226 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 45 



stood — slie gazed upon her own countenance and 

 form, and worshipped ! " Now all good angels 

 succour thee, dear Alice, and bend Sir Bevil's 

 soul ! Fain am I to see thee a weddeil wife, before 

 I die ! I yearn to hold thy children on my knee ! 

 Often shall I prny to-night that the Granville 

 heart may yield! 1'liy victory shall be my prayer!" 



"Prayer!" was the hiiughty answer; " with the 

 eyes that I see in that glass, and this vesture meet 

 for a queen, I lack no doubting prayer ! " 



Saint Mary shield us! Ah words of evil sound ! 

 There was a shriek — a sob — aery: and whei-e 

 was Alice of the Lea? Vanished — gone. They 

 had heard wild tones of sudden music in the air. 

 There was a rush — a beam of light — and she was 

 gone, and that for ever ! East sought they her, 

 and west, in northern paths and south ; but she 

 was never more seen in the lands. Her mother 

 wept till she had not a tear left : none sought to 

 comfort her, for it was vain. Moons waxed and 

 waned, and the crones by the cottage-hearth had 

 whiled away many a shadowy night with tales of 

 Alice of the Lea. 



But, at the last, as the gardener in the Pleasance 

 leaned one day on his spade, he saw among the 

 roses a small round hillock of earth, such as he had 

 never seen before, and upon it something which 

 shone. It was her ring! it was the vi:ry jewel 

 she had worn the day she vanished out of sight ! 

 They looked earnestly upon it, and they saw 

 within the border (for it was wide) the tracery 

 of certahi small fine letters in the ancient Cornish 

 tongue, which said, — 



" Beryan Erde, 

 Oyn und Pcrde ! " 



Then came the priest ,of the Place of JNIorwcnna, 

 a gray and silent man ! He had served long years 

 at a lonely altar, a bent and solitary form. But 

 he had been wise in language in his youth, and he 

 read the legend thus, — 



" The earth must hide 

 Both eyes and pride i" 



Now, as he uttered these words, they stood in 

 the Pleasance by the mound ; and on a sudden 

 there was a low faint cry ! They beheld, and, O 

 wondrous and strange ! there was a small dark 

 creature, clothed in a soft velvet skin, in textme 

 and in hue like the Lady Alice her robe ; and they 

 saw, as it went into the earth, that it moved along 

 without eyes, in everlasting night. Then the 

 ancient priest wept, for he called to mind all these 

 things, and saw what they meant ; and he showed 

 them how that this was the maiden, who had been 

 visited with doom for her pride. Therefore her 

 rich array had been changed into the skin of a 

 creeping thing ; and her large proud eyes were 

 sealed up ; and she herself had become 

 The first mole ! 

 Of the hillocks of Cornwall ! 



Ah ! woe is me ! and wcll-a-day ! that damsel 

 so stately and fair, sweet Lady Alice of the Lea, 

 should be made for a judgment, — the dark mother 

 of the moles ! 



Now take ye good heed, Cornish maidens, how 

 ye put on vain apparel, to win love. And cast 

 down your eyes, all ye damsels of the west, and 

 look ye meekly on the ground ! Be ye good and 

 gentle, tender and true ; and when ye see your 

 im;ige in the ghiss, and begin to be lifted up with 

 the beauty of that shadowy thing, call to mind the 

 maiden of Morwenna, her noble eyes and comely 

 countenance, the vestui-e of price, and the glitter- 

 ing ring. Sit ye by the wheel, as of old they sate, 

 and as ye draw the lengthening wool, sing ye ever- 

 more and say, 



" Bcry.m Erde, 

 Oyn und Perde ! " 



H. 



" A whistling Wife" ^'C. — I can supply another 

 version of the couplet quoted in "Folk Lore" 

 (Vol. ii., p. 1G4.), which has the merit of being 

 more rhymical anil mysterious. In what district 

 it was current I know not. 



" A wliistlinj; wife and a crowing hen. 



Will call the old gentleman out of liis den." 



G. L. B. 



A Charm for Warts. — In some parts of Ireland, 

 especially towards the south, they place great 

 faith in the following charm : — AVhen a funeral is 

 passing by, they rub the warts and say three 

 times, " May these warts and this corpse pass 

 away and never more return ; " sometimes adding, 

 " in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 

 Ghost." Jarltzberg. 



Hanging out the Br-oorn. — Besides the instance 

 given by Mr. E. F. Jounson (Vol. i., p. 384.), 

 perhaps some of your readers can inform me of 

 the origin of a somewhat simil.ar custom, applicable 

 to all ships and vessels for sale or hire, by the 

 broom (an old one being generally used) being 

 attached to the mast-head : if of two masts, to the 

 foretop-mast head. WP. 



LORD PLUNKET AND SAINT AGOBARD. 



Some of your readers may remember a speech 

 in parliament by, as I think. Lord Plunket, in 

 which his lordship argued with great eloquence in 

 behalf of the Bill lor the Emancipation of the 

 Roman Catholics. Among many passages therein 

 of equal truth and rhetorical power, there was one 

 long afterwards much quoted, parnphrased, and 

 praised. It was that in which he reminded the 

 House, that those for whom he ]ileaded were 

 fellow-subjects of the same race, otlspring of the 

 same Creator, alike believers in the One true God, 

 the equal recipients of His mercies, appealing for 



