Notes.

POPULAR STORIES OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY,

NO. V.

By far the larger portion of our tales consist of those connected with the popular mythology of elves, and giants, and bleeding trees; of witches and their wicked doings; of frogs that would go a-wooing, and got turned into princes; and amorous princes who became frogs; of primitive rough chests transformed into coaches; young ladies who go to bed young ladies, and get up owls; much despised younger sons crowned kings of boundless realms; and mediæval tabbies getting inducted into flourishing vizierships by the mere loss of their tails: stories, in short, of the metamorphosis of all conceivable things into all conceivable shapes. Lest this catalogue should frighten your readers, I at once disavow any intention of reflecting more than a specimen. Their puerility renders them scarcely suitable to your columns, and there is moreover such a sameness in those best worth preserving—the fairy legends—that a single example would be amply sufficient for our purpose of pointing out the different varieties of oral romance. Whenever the story relates to the dealings of the fairy-folk with mankind, the elf is almost always represented as the dupe; while, in his transactions with rival supernaturals, he invariably comes off victorious. Giants especially, being always of sleepy and obtuse intellect, afford a fine field for the display of his powers; and we find him baffling their clumsy plans, as well also as the more cunning devices of weird-sisters, in a manner which proves him to be a worthy scion of the warlike avenger of the Sagar. The lovers of folk-lore will probably agree with me in regarding the following tale as a choice bit of elfin history, illustrating the not very amicable relations of the witches and the good people. No sneers, therefore, gentle readers, but listen to the simple strain of "Fairy Jip and Witch One-eye."

Once upon a time, just before the monkey tribe gave up the nauseous custom of chewing tobacco, there lived an old hag, who had conceived an inordinate desire to eat an elf: a circumstance, by the way, which indubitably establishes that elves were of masticable solidity, and not, as some one has it, mere

Some of the stories are so extremely like the German ones, that, with very slight alterations, they would serve as translations. These, for obvious reasons, it will not be worth while to trouble you with. Among them, I may particularise the following from the Kinder und Hausmärchen:—Hans im Gluck: Der Frieder und das Catherlieschen; Von der Frau Füchsin; and Van den Nachandel-Boom.

Providence B—— was a well-known man throughout that whole country-side. He had made more converts than all his brethren put together, and, in the matter of spirits and demons, would stand a comparison with Godred or Gutlac, or, by'r Lady, St. Anthony himself. Now it fell out one day, that Providence was sent for to the house of a wealthy yeoman to aid in expelling an evil spirit which had long infested his daughter. I must here remark, en parenthèse, that scenes of this fearfully ludicrous nature are far from unfrequent in our country districts. The besotted state of ignorance in which a great portion of our rural population are still enwrapt, renders them peculiarly open to the fleecing of these fanatics, who, marvellous to relate, are almost everywhere looked upon with respect, and treated with the greatest consideration, proving incontestably that,

