_Sir Gammer Vans._--This worthy is mentioned in that curious little
chap-book, _A Strange and Wonderful Relation of the Old Woman that was
drowned at Ratcliff Highway_, in two parts. I now quote the passage from a
copy of the genuine Aldermary churchyard edition:--
"At last I arrived at Sir John Vang's house. 'Tis a little house
entirely alone, encompassed about with forty or fifty houses, having a
brick wall made of flint stone round about it. So knocking at the door,
Gammer Vangs, said I, is Sir John Vangs within? Walk in, said she, and
you shall see him in the little, great, round, three square parlour.
This Gammer Vangs had a little old woman her son. Her mother was a
churchwarden of a large troop of horse, and her grandmother was a
Justice of the Peace; but when I came into the said great, little,
square, round, three corner'd parlour, I could not see Sir John Vangs,
for he was a giant. But I espied abundance of nice wicker bottles. And
just as I was going out he called to me and asked me what I would have?
So looking back I espied him just creeping out of a wicker bottle. It
seems by his profession he was a wicker bottle maker. And after he had
made them, he crept out at the stopper holes."
There are two notes worth recording with respect to this curious medley,
which is obviously a modern version of a much older composition. Query, is
any older edition known?
1. That the wood-cut on the title page, which has been re-engraved for Mr.
Halliwell's _Notices of Fugitive Tracts and Chap-books_, printed for the
Percy Society, is one of the few representations we have of the old
_Ducking Stool_.
2. That it is said that the Rev. Thomas Kerrich, the well-known librarian
of the University of Cambridge, could repeat by heart the whole of the
eight and forty pages of this strange gallimawfrey.