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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 1924 098 819 372

In compliance witJi current

copyright law, Cornell University

Library produced this

replacement volume on paper

that meets the ANSI Standard

Z39.48-1992 to replace the

irreparably deteriorated original.

2004

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

iienrg M. Sage

1891

TALES AND LEGENDS

OF NATIONAL ORIGIN

OR WIDELY CURRENT IN ENGLAND

FROM EARLY TIMES-

WITH CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS BY

W.^^'CAREW HAZLITT

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO

New York : MACMILLAN & CO 1892

Butler & Tanner,

The Selwood Printing Works,

Fkome, and London.

CONTENTS.

SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

The Knight and His Wife. (Fifteenth Century) The Child of Bristol. {Fourteenth Century) The Friar and the Boy. {le^th-ibth Century) The Smith and His Dame. {Sixteenth Century) ViRGILIUS

Robert the Devil ....

Friar Bacon

Faust or Faustus .... Friar Rush ..... Fortunatus

3 6

17

26

34 56 74 97 134 156

FEUDAL AND FOREST LEGENDS.

Hereward the Saxon ....	• 177
FULKE FiTZWARIN	196
The King and the Hermit .	• 223
The Nut-brown Maid ... 1	■ 23s
Robin Hood	. 242
Adam Bel	• 324

IV

CONTENTS.

ROMANTIC LEGENDS.

Chevy Chace. {End of Fourteenth Century^ .

The Battle OF Otterburn. {End of Fourteenth Century)

Cauline. An Irish Story. {Fourteenth Century)

The King and the T.^nner ....

The Squire of Low Degree. {Fifteenth Century)

The Heir of Linne ....

RoswAL AND Lilian ....

The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green

Whittington (i 350-1424)

The Pinner of Wakefield .

Thomas Hickathrift ....

The King and the Northern Man

PAGIi

347

353 361

367 379 38s 395 404

417 43° 439

DESCRIPTIVE AND HUMOROUS LEGENDS.

John Adroyns 449

The Miller and the Tailor 454

The Maltman of Colebrook 459

The Miller of Abingdon. {Fifteenth Century) . . 464

The Friar who Told the Three Children's Fortunes 472

The Serjeant turned Friar 475

The Monk of Leicester who was four times Slain

AND ONCE Hanged. {Sixteenth Century) . . . 480

INTRODUCTION.

An assemblage of fictitious narratives, presenting romantic adventures, supernatural episodes, and dark, if not even immoral, scenes, might seem to recommend itself only to an illiterate age or to a time of life when the opportunity for study and investigation has not yet been given. But nothing can well be more certain than the fact that tales of a fabulous cast have at all periods possessed an irresistible fascination alike for old and young, and that the knowledge of their unreality does not sen- sibly or generally impair our affection for these compositions. All the wondrous myths which have come to us from the East, and all the creations of Western fancy and belief constitute for ourselves the same inexhaustible treasury of reading and meditation which they have been to our foregoers in this land from a period almost immemorial ; and as society grows more and more artificial and prosaic In its day by day routine, with a more powerful admixture of archseological feeling, we may perhaps expect to see a more widely diffused sym- pathy with stories and traditions which owe much of their charm to their strong contrast with existing conditions and possibilities.

VI INTRODUCTION.

The new interest and rank lent to the Legend in ballad or other shape by its recognition as an agent in elucidating or confirming many obscure features in the national life of the past in no wise displace it from its ancient home in all our hearts as a picture and reflex of bygone ages and people. It may for a season discharge a twofold function ; but probably the day will arrive when the vast majority of readers will prefer to view this species of production from the philosophical side. The study of such romantic epics as Robin Hood, Doctor Faiistus, Fi'iar Bacon, Friar Rush, and Virgiliiis should not prove less attractive to an educated Intelligence because evidence of a trustworthy character Is adduced that there is in these and In other analogous stories something beyond the superficial meaning conveyed by the text. The exploits and sentiments handed down to us in these fictions ought, on the contrary, to acquire in our eyes an augmented charm and worth, when we discover so much mineral riches beneath the sur- face, and are enabled to add them to the material for tracing the development of our country and our race.

The compositions which form the volume before us were the product of times and conditions so Immeasurably different from those with which we have grown up, that It demands a very considerable effort to realize the circumstances contributory to their existence and popularity, and It Is necessary to follow the clew backward till we do our best to succeed in making ourselves part of the age which favoured and witnessed the rise of narratives par-

INTRODUCTION. VU

taking of the common nature of all folk-lore in their unequal admixture of fable and fact and In their servility to local or contemporary costume.

The bulk of our popular literature owes its derivation to four leading sources : the political vicissitudes formerly so frequent, the Forest Laws, maritime and commercial adventure, and supersti- tion. The interesting epic of Robin Hood may be considered as falling under the first and second of these categories or divisions, since at the period of life which the outlaw and his friends had apparently attained when they embraced a career fraught with so much hardship and peril nothing less than necessity could have induced them to forsake their homes and renounce the protection of the laws. To the same group belong the King and the Hermit, the King and the Tanner, the Pinner of Wakefield, and Adam Bel, of all of which the scene is laid amid the dense woodlands and in the townships bordering on them. Chevy Chace, the Battle of Otterburn, and perchance the Nut-brown Maid, may be almost classed with this highly interesting family of legends.

The stories of Whittington, the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Gt'een, Tom a Lincoln, and Thomas of Reading offer examples of romantic inventions originating In the early mercantile enterprise of our country and Its relations with others ; and Into this section we should probably not err in admitting the Squire of Low Degree.

A very conspicuous feature in the present volume is the remarkable series of Tales of Magic and Enchantment, which, like the others, we have for

Vin INTRODUCTION.

readier study and comparison arranged in consecu- tive order. No one who possesses a fair amount either of sensibility or cultivated taste can peruse without being strongly impressed with the contents such relics as Virgilhis, Robert the Devil, Fiaar Bacon, Friar Rtisk, Doctor Faustus, the Friar and the Boy, and the Child of Bristol, of which nearly all are obviously products of a foreign soil, but which have grown by length of use as familiar to us as our own indigenous creations.

The endeavour to render these pages a represen- tative selection necessitated the choice of a few of those traditions of a domestic tenor which are plen- tiful enough in our ballad lore, but are generally too brief or fragmentary to yield material for a narrative even of the most sketchy character. We hope that we have been successful in gathering a few satisfac- tory illustrations however of this attractive kind of fiction, and need do little more than refer to the portion of the book in which they are all brought together. There is in some, beyond the mere humour or fun, considerable power of structure and cleverness of plot ; and the Monk of Leicester — of which Marlowe borrowed one of the incidents in his few of Malta, — the Miller and the Tailor, and the Mailman of Colebrook may be recommended as masterpieces in their way.

Our inborn proneness to a love of the marvel- lous and unarguable, which has originated in our imperfect acquaintance with the laws of nature and our own being, does not appear to suffer diminution as education and culture advance ; for it is found to co-exist with the highest intellectual development

INTRODUCTION. IX

and the most refined critical temper. To the generaHty of readers and thinkers our romantic and legendary lore is, and will probably long re- main, a mere repertory of names and abstractions ; and we have not to go back many years to meet with an epoch when our most learned countrymen discerned in the popular literature of England little beyond a source of entertainment, with the slenderest basis or nucleus of history and truth. The tales of silvan or domestic life, of stirring adventure, and of mystical enchantment, of which there are such abundant printed and manuscript remains, were regarded by Bishop Percy and his immediate contemporaries and followers as poetical amplifications of the chronicles, and even as col- lateral vouchers for the statements found in their pages. But it is not too much to assert that, to the world at large, a ballad or other like relic was what a primrose was to Wordsworth's Pclcr Bell :

" A primrose on a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him. And it was nothing more."

There was no suspicion of an inner sense or an occult moral. There was no surmise that beneath the rugged surface of a few homely stanzas lay (hitherto ungotten) some precious hint or germ, illustrating the thought of the primitive era with which they had kindred and touch.

The average Englishman or Englishwoman who takes up a volume of popular tales, whether in prose or verse, is still apt to lay it down again with an ingenuous homage to the quaintness of the con-

X INTRODUCTION.

tents and a stricture on the morality or the speUing. The presence of a hidden meaning and value does not occur to them. If they have arrived at the point of having heard of such things, it is to be entered to their credit. The circulating libraries are not often asked for books of this class, and of our private homes how few possess them !

A century since, the ballad and the nursery-rhyme enjoyed a wider vogue and a more loyal allegiance ; but except in the most sequestered districts the minstrel and old-wife have become matter of the past. On the other hand, a strong and wholesome feeling has arisen for trying to build up out of existing material something better than the old- fashioned library of garlands and broad-sheets, with their bountiful admixture of corrupt and even spurious ingredients, and to question these records in a different spirit and from a higher standpoint.

The admittance of Folk-lore to a place among the sciences, and the espousal of that important movement by students in various parts of the world, have gradually led to a very fruitful inquiry into the genesis of all these stories and their international correlation. The result which has been thus far attained, although it is unexpectedly great, is yet very incomplete ; but mcire than sufficient is ascer- tained to convince reasonable persons that our ideas and conclusions on these subjects will have to be considerably modified. We hardly required to be told that Reynard the Fox was an apologue, and that Whittington and his Cat should not be quite literally interpreted. But every one was not pre- pared to learn that Doctor Fanstns, Robin Hood,

INTRODUCTION. XI

Jack the Giant-killer, and many more, stood in a similar predicament, and that much which we took to be true was otherwise, while a good deal which we passed unobserved was pregnant with religious, social, and political significance. Here, as almost everywhere else, it now appears that we are inside the threshold of a revolution in thought, which may prove fatal, if it has not already clone so, to a host of traditional beliefs and associations.

In works of a supernatural complexion, the whole region outside fact and science is at the command of the inventor or romancist, whose resources are barely capable of exhaustion ; but from the paucity of fictions of a high order of excellence in this de- partment we easily judge that its wealth of material forms a condition of difficulty, if not of failure, although dramatic fitness and concord are not incom- patible w'ith the wildest extravagance. It is in so few cases that the unity of the story or conception is sustained throughout ; and in Virgilius, Fatcstus, and other celebrated legends, there is a disappoint- ing leaven of puerile contradiction. A background or thread of serious incident is an indispensable foil to the miraculous, and at the same time is bound to be unceasingly in conflict with it.

In the narratives which we have selected and printed below, we have purposely refrained from introducing criticism and argument, and have con- tented ourselves with presenting a series of read- able and genuine texts. To the ordinary reader archaeological learning and detail constitute a de- terrent feature in a book. But at the same time it seemed desirable not to let the opportunity pass

XU INTRODUCTION.

of offering some preamble explanatory of the prin- cipal stories, especially where it happened that there was a hidden moral or a philosophical aspect material to a complete appreciation of the subject. For advanced scholars there may be nothing fresh in all that is put forward ; but to many it will be serviceable to find in our introductions certain su.^^- gestions and statements explanatory of some of the iictions which the volume includes.

The series has been arranged in four classified divisions : Supernatural Relations ; Feudal and Forest Tales ; Romantic Stories ; Descriptive and Humorous Stories.

We regret our inability to include in the present collection an authentic text of the famous story of Heme the Hunter — made so familiar to English- folk by its occurrence in the Merry Wives of Windsor — not so much on account of its originality or novelty, as on that of its importance as the English type of a world-wide legend and idea. The Wild Hunter myth is spread over the whole of Europe, especially in those countries which con- tinued down to the historical era, as they do indeed still, to be covered by immense tracts of forest-land.

The origin and texture of the Heme story may be surmised, however, from those of' the kindred German traditions ; and we perceive in the case, for example, of the Hunter of Hackelnberg, in Roscoe and Grimm, that the belief, if it did not originate in persons of narrow culture and children, was at least chiefly entertained by such, and con- sequently amounted to folk-lore in its normal acceptation.

INTRODUCTION. XIU

In the History of Fulke Fitzwariii, an epic of the Plantagenet times, one of the incidents is laid in Windsor Forest, where the oudaw and his followers are said to have been on familiar ground. But there seems to be no further clew to any link between the Fitzwarren cycle and Heme ; although we may remember that the forest was at that time of vast dimensions, and lent itself more readily than now to weird or romantic reports of former fre- quenters of the scene.

So far as the general reader is concerned, and indeed such as feel an interest in Percy's Reliques and other collections of the same character, the probability is that many of the ancient tales -here found present themselves for the first time in an intelligible form. For in their metrical dress the uncouth orthography and the redundant doggerel are apt at once to mystify and repel ; and stories, which might as well have been allowed to remain in MS. or in black letter, when the spelling and style are equally archaic, are susceptible by faithful and judicious handling of yielding to the lovers of the ballad and the folk-tale a store at once of entertainment and instruction.

As regards the tone and style which have been adopted, a considerable amount of care has been taken to strike a middle course between modern diction and phraseology and a vocabulary too archaic and obscure. To observe a certain genuine quaint- ness of language and expression, and at the same time to avoid antiquarianism, proved a task of some difficulty, as the process necessarily narrowed the choice of terms and figures of speech.

XIV INTRODUCTION.

It is to be regretted indeed that for so many of our early fictions we have to resort to poetical texts, which are at once more diffuse and less exact than those in prose, the requirements of rhyme or even metre necessitating the modification of the sense, on the one hand, and the employment of redundant pleonasms on the other. But the reduction of stories to this form was dictated by the feeling that it rendered them more attractive to popular readers and audiences.

Correctness and grace of versification are rarely found in these metrical productions, even where the writer was capable of developing and sustaining a plot, and possessed a tolerable power of description. The ruggedness of the lines, the infelicity of the phrases, and the superfluous expletives contribute to render our early poetical romances very tedious and disagreeable to modern taste and to an ear which has been educated and refined by a succession of masters of style and melody from Waller to the present day.

The practice of altering the original forms of compositions to suit a variety or change of fashion is very ancient. The Roman de la Rose was digested into prose. Some of the stories of the Decameron were versified. Plays were turned into novels, and novels into plays ; and the ballad was amplified into a prose chapbook.

In estimating the descriptions of persons, circum- stances, and accessories in the following series, the reader will do well to bear generally in mind the discrepancy between the costume of the period concerned and our own, no less than the vein

INTRODUCTION. XV

of hyperbole which usually pervades romantic nar- ratives, and the tendency to exaggerate in dealing with heroic topics. This warning is all the more requisite, inasmuch as even the Little Gest repre- sents in language and feeling a fifteenth-century modernization and conception of a fourteenth- century epos. The distance between passed ages and our own, and the development of science and art in the interval, have contributed to qualify the accounts which we get, not only in these fictions, but in the ancient chronicles, of architecture, furni- ture, dress, ceremonial, pomp, martial or knightly prowess, and the poetry of the early English life. It is as with the relative valuation of the currency — we have to allow for the difference of standard.

Again, in such stories as have been taken from ballads, we ought to see that we invariably get in this form of composition selected scenes only, as in an ordinary play. A ballad or a romance is not an e.xhaustive biography, or even a biographical outline ; it merely seizes salient points and characteristics, and presents them in a more or less consecutive order, and with more or less fidelity to life.

The treatment to which we have had recourse is recommendable by its preservation of the temper and mind of the old texts ; but it is feasible only where, as, it is to be hoped, in the specimens selected, there is a fairly pronounced vein of intrinsic interest and permanent worth. The divestment of inferior compositions of their antique cerements in spelling and type is a descent to sheer nakedness.

SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

THE KNIGHT AND HIS WIFE.

(^Fifteenth Century.)

\This is a short fable of engaging beauty and in- terest, and illustrates the old and steadfast belief in the ascendency of Christianity over the principle of evil by virtue of faith and prayer ; but, although the feeling and spii'it are congenial, here we have a special example of mariolatry, with the miracu- lous transfiguration of Our Lady for a beneficent purpose.']

There was in a certain country a knight, who was ait one time very rich, and every year he held a great feast in honour of Our Blessed Lady. But he spent so largely, that he by degrees became poor. A good woman he had to his wife, who held the Virgin as dear as he did ; and sorely the fiend grudged therefore.

The season came round for the yearly jubilee to Our Lady, and the poor knight had not wherewithal to discharge the cost of the same ; and he was abashed, that he betook himself to the forest, to dwell there in solitude till the feast-day was passed and gone.

The Devil saw the poor knight's case, and of his wife was he secretly enamoured ; but nought might his unholy passion prevail through that lady's virtuous living and the love which Our Lady bare unto her.

4 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

One day, while the knight her lord was still in the green forest, came the fiend to his side in human guise, and asked him why he walked there, and why he wore so dejected a mien.

Then the poor knight related to the stranger his story. "I was once," quoth he, " a rich man; but now all is lost. I was wont to celebrate every year the feast of Our Blessed Lady, and at present I lack money — yea, for my very livelihood."

The stranjrer answeringf him said : "If thou wilt grant me my will, I will give thee greater riches than ever thou haddest before. Go to the place that I shall bid thee, and thou wilt find gold in store. Then come back hither, and speak with me again, and bring thy wife with thee along."

The poor knight wist not that he was a fiend that spake thus unto him, and he promised to do as he bad him. So home he went, and found there forthwith money enough, as the stranger had fore- told. Right fain was he hereof, and Our Lady's feast was held with greater spending of gold and silver than had ever been remembered.

The time passed away, and the day arrived when he was to meet the stranger once more, and to bring his wife with him. That gentle lady durst not do other than his bidding, and she made herself ready accordingly, and they mounted their palfreys and rode forth toward the forest. On the way, by the roadside, stood a chapel of Our Blessed Lady, and the knight's wife said unto her lord, " Let us enter this chapel, and pray to God to keep us in His fear." But the knight was full of glee and jollity, and recked nought of prayer, and to his

THE KNIGHT AND HIS WIFE. 5

lady quoth he : " Thou may est get down, if thou Hstest, and pray ; but for me I will proceed on my journey. Do not tarry long, however, or I shall wax wrath."

The lady promised not to overstay, and into the chapel she hied, and placed herself nigh an image of Our Blessed Lady, where she reclined, and a drowsiness overtook her, so that she fell asleep.

Now Our Blessed Lady, to requite that good wife of the poor knight for all her love to her, trans- formed herself into her likeness, and riding on the palfrey rejoined the knight, who wist not that it was Our Lady that rode beside him. But when they came where it had been appointed that they should meet the stranger, he stood there ; but be- cause he was in truth a fiend, he knew her to be, not the knight's wife, but the Holy Virgin ; and he cried to the knight : " Traitor, I bad thee bring thy wife with thee, and in her room thou hast brought Christ's Mother ! Hanged shouldest thou be by the neck for thy falsehood ! "

These words made the knight wax fearful ; and he descended from his horse, and sank on his knees before Our Lady, shedding tears and imploring forgiveness.

Our Lady said unto him : " Knight, thou hast erred. Thou hast delivered thyself to the fiend. Return him his gift. Bestir thyself henceforth in the service of God, and He will reinstate thee in thy o-oods." She uttered these words and vanished.

The knight leapt on his palfrey, and rode to the chapel, where his wife yet slept by the altar.

THE CHILD OF BRISTOL.

(^Fourteenth Century.)

