Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/197

Rh The latter reference is to the cry of the King of Elfland. That some such story was current in England in Shakespeare's time, is proved by that curious mélange of nursery tales, Peele's The Old Wives' Tale. The main plot of this is the search of two brothers, Calopha and Thelea, for a lost sister, Delia, who has been bespelled by a sorcerer, Sacrapant (the names are taken from the Orlando Furioso). They are instructed by an old man (like Merlin in "Childe Rowland") how to rescue their sister, and ultimately succeed. The play has besides this the themes of the Thankful Dead, the Three Heads of the Well (which see), the Life Index, and a transformation; so that it is not to be wondered at if some of the traits of "Childe Rowland" are observed in it, especially as the name implies that it was made up of folk-tales.

But a still closer parallel is afforded by Milton's Comus. Here again we have two brothers in search of a sister, who has got into the power of an enchanter. But besides this, there is the refusal of the heroine to touch the enchanted food, just as Childe Rowland finally refuses. And ultimately the bespelled heroine is liberated by a liquid, which is applied to her lips and finger-tips, just as Childe Rowland's brothers are unspelled by applying a liquid to their eyelids, nostrils, lips, and finger-tips. Such a minute resemblance as this cannot be accidental, and it is therefore probable that Milton used the original form of "Childe Rowland", or some variant of it, as heard in his youth, and adapted it to the purposes of the masque at Ludlow Castle, and of his allegory. Certainly no other folk-tale in the world can claim so distinguished an offspring.

Whether this be so or no, these literary parallels prove at least that our tale has been told in these islands for at least 250 years, from Shakespeare's youth till

the date of the play; James I was declared King of Great Britain, October 1604. I may add that Motherwell, in his Minstrelsy, p. xiv, note, testifies that the story was still extant in the nursery at the time he wrote (1828).