[We will add two further illustrations of this passage of Chaucer, and
the popular rhyme on which it is founded. The first is from Mr.
Akerman's _Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Use in
Wiltshire_, where we read--
"When a child is stung, he plucks a dock-leaf, and laying it on the
part affected, sings--
'Out 'ettle
In dock
Dock shall ha a new smock;
'Ettle zhant
Ha' narrun.'"
Then follows a reference by Mr. Akerman to the passage in _Troilus and
Creseide_.--Our second illustration is from Chaucer himself, who, in his
_Testament of Love_ (p. 482 ed. Urry), has the following passage:
"Ye wete well Ladie eke (quoth I), that I have not plaid raket, Nettle
in, Docke out, and with the weathercocke waved."
Mr. Akerman's work was, we believe, published in {206} 1846; and, at all
events, attention was called to these passages in the _Athenæum_ of the
l2th September in that year, No. 985.]
_Soul separates from the Body._--In Vol. ii., p. 506., is an allusion to an
ancient superstition, that the human soul sometimes leaves the body of a
sleeping person and takes another form; allow me to mention that I
remember, some forty years ago, hearing a servant from Lincolnshire relate
a story of two travellers who laid down by the road-side to rest, and one
fell asleep. The other, seeing a bee settle on a neighbouring wall and go
into a little hole, put the end of his staff in the hole, and so imprisoned
the bee. Wishing to pursue his journey, he endeavoured to awaken his
companion, but was unable to do so, till, resuming his stick, the bee flew
to the sleeping man and went into his ear. His companion then awoke him,
remarking how soundly he had been sleeping, and asked what had he been
dreaming of? "Oh!" said he, "I dreamt that you shut me up in a dark cave
and I could not awake till you let me out." The person who told me the
story firmly believed that the man's soul was in the bee.