victim of a piece of invention on the part of her autobiographical informant. But the scrap of verse, especially in its original dialect, has such a folkish ring that it is probable he was only adapting a local legend to his own circumstances.
Source.—Collected by Mrs. Gomme from some hop-pickers near Deptford.
Parallels.—The beginning is à la Cupid and Psyche, on which Mr. Lang's monograph in the Carabas series is the classic authority. The remainder is an Eastern tale, the peregrinations of which have been studied by Mr. Clouston in his Pop. Tales and Fictions, ii. 289, seq. The Wright's Chaste Wife, is the English fabliau on the subject. M. Bédier, in his recent work on Les Fabliaux, pp. 411-13, denies the Eastern origin of the fabliau, but in his Indiaphobia M. Bédier is "capable de tout." In the Indian version the various messengers are sent by the king to test the chastity of a peerless wife of whom he has heard. The incident occurs in some versions of the Battle of the Birds story (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. xxiv.), and considering the wide spread of this in the British Isles, it was possibly from this source that it came to Deptford.
Source.—Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes and Tales.
Parallels.—There is a Yorkshire Lying Tale in Henderson's Folk Lore, first edition, p. 337, a Suffolk one, "Happy Borz'l, in in Suffolk Notes and Queries, while a similar jingle of inconsequent absurdities, commencing "So he died, and she unluckily married the barber, and a great bear coming up the street popped his head into the window, saying, 'Do you sell any soap'?" is said to have been invented by Charles James Fox to test Sheridan's memory, who repeated it after one hearing. (Others attribute it to Foote.) Similar Lugenmärchen are given by the Grimms, and discussed by them in their Notes, Mrs. Hunt's translation, ii. pp. 424, 435, 442, 450, 452, cf. Crane, Ital. Pop. Tales, p. 263.
Remarks.—The reference to venison warrants, and bows and arrows, seem to argue considerable antiquity for this piece of nonsense. The honorific prefix "Sir" may in that case refer to clerkly qualities rather than to knighthood.
