Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/509

 n s. iv. DEC. 23, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

503

gods was killed by an arrow of mistletoe, which an earth-god had shot at him. The goddess Friga wove a spell whereby mistletoe was prevented from growing on the earth again ; hence it grows on trees ; and she decreed that it must be suspended in mid- p u ; r, and under it the kiss of peace be ex- changed ; and this is why we have the mistletoe in our houses at Christmas.

TOM JONES.

CHRISTMAS :

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES. (Continued from US. ii. 502.)

TWENTY- SIXTH LIST.

14 . A fifteenth-century Christmas carol, in English, of 5 stanzas, with the refrain " And Ihesus is hys name," in Robinson and James, ' MSS. Westm. Abb.,' 1909, p. 76.

1631. Taylor, John. The Complaint of Christ- mas. And the Teares of Twelfetyde. London : Printed for I. B. and H. G. and are to be sold at the signe of the Marigold in Pauls Church-yard. Sm. 4to. Includes ' A Christmas Carroll to the tune of PooreTom.' Mr. Tregaskis asked 165L for his unique copy ; see The Times, 15 March, 1911.

16 . Wither, George. A Christmas Carroll. Reprinted at the Knickerbocker Press, with illustrations by Frank T. Merrill, 8vo, pp. 103.

1745. Wesley, John. Hymns for the Nativity of our Lord. Sm. 8vo, pp. 24. First ed., no date ; Osborn, ' Wesleyan Bibliography,' 1869, p. 18.

1776. Garrick, D. A Christmas Tale. Acted 27 Dec., 1773 ; ' D.N.B.,' xxi. 23 a.

18 . Southey, Robert. English Eclogues. The Old Mansion. [On the decay of Christmas- keeping.]

18 . Benson, Joseph, Wesleyan minister, died 1821. " For fifty years he preached at least once, generally twice, and not seldom thrice, on Christ- mas-day, this blessed day." ' Memoirs,' by Treffry, 1840, p. 311.

1833. Christmas Carols, with appropriate Music, frontisp., sin. 4to, J. W. Parker.

187-. The Royal Cradle, and other Carols. By S. D. N. Photographs, sq. 12mo, pp. 48.

187-. Buchanan, Robert. The Ballad of Mary the Mother : a Christmas Carol. 8vo.

187-. Ewing, Juliana Horatia. A Christmas Mumming Play.

1901. The Blessing of the Waters on the Eve of the Epiphany : the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Russian Versions, edited and translated by John, Marquess of Bute, and E. A. Wallis Budge. 8vo. See 9 S. xii. 502.

1904. W T oodward, G. R. The Cowley Caro Book for Christmas, Easter, and Ascension-tide 8vo, pp. 88.

1910. Powell, Rev. James Baden. Six Christ mas Carols. Three series (18 carols). Novello.

1910. The Vineyard, No. 3. Christmas num ber. Contains many articles on Christmas.

1910. The Observance of Christmas Day The Times, 24 Dec.

1911. The Twelfth Day, The Times, 6 Jan. 1911. Graham, Stephen. Vagabond in the

aucasus. Contains ' Christmas in Little Russia ' and ' Mummers at a Country House,' pp. 24-51.

1911. The Epiphany Blessing of Water in the- Western Church. By A. M. Y. Baylay, in Pax, Daldey Quarterly Paper, June, pp. 311-21. A previous article on the Eastern version, in the same, Dec., 1910.

1911. Christmas at the Capital of Menelik. By Ian Hay. Blackwood, Sept.

1911. Bazin, Rene". La Douce France. Con- tains ' Noel,' pp. 87-90, " bergers avec un agneau '" at Midnight Mass.

W. C. B,

WHITTINGTON AND HIS CATr EASTERN VARIANTS.

THIS well-known British household tale has been treated with its sundry variants Italian, Breton, Norwegian, Russian, and Persian in W. A. Clouston's ' Popular Tales and Fictions,' 1887, vol. ii. pp. 65-78.. The account concludes with this remark :

" With regard to the Russian version, Mr.. Ralston thinks there can be little doubt as to its origin, ' such a feature as the incense-burning, pointing directly to a Buddhist source ' ; and he is probably right in this conjecture, notwith- standing the circumstantial and unembellished narrative of the Persian historian [Abdullah, the son of Fazlullah, in whose ' Events of Ages and Fates of Cities ' it is given], to which, however, he makes no reference. The original Buddhist story or a variant of it may well have reached Russia via China. Yet nothing at all like our story has hitherto been found in Indian fiction, so far as I am aware, which is strange, since we have seen that it has been so long domiciled in Persia as to become one of the historical traditions of that country. But if the facts be not as the Persian historian relates them [namely, that the monarchy of Kays was primarily established upon the wealth which a cat of a poor old widow at Siraf had put in her possession through its in- valuable service to an Indian sovereign in freeing

him from mice] whence came the story into

Persia ? From India unquestionably ; and we may trust that the Buddhist original will yet be discovered."

Has this expectation of Clouston been fulfilled ? That such has not been the case I gather from ' The Encyclopaedia Britannica,' 1910, vol. xxviii. p. 615, where the deriva- tion of this tale is summarized briefly thus :

"Attempts have been made to explain the story as possibly referring to vessels called ' cats,' which were employed in the North Sea trade, or to the French achat (purchase). But Thomas Keightley [' Tales and Popular Fictions,' 1834] traced the cat story in Persian, Danish, and Italian folk-lore at least as far back as the thir- teenth century."