The Philosopher's Stone
self because she thought she saw her sister coming, and her uncle, then her aunt, then her cousin, each of which was related in full; after which the hangman said, 'I wee-nt stop no longer, tha's making gam o' me.' But now she saw her sweetheart coming through the crowd, and he held overhead i' t' air her own golden ball; so she said—
'Stop, stop, I see my sweetheart coming!
Sweetheart, hast brought my golden ball
And come to set me free?'
'Ay, I have brought thy golden ball
And come to set thee free;
I have not come to see thee hung
Upon this gallows tree.'"
In this very curious story, the portion within brackets reminds one of the German story of "Fearless John," in Grimm (K. M. 4), of which I remember obtaining an English variant in a chap-book in Exeter when I was a child—alas! now lost. It is also found in Iceland,[1] and is indeed a widely-spread tale. The verses are like others found in Essex in connection with the child's game of "Mary Brown," and those of the Swedish "Fair Gundela." But these points we must pass over. Our interest attaches specially to the golden ball. The story is almost certainly the remains of an old religious myth. The golden ball which one sister has is the sun, the silver ball of the other sister is the moon.
- ↑ Powel and Magnusson, Legends of Iceland (1864), p. 161.
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