(Vol. v., p. 363. &c.)
Will you allow me, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to say how much obliged
I should be for any communications on this subject. Since I last addressed
you (about a year ago) I have received many interesting contributions
towards my proposed collection; but not, I regret to say, quite to the
extent I had anticipated. My own researches have been principally confined
to the midland counties, and I have very little from the north or east.
Such a large field requires many gleaners, and I hope your correspondents
learned in Folklore will not be backward in lending their aid to complete a
work which Scott, Southey, and a host of illustrious names, have considered
a desideratum in our national antiquities.
I propose to divide the tales into three classes--Mythological, Humorous,
and Nurse-tales. Of the mythological I have already given several specimens
in your journal, but I will give the following, as it illustrates another
link in the transmission of MR. KEIGHTLEY'S Hindustani legend, which
appeared in a recent Number. It is from Northamptonshire.
_The Bogie and the Farmer._
Once upon a time a Bogie asserted a claim to a field which had been
hitherto in the possession of a farmer; and after a great deal of
disputing, they came to an arrangement by agreeing to divide its produce
between them. At seed time, the farmer asks the Bogie what part of the crop
he will have, "tops or bottoms." "Bottoms," said the spirit: upon which the
crafty farmer sows the field with wheat, so that when harvest arrives the
corn falls to his share, while the poor Bogie is obliged to content himself
with the stubble. Next year the spirit, finding he had made such an
unfortunate selection in the bottoms, chose the tops; whereupon cunning
Hodge set the field with turnips, thus again outwitting the simple {95}
claimant. Tired of this unprofitable farming, the Bogie agrees to hazard
his claims on a mowing-match, thinking that his supernatural strength would
give him an easy victory; but before the day of meeting, the cunning
earth-tiller procures a number of iron bars which he stows among the grass
to be mown by his opponent; and when the trial commences, the unsuspecting
goblin finds his progress retarded by his scythe coming into contact with
these obstacles, which he takes to be some very hard--very hard--species of
dock. "Mortal hard docks, these," said he; "Nation hard docks!" His blunted
scythe soon brings him to a stand still, and as, in such cases, it is not
allowed for one to sharpen without the other, he turns to his antagonist,
now far ahead, and inquires, in a tone of despair, "When d'ye wiffle-waffle
(whet), mate?" "Waffle!" said the farmer, with a well-feigned stare of
amazement, "O, about noon mebby." "Then," said the despairing spirit, "That
thief of a Christian has done me;" and so saying, he disappeared and was
never heard of more.
Under _Nurse-tales_, I include the extremely puerile stories of the
nursery, often (as in the German ones) interlaced with rhymes. The
following, from the banks of the Avon, sounds like an echo from a German
story-book.
_Little Elly._
In the old time, a certain good king laid all the ghosts, and hanged all
the witches and wizards save one, who fell into a bad way, and kept a
school in a small village. One day Little Elly looked through a chink-hole,
and saw him eating man's flesh and drinking man's blood; but Little Elly
kept it all to herself, and went to school as before. And when school was
over the Ogee fixed his eyes upon her, and said--
"All go home but Elly,
And Elly come to me."