Dec. 2y. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



503 



LOiriWN, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1855. 



THE WANDERING JEW IN ENGLAND. 



Of the many myths which diverge from every 

 little incident of Our Saviour's career, the legend 

 of Ahasucrus, the Wandering Jew, is certainly the 

 most striking and widely distributed. According 

 to the old ballad, in Percy's Collection : 



" He hath peist through many a foreign place ; 

 Arabia, Egypt, Africa, 

 Greece, Syria, and great Thrace, 

 And throughout all Hungaria." 

 All the nations of the Seven Champions have it 

 in some shape or other, and it is amusing to note 

 the way in which the story adapts itself to the 

 exigencies of time and place. In Germany, where 

 he appeared a.d. 1547, he was a kind of Polyglot 

 errant, battling professors and divines with the 

 accumulated learning of fifteen centuries. In 

 Paris, he heralded the advent of Cagliostro and 

 Mesmer, cured diseases, and astounded the salons 

 by his prodigious stories, in which he may be 

 truly said to have ventured the entire animal. 

 He remembered seeing Nero standing on a hill 

 to enjoy the flames of his capital ; and was a par- 

 ticular crony of Mahomet's father at Ormus. It 

 was here, too, he anticipated the coming scepti- 

 cism, by declaring, from personal experience, that 

 all history was a tissue of lies. In Italy the 

 myth has become interwoven with the national 

 art lore. When he came to Venice, he brought 

 with him a fine cabinet of choice pictures, in- 

 cluding his own portrait by Titian, taken some 

 two centuries before. In England John Bull has 

 endowed him with the commercial spirit of hjs 

 stationary brethren, and, to complete his certi- 

 ficate of naturalization, made him always thirsty! 

 But the Jew of Quarter Sessions' Reports, who Is 

 always getting Into scrapes, is not the Jew of the 

 rural popular legends ; in which he is Invariably 

 represented as a purely benevolent being, whose 

 crime has been long since expiated by his cruel 

 punishment, and therefore entitled to the help of 

 every good Christian. When on the weary way 

 to Golgotha, Christ fainting, and overcome under 

 the burden of the cross, asked him, as he was 

 standing at his door, for a cup of water to cool his 

 parched throat, he spurned the supplication, and 

 bade Him on the faster. "I go," said the Saviour, 

 " but thou shalt thirst, and tarry till I come." 

 And ever since then, by day and night, through 

 the long centuries he has been doomed to wander 

 about the earth, ever craving for water, and ever 

 expecting the day of judgment which shall end 

 his toils : 



" Mais toujours le soleil se love, 

 Toujours, toujours 

 Tourne la terre ou inoi jc cours, 

 Toujours, toujours, toujours, toujours!" 

 No. 322.] 



Sometimes, during the cold winter nights, the 

 lonely cottager will be awoke by a plaintive de- 

 mand for " Water, good Christian ! water for the 

 love of God ! " And If he looks out into the 

 moonlight, he will see a venerable old man In an- 

 tique raiment, with grey flowing beard, and a tall 

 staff", who beseeches his charity with the most 

 earnest gesture. Woe to the churl who refuses 

 him water or shelter. My old nurse, who was a 

 Warwickshire woman, and, as Sir Walter said of 

 his grandmother, " a most awfxH Wer" knew a 

 man who boldly cried out, " All very fine, Mr. 

 Ferguson, but you can't lodge here." And it 

 was decidedly the worst thing he ever did In his 

 life, for his best mare fell dead lame, and corn 

 went down, I am afraid to say how much per 

 quarter. If, on the contrary, you treat him well, 

 and refrain from indelicate inquiries respecting his 

 age — on which point he Is very touchy — his visit 

 is sure to bring good luck. Perhaps years after- 

 wards, when you are on your death-bed, he may 

 happen to be passing ; and If lie should, you are 

 safe ; for three knocks with his staff" will make 

 you hale, and he never forgets any kindnesses. 

 Many stories are current of his wonderful cures ; 

 but there is one to be found in Peck's History of 

 Stamford which possesses the rare merit of being 

 Avrltten by the patient himself. Upon Whitsun- 

 day, in the year of our Lord 1658, " about six of 

 the clock, just after evensong," one Samuel Wallis, 

 of Stamford, who had been long wasted with a 

 lingering consumption, was sitting by the fire, 

 reading In that delectable book called Abraham's 

 Suit for Sodom. He heard a knock at the door ; 

 and, as his nurse was absent, he crawled to open it 

 himself. What he saw there, Samuel shall say in 

 his own style: — "I beheld a proper, tall, grave 

 old man. Thus he said : ' Friend, I pray thee, 

 give an old pilgrim a cup of small beere ! ' And I 

 said, ' Sir, I pray you, come In and welcome.' And 

 he said, 'I am no Sir, therefore call me not Sir; but 

 come in I must, for I cannot pass by thy doore.' " | 

 After finishing the beer : " Friend," he said, 

 "thou art not well." "I said, 'No, truly Sir, I 

 have not been well this many yeares.' He said, 

 ' What is thy disease ? ' I said, ' A deep con- 

 sumption, Sir ; our doctors say, past cure : for, 

 truly, I am a very poor man, and not able to fol- 

 low doctors' councell.' ' Then,' said he, ' I will tell 

 thee what thou shalt do ; and, by the help and 

 power of Almighty God above, thou shalt be well. 

 To-morrow, when thou risest up, go into thy gar- 

 den, and get there two leaves of red sage, and 

 one of bloodworte, and put them into a cup of thy 

 small beere. Drink as often as need require, and 

 when the cup is empty fill It again, and put in 

 fresh leaves every fourth day, and thou shalt see, 

 through our Lord's great goodness and mercy, be- 

 fore twelve dayes shall be past, thy disease shall 

 be cured and thy body altered.' " 



