Note (return) — THE COSMOPOLITE.
Reading edition
The stories of the young lady suffocated by accidentally enclosing herself in a chest with a spring lock7—of the girl frightened into complete idiotcy by those who placed a skeleton, or, as some say, a skull only, in her bed8—and of ladies, bishops, &c. obtaining their livelihoods privately by highway robbery9, with similar narratives, rather romantic than superstitious, are general property, and to be met with under various modifications throughout England. The tale of the King of the Cats10, a German tradition, has its exact counterpart in an Irish one, related to us as an original Hibernian legend, and published some time since in an excellent work, which having now disappeared, we may perhaps venture to give, as a novelty, the little tradition in these pages: