like a stone.

The sun was just going down in the beautiful sky of a calm summer’s evening. The evening star was seen brightly twinkling in the cloudless heaven, and the waves of the Atlantic flashed in a golden flood of light. So Jack, perceiving it was getting late, set off home; but when he got there, not a word did he say to Biddy of where he had spent his day.

The state of the poor souls cooped up in the lobster-pots, gave Jack a great deal of trouble, and how to release them cost him a great deal of thought. He at first had a mind to speak to the priest about the matter; but what could the priest do, and what did Coo care for the priest? Besides, Coo was a good sort of an old fellow, and did not think he was doing any harm. Jack had a regard for him too, and it also might not be much to his own credit if it were known that he used to go dine with the Merrows under the sea. On the whole, he thought his best plan would be to ask Coo to dinner, and to make him drunk, if he was able, and then to take the hat and go down and turn up the pots. It was first of all necessary, however, to get Biddy out of the way; for Jack was prudent enough, as she was a woman, to wish to keep the thing secret from her.

Accordingly, Jack grew mighty pious all of a sudden, and said to Biddy, that he thought it would be for the good of both their souls if she was to go and take her rounds at Saint John’s Well, near Ennis. Biddy thought so too, and accordingly off she set one fine morning at day dawn, giving Jack a strict charge to have an eye to the place. The coast being clear, away then went Jack to the rock to give the appointed signal to Coomara, which was, throwing a big stone into the water; Jack threw, and up sprang Coo. “Good morrow, Jack,” said he; “what do you want with me?” “Jist nothin’ at all to spake about, sir,” replied Jack; “only to come and take pot-luck wid me, now that Biddy’s out of the way; if I might make so free as to ax you, an’ shure it’s myself that’s afther doin’ so.” “It’s quite agreeable, Jack, I assure you; what’s your hour?” “Any time that’s most convenient to yoursilf, sir: say one o’clock, that you may go home, if you wish it, wid the daylight.” “I’ll be with you,” said Coo, “never fear me.”

Jack went home and dressed a noble fish dinner, and got out plenty of his best foreign spirits, enough for that matter to make twenty men drunk. Just to the minute came Coo, with his cocked hat under his arm. Dinner was ready; they sat down, and ate and drank manfully. Jack thinking of the poor souls below in the pots, plied old Coo well with brandy, and encouraged him to sing, hoping to put him under the table, but poor Jack forgot that he had not the sea over his own head now to keep it cool. The brandy got into it and did his business for him, and Coo reeled off home, leaving his entertainer as dumb as a haddock on a Good Friday.

Jack never woke till the next morning, and then he was in a sad way. “’Tis no use at all for me thinkin’ to make that ould Rapperee dhrunk,” said Jack; “an’ how in this world can I help the poor sowls out o’ the lobster pots.” After ruminating nearly the whole day, a thought struck him. “I have it,” said he, slapping his thigh; “I’ll be bail Coo nivir saw a dhrop o’ raal potyeen as ould as he is, an’ that’s the thing to settle him! Och! thin isn’t it well that Biddy won’t be home these two days yit; I can have another twist at him.” Jack asked Coo again, and Coo laughed at him for having no better head; telling him, he’d never come up to his grandfather. “Well, but thry me agin,” said Jack, “and I’ll be bail to dhrink you dhrunk and sober, and dhrunk agin.”—“Any thing in my power,” said Coo, “to oblige you.”

All this dinner, Jack took care to have his own liquor watered, and to give the strongest brandy he had to Coo. At last, says he, “Pray, sir, did you ivir dhrink any potyeen? any raal mountain-jew?”—“No,” says Coo; “what’s that, and where does it come from?”—“Oh! that’s a sacret,” said Jack, “but it’s the right stuff; nivir believe me agin if it isn’t fifty times better nor brandy or rum either. Biddy’s brother jist sint me a prisent of a little dhrop, in exchange for some brandy, and as you’re an ould frind o’ the family, I kep it to thrate you wid.”—“Well, let’s see what sort of thing it is,” said Coo.

The potyeen was the right sort. It was first-rate, and had the real smack on it. Coo was delighted with it; he drank and he sang, and he laughed and he danced, till he fell on the floor fas’ asleep. Then Jack, who had taken good care to keep himself sober, snapt up the cocked hat, ran off to the rock, leaped in, and soon arrived at Coo’s habitation.

All was as still as a churchyard at midnight—not a Merrow young or old, was there. In he went and turned up the pots, but nothing did he see, only he heard, he thought, a sort of a little whistle or chirp as he raised each of them. At this he was surprised, till he recollected what the priest had often said, that nobody living could see the soul, no more than they could see the wind or the air. Having now done all he could do for them he set the pots as they were before, and sent a blessing after the poor souls to speed them on their journey wherever they were going. He now began to think of returning; he put on the hat (as was right,) the wrong way; but when he got out, he found the water so high over his head that he had no hopes of ever getting up into it now that he had not old Coomara to give him a lift. He walked about looking for a ladder, but not one could he find, and not a rock was there in sight. At last he saw a spot where the sea hung rather lower than anywhere else, so he resolved to try there. Just as he came to it, a big cod happened to put down his tail. Jack made a jump and caught hold of it, and the cod, all in amazement, gave a bounce and pulled Jack up. The minute the hat touched the water, pop away Jack was whisked; and up he shot like a cork, dragging the poor cod, that he forgot to let go, up with him tail foremost. He got to the rock in no time, and without a moment’s delay hurried home rejoicing in the good deed he had done. But, meanwhile, there was fine work at home; for our friend Jack had hardly left the house on his soul-freeing expedition, when back came Biddy from her soul-saving one to the well. When she entered the house and saw the things lying thrie-na heelah on the table before her—“Here’s a purty job,” said she, “that blackguard of mine—what ill-luck I had ivir to marry him—he’s picked up some vagabone or other, while I was prayin’ for the good of his sowl; and they’ve bin dhrinkin’ up all the potyeen that my own brother gev’ him, and all the sperits, to be shure, that he was to have sould to his honour.” Then hearing an outlandish kind of grunt, she looked down and saw Coomara lying under the table. “The blessed Vargin help an’ save me,” shouted she, “if he hasn’t made a rael baste of himself. Well, well, well to be shure, I often hard till of a man makin’ a baste of himself wid dhrink, but I niver saw it afore! Oh hone, oh hone,—Jack, honey, what ’ill I do wid you, or what ’ill I do widout you? How can any dacint woman ivir think of livin’ wid a baste?”

With such like lamentations, Biddy rushed out of the house, and was going, she knew not where, when she heard the well known voice of Jack, singing a merry tune. Glad enough was Biddy to find him safe and sound, and not turned into a thing that was like neither fish nor flesh. Jack was obliged to tell her all; and Biddy, though she had half a mind to be angry with him for not telling her before, owned that he had done a great service to the poor souls. Back they both went most lovingly to the house, and Jack wakened up Coomara; and perceiving the old fellow to be rather dull, he bid him not be cast down, for ’twas many a good man’s case; said it all came of his not being used to the potyeen, and recommended him, by way of cure, to swallow a hair of the dog that bit him. Coo, however, seemed to think he had had quite enough: he got up, quite out of sorts, and without having the good manners to say one word in the way of civility, he sneaked off to cool himself by a jaunt through the salt water.

Coomara never missed the souls. He and Jack continued the best friends in the world; and no one, perhaps, ever equalled Jack at freeing souls from purgatory; for he contrived fifty excuses for getting into the house below the sea, unknown to the old fellow; and then turned up the pots, and let out the souls. It vexed him, to be sure, that he could never see them; but as he knew the thing to be impossible, he was obliged to be satisfied. Their intercourse continued for several years. However, one morning, on Jack’s throwing in a stone, as usual, he got no answer. He flung another, and another; still there was no reply. He went away, and returned the next morning; but it was to no purpose. As he was without the hat, he could not go down to see what had become of old Coo; but his belief was, that the old man, or the old fish, or whatever he was, had either died, or had removed away from that part of the country.603

Barry of Cairn Thierna

Fermoy, though now so pretty and so clean a town, was once as poor and as dirty a village as any in Ireland. It had neither barracks, nor church, nor school, nor anything to admire. Two-storied houses were but few: its street (for it had but one) was chiefly formed of miserable mud cabins; nor was the fine scenery around sufficient to induce the traveller to tarry in its paltry, dirty inn, beyond the limits actually required.

In those days it happened that a regiment of foot was proceeding from Dublin to Cork. One company, which left Caher in the morning, had, with ‘toilsome march,’ passed through Mitchelstown, tramped across the Kilworth mountains; and, late of an October evening, tired and hungry, reached Fermoy, the last stage but one to their quarters. No barracks, as we have said, were then built there to relieve them; and every voice was raised, calling to the gaping villagers for the name and residence of the billet-master.

“Why, thin, can’t ye be aisy, now, and let a body tell you,” said one. “Shure, thin, how can I answer you all at onst,” said another. “Anan!” cried a third, affecting not to understand the sergeant, who addressed him. “Is it Mr. Consadine you want?” replied a fourth, answering, à l’ Irlandaise, the question, by asking another. “Bad luck to the whole breed and seed of the sogers!” muttered a fifth villager, between his teeth. “It’s come to ate poor people that work for their bread, out of house and home, yez are?” “Whisht, Teigue, can’t you, now?” said his neighbour, jogging the last speaker; “there’s the house, gintlemen. You see it there, yondher, forenint you, at the bottom of the sthreet, wid the light in the winddy; or, stay, shure it’s mysilf id think little of runnin’ down wid you, poor crathurs! for ’tis tirt and wairy yez must be afther the road.”—“That’s an honest fellow,” said several of the dust-covered soldiers; and away scampered Ned Flynn, with all the men of war following close at his heels.

Mr. Consadine, the billet-master, was, as may be supposed, a person of some, and on such occasions as the present, of no small consideration in such a place as Fermoy. He was of a portly build, and of a grave and slow movement, suited at once to his importance and to his size. Three inches of fair linen were at all times visible between his waistband and waistcoat. His breeches-pockets were never buttoned; and, scorning to conceal the bull-like proportions of his chest and neck, his shirt-collar was generally open, as he wore no cravat; and a flaxen bob-wig commonly sat fairly on his head, and squarely on his forehead. Such, then, was Mr. Consadine, billet-master-general and barony sub-constable, who was now just getting to the end of his eighth tumbler, in company with the proctor, who at that moment had begun to talk of coming to something like a fair settlement about his tithes, when Ned Flynn knocked.

“See who’s at the door, Nilly,” said the eldest Miss Consadine, raising her voice, and calling to the barefooted servant girl. “’Tis the sogers, sir, is come!” cried Nelly, running back into the room without opening the door. “I hear the jinketin of their swoords and bagnets on the pavin’-stones.”—“Divil welcome them at this hour o’ the night,” said Mr. Consadine, taking up the candle, and moving off to the room on the opposite side of the hall, which served him for an office.

Mr. Consadine’s own pen, and that of his son Tom were now in full employment. The officers were sent to the inn; the sergeants, corporals, etc., were billeted on those who were on indifferent terms with Mr. Consadine; for, like a worthy man as he was, he leaned as light as he could on his friends. The soldiers had nearly all departed for their quarters, when one poor fellow, who had fallen asleep, leaning on his musket against the wall, was awakened by the silence, and starting up, he went over to the table at which Mr. Consadine was seated, hoping his worship would give him a good billet. “A good billet, my lad,” said the billet-master-general, “that you shall have, and on the biggest house in the whole place. Do you hear, Tom! make out a billet for this honest man upon Mr. Barry of Cairn Thierna.” “On Mr. Barry of Cairn Thierna!” said Tom, with a look of amazement. “Yes, to be sure, on Mr. Barry of Cairn Thierna—the great Barry!” replied his father, giving a nod. “Isn’t he said to keep the grandest house in this part of the counthry?—or stay, Tom, jist hand me over the paper, and I’ll write the billet myself.”

The billet was made out accordingly; the sand glittered on the signature and broad flourishes of Mr. Consadine, and the weary grenadier received it with becoming gratitude and thanks. Taking up his knapsack and firelock, he left the office, and Mr. Consadine waddled back to the proctor to chuckle over the trick he had played on the soldier, and to laugh at the idea of his search after Barry of Cairn Thierna’s house. Truly had he said no house could vie in capacity with Mr. Barry’s; for like Allan A-Dale’s, its roof was

The blue vault of Heaven, with its crescent so pale.

Barry of Cairn Thierna was one of the chieftains who, of old, lorded it over the barony of Barrymore, and for some reason or other, he had become enchanted on the mountain of Cairn Thierna, where he was known to live in great state, and was often seen by the belated peasant.

Mr. Consadine had informed the soldier that Mr. Barry lived a little way out of the town, on the Cork road; so the poor fellow trudged along for some time with eyes right and eyes left, looking for the great house; but nothing could he see only the dark mountain of Cairn Thierna before him, and an odd cabin or two on the road-side. At last he met a man, of whom he asked the way to Mr. Barry’s. “To Mr. Barry’s?” said the man; “what Barry is it you want?” “I can’t say exactly in the dark,” returned the soldier. “Mr. What’s-his-name, the billet-master, has given me the direction on my billet; but he said it was a large house, and I think he called him the great Mr. Barry.” “Why, sure, it wouldn’t be the great Barry of Cairn Thierna you’re asking after?” “Aye,” said the soldier, “Cairn Thierna—that’s the place. Can you tell me where it is?” “Cairn Thierna!” repeated the man—“Barry of Cairn Thierna! I’ll show you the way, and welcome; but it’s the first time in all my born days that ever I h’ard of a soger bein’ billeted on Barry of Cairn Thierna. ’Tis a quare thing, anyhow, for ould Dick Consadin to be sindin’ you up there,” continued he; “but you see that big mountain before you—that’s Cairn Thierna. Any one will show you Mr. Barry’s when you get to the top of it, up to the big hape of stones.”

The weary soldier gave a sigh as he walked forwards toward the mountain; but he had not proceeded far when he heard the clatter of a horse coming along the road after him, and, turning his head round, he saw a dark figure rapidly approaching. A tall gentleman, richly dressed, and mounted on a noble gray horse, was soon at his side, when the rider pulled up, and the soldier repeated his inquiry after Mr. Barry of Cairn Thierna. “Why, I’m Barry of Cairn Thierna, myself,” said the gentleman, “and pray what’s your business with me, friend.” “I have got a billet on your house, sir,” replied the soldier, “from the billet-master of Fermoy.” “Did you, indeed,” said Mr. Barry; “well, then, it is not very far off; follow me and you shall be well taken care of, depend upon it.”

He turned off the road, and led his horse up the steep side of the mountain, followed by the soldier, who was astonished at seeing the horse proceed with so little difficulty, where he was obliged to scramble up, and could hardly find or keep his footing. When they got to the top, there was a house, sure enough, far beyond any house in Fermoy. It was three stories high, with fine windows, and all lighted up within, as if it was full of grand company. There was a hall-door, too, with a flight of stone steps before it, at which Mr. Barry dismounted, and the door was opened to him by a servant-man, who took his horse round to the stable. Mr. Barry, as he stood at the door, desired the soldier to walk in, and, instead of sending him down to the kitchen, as any other gentleman would have done, brought him into the parlour, and desired to see his billet. “Ay,” said Mr. Barry, looking at it and smiling, “I know Dick Consadine well—he’s a merry fellow, no doubt, and, if I mistake not, has got some capital good cows down on the inch-field of Carrickabrick; a sirloin of beef would be no bad thing for supper, my man, eh?”

Mr. Barry then called out to some of his attendants, and desired them to lay the cloth, and make all ready, which was no sooner done than a smoking sirloin of beef was placed before them. “Sit down, now, my honest fellow,” said Mr. Barry, “you must be hungry after your long day’s march.” The soldier with a profusion of thanks for such hospitality, and acknowledgments for such condescension, sat down and made, as might be expected, an excellent supper; Mr. Barry never letting his jaws rest for want of helping until he was fairly unable to eat more. Then the boiling water was brought in, and such a jug of whiskey punch as was made! Take my word for it,—it did not, like honest Robin Craig’s, require to be hung out on the bush to let the water drain out of it.

They sat together a long time, talking over the punch, and the fire was so good, and Mr. Barry himself was so free a gentleman, and had such fine conversation about everything in the world, far or near, that the soldier never felt the night going over him. At last Mr. Barry stood up, saying it was a rule with him that every one in his house should be in bed by twelve o’clock, “And,” said he, pointing to a bundle which lay in one corner of the room, “take that to bed with you, it’s the hide of the cow I had killed for your supper; give it to the billet-master when you go back to Fermoy, in the morning, and tell him that Barry of Cairn Thierna sent it to him. He will soon understand what it means, I promise you; so, good night, my brave fellow; I wish you a comfortable sleep and every good fortune; but I must be off and away out of this long before you are stirring.” The soldier gratefully returned his host’s good wishes, and went off to the room which was shown him, without claiming, as every one knows he had a right to do, the second best bed in the house.

Next morning the sun awoke him. He was lying on the broad of his back, and the skylark was singing over him in the beautiful blue sky, and the bee was humming close to his ear among the heath. He rubbed his eyes; nothing did he see but the dear sky, with two or three light morning clouds floating away. Mr. Barry’s fine house and soft feather bed had melted into air, and he found himself stretched on the side of Cairn Thierna, buried in the heath, with the cowhide which had been given him, rolled up under his head for a pillow.604

“Well,” said he, “this bates cockfighting, any how! Didn’t I spind the plisantest night I iver spint in my life with Mr. Barry last night? And what in the world has becom’ of the house, and the hall door with the steps, and the very bed that was undher me?” He stood up. Not a vestige of a house or any thing like one, but the rude heap of stones on the top of the mountain, could he see; and ever so far off lay the Blackwater, glittering with the morning sun, and the little quiet village of Fermoy on its banks, from whose chimneys white wreaths of smoke were beginning to rise upwards into the sky. Throwing the cowhide over his shoulder, he descended, not without some difficulty, the steep side of the mountain, up which Mr. Barry had led his horse the preceding night with so much ease; and he proceeded along the road, pondering on what had befallen him.

When he reached Fermoy, he went straight to Mr. Consadine’s, and asked to see him. “Well, my gay fellow,” said the official Mr. Consadine, recognising, at a glance, the soldier; “what sort of an entertainment did you meet with from Barry of Cairn Thierna?” “The best of good thratement, sir,” replied the soldier; “and well did he spake of you, and he disired me to give you this cowhide as a token to remimber him by.” “Many thanks to Mr. Barry for his generosity,” said the billet-master, making a low bow, in mock solemnity; “many thanks indeed, and a right good skin it is, wherever he got it.”

Mr. Consadine had scarcely finished the sentence, when he saw his cow-boy running up the street, shouting and crying aloud, that the best cow in the Inch-field was lost and gone, and nobody knew what had become of her, or could give the least tidings of her.

The soldier had spread out the skin on the ground for Mr. Consadine to see it; and the cow-boy looking at it, exclaimed—“That is her hide, wherever she is; I’d take my Bible oath to the two small white spots, with the glossy black about thim; and there’s the very place where she rubbed the hair off her shouldher last Martinmas.” Then clapping his hands together, he literally sang “the tune the old cow died of.” This lamentation was stopped short by Mr. Consadine: “There is no manner of doubt about it,” said he. “It was Barry that kilt my best cow, and all he has left me is the hide o’ the poor baste to comfort myself with; but it will be a warnin’ to Dick Consadine, for the rest of his life, nivir again to play off his thricks upon thravellers.”

