Note 334 — ENGLAND.
Reading edition
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 hæeie, 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.