On this occasion the job proved a tough one, and it was not till a late hour that Prov. set off on his road home. It was a pitchy dark night, and somehow or other the preacher and his nag contrived to lose their way among the green lanes, and it was not till they had floundered about for some time that our hero discerned (as is usual in such cases) a light gleaming through the thick foliage before him, which he incontinently discovers to proceed from a solitary dwelling in the middle of the woods. Of course he dismounts, and knocks at the door; and of course it was opened by a suspicious-looking old woman in toggery which it would do Mr. James's heart good to depict. To his request for a night's lodging, she yielded a ready assent—too ready, Prov. thought; for it seemed from her manner as though he had been expected. He was shown into a bed-room, and was proceeding to divest himself of his garments, when he hears a knock at the door, and a voice asked him to come down to supper. Prov. made answer that he didn't want any, that he was in bed, and that moreover he was engaged at his devotions; but presently the messenger returned, and declared that if he did not join the company downstairs, they would come and sup with him. Poor Prov. quaked with fright, but thought it politic to cloak his fears, so followed the servant to the house-room, where there were a number of people sitting round a table plentifully laden with good things. All of them were little "shrivelled up" old men; and, as the chairman motioned Prov. to a vacant seat, they all regarded him with a stare that made him feel the reverse of jolly. Although he is well acquainted with the neighbourhood, he recognises none of them. The meal proceeded in solemn silence: look which way he would, he encounters the gaze of his companions, who appear to scowl at him with an expression of fiendish hate. Dreadful surmises flit across his brain. Suddenly his attention becomes directed to the posterior portion of the gentleman next him. "By Jove! he has a tail. Yes, he has; and so has his neighbour, and so have they all." He fancies too he can trace a resemblance between the individual who sits at the head of the table and the fiend of the morning's exorcism. All is now clear as a pike-staff. It is a decided case of trepan. That dark fellow on the right has to complain of a forcible ejection from a comfortable dwelling in the portly corpus of Master Muggins the miller; and he on the left is the identical demon who got into Farmer Nelson's cow, and gave our hero a world of trouble to get him out. He is in the power of the incubi, whom he has been so long warring against. Not a moment is to be lost, for already they are whispering together, and the scowls get fiercer and fiercer. What is to be done? A monk would have had recourse to his breviary; Prov. thought of his hymn-book. "Brethren," says he, "it is usual wi' us at the heend of a feast to ax a blessing."

"A blessing quotha! and to us?" roared the fiends. "Ha! ha! Yea! yea!" said Prov.; and instanter he out with that spirit-stirring stanza of "immortal John:"

Who shall depict the scene while these words were being uttered? The old men turn all sorts of colours, from green to blue, and blue to green, and back again to their original hue. At the last line, the uproar becomes terrible; and, amidst shouts of fiendish wailing, the whole company resolve themselves into a thin blue smoke, in which state they career up the chimney, taking with them a bran new chimney-pot, and leaving behind a most offensive odour of lucifer matches. Prov. saw no more; he fainted.

Some scandalous fellows spread abroad a report that the morning's sun discovered our valiant vessel snugly ensconced in a dry ditch; but as he always denounced strong waters, and was moreover a leading member of the Steeple "United Totals," I, for one, do not believe it. From the examples already given, I trust your readers will think with me that these old world relics are worth preserving. I hope they will not be backward in the good work. A few more years, and the scheme of an English work on the plan of Grimm's will be impracticable. The romance-lore, both oral and written, which erewhile delighted the cottager, is growing out of date. The prosy narrative of "How John the serving-man wedded an earl's daughter, and became a squire of high degree;" and the less placid, but still intolerably dull feats of the "Seven Champions," have no charms for him now. He has outgrown the old chap-book literature, and affectionates the highly seasoned atrocities of the Old Bailey school; which, to the disgrace of the legislature, are allowed to poison the minds of our labouring community with their weekly broad-sheets of crime and obscenity. Even those prime old favourites, the Robin Hood Garland and Shepherd's Kalendar, with its quaint letter-press and grim woodcuts, are getting out of fashion, and beginning to be missed from their accustomed nook beside the family Bible.

T. Sternberg.

P.S. Owing to some unaccountable inadvertence, I have only just seen the number of "N.& Q." containing the highly interesting communications of H. B. C. and Mr. Stephens. Will Mr. Stephens allow me to ask him where he procured his tale, for I agree with H. B. C. that it is "desirable to fix the localities as nearly as possible." My version came from the Gloucestershire side of the county.

DR. THOMAS MORELL'S COPY OF H. STEPHENS' EDIT. OF ÆSCHYLUS, 1557, WITH MSS. NOTES.