\There aj'e perhaps few more favottrable and more striking specimens of early popular mythology than the little production which we now introduce. It is the story of a rich and covetous father who is redeemed from eternal punishment by the practical piety and charity, as distinguished from the mere adjuration or prayers, of an affectionate son ; and the writer of the narrative has brought to his task no mean literary skill and 7io ordinary insight into human nature. The father who is thus emanci- pated from hell by his offspring was a rich franklin or yeoman, who by his avarice had unconsciously brought about a catastrophe which put to the test the loyalty and love of his young heir. The good deeds of the Child gradually release his parent from bondage and pain, and he reduces himself to poverty in order to restore to its oioners property ivhich the dead man had misappropriated. The father ulti- mately presents himself in the likeness of a naked child; or, in other words, is brought back by prayer and almsdeeds to his original beauty and innocence.

The teryn attorney, which more than once occurs here, must be understood in the sense of an attorney " in fact" or agent, exercising what is commonly known as a power of attorney ; and the employment of the word is probably a very early one.

THE CHILD OF BRISTOL. 7

The tale breathes an air of unquestioning and unshaken faith germane to the priest-ridden and benighted century which prodticed it. In the intro- duction to the two existing versions of it in Hazliti s ''Popular Poetry" 1864-66, the editor has adduced the principal analogties and imitations of it in various collections and poenis.'\

He who made both heaven and hell in seven days bless us all that are here assembled together, old and young, great and small, if so they lend good ear to my tale ! The best tale that ever vi^as told is worth little enough, unless some listen thereto. So, I pray you, as many as are now present, to desist from your talking, and to hear what I am about to say.

There dwelled in England in old days, in the fair city of Bristol, a very rich lawyer, who had gotten into his hands great possessions, and was a lord of many townships, castles, and forests, and of much cattle ; and he used his craft in law to beguile the poor man, for he had not the fear of God before his eyes.

This rich man, who was both a merchant and an usurer, had one only son, a comely child, of rare promise, and by him he set all his store. For his sake he heaped up riches, and oppressed his neigh- bours far and wide ; for he looked to make him, whenso he himself should die, even richer than he was, and more powerful and great than any in all that country.

It happened, when this youth was twelve years old, that his father sent him to school to learn

b SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

clergy ; and the Child grew wise and witty and in mislike of all ungodliness. Then his father devised in his thought how it would bestead his heir, so that he might not be deceived by men when he came to full estate, and stood in his father's place, to have some learning in law ; and accordingly he called the child to him, and said to him thus : " Son, I have it in my mind to cause thee for a twelvemonth's space to learn so much of the law of this land as will hinder thy neighbours and all others, when thou comest to manhood, from doing thee wrong."

But the Child answered softly : " Father, many prosper well in this world that are no lawyers, and so I trust that I may do. That craft will I never study which may put my soul in jeopardy, and be to God's displeasure. I am loth to follow any calling which is contrary to my spiritual well-being. Ever hath it been my wish to live by merchandise, in which a man may advance himself by honest means in the sight of heaven. Here at Bristol liveth one who is a good and true man, as I hear tell : let me be his bound prentice seven year, and learn his business, and dwell under his roof"

So his father, seeing his bent, rode to Bristol, and made covenant with the said merchant to take his son for seven years ; and the boy went unto that merchant, and by his courtesy and honesty won his love, and the love of all those that came into those parts to buy and to sell their goods.

Now, meanwhile, the Child's father pursued his godless ways, lending out moneys to use, robbing the parson and the vicar of their tenths, and wring- ing from the poor man all he might, with intent to

THE CHILD OF BRISTOL. 9

leave his estate so that his heir would be lifted by his riches above all others without a peer.

But, as all things will have an end, this usurer, who was waxing in years, fell sick and lay on his bed, and doubting that his life might draw to a close suddenly, he summoned to his side some of the chief men of the country, that were his neighbours and acquaintance, and besought them out of charity to be his executors. Then, because his goods had been so ill-gotten, and the fear of the Lord was not in him, no one among them all assented to be made his executor, saying that they would not have to do with his affairs from dread of the wrath of God upon them.

This sick usurer lamented sorely his case, that none would for conscience' sake be executor to him ; and seeing that he drew nigher and nigher to his end, he sent for his son, where he lay at the good merchant's house, seven mile thence, and when he had come to him, he shewed him how it was, and begged him, as he was heir to all his fair lands and goods whatsoever, to take that office upon him.

Quoth he : " Son, I have gathered all this to- gether for thee, than whom I have no other heir, and I see well that in friendship there is no trust. Do thou therefore this thing for me."

His son turned away from him, uttering not a word ; and then the dying man, when he perceived his unwillingness, further said : " I charge thee, as thou wilt have my blessing ere I go, obey my behest."

"Ah! father," cried the boy, "thou layest on me a heavy charge, and thy command I cannot gainsay.

lO SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

But on my part, lo ! I enjoin thee, on the fourteenth day after thy passage, to appear before me, and let me behold thy spirit, and see whether it be saved or damned ; and further I pray and require thee, both thou and any that shall bear thee company at that time, to do me no trespass."

" Son," answered the father, " I agree."

" Alas," thought the boy, " that for any gold or land of mine a man's soul should stand in peril to be lost ! "

The priest came, and gave that rich usurer, as he lay on his death-bed, the glorious sacrament, and shrove him, and prayed to God to be merciful unto him ; and when God was so pleased, the sick man passed away.

Then his good son brought his father to burial, and spread largesse among young and old, and gave much store of gold to holy priests, so that there was great mourning and many a dirge for the rich usurer ; and the boy, who began to draw toward man's estate, sold his father's cattle and houses and lands, and with the money he kept in his service a hundred priests, causing them to say for his father's soul thirty trentals of masses. So this pious youth dispossessed himself of almost all that rich usurer's goods, till gold he had none, and where he was heir to so much riches there was, as the fortnight drew near to completion, no poorer man than him in the whole land.

Now, when the day arrived wherein he had appointed to meet his father, he repaired to the chamber in which his father had died, and remained there in prayer nearly to noon ; and toward midday,

THE CHILD OF BRISTOL. I I

as he knelt praying, there came a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, and he muttered Bene- dicite ! and called upon God for succour.

And as he thus knelt and prayed, his father's spirit appeared to him, as he had enjoined, flaming like a glowing coal, and the devil led it by the neck in a gleaming chain.

The boy said : " I conjure thee, whatever thou art, speak to me."

The spirit answered : "I am thy father that begat thee. Now thou mayest perceive my sad estate."

" It pierceth my heart, father," answered the boy again, " to behold thee in such sorrowful plight."

The spirit replied : " Son, I fare thus, as thou seest me to-day, because I got my estate by deceit and extortion ; unless it be restored, I shall go in this guise a hundred year henceforward. Ease me therefore of my bond, for till then my soul is in durance."

" Nay, father, not so, if God will give me grace. Pledge me that this same day fortnight ye will return to me in this place, and I shall labour all I can meanwhile to bring thy soul into a better state."

The spirit gave its assent, and in a clap of thunder vanished ; and on the next day following the boy went to Bristol to seek his former master, the good merchant. To whom : " I have served you, sir," quoth he, " many a day ; for the love of God, be my friend. My father has passed ; and I need a little sum oi gold, until I have found a chap- man for the residue of my heritage."

But the good merchant blamed him for parting with his patrimony, and said to him thus : " If so it

12 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

is that need presseth, I will lend thee a hundred marks, and I will not ask for the same again this seven year."

The youth avowed that he must find some one to buy his lands that still remained to him ; and when he told the good merchant that his steward held them to be worth a hundred pounds, the other said unto him, " I will give thee three hundred all truly told" ; and when the youth consented, he fetched the gold, and counted it out to him, and the son of the rich usurer was right glad in his heart, and thanked his master, and went his way.

So now he caused it to be proclaimed and pub- blished in all churches and all markets, that whoso, man or woman, had suffered loss by his father, should come to him, and he would satisfy them to the full. And he did as he made promise till the money was all spent, and the second fortnight passed away.

Then he prepared to meet the spirit, as he had done before, and knelt down and prayed against the hour when it behoved it to appear ; and when the youth beheld him, the burning chain was no longer on his neck, and the red flame in which he had been wrapped was turned to blackness.

" Now, father," said the youth, " tell me how it goeth with thee."

" All the better for thee, son," quoth the spirit ; "blessed be the day that I begat thee! Yet I live still in much pain and woe, and so must continue till my term is fulfilled."

" Father," answered the youth then, " say to me now what goeth most grievously against thee ? "

THE CHILD OF BRISTOL. 1 3

" Tenths and offerings, that I refused, son, and never would pay," returned the spirit, " are the cause why I remain, all thy good almsdeeds not- withstanding, thus wretched and forlorn. Give me back my pledge, for there is no remedy, and I must be gone."

The youth replied thus: "I shall still once more essay what I may do, father. Promise me again that thou wilt be visible to me a fortnight from this day in the same place, and I will against then try what to amend thy cheer I can do."

To his old master, the kind merchant at Bristol, he betook himself, and said to him : " Sir, it is so, that I lack yet a little sum of money, to make another bargain." And as he spake he wept.

The merchant replied: "Thou art a fool; thou hast been among bad company, and hast lost money at cards or dice. Thou hast nought left that thou canst sell. Thou art, I doubt, an unthrift."

But the youth offered to become a bondservant to the merchant, himself and all his heirs for ever, if he might have for which he prayed ; and the good merchant softened toward him once more, saying, " How much wouldest thou.''"

He said : " Forty marks will supply me."

That burgher loved the youth so well in his heart, that into his inner chamber he went and fetched the money, and he gave it to him, saying : " Thou didst ask me for forty marks, and, lo ! forty pounds herewith I give thee ; and God bless thee to boot ! "

The youth departed, light of heart, and to all the churches far and near where his father owed tenths

14 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

and offerings he went on pilgrimage, and paid them one and all whatso they demanded, till his money was utterly spent ; and as he returned home hungry and penniless, he met an old man by the way, who said to him : " Sir, it is so that your father owed me for a measure of corn. I beg thee pay me therefore."

The youth humbled himself before the man, and said to him, kneeling on one knee, that gold he had none ; but he stripped off his own doublet, and laid it on the shoulders of the other, saying, "It is all, father, that I have " ; and he went on his journey in his shirt and breeches, till he came to his own house, where his father's spirit was to visit him.

He knelt and prayed long, and presently he became aware of the gladdest song that ever was heard, and when it was ended, by a light which burned more brightly than a thousand torches, a naked child, led by an angel of God, stood before him.

" Son," said the vision, " blessed be thou, and all that shall be born of thee ! "

" Father," he answered, " I rejoice to behold thee in that state in which thou now art, and I trust that thou art saved."

" Son," the vision answered, " I go to heaven. God Almighty reward thee, and make thee prosper ! Now yield me up my pledge that I gave to thee, and I go."

And the youth discharged his father from that hour, and to heaven he went.

Then the Child, thanking God and Our Blessed Lady, went anon to Bristol ; and he was in his

THE CHILD OF BRISTOL. 1 5

poor array, for his gay clothes had he given for the measure of corn. And when the burgher, his old master, espied him, he asked him what he had done to bring himself to such a pass.

He said : " I have come to yield myself to thy service to my life's end."

But the merchant would not take that answer, and said to him : " Now, tell me, son, by the love which is between us, why thou goest thus, and how thou makest thy thrift so thin."

"Sir," answered the young man, then, "all my goods have I sold to get my father into heaven ; for through his covetous and unholy life so many had he set against him that no man would be his executor or attorney." And he set before him the whole story of his father's appearances, and how at length he was admitted to bliss. "And so," he said, "now all my sorrow, sir, is healed and assuaged."

" Son," quoth the kind merchant, " blessings on thy name, that thou couldest so impoverish thyself to save thy own father's soul ! All the world shall do thee honour. Thou art a steadfast and true friend, the like whereof I have seldom seen. Few sons would thus save their fathers after they were gone. Executors know I many an one, but none such as thou art. Now I say unto thee, I make thee partner with me in Bristol to buy and to sell for me as I should myself do ; and seeing that I have no child to come after me, thou shalt be to me a son, and shalt inherit all my goods when I am dead."

And the merchant wedded him to a rich man's

I 6 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

daughter of that country, and in the process of time dying left to him, as he had said, all his lands, cattle, and goods ; so that he became greater in wealth than before, and through the blessing of God the treasure which he had restored to holy Church and the poor was given back to him twofold.

THE FRIAR AND THE BOY.

{i^th-i6ih Century.)

[ TJiis story is probably of German origin, and in its present shape belongs to the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Subsequently the references to the idea in our literature are almost innumerable, and the narrative in a curtailed form,, itnder the title of Tom Piper, gained a permanent place in the nursery library. Although, no doubt, the legend is derived from a Teutonic source, there is an indication that the English writer in this case 7vas immediately indebted to a French text which lays the scene in Orleans. In Hazliti s ''Popular Poetry',' iii. 54-59, (1849) will be found a detailed account of the various phases through which the belief in the enchanted properties of a horn, tabor, or other object passed in the course of time in different countries ; and perhaps the myth of the "Rat-catcher of Uamelen" comes nearest to the present composition, which is one of the large series reflecting on the lax morality of the Popish clergy fust prior to the Reformation. The friar, it may be noted, is not clothed with any power of invocation or exorcism to extricate himself from the dilemma in which he is placed by the boy.']

God that died for all give them a good Hfe and long that listen to my tale !

A. L. '^ c

1 8 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

There was a man in a certain country who in process of time had three wives. By the first he had a son, who was a light-hearted lad ; but by the Other twain issue had he none.

His father loved this boy well ; but his stepdame looked upon him with an evil eye, and stinted him in his victual, and did him many a shrewd turn.

At length she said unto the goodman : " I heartily pray you, sir, that you would put away this boy, who is a cursed plague to me, and let him serve some one else who will give him his desert."

Her husband answered her, saying : " Woman, he is but a child. Let him abide with us another year, till he is better able to shift. We have a man, a stout carl, who keeps our beasts afield ; look, the boy shall take his place, and we will have the fellow in the stead of him at home."

To which the goodwife agreed.

So on the morrow the little lad was sent to tend the sheep, and all the way he sang out of the gaiety of his heart ; and his dinner he carried with him in a clout. But when he came to see what his step- dame had given him to eat, he had small lust thereto, and he took but little, thinking that he would get more when he returned homeward at sundown.

The boy sat on a hill-side, watching his sheep and singing, when there came along an aged man, and stood still, when he espied the child, saying unto him, " Son, God bless thee ! "

" Welcome, father," the boy replied.

The old man said : " I hunger sore ; hast thou any food of which thou mightest give me even some :

THE FRIAR AND THE BOY. 1 9

The child returned : " To such victual as I have thou art welcome, father."

So he gave the old man the rest of his dinner, and thereof he was full fain. He ate, and grudged not. To please him was not hard.

Then, when he had finished, he said: " Gramercy, child ; and for the meat which thou hast spared me I will give thee three things. Tell me now what they shall be."

The boy thought in his mind, and anon : " I would," quoth he, " have a bow, wherewith I could shoot birds."

" I will find thee incontinently," said the stranger, " one that shall last thee through thy whole life, and shall never need renewing. Thou hast but to draw it, and it will hit the mark."

Then he handed him the bow and the arrows ; and when the child saw them, aloud he laughed, and was mightily content.

" Now," said he, " if I had a pipe, if it were ever so small, then I should be glad."

"A pipe I here give thee," the old man said, "which hath in it strange properties; for all who- soever, save thyself, shall hear it, when thou playest, must dance to the music perforce. I promised thee three things. Say, what is to be the last?"

" I seek nothing more," replied the boy.

" Nothing ? " quoth the stranger. " Speak, and thou hast thy will."

" Well," said he, musing, " I have at home a stepdame — a shrewd wife she — and she oftentimes looks ill-favouredly at me, as though she meant me

20 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

no love. Now, prythee, when so she looketh in that wise, let her laugh till she fall to the earth, and laugh still, unless I bid her to desist."

" It is granted," said the stranger. " Farewell ! "

" God keep thee, sir," said the boy.

The evening drew on, and Jack wended home- ward in great glee. He took his pipe and played it, and all his beasts and his dog danced to it in a row. He played as he went along, and the sheep and kine followed at his heels and the dog, dancing all the way, till they came to his father's abode ; and he put by the pipe, and saw that all was fast, and then walked he into the house.

His father sat at his supper, and Jack said unto him, " I am a-hungered, sir ; my dinner I might not eat, and I have had charge of the beasts the whole day."

The husbandman threw a capon's wing toward him and told him to eat it. The goodwife sorely grudged that he should have so fair a morsel, and eyed him sourly. But she straightway fell to laughing, and she laughed, and she laughed, till she could no longer stand or sit, and fell on the floor, laughing still, and she ceased not till she was half-dead ; and then the boy said, " Dame, enough ! " and she laughed not a whit more, which made them both amazed.

Now this goodwife loved a friar, who oftentimes came to the house ; and when he next shewed him- self she made complaint to him of the boy, and told him how Jack had caused her to laugh, and had mocked her, and she prayed this friar to meet him on the morrow and beat him for his pains.

THE FRIAR AND THE BOY. 21

" I will do thy pleasure as thou desirest," quoth the friar.

"Do not forget," quoth the goodwife. "I trow he is some witch."

So the morning following the boy went forth to drive his father's beasts to the field, and he took with him his bow and his pipe. And the friar rose betimes likewise, lest he might be too late, and he approached the boy, and thus he accosted him :

" What, forsooth, hast thou clone by thy step- mother. Jack, that she is angered at thee ? Tell me what it is ; and if thou canst not satisfy me, surely I will beat thee."

"What aileth thee?" asked Jack. "My dame fares as well as thou. Have done with thy chiding. Come, wilt thou see how I can bring down a bird with my bow, and what other things I can do ? Though I be a little fellow, I will shoot yonder bird, and yours it shall be."

" Shoot on," said the friar.

The bird was hit surely enough, and dropped into a thorn-bush.

" Go and fetch it," said Jack.

The friar stepped into the middle of the brambles and picked up the bird. Jack put the pipe to his lips and began to play. The friar let the bird fall and set to dancing, and the louder the pipe sounded the higher he leapt, and the more the briars tore his clothes and pierced his flesh. His dress was now in shreds, and the blood streamed from his legs and arms. Jack played all the faster, and laughed withal.

" Gentle Jack," gasped out the friar, " hold thy

2 2 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

hand. I have danced so long that I am like to die. Let me go, and I promise thee I will never again offer thee harm."

" Jump out on the other side," quoth the boy, pausing, "and get thee gone."

And the holy man made all the haste he could for shame's sake ; for the thorns had almost stripped him to the skin, and covered him with blood.

When he reached the house they wondered where he had been, and how he had fallen into such a sorry plight. The goodwife said : " I see well, father, by thine array that thou hast come to some mischief What has befallen thee ? "

" I have been with thy son," he replied. " The devil overcome him, for no one else may ! "

Then entered the goodman, and his wife said unto him: "Here is a pretty matter! Thy dear son hath well-nigh slain this holy friar. Alack ! alack ! "

The goodman said : " Benedicite ! what hath the boy been doing to thee, friar ?"

" He made me dance willy-willy among the briars, and, by Our Lady, the pipe went so merrily that I might have danced till I burst myself"

" Hadst thou met with thy death so, father," said the goodman, " it had been a great sin."

At night, at the usual hour, the boy came back, and his father called him unto him, and questioned him about the friar.

"Father," said Jack, " I did nought, I tell thee, but play him a tune."

