📚📚"Folktales of England" by Katharine M. Briggs and Ruth L. Tongue

She’s in de ballroom now, Mossycoat is. De young master, he’s waiting and watching for her. As soon as he sees her, he exes his father to send for de fastest horse in his stable, and hev it kept standing ready saddled at de door. Den he exes his mother to go over and talk to de young lady for a bit. She does dat, but can’t larn no more about her ’an she did the night afore. Den de young master hears as his horse is ready at de door; so he goes over to de young lady, and exes her for a dance. She says jus’ de same as de night afore, “No,” at first, but “Yes,” at de finish, and jus’ as den, she says she mus’ go after when dey’ve danced only once de length o’ de room an’ back. But dis time, he keeps howld ’n her till dey gets outside. Den she wishes hersel’ at home, and is dere nearly as soon as she’s spoken. De young master felt her rise into de air, but couldn’t do nothing to stop her. But p’raps he did jus’ touch her foot, as she dropped one slipper; I couldn’t be sure as he did; it looks a bit like it though. He picks de slipper up; but as for catching up wid her, it would be easier by far to catch up wid de wind on a blowy night. As soon as she gits home, Mossycoat changes back into her owld things; den she looses de t’other sarvants from de spell she’d put on ’em. Dey’ve been asleep agen, dey thinks, and offers her one a shilling, another a half a crown, a third a week’s wage, if she won’t tell on ’em; and she promises as she won’t.

De young master’s in bed next day, a-dying for de love of de lady as lost one ’n her silver slippers de night afore. De doctors can’t do him not de leastest good. So it was give out what his state was, and as it was only de lady able to wear de slipper as could save his life; and if she’d come forrad, he’d marry her. De slippers, as I said earlier on, was only but three inches long, or dereabouts. Ladies came from near and far, some wid big feet and some wid small, but none small enough to git it on howiver much dey pinched and squeezed. Poorer people came as well, but it was jus’ de same wid dem. And in course, all de sarvants tried, but dey was out’n altogether. De young master was a-dying. Was dere nobody else, his mother exed, nobody at all, rich or poor? “No,” dey telt her, everybody’d tried it excepting it was Mossycoat.

“Tell her to come at once,” says de mistress.

So dey fetched her.

“Try dis slipper on,” she says—dat’s de mistress.

Mossycoat slips her foot into it easy enough; it fits her exac’ly. De young master jumps out o’ bed, and is jus’ a-going to tek her in his arms.

“Stop,” she says, and runs off; but afore long she’s back agen in her satin dress wid gowld sprigs, her gowld crown, and both her silver slippers. De young master is jus’ a-going to tek her in his arms.

“Stop,” she says, and agen she runs off. Dis time she comes back in her silk dress de color of all de birds o’ de air. She don’t stop him dis time, and as de saying used to be, he nearly eats her.

After when dey’s all settled down agen, and is talking quietlike, dere’s one or two things as de master and mistress and de young master’ld like to know. How did she git to dance, and back agen, in no time, they exed her. “Jus’ wishing,” she says, and she tells ’em all as I’ve telt you about the magic coat her mother ’ed med for her, and de powers it give her if she cared to use ’em. “Yes, dat explains everything,” dey says. Den dey bethinks theirselves of her saying as she came from where dey hit her on de head wid de skimmer. What did she mean by dat, dey wants to know. She meant jus’ what she said, she telt ’em; it was always coming down on her head, pop, pop, pop. They were right angry when dey heard dat, and de whole of de kitchen sarvants was telt to go, and de dogs sent arter dem to drive de varmints right away from de place.

As soon as dey could Mossycoat and de young master got married, and she’d a coach and six to ride in, ai, ten if she liked, for you may be sure as she’d everything as she fancied. Dey lived happy ever after, and had a basketful o’ children. I was dere when de owld son comed of age, a-playing de fiddle. But dat was many years back, and I shouldn’t wonder if de owld master and mistress isn’t dead by now, though I’ve niver heerd tell as dey was.

5

Little Rosy

Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 29, 1963, as she heard it from a Blackdown shepherd in Somerset in 1903. The tune was learned from Brendon Hills children, who sang it to a kind of singing game in Taunton in 1907.

