_Source._--Told to Mrs. Balfour by Mrs. M. of S. Northumberland. Mrs.
M.'s mother told the tale as having happened to a person she had known
when young: she had herself seen the Hedley Kow twice, once as a donkey
and once as a wisp of straw. "Kow" must not be confounded with the more
prosaic animal with a "C."
_Parallels._--There is a short reference to the Hedley Kow in Henderson,
_l.c._, first edition, pp. 234-5. Our story is shortly referred to thus:
"He would present himself to some old dame gathering sticks, in the
form of a truss of straw, which she would be sure to take up and carry
away. Then it would become so heavy that she would have to lay her
burden down, on which the straw would become 'quick,' rise upright and
shuffle away before her, till at last it vanished from her sight with a
laugh and shout." Some of Robin Goodfellow's pranks are similar to those
of the Hedley Kow. The old woman's content with the changes is similar
to that of "Mr. Vinegar." An ascending scale of changes has been studied
by Prof. Crane, _Italian Popular Tales_, p. 373.