" Well," answered the goodman, " let me hear this pipe myself."

THE FRIAR AND THE BOY. 23

"Heaven forbid!" cried the friar, wringing his hands.

"Yea," quoth the goodman, "give us some music, Jack."

" If," entreated the friar piteously, " thou wilt indeed have him play, first bind me to some post. If I hear that pipe I must fain dance, and then my life is nought worth. I am a dead man."

They fastened him to a post in the centre of the hall, and they all laughed at his distress, and one said, " The friar is out of danger of falling now."

" Now, boy," said the goodman, " play on."

" That will I do, father," he replied, " till you bid me hold, and I warrant ye shall have music enough."

As soon as the boy took up the pipe and laid his mouth to it, all began to dance and jump, faster and faster, and higher and higher, as though they were out of their wits. Even the friar struck his head against the post and screamed with pain. Some leapt over the table ; some tumbled against the chairs ; some fell in the fire. Jack passed out into the street, and they all followed him, capering wildly as they went. The neighbours started at the sound, and came out of their houses, springing over the fences ; and many that had gone to rest Jumped out of bed and hurried into the village, naked as they were, and joined the throng at Jack's heels. A phrenzy was upon them all, and they bounded into the air, and looked not whither they plunged ; and some that could no longer keep their feet for lame- ness danced on all fours.

24 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

The goodman said to his son, " Jack, I trow it is best to give over."

" Let it be so," said the boy, and he desisted from his playing accordingly.

" This is the merriest sport," said the goodman, " that I have known this seven year."

" Thou cursed boy ! " exclaimed the friar, when they returned to the house, " I summon thee before the judge. Look thou be there on Friday."

"Good," answered the boy; "I will. I would with all my heart it were already come."

Friday arrived, and friar Topas and the step- dame, and the whole party, appeared, and the judge was in his place, and there was a goodly gathering of people, for there were many other cases to be heard. The friar was fain to wait till his turn came, and then he addressed the judge, saying to him :

" See, my lord, I have brought a boy to thee who hath wrought me and others many grievous trouble and sorrow. He is a necromancer such as in all this country hath not his like."

" I hold him for a witch," put in the goodwife, and scowled at Jack ; and forthwith she set to laugh- ing till she fell down, and none could tell what she ailed, or whence her great mirth arose.

"Woman," said the judge, "tell thy tale." But she could not utter another word, though Jack stayed her laughter as he had power given to him to do so by the stranger on the hillside.

Then spake Friar Topas, and said: " My lord, this boy will worst us all unless you soundly chastise him. He hath, sir, a pipe that will make you dance and hop till you are well-nigh spent."

THE FRIAR AND THE BOV. 2$

The judge said, " This pipe I fain would see, and know what sort of mirth it maketh."

"Marry! God forbid!" quoth the friar, "till I am out of the hearing of it."

" Play on, Jack," said the judge, " and let me see what thou canst do."

Jack set the pipe to his lips and blew, and the whole room was quickly in motion. The judge sprang over the desk and bruised both his shins ; and he shouted out to the boy to cease for God's sake and the love of the Virgin.

" Well," said Jack, " I will if they will promise me that they will never again do me trespass so long as I live."

Then as many as were there, the friar, the step- dame, and the rest, sware before the judge that they would keep the peace toward the boy, and help him to their power at all seasons against his enemies ; and when they had done so Jack bad the judge farewell, and all proceeded merrily home.

And thus it may be seen how the boy, because he was courteous and kind to the old man whom he met on the hillside while he tended his father's beasts, prospered, and kept every one in his country in his fear for evermore. For the old man was in truth a magician.

THE SMITH AND HIS DAME.

( Sixteenth Century. )

\This is one of those strange inventions zvJucli belong to the period of transition from Eastern fable and mediceval dentonology to a revival of the mzra- culous intervention of Christ in response to prayer.

The prevalent superstition was and is, that in- vocations to the Deity are efficacious in producing desired results both internally and externally ; and this belief is an exact inversion of the real nature and value of prayer, the operation and virtue of which are limited to its influence on our feelings and conduct.

A blacksmith, who is filled with impious pride on account of his masterful Jznowledge of his craft, incurs the displeasure of Our Lord, who visits him for the purpose of humiliating his presumption. It eventuates in Christ Jindertakins; to do what the 77mn with all his experience considers to be impos- sible. The smith has a mother-in-law, who has been bed-ridden upivard of forty years, and Christ engages to bring her back to yotith by laying her on the forge, and hammering her out. The miracle is performed, and the old woman is resto7'ed to vigour and beaztty.

Bid the smith 2t,7iluckily essays without Divir.e

THE SMITH AND HIS DAME. 27

intervention to achieve a similar triumph in the case of his wife, and burns her to death. But prayers are addressed to Jesus ; and He reappears, resus- citates the zvoman, and from the flames is seen to emerge the subject of the second experiment, " bright as a blossom," and a thousand-fold younger than she zoas before. Of course, one can only look on stcch a narrative as a piece of ivhimsicality, since the central incident at once removes it out of the category of prodigies accomplished by leechdom or legerdemain. To the Elizabethan reader, for whom the little tale was written, the particulars may have presented nothing beyond a humorous exercise of fancy. The serious side was not considered.

The proposal made by Jesus to the smith to enable a blind man to guide himself by means of a rod of steel has probably some reference to the ancient theory of magnetism.

The description of the blacksmith himself imports a person of much higher social and financial con- sideration than an operative of that class at the present day ; and the hero of the story, in fact, belonged to a period when the calling zvas far viore lucrative and prominent, owing to more primitive travelling conditions and the universal use of horses for nearly all purposes. In England it was the same as elsewhere : the forge and the smithy were an essential feature in every locality, great and small ; and the leading members of the trade formed from the seventeenth centuty a Guild, which still exists, though shorn of its o^nginal significance and practical value ^

2 5 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

God that died on a tree yield His grace unto them that will hearken unto me, and I shall tell of a marvel.

In Egypt there dwelt a smith, who prospered long and well, and had land and fee, and husbandmen at his bidding. This smith was a cunning artificer, and could, by my troth, work in any metal ; and he was wont to boast that, save himself, there was none that followed that same craft worth a straw.

Now Our Blessed Lord was wrath with this smith by reason of his pride and vain-glory, and thought how He might compass his chastisement. And so it happened on a day, that, as he stood at his forge working, Our Lord came unto him secretly, and said unto him : " Lo, I have a thing for thee to do ; and if thou canst do it, thou shalt be well paid, i' faith."

" Say on," replied the smith, as one that wist not who spake thus unto him, "for I am a master of all this cunning ; and whatever thou shalt be pleased to command, it shall be done to point."

Then said Our Blessed Lord unto him : " Canst thou make a yard of steel to lead a blind man, so that he may never fall.-' If so thou canst this accomplish, then I will salute thee a master of thy calling."

Then the smith fell into a study, and presently answered the stranger thus : " Sir, I trow thou art mad or something worse to talk of such things. If a man be blind, he must have a fellow who can see to lead him in the way. For if two blind men walk together, they commonly both fall into the ditch ; and how should a blind man with a blind rod.

THE SMITH AND HIS DAME. 29

be the steel never so hard, find his way ? Nay ; it is false."

" Well," said Our Blessed Lord unto the smith, ' I can make such a rod, or I can restore an old man to his youth, as he was before."

" I have an old quean here with me," the smith said ; " she is my wife's mother, and it is forty years or more since she set foot to ground. By my faith, if thou couldst make her young again, then right glad were I."

Our Lord said : " Where is she ? Let me see her, and I shall shew thee a feat beyond thy reach."

The smith hastened to fetch his dame, where she lay a-bed.

" Mother," quoth he, " art thou asleep ? I have come for thee, that thou mayest be made young again." And he pulled her out of the place where she lay, and carried her on his shoulders back to the stranger, and her cries and struggles heeded not.

Our Lord said unto him : " Verily, smith, it shall be done unto her as I say. Take her nov/, and put her on thy forge, and make her fast, that she fall not therefrom, and with thy bellows blow thy best."

He blew as he was commanded by the stranger, till the fire roared, and the old wife was as red as a hot coal ; yet pain suffered she none.

The smith said : " Now is it all over. She will never eat meat more. I have blown till I sweat."

" Let me alone," quoth the stranger. " Thou shalt behold anon a full fair woman in place of thy old beldame."

He blessed her, and said unto her, " Dame, awake." And he bad the smith to strike her with

30 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

his hammer, and straightway she arose, and was comely and young to the sight.

Our Lord said to the smith : " She is whole once more. We have made her young again with hammer and bellows. There is none in Egypt that may surpass her. Behold, one that was an old crone is now as though she were but thirty years of her age. Now acknowledge me for thy master."

" Sir," then quoth the smith, " I dare well say that, an' a man were dead, thou mightest make him live again by thy excellent craft and mastership. Now what shall I pay thee, ere thou goest, to teach me this art ? "

Our Lord rejoined : " What thou seekest is in vain ; thou canst never compass these things. And I prythee do not essay them, lest thou shouldest be deceived. But leave thy boasting ; for whatsoever thou knowest, there is ever much to learn. My name is Jesus, and I now depart from thee to go into another country."

And Our Lord was lost to view.

When Our Lord was no longer manifest to the smith, the smith went and called his wife Joan, de- siring her to come to him ; who cried out, and asked him if he wist not well that she was in no case to come, as he bad her, for she was lame and might not walk, and she was waxing in years, so that her sight failed her and her bones ached. She feared to fall at every step she took.

The smith was forgetful of the admonition which Our Lord had given to him, and thought that he might do with her even as Christ Jesus had done with the old wife his mother ; and so he sent unto

THE SMITH AND HIS DAME. 3 1

her : " Come forth, and at a stroke I will make thee young as thou wast before. Look ! thy own mother, that could neither walk nor see, is as merry as a bird, and her complexion is like a rose."

Then when the woman came, and saw her mother, how she was young and lusty, she said unto her, " Art thou my mother indeed ? "

" Yea," quoth she, " benedicite !"

" Who made thee whole, then, mother?" she asked.

" Even one," she answered, " that came this way. Men call his name Jesus."

" Verily he has worked a wonder by thee ; for even yesterday thou wast but a feeble trot."

"Wife," said the smith, "had I aright hot fire, I could make thee as thy mother is." And he fetched a quarter of coals, and took his bellows, and blew till there was a white heat.

" Lo," cried the smith, " there is none in all this country can do this save I." And he laid hold of his wife to place her on the forge.

" What art thou doing, thief, with me ? " she cried. " Knowest thou not that I am thy own wife ?"

" I go to burn thee, as I did thy sweet mother," quoth the smith.

" Traitor, if thou burnest me, thou shalt hang on a tree," she shouted. " Curses upon thee ! Did we not keep thee, when thou hadst nought 1 and goest thou about to burn me } "

" Fear not," said the smith ; " thou shalt with the fire and the hammer be made as when I saw thee first. Come." And he took her by the middle, to fasten her on the forge. But she struggled and kicked and sware, and when he had her at last well

32 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

on the furnace, she caught him by the hair, and smote him in the eye, and called loudly for help.

He waxed wrath hereat, and cast her clean into the flames, and once she rose, and twice, essaying to rend him with her nails. But he heaped on the coals, and then the water, and set to work with his bellows, and blew as hard as he could. " Ha ! ha ! " he cried ; " I shall make thee young again yet, I see well."

Then, when she lay still, he raised her up, and hammered at her with all his might, till both her legs dropped from her.

" What is this ? " he said, aghast ; " wilt thou not be young, wife ? What ! thou art not dead ? Come, speak a word. Say BoT

But she uttered no word, and anon an arm fell into the flame ; and the smith threw down his hammer, and ran into the street like one distracted, shouting for Jesus to come to him.

Then incontinently Our Lord appeared unto the smith, and said unto him, " Man, what hast thou done ? "

" I sought to do as thou hadst done by my dame before, and make my wife young by burning her in the furnace, and beating her with the hammer."

" Did I not shrewdly avise thee, man," quoth Jesus, "not to venture herein.'' Thou hast burned thy wife, and slain her."

" Ah ! good Lord," answered him the smith, "I cry for mercy. I disobeyed you, Lord."

"Thou repentest thy sin," said Jesus; "and as thou prayest, so it shall be clone."

And He blessed her, and bad her arise ; and she

THE SMITH AND HTS DAME. 33

arose straightway, and seemed as bright as a blos- som, and a thousand-fold fairer than she was before.

She sank on her knees, and prayed to God on high, and the smith fetched his mother ; and all those three knelt together, and held up their joined hands, to give praise and glory to Heaven.

Our Lord then said to the smith : " See that thou never do this thing more, for it is a craft which thou canst not learn. But I grant unto thee this boon, that over all thy fellows in the mystery which thou professest thou shalt have lordship, and that none, save he seek thy counsel and aid, may prosper."

These words He delivered to the smith, and again He enjoined him in no wise, to his life's end, to intermeddle with such things as belonged not to man ; and so He departed into other lands, to do like acts of grace and mercy.

Let us all give thanks that there is such a Lord, and pray that He may bring us to His bliss !

So endeth the tale of the smith, which that burned his dame, and made her whole again by the help of Christ Jesus.

A. L.

VIRGILIUS.

[It is ivell knoivn that the poet Virgil, who in his works has included descriptions of the infernal regions, and who was supposed to have been the grandson of a magician, frojn an ignorant misreading of yisiM"-, for Magus, shared the fate of many scholars, both during the Middle Ages and at a later period, in being invested with the character and power of a wizard. The most sing^ilar fables were current in southern Italy about his miraculous exploits at A^aples and elsewhere in the same vicinity, when, on the revival of literature under monastic auspices in the thirteenth centuiy, the compilers of books began to collect material for their purposes, and eagerly availed them- selves of stories relative to such a famous personage, handed doivn from age to age, and gradually magni- fied and distorted by a variety of agencies.

"Virgilius" may be considered as belonging to the same family of tradition as Bacon and Faustus, and presents to our vieiv a reniarkable illustration of the sloiv tangle of Roman or Italian folk-lore zvith heterogeneous Middle-Age empirical beliefs and ideas. When a nucleus was obtained, as in this case and in those of Bacon and Faustiis, and many others, there was no limit to the accumulation roimd it of fabulous growths, and the question of historical or literary propriety did not enter into the thoughts of

VIRGILIUS. 35

those who identified exploits or opinions with cele- brated names.

It 7}iay be surmised that the prophetic and mys- tical cast of the fourth "Eclogue " of Virgil and the account in the "yEneid" of the herds descent into hell were primarily instrumental in surrounding the Roman bard with an atmosphere of romance ; and if the same forticne befell Horace in his own home, the phenomenon becomes less surprising and less abnormal. In the present instance, we have to bear in mind the dense ignorance and the puerile credulity prevalent in Italy generally, and especially in the south, at this moment, when we weigh the facilities which existed in what ar^e called the Dark Ages for the propagation of the most childish and most incon- o;ruous theories.

The short preamble, in which the origin and sur- roundings of the Gothic Virgihus are gravely and circmnstantially set forth, is worthy of the remainder of the production, and is as distant from the first draft of an authentic view of Roman history as the latter is from that at pi'esent accepted. It seems almost incredible that the true facts, so far as they are, or can ever be, known at all, should have been overlaid by such a stratum of illiterate fable ; but the same fate befell every branch of learning and archcEology during the transitional period when western civilization was effaced by the decline and fall of Roman ascendency.

One striking peculiarity in " Virgilius" is the resort of that reputed magician, for the accomplishment of some of his designs, to the agency of water and air tender what appear to be impossible conditions. But

36 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

o

the storyteller has at no time been hampered by the laws of nature or limits of science.

One explanation may be offered of the presence of these notions ; and it is that the description was borrowed from the observed localization of mist or vapour in a compact form by the action of the zvind, and from the atmospheric phenomenon known as a miras^e.

A second special feature is the association of the mystery of zuorking in metals and the production of automata with occult philosophy — an Homeric idea, which contimLed to flouiHsh through the Middle Ages, as we see partly exemplified in the legend of Way- land Smith, doivn to the more recent period with which the singular story of the " Smith and his Dame " connects itself. The pieces of mechanism ascribed to Viigilius were probably some species of clockwork, and would at the present day be considered rudimentary devices.

The description ivhich zve find here of the ivalls of Rome is so far curious, that it -a'as probably derived from the personal observation of the romancist, and points to the practice, zvhere towns were not availed or fortified, of surrounding them with palisades.

In the adventure with the Soldan's daughter "the side of France " is quoted as the country zvhere Virgilius had his orchards ; but by such a phrase zve are merely to understand a locality in that direction.

The version of the origin of Naples, and its foundation on eggs, is apparently connected with an attempt to explain the volcanic nature of the soil underlying and surrounding that city.

VIRGILIUS. 37

The extraordinary account which zve get of the death of the enchanter reads like a jumble of the ancient belief in rejuvenescence, which was usually by fire, with some legend of the murder of a rich man by his servant for purposes of phuider. Even the emperor in the story does not credit the defence set 7ip by the man, and executes him as an assassin.

The costume of the narrative, in short, is that of the period to ivhich it belongs ; and by studying par- ticulars which are not perhaps otherwise of great interest or importance we may gain many serviceable glimpses of the social and political life of former ages, even where it is no weightier matter than the custom of schoolboys being sent between their lessons to play in the fields.

Many of the incidents have their analogues in the fabliaux and in Eastern traditional folk-lore, which zvere only available in a manuscript or oral shape when " Virgil ius" loas written and published in the early years of the sixteenth century.

Certain of the scenes or adventures recall the coarser passages in Owlglass and Scogin.

The English text which we have employed was in all probability indeed derived from a Dutch original, of which a copy is before us, zvith a series of woodcut embellishments of a commonplace character, except indeed that one of them depicts the ordeal imposed by Virgilius on the gentlewoman in the market-place. There is also a French version.

In one passage we note the reference to a July

f'uit and corn harvest. It is always difficult and

hazardous to rely on these clezus in popular tales ;

but we seem to discern here an indication that the

3o SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

writer obsei'ved the unities rather tmusually, or that the work before us had a7i Italian original, with zvhich we have not so far met, although such a phrase as ''town-house" applied to the Capitol at Rome bespeaks rather a Flemish or Dutch sotirce and a literal translation of Stadt-huis.]

I. In the city of Rome, in old days, there dwelled two brothers, named Romulus and Remus ; and because that city was too strait and small for two kings, as these twins were, Remus departed, yield- ing up to Romulus his heritage, and went and founded in Champagne the fair city of Rheims, which he embattled with fair and high walls.

Now it happened that Remus came on a time to Rome to see his brother, and because the walls of Rome were so low that a man might leap over them, Remus made sport thereof, and at a run leapt over them in a certain place, which so angered his brother that he slew him, and, leading his army into Champagne, destroyed the said fair city of Rheims. But the wife of Remus and her son, that bare his father's name, escaped.

Then the wife of Remus, that was a lady of high lineage and richly allied, rebuilt the city, when Romulus his brother had departed ; and anon her son, that was named Remus, repaired to Rome, and slew his uncle Romulus, and reigned in his place, and was called emperor.

In his court this emperor had many knights ; but there was one that had espoused the daughter of a very rich senator, and was a man of great power and

VIRGILIUS. 39

renown ; and by this lady had he one son, who was called Virgilius.