This is Type 720, My Mother Slew Me; My Father Ate Me, The Juniper Tree. Key motifs are E613.0.1, “Reincarnation of murdered child as bird”; “G61, Relative’s flesh eaten unwittingly”; N271, “Murder will out”; and “S31, Cruel stepmother” Type 720 is well-known in the Grimm version, No.47, “The Juniper Tree,” and is found throughout Europe. In England it is reported from Devonshire by Baring-Gould (“The Rose-tree” in Henderson, Northern Counties, pp. 314–17), from Yorkshire by Addy (Folk-Lore, VIII, 1897, “The Satin Frock,” pp. 394–95), and from Lincolnshire by Gutch and Peacock (County Folk-Lore No. 5, “Orange and Lemon,” p. 325). The School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh, has two texts collected by Hamish Henderson, “Orangie and Applie” from Aberdeen, and a version of special interest from Perthshire, told by fourteen-year-old Jimmy McPhee. Here the murdered girl is brought back to her true form when her mother’s grave is dug up and the ring turned on her finger. Published Scottish versions are in Robert Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland, “The Milk-White Doo,” p. 52, and Norah and William Montgomerie, The Well at the World’s End (London, Hogarth Press, 1956), “Pippety Pew,” pp. 34–37. For the United States Baughman gives ten examples, eight from southern Negroes. Halpert discusses British variants in his note (p. 195) to an Ozark text (pp. 53–54), “Pennywinkle! Pennywinkle!” published by Vance Randolph in Who Blowed Up the Church House? Stith Thompson speaks of its oral currency and cante-fable tendency in The Folktale, p. 116.

The idea of the soul of the dead child growing out of the body as a tree, out of which a bird springs, is both widespread and primitive. The English singing game, “Old Roger is Dead,” exemplifies a similar belief (Alice B. Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, II, 16–24).

“Tallat” is an attic or loft; “marly” is marble.

ROSY WERE A little maid as had a stepmother and her were so wicked and good-for-nothing as twopennorth of God-help-us stuck on a stick. Rosy hadn’ no love for she.

One day she took ’n sended Rosy for to get some’at out of gurt chest up over in tallat. And the lid valled down on Rosy and killed ’n.

There her was with her head cutted off by thic lid, and thic wicked toad took’n and cooked’n and made she into pies vor her father and her two liddle sisters. And they took’n and they went and eat’n and like’n too, and thic wicked toad her buried all they bones.

But Rosy her “corned again” like a ghostie bird all a-trembley and a-whivery and singeth:

My Mammy her killed I ’n put I in pies

My vather did eat I ’n ’er said I were nice

My two liddle zisters they zucked my bones

And buried I under they marly stones

They marly stones, they marly stones

And buried I under they marly stones.

And when her vather heard’n, he took a cold shiver, and he run, and the liddle zisters run too. And no one wouldn’ neighbor with the wicked toad, zo her died lonesome.

6

The Man Who Wouldn’t Go Out at Night

Recorded from Ruth L. Tongue, September 29, 1963, as she heard it in Somerset at the Brompton Ralph Women’s Institute in 1962. She knew other versions told between 1930 and 1940 by a blacksmith at Vellow, a cottage woman at Monksilver, and a farmer’s wife at Elworthy.

Motifs present are M211, “Man sells soul to the devil,” and K212, “Devil cheated by being frightened,” both common in the humorous devil stories told throughout northern Europe. In “Finn MacCuil and the Scotch Giant,” in Patrick Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (London, 1866), pp. 203–205, Finn’s wife frightens away the giant with her witty tricks. Captain Marryat retells the tale in his novel Peter Simple.

“Allerntide” is All Hallows. “To nursey” is to have a child.

THERE WERE A varmer, a girt upstandable chap, and ’e wouldn’t go out arter dark not if it was ever so. ’Twas all very fine to summertime, but when Allerntide come along and winter, ’twas tur’ble bad for varm. There mid be stock to veed, an’ cows to milky, and lambs to help into this wordle, but ’e wouldn’t go out, no, not if you begged ’en. Well, ’is wife ’er were “goin’ to nursey,” and ’er grew worrited. Supposing ’er should want doctor night-time, ’e’d be bound to go vetch ’en, but no, ’e wulldn’t, not if ’twere ever so bad. Well then, ’er reckoned ’twas summat bad, vor ’er knowed ’e were mortial vond o’ she, zo ’er gets around ’n until ’e tells ’er. When ’e were a silly young lad, he’d sold ’isself, zee, and now time were nearly up, and Bogey were a-waiting vor ’n. He couldn’t catch ’en till dark, zo that were why ’e bided indoors be’ind the lintel.

Well, she began to think like, ’bout ’ow she could save the man and the baby and the varm. So ’er gets a plough-coulter, and ’er makes ’en red-’ot, and ’er puts ’en inside a girt pie-crust, as ’ad a criss-cross o’ salt on it. Then ’er do call out o’ window, “We be coming, zur, my man be a-coming, would ’ee like a bit o’ pie to goo on with?”

Well, Bogey, ’e grab pie, and took a bite. Dunno what come to ’is teeth with that little lot, but ’e was scorched bewtifull. Then ’er up and ’er say, “Us won’t be long, zur. We be a-coming, zur.” “Who be?” says Bogey, all of a sudden suspicious-like. That there criss-cross o’ salt ’ad fair burned ’e.

“Why, I be a’coming, wi’ my dear ’usband,” says she, “to cook vor ’ee both.”

Well, at that, they do tell, Bogey give a screech as zunk two ships off Lundy, and took off away vor Tanton. And from what I zee o’ volks down there, I reckon ’e bided.

Part II

Legends