Aileen a Roon

(Ellen My Love.)

Carrol O’Daly is the Lochinvar of Ireland. He and Ellen Cavanagh were intimate from childhood. The result was love; but Ellen’s father insisted on her marrying a wealthier suitor. On the wedding-night Carrol came disguised as a harper, and played and sung this air, which he had composed for the occasion. Ellen’s tenderness revived in full force; she contrived to make her father, the bridegroom, and the guests drink to excess, and by morning she and Carrol were beyond pursuit.

The following lines were written one evening to gratify a lady who wished to have the writer’s idea of what Carrol might have sung. The air is generally known under the name of Robin Adair:—

What are the joys wealth and honours bestow?
Do they endure like true love’s steady glow?
      Shadows of vanity,
      Mists of the summer sky,
      Soon they disperse and fly,
          Aileen a roon!

Time was when Aileen tripped light as the fawn,
Spying young Carrol approach in the dawn,
      Ere the sun’s early beam
      Glittered on lake and stream,—
      Oh! that was bliss supreme,
          Aileen a roon!

Or when mild even’s star beamed in the west,
Bringing to nature the season of rest—
      At that sweet hour to rove,
      Down by yon spreading grove,
      Breathing forth vows of love,
          Aileen a roon!

Aileen forgets, but her Carrol more true,
As these past scenes memory brings to his view.
      Heaves many a heavy sigh,
      Breaking his heart is nigh—
      And canst thou let him die?
          Aileen a roon!

Rousseau’s Dream

These verses are adapted to the well-known air. They were suggested by a passage from Rousseau’s works, quoted by Alison in his Essay on Taste. Though real names are mentioned, the scenery and subject are purely ideal.

Calmly at eve shone the sun o’er Lake Leman,
Bright in his beam lay the watery expanse,
Softly the white sails reflected his gleaming,
Groves, banks, and trees their slow shadows advance.
Cool from the mountains the summer-gale breathed,
Laden with fragrance the lake it came o’er;
Leman, exulting, danced joyous beneath it,
Light crisped waves gently roll to the shore.

At that soft hour on the blue Leman rowing,
Slowly a sage urged his bark by a grove,
Silently musing, his lofty mind glowing,
Viewing earth’s pomp and the glories above
As o’er the lake the long shadows extended,
Whispering the breeze, lulled each sense to repose;
Calm he reclined, and as slumber descended,
Visions of bliss to his fancy arose.

Heaven to his view seemed arrayed in new glory,
Earth breathed forth fragrance and basked in the ray
Clad in loose raiment, more white than the hoary
Front of Mont Blanc, came a son of the day.
Lightly his wand o’er the slumberer extending,
While with new joy laughed the earth, sky, and lake;
Love in his accents with soft pity blending,
Shedding content, thus the bright vision spake:—

“Hither I come, from my cloud-crowned station,
Touched with thy grief, to shed balm o’er thy mind!
I am the Spirit to whom, at creation,
Charge was by Heaven o’er this region assigned.
List to my accents, thou hunted by malice!
Let what I utter sink deep in thy breast:
Fly from mankind, to the lakes, hills, and valleys,
Thus, thus alone, shall thy spirit find rest.

“But if again to the world thou now fliest,
Thou should return, and again meet thy foes,
Think on this hour, when for comfort thou sighest,
And the bright scene will dispel all thy woes.”
Gone was the vision: eve’s star now was glancing,
Cold came the breeze o’er the blue curling stream;
Waked from his slumber, his heart with joy dancing,
Homeward he turned, and still mused on his dream.

Alexander Selkirk’s Dream

Composed One Day When Confined to Bed by a Cold and Unable to Read

O’er the isle of Juan Fernandez
  Cooling shades of evening spread,
While upon the peaks of Andes
  Still the tints of day were shed.

From the sea-beat shore returning
  Homeward hied the lonely man,
O’er his cheerless fortune mourning,
  As through past days memory ran.

Soon his brief repast was ended
  And he sought his lowly bed;
Balmy slumber there descended,
  Shedding influence o’er his head.

Then a vision full of gladness
  Came, sent forth by Him supreme
Who his suffering servants’ sadness
  Oft dispelleth in a dream.

---

In his view the lively dream sets
  Hills and vales in verdure bright;
Where the gaily-prattling streamlets
  Sparkle in the morning-light.

Hark! the holy bell is swinging,
  Calling to the house of prayer;
Loud resounds the solemn ringing
  Through the still and balmy air.

Youths and maids from glen and mountain
  Hasten at the hallowed sound,
Old men rest by shady fountain,
  Children lay them on the ground.

Now the pious throng is streaming
  Through the temple’s portal low;
Rapture in each face is beaming
  Pure devotion’s genuine glow.

Fervently the hoary pastor,
  Humbly bent before his God,
Supplicates their heavenly Master
  Them to lead on Sion’s road;

Owns that all have widely erred
  From the true, the narrow way,
That with Him we have no merit,
  And no claim of right can lay.

Loud then rise in choral measure
  Hymns of gratitude and praise,
As, inspired with solemn pleasure,
  Unto Heaven their strains they raise.

Now the grave discourse beginneth,
  Which, ungraced by rhetoric’s arts,
Quick the rapt attention winneth,
  While it glorious truths imparts;

While it tells how kind is Heaven
  To the race of him who fell;
How of old the Son was given
  To redeem from pains of hell;

How the Holy Spirit abideth
  In their hearts that hear his call;
How our God for all provideth,
  How His mercy’s over all;

How, beyond the grave extending,
  Regions lie of endless bliss;
How our thoughts on that world bending,
  We should careless be of this.

Once again the raised hymn pealeth
  Notes of joy and jubilee,
Praising Him who truth revealeth,
  Dweller of Eternity!

---

Night’s dim shades were now retreating,
  Over Andes rose the day,
On the hills the kids’ loud bleating
  Lingering slumber chased away.

Birds their merry notes were singing,
  Joyous at the approach of morn—
Morn that, light and fragrance flinging,
  Earth doth cherish and adorn.

Waked by Nature’s general chorus
  Selkirk quits his lonely couch,
While o’er heaven run colours glorious,
  Heralding the sun’s approach.

Still the vision hovers o’er him,
  Still the heavenly strains he hears,
Setting those bright realms before him
  Where are wiped away all tears.

All this vain and transitory
  State of mankind here on earth,
Weighed with that exceeding glory,
  Now he deems as nothing worth.

Low he bends in adoration,
  As the sun ascends the sky;
Doubt and fear and lamentation
  With the night’s last shadows fly.

A Moonlight Scene

Conceived and Commenced When Passing Over Putney Bridge on a Fine Moonlight Night in Summer

The moonbeams on the lake are glancing,
The nimble bark is now advancing,
  That for this grove is bound.
Ye gentle clouds, ah! hear a lover,
And hasten not the moon to cover
  And darkness pour around.

Doth fancy sport, or do I hear her,
As nearer still she comes and nearer,
  Cutting the billows bright?—
How still! scarce even a light breeze flying!
Earth, water, air, at peace are lying
  Beneath the calm moonlight.

My heart beats high, my soul rejoices,
Methinks I hear their merry voices—
  She soon will reach the shore.—
Ah me! my hopes, my hopes are failing,
Yon sable cloud is onwards sailing—
  The moon it covers o’er.

Now o’er the lake they dubious wander,
And on some part remote may strand her,
  Unless they aid obtain,—
I’ll wave a signal from the summit
Of yon high bank, and haply from it
  Some guidance they may gain.

The cloud moves on, the moonlight beameth,
And o’er the lovely lady streameth,
  Upon her lofty stand.
With joyful shout the boatmen greet her,
Her anxious lover hastes to meet her,
  And eager springs to land.

Lines Written in a Lady’s Album

In those blest days, when free from care
And happy as the birds in air,
  I roamed the hills and dales,
By purling rills oft passed the day,
Or on green banks recumbent lay,
  Listening the shepherds’ tales,

My fancy, rising on the wing,
Would visions fair before me bring,
  Of castles high, and towers,
With knights in radiant panoply,
And ladies of the beaming eye,
  Within their fragrant bowers;

Or lead me thence away to shades
Of woods, and show me, in the glades,
  The cottages serene,
Where Peace dwelt with Contend, among
The happy, gay Arcadian throng
  That tenanted the scene.

But whether cot or tower arose
In vision, at the dawn or close
  Of summer-days, to me,
The lovely form of woman still
Shone bright by dale, by mead, by rill,
  Amid my extacy.

I saw her robed in every grace
With youth, with loveliness of face,
  And virtue’s gentle eye;
And from her tongue heard accents fall,
That would the rudest heart enthral,
  And raise emotions high.

But like the Eastern prince, who loved
The pictured form of one that moved
  In life full many a year
Ere he beheld the light, I deemed
The lovely form of which I dreamed
  Would ne’er to me appear.

And years came on, and years went by,
And yet I never found me nigh
  My youthful vision bright.
I said,—I might as well, I ween,
Expect to see the Fairy-queen
  Descend, to bless my sight.

But often, when we hope it least,
And when our search has well nigh ceased,
  Good fortune will befall:
So I one evening saw a maid,
Who every grace and charm displayed
  That decked my Ideal.

Her portrait here I need not show.
For, reader, thou must surely know
  That peerless, gentle maid:
To her these lines I consecrate;
And if she smiles I’ll deem, elate,
  My toil far overpaid.

To Amanda

[These are the verses quoted in the Introduction to the “Tales and Popular Fictions.” The author was very young when he wrote them; and Amanda was, like Beatrice and Laura, a mere donna di mente, having no real existence.]

As when a storm in vernal skies
  The face of day doth stain,
And o’er the smiling landscape flies,
  With mist and drizzling rain;
If chance the sun look through the shower
  O’er flowery hill and dale,
Reviving Nature owns his power,
  And softly sighs the gale:

So when, by anxious thoughts oppressed,
  My soul sinks in despair,
When smiling hope deserts my breast,
  And all is darkness there;
If chance Amanda’s form appear,
  The gloom is chased away,
My soul once more her soft smiles cheer,
  And joy resumes his sway.

Then, dear Amanda, since thy smile
  Has power all gloom to charm,
Oh! ever thus my cares beguile,
  And guard my soul from harm.
Let Hymen’s bands our fates unite,
  What bliss may then be ours!—
Our days will glide, like streamlets bright,
  O’erhung with fragrant flowers.

Lines

Written at Home in the Spring of 1842

Fair Tibur, once the Muses’ home,
  Before us lay; around
Was spread the plain which mighty Rome
  Oft saw with victory crowned.

The sun rode high, the sky was clear,
  The lark poured forth his strain,
And flowers, the firstlings of the year,
  Shed fragrance o’er the plain.

A gentle lady turned on me
  Her bright expressive eyes,
And bade the flame of poesy
  Within my bosom rise.

’Twas then I felt, I felt, alas!
  How Time has dealt with me,
And how the rays of fancy pass,
  And vanish utterly.

For time has been when such a view
  And mandate of the fair,
With images of brightest hue,
  Had fill’d the land and air:

While now I strive, and strive in vain,
  To twine poetic flowers,
Since from me Time away has ta’en
  Imagination’s powers.

Then lady, be thou gentle still,
  Let pity sway thy breast;
Accept for deeds the fervent will
  To honour thy behest.

A Farewell

Farewell! farewell! the parting hour
  Is come, and I must leave thee!
Oh! ne’er may aught approach thy bower
  That might of bliss bereave thee!

But ever a perennial rill
  Of joy, so brightly flowing,
Keep each fair thought in fragrance still
  Within thy pure mind blowing.

For life all charm had lost for me,
  My thoughts were only sadness,
When fortune led me unto thee
  To taste once more of gladness.—

I’ve seen the sullen shades of night
  Fair nature’s face concealing,
And marked how scattered rays of light
  Came morn’s approach revealing.

The light increased, the orb of day
  Clomb to the mountain’s summit;
And vale and plain, and stream and bay,
  Drew life and lustre from it.

And as it towered in majesty,
  Light all around it shedding,
It seemed a monarch, seated high,
  Bliss through his realms wide spreading.

All nature joyed; I felt my heart
  Distend, and fill with pleasure;
For heavenly light and warmth impart
  A bliss we cannot measure.

This glorious sun to me art thou,
  Whose light all gloom dispelleth,
Before whose majesty I bow
  When he his power revealeth.

Thy golden locks, thine eyes so blue,
  Thy smile so sweetly playing,
Were those first shafts of light that flew,
  The gloom of night warraying.

But when, more intimately known,
  I found not only beauty,
But genius, taste, and truth, thine own,
  Combined with filial duty:

Then rose the sun, o’er all my soul
  In full effulgence beaming,
And tides of joy began to roll
  Beneath his radiance gleaming.—

Time still his noiseless course pursues
  With unremitting vigour,
And lovely Spring each year renews
  The waste of Winter’s rigour.

Were mine the power, thus, like Time,
  To wake again life’s flowers,
And days recall of youthful prime
  Passed in the Muses’ bowers;

Then, lovely maiden! fancy-free,
  Rich in each mental treasure,
In me thou wouldst a votary see—
  Thy will would be my pleasure.

But while such bliss might not be mine,
  A friendship pure and holy
I offered at the hallowed shrine,
  To which my heart turned solely.—

When distant from thee many a mile,
  High waves between us swelling,
I’ll think upon thy lovely smile,
  Of pure emotion telling.

The sky will show me thy blue eye;
  The whispering breeze of even
Recall that voice, whose melody
  Oft lapped my soul in heaven!

The sinking sun thy ringlets’ gold
  Will show; but memory only
The treasures of thy mind unfold
  To me when musing lonely.

Oh! may I hope that memory,
  That power for ever changing,
Will make thee sometimes think on me,
  O’er distant mountains ranging?

Say me not nay; let Fancy cheat
  My soul with bland illusion;
And let not Doubt my vision sweet
  Dispel by rude intrusion.

Verses

WRITTEN AT BATH IN 1840, FOR A LITTLE BOY WHO KEPT AN ALBUM, AND WAS A GREAT ADMIRER OF ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRY MEN.

Had the kind Muse, young friend, on me
  Her pleasing gifts bestowed,
And taught to tread of poesy
  The smooth and flowery road;

Then should the deeds of Robin Hood,
  And Little John, so bold,
And of the Friar, stout and good,
  In numbers high be told.

The merry greenwood should resound
  With feats of archery,
And antlered deer along should bound
  So light and gracefully!

But vain the hopes: ’gainst Fate’s decrees
  To struggle I must cease;
I only can write histories
  Of England, Rome, and Greece.

Father Cuddy’s Song

In the Legend of Clough Na Cuddy

    Quam pulchra sunt ova,
    Cum alba et nova
In stabulo scite leguntur;
    Et à Margery bella,
    Quæ festiva puella!
Pinguis lardi cum frustis coquuntur.

    Ut belles in prato
    Aprico et lato
Sub sole tam læte renident,
    Ova tosta, in mensa
    Mappa bene extensa,
Nitidissima lance consident.

Translation

    Oh! ’tis eggs are a treat,
    When so white and so sweet
From under the manger they’re taken,
    And by fair Margery,
    Och! ’tis she’s full of glee,
They are fried with fat rashers of bacon.

    Just like daisies all spread
    O’er a broad sunny mead,
In the sunbeams so beauteously shining,
    Are fried eggs fair displayed
    On a dish, when we’ve laid
The cloth and are thinking of dining.

The Praises of Mazenderân

From the Shâh-Nâmeh of Ferdousee

[The object of this version was to give a correct idea of the animated anapæstic measure in which the Shâh-Nâmeh is written. Our knowledge of Persian was extremely slight; but a friendly Orientalist gave us a faithful line-for-line translation, which we versified, and he and Ram Mohun Roy then compared our version with the original.]

His hand from the lute hath its melody drawn,
And thus rose the song of Mazenderân:—
  May Mazenderân, the land of my birth,
Its hills and its dales, be e’er famed o’er the earth:
For evermore blooms in its gardens the rose,
On its hills nods the tulip, the hyacinth blows;
Its air ever fragrant, its earth flourishing,
Cold or heat is not felt,—’tis perpetual spring.
The nightingale’s lays in the gardens resound;
On the sides of the mountains the stately deer bound,
In search evermore of their pastime and food;
With fragrance and colour each season’s bedewed;
Its streams of rose-water unceasingly roll,
Whose perfume doth gladness diffuse o’er the soul.
In November, December, and January,
Full of tulips the ground thou mayest everywhere see;
The springs, unexhausted, flow all through the year;
The hawk at his chase everywhere doth appear.
The region of bliss is adorned all o’er
With dinars, with rich stuffs, and with all costly store;
The idol-adorers with fine gold are crowned,
And girdles of gold gird the heroes renowned.
Whoe’er hath not dwelt in that region so bright,
His soul knows no pleasure, his heart no delight.

Footnotes

1 The mark on Adam’s Peak in Ceylon is, by the Buddhists, ascribed to Buddha; by the Mohammedans, to Adam. It reminds one of the story of the lady and the vicar, viewing the moon through a telescope; they saw in it, as they thought, two figures inclined toward each other: “Methinks,” says the lady, “they are two fond lovers, meeting to pour forth their vows by earth-light.” “Not at all,” says the vicar, taking his turn at the glass; “they are the steeples of two neighbouring churches.”

2 Faerie Queene, III. c. iii. st. 8, 9, 10, 11. Drayton, Poly-Olbion, Song VI. We fear, however, that there is only poetic authority for this belief. Mr. Todd merely quotes Warton, who says that Spenser borrowed it from Giraldus Cambrensis, who picked it up among the romantic traditions propagated by the Welsh bards. The reader will be, perhaps, surprised to hear that Giraldus says nothing of the demons. He mentions the sounds, and endeavours to explain them by natural causes. Hollingshed indeed (l. i. c. 24.) says, “whereof the superstitious sort do gather many toys.”

3 The Haddock.

4 For a well-chosen collection of examples, see the very learned and philosophical preface of the late Mr. Price to his edition of Warton’s History of English Poetry, p. 28 et seq.

5 In the Middle Ages the gods of the heathens were all held to be devils.

6 Φηρ is the Ionic form of θηρ, and is nearly related to the German thier, beast, animal. The Scandinavian dyr, and the Anglo-Saxon old english deoold english r, have the same signification; and it is curious to observe the restricted sense which this last has gotten in the English deer.

7 Preface to Warton, p. 44; and Breton philologists furnish us with an etymon; not, indeed, of Fairy, but of Fada. “Fada, fata, etc.,” says M. de Cambry (Monumens Celtiques), “come from the Breton mat or mad, in construction fat, good; whence the English, maid.”

8 D’Herbelot titre Mergian says, “C’est du nom de cette Fée que nos anciens romans ont formé celui de Morgante la Déconnue.” He here confounds Morgana with Urganda, and he has been followed in his mistake. D’Herbelot also thinks it possible that Féerie may come from Peri; but he regards the common derivation from Fata as much more probable. Cambrian etymologists, by the way, say that Morgain is Mor Gwynn, the White Maid.

9 These two instances are given by Mdlle. Amélie Bosquet (La Normandie Romanesque, etc. p. 91.) from Dom Martin, Rel. des Gaulois, ii. ch. 23 and 24.

