Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/178

 1 68 Collectanea.

told me (what I had heard before) that the stones certainly grew ; he had seen this, for, when he was a boy, there were not nearly so many, nor were they so large, as now. (June, 1901.)

A man at work near Silbury Hill told me that somewhere there- abouts a king had been buried in a golden coffin. (June, 1901.)

A man in Devizes Market Place called my attention to the inscription commemorating the sudden death of Ruth Pierce, and then, pointing to the Corn Exchange, said : "They put her statue up on the top there when they built it." The statue was of a graceful female in classical dress with a wreath of flowers on her head and a cornucopia in her right hand. (June, 1901.)

In April and May, 1904, I made an excursion, principally in Wiltshire, and saw many places where horseshoes were nailed over doors.

I often saw horseshoes nailed over doors in and around Baydon in July, 1905.

In July, 1905, I enquired, in and around Baydon in Wiltshire, if King Arthur had ever fought a battle there. One or two said : " Yes, between there and Aldbourne," but others said King Alfred had fought there, and confounded the battle with that of Ashdown.

The following rhyme used to be sung by Hannan Pullen, a servant of my mother's, about 1848 :

Come Richmond, come Tormond,^ come Foolish, come Pretty,

Don't let me die maiden, but take me for fifty :

I'll be a good wife, never scold nor be jealous,

I'll find you plenty of money to spend at the alehouse ;

And while you're out spending, I'll be at home saving,

Ri fal the riddle lal, ri fal the riddle lido.

Wales. — Near Beddgelert, in Carnarvonshire, I saw, in 1857, the words "Llan Trwsgwl" painted on a rock by the roadside. David Roberts, our guide, said the words meant "Awkward Footstep," and that a giant, trying to jump across the river Colwyn, could not make a good jump, and only brought one foot down on to the rock on the further side of the river, which here flowed by the road's side. He pointed o\it the rock, and on it was painted a footprint about a yard long : it is said to mark the spot where the giant's foot came down. (1S57.)

^ " Come rich man, come poor man " ?