Whenas that child was born, the city of Rome shook, and he shewed himself of much promise and of a rare wit, and he was put to school at Tolentum, where he studied diligently ; and soon after his father died, whom his mother the senator's daughter loved so well, that she would not consent to wed again.

One day Virgilius and his fellows had leave, according to the usage of those times, to go into the fields for to play ; and it fortuned to Virgilius that, as he strayed among the hills, he espied a great hole, into which he crept, and all was in darkness ; and he went a little farther, and it wox lighter again ; and so he advanced inward till he heard a voice saying, " Virgilius ! Virgilius ! " But he looked about, and could see nobody.

He cried, "Who calleth me ?"

The voice answered and said, "Virgilius, seest thou not that board beside thee with the word marked thereon ?"

" Yea," he replied.

"Remove it then," said the voice, "and let me out."

" Who art thou," then asked Virgilius, "that liest there-beneath ? "

" I am a devil," quoth the voice, " that was con- jured out of the body of a certain one, and am banished and imprisoned hereunder till the day of doom, unless I be delivered by the hand of man. So I pray thee, Virgilius, enlarge me from this bondage, and I shall shew unto thee many books

40 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

of magic, that thou shalt grow to be the greatest necromancer of all men, and shalt be able to help thyself and thy poor kinsfolk which were deprived of their heritage. Surely it is a small boon that I ask for so great a reward."

Virgilius, who knew that his mother had been wronged by her kindred, and of the emperor could in no wise gain redress, was tempted to do as the devil would have him ; and when the devil had upon his asking shown him the books that he purposed to bestow upon him, he slid away the board, whence-beneath that devil glid like an eel, and came and stood straightway before Virgilius in the semblance of a big man, that Virgilius was astonished, seeing so great a man issue forth from so small a hole.

Then, when the devil had delivered the books to Virgilius, Virgilius said unto him : " Might ye fall back into that hole once more ? I warrant not." The devil said he could, and when he had shown Virgilius how it was possible, Virgilius shut down the hole suddenly, and cried, " Now thou shalt abide where thou art till the hour appointed " ; and although the devil besought him, he left him there lamenting and chidins:. And thus it was that Virgilius became a famous sorcerer and expert in the black art.

II.

The mother of Virgilius, as she wox old and deaf, began to long for the sight of her son, whom she wished to incite to the recovery of his heritage, which certain withheld from him, and which having he might be the greatest in all Rome. Wherefore

VIRGILIUS. 41

she sent one of her servants to the school where he yet was ; and the man found him teaching scholars from all countries, among them many great lords' sons ; for I assure ye he had grown a fair and wise youth, and was proficient in all arts.

The messenger shewed unto Virgilius the case, and took his answer that he could not come at that time, but sent his mother four sumpters laden with money and other choice gifts ; and soon after, when he had arranged his affairs, he set out to Rome, where he saluted his mother, who had not beheld him these twelve years, and she was glad enough to see him again.

But the enemies of Virgilius misliked his coming, and would not eat nor drink with him ; and Virgilius was wrath, and gave money and lands to all his poor kindred, and yielded hearty thanks to all those who had shown his mother kindness in his absence, and of such as denied him entrance on his heritage he made complaint to the emperor.

The emperor took counsel with such as held Virgilius in despite, and they advised him to pay no heed to one who was but a schoolmaster, and to leave the land with those who might aid him in his needs ; and the emperor said therefore to Virgilius that he would take four or five years to consider well whether he were the true heir or no.

Thereat Virgilius fretted sorely, and he assembled together all his poor kinsfolk, and gave them meat and drink, and wherewith to make merry till the harvest, when the corn and fruit should be ripe. And when it was so that the corn and fruit were ripe, Virgilius by his art did enchant the air over

42 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

the lands that were held by his enemies, so that all their corn and fruit were gathered into his garners, and they had not a whit. Whereupon his enemies mustered together in such a throng that the emperor for fear fled out of Rome. But Virgilius encom- passed his lands with a wall of air, that none might enter thereinat without his leave gotten ; and when his enemies approached to take him and smite off his head, the air so enveloped and bound them that they could neither stir backward nor forward. At which when they chafed and marvelled, Virgilius came to them, and said : " Lo ! so long as I live, ye shall have no profit from the lands whereof ye have disinherited me ; and ye may tell the emperor that I am tarrying his pleasure against such time as he shall determine if I am true heir or no, and that meanwhile I shall take my belonging as I may, nor care for what he may do."

When the emperor learned the words of Virgilius, he gathered together his army, with the intent to beleaguer his castle and burn all his places, and do him to death for his treason ; for he was sorely enraged that he should have thus defiantly spoken. But as soon as all the host was before the castle, Virgilius laid a spell upon it that it stood motionless, and presently the emperor imagined that he and all his soldiers that were with him were surrounded on each side by water.

Then Virgilius appeared in the sight of the emperor, and spake unto him these words : " Lord emperor, you have no power to do me harm nor to profit by my lands whereof you have disinherited me, whereas I should be one of your greatest lords

VIRGILIUS. 43

and nearest of your kinsmen, and in the day of need might help you more than all other." The emperor threatened him, but he feared him not ; and Virgilius and his folk dressed victual and ate it, • so that the host outside could see them so do, but the emperor and his folk had nought whereof to eat.

Now while they were in these straits, one that also professed necromancy came before the emperor, and made offer to cause all the folk that were with Virgilius, and Virgilius himself, to fall into a sleep, so that this spell might be relaxed. And so it was ; and Virgilius had much ado to keep himself from sleeping ; and he saw how the emperor and his soldiers moved once more, and approached the walls, raising ladders against them. Then Virgilius looked into his books, and found how this might be averted, and made the enemy stand still again, some that were on the ladders or the walls, or one foot on either, remaining void of faculty to go upward or downward.

The emperor asked his conjuror if he might not deliver them from their distress, but he answered him Nay ; and Virgilius defied the emperor, and imprisoned him and his army in a circuit of air a whole day. When the night drew on, Virgilius came secretly to him, and shewed him what dis- honour it was to so mighty a prince to fall into so low a state, for that he had undertaken what he could not fulfil.

The emperor answered and said that if Virgilius should free him out of this danger wherein he was, he would restore him all his lands, and acknowledge him for his kinsman ; and he sware by his crown

44 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

to be true to his pledge. Virgilius then brake the spell, and the emperor and his folk entered into the castle, and were right nobly entertained and feasted ; and Virgilius was reinstated in his lands, and became the greatest lord in Rome after the emperor.

III.

Now Virgilius, when he had so gotten again his goods, fell enamoured of a fair lady, and by his art made her understand his mind ; whereupon she, meaning to beguile him, appointed a time when he should come to her house that stood in the market- place, and she would let down a basket from the tower, wherein he might come to her chamber. But when Virgilius had entered into the basket, and had been drawn up half-way to the gentlewoman's window, she left him to hang there, making fast the cord.

" Lo ! to-morrow, sir," quoth she, "it is market day, and ye will be seen and mocked of all." And so it happened. But the emperor, when he understood how it was, commanded the lady to release Virgilius ; and he departed his way, saying that he would be avenged on her for her false dealing.

He incontinently used his art, and extinguished all the fire in Rome, that none but he had fire ; and when the emperor sent to him to ask how they might have fire again, he answered so : " Ye must have a scaffold set up in the middle of the market- place, and place the gentlewoman that hung me in the basket thereon in her smock only ; and then make cry throughout Rome that whoever needeth

VIRGILIUS. 45

fire may come and fetch it from between the gentle- woman's legs ; nor other fire shall ye have any."

So all the multitude went, as Virgilius bad them, and got their fire and lit their candles there, both rich and poor. And soon after this Virgilius married another lady, and built for himself a marvellous palace with four angles ; and he took the emperor into each angle by turn, and he heard all that the people said in that quarter, albeit they but whispered.

The emperor, thus perceiving the might of Vir- gilius and his great subtlety, demanded of him on a day howso he might cause Rome to prosper, and to have many lands subject to the same ; and likewise to know when it was within the purpose of any land to rise up against it. Virgilius answered at that time, " Lord emperor, that shall I do " ; and forth- with he set him to place in the Capitol divers carved images in stone, that we name idols, of all the gods appertaining to such lands as were to Rome obeis- sant ; and in the midst he put one god of Rome, and to every god his bell, to the intent that when any other land should make war upon Rome, all the gods might turn their backs on the god of the Romans, and the god of that land which willed war might clink his bell. Then, ere the people of the land could muster in array and come to Rome, the emperor, thus avised, might go into that land and subdue it.

Now the folk of Carthage, that were very cun- ning and expert, had secret knowledge of this device, and were sore at heart by reason of the great hurt that Rome had wrought them ; and so they sent forth three trusty messengers, provided with

46 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

much abundance of gold and silver, to essay to destroy the work of Virgilius.

These three men repaired to Rome, and first of all they buried, deep in the earth, a great pot full of money, and sank in the Tiber, by the bridge, a barrel of golden pence. Then they proclaimed themselves soothsayers and dream-expounders, and reported unto the Senate of Rome that if they might have leave to dig in a certain hill, and to cast nets in the river, they would come upon a marvellous treasure, whereof they had dreamed ; and the Senate gave them leave, and they found the pot of money and the golden pence, and made to the senators costly gifts in recompense.

Anon they came again to the Senate, and prayed it, whereas they had discovered that beneath the Capitol there was buried a treasure far greater than the other two, to grant liberty to them to dig in quest thereof And the Senate granted them liberty, who assembled labourers, and took away as much ground as underlay the Capitol, which was called Salvatio Romce, or, the Salvation of Rome, and privily de- parted ; and the next day after the Capitol fell down, and all the great labour of Virgilius was lost, to the amazement and dismay of those lords of Rome, who thus saw how they had been deceived by the men of Carthage.

Yet once more the emperor prayed Virgilius of his good counsel, that the thieves and night-walkers in Rome, which did great mischief and committed many murders, might be stayed and abolished ; and Virgilius wrought hereupon a horse of copper, with a man of copper on his back, and bad the emperor

VIRGILIUS. 47

cause proclamation to be made that whoso, after ten of the clock at night, should range the streets, and should be slain, there should be no inquisition there- into. But the thieves and other evil-doers lent no ear to that proclamation, and did as before ; and when at ten of the clock the bell rang, and none marked it, the man of copper on his copper horse galloped through the streets, leaving none over- looked, and slew every man and woman whom he met withal, slaying in one night two hundred or more.

The thieves and night-walkers misliking this gin, they devised how they might escape from the copper man upon his copper horse ; and they contrived ladders with hooks, which, whenso they should hear the copper man drawing nigh, they could fix to the houses, and climb beyond the danger thereof ; which they did, and the streets returned to their former perilous estate. And the emperor sought out Virgllius, that he might aid him to find a remedy, who made two copper hounds, which should run beside the copper horse ; and when the thieves and night-walkers thought to climb their ladders, these copper hounds sprang thereto, and tare them in pieces. After which none durst go in the streets of Rome by night, and the evil-doers were clean destroyed.

A while after, in order to discover the more effectually false swearers, Virgilius devised a metal serpent : and whoso into the mouth of that serpent should put his head, and had falsely sworn, might not withdraw it again ; but if it was so that the oath was true, then he might pluck it back without harm

48 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

done. And many tried that ordeal till a certain lady, that was a knight's wife in Lombardy, beguiled Virgilius by means of her lover, whom she caused to disguise himself in a fools'-coat. And Virgilius in despite brake the serpent to pieces ; for with all his cunning and necromancy women still had the better of him by their mother-wit.

Then, by cause that the city was plunged in dark- ness, when the day waned, Virgilius studied how he might make a light to burn for ever in the very middle of Rome for the special good of the common sort that had no lamps nor candles ; and he set up a mighty pillar of marble, and between the pillar and his palace he built a bridge, over which Virgilius passed from his palace to the top of the pillar ; and thereon he placed a lamp of glass that would burn to the world's end, and no man could put it out : which lamp lighted all the streets of Rome, so that all might see, even in the smallest, by night as well as by clay. And on the walls of the palace Virgilius placed a metal man that held in his hand a metal bow, wherewith he ever aimed at the lamp as though he would put it out. Yet he did not ; and the lamp gave light to all Rome during the life of Virgilius and three hundred years after; and to this day would so have done if one of the burgesses' daughters had not, as she sported with her fellows on the roof of the palace, touched the metal bow, which made the bolt shoot out and break the wonderful lamp that Virgilius had fashioned.

But Virgilius in his time did many other strange and marvellous things. Whereof one that we shall rehearse was an orchard, wherein he planted all

VIRGILIUS. 49

manner of trees that bare fruit and blossom, and set every sort of bird and tame beast, with a fountain in the midst and great plenty of fish ; and the birds, which came within this garden, might well enter, yet could in no wise fly out, for it was encompassed about with a wall of air.

But, above all, beneath the orchard he made a secret chamber, where he placed all his money and goods that he had, for he was so exceeding rich, that he scarce wist how much good he possessed ; and two metal men, that perpetually smote on two anvils with great hammers, kept this chamber, that none could come near it, or Virgilius had quickly lost the whole of his treasure.

IV.

So great power had Virgilius over the air, that he made an image, and suspended it therein, that none in Rome might open door or window, and not see that image ; and it had this property, that no woman, after she had looked upon it, had any bodily lust thenceforward. Which when the women of Rome understood, they prayed the wife of Virgilius to use sleight, that the image might fall. Who thereupon, to do them pleasure, passed over the bridge of air, and cast down the image, so that all the women were as before.

But when Virgilius perceived that it was so, he was wrath, and knew who had done this deed, for none might compass such a thing save his wife alone ; and he demanded of her if she had cast it down. Who answered, "Nay"; and VirgiHus set it up once more. Then the women complained

A. L. E

50 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

again to his wife, that it was even worse than here- tofore with them, and begged her to throw it down a second time. But VirgiHus lay in wait, where he might see her ; and when it was accomplished, he cried in anger that he would throw her down after it. But he did not. Yet he said that he would not meddle with women hereafter, and from that time he misliked his wife.

Oftentimes it had been reported to him how fair was the Solclan's daughter ; but he had never seen her ; and now he crossed over to her on a bridge through the air, and spake with her, and so ordered her mind that she consented to his love. And this lady said unto Virgilius one night, that she would fain return with him into his own country, and see what manner of man he was, and where he dwelled.

Virgilius answered and said, " Thou shalt cross over many lands, and shalt not touch the ground " ; and he bare her through the air by means of the bridge which he made, and brought her to Rome. He demanded of her how many she saw, and she said, only him alone. Then he shewed her his palace and orchard, and the metal men that guarded his riches, and for ever smote with their mighty hammers on their anvils ; and he let her see his treasure ; and after, when she had tarried with him a certain space, he carried her back through the air to her father's country ; and the Soldan was a glad man, for he wist not whither his daughter had gone.

Virgilius gave her of the fruit of his orchard to bear with her along, and the Soldan knew, because they were walnuts and such like fruit, that the strange man who had taken her away was a

VIRGILIUS. 5 1

Frank from beyond the sea. So he commanded his daughter, if so he came again to her, to give him to drink of a certain sleeping potion, but in no wise to partake of the same ; and when Virgilius repaired to her again, she gave him thereof that he slept, and was taken, and adjudged by the Soldan to die.

But Virgilius defied the Soldan, and caused him and all his lords suddenly to find themselves in a great river that ran thereby, where they swam and plunged like ducks ; and they thus remained under his spell, until such time as he had risen into the air with the Soldan's daughter, when he made the river abate, and so set them free again, to their great marvelling. And he, with that lady whom he loved so well, came safely to Rome over the bridge of air.

Now he was of this lady, the Soldan's daughter, mightily enamoured, while his own wife for certain sufficient reasons he had disdained and eschewed. Yet he thought not to marry her, but to raise her to a high estate, and to find for her a husband of like degree ; and first of all he imagined how he might found in the midst of the sea, in her honour, a fair town with large possessions thereto pertaining.

The foundation of it was eggs ; and in it he built a four-cornered tower, on the top whereof he set an apple, which hung by its stalk from a chain, nor no man could remove the apple unless he brake it ; then above the apple he placed a bottle, and on the bottle, again, an egg, where they yet continue. And so the town was finished by his cunning in short space, and he called it Naples. And when the egg stirreth, the tower quakes ; and if the egg should break, the town shall sink into the sea.

52 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Here he brought a part of his treasure, and placed his mistress, the Soldan's daughter ; and he gave her the town, and all belonging to it, and married her to a Spanish lord.

The emperor, when he heard what a noble town it was, sorely coveted it, and within a brief time lay siege to it. But the Spanish lord that had married the Soldan's daughter defended the place with great valour, and Virgilius so ordered that all the water in the rivers outside the town was turned to rain, and the emperor and his host were discomfited, for that they had no water ; and so they returned again to Rome.

Then Virgilius removed all his goods to Naples, save his treasure which he left in care of the two metal men, who smote on the anvils with their mighty hammers day and night ; and he made the town the abode of scholars and merchants, with harbours, and schools, and baths, to which all might alike resort ; and the schools he endowed with much land, to the intent that the scholars should have and enjoy it, each his share, so long as he continued in that place, and no longer ; and Virgilius himself taught necromancy therein, for he was the most learned and apt man in that science that ever was born ; and in his days Naples was the fairest city in the whole world.

V.

Yet the emperor was so loth to part with Virgilius, that he was fain to dwell at Rome, all this notwith- standing ; and being there he promised the emperor that in good time he would perform in his behalf

VIRGILIUS. 53

many other marvels : as, namely, to make the trees bear thrice a year, and ripe fruit and blossom at once ; to cause ships to sail against the stream ; to enable men to earn money as quickly as spent ; and to let women bring forth children without travail ; and many another wonderful matter, put-case in the meanwhile Virgilius should not happen to die.

And Virgilius about this time built another castle, whereinto was one entrance, and no more, and round about flowed water on every side. It stood without the city of Rome, and the gate was kept by four and twenty metal men, that held four and twenty flails, which were made to work day and night, so that no one could enter, till Virgilius commanded the flails to cease, or he was slain.

Then when Virgilius looked upon this castle, and upon the treasure that he had privily removed thither, and considered that he was waxing old, it came into his thought how he might so contrive by his mastery to renew himself, and be young again.

Virgilius had among his servants a fellow that above all the rest he in especial trusted ; and while his mind was occupied with this thing, he called him one day, and took him with him along to his castle without the city. And when they were come to the gate, Virgilius said unto him, " Get you first into the castle." The man answered and said, " Sir, an' I should enter, the flails would slay me to a surety."

His master thereupon shewed to him the manner In which the flails worked, and how they might be made to cease ; and he made them to cease, and they both passed Into the castle. Then Virgilius

54 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

turned the vices, and the flails once more stirred and quickened as they were wont.

As soon as they were within, VirgiHus led his servant into the cellar, where he kept a fair lamp ever burning, and spake to him thus : " Dearly be- loved friend, whom I above all others trust, see you that barrel that standeth below the lamp ? Ye must therein put me ; but ye must first slay me, and hew me small, and cut my head into four pieces, and lay it at the bottom of the cask, and my heart in the centre ; and ye must salt them all, and for nine days together see that the lamp is filled, and that the leakage therefrom fall into the cask upon me. And when nine days are come and gone, and ye have done all this as I bid, I shall be renewed, and be young again, and live many winters more, unless it be that I be taken above."

