But now she saw her sweetheart coming through the crowd, and he had over head i' t' air her own golden ball; so she said: Stop, stop, I see my sweetheart coming! Aye, I have brought thy golden ball I have not come to see thee hung The portions of this curious tale which are enclosed within brackets were obtained from a different informant. It seems to be a Yorkshire version of Grimm's Fearless John' (Kinder-Mährchen, 4). In both these is the giant cut in half, and the incident of the chimney, and also the wonderful bed. In one of Grimm's versions of the tale, the lad is able to overcome the spirits by means of a stick which he obtained from a dead man on the gallows, the man having been hung for a theft which he had not committed. The boy brings him to Christian burial, and in reward obtains the stick. In the Yorkshire story, the lad saves a girl from the gallows by means of a golden ball he had recovered from the spirits. There is a family likeness in the tales. The other portion of the story resembles the popular Essex game of Mary Brown,' which is thus played: The children form a ring, one girl kneeling in the centre; those in the ring sing out: Here we all stand round the ring, And now we shut poor Mary in. And see your poor mother go through the town. To this she answers: I will not rise upon my feet To see my poor mother go through the street. The children bid her rise to see her poor father, then her brother, her sister, the poor beggars go through the street, and lastly, her poor sweetheart, whereupon she rises to her feet. The Swedish 'Fair Gundela' also resembles it. She is then informed that her mother, brother, sister, &c., are all dead, and she invariably has some consolation to offer to herself; but when she is told that her truelove is dead she is inconsolable. 11. THE PROPHECY. (Yorkshire.) There was once a rich man, and he had brass; that he had. One day he was riding out of t' town, and he saw an old witch, and her child had fallen intut mire, and she axed rich man to hug him out, but he wouldn't do nowt o't sort. Eh! she were angry. She said to him, 'Tha must have a son, and he shall dee afore he be turned twenty-one.' Well, he had a son, and he was flayed lest what she said should come true. So he built a tower all round, and there was no door, no but a window high up. And he put bairn in there. And he put an old man it tower to fend for bairn, and he sent him food and clothes and all he wanted by a rope up intut chamber. Well, when t' lad was one and twenty, ont' very day, it was cold, and t' lad was right starved, so he said tut old man that he'd fain have a fire, and they let down rope and they pulled up a bundle of wood. T' lad hugged bundle, and cast it in t' fire, and as he cast it a snake came out from t' bundle in which it had been hidden, and it bit t' lad, and he died. She wor a bad un wor that witch! 12. LYING TALE. (Yorkshire.) There was once five men: the one had no eyes, the second had no legs, the third was dumb, the fourth had no arms, the fifth was neck't. The blind man exclaimed, Eh, lads, I see a bird!' The man without legs said, 'I'll run after it!' 13. THE RAVEN. (Cornwall.) A quarryman was working under a large block of stone, which was ready to fall. Of this he was not aware; but a raven saw his peril and determined to save the man. So the bird picked up a pebble and dropped it on the miner's head. 'Get along, thou foul bird,' cried the man, and continued working. The raven picked up another stone, and dropped it on the man's head. The fellow swore and went on with his work. Then the bird flew to the shore and picked up a bit of wood from a wreck, and this he let fall at the man's feet. 'Halloo!' exclaimed he, 'Where that comes from there is more to be got!' and flinging down pick and shovel, he ran to the beach. Down crashed the rock, but the man was safe, rescued by the kindly raven. Now, this story is told in Taylor's Remarkable Providences' as a fact, in these words : EXTRAORDINARY INTERPOSITION OF PROVIDENCE. The following account was contained in a letter from Newcastle, dated January 18, 1766: 'Not long ago, a countryman, making up a hedge near an old stone quarry in the neighbourhood of Sunderland, went to eat his dinner (which he had with him) in a deep cavity or hollow place, to be sheltered from the weather; and as he went along pulled off his hedging gloves or mittens, and threw them down at some distance from one another. While at his Ꮓ repast, he observed a raven take up one of them, with which it flew away; and very soon afterwards the raven returned, lighted upon the ground, took up the other mitten, and went off with that as before. Being surprised, he arose to see if he could find out the reason of so odd an accident, and to observe what had become of his mittens. He had hardly got clear of the quarry before he saw a large quantity of ground, full of loose pieces of rock, tumble down into the very place where he had been seated, and where, if he had continued a minute longer, he must inevitably have been crushed to pieces.' Here we have the tale christianised, and toned down to serve a pious purpose. The raven, instead of being, as the Cornish tale seems to suggest, a guardian spirit, is here acting under the direction of Providence; and the characteristic allusion to the wrecking propensities of the Cornishman is swept away in the Northumbrian tale. 14. THE GOLDEN ARM. There was once a man who travelled the land all over in search of a wife. He saw young and old, rich and poor, pretty and plain, and could not meet with one to his mind. At last he found a woman young, fair and rich, who possessed the supreme, the crowning glory, of having a right arm of solid gold. He married her at once, and thought no man so fortunate as he was. They lived happily together, but, though he wished people to think otherwise, he was fonder of the golden arm than of all his wife's gifts besides. At last she died. The husband appeared inconsolable. He put on the blackest black, and pulled the longest face at the funeral; but for all that he got up in the middle of the night, dug up the body, and cut off the golden arm. He hurried home to secrete his recovered treasure, and thought no one would know. The following night he put the golden arm under his pillow, and was just falling asleep, when the ghost of his dead wife glided into the room. Stalking up to the bedside it drew the curtain, and looked at him reproachfully. Pretending not to be afraid, he spoke to the ghost, and said, 'What hast thou done with thy cheeks so red ?' All withered and wasted away,' replied the ghost, in a hollow tone. 'What hast thou done with thy red rosy lips?'-'All withered and wasted away.' 'What hast thou done with thy golden hair? 'All withered and wasted away.' 'What hast thou done with thy Golden Arm? ' — ' Thou hast it!' N.B. The dialogue progresses in horror, till at the close, the ghost's exclamation is shrieked out at the top of the narrator's voice, the candle extinguished, and the young auditors duly panic-stricken. No one desires to know what became of the avaricious husband. 15. THE FAITHFUL DAUGHTER. There was a wealthy gentleman This cruel sentence was pronounc'd, He should not have one bit of food And that if any one should dare Within this dismal horrid place, Fast down his aged wrinkled face, The scalding tears did fall. Most grievously he languished And bitterly did cry, "For want of bread, one bit of bread, I famish, starve, and die! "O that I had one crust to eat, How precious is one grain of wheat |