Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/245

 Rh Chronicon Hirsangiense ending 1370, and Spanheiniense ending with 1502; of Hartmann Schedel, author of the Nuremburg Chronicle, down to 1492; Nauclerus, Chancellor of the University of Tubingen, whose record goes through several generations to 1500: and of Albert Crantz, author of a Saxon history reaching to 1520. Even Paulus Langius, though there be rare things in his chronicle, which ends in 1515, omits this story, nor is there a trace of it in Johannes Aventinium. Hence we are of opinion," adds Schoock, "that this affair is an invention of superstition and monkish ignorance."

Well, possibly it may be all this; but I cannot myself allow that an alleged event of medieval times ought to be stamped out of credence, merely because it was not chronicled by certain contemporary scribes, whose works we happen to know, but of whose idiosyncrasies, disabilities, motives, and scope we cannot adequately judge. A case in point is the following: I confess I began to sympathise with the incredulity of Schoock when I learnt from Sprenger that John de Polde or Pohle takes no notice of the Outgoing in his Chronicon Hamelense, for he worked at it as an aged man in 1384, and if he came of native stock, his own father may have been in peril from the Piper, may have been the very babe who kept the nursemaid back from joining in the rout. This consideration loses cogency when we know the limit of the undertaking. Meinardus tells us that we ought not to wonder at Pohle's silence, because he was merely engaged on a history of the Collegiate Church at Hameln, of which he was a canon, and that he did not meddle with municipal matters or speak of political events. Let us give the good man credit for minding his own business, and acknowledge that he had nothing to do with ours. We should remember, too, that although the narrative in which we are