But when the servant heard this speech, he was exceeding sorrowful, and would not by any means be consenting to the death of Virgilius, nor would not slay him. Nevertheless his master urged him, saying that it must be done, and there was none else that might do the same ; and so the man did as he was charged, and went each day in and out of the castle, and made the flails cease and fed the lamp.

The emperor missing Virgilius for the space of seven days, he marvelled what had become of him, and he sent to his servant and questioned him, who said that Virgilius had gone away this seven- night, he wist not whither, and would not let him bear him company. The emperor deemed that the fellow lied, and threatened him with death if he did

VIRGILIUS. 55

not tell him shortly where he was. The man said that his master and he went together to the castle, and when they came thither Virgilius entered, but would in no wise suffer him so to do. The emperor commanded him to go with him to the castle, and when they were before the gate, they might not enter for the flails ; and the emperor enjoined him to stay them, and if he did not so do, he should die ; and the servant through the fear of death stayed them, and they entered in.

The emperor made search everywhere about the castle, and at length descended to the cellar, where the lamp burned above the barrel, and in the barrel lay the body of Virgilius hewn small ; and the emperor enraged cried, "What made thee so hardy as to kill thy master ? " and drawing his sword he smote off the head of the servant. Then, after this had come to pass, the emperor and the folk that were with him beheld a naked child, that ran thrice round the barrel, saying these words, " Cursed be the time that ye came ever here ! " and so vanished, and was no more seen.

So ended the life of Virgilius, for which the emperor, and the town of Naples that he had founded, and all the scholars of the same, and all his kindred, long and sorely grieved.

ROBERT THE DEVIL.

\This singular fabulous compilation was originally written in French, in the fifteenth cejituyy ; and relates to the birth, alleged misdeeds, repentance, and holy end of one of the early dukes of Normandy, whom the romancist arbitrarily, and indeed erro- neously, makes in order of time anterior to Charle- magne. The hero of the legend before us was really the yo2mger son of Richard the Good, Duke of Normandy (996-1027) and the father of William I. of England; he succeeded his brother, Richard III., in 1028, and reigned till 1035. His wife is said to have been the daughter of a skinner or currier at Falaise.

From the account it is easy to perceive that the direction which the excesses of the duke took in early life, during his father s and brother s reigns (996- 1027), in the spoliation of the Church, was naturally apt to awaken resentment in the mind of the class then most influential in shaping the public estimate of persons and events, and to blacken the fame of the duke. But as he subsequently relented and made his peace with God, we are to understand that, after a suitable process of humiliation, he zvas readmitted within the sacred pale and his offences condoned. The Church, it is to be observed, makes its oivn classification of monarchs into good and bad, as they have sacrificed the interests of their subjects to

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 57

clerical rapacity, or the contrary. This is only just beginning to be appreciated, and will involve much rewriting of history.

The legend has assumed a variety of forms, and the same string of inventions has sej^ved to illustrate incidents in the lives of several real or fictitious per- sonages, who were supposed to have transgressed in a similar manner against God and the Church.

At present, the particulars given of the life and fortunes of Robert the Devil are chiefly valuable as proofs of the strange credulity of former ages, and at the same time as a serviceable and interesting pic- ture of manners and thought. But a certain interest attaches itself to his name, by reason of his nearness to the founder of our Norman li7ie of kings.

The romance is divisible into three portions : Robert' s birth and period of sin; his term of penance; and his restoration to spiritual health and accession to the ducal throne in 1028.

The clerical spirit is strongly manifest throughout, in the sitb ordination of political to spiritual circum- stances, while the distortion of historical facts very signally demonstrates the writer s want of knowledge, or his disrespect for that of others^

I. It befell, in time passed, that there was a duke in Normandy that was called Hubert, which duke was passing rich in goods, and of virtuous life, and loved and feared God above all things, and did great alms-deeds, and exceeded all other in righteous- ness and justice and in deeds of chivalry, and in notable exploits.

58 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Duke Hubert held his court at Naverne on the Seine upon a Christmas Day, and thereto all the nobles of Normandy resorted ; and because the duke was unmarried, his lords besought him to take unto him a wife, to the intent that his race might be continued, and he might have an heir to enjoy his estate and place after his decease. To whom the duke graciously signified his readiness to do their pleasure, if so that he might find a consort fitting his condition ; and they commended unto him the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, which that Duke Hubert sought and obtained in marriage accordingly, and he brought her to Rouen in Normandy, where he dwelled.

But it came to pass that the duke and duchess lived together for the space of eighteen years child- less, albeit this duke prayed to God, so often as he intermeddled with his lady, that they might be blessed with a son, who should honour and serve God, and fortify their lineage. But in no wise could they compass their desire.

The duchess exhorted her husband to be patient, and to submit himself to God's decrees ; but he sorely chafed at the lack of issue, and it happened that, when he returned on a day from hunting, moody and discontented, as though the devil had possessed him, he came to the duchess, who was in like manner vexed and moved, and embraced her, saying his orisons in this wise following, " O Lord Jesu, I beseech Thee that I may get a child at this hour, by the which Thou mayest be honoured and served." But the lady, being angry, spake thus foolishly : "In the devil's name be it, since God

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 59

hath not the power ! and if I conceive at this very moment, I give the child to the devil, body and soul."

The duchess suffered great travail, and had not alms-deeds, good works, and penance been done for her, she had surely died ; and when the child, that was a man child, was at length born into the light, the sky wox so dark, and it thundered and lightened, that men feared lest the heavens should open, and the world should perish. For the winds blew from all the four quarters, and the palace was shaken, and a piece of it fell to the earth ; and there were sundry other fearful signs and tokens.

But, as it pleased God, after a while the weather was composed, and the child proceeded to his christening, whom they christened by the name of Robert ; and he wox so shrewd, that he bit off the paps of the nurses that gave him suck, so that they were fain to feed him through a horn, and by such time as he was twelve months old he could speak and walk better than other children of three years ; and he was shortly dreaded by all that sought to play with him, for he brake their legs and arms, and scratched their eyes out, wherein only he found pleasure and delight ; and the common people gave him the name of Robert the Devil, which he kept during his life, and will so long as the world lasteth.

II.

Anon Robert had by his father and mother assigned unto him a schoolmaster to teach him good learning ; but because this schoolmaster would have chastised him for his cursed conditions, the boy gat

6o SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

a bodkin, and thrust it into the man's belly, that he died ; and cast his book against the wall, saying, " Now have I taught thee that never priest nor clerk shall correct me, nor be my master." And from that time forward no man durst gainsay this Robert, whatsoever he did ; and he followed no manner of virtue nor grace, but mocked both God and the holy Church.

For when he came to the church, and found the priests and clerks singing God's service, he came privily behind them, and threw ashes or dust in their mouths in despite of God ; and if he saw any one in the church kneeling in prayer, he would steal to them and give them a jerk, that they fell on their faces. Nor did he eschew any sort of vice and mischief.

The duke and duchess were marvellously aggrieved that their son was of such a disposition, and the duchess counselled her lord that, since he was now of an age to bear arms, he should be made a knight, to the end that he might be moved thereby to for- sake his evil life ; and at a high feast of Whitsuntide his father accordingly made him a knight, and prayed him to demean himself fitly in that estate and leave his dishonest courses. And a tournament was pro- claimed in honour of this Robert being so made, whereat he by his strength and prowess overthrew all that were opposed to him, and had no peer.

But, all this notwithstanding, Robert continued steadfast in his former mischievous practices, and went about his father's dominions slaying men, ravishing women, and pillaging churches ; and when his father sent out soldiers to take him, and made

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 6 1

proclamation of outlawry against him, he defied him and slew all that sought to arrest his body ; nay, he killed seven holy hermits that were virtuous and of good living, and martyrs in the service of God, in a great wood, crying : " I have found a nest of popish rascals, and have shorn their crowns. They were wont to kneel on their knees, and now they lie on their backs ! " A truly cursed deed and bloodshed in scorn of God and holy Church.

III.

Now when Robert the Devil had thus murthered the virtuous hermits, he rode till he came to the Chateau d'Arques, and all that saw him fled at his approach. Some ran and shut themselves up in their houses ; others took shelter in churches. This Robert, when he perceived how the people dreaded him, was touched with remorse and sighed. " O mighty God ! " he cried, " how is it that every man flieth me-from ? Now I see truly that I am the most mischievousest and the most cursedest wretch in the world, and seem rather to be a Jew or a Saracen than a Christian man. Alas ! I begin to loathe my ungracious life." And while he thus meditated and spake to himself he came to the castle and lighted down from his horse.

But there was none there that would stay to hold his horse for him, and he left it standing at the gate and entered the castle, where, when his mother the duchess espied him coming, she would have likewise fled. Yet when he cried out to her piteously, say- ing, " Sweet lady mother, stay till I can speak with

62 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

you," the duchess awaited him ; and when he came to her he prayed her to let him know what it was which made him so vicious and cursed, for that he had such conditions either of her or of his father, and be,sought her to acquaint him with the truth thereof

Then when the duchess signified to Robert how she had given him to the devil, body and soul, at his birth, he fell down to the ground in a swoon ; and when he had somewhat recovered himself, he spake In manner as follows : " The fiends of hell use great diligence to have me to their own ; but from this time forth I forsake and eschew them and all their works, and will amend my life, quitting my sins, and doing therefore holy penance. So, O most reverent, holy mother mine, have me heartily recommended to my father ; for I will shortly take the way to Rome, to be assoiled of my sins."

Robert therefore straightway went to his com- panions and reproved them for their misdeeds, and shewed them how he and all of them had offended in the sight of God by robbing churches and priests, and by murthering great numbers of virtuous people ; and for that his followers would not con- sent to leave their wickedness, and that one of them mocked him, saying, " Lo, the fox would turn monk!" he wox wroth, and therewith slew them all.

As he rode along on his way to Rome, and was not yet far from his father's castle, he came to an abbey that he had (among many others) formerly robbed, and when the abbot and the rest saw him they fled. But when he shewed them by signs that he would speak with them, they paused, and he ad-

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 63

dressed them so piteously and graciously that they were no more afeard. Then he spake to the lord abbot, shewing his lordship how he had repented him ol his acts, and praying him to have him recom- mended to his father, the Duke of Normandy, who would restore all that he had taken, which was stored in a certain house, whereof his father had the key ; and he besought them to deliver back to every one that which of right was his ; and he was about to visit our holy father the pope, to plead to him for remission of his trespass against God and holy Church.

IV.

This Robert, which some called the Devil, arrived in Rome on Shere Thursday at night ; and the next day, as the custom was, the pope himself celebrated the Divine service in St. Peter's church. Robert pressed through the throng to reach the pope, and the more they pushed him back and smote him, the more he was importunate ; and when he at length got nigh the pope and fell down on his knees, cry- ing, " Holy father, have mercy on me ! " the people would have still driven him away, but the pope, - seeing his great earnestness, took pity on him, and suffered him to abide, to whom he said, "Good friend, what is your desire? and what aileth you that you make this stir .'' "

Then quoth Robert : " O holy father, I am the greatest sinner that this world knoweth, and am bound and laden with my offences against God, that, as ye are he that giveth aid and comfort to such as have need, I beseech you, for the passion of Our

64 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Lord Jesus Christ, to purge me of all my abomin- able misdeeds, whereby I am deceived and defeated of all the joys of heaven."

The pope, hearing these words, mused within himself whether this were that Robert the Devil of whom he had heard such strange and heavy reports, and axed him if he was that Robert that he had heard so much speaking of, the which is of all men the worst.

Robert answered, " Yea."

The pope said : " I will assoil you ; but I conjure you to do no man hurt."

Robert gave him hearty thanks, and the pope afterward took him apart, and shrove him, learning how his mother at his conception had given him to the devil, which caused the pope to be sore afeard. Nevertheless he enjoined Robert to go three miles away out of the city to a hermit, which was his ghostly father, and to say to him that the pope sent him, and the same would assoil him.

When he came to the place where the holy hermit dwelled, he let him know that our holy father the pope had desired him to repair thither ; and as soon as the hermit had welcomed him, Robert confessed all his sins to him, setting forth at large every each thing that had happened to him since his birth, and the evil conditions that he followed, till he repented him ; and the hermit prayed him to rest there for that night in a little chapel hard by, and on the morrow he would speak with him again.

All that night the hermit prayed for Robert that God might pardon his great sins against Him, and as he slept the Lord sent an angel unto him, who

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 65

said unto him thus : " Holy father, take heed to the commandment of God. If that Robert be willing to be purged of all his trespasses, he must counter- feit the ways of a fool, and feign dumbness, nor eat no manner of meat, but he take it of the dogs ; and so he must continue till it please God to declare that he hath forgiveness." And whenso the hermit awoke, he made Robert understand the matter ; and Robert was merry and glad at the thought of being assolled by God, and without more ado returned to Rome to fulfil the ordinance of the angel, holding it a light penance enough, when he viewed all the abominable deeds of his whole life forepassed.

V.

Robert tarried in Rome a certain time, and dis- sembled according to the command which he had received from the angel of God, and ran about the streets like a fool, at whom the children threw dirt and stones, and the burghers of the city from their windows laughed at him and mocked him.

Whence, after a while, he departed to the emperor's court, and since the gate lay open, he entered into the hall, and he hopped and jetted up and down, never staying long in one place, till the emperor, marking him as he thus played the fool, and seeing he was a well-favoured young man, commanded one of his ser- vants to give him to eat. But Robert spake not a word, nor would eat, neither would he drink ; yet pre- sently, whenas the emperor cast one of his hounds a bone, Robert rose and sought to take it from him, and when he could not, he gnew one end and the hound the other. At last he got the bone all alone,

A. L. F

66 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

and gnew it right hard, for he was sore a-hun- gered. And the emperor cast a whole loaf at another of the hounds, which Robert seized incontinently and brake in twain, giving the hound half, and keep- ing half, which made the emperor deem that he was a natural fool and a very noddy ; and all present laughed at him for being such an innocent. And when he had eaten fully, he went to a fountain in the garden and drank therein, and afterward smote with his staff, as he wandered about, on stools and benches, as he had been mad ; and at last, when it was night, he lay down under a stair with the dogs, and slept.

Now a strange accident befell when Robert was thus doing his penance in Rome ; for the emperor had a daughter which was born dumb, and had never spoken since her birth ; and nevertheless, because she was heir to her father after his death, the great seneschal sought her in marriage, and when the emperor denied him, he led a great host of Saracens against Rome.

The emperor, assembling his lords, prayed them of their counsel how he might withstand these heathen dogs, and they advised him to muster all his power and might and drive them away ; and when the emperor had made proclamation through all his lands, and had assembled a great army, he marched against those heathen caitiffs.

Robert remained at home, and was drinking at the fountain in the garden on the same day on which the emperor should give battle to the Saracens, when a voice came down to him from heaven, say- ing : " Robert, God commandeth you by me that

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 67

you put on this armour incontinently, and mount upon this white horse that He hath sent you Hke- wise, and ride as swiftly as you may to rescue the emperor and his people."

Robert, hearing the commandment of God, which he might not disobey, aroused himself, and leaping into the saddle, took his way toward the emperor ; and as he departed, the emperor's daughter beheld him from a window, and would have spoken, but might not, for that she was dumb. Robert spurred his horse forward with all speed to the field, and saw how the Christian host was being pressed on each side by those cursed hounds the Saracens ; and suddenly throwing himself into their midst, he made such havoc among them that it was a world to see the ground strown with the limbs of the dead. Those damned dogs were constrained to yield, and the emperor returned joyously to Rome. But Robert was there before him, and he had a scar in his face, yet was otherwise whole.

The emperor was glad to see Robert again, for, albeit he was a fool, he loved him well enough ; and marking the wound on his face, he thought that some had done him hurt through envy while he was at the battle, and he straightway notified to all that none should harm Robert, or he should rue it, as he would make him an example to the rest.

Then the emperor began to axe among his knights if it were so that any of them wist who the knight upon the white horse was, that came privily on the field. But they could not tell him ; and thereupon the emperor's daughter pointed to Robert, yet spake not. Her father sent for her governess,

68 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

and axed her what his daughter meant by her point- ing. The governess answered and said: "Your daughter means that ye have gotten the battle this day through the help of your fool Robert, and the scar that he hath on his face he hath gained it on the field." But the emperor rebuked her, and advised that she should teach his daughter more wisdom than to think so foolishly ; yet was it in truth as the emperor's daughter signified. And a second and a third time came the Saracens in greater numbers than before to besiege and take the city, and were discomfited only by the marvellous valour of the knight on the white horse : nor none could tell the emperor whence he came or whither he went ; albeit, after the third battle, a certain knight, that had lain in wait for Robert in a wood, wounded him in the thigh with a spear, and left the spear- head there, yet nevertheless could not overtake him, nor discover who he was.

VI.

But when Robert came again to the fountain, he drew the spear-head out of his thigh, and hid the same between two great stones there-by ; and he dressed his wound with grease and moss, deeming that none marked him. But the emperor's daughter saw him do these things, as she stood at her window ; and for that he seemed a fair and well- favoured young knight, she began to nourish an affection for him.

The knight who had wounded Robert, as is aforesaid, counselled the emperor that he might discover who the knight upon the white horse was.

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 69

if he published his proclamation that whoever had been hurt in those battles against the heathens, riding on a white horse, and should bring with him the spear-head wherewith he was wounded in the thigh, would receive in marriage the emperor's daughter, and half the empire with her.

Whereupon the seneschal, weening that he might by stratagem gain his desire, which was to espouse the emperor's daughter, caused to be procured a white horse and white armour, and wounded him- ' self in the thigh with a spear-head. The emperor, to whom he presented himself, was at the first loth to give ear to his tale ; but he persuaded him, until he thought that, whereas he had judged him to be a false and forsworn knight, he was a wise and true one ; and consented to the marriage of his daughter him-with.

After a while the seneschal set out to go to Rome to espouse the emperor's daughter, of which thing there had been proclamation and cry made, and he took with him a goodly company ; and at the same time God sent an angel to command the • hermit thitherward to wend, in order to see Robert, and make known unto him that his term of penance was concluded. Whereat the hermit was exceeding joyful, and accordingly went.

But when the emperor's daughter well understood that she was appointed to wed the seneschal, she was as she had been distracted and forlorn, and tore her hair and rent her garments. But nought hereof availed her ; and the day was named, and every- thing held in readiness.

70 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

VII.

The emperor and his daughter that was born dumb, as ye have afore heard, and the pope of Rome his holiness, and their retinue, and the seneschal and his company, assembled in the church, and the bride and bridegroom stood by the altar, and the ministering priest would have begun the service, when our Lord did a fair miracle ; for by the grace of God, the young maid, that had never spoken since her birth, opened her mouth, and said as follows : " Father, I hold you not wise, in that you believe what this proud traitor telleth you, whereas all that he saith is false ; but here in this city is a holy and steadfast one, for whose sake God hath bestowed on me this day my speech ; and him I do love in my heart, and have ever noted his valiance and devotion, yet when I pointed only with my finger, no man would believe me.

The emperor was in an ecstasy, when he heard the voice of his daughter for the first time, and he knew by the words which she delivered that the seneschal had deceived him ; and the seneschal, dreading his wrath, suddenly made out of the church, and mounted his horse, and departed his way with all his folk.

