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Milb gatcll of ptletotc. 



By Chajeles Edward Long, Esq. 



MONGr the many provincial traditions whicli have been 

 handed down to us, there are few more locally or generally 

 interesting: than the well-known tale of "Wild Darell of Littlecote." 

 Since the publication of the poem of "Rokeby" in 1813, it has 

 acquired a dignified position, which perhaps it did not possess 

 before, and indeed untU the publication of the Bodleian letters, 

 and Lives of Eminent Persons from the MSS. of Aubrey, in the 

 same year, no printed statement, that I have ever yet heard of, is 

 to be met with. The story hung upon village tradition. Being 

 mj'sclf a native of the adjoining county, and, for many years, no 

 distant neighbour of the spot itself, I was, like others, acquainted 

 with the narrative in my boyish days, and looked upon the exist- 

 ence of the Darell stile, and the evidence of the mutilated bed-curtain, 

 with the awe and credulity with which childhood and ignorance usu- 

 ally invest such objects. The story of the Trojan war is not more 

 implicitly believed by every schoolbo}^ nor that of the Lady of the 

 Lake by nine- tenths of the foreignerswho visit the shores of Loch Ka- 

 trine than was this tale of terror by the writer of the present article. 

 It was hoped and expected that we should be enabled to give either 

 a confirmation or distinct refutation of this story, so far, at least as 

 regards the trial at Salisbury, and the acquittal of Darell. But 

 there is nothing of the sort to offer, and for the present, we must 

 be contented with inferences. Researches have been made in every 

 quarter where such evidence might be expected to be found — the 

 records in the Carlton Ride; those in the Tower, (now at the Rolls 

 Office); the State Paper Office, &c., &c. ; but ineffectually. Be- 

 yond tlie bare tradition, and Aubrey's manuscript, there is nothing 

 to support it. It is true that there is a taki told with much minute- 

 ness in Burke's Commoners, under the head of DaroU of Shudy 



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