ffl, 



that in the English intercourse with Prance during the dynasty 

 of the Plantagenets, it had been carried to Normandy, and 

 told in the language of that country.* The four copies which 

 are given here, show the form of the tradition in our old 

 English literature, as well as the modifications which it has 

 assumed from dialect and local circumstances, in England, 

 Ireland, and Scotland. They concur in representing that a 

 schoolboy of tender years was induced, by means of an apple, 

 to enter the house of a Jew ; that the Jew's daughter who 

 enticed him put him to death in a secret apartment, and after- 

 wards threw the body into a draw-well. They all represent 

 the anxiety of the mother in seeking for her son ; and the 

 miraculous circumstance of his detailing the fact and manner 

 of his murder from the bottom of the well. In all the copies 

 the conversation is carried on in the most natural manner : 

 the mother expects, as a matter of course, that her dead son 

 can and will reply to her inquiry. The discrepancies which 

 occur in the filling up of this outline are such as one natu- 

 rally expects. They occur chiefly in names and numbers, and 

 minute or unimportant incidents. Thus, in the matter of 

 locality, " Merry Lincoln " becomes " Mirry-land" in the 

 mouth of a rustic who never learned geography, and who hears 

 or remembers indistinctly ; and a Scotch dame improves this 

 to the name of a known place, " Maitland." In one copy, the 

 feet recpiire " four and twenty," or some other number expres- 

 sed in four syllables ; in another, the metre recpiires " nine." 

 In one, the time is summer j in others, it is hallowday (1st of 

 November) ; whereas, the day which tradition has consecrated 

 in memory of " St. Hugh of Lincoln, Martyr," is the 27th of 

 August. In some cases, the well is not a common one, but 

 Our Lady's, and thus the crime was supposed to be increased j 

 and occasionally the miracle of speech after death is extended 



* This Norman French version was discovered by M. Michel in the royal library 

 at P.iris, and first published in 1S34. 