Then the pope his holiness axed the maiden who the man might be whereof she spake ; and she rose up, and led the pope his holiness and the emperor her father to the fountain, where Robert had been wont to arm and unarm him ; and there she drew out from betwixt the two stones the spear-

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 7 1

head that Robert had hidden there, which, when the spear was brought, the two joined together point-device, and quoth the emperor's daughter : " Thrice we have had the victory against the Saracens by him, and thrice I have seen him arm and unarm at this fountain, and when he had so done, he down again among the dogs. Yet who brought him the white horse and the white armour, that know I not. This is he, notwithstanding, that hath given you, sir, the victory against the heathen ; therefore, if ye will, we will even go together, and have speech of him."

So they went, and found Robert among the dogs, and did him reverence, commanding him to speak ; but he answered no word, as he understood them not, and played many strange pranks to make them sport. Then the pope his holiness conjured him, in the name of God who died on the cross for our redemption, that he would lift up his voice ; but Robert only rose like a fool, and gave the pope his blessing.

But anon he espied behind him the hermit, that at the bidding of God had set him his penance ; and when the hermit drew near to him, he cried unto him : " My friend, hearken unto me. I know full well that ye be Robert that men call the Devil ; but, lo ! now ye be once again in grace with Almighty God, and in place of that foul name ye shall be termed the Servant of God. It is ye that have delivered this land from the Saracens, and I bid ye henceforward serve and worship God ; for Our Lord sendeth me to you, commanding you to speak, and no more to counterfeit a fool, since it is His will and

72 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

pleasure that all your trespasses shall be forgiven, and your penance determined."

When Robert heard these words of the holy hermit, he fell on his knees, and lifted up his hands toward heaven, giving praise unto God for His infinite mercy. Yet albeit the emperor saw his noble valiance and courtesy, and the emperor's daughter loved him exceeding well, the hermit would not at that time that Robert should marry that lady, saying that if it was the will of God, it would come to pass in due season ; and so each departed to his own country.

In very sooth, ere Robert, that was no longer a fool, but the high and puissant Duke of Normandy, which kept his state at Rouen in France the Fair, had long time returned home among his lieges, who loved him well enough for the gentleness and benignity of his rule through the grace of God, Our Lord charged him to repair again to Rome, to the intent that he should wed the emperor's daughter, his dearly beloved mistress ; which marriage was royally kept, and the Romans, that were so behold- ing to the White Knight on the White Horse, were glad that it had so in the end fallen out. And when Duke Robert brought his noble spouse, the emperor's daughter, home to Rouen in Normandy, all the people did her honour and reverence, and made her many rich gifts.

The remainder of his life Duke Robert, that was now named the Servant of Our Lord, spent in well- governing his realm, and maintaining the same in peace, so that he was beloved of every degree ; and he had born unto him of that great lady, the emperor's

ROBERT THE DEVIL. 73

daughter, a son, who was called Richard, and who did many and divers deeds of arms in the wars of Charlemagne, king of France, and afterward reigned in Normandy, and was beloved of all, as his father Robert before him.

FRIAR BACON.

\_T/2e investihire of a scholar', zu/iose works have been collected, and of whose tme character and attain- vzents we are at present able to take more correct measurement, with supernatural attributes and asso- ciations is the customary incidence and lot of every career cast in an illiterate and priest-ridden epoch, 7vhen an overwhelming majority of people cotdd not comprehend faculties and opinions transcending their own, and the Church discouraged and suppressed by every means at its command a tendency to free in- quiry and independent thought. The circumstances attendant on the mythical biography of Roger Bacon have a good deal of affinity with those zuhich sur- roimd and disguise the actual Faustus of history. It was readily taken for granted that sttidies and disclosures so far removed beyond the general reach tmist be binder the allspices of some spiritual or demoniacal agency, and the clergy spared no pains to throiv discredit on a movement which they felt to be antagonistic to their own welfare and prestige.

At the same time. Bacon was, no doubt, fundamen- tally a good Catholic, and credited many points of belief which stich a man wotild now-a-days vieiv with different eyes ; and very possibly the notions ivhich

FRIAR BACON. 75

were affiliated on him respecting Julian the Apostate ivere such as he might have entertained, just as it would jump luith his academical training to put faith tn the stt.bma7'ine tour of Alexander the Great under the auspices of Aristotle, the last a proceeding which is readily traceable to the knowledge by the ancients of the science of diving.

In the case immediately before us, zve hear how the priest who taught him discerned betimes the receptive tone of Bacons intellect, how his father desired to keep him to the plough, and hozv the boy escaped from home to become a prominent figure in the literary annals of his native land. The growth of information has long enabled us to read such a story as that below between the lines, and to arbitrate between Bacon and the period zvhich produced him. It was no consolation to such men, that we, coming so long after, gladly and proudly accord to them their real place in the domain of intellect, and in the ranks of those who led the zvay in promoting secular education ; yet it was something if they escaped the halter or the fagot. Bacon flourished at a transitional period, and was fortunate enough to inspire wonder, without incurring super- stitious dread and hatred.

Portions of this narrative are obviously borrozued from earlier sources, such as the supernatural power conferred on Miles s tabor, which is a loan from the ''Friar and the Boy" : and the scene where rare fruits are exhibited before the court out of season, which is in Boccaccio and in Painter s " Palace of Pleasure" and which recurs in the "History of Fau-stus " ; and again the friar is invested, when

76 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

occasion serves, with the mischievous or tricksome attributes of Robin Goodfellozo.

It may be observed that the idea of presenting the dancers before the king loas probably siiggested to the compiler by the antic-masqnes at court and elsewhere zohich became so frequent and fashionable during the reign of James I. In fact, Bacon exhibited a masque of the Five Senses ; and a second occurs as a seqiiel to the marriage of Millisant to her truelove by the agency of Bacon. This was just such another per- formance—an antic masque of Apes. One or two of the adventu.res narrated -are from the jest-books ; and the story of " How Friar Bacon did Help a Young Man to his Siveetheart " reads like an ana- logue of Robin Hood and Allen d Dale.

The illogical incongruity of the superjiatural

features in this romance is common to nearly all

narratives of the class. We have noticed it in

" V27gilius," and it is discernible in " Friar Rush"

and " Faust us."

JMiractdotis circtimstances and adventtires consti- tuted, of course, an attractive feature among readers of our popular literature ; and the conftsed notions of sorcery and magic in the minds of the latter were not ^infrequently shared by the authors of the fictions, who, besides, might be desirous of reconciling the objections of the most sqiieamish by making the devil and his friends come off second-best at the last.

The confines of the normal and supernatural are necessarily tinadjusted by any fixed or recognised law, and are at the mercy of any partictdar writer s fancy or convenience ; and the harmoniozis and effective fusion of two distinct elements has always proved

JRIAR BACON. ']']

beyond the reach of average literary workers. Hence

arises the whimsical and vexatioiLS jumble which these stories of enchantment display^

I.

There once lived in the west country a rich farmer, who had an only son. The farmer's name was Bacon, and his son was called Roger ; and, not because his father looked to make him a holy clerk, but for that he should get learning enough to enable him to use his wealth wisely, this Roger was put with the parson of the town where he was born, to learn his letters and to become a scholar.

But the boy discovered so rare an aptitude and so quick a wit, that his master could, after a short time, teach him no more ; and as he judged it to be pity that young Bacon should lose what he had gained, he went to the farmer, and exhorted him to suffer Roger to go to Oxford, that he might shew, by taking upon him that charge, his thankfulness to God in having sent him such a son.

The father said little ; but as soon as Roger came home, he asked for his books, and taking them and locking them up, gave him a cart-whip in place thereof, saying to him so :

" Boy, I will have you no priest ; you shall be no better learned than I ; you can tell, as it is, by the almanac when it is best to sow wheat, when barley, peas, and beans, and when the gelding season comes ; and how to buy and sell I shall instruct thee anon, for fairs and markets are to me what his mass and Ave, Afaria, are to Sir John. Take this whip ; it

78 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

will prove more useful to you than crabbed Latin. Now do as I bid, or, by the mass, you will rue it."

The young fellow thought this hard measure ; but he made no reply, and within a short space he gave his father the slip, and entered himself in a cloister some twenty miles off, where he was heartily enter- tained, and continued his studies.

And ere many years had passed he made such progress in all kinds of learning that he grew famous, and was invited to go to the University of Oxford, where he perfected himself in all the sciences, and was known for a master of the secrets of art and nature throughout Christendom.

Now the king of England, hearing of this learned friar, and of the wonderful things which he was able to perform and to answer, sent for him at such time as he and the queen were sojourning in Oxford- shire ; and he said to the king's messenger :

" I pray you thank his grace from me, and say that I am at his grace's service ; but take heed lest I be at the court two hours before thee."

" Scholars, old men, and travellers," answered the messenger, "may lie with authority. Scarce can I credit such a thing."

" To convince you, I could tell you the name of the wench you last lay with ; but I will do both within four hours."

The gentleman departed in haste ; but, whether he took the wrong road or not, the friar was there before him.

The king warmly welcomed him, and told him, from what great marvels he had heard of him, that he had long desired to see him. The friar declared

FRIAR BACON. 79

that report had been too flattering, and that among the sons of learning there were many worthier than himself. The king prayed him not to be too modest, and to afford him some taste of his skill ; and he said that he should be unworthy of possessing either art or knowledge, did he grudge to make his grace and the queen witnesses of his ability. So he begged them to seat themselves.

Friar Bacon then waved his wand, and forthwith there arose such ravishing music that all were amazed.

" This is to please," quoth he, " the Sense of Hearing. All the other senses shall be gratified, ere- I have done."

He waved his wand again, and the music waxed louder ; and, lo ! five dancers entered, the first like a court-laudress, the second like a footman, the third like an usurer, the fourth like a prodigal, the fifth like a fool. And when they had given great content by their antics and positions, they vanished in the order in which they came. This was the indulgence of the second Sense, or the Sense of Sight.

He waved his wand the third time, and the music was changed, and before them appeared a table covered with all manner of delicious fruits, many not to that season belonging ; and when they had par- taken fully thereof, they were suddenly removed from view. And this was the Sense of Taste.

Then the wand once more moved, and the most fragrant perfumes filled the air. And this was the Sense of Smell. And presently for the fifth and last time Friar Bacon exercised his mastery, and men of divers nations, as Russians, Polanders, Indians,

8o SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Armenians, were seen bearing the richest furs, which they offered to the king and the queen to handle, and for softness they surpassed all that had ever been seen of that nature. And this was the Sense of Touch.

When it happened that these wonders were at an end. Friar Bacon demanded of his majesty if there was any other thing in which he might do him service ; and the king thanked him, and said no, not for that time, and he took a costly jewel from his neck, and gave it to the friar of his royal bounty. And when the friar was about to take his leave of the court, he cast his eyes round, and espied the messenger hurrying in with all speed, covered with mud, for he had ridden through quagmires and ditches, through mistaking his way.

" Be not wrath," said the friar to him ; " I shall now fulfil my word, that I pledged to thee." And he lifted the hangings, and there stood a kitchen- maid, with her basting-ladle in her hand.

" I trow," quoth the friar, " you have no great store of money in your purse, and I will bear the charges of your wench's journey home." And at his bidding she disappeared, and all laughed at the gentleman's greasy sweetheart.

Now Friar Bacon had one servant to wait upon him, and his name was Miles ; and he was none of the wisest. So the friar being yet at Oxford in residence with other scholars, all were wont to fast on the Friday ; and none so devout as Miles, for when his master offered him bread to eat, he would refuse it, saying that it was holier and meeter not to eat ought. But the friar, knowing his craft, and

FRIAR BACON. 8 I

that he secretly ate meat, served him well for his deceit, and it was in this manner following.

On a certain Good Friday, when the friar was accustomed to partake of bread only, he tendered some to Miles ; but Miles with a grave aspect turned away from it, and desired leave to fast altogether. Then he left his master, and went where he had a delicate black-pudding, that he had made the clay before, and began to eat the same. But the friar his master so contrived by his art, that when his man had set the end of the pudding in his mouth, he might in no wise remove it again ; and when he pulled and pulled, and it stirred not, he cried out for help. The friar ran to him, and taking the other end of the pudding, drew him to the hall, where all the other scholars were, and shewed them how Miles would not eat meat on Fridays for conscience' sake ; and he tied him by the pudding for a while to one of the window-bars, where he looked like a bear fastened by his nose to a stake.

II.

Friar Bacon now began to accomplish many other strange and marvellous works. Whereof one was the deliverance of a gentleman in Oxfordshire, that had been a j^rodigal, and had brought his estate to ruin. This gentleman scarce knew at the last how to earn bread enough to keep him during the rest of his miserable existence, and so he wandered about here and there. Then came to him one day an old penny-father, and besought him that he would say why he was in this piteous case.

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62 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

The Oxfordshire gentleman told the stranger everything, and the other said that, if he would fulfil certain conditions, he would furnish him with money enough for all his creditors ; and when he said that he would swear to return the money, the old man rejoined that it was not oaths he would have, but bonds.

So the gentleman met him the next morning in a wood, as they had appointed, and he was attended by two serving-men carrying money-bags. Then he dictated to him the conditions on which he would lend him what he needed ; and they were, that he should discharge all his debts, and when he was no longer indebted to any man, he should become at a word the slave of the lender.

That gentleman, in the plight in which he found himself at that time, yielded to this treaty, and paid all his mortgages and chief creditors, and became richer than he had ever been before. But he was secretly troubled in his mind when he remembered how he had bound himself to the stranger, and had consented to submit to his will ; and after a time the old penny-father appeared, and claimed his bond, saying, " Thou hast paid thy debts, now thou art mine." But he replied, " Nay, sir ; I have not yet discharged them all." And the usurer therefore waxed wrath, and transformed himself into a horrible shape, and cried, "Thou shalt not so deceive me ; I will come to-morrow morning and prove to thee thy falsehood, till when I leave thee to despair." And he vanished, and the gentleman now knew that it was the devil with whom he had made that compact.

FRIAR BACON. 8

o

This caused him to be so sorrowful and downcast, that he would have thrown himself on his sword, and so ended his life, had not Friar Bacon happily inter- posed, and comforted him ; and when he unfolded to the friar what had passed between the devil and himself, the friar said unto him so : "Sir, appoint to meet the devil to-morrow in the wood, and for the rest be content."

So the Oxfordshire gentleman met the devil in the wood, and the devil in sore anger upbraided him with his falsity, and commanded him to tarry no more, but to follow him. Then the gentleman asked him whether he would suffer some one to be judge in the case, and to deliver an award ; and the devil agreed thereto. Whereupon suddenly Friar Bacon was seen by the gentleman walking near at hand, and he called him, and set out how the matter was. Friar Bacon considered, and asked the gentleman whether he had ever paid anything to the devil for all his great goodness to him, and he answered that he had not. Then he told him, as he valued his life, never so to do, for he was his chief creditor ; and thereupon the devil vanished with a loud cry, and the Oxfordshire gentleman thanked Friar Bacon for the great boon which he had con- ferred upon him in so wisely judging between them.

III.

The next exploit which Friar Bacon sought to achieve proved him a loyal subject to his prince and a dear friend to England. For reflecting how often England had been invaded by Saxon and Dane and

84 SUrERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Norwegian, he laboured with a project for surround- ing the whole island with a wall of brass, and to the intent that he might compass this, he first devised a head of brass which should speak. And when he could not for all his art arrive at this, he invited another great scholar, Friar Bungay by name, to aid him therein ; and they both together by great study made a head of brass, yet wist not how to give it motion and speech ; and at last they called to their succour a Spirit, who directed them, but gave them warning that, when the head began to speak, if they heard it not ere it had finished, all their labour would be lost.

So they did as the Spirit had enjoined them, and were right weary ; and bidding Miles to wake them when the Head spake, they fell asleep.

Now Miles, because his master threatened him If he should not make them aware when the head spake, took his tabor and pipe, and sang ballads to keep him from nodding, as, Canist tkoii- not from Neivcastle ? Dainty, come thou to me, and It tvas a rich merchant-man.

Presently the Head spake, saying, Time is ! but Miles went on playing and singing, for the words seemed to him to Import nought. Twice and thrice the head said Time is ! but Miles was loth to wake his master and Friar Bungay for such a trifle ; and there, surely enough, came in one of his ditties, Dainty, come thon to me, and he began to sing, —

" Time is for some to eat ;

Time is for some to sleep ; Time is for some to laugh ; And time is for some to weep.

FRIAR BACON. 85

Time is for some to sing ;

Time is for some to pray ; Time is for some to creep

That have drunk all the day."

At the end of half an hour the Head spake once more, and dehvered these two words, Time was ! And Miles made sport of them, as he had done belore. Then another half-hour passed, and the head uttered this sentence, Time is past ! and fell down amid flashes of fire and terrible noise ; whereat the two friars awoke, and found the room full of smoke.

" Did not the Head speak ?" asked Bacon.

" Yea, sir," replied his man ; "but it spake to no purpose. I'd teach a parrot to talk better in half the time."

" Out on thee, villain ! " cried his master; "thou hast undone us both. Hadst thou roused us, all England would have been walled about with brass, and we had won everlasting renown. What did it say :

" Very few words," answered Miles, "and I have heard wiser. It said, Time is ! "

" Hadst thou called us then, we had been made for ever."

" Then in half an hour it said, Time was ! "

"And thou didst not wake us then!" interposed Bungay

"Alack, sir," answered Miles, "I was expecting him to begin some long tale, and then I would have awakened you ; but anon he cried. Time is past ! and made such an uproar withal that he woke you himself"

86 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Friar Bacon was greatly incensed at what his servant had done, and would have beaten, and may- be slain him ; but Friar Bungay pleaded for the fellow, and his master said, " Well, his punishment shall be, that he shall be struck dumb for a month."

So it was that England was not girded round with a brazen wall, as had nearly come to pass.

IV.

Friar Bacon, this mishap notwithstanding, ever grew more famous as time passed ; and it so fortuned that, when the king of England proceeded to his conquests in France, and could by no means take a certain town, but, on the contrary, sustained much loss before it, he wox angry, and offered ten thousand crowns truly counted to any one who should conquer this town and gain it for him.

So when proclamation had been made to such effect, and no one came to essay to do what the king desired, Friar Bacon, leaving his studies, crossed over to France and sought admittance to the king. To whom he recalled how his grace had formerly shown him great courtesy in Oxfordshire, and he was now ready to do his pleasure.

" Bacon," said our lord the king, "alas! it is not art but arms that I now require."

" Your grace saith well," returned the friar ; " but be pleased to remember that art doth oftentimes accomplish more than force. And speaking of art and nature, pure and simple, without any magical property, consider how ships are made without oars, and large vessels to cross the wide sea, and only

FRIAR BACON. 87

one man to guide them ; how chariots may be built to move with incredible force without human help to stir them ; and how one may fly in the air, and turn an engine ; or wallv in the bottom of the sea (as Alexander the Great did) ; and, which is more pertinent at this time, how by means of a mirror you may make one man wear the semblance of a whole army, and what is far off seem near at hand, and what is high, low, or the contrary. So Socrates did detect the dragon that lurked in the mountains, and destroyed all around. Then, as Aristotle instructed Alexander, instruments may be contrived by which venomous influences may be brought in contact with a city, and infect its inhabitants every one, even the poison of a basilisk lifted up upon the wall. These things are worth a kingdom to a wise man."

