STRANGE TALES. 69 



like that of vipers ; and there is a description of the 

 formation of its tail which is rather beyond my com- 

 prehension : — 



" The tail standeth out betwixt the hinder-legs in 

 the middle, like the figure of a wheel-whisk, or 

 rather so contracted as if many of them were con- 

 joined together, and the void or empty places in the 

 conjunctions were filled ". 



The capture and domesticating of newts gave dire 

 offence in the village where I lived for some time ; 

 and the expressions used when I took a newt in 

 my hands were not unlike those of the Parisians re- 

 specting the toad. Sundry ill-omened tales of effets 

 were told me. For example : A girl of the village 

 was filling her pitcher at a stream which runs near 

 the village, when an effet jumped out of the water, 

 sprang on her arm, bit out a piece of flesh, spat fire 

 into the wound, and, leaping into the water, escaped. 

 The girl's arm instantly swelled to the shoulder, and 

 the doctor was obliged to cut it off 



This was told me with an immensity of circum- 

 stantial details common to such narrators, and was 

 corroborated by the bystanders. The wounded lady 

 herself was not to be found, and cross-questions 

 elicited that it "weir afoor their time". I asked 

 them how the effet which lived in the water, and 

 had just leaped out of it, was able to keep a fire 

 alight in its interior ; but they were not in the 

 least shaken, except perhaps in their heads, which 



