[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 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]

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,

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

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.

says the lady to the Staufenberger. She adds,

He finds it to be true,

[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]

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]

[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.