10 Gryphus ternarii numeri.

11 De Bell. Got. i. 25.

12 See below, France. It is also remarked that in some of the tales of the Pentamerone, the number of the Fate is three; but to this it may be replied, that in Italy every thing took a classic tinge, and that the Fate of those tales are only Maghe; so in the Amadigi of Bernardo Tasso we meet with La Fata Urganda. In Spain and France the number would rather seem to have been seven. Cervantes speaks of “los siete castillos de las siete fadas;” in the Rom. de la Infantina it is said, “siete fadas me fadaron, en brazos de una ama mia,” and the Fées are seven in La Belle au Bois dormant. In the romance, however, of Guillaume au Court-nez, the Fées who carry the sleeping Renoart out of the boat are three in number.—See Grimm Deutsche Mythologie, p. 383.

13 A MS. of the 13th century, quoted by Grimm (ut sup. p. 405), thus relates the origin of Aquisgrani (Aix la Chapelle): Aquisgrani dicitur Ays, et dicitur eo, quod Karolus tenebat ibi quandam mulierem fatatam, sive quandam fatam, quæ alio nomine nimpha vel dea vel adriades (l. dryas) appellatur, et ad hanc consuetudinem habebat, et eam cognoscebat; et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad eam vivebat ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur. Contigit dum quadam vice ad ipsam accessisset ut cum ea delectaretur, radius solis intravit os ejus, et tunc Karolus vidit granum auri lingue ejus affixum, quod fecit abscindi et contingenti (l. in continenti) mortua est, nec postea revixit.

14 “Aissim fadaro tres serors
 En aquella ora qu’ ieu sui natz
 Que totz temps fos enamoratz.”

—Folquet de Romans.

(Thus three sisters fated, in the hour that I was born, that I should be at all times in love.)

“Aissi fuy de nueitz fadatz sobr’ un puegau.”—Guilh. de Poitou. (Thus was I fated by night on a hill.)—Grimm, ut sup. p. 383.

15 See our Virgil, Excurs. ix.

16 Following the analogy of the Gotho-German tongues, zauberei, Germ. trylleri, Dan. trolleri, Swed. illusion, enchantment. The Italian word is fattucchieria.

17 Here too there is perhaps an analogy with cavalry, infantry, squierie, and similar collective terms.

18 The Faerie Queene was published some years before the Midsummer Night’s Dream. Warton (Obs. on the Faerie Queene) observes: “It appears from Marston’s Satires, printed 1598, that the Faerie Queene occasioned many publications in which Fairies were the principal actors.

Go buy some ballad of the Faery King.

—Ad Lectorem.

Out steps some Faery with quick motion,
And tells him wonders of some flowerie vale—
Awakes, straight rubs his eyes, and prints his tale.
          B. III. Sat. 6.”

19 It is in this century that we first meet with Fairy as a dissyllable, and with a plural. It is then used in its fourth and last sense.

20 The Fata Morgana of the Straits of Messina is an example; for the name of Morgana, whencesoever derived, was probably brought into Italy by the poets.

21 Dobenek, des deutschen Mittelalters und Volksglauben. Berlin, 1816.

22 See D’Herbelot, Richardson’s Dissertation, Ouseley’s Persian Miscellanies, Wahl in the Mines de l’Orient, Lane, Thousand and One Nights, Forbes, Hatim Taï, etc., etc.

23 Ormuzd employed himself for three thousand years in making the heavens and their celestial inhabitants, the Ferohers, which are the angels and the unembodied souls of all intelligent beings. All nature is filled with Ferohers, or guardian angels, who watch over its various departments, and are occupied in performing their various tasks for the benefit of mankind.—Erskine on the Sacred Books and Religion of the Parsis, in the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. ii. p. 318. The Feroher bears in fact a very strong resemblance to the Genius of the ancient Roman religion: see our Mythology of Greece and Italy.

24 This word is pronounced Perry or rather Parry.

25Sanskrit writing Hence it follows that the very plausible idea of the Peri having been the same with the Feroher cannot be correct.

26 Translated by Mr. Duncan Forbes. It is to be regretted that he has employed the terms Fairies and Demons instead of Peries and Deevs.

27 See Lane, Thousand and One Nights, i. p. 21, seq.

28 The Cahermân Nâmeh is a romance in Turkish. Cahermân was the father of Sâm, the grandfather of the celebrated Roostem.

29 It is in the Cahermân Nâmeh that this circumstance occurs.

30 Sanskrit writing The Tahmuras Nâmeh is also in Turkish. It and the Cahermân Nâmeh are probably translations from the Persian. As far as we are aware, Richardson is the only orientalist who mentions these two romances.

31 Sanskrit writing It signifies ‘thirty birds’ and is thought to be the roc of the Arabs. The poet Sâdee, to express the bounty of the Almighty says

His liberal board he spreadeth out so wide,
On Kâf the Seemurgh is with food supplied.

The Seemurgh probably belongs to the original mythology of Persia, for she appears in the early part of the Shâh Nâmeh. When Zâl was born to Sâm Nerimân, his hair proved to be white. The father regarding this as a proof of Deev origin, resolved to expose him, and sent him for that purpose to Mount Elburz. Here the poor babe lay crying and sucking his fingers till he was found by the Seemurgh, who abode on the summit of Elburz, as she was looking for food for her young ones. But God put pity into her heart, and she took him to her nest and reared him with her young. As he grew up, the caravans that passed by, spread the fame of his beauty and his strength, and a vision having informed Sâm that he was his son, he set out for Elburz to claim him from the Seemurgh. It was with grief that Zâl quitted the maternal nest. The Seemurgh, when parting with her foster-son, gave him one of her feathers, and bade him, whenever he should be in trouble or danger, to cast it into the fire, and he would have proof of her power; and she charged him at the same time strictly never to forget his nurse.

32 See Arabian Romance.

33 Sanskrit writing a pearl. Life, soul also, according to Wilkins.

34 Ferdousee’s great heroic poem. It is remarkable that the Peries are very rarely spoken of in this poem. They merely appear in it with the birds and beasts among the subjects of the first Iranian monarchs.

35 Chap. xx. translation of Jonathan Scott, 1799.

36 See below, Shetland.

37 i. e. possessed, insane. It is like the νυμφοληπτος of the Greeks.

38 It must be recollected that the Peries are of both sexes: we have just spoken of Peri kings, and of the brothers of Merjân.

39 In the Shâh Nâmeh it is said of Prince Siyawush, that when he was born he was bright as a Peri. We find the poets everywhere comparing female beauty to that of superior beings. The Greeks and Romans compared a lovely woman to Venus, Diana, or the nymphs; the Persians to a Peri; the ancient Scandinavians would say she was Frith sem Alfkone, “fair as an Alf-woman;” and an Anglo-Saxon poet says of Judith that she was Elf-sheen, or fair as an Elf. In the Lay of Gugemer it is said,
Dedenz la Dame unt trovée
Ki de biauté resanbloit Fée.

The same expression occurs in Méon (3, 412); and in the Romant de la Rose we meet, jure que plus belle est que fée (10, 425). In the Pentamerone it is said of a king’s son, lo quale essenno bello comme a no fato.

40 Mines de l’Orient, vol. iii. p. 40. To make his version completely English, M. von Hammer uses the word Fairies; we have ventured to change it.

41 In Purchas’ Pilgrims, vol. i., quoted by Sir W. Ouseley.

42 Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W. Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the court-poet of Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the Arabs of the Desert.

43 The Jinn are mentioned in the Kurân and also in Antar.

44 See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, seq. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, passim.

45 Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence. The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius.

46 “When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn.”—Kurân. chap. xviii. v. 48. Worship is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, “Thou hast created me of fire, and hast created him of earth.”—Ib. vii. 11; xxxviii. 77.

47 It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say, “God speed you, gentlemen!” For the power of iron, see Scandinavia.

48 The Arabs when they pour water on the ground, let down a bucket into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, “Permission!” (Destoor!) or, Permission, ye blessed! (Destoor, yâ mubârakeen!)

49 For the preceding account of the Jinn, we are wholly indebted to Lane’s valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30, seq.

50 The first is given by Lane, the other two by D’Herbelot.

51 On the subjects mentioned in this paragraph, see Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ii. and iii.

52 In the Amadigi of B. Tasso, she is La Fata Urganda.

53 Lancelot is regarded as probably the earliest prose romance of chivalry. It was first printed in 1494. The metrical romance called La Charrette, of which Lancelot is the hero, was begun by Chrestien de Troyes, who died in 1191, and finished by Geoffrey de Ligny. We may here observe that almost all the French romances of chivalry were written originally in verse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, principally by Chrestien de Troyes and Huon de Villeneuve. The prose romances in general were made from them in the fifteenth century.

54 For while it was in hand, by loving of an elf,
For all his wondrous skill was cozened of himself:
For walking with his Fay, her to the rock he brought,
In which he oft before his nigromancies wrought.
And going in thereat, his magics to have shown,
She stopt the cavern’s mouth with an enchanted stone,
Whose cunning strongly crossed, amazed while he did stand,
She captive him conveyed unto the Fairy-land.
          Drayton, Poly-Olb. Song IV.—See above, p. 2.

55 La damoiselle qui Lancelot porta au lac estoit une fée, et en cellui temps estoient appellées fees toutes celles qui sentremcloient denchantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principallement en la Grand Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoi elles estoient en jeunesse, et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses, comment elles divisoient.

56 La dame qui le nourissoit ne conversoit que en forest, et estoit au plain de ung tertre plus bas assez que celui ou le roy Ban estoit mort: en ce lieu ou il sembloit que le bois fust grant et parfont (profond) avoit la dame moult de belles maisons et moult riches; et au plain dessoubs y avoit une gente petite riviere moult plantureuse de poissons; et estoit ce lieu si cele et secret que bien difficille estoit a homme de le trouver, car la semblance du dit lac le couvroit si que il ne pouvoit estre apperceu. And farther, La damoiselle nestoit mie seulle, mais y avoit grande compaignie de chevaliers et de dames et damoiselles.

57 Vol. i. ch. 42.

58 Vol. iii. ch. 31.

59 Tristan was written in verse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose romance was first printed in 1489.

60 Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century, according to Le Grand; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort.

61 Composed—for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le Grand’s and Way’s Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he “seems to have given a faithful as well as spirited version of this old Breton story,” is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable additions of Chestre’s own invention, or derived from other sources. These Lais will be considered under Brittany.

62 Thus we ourselves say the Príncess Royal, éxtreme need, etc. This, by the way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it is easily moveable.

63 As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and elsewhere mark the feminine e and the change of accent.

64 Rode—complexion; from red.

65 Occient—occident or océan? The Gascon peasantry call the Bay of Biscay La Mer d’Occient. The Spaniards say Mar Oceano.

66 It is strange to find the English poet changing the Avalon of the Lai de Lanval into the well-known island of Oléron. It is rather strange too, that Mr. Ritson, who has a note on “Oliroun,” did not notice this.

67 The Lai ends thus:
Od (avec) li sen vait en Avalun,
Ceo nus recuntent le Bretun;
En une isle que mut est beaus,
La fut ravi li dameiseaus,
Nul humme nen ot plus parler,
Ne jeo nen sai avant cunter.

In Graelent it is said that the horse of the knight used to return annually to the river where he lost his master. The rest is Thomas Chestre’s own, taken probably from the well-known story in Gervase of Tilbury.

68 Huon, Hue, or Hullin (for he is called by these three names in the poetic romance) is, there can be little doubt, the same person with Yon king of Bordeaux in the Quatre Filz Aymon, another composition of Huon de Villeneuve, and with Lo Re Ivone, prince or duke of Guienne in Bojardo and Ariosto. See the Orl. Inn. l. i. c. iv. st. 46. I Cinque Canti, c. v. st. 42.

69 Otnit was supposed to have been written by Wolfram von Eschembach, in the early part of the thirteenth century. It is possibly much older. Huon de Bordeaux was, it is said, written in French verse by Huon de Villeneuve, some time in the same century. It does not appear in the list of Huon de Villeneuve’s works given by Mons. de Roquefort. At the end of the prose romance we are told that it was written at the desire of Charles seigneur de Rochefort, and completed on the 29th of January, 1454.

70 Qui a de long seizes lieues, mais tant est plain de faerie et chose estrange que peu de gens y passent qui n’y soient perdus ou arrestez, pour ce que la dedans demeure un roi, Oberon le fayé. Il n’a que trois pieds de hauteur; il est tout bossu; mais il a un visage angelique; il n’est homme mortel que le voye que plaisir ne prengne a le regarder tant a beau visage. Ja si tost ne serez entrez au bois se par la voulez passer qu’il ne trouve maniere de parler a vous, si ainsi que a luy parliez perdu estus a tousjours sans jamais plus revenir; ne il ne sera en vous, car se par le bois passez, soit de long ou de travers, vous le trouverez tousjours au devant de vous, et vous sera impossible que eschappiez nullement que ne parliez a luy, car ses parolles sont tant plaisantes a ouyr qu’il n’est homme mortel qui de luy se puisse eschapper. Et se chose est qu’il voye que nullement ne vueillez parler a luy, il sera moult troublé envers vous. Car avant que du bois soyez parti vous fera pleuvoir, ventrer, gresiller, et faire si tres-mervueilleux orages, tonnerres, et esclairs, que advis vous sera que le monde doive finir. Puis vous sera advis que par devant vous verrez une grande riviere courante, noire et parfonde a grand merveilles; mais sachez, sire, que bien y pourrez aller sans mouiller les pieds de vostre cheval, car ce n’est que fantosme et enchantemens que le nain vous fera pour vous cuider avoir avec lui, et se chose est que bien tenez propos en vous de non parler a luy, bien pourrez eschapper, etc.

71 Le Nain Fee s’en vint chevauchant par le bois, et estoit vestu d’une robbe si tres-belle et riche, que merveilles sera ce racompter pour la grand et merveilleuse richesse que dessus estoit, car tant y avoit de pierres precieuses, que la grand clarté qu’elles jettoient estoit pareille au soleil quant il luit bien clair. Et avec ce portoit un moult bel arc en son poing, tant riche que on ne le sauroit estimer tant estoit beau. Et la fleche qu’il portoit est it de telle sorte et maniere, qu’il n’estoit beste au monde qu’il vousist souhaiter qu’a ieelle fleche elle ne s’arrestast. Il avoit a son cou un riche cor, lequel estoit pendu a deux riches attaches de fin or.

72 This sort of transformation appears to have been a usual mode of punishing in a Fairy land. It may have come from Circe, but the Thousand and One Nights is full of such transformations. For luyton or lutin, see below, France.

73 We are only acquainted with this romance through Mr. Dunlop’s analysis.

74 Avalon was perhaps the Island of the Blest, of Celtic mythology, and then the abode of the Fees, through the Breton Korrigan. Writers, however, seem to be unanimous in regarding it and Glastonbury as the same place, called an isle, it is stated, as being made nearly such by the “river’s embracement.” It was named Avalon, we are told, from the British word Aval, an apple, as it abounded with orchards; and Ynys gwydrin; Saxon Glaold english sold english tn-ey, glassy isle; Latin, Glastonia, from the green hue of the water surrounding it.

75 See Tales and Popular Fictions, ch. ix., for a further account of Ogier.

76 Tant nagea en mer qu’il arriva pres du chastel daymant quon nomme le chasteau davallon, qui nest gueres deca paradis terrestre la ou furent ravis en une raye de feu Enoc et Helye, et la ou estoit Morgue la faye, qui a sa naissance lui avoit donne de grands dons, nobles et vertueux.

77 Dieu te mande que si tost que sera nuit que tu ailles en ung chasteau que tu verras luire, et passe de bateau en bateau tant que tu soies en une isle que tu trouveras. Et quand tu seras en lisle tu trouveras une petite sente, et de chose que tu voies leans ne tesbahis de rien. Et adone Ogier regarda mais il ne vit rien.

78 Lequel estoit luiton, et avoit este ung grant prince; mais le roi Artus le conquist, si fust condampne a estre trois cens ans cheval sans parler ung tou seul mot; mais apres les trois cens ans, il devoit avoir la couronue de joye de laquelle ils usuient en faerie.

79 Et quand Morgue approcha du dit chasteau, les Faes vindrent au devant dogier, chantant le plus melodieusement quon scauroit jamais ouir, si entra dedans la salle pour se deduire totallement. Adonc vist plusieurs dames Faees aournees et toutes courronnees de couronnes tressomptueusement faictes, et moult riches, et tout jour chantoient, dansoient, et menoient vie tresjoyeuse, sans penser a nulle quelconque meschante chose, fors prandre leurs mondains plaisirs.

80 Tant de joyeulx passetemps lui faisoient les dames Faees, quil nest creature en ce monde quil le sceust imaginer ne penser, car les ouir si doulcement chanter il lui sembloit proprement quil fut en Paradis, si passoit temps de jour en jour, de sepmaine en sepmaine, tellement que ung an ne lui duroit pas ung mois.

81 Et quand ils furent tous deux montes, toutes les dames du chasteau vindrent a la departie dogier, par le commandement du roi Artus et de Morgue la fae, et sonnerent une aubade dinstrumens, la plus melodieuse chose a ouir que on entendit jamais; puis, l’aubade achevee, chanterent de gorge si melodieusement que cestoit une chose si melodieuse que il sembloit proprement a Ogier quil estoit en Paradis. De rechief, cela fini, ils chanterent avecques les instrumens par si doulce concordance quil sembloit mieulx chose divine que humaine.

82 Imp tree is a grafted tree. Sir W. Scott queries if it be not a tree consecrated to the imps or fiends. Had imp that sense so early? A grafted tree had perhaps the same relation to the Fairies that the linden in Germany and the North had to the dwarfs.

83 Te or tew (Drayton, Poly-Olb. xxv.) is to draw, to march; from A.S. old english teóold english gan, old english tuold english gan, old english teón (Germ. ziehen), whence tug, team.

84 Beattie probably knew nothing of Orfeo and Heurodis, and the Fairy Vision in the Minstrel (a dream that would never have occurred to any minstrel) was derived from the Flower and the Leaf, Dryden’s, not Chaucer’s, for the personages in the latter are not called Fairies. In neither are they Elves.

85 Gönnen, Germ.

86 The “countrie of Faerie,” situated in a “privee wone,” plainly accords rather with the Feeries of Huon de Bordeaux than with Avalon, or the region into which Dame Heurodis was taken.

87 That is, elfe is alive.

88 These Fairies thus coupled with Nymphs remind us of the Fairies of the old translators. Spenser, in the Shepherd’s Calendar, however, had united them before, as

Nor elvish ghosts nor ghastly owls do flee,
But friendly Faeries met with many Graces,
And light-foot Nymphs.—Æg. 6.

89 “Spenser’s Fairy Queen, which is one of the grossest misnomers in romance or history, bears no features of the Fairy nation.”—Gifford, note on B. Jonson, vol. ii. p. 202.

90 Edda signifies grandmother. Some regard it as the feminine of othr, or odr, wisdom.

91 This language is so called because still spoken in Iceland. Its proper name is the Norræna Tunga (northern tongue). It was the common language of the whole North.

92 See Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ix.

93 It was first published by Resenius in 1665.

94 By the Æser are understood the Asiatics, who with Odin brought their arts and religion into Scandinavia. This derivation of the word, however, is rather dubious. Though possibly the population and religion of Scandinavia came originally from Asia there seems to be no reason whatever for putting any faith in the legend of Odin. It is not unlikely that the name of their gods, Æser, gave birth to the whole theory. It is remarkable that the ancient Etrurians also should have called the gods Æsar.

