Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/408

400 "Many years ago a fiery flying dragon lived at Curry Rivell. At certain times it used to fly across the marsh to Aller and destroy the crops and all it came near, with its fiery breath. This continued for a long time. At last one John Aller, a brave and valiant man, who lived at Aller, vowed that he would kill it. He laid in wait, and when next the dragon flew across to Aller hill he attacked it, and, after a fierce struggle, slew it, and cut off its head. Then its fiery blood ran out, and scorched up all the grass around, and from that day to this grass has never grown on the spot. John Aller was so burnt by the dragon's breath that he died almost at the same moment as the dragon. The people took up his body, buried it in the church, and called the village after him."

The Flitting Gnomes.—It may be assumed that folk-lorists are acquainted with Crofton Cookes's delightful Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, and will remember, in the section devoted to "The Clericaune" (vol. ii, p. 163), how an old Quaker gentleman, haunted by one of these fairies, desired to get rid of him, and for that purpose took another house, and had all his furniture packed on carts, when, as the last casks were being put on, the Clericaune was seen to jump on to the car, and into the bunghole of an empty cask, and cry: "Here, master, here we all go together." Whereupon the Quaker said: "In that case let the cars be unpacked; we are just as well where we are!" Another similar instance of the Danish Nis is also adduced. In The Land of Manfred, by Miss Janet Ross, a book rich in folk-lore, a like being with the same story is described as popularly believed in in the extreme South of Italy. "When near Tasanto, Miss Ross relates (pp. 127-8), "I observed that some of the flock an old shepherd was guarding looked tired, and hung their heads wearily. I asked whether they were ill, and he answered: 'No, but I must get rid of them, because the Laiiro has taken an antipathy to them.' On further inquiry he told me that the Laùro was a little man, only thirty centimètres high, always dressed in velvet, and wearing a Calabreze hat with a feather stuck into it. The Laùro is most capricious: to some who ask him for money he gives a sackful of broken potsherds; to others who ask for sand he give old coins. He took a particular dislike to a cousin of the old shepherd, sitting on her chest at night and giving her terrible dreams. At last she was so worried by the Laùro that she determined to leave her house. All the household goods and chattels were on the cart; nothing was left but an old broom, and when the goodwife went to fetch it the Laùro suddenly appeared, saying: 'I'll take that; let us be off to the new house.' His antipathies or likings are