LEGENDARY LORE 21 



fairy tales of the nasty brownies who ran off with the naughty 

 little white boys and girls if they did not behave themselves. 



Whether from this half-caste breeding, or owing to the 

 strain of Phoenician blood that had crept into the West of 

 England from Carthaginian and Roman commerce in tin, it 

 happened that upon a certain sixth of January (year unknown) 

 the Mongolian of the West of England fought and defeated 

 the red-haired pixies, i.e., the Picts and Scots, and drove away 

 these awful raiders who destroyed their orchards and apples. 

 Hence ever afterwards this victory marked a day of national 

 rejoicing, bonfires, and feasting, which in time gave place to 

 the absurd superstitions and custom now in vogue. In just 

 such a way has the truth of revelation been buried by religion 

 or superstition. Another instance of the manner in which 

 fables often contain the history of the past, I will take the 

 nursery rhyme of "Ride a Cock-horse." The King of France, 

 knowing King Henry VIII. 's love of pleasure and women, 

 thought it easier to conquer the English king's ire with sweet 

 smiles than his stout men-at-arms with sharp swords, so 

 turned the English invasion of France into a monster pageant 

 known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. 



Amongst those who came forward to save France was a 

 charming French Countess I regret to say I have forgotten 

 her name who was a champion hawker and owned a 

 white Arab palfrey, then almost unknown in Europe. This 

 sporting damsel challenged all the gallants of England to fly 

 her hawk or race her horse. If she won with her hawk they 

 were to give her a bell for her hawk's hood, if she won with 

 her steed the loser was to give her a ring for her finger ; if she. 

 lost with the hawk, the winner was to receive the white horse 

 as his prize, if he beat her steed he was to gain her hand in 

 marriage. But she scored on all sides with an unbeaten record, 

 with the result that she won more bells than she could put on 

 her hawk's hood, so she hung them on her stirrup shoe, so 

 that, when at the end of the pageant she returned to England 

 with Henry VIII. to adorn for a while the English Court, she 

 had rings on her fingers and bells on her toes. She subse- 

 quently declined to become one of his many wives, and upon 

 her return to France, all London who could muster horse, 

 lame, cripple, or cock-horse, turned out and rode down to 

 Banbury Cross to see this fine lady get on a white horse, where 