95 So the lötunn or Giant Vafthrudnir to Odin in the Vafthrudnismal.—Strophe vii.

96 Thorlacius, Noget om Thor og hans Hammer, in the Skandinavisk Museum for 1803.

97 Thorlacius, ut supra, says the thundering Thor was regarded as particularly inimical to the Skovtrolds, against whom he continually employed his mighty weapon. He thinks that the Bidental of the Romans, and the rites connected with it, seem to suppose a similar superstition, and that in the well-known passage of Horace,
Tu parum castis inimica mittes
        Fulmina lucis,

the words parum castis lucis may mean groves or parts of woods, the haunt of unclean spirits or Skovtrolds, satyri lascivi et salaces. The word Trold will be explained below.

98 The Dark Alfs were probably different from the Duergar, yet the language of the prose Edda is in some places such as to lead to a confusion of them. The following passage, however, seems to be decisive:
Náir, Dvergar
Ok Döck-A’lfar.
          Hrafna-Galdr Othins, xxiv. 7.

Ghosts, Dwarfs
And Dark Alfs.

Yet the Scandinavian literati appear unanimous in regarding them as the same. Grimm, however, agrees with us in viewing the Döck-Alfar as distinct from the Duergar. As the abode of these last is named Svartálfaheimr, he thinks that the Svartálfar and the Duergar were the same.—Deutsche Mythologie, p. 413, seq. See below, Isle of Rügen.

99 The ash-tree, Yggdrasil, is the symbol of the universe, the Urdar-fount is the fount of light and heat, which invigorates and sustains it. A good representation of this myth is given in Mr. Bohn’s edition of Mallet’s “Northern Antiquities,” which the reader is recommended to consult.

100 This Grimm (ut sup.) regards as an error of the writer, who confounded the Döck and the Svartálfar.

101 See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 274.

102 The analogy of Deev, and other words of like import, might lead to the supposition of Spirit being the primary meaning of Alf.

103 See Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 248, second edition.

104 After the introduction of Christianity, Engel, angel, was employed for Alp in most proper names, as Engelrich, Engelhart, etc.

105 See MM. Grimm’s learned Introduction to their translation of the Irish Fairy Legends, and the Deutsche Mythologie of J. Grimm.

106 MM. Grimm suppose with a good deal of probability, that these are compounds formed to render the Greek ones, and are not expressive of a belief in analogous classes of spirits.

107 Some think, but with little reason, they were originally a part of the Finnish mythology, and were adopted into the Gothic system.

108 The giant Ymir is a personification of Chaos, the undigested primal matter. The sons of Börr (other personifications) slew him. Out of him they formed the world; his blood made the sea, his flesh the land, his bones the mountains; rocks and cliffs were his teeth, jaws, and broken pieces of bones; his skull formed the heavens.

109 Gudmund Andreas in notis ad Völuspá.

110 That they are not insensible to kindness one of the succeeding tales will show.

111 The habitual reader of the northern and German writers, or even our old English ones, will observe with surprise his gradually diminished contempt for many expressions now become vulgar. He will find himself imperceptibly falling into the habit of regarding them in the light of their pristine dignity.

112 Skidbladni, like Pari Banou’s tent, could expand and contract as required. It would carry all the Æser and their arms, and when not in use it could be taken asunder and put in a purse. “A good ship,” says Ganglar, “is Skidbladni, but great art must have been employed in making it.” Mythologists say it is the clouds.

113 i. e. The Dripper.

114 i. e. The Bruiser or Crusher, from Myla, to bruise or crush. Little the Fancy know of the high connexions of their phrase Mill.

115 Edda Resenii, Dæmisaga 59.

116 Thorston’s Saga, c. 3, in the Kämpa Dater.

117 The Berserkers were warriors who used to be inflamed with such rage and fury at the thoughts of combats as to bite their shields, run through fire, swallow burning coals, and perform such like mad feats. “Whether the avidity for fighting or the ferocity of their nature,” says Saxo, “brought this madness on them, is uncertain.”

118 The northern nations believed that the tombs of their heroes emitted a kind of lambent flame, which was always visible in the night, and served to guard the ashes of the dead; they called it Hauga Elldr, or The Sepulchral Fire. It was supposed more particularly to surround such tombs as contained hidden treasures.—Bartholin, de Contempt. a Dan. Morte, p. 275.

119 Hervarar Saga passim. The Tirfing Saga would be its more proper appellation. In poetic and romantic interest it exceeds all the northern Sagas.

120 In Swedish Dverg also signifies a spider.

121 In the old Swedish metrical history of Alexander, the word Duerf occurs. The progress in the English word is as follows: Anglo-Saxon old english dþeoold english rold english g; thence dwerke;
A maid that is a messingere
And a dwerkè me brought here,
    Her to do socoúr.
          Lybeaus Disconus.

lastly, dwarf, as in old Swedish.

122 Danske Folkesagn, 4 vols. 12mo. Copenh. 1818-22.

123 Udvalgde Danske Viser fra Middelaldaren, 5 vols. 12mo. Copenh. 1812.

124 Svenska Folk-Visor från Forntiden, 3 vols. 8vo. Stockholm, 1814-16. We have not seen the late collection of Arvidsson named Svenska Fornsånger, in 3 vols. 8vo.

125 The reader will find a beautiful instance of a double Omquæd in the Scottish ballad of the Cruel Sister.

There were two sisters sat in a bower,
          Binnōrie o Binnōrie
There came a knight to be their wooer
  By the bonny mill-dams of Binnōrie.

And in the Cruel Brother,

There were three ladies played at the ba’,
  With a heigh ho and a lily gay;
There came a knight and played o’er them a’,
  As the primrose spreads so sweetly.

The second and fourth lines are repeated in every stanza.

126 These are the Swedish verses:
Det växte upp Liljor på begge deres graf,
Med äran och med dygd—
De växte tilsamman med alla sina blad.
J vinnen väl, J vinnen väl både rosor och liljor.
Det växte upp Rosor ur båda deras mun,
Med äran och med dygd—
De växte tilsammans i fagreste lund.
J vinnen väl, J vinnen väl både rosor och liljor.

127 Some readers may wish to know the proper mode of pronouncing such Danish and Swedish words as occur in the following legends. For their satisfaction we give the following information. J is pronounced as our y; when it comes between a consonant and a vowel, it is very short, like the y that is expressed, but not written, in many English words after c and g: thus kjær is pronounced very nearly as care: ö sounds like the German ö, or French eu: d after another consonant is rarely sounded, Trold is pronounced Troll: aa, which the Swedes write å, as o in more, tore. Aarhuus is pronounced Ore-hoos.

128 That is, Wise People or Conjurors. They answer to the Fairy-women of Ireland.

129 Afzelius is of opinion that this notion respecting the Hill-people is derived from the time of the introduction of Christianity into the north, and expresses the sympathy of the first converts with their forefathers, who had died without a knowledge of the Redeemer, and lay buried in heathen earth, and whose unhappy spirits were doomed to wander about these lower regions, or sigh within their mounds till the great day of redemption.

130 “About fifteen years ago,” says Ödman (Bahuslän, p. 80), “people used to hear, out of the hill under Gärun, in the parish of Tanum, the playing, as it were, of the very best musicians. Any one there who had a fiddle, and wished to play, was taught in an instant, provided they promised them salvation; but whoever did not do so, might hear them within, in the hill, breaking their violins to pieces, and weeping bitterly.” See Grimm. Deut. Myth. 461.

131 Arndt, Reise nach Schweden, iv. 241.

132 Svenska Folk-Visor, vol. iii. p. 159. There is a similar legend in Germany. A servant, one time, seeing one of the little ones very hard-set to carry a single grain of wheat, burst out laughing at him. In a rage, he threw it on the ground, and it proved to be the purest gold. But he and his comrades quitted the house, and it speedily went to decay.—Strack. Beschr. v. Eilsen, p. 124, ap. Grimm, Introd., etc., p. 90.

133 Thiele, vol. iv. p. 22. They are called Trolls in the original. As they had a king, we think they must have been Elves. The Dwarfs have long since abolished monarchy.

134 The greater part of what precedes has been taken from Afzelius in the Svenska Visor, vol. iii.

135 Thiele, iv. 26.

136 In the distinction which we have made between the Elves and Dwarfs we find that we are justified by the popular creed of the Norwegians.—Faye, p. 49, ap. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 412.

137 Svenska Visor, iii. 158, as sung in Upland and East Gothland.

138 Svenska Visor, iii. 165, from a MS. in the Royal Library. This and the preceding one are variations of the Danish Ballad of Elveskud, which has been translated by Dr. Jamieson (Popular Ballads, i. 219), and by Lewis in the Tales of Wonder. The Swedish editors give a third variation from East Gothland. A comparison of the two ballads with each other, and with the Danish one, will enable the reader to judge of the modifications a subject undergoes in different parts of a country.

139 Svenska Visor, iii. p. 170. This is the Elveshöj of the Danish ballads, translated by Jamieson (i. 225), and by Lewis. In the different Swedish variations, they are Hafsfruen, i. e. Mermaids, who attempt to seduce young men to their love by the offer of costly presents.

A Danish legend (Thiele, i. 22) relates that a poor man, who was working near Gillesbjerg, a haunted hill, lay down on it to rest himself in the middle of the day. Suddenly there appeared before him a beautiful maiden, with a gold cup in her hand. She made signs to him to come near, but when the man in his fright made the sign of the cross, she was obliged to turn round and then he saw her back that it was hollow.

140 Thiele, ii. 67. Framley is in Jutland. Svend (i. e. Swain) Fælling is a celebrated character in Danish tradition; he is regarded as a second Holger Danske, and he is the hero of two of the Kjempe Viser. In Sweden he is named Sven Färling or Fotling. Grimm has shown that he and Sigurd are the same person. Deutsche Mythologie, p. 345. In the Nibelungen Lied (st. 345) Sifret (Sigurd) gets the strength of twelve men by wearing the tarnkappe of the dwarf Albrich. Another tradition, presently to be mentioned, says it was from a Dwarf he got his strength, for aiding him in battle against another Dwarf. It is added, that when Svend came home in the evening, after his adventure with the Elle-maids, the people were drinking their Yule-beer, and they sent him down for a fresh supply. Svend went without saying anything, and returned with a barrel in each hand and one under each arm.

141 Thiele, iii. 43. Odense is in Funen.

142 Thiele, i. 109. (communicated). Such legends, as Mr. Thiele learned directly from the mouths of the peasantry, he terms oral; those he procured from his friends, communicated. Œsterhæsinge, the scene of this legend, is in the island of Funen.

143 Thiele, i. 118. (communicated). Ebeltoft is a village in North Jutland.

144 Thiele, iv. 32. From the circumstances, it would appear that these were Elves and not Dwarfs; but one cannot be positive in these matters.

145 Möen and Stevns are in Zealand. As Rügen does not belong to the Danish monarchy, the former tradition is probably the more correct one. Yet the latter may be the original one.

146 Bornholm is a holm, or small island, adjacent to Zealand.

147 The Elle-king of Stevns has his bedchamber in the wall of this church.

148 This is evidently the Frau Holle of the Germans.

149 The preceding particulars are all derived from M. Thiele’s work.

150 There is no etymon of this word. It is to be found in both the Icelandic and the Finnish languages; whether the latter borrowed or communicated it is uncertain. Ihre derives the name of the celebrated waterfall of Trollhæta, near Göttenburg, from Troll, and Haute Lapponice, an abyss. It therefore answers to the Irish Poul-a-Phooka. See Ireland.

151 In the following lines quoted in the Heimskringla, it would seem to signify the Dii Manes.

Tha gaf hann Trescegg Tröllum,
Torf-Einarr drap Scurfo.

Then gave he Trescegg to the Trolls,
Turf-Einarr slew Scurfo.

152 The ancient Gothic nation was called Troll by their Vandal neighbours (Junii Batavia, c. 27); according to Sir J. Malcolm, the Tartars call the Chinese Deevs. It was formerly believed, says Ihre, that the noble family of Troll, in Sweden, derived their name from having killed a Troll, that is, probably, a Dwarf.

153 Arndt, Reise nach Schweden, vol. iii. p. 8.

154 Like our Fairies the Trolls are sometimes of marvellously small dimensions: in the Danish ballad of Eline af Villenskov we read—
Del da meldte den mindste Trold,
Han var ikke större end en myre,
Her er kommet en Christen mand,
Den maa jag visseligen styre.

Out then spake the tinyest Troll,
No bigger than an emmet was he,
Hither is come a Christian man,
And manage him will I surelie.

155 Thiele, i. 36.

156 For this they seem to be indebted to their hat or cap. Eske Brok being one day in the fields, knocked off, without knowing it, the hat of a Dwarf who instantly became visible, and had, in order to recover it, to grant him every thing he asked. Thiele iii. 49. This hat answers to the Tarnkappe or Hel-kaplein of the German Dwarfs; who also become visible when their caps are struck off.

157 In the Danish ballad of Eline af Villenskov the hero is called Trolden graae, the Gray Trold, probably from the colour of his habiliments.

158 We deem it needless in future to refer to volume and page of Mr. Thiele’s work. Those acquainted with the original will easily find the legends.

159 We have ventured to omit the Omquæd. I styren väll de Runor! (Manage well the runes!) The final e in Thynnè is marked merely to indicate that it is to be sounded.

160 Runeslag, literally Rune-stroke. Runes originally signified letters, and then songs. They were of two kinds, Maalrunor (Speech-runes), and Troll-runor (Magic-runes). These last were again divided into Skaderunor (Mischief-runes) and Hjelprunor (Help-runes), of each of which there were five kinds. See Verelius’ notes to the Hervarar Saga, cap. 7.

The power of music over all nature is a subject of frequent recurrence in northern poetry. Here all the wild animals are entranced by the magic tones of the harp; the meads flower, the trees put forth leaves; the knight, though grave and silent, is attracted, and even if inclined to stay away, he cannot restrain his horse.

161 Rosendelund. The word Lund signifies any kind of grove, thicket, &c.

162 Not the island of Iceland, but a district in Norway of that name. By Berner-land, Geijer thinks is meant the land of Bern (Verona), the country of Dietrich, so celebrated in German romance.

163 Sabel och Mård. These furs are always mentioned in the northern ballads, as the royal rewards of distinguished actions.

164 This fine ancient Visa was taken down from recitation in West Gothland. The corresponding Danish one of Herr Tönne is much later.

165 Niebuhr, speaking of the Celsi Ramnes, says, “With us the salutation of blood relations was Willkommen stolze Vetter (Welcome, proud cousins) and in the Danish ballads, proud (stolt) is a noble appellation of a maiden.”—Römische Geschichte, 2d edit. vol. i. p. 316.

It may be added, that in English, proud and the synonymous term stout (stolz, stolt) had also the sense of noble, high-born.

Do now your devoir, yonge knightes proud.
          Knight’s Tale.

Up stood the queen and ladies stout.
          Launfal.

166 Men jag vet at sorge är tung.

167 Wain, our readers hardly need be informed, originally signified any kind of carriage: see Faerie Queene, passim. It is the Ang. Sax. þǽn, and not a contraction of waggon.

168 From Vermland and Upland.

169 This we suppose to be the meaning of hemmagifta, as it is that of hemgift, the only word approaching to it that we have met in our dictionary.

170 Brandcreatur, a word of which we cannot ascertain the exact meaning. We doubt greatly if the following hielmeta be helmets.

171 Grimm (Deut. Mythol. p. 435) has extracted this legend from the Bahuslän of Ödman, who, as he observes, and as we may see, relates it quite seriously, and with the real names of persons. It is we believe the only legend of the union of a man with one of the hill-folk.

172 “Three kings’ ransoms” is a common maximum with a Danish peasant when speaking of treasure.

173 “Rid paa det Bolde,
 Og ikke paa det Knolde.”

174 Oral. This is an adventure common to many countries. The church of Vigersted in Zealand has a cup obtained in the same way. The man, in this case, took refuge in the church, and was there besieged by the Trolls till morning. The bridge of Hagbro in Jutland got its name from a similar event. When the man rode off with the silver jug from the beautiful maiden who presented it to him, an old crone set off in pursuit of him with such velocity, that she would surely have caught him, but that providentially he came to a running water. The pursuer, however, like Nannie with Tam o’ Shanter, caught the horse’s hind leg, but was only able to keep one of the cocks of his shoe: hence the bridge was called Hagbro, i. e. Cock Bridge.

175 Oral. Tiis Lake is in Zealand. It is the general belief of the peasantry that there are now very few Trolls in the country, for the ringing of bells has driven them all away, they, like the Stille-folk of the Germans, delighting in quiet and silence. It is said that a farmer having found a Troll sitting very disconsolate on a stone near Tiis Lake, and taking him at first for a decent Christian man, accosted him with—“Well! where are you going, friend?” “Ah!” said he, in a melancholy tone, “I am going off out of the country. I cannot live here any longer, they keep such eternal ringing and dinging!”

“There is a high hill,” says Kalm (Resa, &c. p. 136), “near Botna in Sweden, in which formerly dwelt a Troll. When they got up bells in Botna church, and he heard the ringing of them, he is related to have said:

“Det är så godt i det Botnaberg at bo,
Vore ikke den leda Bjälleko.”

“Pleasant it were in Botnahill to dwell,
Were it not for the sound of that plaguey bell.”

176 This story is told by Rabelais with his characteristic humour and extravagance. As there are no Trolls in France, it is the devil who is deceived in the French version. A legend similar to this is told of the district of Lujhmân in Afghanistân (Masson, Narrative, etc., iii. 297); but there it was the Shâitan (Satan) that cheated the farmers. The legends are surely independent fictions.

177 Oral. Gudmanstrup is in Zealand. In Ouröe, a little island close to Zealand, there is a hill whence the Trolls used to come down and supply themselves with provisions out of the farmers’ pantries. Niel Jensen, who lived close to the hill, finding that they were making, as he thought, over free with his provisions, took the liberty of putting a lock on the door through which they had access. But he had better have left it alone, for his daughter grew stone blind, and never recovered her sight till the lock was removed.—Resenii Atlas, i. 10. There is a similar story in Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 55.

178 This legend is oral.

179 Tie stille, barn min!
          Imorgen kommer Fin,
          Fa’er din,
Og gi’er dig Esbern Snares öine og hjerte at lege med.

180 Oral. Kallundborg is in Zealand. Mr. Thiele says he saw four pillars at the church. The same story is told of the cathedral of Lund in Funen, which was built by the Troll Finn at the desire of St. Laurentius.

Of Esbern Snare, Holberg says, “The common people tell wonderful stories of him, and how the devil carried him off; which, with other things, will serve to prove that he was an able man.”

The German story of Rumpelstilzchen (Kinder and Haus-Märchen, No. 55) is similar to this legend. MM. Grimm, in their note on this story, notice the unexpected manner in which, in the Thousand and One Days, or Persian Tales, the princess Turandot learns the name of Calaf.

181 Wind och Veder!
Du har satt spiran spedar!

Others say it was

Blaster! sätt spiran väster!
Blester! set the pinnacle westwards!

Or,

Slät! sätt spiran rätt!
Slätt! set the pinnacle straight!

