Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/150

138 who teased the family so much that the farmer made up his mind to leave the house. So he packed up his goods and began to move off. Then a neighbour came up, and said, "So, Georgey, you're leaving the old house?" " Yes," said the farmer, "the boggart torments us so that we must go." Then a voice came out of a churn, saying, "Ay, ay, Georgey, we're flitting, ye see." "Oh!" cried the poor farmer, "if thou'rt with us we'll go back again;" and he went back.—Mr. Tennyson puts this story into his poem of "Walking to the Mail."

"His house, they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, And rummaged like a rat: no servant stayed: The farmer, vext, packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff, and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, 'What! You're flitting!' 'Yes, we're flitting,' says the ghost (For they had packed the thing among the beds). 'Oh, well,' says he, 'you flitting with us, too; Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again.' "

The same story is told in Denmark, of a Nis—which is the same as an English boggart, a Scotch brownie, and a German kobold—who