NOTES AND QUERIES: 



A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION 

 LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. 



*• "Wlieii found, make a note of." — Captain Cuttle. 



Vol. v.— No. 139.] 



Saturday, June 26. 1852. 



f Price Fourpence. 

 Stamped Edition, gtf. 



CONTENTS. 

 Notes : — Page 



Popular Stories of the English Peasantr)', No. V., by 

 T. Sternberg - - - - - - 601 



Dr. Thomas Morell's Copy of H. Stephens' Edition of 



^schylus, 1557, with MSS. Notes, by Richard Hooper 60t 

 On a Passage in the " Merchant of Venice," Act III. 

 Sc. 2 , by S. W. Singer - - - - - 605 



Episode of the French Kevolution, by Philip S. King - t)05 

 Wilton indebted to Tacitus, by Thomas H. Gill - GOG 



Minor Notes : — Note by Warton on Aristotle's 

 "Poetics" — Misappropriated Quotation — The God 

 Arciacon — Gat-tothed — Goujere — The Ten Com- 

 mandments in Ten Lines — Vellum-bound Books - 606 



Queries : — 



Thomas Gill, the Blind Man of St. Edmundsbury 



Bronze Medals, by John J. A. Boase . - - 



Acworth Queries ..-.-. 



Minor Queries : — " How the boat, Norman " — The 



Hereditary Standard Bearer— Walton's Angler ; Seth's 



Pillars ; May-butter ; English Guzman — Radish 



Feast — What Kind of Drink is Whit?— " Felix 



natu," &c. — " Gutta cavat lapidem " — Punch and 



Judy — Sir John Darnall — The Chevalier St. George 



— Declaration of 2000 Clergymen — MS. " De Humi- 

 litate-'- MS. Work on Seals— Sir George Carew — 

 Docking Horses' Tails— St. Albans, William, Abbot 

 of —Jeremy Taylor on Friendship— Colonel or Major- 

 General I^ee — '" Roses and all that's fair adorn " 



Mi.NOR Queries Answered : — Donne — Dr. Evans 



Heflies : — 



Carling Sunday; Roman Funeral Pile - . - 



Hart and Mohun ------ 



Burial without Religious Service — Burial, by Alfred 



Gatty --..--. 



*' Quod non fecerunt Barbari," &c. ... 



Bestive ....--- 



Men of Kent and Kentish Men, by George R. Corner - 



Replies to Minor Queries : — Speculum Christianorura, 



&c Smyth's MSS. relating to Gloucestershire — 



M. Barriere and the Quarterly Review — " I do not 

 know what the truth may be " — Optical Phenomena 



— Stoup — Seventh Son of a Seventh Son — The Num- 

 ber Seven — Commentators — Banning or Bayning 

 Family — Tortoiseshell Tom Cat — A Tombstone cut 

 by Baskerville — Shakspeare, Tennyson, &c — Rhymes 

 on Places — Birthplace of Josephine — The Curse of 

 Scotland — Waller Family — " After me the Deluge " 



— Sun-Dial Motto — Lines by Lord Palmerston — 

 Indian Jugglers — Sons of the Conqueror — Saint 

 Wilfrid's Needle— Frebord — Royd— Spy Wednesday 



,^ — Book of Jasher — Stearne's Confirmation and Dis- 

 covery of Witchcraft — Lines on Chaucer — Fairlop 



, Oak — Boy Bishop at Eton — Plague Stones; Mr. 

 Mompesson — Raleigh's Ring — Pandecte, an entire 

 Copy of the Bible j^. - - - - 616 



Miscellaneous : — 



• Notes on Books, &c. - ... - 6?2 



Books and Odd Volumes wanted - - - ^ 622 



Notices to Correspondents - - - - 623 



Advertisements - - .... 623 



Vol. v. — No. 139. 



POPUL.4.K STORIES OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTBT, 

 NO. V. 



By far the larger portion of our tales consist of 

 those connected with the popular mytholoGjy 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 mediaeval 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 pre- 

 serving — the fairy legends — that a single example 

 would be amply suflicient 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 cun- 

 ning 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 inor- 

 dinate desire to eat an elf: a circumstance, by the 

 way, which indubitably establishes that elves were 