182 Afzelius Sago-häfder, iii. 83. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 515.

183 This event happened in Jutland. The Troll’s dread of thunder seems to be founded in the mythologic narratives of Thor’s enmity to the Trolls.

184 Groute, Danish Gröd, is a species of food like furmety, made of shelled oats or barley. It is boiled and eaten with milk or butter.

185 Hör du Plat,
Siig til din Kat,
At Knurremurre er död.

186 The scene of this story is in Zealand. The same is related of a hill called Ornehöi in the same island. The writer has heard it in Ireland, but they were cats who addressed the man as he passed by the churchyard where they were assembled.

187 This legend was orally related to Mr. Thiele.

188 Hülpher, Samlingen om Jämtland. Westeras, 1775. p. 210 ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 425.

189 Ödmans Bahuslän, ap. Grimm. Deut. Mythol. p. 426. Ödman also tells of a man who, as he was going along one day with his dog, came on a hill-smith at his work, using a stone as an anvil. He had on him a light grey coat and a black woollen hat. The dog began to bark at him, but he put on so menacing an attitude that they both deemed it advisable to go away.

190 Thiele, iv. 120. In both these legends we find the tradition of the artistic skill of the Duergar and of Völundr still retained by the peasantry: see Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 270.

191 Thiele, iv. 21. In Otmar’s Volksagen, there is a German legend of Peter Klaus, who slept a sleep of twenty years in the bowling green of the Kyffhäuser, from which Washington Irving made his Ripp van Winkle. We shall also find it in the Highlands of Scotland. It is the Irish legend of Clough na Cuddy, so extremely well told by Mr. C. Croker (to which, by the way, we contributed a Latin song), in the notes to which further information will be found. The Seven Sleepers seems to be the original.

192 Oral. See the Young Piper and the Brewery of Egg-shells in the Irish Fairy Legends, with the notes. The same story is also to be found in Germany where the object is to make the changeling laugh. The mother breaks an egg in two and sets water down to boil in each half shell. The imp then cries out: “Well! I’m as old as the Westerwald, but never before saw I any one cooking in egg-shells,” and burst out laughing at it. Instantly the true child was returned.—Kinder and Haus-Märchen, iii. 39. Grose also tells the story in his Provincial Glossary. The mother there breaks a dozen of eggs and sets the shells before the child, who says, “I was seven years old when I came to nurse, and I have lived four since, and yet I never saw so many milkpans.” See also Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and below, Wales, Brittany, France.

193 This legend is taken from Resenn Atlas, i. 36.

194 Vendsyssel and Aalborg are both in North Jutland.—The story is told by the ferrymen to travellers: see Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 68.

195 See above p. 89. According to what Mr. Thiele was told in Zealand, Svend Fælling must have been of prodigious size, for there is a hill near Steenstrup on which he used to sit while he washed his feet and hands in the sea, about half a quarter of a mile distant. The people of Holmstrup dressed a dinner for him, and brought it to him in large brewing vessels, much as the good people of Lilliput did with Gulliver. This reminds us of Holger Danske, who once wanted a new suit of clothes. Twelve tailors were employed: they set ladders to his back and shoulders, as was done to Gulliver, and they measured away; but the man that was highest on the right side ladder chanced, as he was cutting a mark in the measure, to clip Holger’s ear. Holger, forgetting what it was, hastily put up his hand to his head, caught the poor tailor, and crushed him to death between his fingers.

196 This tale was taken from oral recitation by Dr. Grimm, and inserted in Hauff’s Märchenalmanach for 1827. Dr. Grimm’s fidelity to tradition is too well known to leave any doubt of its genuineness.

197 Aslög (Light of the Aser) is the name of the lovely daughter of Sigurd and Brynhilda, who became the wife of Ragnar Lodbrok. How beautiful and romantic is the account in the Volsunga Saga of old Heimer taking her, when an infant, and carrying her about with him in his harp, to save her from those who sought her life as the last of Sigurd’s race; his retiring to remote streams and waterfalls to wash her, and his stilling her cries by the music of his harp!

198 This is Saint Oluf or Olave, the warlike apostle of the North.

199 A legend similar to this is told of Saint Oluf in various parts of Scandinavia. The following is an example:—As he was sailing by the high strand-hills in Hornsherred, in which a giantess abode, she cried out to him,
Saint Oluf with the red beard hear!
My cellar-wall thou’rt sailing too near!

Oluf was incensed, and instead of guiding the ship through the rocks, he turned it toward the hill, replying:

Hearken thou witch with thy spindle and rock!
There shalt thou sit and be a stone-block!

and scarcely had he spoken when the hill burst and the giantess was turned into stone. She is still seen sitting on the east side with her rock and spindle; out of the opposite mass sprang a holy well. Grimm. Deutsche Mythologie, p. 516.

200 Nisse, Grimm thinks (Deut. Mythol. p. 472) is Niels, Nielsen, i. e. Nicolaus, Niclas, a common name in Germany and the North, which is also contracted to Klas, Claas.

201 Wilse ap Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 479, who thinks he may have confounded the Nis with the Nöck.

202 The places mentioned in the following stories are all in Jutland. It is remarkable that we seem to have scarcely any Nis stories from Sweden.

203 This story is current in Germany, England, and Ireland. In the German story the farmer set fire to his barn to burn the Kobold in it. As he was driving off, he turned round to look at the blaze, and, to his no small mortification, saw the Kobold behind him in the cart, crying “It was time for us to come out—it was time for us to come out!”

204 Afzelius, Sago Häfdar., ii. 169. On Christmas-morning, he says, the peasantry gives the Tomte, his wages, i. e. a piece of grey cloth, tobacco, and a shovelful of clay.

205 Berg signifies a larger eminence, mountain, hill; Hög, a height, hillock. The Hög-folk are Elves and musicians.

206 The Danish peasantry in Wormius’ time described the Nökke (Nikke) as a monster with a human head, that dwells both in fresh and salt water. When any one was drowned, they said, Nökken tog ham bort (the Nökke took him away); and when any drowned person was found with the nose red, they said the Nikke has sucked him: Nikken har suet ham.—Magnusen, Eddalære. Denmark being a country without any streams of magnitude, we meet in the Danske Folkesagn no legends of the Nökke; and in ballads, such as “The Power of the Harp,” what in Sweden is ascribed to the Neck, is in Denmark imputed to the Havmand or Merman.

207 The Neck is also believed to appear in the form of a complete horse, and can be made to work at the plough, if a bridle of a particular description be employed.—Kalm’s Vestgötha Resa.

208 Afzelius, Sago-häfdar, ii. 156.

209 Det tredje slag på gullharpan klang,
Liten Kerstin räckta upp sin snöhvita arm.
      Min hjerteliga kär!
      J sägen mig hvarfor J sörjen!

210 As sung in West Gothland and Vermland.

211 Fosse is the North of England force.

212 Or a white kid, Faye ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 461.

213 The Strömkarl has eleven different measures, to ten of which alone people may dance; the eleventh belongs to the night spirit his host. If any one plays it, tables and benches, cans and cups, old men and women, blind and lame, even the children in the cradle, begin to dance.—Arndt. ut sup., see above p. 80.

214 In the Danske Viser and Folkesagn there are a few stories of Mermen, such as Rosmer Havmand and Marstig’s Daughter, both translated by Dr. Jamieson, and Agnete and the Merman, which resembles Proud Margaret. It was natural, says Afzelius, that what in Sweden was related of a Hill King, should, in Denmark, be ascribed to a Merman.

215 The appearance of the Wood-woman (Skogsfru) or Elve-woman, is equally unlucky for hunters. She also approaches the fires, and seeks to seduce young men.

216 Arvidsson, ii. 320, ap. Grimm, p. 463.

217 This is a ballad from Småland. Magnus was the youngest son of Gustavus Vasa. He died out of his mind. It is well known that insanity pervaded the Vasa family for centuries.

218 This was plainly a theory of the monks. It greatly resembles the Rabbinical account of the origin of the Mazckeen, which the reader will meet in the sequel.

Some Icelanders of the present day say, that one day, when Eve was washing her children at the running water, God suddenly called her. She was frightened, and thrust aside such of them as were not clean. God asked her if all her children were there, and she said, Yes; but got for answer, that what she tried to hide from God should be hidden from man. These children became instantly invisible and distinct from the rest. Before the flood came on, God put them into a cave and closed up the entrance. From them are descended all the underground-people.—Magnussen, Eddalære.

219 This was one Janus Gudmund, who wrote several treatises on this and similar subjects, particularly one “De Alfis et Alfheimum,” which the learned bishop characterises as a work “nullins pretii, et meras nugas continens.” We might, if we were to see it, be of a different opinion. Of Janus Gudmund Brynj Svenonius thus expresses himself to Wormius: Janus Gudmundius, ære dirutus verius quam rude donatus, sibi et aliis inutilis in angulo consenuit. Worm., Epist., 970.

220 The Icelandic dwarfs, it would appear, wore red clothes. In Nial’s Saga (p. 70), a person gaily dressed (i litklædum) is jocularly called Red-elf (raud-álfr).

221 There was a book of prophecies called the Kruckspá, or Prophecy of Kruck, a man who was said to have lived in the 15th century. It treated of the change of religion and other matters said to have been revealed to him by the Dwarfs. Johannæus says it was forged by Brynjalf Svenonius in or about the year 1660.

222 Finni Johannæi Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ, tom. ii. p. 368. Havniæ, 1774. We believe we might safely add, is held at the present day, for the superstition is no more extinct in Iceland than elsewhere.

223 Svenska Visor, iii. 128. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 458. At Bahus, in Sweden, a clever man contrived to throw on him an ingeniously made bridle so that he could not get away, and he ploughed all his land with him. One time the bridle fell off and the Neck, like a flash of fire, sprang into the lake and dragged the harrow down with him. Grimm, ut sup., see p. 148.

224 Færoæ et Færoa reserata. Lond. 1676.

225 Thiele, iii. 51, from the MS. Travels of Svaboe in the Feroes.

226 Description of the Shetland Islands. Edinburgh, 1822.

227 Edmonston’s View, &c., of Zetland Islands. Edin. 1809.

228 We need hardly to remind the reader that in what precedes Dr. Hibbert is to be regarded as the narrator in 1822.

229 Edmonston, ut supra.

230 Dr. Hibbert says he could get but little satisfaction from the Shetlanders respecting this submarine country.

231 Stacks or skerries are bare rocks out in the sea.

232 A voe is a small bay.

233 See below, Germany.

234 Description of Orkney, Zetland, &c. Edin. 1703.

235 Reg. Scot. Discoverie of Witchcraft, b. 2. c. 4. Lond. 1665.

236 Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 367.

237 Arndt, Märchen und Jugenderinnerungen. Berlin, 1818.

238 See above p. 96.

239 A Danish legend (Thiele, i. 79) tells the same of the sand-hills of Nestved in Zealand. A Troll who dwelt near it wished to destroy it, and for that purpose he went down to the sea-shore and filled his wallet with sand and threw it on his back. Fortunately there was a hole in the wallet, and so many sand-hills fell out of it, that when he came to Nestved there only remained enough to form one hill more. Another Troll, to punish a farmer filled one of his gloves with sand, which sufficed to cover his victim’s house completely. With what remained in the fingers he formed a row of hillocks near it.

240 Grimm, Deut. Myth., p. 502.

241 Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 70.

242 Grimm also appears to regard them as genuine.

243 The population of Lusatia (Lausatz) is like that of Pomerania and Rügen, Vendish. Hence, perhaps, it is that in the Lusatian tale of the Fairy-sabbath, we meet with caps with bells, and a descent into the interior of a mountain in a kind of boat as in this tale: Wilcomm, Sagen und Märchen aus der Oberlausitz. Hanov. 1843. Blackwood’s Magazine for June, 1844.

244 Hinrich Vick’s of course, for he is the narrator.

245 The only remnant is Alp, the nightmare; the elfen of modern writers is merely an adoption of the English elves.

246 The edition of this poem which we have used, is that by Schönhuth, Leipzig, 1841.

247 Tarn from taren, to dare, says Dobenek, because it gave courage along with invisibility. It comes more probably we think from the old German ternen, to hide. Kappe is properly a cloak, though the Tarnkappe or Nebelkappe is generally represented as a cap, or hat.

248 From hehlen, to conceal.

249 Horny Siegfred; for when he slew the dragon, he bathed himself in his blood, and became horny and invulnerable everywhere except in one spot between his shoulders, where a linden leaf stuck. In the Nibelungen Lied, (st. 100), Hagene says,
Yet still more know I of him—this to me is certaín,
A terrible Lind-dragon the hero’s hand hath slain;
He in the blood him bathed, and horny grew his skin;
Hence woundeth him no weapon, full oft it hath been seen.

250 MM. Grimm thought at one time that this name was properly Engel, and that it was connected with the chances of Alp, Alf, to Engel (see above, p. 67). They query at what time the dim Engelein first came into use, and when the angels were first represented under the form of children—a practice evidently derived from the idea of the Elves. In Otfried and other writers of the ninth and tenth centuries, they say, the angels are depicted as young men; but in the latter half of the thirteenth, a popular preacher named Berthold, says: Ir schet wol daz si allesamt sint juncliche gemälet; als ein kint daz dá vünf jâr all ist swâ man sie mâlet.

251 Elberich, (the Albrich of the Nibelungen Lied,) as we have said (above p. 40), is Oberon. From the usual change of l into u (as al, au, col, cou, etc.), in the French language, Elberich or Albrich (derived from Alp, Alf) becomes Auberich; and ich not being a French termination, the diminutive on was substituted, and so it became Auberon, or Oberon; a much more likely origin than the usual one from L’aube du jour. For this derivation of Oberon we are indebted to Dr. Grimm.

252 Probably Saida, i.e. Sidon.

253 i. e. Mount Tabor.

254 This may have suggested the well-known circumstance in Huon de Bordeaux.

255 So Oberon in Huon de Bordeaux.

256 Str. 1564, seq.

257 Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 398, seq.

258 See above, pp. 19, 169; below, Ireland; and Grimm, ut sup. p. 1216. The swan-dresses also occur in the Arabian tales of Jahânshâh and Hassan of Bassora in Trebutien’s Arabian Nights.

259 Poésies de Marie de France, i. 177, seq.

260 Another term is Wicht and its dim. Wichtlein, answering to the Scandinavian Vættr and the Anglo-Saxon wiht, English wight, all of which signify a being, a person, and also a thing in general. Thus our words aught and naught were anwiht and nawiht.

261 See Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, vol. i. p. 38. As this work is our chief authority for the Fairy Mythology of Germany, our materials are to be considered as taken from it, unless when otherwise expressed.

262 In Lusatia (Lausatz) if not in the rest of Germany, the same idea of the Dwarfs being fallen angels, prevails as in other countries: see the tale of the Fairies’-sabbath in the work quoted above, p. 179.

263 This tale is given by MM. Grimm, from the Brixener Volksbuch. 1782.

264 Related by Hammelmann in the Oldenburg Chronicle, by Prætorius, Bräuner, and others.

265 Frühmorgens eh die Sonn aufgeht
Schon alles vor dem Berge steht.

266 This tale was orally related to MM. Grimm in Saxony. They do not mention the narrator’s rank in life.

267 Dat is gaut dat de büerkem dat nich weit
Dat de sunne üm twölwe up geit.

268 Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 434. Both legends are in the Low-Saxon dialect.

269 The terms used in the original are Wichtelmänner, Wichtelmännerchen, and Wichtel.

270 The Saxon ó seems to answer to the Anglo-Saxon Iold english g, Irish Inis: see below, Ireland.

271 Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 428. The latter story is in the Low-Saxon dialect.

272 In Scandinavia the Dwarfs used to borrow beer, even a barrel at a time, which one of them would carry off on his shoulders, Thiele i. 121. In the Highlands of Scotland, a firlot of meal. In all cases they paid honestly. On one occasion, a dwarf came to a lady named Fru (Mrs.) Mettè of Overgaard, in Jutland, and asked her to lend her silk gown to Fru Mettè of Undergaard, for her wedding. She gave it, but as it was not returned as soon as she expected, she went to the hill and demanded it aloud. The hill-man brought it out to her all spotted with wax, and told her that if she had not been so impatient, every spot on it would have been a diamond. Thiele iii. 48.

The Vends of Lüneburg, we are told, called the underground folk Görzoni (from gora, hill), and the hills are still shown in which they dwelt. They used to borrow bread from people; they intimated their desire invisibly, and people used to lay it for them outside of the door. In the evening they returned it, knocking at the window, and leaving an additional cake to express their thankfulness. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 423.

273 See above, p. 225.

274 Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 437.

275 Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 453.

276 See Grimm, ut sup., p. 447 seq.

277 Deutsche Sagen, from Prætorius., Agricola, and others.

278 Grimm, Deut. Mythol., pp. 451, 881.

279 Kohl, Die Marschen und Inseln der Herzogthümer Schleswig und Holstein.

280 These terms all signify Underground folk.

281 See above, p. 116.

282 The Puk is also called Niss-Puk, Huis-Puk, Niske, Niske-Puk, Nise-Bok, Niss-Kuk—all compounds or corruptions of Nisse and Puk. He is also named from his racketing and noise Pulter-Claas, i. e. Nick Knocker, (the German Poltergeist,) Claas being the abbreviation of Nicolaus, Niclas; see above, p. 139, for this same origin of Nisse.

283 All relating to the Wild-women and the Wunderberg is given by MM. Grimm from the Brixener Volksbuch, 1782. For an account of the various Bergentrückte Helden, see the Deutsche Mythologie, ch. xxxii.

284 In a similar tradition (Strack, Beschr. von Eilsen, p. 120) the wife cuts off one of her fair long tresses, and is afterwards most earnestly conjured by her to restore it.

285 Given by Büsching (Volks-sagen Märchen und Legenden. Leipzig, 1820), from Hammelmann’s Oldenburg Chronicle, 1599. Mme. Naubert has, in the second volume of her Volksmärchen, wrought it up into a tale of 130 pages.

The Oldenburg horn, or what is called such, is now in the King of Denmark’s collection.

286 This word is usually derived from the Greek κοβαλος, a knave, which is found in Aristophanes. According to Grimm (p. 408) the German Kobold is not mentioned by any writer anterior to the thirteenth century, we find the French Gobelin in the eleventh; see France.

287 In Hanover the Will-o’the-wisp is called the Tückebold, i. e. Tücke-Kobold, and is, as his name denotes, a malicious being. Voss. Lyr. Ged., ii. p. 315.

288 Deutsche Sagen, i. p. 103. Feldmann’s work is a 12mo vol. of 379 pages.

[289] Heinze is the abbreviation of Heinrich (Henry). In the North of Germany the Kobold is also named Chimmeken and Wolterken, from Joachim and Walther.

290 This is a usual measure of size for the Dwarfs, and even the angels, in the old German poetry; see above, p. 208. In Otnit it is said of Elberich: nu bist in Kindes mâze des vierden jâres alt; and of Antilois in Ulrich’s Alexander: er war kleine und niht grôz in der mâze als diu kint, wenn si in vier jâren sint, Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 418. We meet with it even in Italian poetry:
E sovra il dorso un nano si piccino
Che sembri di quattr’ anni un fanciullino.
          B. Tasso, Amadigi, C. c. st. 78.

291 The feats of House-spirits, it is plain, may in general be ascribed to ventriloquism and to contrivances of servants and others.