As your valuable paper is in the hands of scholars of every description in every part of the world, the following communication may meet the eye, and be of no slight interest to some of your classical readers, and, at the same time, give a stimulus to hunters at bookstalls. Some time since, in one of my hunts, I stumbled upon a very fine copy of Pet. Victorine's (Vettori) edition of Æschylus, printed by H. Stephens, 1557. I was much gratified in finding it had belonged to the celebrated Thomas Morell, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., the lexicographer, and had his book-plate and autograph. The margins were filled with many conjectures and emendations written in two very ancient hands, and, besides, some MSS. Scholia on the Prometheus and Poesæ. In carefully examining them I found many were marked with the letters (A) and (P). I remembered the present very learned Bishop of London, in the preface to his edition of the Choæphoræ, mentioned the vast assistance he had received in editing that play from a copy of this very edition of Æschylus (H. Stephens, 1557), lent to him by Mr. Mitford, the margins of which were similarly marked. The bishop observes these emendations were by Auratus and Portus, two learned French scholars; and that Mr. Mitford's volume contained several other emendations without the signatures (A) and (P), which he, for distinction's sake, marked (Q). Now my copy also possessed these readings marked (Q). The bishop further observed, that the writer of the MSS. notes was a cotemporary of Casaubon's from a remark at p. 14. of the volume. The learned bishop's description of the volume will be found in the Museum Criticum, vol. ii. p. 488. I at first imagined I had met with this identical volume; but a closer examination proved I was mistaken, as my copy, besides all those carefully noted by Dr. Blomfield, contained many other emendations, but had not the note at p. 14. of the Prometheus. Whoever was the copier or writer of the marginal MSS. in my volume, was evidently a Frenchman, as some of the notes are in French. The handwriting is very ancient and contracted, and has the appearance of being of the early portion of the seventeenth century. The most interesting part, however, of the story still remains. Dr. Thomas Morell edited the Prometheus, 4to., 1773. The title is as follows: Æschyli P. V. cum Stanl. Versione et Scholiis, α, β, (et γ ineditis), &c. Now these Scholia γ, which he professes to give for the first time, I found to be those in the very ancient hand in the margin of my volume. He frequently also gives the various marginal readings, and styles them "Marg. MS." Moreover he occasionally adopts these notes without any acknowledgment, especially where they throw any light on the text. The volume then is of great curiosity and value. From a curious note at the end of the Prometheus, Morell takes nine iambic lines, to which is affixed "Ad Calcem Dramatis MS. Regii." From this it would seem the Scholia were taken from a MS. in the Royal Library at Paris.

We may observe then as a remarkable circumstance, that while Bishop Blomfield was describing the copy belonging to Mr. Mitford, a similar copy, with more notes, and of equal antiquity as to the MSS. emendations, was in existence, and had once been in the possession of, and of much assistance to the great Dr. Morell. Where Morell got this volume, and how he should not have acknowledged the aid he derived from it, is a mystery. As I mentioned before, the handwriting is far prior to Morell's day. The volume is rendered still more interesting by its having many of Stanley's emendations, about which such a controversy arose from the observations made by Blomfield in his preface to the Agamemnon. And I am almost induced to think it might originally have belonged to Stanley, who made a similar use of it to what Morell did. Many of the emendations are still inedited. This valuable volume, therefore, is of great interest, (1) from the vast number of MSS. readings, and (2) from its having been formerly in the possession of Dr. Morell, and the circumstances above mentioned. It is a very large and clean copy of the now scarce edition of H. Stephens; and your bibliographical readers will be astonished to hear I purchased it for one shilling! I may mention I showed it to the Bishop of London and Dr. Wordsworth, Canon of Westminster, who were both interested with it. The latter showed me in return several volumes of MSS. collections for a new edition of Æschylus, made by his lamented brother the late Mr. John Wordsworth, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, perhaps the profoundest Greek scholar next to Porson the University of Cambridge ever possessed, and who so ably reviewed Professor Scholefield's Æschylus in the Philological Museum. The classical world can never sufficiently regret that death prevented us from receiving at his hands a first-rate edition of this noble poet, as he had been at much pains in travelling all over the Continent, and examining all the MSS. extant; and from his known partiality to the author, and vast learning, would doubtless have done ample justice to his task.

Richard Hooper.

St. Stephen's, Westminster.