His grace gave leave to Friar Bacon to do as it liked him, and he should name his reward ; and the friar caused an earthwork to be raised higher than the city wall, and desiring his grace to be in readi- ness the next morning to attack the town, when he should wave a flag from the earthwork on the mor- row, at nine of the clock the friar had, with certain mathematical glasses, set fire to the town hall, and while the people and the soldiers were busy in extinguishing the flames, the flag was waved, and the king took the place with little resistance.

He treated the inhabitants with such clemency, that he won the love of his brother the king of France, who, to divert him, summoned a servant of his, a German named Vandermast, to shew conjuring sleights before both their graces ; and the king of England, understanding what the entertainment was

88 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

to be, privily sent for Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay to come to him, that they might witness the same. But he bad them keep their counsel.

When the banquet was over, Vandermast asked the king of England if it was so that he would choose to see the spirit of any man that had formerly lived. The king said, " Yea ; above all I would see Pompey, who could brook no equal." And Vandermast made him appear as he was attired at the battle of Pharsalia, whereat all were mightily contented.

Then Friar Bacon, all without warning given, raised the ghost of Julius Caesar, who could brook no superior, and had beaten Pompey at Pharsalia ; and Vandermast, not knowing that Friar Bacon was present,' said that there was some one in the hall who was skilled in magic. To whom Bacon discovered himself, and declared that he had brought Ceesar to overthrow Pompey, as he did erst ; and therefore Ceesar engaged Pompey, and vanquished him. Which pleased all present passing well, and then both disappeared.

The king of England said to the German ambassador, that he thought his man had got the better of Vandermast ; but Vandermast said that he would tell a different tale, ere all was done. " Ah ! " said Friar Bacon, " my companion, Friar Bungay, shall deal with thee, sirrah ; and if thou canst worst him, I will try what I may do, and not till then."

Then Friar Bungay raised the Hesperian tree, laden with golden apples, which were guarded by a fiery dragon stretched beneath its branches. Vandermast conjured up the ghost of Hercules, and

FRIAR BACON. 89

said, "This is Hercules, who in his lifetime gathered the fruit of the tree, and made the dragon crouch at his feet ; and so shall he do again."

But when Hercules offered to take the fruit, Friar Bacon raised his wand, and Hercules desisted. Vandermast threatened him, an' he picked it not : but he said, " Vandermast, I cannot ; I am fearful ; for here is great Bacon, that is more powerful than thee." Vandermast cursed Hercules, and again threatened him. But Bacon bad him not fret him- self, for since he could not persuade Hercules to do his bidding, he himself would cause him to per- form some service ; and he commanded Hercules to take up Vandermast and carry him back straightway into Germany.

"Alas!" cried the ambassador; "I would not have lost Vandermast at any price."

" Fear not, my lord," answered Bacon ; " he hath but gone home to see his wife, and shall return to you anon."

V. Shortly after, when Friar Bacon had come again into England, a rich man of that country died, and left his estate to that one among his three sons who loved him best ; and none could say how that was, for each one avowed that it was he, by reason that to him his father was most dear. So Friar Bacon was asked of the king to aid him in this matter ; and that learned and famous man, when the three brethren agreed to abide by his judgment, having caused the body of the father to be taken from the ground, and gotten ready three bows and three

90 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

arrows, summoned the sons to attend him, and said unto them so : " Sirs, there appeared to be no other method whereby this controversy might be concluded ; therefore I have brought hither the dead body of your father, and whoever strikes him nearest to his heart shall have all his goods and lands."

The two elder brothers shot one after the other, and both hit the body, yet did not go near the heart. But the youngest refused to shoot, saying that he would liever lose his patrimony ; and Friar Bacon awarded him the estate, because he shewed by his loyal act that he loved his father better than the others : and all men commended the friar's wisdom therein.

Now, albeit Friar Bacon had seldom indeed taken any reward for all his great services to our lord the king and many other, yet the report spread abroad that in his house he kept a rich treasure ; and cer- tain thieves brake one night thereinat, and demanded of Miles, who admitted them, and of the friar, what money they had. The friar answered that he was but poorly furnished with money ; whereto they replied, these three thieves, that they must have whatso there was : and the friar gave them one hundred pounds each in a bag.

They heartily rejoiced at their good fortune ; and he said to them that they should have music to boot, which still further contented them ; and Miles took his tabor, and began to play thereon. Then the three thieves rose and set to dancing, and danced so lustily with their money-bags in their hands that they grew weary, but could not cease,

FRIAR BACON. 9 1

for the friar had set a spell on them ; and Miles went out of the door playing the while, and led the thieves over the fields, and over hedge and ditch, and through quagmire and pond, till they were wet to the skin and weary to death. Then Miles stayed his hand, and they lay down as they were and slept ; and he took the money from them, and returned home to his master.

Meanwhile Vandermast was plotting how he could compass the death of Friar Bacon, to revenge the dishonour which had been cast upon him in France ; and the friar, looking into his books, and finding that a great danger would befall him in the second week of the present month, unless he used some means to prevent it, devised this sleight, namely, while he read to hold a ball of brass in one hand, and beneath it was a brass basin, and percase he should fall asleep, the loosing of the ball from his hand would wake him.

Now Vandermast had recently hired a Walloon soldier to come over to England, and to kill Bacon, and if he did so his reward was to be one hundred crowns ; and when he arrived at Bacon's house, this Walloon soldier found Bacon dosing, yet the ball of brass still in his hand ; but as he lifted his sword to sla}^ him, the ball dropped into the basin, and Bacon woke.

" Who art thou ? " he demanded of the Walloon.

" I am a Walloon, and a soldier, and more than that, a villain ; and I am come, hired by Vander- mast, to kill thee."

" What is thy religion ? "

" To go to an ale-house, to abstain from evil for

92 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

want of employment, and to do good against my will."

" A good profession for a devil ! Dost thou believe in hell ? "

" I believe in no such thing."

Then Friar Bacon raised the spirit of Julian the Apostate, with his body burning and full of wounds, whereat the soldier was almost out of his wits for fear. Friar Bacon asked the spirit wherefore he was thus tormented ; and he answered, that he had been happy if he had remained a Christian, but he abjured the true faith, and now endured the doom of all unbelieving wretches.

The Walloon soldier that had come to kill the friar stood trembling all this time, and when the friar dismissed the spirit, he begged him that he would instruct him in a better course of life, which the friar engaged to do ; and this Walloon became a true Christian, and died in the Holy War.

VI.

It becomes time to relate how once Friar Bacon had a strange adventure, and helped a young man to his sweetheart that Friar Bungay would have married to another.

An Oxfordshire gentleman had a daughter named Millisant, who was courted by a youth whose love she returned, and whose wife she desired to be ; but her father was averse from that match, and would have wedded her to a rich knight.

This knight, when he perceived how loth the maiden was, went to Friar Bungay, and asked him to get her for him, either by his counsel or art ;

FRIAR BACON. 93

and Bungay, for that he was something covetous, promised, if he would take the lady for the air in a coach, so to direct the horses that they should bring them to an old chapel in the wood, where they might be secretly married.

But meantime the gentleman had sought Friar Bacon, and implored him to do what he might to further his suit ; and Bacon, knowing him to be virtuous and deserving, brought out a beryl, where- in he could see his best-beloved and the knight in the chapel, though it was fifty miles thence, on the eve of being joined together in holy matrimony by Friar Bungay. The gentleman was over- whelmed by grief ; but Bacon bad him be of good cheer, and seating him and himself in a chair, they were presently at the chapel door. Friar Bungay was about to join their hands, when Bacon struck him dumb, and raising a mist in the chapel, no one could see his way, but each mistook the other, and amid their bewilderment Bacon led Millisant to the poor gentleman, and they were married by him in the chapel porch, and furnished with good store of money for their journey ; and while they went their way joyfully together, the friar by his magic detained the father and the knight in the chapel, until they could not overtake them. And at a cer- tain distance he prepared for them (albeit unseen) a banquet, succeeded by an antic masque of apes with music, wherein first entered three apes, and then three more, dressed in quaint coats, and then six ; and all danced in merry and strange wise together, and then, when they had saluted the bridegroom and the bride, vanished.

94 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

VII.

News had been brought to Vandermast, where he sojourned in Germany, that at length Friar Bacon was dead ; and accordingly he came over once more into England, and met Friar Bungay in Kent, whom-of he learned that Bacon yet lived.

Now he bare no goodwill to Bungay, for that he was a friend to Bacon ; and when he rose in the morning to leave his inn, he went to the stable where Bungay's horse was, and took it, leaving a spirit in its room. And when Bungay sought his horse to go on his way, he wist not what Vandermast had done, and mounted it, and in the middle of a stream it let him go, so that he perforce returned to his inn, at the door whereof he met the other, who asked him if he had been in a swimming match, and Bungay answered him again, that had he been so well posted as he was when he went to Germany, this would not have so fallen out. Vandermast bit his lip, but said nought. And then Bungay, knowing that this German loved a wench in the house, and spared no pains to get her, shaped a spirit in her likeness, which yielded unto his advances, that he was enraptured ; and when he had gone to bed, the sheet on which they lay was carried into the air, and fell into a deep pond. When Bungay saw him, he asked him how he liked the girl.

■" Marry, I wish thee such another," quoth he.

" Nay, the rules of my order forbid it," he replied.

So it came to pass that these two conjurors grew more and more wroth each with other, until at last

FRIAR BACON. 95

the Devil wox impatient of not having received from them the money for teaching them all their knowledge, and slew them, so that they were strangely scorched with fire amid a mighty storm of wind and rain ; and the country people, finding their bodies, bestowed on them Christian burial, for that Bungay was a friar and Vandermast a stranger.

VIII.

You have heard that Friar Bacon, who thus out-lived both Bungay and Vandermast, possessed a wonderful glass, in which it was possible to see what was happening some fifty miles away ; and this glass had been a source of great profit and pleasure to many, whom Bacon had obliged with the use thereof ; till it happened that two youths, whose fathers — being neighbours — were absent from home, wished to know how they did, and besought Bacon to suffer them to look in his glass.

But those gentlemen, since their departure, had grown to be foes one to the other, and when their sons looked, they saw that their fathers were on the eve of fighting together, and as they fought one killed the other ; and this sight so fired one of the youths whose father was thus slain, that he began to quarrel with his friend, and they both became so furious that they stabbed each other. Which when Friar Bacon knew, hearing the noise, he was so grieved, that he broke his mirror, the like whereof the whole world could not shew ; and then arrived the news of the deaths of Bungay and

96 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

Vaiidermast, which further distressed him, so that he kept his chamber three days.

He now began to repent his wicked and vain hfe, spent in the service of the devil, and to turn his thoughts to Divine studies : and calling together many of his friends, he addressed them in these words :

" My good friends and fellow-students, it is not unknown to you how by my art I have attained great credit with all, and have done many wonders, as every one knows, both king and commons. I have unlocked the secrets of nature, and have laid them open to the view of man, whereas they had been buried and lost since the days of Hermes the philosopher. I have revealed the mysteries of the stars and of every kind of life that is under the sun. Yet all this my knowledge I value so lightl)^, that I could wish I were ignorant ; for what hath it availed me, save to keep me from the study of God, and the care of my soul, which is the immortal part of man. But I hasten to remove the cause of all my error, gentlemen." And, a fire burning in the hearth, before they could prevent him, Friar Bacon threw all his books therein, and consumed them utterly.

Then he gave away all his goods to the poor, ftnd building himself a cell in the church wall, with- drew from the world, and after two years' space died a true, penitent sinner.

FAUST OR FAUSTUS.

[ The material for judging the true character and attributes of the remarkable individual zuho con- stitutes the subject-matter of the next item in our collection is chiefly preserved in a German prose book of 1587, when about half a century had elapsed since the death of Faustus. Beyond this source of knoivledge we have one or two accidental pieces of testimony on the part of persons zuho either sazu our hero or had heard of him in his lifetime ; and on this information zve have to found our estimate of the alleged magician, for, as zve shall ejcplaiu, the dramatic creations of Marlowe and others, no less than the popular theory, are, one and all, more or less unfaitliful to reality. In the introductory re- marks, we have ventured to suggest certain notions about the intellectual history of Faustus ; and what succeeds is a careful digest of the Elizabethan version of the legend, published only five years later than the German original, compared with a second English text a couple of years later in date.

The second pseudo-biography, which purports to be the work of an English student at Wittenberg some fifty years after the time, takes serious exception to its predecessor ; but it appears to be, on the whole, an inferior production, and to have been very loosely and clumsily compiled. It is neither a supplement to the

A. L. '^ H

98 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

earlier text nor a revision of it, but a wlioily distinct assemblage of stories and adventures, arranged with- 07U any ostensible regard to propriety or seqzience.

The partiality and veneration for the S7tpernatural and weird which have constantly manifested them- selves in the professors of demonology and witcli- craft, as zvell as in those who have gained an indirect knotvledge of such studies by hearsay and guesswork, 7'eadily explain the estimate zvhich his contemporaries formed of Faust or Fanstus, and the discrepancy between onr present conclusions as to the nature of his employments, his pozver, and his fate.

It was not till Fanstus had been nearly half a century underground that the idea occurred to a German romancist of utilizing all the cun-ent popular myths relating to him, and others of the same stamp, for literary purposes ; and there appeared at Berlin in 1587 a volume professing to recount with fidelity the transactions of that rather brief and still more obscure and uneventful career. The book was calculated to tickle the palates of readers to whom the very name of a retired student of a former generation would be in many instances new, and of whose character and achievements the author -might confidently propagate the wildest fictions and extra- vagances luith impunity and profit. During the lapse of fifty years all those who were acquainted ivith the truth had died, and there was no school of analytical criticism to dissect and estimate a plaus- ible tissue of chimerical or mischievous inventions, vamped up jests, and affiliated matter of all kinds.

Under the name of Fanstus we find at least four impersonations : ( i ) the Fanstus of real life, so far

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. 99

as we can make him out, the son of poor parents, studying at first for holy orders, then diverting into the occult sciences, and questioning cardinal points of theological doctrine ; a shy, secluded scholar, of whose Pursuits and opinions few had any correct knowledge ; living almost in solitude, and dying under conditions which favoured the report that he had been strangled by the devil. ( 2 ) The Faustus of German prose fiction, in luhoni the natural course of things concentrated all the marvels atid prodigies current in oral tradition from want of better information, and to lend an air of freshness to a string of fables and jests in circula- tion- about Eustace the Monk and other earlier men of similar tastes and endowments. (3) The Faustus of Marlowe. (4) The Faustus of Goethe.

In order to be in a position to understand the actual facts, which are few enough, we have to try to forget that Faustus ever became a hero and central figure of romance, a puppet, whicli each succeeding age and school of fiction felt at liberty to turn without scruple to its ozvn account. We arc dealing with a biography, which seems to have extended from 1491 to 1538. Faustus died comparatively young ; he is made in the stoiy to lament his premature fate. He was born at Kniltlingen in Silesia, and breathed his last at a villao-e near Wittenberg^. He could have barely reached his forty-eighth year.

The circumstances attending the birth and educa- tion of this distinguished and enlightened man are narrated with tolerable fulness in the histofy of his career. His relations were evidently anxious that he should go into the Church, and his youthful studies were originally directed to such an object.

lOO SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

But the learning zvhich he acq^iired in this manner operated in inspiring him at once with a distaste for the calling, and a misgiving as to many points of religions belief. He relinqtdshed the project of joining the clerical body, and proceeded to devote himself to the sttLdy of medicine, with wfnch at that period astrology and alchemy were commonly associated.

Of his real progress in his nezu profession we know next to nothing ; bitt it is said that he, like many other physicians, became at one time a compiler of almanacks and prognostications ; and a considerable portion of one epoch of his life luas spent in foreign travel. He visited, besides various parts of Germany, France, Italy, and the Levant ; but the extent oj his obsei'vations and experiences are, we suspect, over- stated in books.

He was fond of pleasure ; his temperament was voluptuotis, and his imagination lively and warm ; and he met with many strange adventures, even cast- ing aside the apocryphal incidents zvhich are vulgarly coupled with his name.

We have to exercise a good deal of moral self- restraint, if zve desire to realize this inan to ourselves as he probably was. The first hint of anything approaching to solid ground occurs in a conversation of Melanchthon respecting him, reported by a third party in a volume printed tzvo years after the re- former s death. Melanchthon was born at a village not far from Kniitlingen, and was tlie junior of Faust or Faustus by several years. He is made to refer to his studies in magic, to zvhich he had been led by attendance at public lectures delivered on that

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. lOI

science, and he speaks of his attempt at Venice to fiy, and of the devil accornpa^iying him in the likeness of a dog ; but he does not even glance at the varied and elaborate exploits which he performed, or at the com- pact zvith Mephistopheles.

MelancJithon, as a Churchman, merely cherished, per Imps, a loose persuasion that his contemporary was a freethinker, and so qualified himself for becoming a liegeman of the devil hereafter, and even a cor- respondent luith him during life. Much of this entered then, as ?iow, into common parlance.

The testimony of Melanchthon is valid, at any rate, to the extent of establishing the existence of Faustus and his veritable place of nativity. But he was also personally known to Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, and Conrad Gessner, three jnen of con- genial pursuits, thozigh not sharing his strong passions and manifest proneness to sensual indulgence. The alchemists of Germany, in ivhom Faustus must have taken a powerful interest, if he did not parti- cipate in their researches, were of course men far in advance of their time, and were, in fact, the founders of the inodern European school of chemistry.

llie ignorance of physical laivs, the want of com- munication and of the means of diffusing acc2i,rate intelligence of events, contributed to accredit to the devil any incident which passed the common compre- hension. His majesty was heir-general or remain- der man to all occurrences for which no key zvas forthcoming. Our early literature is replete from the first with prodigiotLS accounts of his intercourse with us and his lively interest in our affairs. In 1641, a Coventry musician of parsimonious disposition was

I02 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

said to have made with him such another bargain as Faustus, and to have come to a similar end, " to the terror and amazement of the inhabitantsT He made his presence sensible in a diversified form to in7iumerable persons, chiefly in humble life, whose account of the coyiference or vision ivas faithfully rep07'ted iji type, and you were referred to eye- witnesses of undoubted credibility, if you wished to inquire further.

The singular 7'evelations, which Faustus was in- vested with the faculty of conjuring up and making subservient to his desires, may have owed their origin to a vivid and unbridled fancy, in the same way as the imaginative vagaries which we see in the pages of Dante, Poliphilo, and our own Blake, all having their prototypes in Virgil and Homer, as these had again in the Hebrew and Chaldcsa^i visionaries. The descriptions of heaven and hell, in the pict2t.re before us, are evidently elaborated dreams or reveries.

As far as the notes of foreign travel go, very pos- sibly Faustus may have seen certain portions of the Fatherland at different periods of his life ; but the rest strikes us as purely imaginary, and as the pro- duct of hearsay or reading on the part of the com- piler of the biography.

A habit of solitude, whether in fact or in sym- pathy, IS apt to ihrozv a man on his own internal resources, and to favour the realization of spectral and other illusions ; the supposititious objects which he embodies by intellectual incubation supply the place of ordinary companionship ; and ivhere the mental fabric is not sound, or zvhere the process of solitary contemplatiofi is too continuous, insanity often accrues.

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. IO3

The seers and prophets of antiquity ivere men of the same cast as Faustus, but zoith a less keen relish for life and a narroiuer insight and reach. They were as imperfectly nnderstood by their contem- poraries, perhaps, as he luas by his.