292 Von Steinen, Westfäl. Gesch. ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 477.

293 Oral. Cölns Vorzeit. Cöln. 1826.

294 This legend seems to be connected with the ancient idea of the water-deities taking the souls of drowned persons to themselves. In the Edda, this is done by the sea-goddess Ran.

295 Grimm, ut sup. p. 463.

296 Grimm, ut sup. p. 453.

297 A tale of this kind is to be seen in Luther’s Table-talk, told by die frau doctorin, his wife. The scene of it was the river Mulda.

298 In Swiss Härdmandle, pl. Härdmändlene.

299 Wyss, Reise in das Berner Oberland, ii. 412. Servants is the term in the original.

300 This Scottish word, signifying the summer cabin of the herdsmen on the mountains, exactly expresses the Sennhütten of the Swiss.

301 Alpenrosen for 1824, ap. Grimm, Introd. to Irish Fairy Legends.

302 Idyllen, Volkssagen, Legenden, und Erzählungen aus der Schweiz. Von J. Rud Wyss, Prof. Bern, 1813.

303 In Bilder und Sagen aus der Schweiz, von Dr. Rudolf. Müller. Glarus, 1842, may be found some legends of the Erdmännlein, but they are nearly all the same as those collected by Mr. Wyss. We give below those in which there is anything peculiar.

304 The original is in German hexameters.

305 It is a notion in some parts of Germany, that if a girl leaves any flax or tow on her distaff unspun on Saturday night, none of what remains will make good thread. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. lxxii.

306 Glanz is the term employed in Switzerland.

307 This legend was picked up by a friend of Mr. Wyss when on a topographical ramble in the neighbourhood of Bern. It was told to him by a peasant of Belp; “but,” says Mr. Wyss, “if I recollect right, this man said it was a nice smoking-hot cake that was on the plate, and it was a servant, not the man’s son, who was driving the plough. The circumstance of the table-cloth being handed down from mother to daughter,” he adds, “is a fair addition which I have allowed myself.”

The writer recollects to have heard this story, when a boy, from an old woman in Ireland; and he could probably point out the very field in the county of Kildare where it occurred. A man and a boy were ploughing: the boy, as they were about in the middle of their furrow, smelled roast beef, and wished for some. As they returned, it was lying on the grass before them. When they had eaten, the boy said “God bless me, and God bless the fairies!” The man did not give thanks, and he met with misfortunes very shortly after.—The same legend is also in Scotland. See below.

308 The former account was obtained by a friend in Glarnerland. The latter was given to Mr. Wyss himself by a man of Zweylütschinen, very rich, says Mr. Wyss, in Dwarf lore, and who accompanied him to Lauterbrunnen. Schiller has founded his poem Der Alpenjäger on this legend.

309 Mr. Wyss heard this and the following tale in Haslithal and Gadmen.

310 In several of the high valleys of Switzerland it is only a single cherry-tree which happens to be favourably situated that bears fruit. It bears abundantly, and the fruit ripens about the month of August. Wyss.

311 Compare the narrative in the Swiss dialect given by Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 419. The same peasant of Belp who related the first legend was Mr. Wyss’s authority for this one. “The vanishing of the Bergmänlein,” says Mr. Wyss, “appears to be a matter of importance to the popular faith. It is almost always ascribed to the fault of mankind—sometimes to their wickedness.”

We may in these tales recognise the box of Pandora under a different form, but the ground is the same. Curiosity and wickedness are still the cause of superior beings withdrawing their favour from man.

“I have never any where else,” says Mr. Wyss, “heard of the goose-feet; but that all is not right with their feet is evident from the popular tradition giving long trailing mantles as the dress of the little people. Some will have it that their feet are regularly formed, but set on their legs the wrong way, so that the toes are behind and the heels before.”

Heywood, in his Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels, p. 554, relates a story which would seem to refer to a similar belief.

312 Müller, Bilder und Sagen, p. 119; see above, p. 81. Coals are the usual form under which the Dwarfs conceal the precious metals. We also find this trait in Scandinavia. A smith who lived near Aarhuus in Jutland, as he was going to church, saw a Troll on the roadside very busy about two straws that had got across each other on a heap of coals, and which, do what he would, he could not remove from their position. He asked the smith to do it for him; but he who knew better things took up the coals with the cross straws on them, and carried them home in spite of the screams of the Troll, and when he reached his own house he found it was a large treasure he had got, over which the Troll had lost all power. Thiele, i. 122.

313 Müller, ut sup. p. 123.

314 Müller, ut sup. p. 126.

315 This story is told of two places in the Highlands of Berning, of Ralligen, a little village on the lake of Thun, where there once stood a town called Roll; and again, of Schillingsdorf, a place in the valley of Grinderwald, formerly destroyed by a mountain slip.

The reader need scarcely be reminded of the stories of Lot and of Baucis and Philemon: see also Grimm’s Kinder und Hausmärchen, iii. 153, for other parallels.

316 See above pp. 66, 75.

317 The Anglo-Saxon Dweorg, Dworh, and the English Dwarf, do not seem ever to have had any other sense than that of the Latin nanus.

318 As quoted by Picart in his Notes on William of Newbridge. We could not find it in the Collection of Histories, etc., by Martène and Durand,—the only place where, to our knowledge, this chronicler’s works are printed.

319 Guilielmi Neubrigensis Historia, sive Chronica Rerum Anglicarum. Oxon. 1719, lib. i. c. 27.

320 See above, p. 109.

321 Otia Imperialia apud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 981.

322 Vice calicis.

323 Otia Imperialia apud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 980.

324 There is, as far as we are aware, no vestige of these names remaining in either the French or English language, and we cannot conceive how the Latin names of sea-gods came to be applied to the Gotho-German Kobolds, etc.

325 Dimidium pollicis. Should we not read pedis?

326 Otia Imperialia apud Leibnitz Scriptores rerum Brunsvicarum, vol. i. p. 980.

327 Can this name be connected with that of Grendel, the malignant spirit in Beówulf?

328 Edited for the Percy Society by J. P. Collyer, Esq., 1841. Mr. Collyer says there is little doubt but that this work was printed before 1588, or even 1584. We think this is true only of the First Part; for the Second, which is of a different texture, must have been added some time after tobacco had come into common use in England: see the verses in p. 34.

329 Mr. Collyer does not seem to have recollected that Huon de Bordeaux had been translated by Lord Berners; see above, p. 56.

330 It is, according to this authority the man-fairy Gunn that steals children and leaves changelings.

331 Discoverie of Witchcrafte, iv. ch. 10.

332 R. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcrafte, ii. ch. 4.

333 Ib. vii. 15.

334 This appears to us to be rather a display of the author’s learning than an actual enumeration of the objects of popular terror; for the maids hardly talked of Satyrs, Pans, etc. For Bull-beggar, see p. 316; for Urchin, p. 319. Hag is the Anglo-Saxon hæold english geiold english se, German hexe, “witche,” and hence the Nightmare (see p. 332) which was ascribed to witches; we still say Hag-ridden. Calcar and Sporn (spurs?) may be the same, from the idea of riding: the French call the Nightmare, Cauchemare, from Caucher, calcare. Kit-wi-the-Canstick is Jack-with-the-Lanthorn. The Man in the Oak is probably Puck, “Turn your cloakes, quoth hee, for Pucke is busy in these oakes.”—Iter Boreale. The Hell-wain is perhaps the Death-coach, connected with Northern and German superstitions, and the Fire-drake an Ignis Fatuus. Boneless may have been some impalpable spectre; the other terms seem to be mere appellations of Puck.

335 Anat. of Mel. p. 47.

336 Chap. xx. p. 134. Lond. 1604.

337 This is, we apprehend, an egg at Easter or on Good Friday. Housle is the Anglo-Saxon huold english sel; Goth. hunsl, sacrifice or offering, and thence the Eucharist.

338 Terrors of the Night, 1594.

339 Hutchinson, History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 269.

340 As quoted by Thoms in his Essay on Popular Songs, in the Athenæum for 1847.

341 Morgan, Phœnix Britannicus, Lond. 1732.

342 Pandemonium, p. 207. Lond. 1684.

343 Aubrey, Natural History of Surrey, iii 366, ap. Ritson, Fairy Tales, p. 166.

344 The Local Historian’s Table-Book, by M. A. Richardson, iii. 239. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1846.

345 Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, 1725.

346 Quoted by Brand in his Popular Antiquities, an enlarged edition of Bourne’s work.

347 This word Pixy, is evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutive sy being added to Puck, like Betsy, Nancy, Dixie. So Mrs. Trimmer in her Fabulous Histories—which we read with wonderful pleasure in our childhood, and would recommend to our young readers—calls her hen-robins Pecksy and Flapsy. Pisgy is only Pixy transposed. Mrs. Bray derives Pixy from Pygmy. At Truro, in Cornwall, as Mr. Thoms informs us, the moths, which some regard as departed souls, others as fairies, are called Pisgies. He observes the curious, but surely casual, resemblance between this and the Greek ψυχη, which is both soul and moth. Grimm (p. 430) tells us from an old glossary, that the caterpillar was named in Germany, Alba, i. e. Elbe, and that the Alp often takes the form of a butterfly.

348 Whip says he, as Mrs. Bray conjectures.

349 Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 513. Bohn’s edit.

350 Given in the Literary Gazette for 1825. No. 430.

351 Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 503. Bohn’s edit.

352 The Elfbore of Scotland, where it is likewise ascribed to the fairies, Jamieson, s. v. The same opinion prevails in Denmark, where it is said that any one who looks through it will see things he would not otherwise have known: see Thiele, ii. 18.

353 The Anglo-Saxon lǽan, laécan, to play.

354 We have abridged this legend from a well-written letter in the Literary Gazette, No. 430 (1825), the writer of which says, he knew the house in which it was said to have occurred. He also says he remembered an old tailor, who said the horn was often pitched at the head of himself and his apprentice, when in the North-country fashion they went to work at the farm-house. Its identity with other legends will be at once perceived.

355 And true no doubt it is, i. e. the impression made on her imagination was as strong as if the objects had been actually before her. The narrator is the same person who told the preceding Boggart story.

356 Fairy Tales, pp. 24, 56.

357 In Northumberland the common people call a certain fungous excrescence, sometimes found about the roots of old trees, Fairy-butter. After great rains and in a certain degree of putrefaction, it is reduced to a consistency, which, together with its colour, makes it not unlike butter, and hence the name. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. 492, Bohn’s edit.

The Menyn Tylna Têg or Fairy-butter of Wales, we are told in the same place, is a substance found at a great depth in cavities of limestone-rocks when sinking for lead-ore.

358 Comp. Milton, L’Allegro, 105 seq.

359 Richardson, Table-Book, iii. 45; see above, p. 297.

360 This word, as we may see, is spelt faries in the following legends; so we may suppose that fairy is pronounced farry in the North, which has a curious coincidence with Peri: see above, p. 15.

361 Probably pronounced Poke, as still in Worcestershire. Our ancestors frequently used ou, or oo for the long o while they expressed the sound of oo by o followed by e, as rote root, coke cook, more moor, pole pool.

362 Passus xvii. v. 11,323 seq. ed. 1842. Comp. vv. 8363, 9300, 10,902.

363 Mr. Todd is right, in reading pouke for ponke, an evident typographic error: wrong in saying, “He is the Fairy, Robin Good-fellow, known by the name of Puck.” Robin is the “hob-goblin” mentioned two lines after.

364 We know nothing of the Oriental origin of Puck, and cannot give our full assent to the character of our ancestry, as expressed in the remaining part of Mr. Gifford’s note: “but a fiend engendered in the moody minds, and rude and gloomy fancies of the barbarous invaders of the North.” It is full time to have done with describing the old Gothic race as savages.

365 Der Putz würde uns über berg und thäler tragen. To frighten children they say Der Butz kommt! see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 474.

366 The former made by adding the Anglo-Saxon and English el, le; the latter by adding the English art: see p. 318.

367 By Sir F. Palgrave, from whose article in the Quarterly Review, we have derived many of the terms named above. He adds that the Anglo-Saxon pæcan is to deceive, seduce; the Low-Saxon picken to gambol; pickeln to play the fool; pukra in Icelandic to make a murmuring noise, to steal secretly; and pukke in Danish to scold. He further adds the Swedish poika boy, the Anglo-Saxon and Swedish piga and Danish pige girl. If, however, Pouke is connected with the Sclavonic Bog, these at the most can be only derivations from it. By the way boy itself seems to be one of these terms; the Anglo-Saxon piga was probably pronounced piya, and a is a masculine termination in that language.

368 See above, p. 291. In Low German, however, the Kobold is called Bullmann, Bullermann, Bullerkater, from bullen, bullern, to knock: see Grimm, ut sup. p. 473.

369 Essay on the Ignis Fatuus, quoted by Thoms.

370 And you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms.—Tempest, v. 1.

371 Jack-o’-the-lanthorn, Will-o’-the-wisp. In Worcestershire they call it Hob-and-his-lanthorn, and Hobany’s- or Hobredy’s-lanthorn. Allies, ut sup.

372 Knight of the Burning Pestle: see above, p. 309.

373 Ard is the German hart, and is, like it, depreciatory. It is not an Anglo-Saxon termination, but from the Anglo-Saxon old english doll, dull, we have dullard. May not haggard be hawk-ard, and the French hagard be derived from it, and not the reverse?

374 For in Anglo-Saxon áttorcoppe (Poison-head?) is spider, and from áttorcoppe-web, by the usual aphœresis of the two first syllables we put coppe-web, cobweb. May not the same have been the case with lob? and may not the nasty bug be in a similar manner connected with Puck? As dvergsnat is in Swedish a cobweb, one might be tempted to suppose that this last, for which no good etymon has been offered, was lob-web; but the true etymon is cop-web, from its usual site.

Upon the cop right of his nose he hedde
A wert.—Chaucer, Cant. Tales, v. 556.

375 Deut. Mythol. p. 492.

376 See France. In is a mere termination, perhaps, like on, a diminutive, as in Catin Kate, Robin Bob. Lutin was also spelt Luyton: see p. 42.

377 The two lines which follow

Fro the nightes mare the witè Paternoster!
Where wonest thou Seint Peter’s suster?

are rather perplexing. We would explain them thus. Bergerac, as quoted by Brand (Pop. Antiq. i. 312. Bohn’s edit.) makes a magician say “I teach the shepherds the wolf’s paternoster,” i. e. one that keeps off the wolf. Wite may then be i. q. wight, and wight paternoster be a safeguard against the wights, and we would read the verse thus: “Fro the nightes mare the wite paternoster” sc. blisse it or us. St. Peter’s suster, i. e. wife (see I Cor. ix. 5) may have been canonised in the popular creed, and held to be potent against evil beings. The term suster was used probably to obviate the scandal of supposing the first Pope to have been a married man. This charm is given at greater length and with some variations by Cartwright in his Ordinary, Act iii. sc. 1.

378 He derives it from the French oursin, but the Ang.-Sax. name of the hedgehog is eold english rold english scen.

379 Athenæum, Oct. 9, 1847.

380 Hist. of England, i. 478, 8vo edit.

381 Deut. Mythol. p. 419.

382 Layamon’s Brut, etc., by Sir Frederick Madden.

383 Tales and Popular Fictions, ch. viii. We do not wonder that this should have eluded previous observation, but it is really surprising that we should have been the first to observe the resemblance between Ariosto’s tale of Giocondo and the introductory tale of the Thousand and One Nights. It is also strange that no one should have noticed the similarity between Ossian’s Carthon and the tale of Soohrâb in the Shâh-nâmeh.

384 Both here and lower down we would take faërie in its first sense.

385 Thrope, thorpe, or dorp, is a village, the German dorf; Dutch dorp; we may still find it in the names of places, as Althorpe. Dorp occurs frequently in Drayton’s Polyolbion; it is also used by Dryden, Hind and Panther, v. 1905.

386 Undermeles i. e. undertide (p 51), aftermeal, afternoon.

387 This is the third sense of Faërie. In the next passage it is doubtful whether it be the second or third sense; we think the latter.

388 This wife which is of faërie,
Of such a childe delivered is,
Fro kindè which stante all amis.
          Gower, Legende of Constance.

389 The derivation of Oberon has been already given (p. 208). The Shakspearean commentators have not thought fit to inform us why the poet designates the Fairy-queen, Titania. It, however, presents no difficulty. It was the belief of those days that the Fairies were the same as the classic Nymphs, the attendants of Diana: “That fourth kind of spritis,” says King James, “quhilk be the gentilis was called Diana, and her wandering court, and amongst us called the Phairie.” The Fairy-queen was therefore the same as Diana, whom Ovid (Met. iii. 173) styles Titania; Chaucer, as we have seen, calls her Proserpina.

390 ’Twas I that led you through the painted meads,
Where the light Fairies danced upon the flowers,
Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl.
          Wisdom of Dr. Dodypoll, 1600. Steevens.

Men of fashion, in that age, wore earrings.

391 And the yellow-skirted Fayes
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
          Milton, Ode on the Nativity, 235.

392 Ouph, Steevens complacently tells us, in the Teutonic language, is a fairy; if by Teutonic he means the German, and we know of no other, he merely showed his ignorance. Ouph is the same as oaf (formerly spelt aulf), and is probably to be pronounced in the same manner. It is formed from elf by the usual change of l into u.

393 i. e. Pinch severely. The Ang.-Sax. old english to joined to a verb or part. answers to the German zu or zer. old english to-bold english recan is to break to pieces, old english to-old english dold english riold english fan to drive asunder, scatter. Verbs of this kind occur in the Vision of Piers Ploughman, in Chaucer and elsewhere. The part. is often preceded by all, in the sense of the German ganz, quite, with which some ignorantly join the to as all-to ruffled in Comus, 380, instead of all to-ruffled. In Golding’s Ovid (p. 15) we meet “With rugged head as white as down, and garments all to-torn;” in Judges ix. 53, “and all to-brake his skull.” See also Faerie Queene, iv. 7, 8; v. 8, 4, 43, 44; 9, 10.

394 After all the commentators have written, this line is still nearly unintelligible to us. It may relate to the supposed origin of the fairies. For orphan, Warburton conjectured ouphen, from ouph.

395 The Anglo-Saxon old english Miold english dan eaold english rold english d or old english geaold english rold english d; and is it not also plainly the Midgard of the Edda?

396 The origin of Mab is very uncertain; it may be a contraction of Habundia, see below France. “Mab,” says Voss, one of the German translators of Shakspeare, “is not the Fairy-queen, the same with Titania, as some, misled by the word queen, have thought. That word in old English, as in Danish, designates the female sex.” He might have added the Ang.-Sax. cþen woman, whence both queen and quean. Voss is perhaps right and elf-queen may have been used in the same manner as the Danish Elle-quinde, Elle-kone for the female Elf. We find Phaer (see above, p. 11) using Fairy-queen, as a translation for Nympha.

397 i. e., Night-mare. “Many times,” says Gull the fairy, “I get on men and women, and so lie on their stomachs, that I cause them great pain; for which they call me by the name of Hagge or Night-mare.” Merry Pranks, etc. p. 42.

398 Auræque et venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque,
Dîque omnes nemorum, dîque omnes noctis, adeste.
          Ovid, Met. l. vii. 198.

Ye ayres and winds, ye elves of hills, of brooks, of woods, alone,
Of standing lakes, and of the night—approach ye everich one.
          Golding.

