Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales Part 29

On the next morning the following lines were found inscribed on the wall:

I've taken your cloak, I've taken your hood; The Cauld Lad of Hilton will do no more good!

A great variety of stories in which fairies are frightened away by presents, are still to be heard in the rural districts of England.

Another narrative, by Mr. Longstaffe, relates that on one occasion a woman found her was.h.i.+ng and ironing regularly performed for her every night by the fairies. In grat.i.tude to the "good people," she placed green mantles for their acceptance, and the next night the fairies departed, exclaiming-

Now the pixies' work is done!

We take our clothes, and off we run.

Mrs. Bray tells a similar story of a Devons.h.i.+re pixy, who helped an old woman to spin. One evening she spied the fairy jumping out of her door, and observed that it was very raggedly dressed; so the next day she thought to win the services of the elf further by placing some smart new clothes, as big as those made for a doll, by the side of her wheel. The pixy came, put on the clothes, and clapping its hands with delight, vanished, saying these lines:

Pixy fine, pixy gay, Pixy now will run away.

Fairies always talk in rhyme. Mr. Allies mentions a Worcesters.h.i.+re fairy legend which says that, upon one occasion, a pixy came to a ploughman in a field, and exclaimed:

Oh, lend a hammer and a nail, Which we want to mend our pail.

FELTON.

The little priest of Felton, The little priest of Felton, He kill'd a mouse within his house, And ne'er a one to help him.

SIR RALPH ASHTON.

Sweet Jesu, for thy mercy's sake, And for thy bitter pa.s.sion, Save us from the axe of the Tower, And from Sir Ralph of Ashton.

This rhyme is traditionally known in the North of England, and refers, it is said, to Sir Ralph Ashton, who, in the latter part of the fifteenth century, exercised great severity as vice-constable. The ancient custom of _riding the black lad_ at Ashton-under-Lyne on Easter Monday, which consists of carrying an effigy on horseback through the town, shooting at it, and finally burning it, is alleged to have taken its origin from this individual, who, according to tradition, was shot as he was riding down the princ.i.p.al street. According to another story, the custom commemorates the valiant actions of Thomas Ashton at the battle of Neville's Cross.

PRESTON.

Proud Preston, poor people, Fine church, and no steeple.

LANCAs.h.i.+RE.

Little lad, little lad, where wast thou born?

Far off in Lancas.h.i.+re, under a thorn, Where they sup sour milk in a ram's horn.

LEYLAND.

A village in Lancas.h.i.+re, not far from Chorley. There is, or was sixty years since, a tradition current here, to the effect that the church, on the night following the day in which the building was completed, was removed some distance by supernatural agency, and the astonished inhabitants, on entering the sacred edifice the following morning, found the following metrical command written on a marble tablet on the wall:

Here thou shalt be, And here thou shalt stand, And thou shalt be called The church of Ley-land.

Leyland church stands on an eminence at the east side of the village.

The ancient tower is still standing, but the body of the church is modern.

HUGH OF LINCOLN.

He tossed the ball so high, so high, He tossed the ball so low; He tossed the ball in the Jew's garden, And the Jews were all below.

Oh, then out came the Jew's daughter, She was dressed all in green; Come hither, come hither, my sweet pretty fellow, And fetch your ball again.

These lines refer to the well-known story of the murder of a child at Lincoln by a Jewess. The child was playing at ball, and threw it into the Jew's garden. She enticed him into the house to recover it, killed him, and, to conceal her guilt, threw the body into a deep well.

According to the ballads on the subject, the spirit of the boy answers his mother's inquiry from the bottom of the well, the bells ring without human aid, and several miracles are accomplished. The above fragment of some old ballad on the subject was given me by Miss Agnes Strickland as current in the country nursery.

CUCKSTONE.

If you would go to a church miswent, You must go to Cuckstone in Kent.

So said because the church is "very unusual in proportion." Lelandi Itin. ed. 1744, ii. 137.

SAINT LEVAN.

When with panniers astride A pack-horse can ride Through St. Levan's stone, The world will be done.

St. Levan's stone is a great rock in the churchyard of St. Levan, co.

Cornwall.

ROLLRIGHT.

The "Druidical" stones at Rollright, Oxfords.h.i.+re, are said to have been originally a general and his army who were transformed into stones by a magician. The tradition runs that there was a prophecy or oracle which told the general,-

If Long Compton thou canst see, King of England thou shalt be.

He was within a few yards of the spot whence that town could be observed, when his progress was stopped by the magician's transformation,-

Sink down man, and rise up stone!

King of England thou shalt be none.

The general was transformed into a large stone which stands on a spot from which Long Compton is not visible, but on ascending a slight rise close to it, the town is revealed to view. Roger Gale, writing in 1719, says that whoever dared to contradict this story was regarded "as a most audacious freethinker." It is said that no man could ever count these stones, and that a baker once attempted it by placing a penny loaf on each of them, but somehow or other he failed in counting his own bread.

A similar tale is related of Stonehenge.

HAMPDEN.

The following relation is given in the additions to Camden's Britannia, co. Bucks, p. 318. Tradition says the Black Prince, who held Hartwell, had large possessions at Prince's Risborough, where they show part of a wall of his palace, and a field where his horses were turned called Prince's Field, and repeat these lines on a supposed quarrel between him and one of the family of Hampden:

Hamden of Hamden did foregoe The manors of Tring, Wing, and Ivinghoe, For striking the Black Prince a blow.

RIBCHESTER.