[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 (), 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),

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 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.