Golding seems to have regarded, by chance or with knowledge, the Elves as a higher species than the Fairies. Misled by the word elves, Shakspeare makes sad confusion of classic and Gothic mythology.

399 Take signifies here, to strike, to injure.

And there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle.
          Merry Wives of Windsor, iv. 4.

Thou farest as fruit that with the frost is taken.
          Surrey, Poems, p. 13, Ald. edit.

In our old poetry take also signifies, to give.

400 But not a word of it,—’tis fairies’ treasure,
Which but revealed brings on the blabber’s ruin.
          Massinger, Fatal Dowry, Act iv. sc. 1.

A prince’s secrets are like fairy favours,
Wholesome if kept, but poison if discovered.
          Honest Man’s Fortune.

401 We do not recollect having met with any account of this prank; but Jonson is usually so correct, that we may be certain it was a part of the popular belief.

402 Whalley was certainly right in proposing to read Agnes. This ceremony is, we believe, still practised in the north of England on St. Agnes’ night. See Brand, i. 34.

403 Shakespeare gives different colours to the Fairies; and in some places they are still thought to be white. See p. 306.

404 Act i. sc. 5. R. Dodsley’s Old Plays, vii. p. 394. We quote this as the first notice we have met of the red caps of the fairies.

405 Brown, their author, was a native of Devon, the Pixy region; hence their accordance with the Pixy legends given above.

406 This is perhaps the dancing on the hearth of the fairy-ladies to which Milton alludes: see above, p. 42. “Doth not the warm zeal of an English-man’s devotion make them maintain and defend the social hearth as the sanctuary and chief place of residence of the tutelary lares and household gods, and the only court where the lady-fairies convene to dance and revel?”—Paradoxical Assertions, etc. 1664, quoted by Brand, ii. p. 504.

407 The reader will observe that the third sense of Fairy is the most usual one in Drayton. It occurs in its second sense two lines further on, twice in Nymphidia, and in the following passage of his third Eclogue,
For learned Colin (Spenser) lays his pipes to gage,
And is to Fayrie gone a pilgrimage,
  The more our moan.

408 Mr. Chalmers does not seem to have known that the Crickets were family of note in Fairy. Shakspeare (Merry Wives of Windsor) mentions a Fairy named Cricket; and no hint of Shakspeare’s was lost upon Drayton.

409 In the Musarum Deliciæ.

410 This is a palpable mistake of the poet’s. The Friar (see above, p. 291) is the celebrated Friar Rush, who haunted houses, not fields, and was never the same with Jack-o’-the-Lanthorn. It was probably the name Rush, which suggested rushlight, that caused Milton’s error. He is the Brüder Rausch of Germany, the Broder Ruus of Denmark. His name is either as Grimm thinks, noise, or as Wolf (Von Bruodor Rauschen, p. xxviii.) deems drunkenness, our old word, rouse. Sir Walter Scott in a note on Marmion, says also “Friar Rush, alias Will-o’-the-Wisp. He was also a sort of Robin Goodfellow and Jack-o’-Lanthorn,” which is making precious confusion. Reginald Scot more correctly describes him as being “for all the world such another fellow as this Hudgin,” i. e. Hödeken: see above, p. 255.

411 Ben Jonson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 499. We shall never cease to regret that the state to which literature has come in this country almost precludes even a hope of our ever being able to publish our meditated edition of Milton’s poems for which we have been collecting materials these five and twenty years. It would have been very different from Todd’s. [Published in 1859.]

412 Evidently drawn from Dryden’s Flower and Leaf.

413 We meet here for the last time with Fairy in its collective sense, or rather, perhaps, as the country:
All Fairy shouted with a general voice

414 In Mr Halliwell’s Illustrations of Fairy Mythology, will be found a good deal of Fairy poetry, for which we have not had space in this work.

415 Mr. Cromek. There was, we believe, some false dealing on the part of Allan Cunningham toward this gentleman, such as palming on him his own verses as traditionary ones. But the legends are genuine.

416 This answers to the Deenè Mâh, Good People, of the Highlands and Ireland. An old Scottish name, we may add, for a fairy seems to have been Bogle, akin to the English Pouke, Puck, Puckle; but differing from the Boggart. Thus Gawain Douglas says,
Of Brownyis and of Boggles full is this Beuk.

417 Daemonologie, B. III. c. 5.

418 These elf-arrows are triangular pieces of flint, supposed to have been the heads of the arrows used by the aborigines. Though more plentiful in Scotland they are also found in England and Ireland, and were there also attached to the fairies, and the wounds were also only to be discerned by gifted eyes. In an Anglo-Saxon poem, there occur the words æold english sa old english geold english scoold english t and ýlold english fa old english geold english scoold english t, i. e. arrow of the Gods, and arrow of the Elves. Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 22.

419 “It was till lately believed by the ploughmen of Clydesdale, that if they repeated the rhyme

Fairy, fairy, bake me a bannock and roast me a collop,
And I’ll gie ye a spurtle off my gadend!

three several times on turning their cattle at the terminations of ridges, they would find the said fare prepared for them on reaching the end of the fourth furrow.”—Chambers’ Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 33.

420 See above, pp. 302, 311. Graham also relates this legend in his Picturesque Sketches of Perthshire.

421 Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone, p. 251. We are happy to have an opportunity of expressing the high feelings of respect and esteem which we entertain for this extraordinary man. Born in the lowest rank of society, and commencing life as a workman in a stone-quarry, he has, by the mere force of natural genius, become not only a most able geologist but an elegant writer, and a sound and discerning critic. Scotland seems to stand alone in producing such men.

422 He is named as we have seen (p. 351) by Gawain Douglas. King James says of him “The spirit called Brownie appeared like a rough man, and haunted divers houses without doing any evill, but doing, as it were, necessarie turns up and down the house; yet some are so blinded as to believe that their house was all the sonsier, as they called it, that such spirits resorted there.”

423 Popular Rhymes of Scotland, p. 33.

424 Grimm (Deut. Mythol., p. 479) says it is the German Schellenrock, i. e., Bell-coat, from his coat being hung with bells like those of the fools. A Pūck he says, once served in a convent in Mecklenburg, for thirty years, in kitchen, and stable, and the only reward he asked was “tunicam de diversis coloribus et tintinnabulis plenam.”

425 Sketches of Perthshire, p. 245.

426 In what precedes, we have chiefly followed Mr. Cromek. Those anxious for further information will meet it in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and other works.

427 Mr. Croker says, that according to the Munster peasantry the ordinary attire of the Fairy is a black hat, green coat, white stockings, and red shoes.

428 In Irish as in Erse, irish uncial ne mirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial t (deenè mâh).

429 See above, p. 26.

430 They are irish uncial a (shia), irish uncial a (shifra), irish uncial acirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial re (shicârè), irish uncial g dot (shee), irish uncial g dote (sheeè), irish uncial ib (sheeidh) all denoting, spirit, fairy. The term irish uncial g dot also signifies a hag, and a hillock, and as an adjective, spiritual.

431 We never heard a fairy-legend from any of the Connaught-men with whom we conversed in our boyhood. Their tales were all of Finn-mac-Cool and his heroes.

432 In Irish, irish uncial a irish uncial aoirish uncial ine (dhia eenè). We are inclined to think that he must have added, irish uncial a irish uncial aoirish uncial in, irish uncial a irish uncial aoirish uncial ine (dhia dhardheen, dhia eenè), i.e. Thursday, Friday; for we can see no reason for omitting Thursday.

433 See below, Brittany and Spain, in both of which the legend is more perfect; but it is impossible to say which is the original. Parnell’s pleasing Fairy Tale is probably formed on this Irish version, yet it agrees more with the Breton legend.

434 This story may remind one of the Wonderful Lamp, and others. There is something of the same kind in the Pentamerone.

435 Inis, pronounced sometimes Inch, (like the Hebrew Ee (אי) and the Indian Dsib) is either island or coast, bank of sea or river. The Ang.-Sax. iold english g (ee) seems to have had the same extent of signification, hence Chelsea, Battersea, etc., which never could have been islands. Perhaps þeoold english rold english diold english g (worthy, worth) was similar, as werd, werth, in German is an island.

436 Mr. Croker says this is moruach, sea-maid; the only word we find in O’Reilly is muirish uncial iirish uncial rirish uncial iṁmirish uncial geirish uncial aċ (múrirgach). We have met no term answering to merman.

437 It is a rule of the Irish language, that the initial consonant of an oblique case, or of a word in regimine, becomes aspirated; thus Pooka (nom.), na Phooka (gen.), mac son, a mhic (vic) my son.

438 In Irish lobirish uncial airish uncial iirish uncial rcirish uncial iirish uncial n (lubárkin); the Ulster name is Logheryman, in Irish loċirish uncial airish uncial rmirish uncial airish uncial n (lucharman). For the Cork term Cluricaun, the Kerry Luricaun and the Tipperary Lurigadaun, we have found no equivalents in the Irish dictionaries. The short o in Irish, we may observe, is pronounced as in French and Spanish, i. e. as u in but, cut; ai nearly as a in fall. It may be added, on account of the following tales, that in Kildare and the adjoining counties the short English u, in but, cut, etc., is invariably pronounced as in pull, full, while this u, is pronounced as that in but, cut.

439 The Ulster Lucharman also has such an English look, that we should be tempted to derive it from the Ang.-Sax. lácan, lǽcan, to play. Loki Löjemand, or Loki Playman, is a name of the Eddaic deity Loki in the Danish ballads.

440 In the place of the Witch of Edmonton usually quoted with this, Lubrick is plainly the Latin lubricus.

441 It will be observed that these, as well as the Young Piper in the Appendix, are related in the character of a peasant. This was in accordance with a frame that was proposed for the Fairy Legends, but which proved too difficult of execution to be adopted.

442 Lit. Yellow-stick, the ragwort or ragweed, which grows to a great size in Ireland.

443 A kind of spade with but one step, used in Leinster.

444 All that is said in this legend about the beer is a pure fiction, for we never heard of a Leprechaun drinking or smoking. It is, however, a tradition of the peasantry, that the Danes used to make beer of the heath. It was a Protestant farmer in the county of Cavan, that showed such knowledge of the siege of Derry; the Catholic gardener who told us this story, knew far better. It is also the popular belief that the Danes keep up their claim on Ireland, and that a Danish father, when marrying his daughter, gives her a portion in Ireland.

445 i. e. Felix. On account of the Romish custom of naming after Saints, Felix, Thaddæus, Terence, Augustine, etc., are common names among the peasantry.

446 In our Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 16, we noticed the coincidence between this and a passage in an Arabic author. We did not then recollect the following verses of Milton,
The willows and the hazle copses green
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
          Lycidas, 42.

The simile of the moon among the stars in the same place, we have since found in the Nibelungen Lied (st. 285), and in some of our old poets, and Hammer says (Sehirin i. note 7), that it occurs even to satiety in Oriental poetry. In like manner Camoens’ simile of the mirror, mentioned in the same place, occurs in Poliziano’s Stanze i. 64.

447 Account of the Highlands, etc. iv. 358.

448 Men of Peace, perhaps the Stille-folk, Still-people, or rather, merely Fairy- or Spirit-people. See above p. 364.

449 See Stewart, The Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders. Edinburgh, 1823. As Mr. Stewart’s mode of narrating is not the very best, we have taken the liberty of re-writing and abridging the legends.

450 “The goats are supposed to be upon a very good understanding with the fairies, and possessed of more cunning and knowledge than their appearance bespeaks.”—Stewart: see Wales.

451 See above, p. 305.

452 There is a similar legend in Scandinavia. As a smith was at work in his forge late one evening, he heard great wailing out on the road, and by the light of the red-hot iron that he was hammering, he saw a woman whom a Troll was driving along, bawling at her “A little more! a little more!” He ran out, put the red-hot iron between them, and thus delivered her from the power of the Troll (see p. 108). He led her into his house and that night she was delivered of twins. In the morning he waited on her husband, who he supposed must be in great affliction at the loss of his wife. But to his surprise he saw there, in bed, a woman the very image of her he had saved from the Troll. Knowing at once what she must be, he raised an axe he had in his hand, and cleft her skull. The matter was soon explained to the satisfaction of the husband, who gladly received his real wife and her twins.—Thiele, i. 88. Oral.

453 Told, without naming his authority, by the late W. S. Rose, in the Quarterly Review for 1825.

454 Description of the Isle of Man. London, 1731.

455 In his Essay on Fairies in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and in the notes on Peveril of the Peak.

456 Train, Account of the Isle of Man, ii. p. 148.

457 A lake, on whose banks Taliesin resided.

458 These Mr. Davies thinks correspond to the Gallicenæ of Mela: see Brittany.

459 Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriæ, l. i. c. 8, translated by Sir R. C. Hoare.

460 Very likely indeed that Elidurus, or Giraldus either, should know any thing of Plato or of Marco Polo, especially as the latter was not yet born!

461 Book i. chap. 12.

462 Mythology and Rites of the British Druids.

463 Abridged from “A Day at the Van Pools;” MS. of Miss Beale, the author of “Poems” and of “The Vale of the Towey,” a most delightful volume. We have since received from our gifted friend the following additional information. “Since writing this letter, I have heard a new version of the last part of the Spirit of the Van. The third offence is said to be, that she and her husband were ploughing; he guiding the plough, and she driving the horses. The horses went wrong, and the husband took up something and threw it at them, which struck her. She seized the plough and went off, followed by the flocks and herds she had brought with her to Van Pool, where they all vanished, and the mark of the ploughshare is shown on the mountain at this present day. She left her children behind her, who became famous as doctors. Jones was their name, and they lived at a place called Muddfi. In them was said to have originated the tradition of the seventh son, or Septimus, being born for the healing art; as for many generations, seven sons were regularly born in each family, the seventh of whom became the doctor, and wonderful in his profession. It is said even now, that the Jones of Muddfi are, or were, until very recently, clever doctors.”—A. B. A somewhat different version of this legend is given by Mr. Croker, iii. 256.

464 For the chief part of our knowledge respecting the fairy lore of Wales we are indebted to the third or supplemental volume of the Fairy Legends, in which Mr. Croker, with the aid of Dr. Owen Pugh and other Welsh scholars, has given a fuller account of the superstitions of the people of the Principality, than is, we believe, to be found any where else.

465 A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales, by the Rev. Edward Jones of the Tiarch.—For our extracts from this work we are indebted to Mr. Croker.

466 The lady’s name was Williams. The legends were originally intended for the present work, but circumstances caused them to appear in the supplemental volume of the Irish Fairy Legends. We have abridged them.

467 Gitto is the dim. of Griffith: bach (beg Ir.) is little.

468 See Brittany.

469 Poésies de Marie de France, par De Roquefort. Paris, 1820. If any one should suspect that these are not genuine translations from the Breton, his doubts will be dispelled by reading the original of the Lai du Laustic in the Barzan-Breiz (i. 24) presently to be noticed.

470 See above, p. 21.

471 The Bas-Breton Korrigan or Korrigwen differs, as we may see, but little from Gallican. Strabo (i. p. 304) says that Demeter and Kora were worshipped in an island in these parts.

472 Sena is supposed to be L’Isle des Saints, nearly opposite Brest.

473 Pomp. Mela, iii. 6.

474 It might seem hardly necessary to inform the reader that these verses and those that follow, are our own translations, from Marie de France. Yet some have taken them for old English verses.

475 E korole nao c’horrigan,
Bleunvek ho bleo, gwisket gloan,
Kelc’h ar feunteun, d’al loar-gann.
          Villemarqué, Barzan-Breiz, i. 8.

The c’h expresses the guttural.

476 This manifestly alludes to Lanval or Graelent, or similar stories.

477 It follows, in M. de Roquefort’s edition,
“Deci ne muez fu ou désis.”

Of which we can make no sense, and the French translation gives no aid. In the Harleian MS. it is

“De cine muez fu ou de sis,”

which is more intelligible.

478 This tends to prove that this is a translation from the Breton; for Innocent III., in whose pontificate the cup was first refused to the laity, died in 1216, when Henry III., to whom Marie is supposed to have dedicated her Lais, was a child.

479 The same was the case with the Wünschelweib (Wish-woman) of German romance.

Swenne du einêst wünschest nâch mir,
Sô bin ich endelîchen bî dír,

says the lady to the Staufenberger. She adds,

Wâr ich wil dâ bin ich,
Den Wunsch hât mir Got gegeben.

He finds it to be true,

Er wûnschte nach der frouwen sîn,
Bî îm sô war diu schöne sîn.
          Grimm, Deut. Mythol., p. 391.

480 In the Shâh-nâmeh, Siyawush, when he foresees his own death by the treachery of Afrasiâb, tells his wife Ferengis, the daughter of that monarch, that she will bear a son whom she is to name Ky Khosroo, and who will avenge the death of his father: see Görres, Heldenbuch von Iran, ii. 32.

481 Desi k’a une hoge vint:
En cele hoge ot une entree.

M. de Roquefort, in his Glossaire de la Langue Romaine, correctly renders hoge by colline. In his translation of this Lai he renders it by cabane, not, perhaps, understanding how a hill could be pervious. The story, however, of Prince Ahmed, and the romance of Orfeo and Heurodis (see above, p. 52), are good authority on this point: see also above, pp. 405, 408.

482 In the Harleian MS. Mandement. M. de Roquefort confesses his total ignorance of this people; we follow his example. May it not, however, be connected with manant, and merely signify people, inhabitants?

483 Roman de Roux, v. ii. 234.

484 See Roquefort, Supplément au Glossaire de la Langue Romaine s. v. Perron.

485 Barzan-Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, recueilles et publiés par Th. Hersart de la Villemarqué. Paris, 1846. This is a most valuable work and deserving to take its place with the Ballads of Scotland, Scandinavia, and Servia, to none of which is it inferior. To the credit of France the edition which we use is the fourth. How different would the fate of such a work be in this country!

486 We make this distinction, because in the ballads in which the personage is a Fay, the word used is Korrigan or Korrig, while in that in which the Dwarfs are actors, the words are Korr and Korred. But the truth is, they are all but different forms of Korr. They are all the same, singular and plural. The Breton changes its first consonant like the Irish: see p. 371. We also meet with Crion, Goric, Couril, as names of these beings, but they are only forms of those given above.

487 Hence we may infer that they came originally from Scandinavia, communicated most probably by the Normans.

488 Stone-tables. They are called by the same name in Devon and Cornwall; in Irish their appellation is Cromleach.

489 Barzan-Breiz., i. xlix. 69.

490

Welsh.	Breton.
Gweliz mez ken gwelet derven,	Gweliz vi ken guelet iar wenn,
Gweliz vi ken gwelet iar wenn,	Gweliz mez ken gwelet gwezen.
Erioez ne wiliz evelhenn.	Gweliz mez ha gweliz gwial,
	Gweliz derven e Koat Brezal,
	Biskoaz na weliz kemend all.

491 The tailor cries “Shut the door! Here are the little Duz of the night” (Setu ann Duzigou nouz), and St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, c. xxiii.) speaks of “Daemones quos Duscios Galli nuncupant.” It may remind us of our own word Deuce.

492 In the original the word is Korrigan, but see above, p. 431.

493 From an article signed H—Y in a cheap publication called Tracts for the People. The writer says he heard it in the neighbourhood of the Vale of Goel, and it has every appearance of being genuine. Villemarqué (i. 61) mentions the last circumstance as to the end of the penance of the Korred.

494 Monumens Celtiques, p. 2. An old sailor told M. de Cambry, that one of these stones covers an immense treasure, and that these thousands of them have been set up the better to conceal it. He added that a calculation, the key to which was to be found in the Tower of London, would alone indicate the spot where the treasure lies.

495 For what follows we are indebted to the MS. communication of Dr. W. Grimm. He quotes as his authority the Zeitung der Gesellschafter for 1826.

496 The former seems to be a house spirit, the Goblin, Follet, or Lutin of the north of France; the latter is apparently the Ignis Fatuus.

497 So the Yorkshire Bar-guest.

498 See above, p. 438.

499 See our Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, where (p. 237) most of what follows will be found, with notes.

500 Parthenius Erotica, chap. xxix.

501 Aulularia, Prologue.

502 See our Mythology of Greece and Italy, p. 543; and our Ovid’s Fasti, Excursus iv.

503 Satyricon, ch. 38. Sunt qui eundem (Hercules) Incubonem esse velint. Schol. Hor. Sat. ii. 6, 13.

504 Viessieux, Italy and the Italians, vol. i. pp. 161, 162.

505 L’huorco, the Orco of Bojardo and Ariosto, probably derived from the Latin Orcus: see Mythol. of Greece and Italy, p. 527. In this derivation we find that we had been anticipated by Minucci in his notes on the Malmantile Racquistato, c. ii. st. 50.

In a work, from which we have derived some information (Lettres sur les Contes des Fées, Paris, 1826), considerable pains are taken, we think to little purpose, to deduce the French Ogre from the Oïgours, a Tartar tribe, who with the other tribes of that people invaded Europe in the twelfth century. In the Glossaire de la Langue Romaine, Ogre is explained by Hongrois. Any one, however, that reads the Pentamerone will see that the ugly, cruel, man-eating Huorco is plainly an Ogre; and those expert at the tours de passe passe of etymology will be at no loss to deduce Ogre from Orco. See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 223.

506 In another of these tales, it is said of a young man, who, on breaking open a cask, found a beautiful maiden in it, that he stood for a while comme o chillo che ha visto lo Monaciello.

507 See Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ix. p. 269; see also Spain and France.

508 Vincentius apud Kornmann, de Miraculis Vivorum.

509 This being, unknown to classic mythology, is first mentioned by Lactantius. It was probably from Boccaccio’s Genealogia Deorum that Bojardo got his knowledge of him.

510 I Cinque Canti, c. i. st. l. seq.

511 Lib. ii. xvii. 56, seq.

512 There is, however, a Maga or Fata named Falsirena in the Adone of Marini.

513 La Sabia and La Desconocida of the original romance, which Tasse follows very closely in everything relating to Amadis and Oriana.

514 Few of our readers, we presume, are acquainted with this poem, and they will perhaps be surprised to learn that it is, after the Furioso, the most beautiful romantic poem in the Italian language, graceful and sweet almost to excess. It is strange that it should be neglected in Italy also. One cause may be its length (One Hundred Cantos), another the constant and inartificial breaking off of the stories, and perhaps the chief one, its serious moral tone so different from that of Ariosto. It might be styled The Legend of Constancy, for the love of its heroes and heroines is proof against all temptations. Mr. Panizzi’s charge of abounding in scandalous stories, is not correct, for it is in reality more delicate than even the Faerie Queene. Ginguené, who admired it, appreciates it far more justly.

515 See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 183. The Pentamerone we may observe, was not a title given to it by the author; in like manner the only title Fielding gave his great work was The History of a Foundling.

516 He was brother to Adriana and uncle to Leonora Baroni, the ladies whose musical talents Milton celebrates.

517 Ex. gr. Fiume is shiume; Fiore, shiure; Piaggia, chiaja; Piombo, chiummo; Biondo, ghiunno. There are likewise numerous Hispanicisms. Thus gaiola in Gagliuso which we all rendered coffin, is the Spanish jaula, cage, and the meaning apparently is that he would have the cat stuffed and put in a glass-case; in like manner calling the eyes suns (as in na bellezza a doje sole) occurs in the plays of Calderon.

518 In the Taschenbuch für altdeutscher Zeit und Kunst, 1816.

519 Otia Imperialia, p. 982. The Demons must have been some kind of fairies: see above, p. 4.

520 Related by Sir Francis Palgrave, but without giving any authority, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. See France.

521 In Don Quixote (part i. chap. 50) we read of “los siete castillos de las siete Fadas” beneath the lake of boiling pitch, and of the fair princess who was enchanted in one of them.

522 Fada is certainly the elided part. of this verb, for the Latin mode of elision (see above p. 7.) was retained in Spanish as well as Italian. Thus quedo, junto, harto, marchito, vacio, enjuto, violento, &c., come from quedar, juntar, hartar, &c. As the Spanish, following the Latin, also frequently uses the past as a present participle, as un hombre atrevido, “a daring man;” and the same appears to take place in Italian, as un huomo accorto, saputo, avveduto, dispietato; and even in French, as un homme réfléchi, désespéré; may we not say that fada, fata, fée, is enchanting rather than enchanted?

523 Montina is a small wood.

524 Romancero Castellano por Depping, ii. p. 198, 2nd edit. A translation of this romance will be found in Thoms’s Lays and Legends of Spain.

525 i. e. Joey the Hunchback. Pepito is the dim. of Pepe, i. e. José, Joseph.

526 See Thoms’s Lays and Legends of Spain, p. 83. It was related, he says, to a friend of his by the late Sir John Malcolm, who had heard it in Spain. It is also briefly related (probably on the same authority) in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. (see above pp. 364, 438). Redi, in his Letters, gives another form of it, in which the scene is at Benevento, the agents are witches, and the hump is taken off, senza verun suo dolor, with a saw of butter. Y Domingo siete is, we are told, a common phrase when any thing is said or done mal à propos.

527 Teatro Critico, tom. ii. His object is to disprove their existence, and he very justly says that the Duende was usually a knavish servant who had his own reasons for making a noise and disturbing the family. This theory will also explain the Duende-tales of Torquemada.

528 See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 269.

529 The change of r and n is not without examples. Thus we have αργυρον and argentum; water, English; vand, Danish; vatn, Swedish. Cristofero is Cristofano in Tuscan; homine, nomine, sanguine, are hombre, nombre, sangre, Spanish. In Duerg when r became n, euphony changed g to d, or vice versâ. The changes words undergo when the derivation is certain, are often curious. Alguacil, Spanish, is El-wezeer Arab, as Azucena Spanish, Cecem Portuguese (white-lily) is Sûsan Arab; Guancia (cheek) Italian, is Wange German; Ναυπακτος has become Lépanto. It might not be safe to assert that the Persian gurk and our wolf are the same, and yet the letters in them taken in order are all commutable. Our God be with you has shrunk to Goodbye, and the Spanish Vuestra merced to Usted, pr. Usté. There must, by the way, some time or other, have been an intimate connexion between Spain and England, so many of our familiar words seem to have a Spanish origin. Thus ninny is from niño; booby from bobo; pucker from puchero; launch (a boat) from lancha; and perhaps monkey (if not from mannikin) from mono, monico. We pronounce our colonel like the Spanish coronel.

530 Otia Imperialia, p. 987: see above p. 302 et alib.

531 Like the Irish Play the Puck, above, p. 371.

532 Otia Imper. p. 981: see above, p. 394. It does not appear that the abode of these porpoise-knights was beneath the water.

533 Otia Imper. p. 897. See above p. 407. Orthone, the House-spirit, who, according to Froissart, attended the Lord of Corasse, in Gascony, resembled Hinzelmann in many points.

534 Ibid.

535 Hujusmodi larvarum. He classes the Fadas with Sylvans and Pans.

536 P. 989. Speaking of the wonderful horse of Giraldus de Cabreriis; Gervase says, Si Fadus erat, i. e. says Leibnitz, incantatus, ut Fadæ, Fatæ, Fées.

537 Cambry, Monumens Celtiques, p. 342. The author says, that Esterelle, as well as all the Fairies, was the moon. This we very much doubt. He derives her name from the Breton Escler, Brightness, Lauza, from Lac’h (Irish Cloch), a flat stone.

538 Monuments religieux des Volces Tectosages, ap. Mlle. Bosquet, Normandie, etc., p. 92: see above, pp. 161, 342.

539 See Leroux de Lincy, ap. Mlle. Bosquet, p. 93, who adds “In Lower Normandy, in the arrondissement of Bayeux, they never neglect laying a table for the protecting genius of the babe about to be born;” see our note on Virg. Buc. iv. 63. In a collection of decrees of Councils made by Burchard of Worms, who died in 1024, we read as follows: “Fecisti, ut quaedam mulieres in quibusdam temporibus anni facere solent, ut in domo tua mensam praepares et tuos cibos et potum cum tribus cultellis supra mensam poneres, ut si venissent tres illae sorores quas antiqua posteritas et antiqua stultitia Parcas nominavit, ibi reficirentur... ut credens illas quas tu dieis esse sorores tibi posse aut hic aut in futuro prodesse?” Grimm. Deut. Mythol. Anhang, p. xxxviii., where we are also told that these Parcæ could give a man at his birth the power of becoming a Werwolf. All this, however, does not prove that they were the origin of the Fées: see above, p. 6.

540 This may remind us of the Neck or Kelpie above, p. 162. It seems confirmatory of our theory respecting the Visigoths, p. 466.

541 Greg. Tur. De Glor. Confess. ch. xxxi., ap. Grimm. p. 466.

542 Pilgrimage to Auvergne, ii. p. 294, seq.

543 Cambry, Monuments Celtiques, p. 232.

544 It is evidently a cromleach. What is said of the nature of the stones is also true of Stonehenge.

545 Lettres de Madame S. à sa Fille. Périgueux, 1830: by M. Jouannet of Bordeaux.

546 See Mlle. Bosquet, La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse, and the works there quoted by this learned and ingenious lady. What follows is so extremely like what we have seen above of the Korrigan of the adjacent Brittany, that we hope she has been careful not to transfer any of their traits to her Fées.

547 Opera i. 1036; Paris, 1674, ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 263.

548 Ap. Grimm, ut sup. Douce (Ill. of Shak. i. 382) was, we believe, the first who directed attention to Abundia. He quotes from an old fabliau:
Ceste richesse nus abonde,
Nos l’avons de par Dame Abonde.

549 One kind of these the Italians Fatæ name;
Fée the French; we Sybils; and the same
Other White Nymphs; and those that have them seen,
Night Ladies some, of which Habundia queen.
          Hierarchie, viii. p. 507.

550 Mr. Thoms prefers a derivation from the Cymric, Mab, boy, child.

551 There is no satisfactory derivation of Lutin, for we cannot regard as such Grimm’s à luctu. Gobelin, Goblin, or Goubelin, is evidently the same as Kobold. Follet (from fol, fou) and Farfadet, are other names. Both Gobelin and Lutin were in use in the 11th century. Orderic Vitalis, speaking of the demon whom St. Taurin drove out of the temple of Diana, says, Hunc vulgus Gobelinum appellat, and Wace (Roman de Rou, v 9715) says of the familiar of bishop Mauger who excommunicated the Conqueror

Ne sei s’esteit lutin ou non.

552 Mothers also threaten their children with him. Le gobelin vous mangera, le gobelin vous emportera. Père L’Abbé, Etymologie, i. p. 262.

553 In another French tale a man to deceive a Fée, put on his wife’s clothes and was minding the child, but she said as she came in, “Non, tu ne point la belle d’hier au soir, tu ne files, ni ne vogues, ni ton fuseau ne t’enveloppes,” and to punish him she turned some apples that were roasting on the hearth into peas. Schreiber ap. Grimm, p. 385.

554 See above, p. 471.

555 Lubin may be only another form of Lutin, and connected with the English Lob. Its likeness to loup may have given occasion to the fiction of their taking the lupine form.

556 Chartier.

557 See above, p. 475.

558 Histoire de Mélusine, tirée des Chroniques de Poitou. Paris, 1698. Dobenek, des Deutschen Mittelalter und Volksglauben.

559 i. e. Cephalonia, see above, p. 41.

560 It is at this day (1698) corruptly called La Font de Sée; and every year in the month of May a fair is held in the neighbouring mead, where the pastry-cooks sell figures of women, bien coiffées, called Merlusines.—French Author’s Note.

561 A boar’s tusk projected from his mouth. According to Brantôme, a figure of him, cut in stone, stood at the portal of the Mélusine tower, which was destroyed in 1574.

562 At her departure she left the mark of her foot on the stone of one of the windows, where it remained till the castle was destroyed.

563 In his poem of Melusina, dedicated to Christina of Sweden.

564 Mlle Bosquet, ut sup. p. 100.

565 Mlle. Bosquet, ut sup. p. 98. The castle of Argouges is near Bayeux, that of Rânes is in the arrondissement of Argentan.

566 This proverbial expression is to be met with in various languages: see Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 802.

567 See above, p. 458.

568 Mnemosyne, Abo 1821, ap. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 426.

569 Rühs, Finland und seine Bewohner.

570 Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 459.

571 Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 979. This is the fourth place where we have met this story. Could they have all come from the Odyssey, the hero of which tells the Cyclops, whom he blinds, that his name is Nobody?

572 Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren. Wien, 1822.

573 Mailath, Magyarische Sagen Mährchen, etc., 2 vols, 8vo. Stutg. 1837.

574 Delrio, Lib. ii. Sect. 2. Boxhorn Resp. Moscov. Pars I.

575 Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 447.

576 Mone, vol. i. p. 144. Grimm, Deut. Mythol. p. 460.

577 Grimm, ut sup. p. 480.

578 Published by Wuk and translated by Talvi and others into German, by Bowring into English.

579 Bowring, p. 175. Sabejam oblake, Cloud-gatherer, is an epithet of the Vila, answering to the Νεφεληγερετης of the Grecian Zeus.

580 Death of Kralwich Marko. Bowring, p. 97.

581 The building of Skadra. Ibid. p. 64.

582 We have made this translation from a German version in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. xxx. which is evidently more faithful than Bowring’s.

583 Bowring, This version differs considerably from the German one of Talvi. We feel quite convinced that the English translator has mistaken the sense.

584 Dalmatia and Montenegro, etc.

585 The Pang (Span. paño, cloth) is an oblong piece of cotton cloth, which the natives manufacture and wear wrapped round their bodies.

586 For the preceding account of the Yumboes we are indebted to a young lady, who spent several years of her childhood at Gorce. What she related to us she had heard from her maid, a Jaloff woman, who spoke no language but Jaloff.

587 שרים from שרר to lay waste, Deut. xxxii. 17.

588 שעירים from שער horreo, Isaiah, xiii. 22.

589 מויקין from נוק to hurt.

590 Moses Edrehi, our informant, says that the Mazikeen are called in the Arabic language, znoon (Sanskrit writing), i. e. Jinn.

591 Comp. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, iii. p. 91.

592 To signify that he appealed to them.

593 From a rabbinical book called Mahasee Yerusalemee, i. e. History of a Hebrew of Jerusalem.—“Very old,” says Moses Edrehi, “and known by the Hebrews to be true.” “Moreover,” saith he of another tale, “it really happened, because every thing that is written in the Jewish books is true; for no one can print any new book without its being examined and approved of by the greatest and chiefest Rabbin and wise men of that time and city, and the proofs must be very strong and clear; so that all the wonderful stories in these books are true.” The Jews are not singular in this mode of vouching for the truth of wonderful stories.

594 The moral here is apparent.

595 From a very ancient rabbinical book called R. H. It is needless to point out its resemblance to German and other tales.

596 See Davis’s translation of The Fortunate Union, i. 68.

597 Under the title Similar Legends in the Index, legends of this kind are arranged with references to the places where they occur.

598 The legends from the German and other languages are, in general, faithfully translated, whence the style is at times rude and negligent; English legends are for the most part, also, merely transcribed.

599 As we have above given an etymon of cobweb, we will here repeat our note on the word gossamer in the Fairy Legends.

“Gossamers, Johnson says, are the long white cobwebs which fly in the air in calm sunny weather, and he derives the word from the Low Latin gossapium. This is altogether unsatisfactory. The gossamers are the cobwebs which may be seen, particularly of a still autumnal morning, in such numbers on the furze-bushes, and which are raised by the wind and floated through the air, as thus exquisitely pictured by Browne in his Britannia’s Pastorals (ii. 2),

The milk-white gossamers not upwards snowed.

Every lover of nature must have observed and admired the beautiful appearance of the gossamers in the early morning, when covered with dew-drops, which, like prisms, separate the rays of light, and shoot the blue, red, yellow, and other colours of the spectrum, in brilliant confusion. Of King Oberon we are told—

A riche mantle he did wear,
Made of tinsel gossamer,
Bestrew’d over with a few
Diamond drops of morning dew.

A much more probable origin of gossamer than that proposed by Johnson is suggested by what has been now stated. Gossamer is, we think, a corruption of gorse, or goss samyt, i. e. the samyt, or finely-woven silken web that lies on the gorse or furze. Voss, in a note on his Luise (iii. 17), says that the popular belief in Germany is, that the gossamers are woven by the Dwarfs.

600 In the notes on this story Mr. Croker gives the following letter:—
“The accuracy of the following story I can vouch for, having heard it told several times by the person who saw the circumstances.

“About twenty years back, William Cody, churn-boy to a person near Cork, had, after finishing his day’s work, to go through six or eight fields to his own house, about twelve o’clock at night. He was passing alongside of the ditch of a large field, and coming near a quarry, he heard a great cracking of whips on the other side. He went on to a gap in the same ditch, and out rode a little horseman, dressed in green, and mounted in the best manner, who put a whip to his breast, and made him stop until several hundred horsemen, all dressed alike, rode out of the gap at full speed, and swept round a glen. When the last horseman was clear off, the sentinel clapt spurs to his horse, gave three cracks of his whip, and was out of sight in a second.

“The person would swear to the truth of the above, as he was quite sober and sensible at the time. The place had always before the name of being very airy [the Scottish eirie].

“Royal Cork Institution, P. Bath.
June 3, 1825.”

601 An abridgment of Leprechaun, see p. 371.

602 This wonderful tune is, we fear, a transference we made from Scandinavia. See above, p. 79.

603 We must here make an honest confession. This story had no foundation but the German legend in p. 259. All that is not to be found there is our own pure invention. Yet we afterwards found that it was well-known on the coast of Cork and Wicklow. “But,” said one of our informants, “It was things like flower-pots he kept them in.” So faithful is popular tradition in these matters! In this and the following tale there are some traits by another hand which we are now unable to discriminate.

604 It is not very likely that the inventor of this legend knew anything about the Amadigi of B. Tasso, yet in that poem we meet this circumstance more than once. In c. ii., when night falls on the young knight Alidoro, in the open country, he finds a pavilion pitched beside a fountain, with lights in it, and hears a voice which invites him to enter it. He there sups and goes to sleep in a rich bed, and on awaking in the morning (iii. 38) finds himself lying in the open air. Another time (c. viii) he comes to a fair inn, in a wild region, where he is entertained and his wounds are dressed by a gentle damsel, and on awaking in the morning he finds himself lying under a tree. The tent and inn were the work of his protectress, the Fairy Silvana. Another Fairy, Argea, entertains (c. xxxiii.) a king, queen, knight and ladies, in a stately palace. At night they retire to magnificent chambers, and in the morning they find themselves lying in a mead, some under trees, others on the sides of a stream, with more of the beauties of the ladies displayed than they could have desired.