{401}
THE following three tales require, I think, a short explanation. They differ, in almost every way, from the stories I have already given. They are, in the first place, less legends than drolls, though their subjects are grim enough. They are, besides, less effective as stories. It was probably for this reason that I did not write them out fully from my short notes taken at the time. In the case of all the other tales I did this on arriving home within a day of hearing the stories; but in the case of the following three I had only the rough notes, and have had to write them out from these. At the suggestion of the Editor of Folk-Lore, I have appended in each case the rough notes, so that those who may use them for scientific folk-lore purposes may know exactly the character of the material they are using. I have endeavoured to keep strictly to what I heard, and I have tried to truly present them in all their inconsequence, and even incoherency. All three resemble, at least in parts, those tales which are called “drolls”; and none of them can be said to be looked on by the narrators as in any sense true. The two latter are, I imagine, portions of the same tale, although told me at different times and by different people. I have given titles to these, as the narrators gave none, but otherwise I have added and altered nothing.
{402} Of each, in turn, I would like to say a few words. “The Flying Childer” was told me under that name, though, considering the tale itself, it might as appropriately have been called anything else. I regret to say I can remember little about the person who told it to me; I never knew his name. I met him in a small inn some distance from where I lived, where I had one day to spend an hour; and except that he came from the Wolds, and that I afterwards saw him once or twice driving towards the market-town, I know no more of him. He did not believe in bogles nor witches; but he confessed to a good many superstitions, and to a real dread of the Evil Eye, which he declared he knew to be a true and terrible thing.
He was a poor story-teller, and did not seem to realise the incoherency of the tale. He said quite simply that he did not suppose it was true, but he implied a very strong reservation as to murderers being pursued, after death, by their victims. I also found that he believed—and I think it is not an uncommon theory—that all dead persons are “bogles”, capable of feeling, speaking, appearing to living eyes, and of working good and evil, till corruption has finally completed its work, and the bodies no longer exist.
These two ideas granted as possible beliefs, the tale is no longer quite so uninteresting or absurd as it seems on first sight, and it may be that it was very different in its original form. There can be little doubt that it is either vastly incomplete, or has become confused with another tale, which, perhaps, fills the gap where the true version has been forgotten. However it came to pass, it is certain that the whole episode of the Tailor, the Wise Woman, and the Old Man, is apt to make the reader quote Mr. Kipling, and exclaim, “But that is another story!”
I should like to add that cutting off the feet and hands of a dead body often occurs in folk-tales, though I cannot remember that it has ever been remarked on. In Lincolnshire, I found it appearing in Jack the Giant-Killer, Beauty {403} and the Beast, and one fragment (I think) of Cinderella, besides “The Flying Childer”; and I have come across it in at least one Scotch tale. Perhaps someone learned in the subject may be able to explain it.
“Fred the Fool” was told me by the same person as the first tale, and needs little explanation. It seems to be a droll, or to resemble one, and I am inclined to think that it is really the first portion of the last tale, which I have called “Sam’l’s Ghost”, though somewhat incorrectly, as the latter is not a Lincolnshire word. This was told me by Fanny, the child who narrated “The Dead Moon”; but she was very much less interested in it, and it is altogether a lower class of story. She knew nothing of the life of “Sam’l”, nor how he came to be burnt.