Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/305

 9* s. VIIL OCT. 12, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

297

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1901.

CONTENTS. No. 198.

NOTES : Merry Tales, 297 The Turvin Coiners, 298 Privileges of the City of London Knights made temp. Charles I., 301 Science and Sorcery Paying Rent at a Tomb in Church " Play the goat " " Crooked," 302 " Bxpenditor " Surrender of Land by a Straw Bower- Dickens and Tong Leigh in Lancashire, 303.

QUERIES : Arms of Fountains Abbey, 303 Motto on Bell Fleur de Marie Cann Office Spider-eating Instru- mental Choirs Bibliography of the Bicycle Frank Foster, 304 Crouch Family of Wilts Rowe of Cornwall ' Kell" or "Keld"=Spring "Abacus" Old English Fishtraps Arms on Drinking-cup Whittington and his Cat Ancient Beacons, 305 Chewar "You might ride to Romford on it " " Nang Nails ": " Nubbocks "Kipling's ' Vampire,' 30o.

REPLIES: -Frederick, Prince of Wales, 306-Cork Leg- Wartons of Beverley Early Steam Navigation " Bolten," 307 Poem Wanted " Looks wise, the pretty fool " Huguenot Harvest Bell " Sod- Widow." SOS " Pro- viding "=Provided Comic Dialogue Sermon ' Mary's Chappel "'The Lost Pleiad ' Sir Francis' Jones, 309 " Grin through " Heraldic" Tall Leicestershire women" Redmayne Family Nineveh as English Place-name, 310 Capt. Jones Man-of- War "Old original "National Peculiarities Ugo Foscolo in London Knifeboard of an Omnibus, 311 Isaac Family of Kent Parish Registers Wellsborn Horse-ribbon Day " Alright "=A11 right Marengo, Napoleon's Horse Smoking a Cobbler Bruce and Burns, 312 The Royal Standard, 313 Shakespeare the " Knavish " and Rabelais, 314-Delagoa Bay Authors [ Wanted, 315.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Prescott's ' History of the Conquest I of Mexico ' Macray's 'Register of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford ' Rowbotham's ' History of Rossall School 'Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

MERRY TALES.

IT may perhaps be interesting to some of the readers of 'N. & Q.' to give in a succinct form references to some of the various sources, imitations, and analogues of the stories or " facetiae " contained in ' A 100 Mery Talys ' and ' Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres,' which were edited by W. C. Hazlitt in 1881, and form the first volume of his ' Shake- speare Jest-Books.' It would take up too much space in 'N. & Q.' to enter fully into the several variants, so I must content myself by giving references only to the works where the stories and other information may be found. For easier identification I take the headings of the stories in Hazlitt.

' A 100 Mery Talys.'

No. II. ' Of the wyfe who lay with her prentys and caused him to beate her hus- bande disguised in her rayment.' This is the well-known story of Boccaccio's 4 Decameron,' Day VII., No. 7, and La Fon- taine's 'Le Mari Cocu, Battu, et Content.' It seems to be probably derived from the fabliau of ' La Bourgeoise d'Orleans, ou de la Femine qui fit battre son Mari' (Legrand,

'Fabliaux ou Contes,' third ed., 1829, vol. iv. p. 294; Montaiglon, ' Recueil General et Com- plet des Fabliaux et Contes,' 1872, vol. i. p. 117; Barbazan-Meon, 'Fabliaux et Contes,' &c., 1808, vol. iii. p. 161). Similar are the fabliau called * Romanz de un Chivaler et de sa Dame et de un Clerk,' published by Paul Meyer in Romania, vol. i. p. 69, and also in Montaiglon, vol. ii. p. 215, and that in Montaiglon, vol. iv. p. 133, * De la Darne qui fist batre son Mari.' A somewhat similar story of having a lover beaten is told by the troubadour Raimond Vidal in Millot's 'His- toire Litte'raire des Troubadours,' 1774, vol. iii. p. 296, of which an abstract is given in Dun- lop's ' History of Prose Fiction,' 1888, vol. ii. p. 25; Legrand, vol. i. p. 36; Kaynouard's 'Choix de Poesies des Troubadours,' vol. iii. p. 398. The story is in the old German poem printed in Hagen's * Gesammtabenteuer,' vol. ii. No. xxvii., called 'Vrouwen Staetikeit'- in Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, No. 2 of the third day of his 'II Pecorone'; in 'Les Contes d'Ouville,' ' D'un Homme qui fut cocu, battu, et content' (vol. i. p. 161 of the edition by Brunet, 1883, in the series "Les Conteurs Fran9ais "); in ' Contes a rire et Aventures Plaisantes,' ed. Chassang, Paris, 1881, p. 111. It also forms an incident in several English plays. It is the first portion of "The City Nightcap' (Hazlitt's ' Dodsley,' vol. xiii. p. 99), and, according to Langbaine's 'Account of the English Dramatick Poets,' 1691, it is found in Durfey's ' Squire Oldcap; or, the Night Ad- venturers '; in ' Love in the Dark; or, a Man of Business,' by Sir Francis Fane; and in Ravenscroft's 'London Cuckolds.' It is in ' A Sackful of Newes,' Hazlitt's ' Shakespeare Jest-Books,' second series, p. 169. Bedier, 'Les Fabliaux,' &c., 1895, p. 450, refers to 'ErzahlungenausaltdeutschenHss.gesaramelt durch Adalbert von Keller,' Stuttgart, "Biblio- thek des Litter. Vereins," t. xxxv. p. 289, 'Von dem Schryber'; 'Roger Bontemps en Belle Humeur,' Cologne, 1708, pp. 64-5; ' Nouveaux Contes a rire; ou, Recreations FranQoises,' Amsterdam, 1741, p. 184, copied from 'Roger Bontemps ' or some common source; Uhland ' Volkslieder : Der Schreiber im Garten ' , KpvTrraSta, vol. i., ' Contes Secrets Russes,' 77; the monograph by Mr. W. Henry Schofield, 'The Source and History of the Seventh Novel of the Seventh Day in the Decameron,' in 'Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature,' vol. ii., 1893; an episode in the romance of 'Baudouin de Sebourg'; and a legendary trait in the life of the Emperor Henry IV., taken into the ' De Bello Saxonico,' chaps, vi.-vii., and subsequently repeated, not without curious modifications, by different