This facetious spirit only misleads the benighted traveller (generally an honest farmer, in his way from the market, in a state of intoxication) for the jokes sake; as one, very seldom, if ever, hears any of his deluded followers (who take it to be the torch of Hero in some hospitable mansion, affording "provision for man and horse") perishing in these ponds or pools, through which they dance or plunge after him so merrily.
"There go as manie tales," says Reginald Scot, upon Hudgin, in some parts of Germanie, as there did in England of Robin Good-fellow.... Frier Rush was for all the world such another fellow as this Hudgin, and brought up even in the same schoole; to wit, in a kitchen: insomuch as the selfe-same tale is written of the one as of the other, concerning the skullian, who is said to have beene slaine, &c. for the reading whereof I referre you to frier Rush his storie, or else to John Wierus, De præstigis dæmonum."[1]
In the old play of Gammer Gurtons needle, printed in 1575, Hodge, describing a "great black devil,"
- ↑ Discoverie of witchcraft, p. 521. The historie of frier Rushe, a common stall, or chap, book, in the time of queen Elizabeth, and even down to the fire of London; since which event it has never been met with. The story of Hudgin will be found among the Tales.
