238 LOUGH DERG. 



" The Squire says you do believe them." 

 " In that case, the professing to do so is 

 all the more easy," said the Parson. " The 

 truth is, I am a half-believer. I do not 

 exactly disbelieve any one of them, and this 

 our followers soon find out. My key to all 

 the legendary lore of this country was a 

 legend that I picked up in my own ; and as 

 this bears all my marks of a true legend, 

 being strictly local in its scenery, and ac- 

 counting for a natural phenomenon by su- 

 pernatural agency, I may as well give it you 

 as an example : — 



(i At the upper end of a winding, shallow 

 tide-harbour, on the coast of Sussex, stands 

 the ancient church of Bosham, one of the 

 very few remains of genuine Saxon archi- 

 tecture still extant. Bosham is now little 

 better than a fishing- village, but in the days 

 of Canute, who built a splendid palace there, 

 it had a flourishing monastery, in the vaults 

 of whose church that king's daughter lies 

 buried. At that time, and under the eye 

 of a king whom history describes as not to 

 be humbugged, the monks, no doubt, were 

 models of propriety ; but a hundred years 

 or so before those happy days (humanum est 