Lookinsi dt the channels throuo'h which intelli<rence of Faustus and his doings might have reached pos- terity, we naturally turn to his servant Wagner, to lohom he left his books, and who must have enjoyed a better opportunity of knowing the extent of his commerce with 7nagic and the black art than any one else. But it is tolerably plain that {laith one exception) no use was made of this source and material in framing the account, zuhich zuas the super- fcial popular idea of the man, coloured by prejudice and distorted by time ; and if zee needed a further illustration of the unscrupulous application of folk- lore to biography and history, zue might cite the absurd attempt to palm on the public, about 1712, a German compilation, pretending to describe the life and actions of Wagner, who plays the same part zn the Faustus story-book as Jlliles does in " Friar Bacon!'

At the same time, we have always to recollect that the school of biography to which the old account of Faustus appertains considered it a legitimate, or at least a safe and advantageous, feature in their zuork to heighten the colour or shadow of the portraiture which they presented to view by a free use of borrowed accessories ; and some of the achievements of the Kniitlingen wizard are mere reproductions of thirteenth and fourteenth century German folk-lore.

The conception of the grandeur of Lucifer and

I04 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

his original rank in heaven, as second only to God in power and glory, is zvorth remarking, as one of those hints which may have assisted to forjji in the mind of Jllilton an idea of the devil at variance with the popular theory.

When the comic biisiness and horse-tricks were inserted by zvay of attraction in the earliest surviving record, they had already become matter of tradition ; yet, notivithstanding, we a7'e entitled to believe that Faustus permitted occasional trespassers on his privacy and, both at home and in /lis foreign travels, mixed with all sorts of personages, from crozoned heads to good creatures wishfil to convert him, and he gratified some of these with an exhibition of his skill in legerdemain, palmistry, and astrology. He ivas even ivilling to be interviewed by individuals who sought enlightenment on some point of ordinary science, aiid he rarely sent them aivay without a sohttion. But he did not, it is prestLmable, admit any participator in his enjoyment of the beauty of Helen of Troy and other famous heroines : these were phantoms of his own seething brain, creatures of his dreams ; and it is more than possible that we are indebted for them to zvilfully exaggerated entries i7i manuscript diaries, which may have existed in 1587, when the first pseudo-biography came froju the press at Berlin.

The accounts of the circimistances attending his death, zvhich are somezvhat conflicting, and zvhich bear the strong impress of clei'ical bias and mani- pulation, represent him as having been found zvith his neck tzvisted, or zvith his brains dashed out and his body mangled. The probability seems to be that

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. I05

he committed suicide in a Jit of despondency, and possibly, as his remains are described in one place as lying in the court-yard, he threw himself oiit of an upper zvindoiv. We see that Christian burial is jnentioned as a concession. Curiously enough, in 1 58 1, a drama called " The Conflict of Conscience " had been founded on the somewhat analogotis case of Francesco Spira, an Italian convert from Protes- tantism; and in 1587 « ballad was published on the same subject. When the play appeared, Spira had already been dead about three and thirty years, hav- ing perished by his oivn hand, and it is said under the influence of despair.

There is no legitimate room for astonishment that the mysterious labours and tastes of Taustus should have aiuakened in the minds of his Saxon neighbours a,nd German countrymen generally a sentiment of dread and aive, zohen we consider how prevalent to this day in most parts of the world superstitious ignorance remains. The demonological portion of the narrative is of course a pure invention, partly based on contemporary gossip, and partly evolved from the fertile brain of the compiler of the German account in 1587. Half a century constituted a suficient interval for the stealthy growth of myth round his name and his career. The very nature of his researches compelled secrecy and stratagem in such an age ; and the inability to comprehend the true character of his occupations and objects tended to encourage fabulous reports.

We have only to remember that jour and twenty years taken back from the received date of his decease (1538) brings us to 15 14, ivhen he was four and

I05 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

twenty years of age, a wholly improbable period of life for the conception of siich a treaty as he is alleged to have contracted with L^icifer; and in onr present state of information and opinion, even if we in England a7'e somezuhat behind Germany in philo- sophical analysis, it is almost superfluous to pursue the investigation firther, where the corner-stone of the indictment against Fa2Lst2is is so transparently compotinded of idle and foolish fables, concocted by the Clnirch or under clerical auspices to throw discredit OH a reader and thinker whose bias was adverse to ecclesiasticism, but zcho discerned the necessity of extreme caution in ventilating heterodox vieivs, even in the relatively tolerant Fatherland.

This may explain the presence of the jocular episodes in the histoiy, and even the miracle of the grapes. Faustus himself never probably claimed authority over supei'hiiman poivers ; it 2vas a method adopted by others of accoiinting for phenomena zohich they were unable to comprehend ; and the attribute of a fajniliar zvas nothing more than a loan from the East, when, with an almost equal measure of incon- sistency, the attendant genius executes commands involving an universal ju7'isdiction.

It is not very hard, after all, to divine and under- staiid the relationship betiveen Faustus and his con- temporaries. If this celebrated man had had to reckon only with the illiterate majority immediately around him, his taste for inquiry and scientific research zuojild have probably elicited from the neighbourhood a passing expression atid sentiment of wonder and cuilosity, and he would have been regarded by posterity as little more than Dr. Dee or

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. lOj

Lilly the astrologer. But Fausttis entertained and proclaimed heretical theories on religions subjects ; he placed himself in antagonism to the clergy. At a period when the Church was beginning to suffer from doct7'tnal ruptures and a questioning spirit, such a personage ivas bound to become a marked object of ecclesiastical jealousy and resentment, and in the description which has been delivered to us of the Kniithngeji scholar, who feared neither God nor devil, and accomplished a variety of surprising feats by supernatural expedients, ive easily recognise the familiar stratagem by which the clerical party has always retaliated on its secular adversaries. At all times, but more particularly in an age of prevailing illiteracy, the Church has been the maker of popular opinion. Faustus, as he is pourtrayed by the novelist and playwright, is not the Faustus of real life, but a ■masquerading caricature like Guy Fawkes or Marino Faliero ; and we are indebted for such a serious distortion of the truth to the reports which were circulated about him by those whose interest lay in discrediting his peculiar opinions.

Faustus, in fact, was a philosopher, whose precise views will probably never be accurately known, as there is a certain amount of contradiction in the account of him, on which we have almost exclusively to rely for our acquaintance with his intellectual training and range. It is tolerably manifest, how- ever, that he luas an unusually keen and attentive observer, under grave educational disadvantages, of the laws and processes of nature, and that he deduced therefrom a tissue of theory and speculation alike in conflict with the orthodox sentiment of his day.']

loS SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

I.

John Faustus was the son of a poor husbandman that dwelled at a little town of Weimar in Germany named Kniitlingen ; and his father not being able well to bring him up, he went, as soon as he had passed childhood, to an uncle at Wittenberg, that was something richer than his father, and had no issue of his own. This uncle put Faustus to the study of divinity at the University of Wittenberg ; and he read the Holy Scriptures, and farthered him- self in theological learnino-, to the intent, as his uncle desired, that he should be a labourer in the ministry.

But Faustus, because he was of a different bent, and in no wise inclined to such a life, engaged by little and little in other exercises, to the great sorrow of his uncle, who reproved him for so neglecting the service of Almighty God, and the fitting himself for a preacher. Yet, while this youth disliked divinity, it was not by reason that he applied himself not thereto ; for after he had sojourned at the university a certain space, being straitly examined therein by the masters and rectors, he was found to be deeply versed in all that referred to the Scriptures, and was accordingly admitted to his degree of doctor in that faculty.

At the same time, he commonly passed among his fellow students under the name of the Speculator, because he was ever propounding to them strange opinions, and frequented heretical books in the Chaldrean, Hebrew, Arabian, and Greek tongues, that treated of sundry infernal arts, as soothsaying, witchcraft, necromancy, conjuration, and other. Nor

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. IO9

brooked he well the title of doctor of divinity, but chose rather to be called an astrologer, a mathe- matician, and a physician ; and he began to be known for a worker of notable cures, and for a man learned in the secrets of nature.

Faustus severed himself ere long from his theo- logical studies, and entered on a most unchristian life, fearing neither God nor devil ; and he gave his time to the mastery of the black art, so that he might gain power and sovereignty over the whole world and all thinas therein.

o

Now after a while there went a report in Witten- berg that Faustus had seen the devil or his deputy in a wood near at hand, called the Spisser Holt ; and sometimes in his cups he related to his neigh- bours how he did that the devil might not have the better of him, which were by making a circle in the dust at the crossway, and writing thereon certain characters and signs ; and men surmised that he, Faustus, had entered into articles with the devil through his servant, that was named Mephistopheles, but what the treaty imported none as yet knew.

For Faustus kept his meetings with Mephisto- pheles secret, and no man wist how he had stood at first in the Spisser Holt, and endured long the fearful tokens and portents, as thunder and lightning, and roaring as of a thousand lions, that went before the appe;arance of the Spirit to him, who came with a horrible noise, and ran round the circle that he had made like a thousand waggons on a paved way, and a second time in the shape of a mighty dragon, that from his mouth shot a flame as bright and rapid as lightning.

no SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

But at length Faustus, through his craft, reduced Mephistopheles, that was the devil's name and a servant to Lucifer, prince of devils, to his will, and made a treaty with him, written with his blood on warm ashes, that he should at all times answer to his summons, and do his pleasure, nor tell him ought that was untrue, from that hour forward to the time of his death, provided that Faustus on his own behalf consented to deliver up his soul at the end of four and twenty years to the aforesaid Mephistopheles, servant to Lucifer, by whom all these articles were confirmed. For in hell, as on earth, all things are ordered in obedience to the command of the prince. And when Faustus had made an end of the writing, he kept one copy for himself, and the other he delivered to Mephisto- pheles, who thus, with the assent of Lucifer, became the servant of Faustus in all things, at all times, his life during.

IL

Now Faustus had a boy with him in his house at Wittenberg to serve and wait upon him, whose name was Christopher Wagner. This boy Faustus loved well, and taught him his own arts, that he might grow up to be a necromancer such as he was ; and they lived together in the house at Wittenberg which had belonged to the uncle of Faustus, and was now his by inheritance. They both fared exceeding well, and went in sumptuous raiment ; for Mephis- topheles brought whatever Faustus commanded him from the cellars of great lords and from merchants dwelling in that country, who lost their v/ine, and

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. I I I

victual, and fine cloth, and all manner of rich goods, and divined not whither they were taken : which were carried by Mephistopheles to Wittenberg to the house of Faustus, his master, secretly ; and Faustus waxed so cunning in his science, that he learned to conjure the birds of the air into his hands, as they flew over his dwelling, and of the dantiest.

But when Faustus desired to enter into wedlock with a fair lady, the Spirit forbad him, saying that he could not serve two masters, for that, whereas he had given his soul to the devil, marriage was a holy institution, or.dained of God ; which made Faustus heavy at heart. Then Mephistopheles brought him a book, in which he might look and find the means of doing all things that he lusted, which occasioned Faustus to demand of him how it chanced that Lucifer had so ofreat a fall.

Mephistopheles thereupon answered and said that his prince had been, next to God, the highest and most puissant in heaven, above Michael and Gabriel, that were named Angels of God's Wonders, as they were, again, above the lower degree of angels ; and because he was so high and great, he aspired to put God from His throne, and was cast down, never to return, unless it be so that God summon him ; and Faustus thanked the Spirit, for that he made him aware of these things, and Mephistopheles vanished, as was his wont.

Faustus thereupon came to dream of hell, and he questioned the Spirit further upon the same, as how many kingdoms were therein, and what were the several rulers' names, and especially concerning Lucifer; of whom Mephistopheles satisfied him In all

112 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

points, shewing how he once far exceeded all the other creatures of God for worthiness, pomp, authority, and shape, and surpassed the very sun in splendour and brightness, and was for ever before God's throne, but therefore waxed proud and presump- tuous, and was banished from the sight of God, and was thrown down into the fire which no water may quench. "Alas! alas!" thought Faustus, "and am I not likewise a creature of God's making ? and shall I suffer a like doom ? Ah ! woe is me that ever I was born ! " And the wretched Faustus grieved that he should have forsaken the faith of Christ, and bound himself to Satan, that he might in no wise escape from so damnable an end.

Nor he could not now give his thought to any- thing but hell, of which he thirsted to know more and more, and could not bear to turn his eyes upward, for there he beheld the sun and the moon and the stars, and everything which spake to him of God ; and when Mephistopheles had yet more fully enlarged upon the nature of hell, and what was seen there, and how the souls of the damned lived there in everlasting torment, Faustus asked if a man that went to hell, and afterward repented, might be saved. But Mephistopheles shewed him how this could never be, and that a damned soul could look for no mercy, no matter if it were soul of emperor, king, duke, or other whomsoever. Even Lucifer himself could never be recalled to the presence of God, albeit he, as they all, had long cherished a hope of forgiveness and redemption. And when Faustus heard the Spirit so speak, he became pensive and sorrowful, and threw himself on

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. II3

his bed. But he remained not long in this mood, but mixed with his friends, and amidst the pleasures of the world forgot his sad case and fortune.

Yet when he was alone, and began to reflect on his wicked estate, once more he called Mephisto- pheles before him, and said to him, " Now, if thou wast a man, as I am, what wouldst thou have done to please God ? " And the Spirit replied to him, smiling, that if he had been as he once was, endowed by God with all the gifts of nature, he should have humbled himself before His majesty, and taken all pains possible to understand aright His will and pleasure. But in lieu thereof he had denied and defied his Maker, and had sold himself to the devil ; and so detestable were his sins in the sight of God, that he could never hope to win back His grace.

III.

Faustus, when he had done with questioning his Spirit on these and like matters pertaining to his future state, fell to the study of astronomy and mathe- matics, so that among all the men of that age he passed for the most expert in the courses of the sun, moon, and stars, and in the changes of the weather, which he calculated more exactly than had been heretofore practised of any. And he not only fell to be an almanack-maker, but wrote books thereupon, which he dedicated and sent to sundry great lords, who regarded him as a man of excellent learning, seeing that if a plague, famine, mortality, or war were about to happen, he foretold the same, to the astonishment and rare content of all.

A. L, I

114 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

These marvels he accomplished with the aid of his Spirit, which taught him all the hidden works of God, save the day of doom, and how God made the world, and why He made man in His own likeness ; and he promised Faustus that ere long he should be able to do all the things which the devils of hell could do, and have all the elements at his bidding. But by reason that it appeared to Lucifer that Faustus demanded of Mephistopheles more than was fit and in his treaty set out, he, with certain other devils, visited him in his chamber, so that Faustus deemed that at length they were come to fetch him away.

They sat by Faustus all on a row. Lucifer, like a brown hairy man with a tail turned upward in a manner of a squirrel's : Belial like a bear, with curly black hair reaching to the ground, was standing straight up, and all within as red as blood, and flaming, his teeth a foot long and white as snow, and his tail three ells ; and he had wings, one behind each shoulder. Next to him, Beelzebub, his hair of the colour of horse-flesh, and curled, his head like a bull's, with mighty horns, his ears sweeping clown to the ground, his tail like a cow's, and behind his back two wings horned and fiery.

Then there was Astaroth, in form of a worm ; and Cannagosta, with the head of an ass and the tail of a cat, and hoofs like those of an ox, an ell broad ; and Anubis, dog-headed, in shape resembling a hog, but with two feet only, one beneath his throat, the other at his tail ; and he was four ells long, with hanging ears like a bloodhound. Dithican seemed a huge bird with shining feathers and four feet, and

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. II5

Brachus was of the shape and colour of a hedgehog, his back brown, his belly flame-blue, and his tail like a monkey's. The rest wore the semblance of divers other beasts ; and each, as he came into the hall of Faustus, made his obeisance to Lucifer, and then took his place. When anon there came a prodi- gious thunderclap, which shook the whole house, and every devil had a muck-fork in his hand, and pointed it with one accord at Faustus, who recol- lected the words of Mephistopheles, saying that the damned souls in hell were cast from devil to devil with such forks.

Lucifer noted his disquiet, and said to him : "We cannot change our devilish forms, Faustus mine ; but we can make men believe that we are angels or men by deceit and enchantment."

Faustus said to him : "I like not so many of you together."

So Lucifer commanded them to depart, except the seven principal, which gave Faustus better courage, and he said : " Where is my servant Mephisto- pheles ? Let me see if he can do the like."

Then presendy appeared a fiery dragon flying round about the house, till he approached Lucifer, and saluting him changed himself into a friar, who said, " Faustus, what wilt thou ?"

" I will," quoth Faustus, " that thou teach me to transform myself in such manner as thou and the rest have done."

Then Lucifer put forth his paw, and gave him a book, saying, "Hold, do what thou wilt"; and straightway he was changed into a hog, into a worm, and into a dragon — which liked him well.

,It6 SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS.

" How is it ? " said he to Lucifer, " that so many- unclean forms are in the world ? "

"They are sent of God to plague men," answered Lucifer, "and so shalt thou be plagued."

The place was then filled with all manner of stinging insects, which stang Faustus, that he cried to Mephistopheles for help. But Mephistopheles came not at his call, and in a moment all had vanished, and he heard the sweetest music that ever fell on mortal ear, which ravished him with delight. Yet it repented him that he had seen no more than he did of that strange company.

IV.

But Faustus did not forbear to ponder in his mind over what had passed before his eyes ; and since he had beheld the chief governors of hell, under Lucifer their prince, it entered into his thought that he would procure, if so he might, liberty to view hell itself Whereunto through his Spirit he was straightway borne on a chair of beaten gold by Beelzebub, in the likeness of a huge, rugged, curly bear ; and only this condition was laid upon him, that, whatever he saw, he should keep silence.

And, first of all, Beelzebub carried him into a lake, where Faustus fell asleep, and when he woke again he was in a place full of fire and brimstone, yet he received no more hurt than from the rays of the sun in May ; and music was heard in the air, albeit the players were invisible. Other devils presently came to meet Beelzebub, and then ran before him to clear the way, and anon an exceeding great hart,

FAUST OR FAUSTUS. I I 7

which would have thrust Faustus out of his seat, but was put to the repulse. Next he espied a multitude of snakes, unto which came storks and swallowed them, leaving not one. Whereat Faustus marvelled, but, as he had been straitly charged, said nought.

Next out of an hollow cleft issued a monstrous flying bull, which rushed at Faustus, and overset his chair, that he rolled on the ground, and deeming that his end was at hand, exclaimed, "Woe is me that ever I came here !" But a great ape drew near, and bad him not be afeard ; and when the fog that had arisen with the coming of the bull cleared, Faustus saw a waggon drawn by two mighty dragons, and thereinto the ape mounted and lifted Faustus up beside him. The chariot rose into the air, and entered an exceeding dark cloud, where noucfht could be seen, but the cries of tormented souls were continually heard, with thunder and lightning, till Faustus quaked for dread ; and after they came to a stinking lake, into which they plunged, chariot and all, and Faustus lost sight of the ape and the dragons and the chariot, and sank and sank, till he stood on the top of a high rock, where the waters parted, and left him dry ; and the rock was as high from the bottom as the heaven is from the earth ; and Faustus wist not what he should do, till he espied a small hole in the rock, whence flashed fire ; and he thought that he must either sit there in despair, or fall to the bottom, or perish in the