Only a few years before the advent of Ambrose Merton, it was the
sorrowful lament of Picken that he could find no legendary lore among
our English peasantry. The rapid progress of education, according to
him, had long ago banished our household traditions. Want of
acquaintance with the shy and reserved character of John Bull probably
proved a stumbling-block to our collector, for what a rich harvest has
been reaped since his day! Our mythic treasures, however, are far from
being exhausted; and if we wish to emulate our brethren of Deutschland,
we must do yet more. The popular tales and legends which abound among
our rural population, are still for the most part ungarnered. The
folk-tales of the sister kingdoms have been ably chronicled in the pages
of Croker and Chambers, but our own have been almost entirely neglected.
So much indeed is this the case, that we have had recourse to Germany in
order to recruit our exhausted nursery literature; and readers of _all_
sizes devour with avidity the charming versions of the Messieurs Taylor,
few of them suspecting that stories of like character form the sole
imaginative lore of their uneducated countrymen.
Some years ago while in the country I made a practice of noting down the
more curious traditionary stories which came under my notice; and, with
the kind permission of the Editor, will transfer a few portions of my
researches to the columns of "N. & Q.," in the hope of inducing some of
your rural correspondents to embark in a similar design. I am aware that
certain antiquaries of the old _régime_ still entertain doubts as to the
utility of these collections. As vestiges, however, of primitive
fiction, they will interest the philosophical inquirer; while their
value as contributions to ethnological and philological science has been
recognised by all writers on the subject.
Premising that these tales, however puerile, are not associated with any
such idea by the people among whom they were gathered, permit me to
introduce your readers to "Thoughtful Moll," in whom they will trace a
remarkable resemblance to _Die kluge Else_ of Grimm. It is from
Oxfordshire, and affords no bad specimen of the facetious class of
fables which often enliven the winter's evening hearth-talk. I have
endeavoured to preserve the narrators' style and dialect.
In a certain village there once lived a young woman so extremely noted
for prudence and forethought, that she was known among her neighbours as
"Thoughtful Moll." Now this young lady had a thirsty soul of a
sweetheart, who dearly loved a drop of October, and one day when he came
a-wooing to her: "O Moll," says he, "fill us a tot o'yeal, I be most
mortal dry." So Moll took a tot from the shelf and went down the cellar,
where she tarried so long that her father sent down her sister to see
what had come of her. When she got there she found her sister weeping
bitterly. "What ails thee, wench?" said she. "O!" sobbed Moll, "don't ye
see that stwon in the arch, that stands out from the mortar like? Now,
mayhaps, when I be married an have a bwoy, an he comes down here to draw
beer, that big stwon'll fall down on'm and crush'm." "Thoughtful Moll!"
said her admiring sister, and the two sat down and mingled their tears
together. The drink not being forthcoming, another sister is despatched,
and she also stops. Meantime Dob grew chafed at the delay, and went down
himself to look after his love and his beer. When he hears the cause of
the stoppage, he falls into a violent rage, and declares he won't have
Moll unless he can find three bigger fools than herself and sisters. It
is noonday when Dob sets out on his travels; and the first person he saw
was an old woman, who was running about and brandishing her bonnet in
the sunshine: "What bist at, Dame?" says Dob. "Why," said the old woman;
"I'm a ketchin' sunshine in this here bonnet to dry me carn as a' leased
in wet." "Mass!" quoth Dob, "that's one fool." And so on he went till he
came to another Gothanite, who was dragging about the corn-fields a huge
branch of oak. "What may ye be a-doin' wi' that, Measter?" says Dob.
"Kaint ye see?" says the man; "I'm a gettin' the crows to settle on this
branch, they've had a'most all me crop a'ready." "The devil you are!"
said Dob, as he went on his way. He meets no one else for a long time,
and almost despairs of completing his number, when at last he sees an
old woman trying all she could to get a cow to go up a ladder. "What are
ye arter there, Missus?" says he. "Dwunt ye see, young mon?" says she;
"I'm a drivin' this keow up the lather t'eat the grass aff the thack."
"Deary me!" says Dob, "one fool makes many." And so he turned back, and
married Moll; with whom he lived long and happily, if not wisely.[1]
[Footnote 1: Glossary.--_Tot_, a mug; _yeal_, ale; _leased_,
gleaned; _lather_, ladder; _thack_, thatch.]
Besides Grimm's version, we meet with a somewhat similar fable in
Ireland. Vide Gerald Griffin's _Collegians_, p. 139.
Another pretty numerous class of our popular stories consists of those
in which animals are made the actors. One of the most common of these
relates to the strife between the fox and the hedgehog, who, according
to the good people of Northamptonshire, are the two most astute animals
in creation. How a couple of these worthies once fell out as to which
was the swifter animal; and how, when they had put their speed to the
trial, the cunning urchin contrived to defeat Reynard by placing his
consort in the furrow which was to form the goal: so that when her mate
had made a pretence of starting, she might jump out and feign to be
himself just arrived. And how, after three desperate runs, the
broken-winded fox fell a victim to the deceit, and was compelled to
yield to his adversary; who, ever since that day, has been his most
inveterate enemy. This myth is curious on many accounts, for the
hedgehog has always been regarded as an emblem of subtlety. Grimm gives
a tale precisely similar, with the exception that it is a hare and not a
fox who is deceived by the ruse. Aldrovandus likewise tells us much on
the score of his craft; and it was probably some mythic connexion
between the animals which led Archilochus to class them together in the
adage:
"Πολλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα."
Your readers will also call to mind the fable of Ælian, lib. IV. cap.
xviii.