Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/195

 Rh pass Pat's cottage; the beggar, running out and stopping the colt, unstrapped the old lady. The master had her buried the third time, and appointed twelve men to watch over her, Pat and the beggar among them. About midnight Pat and the beggar began crying, "Here she is rising"; and all ran away. Next morning the master asked how they got on, and the beggar replied they were the cowardliest lot of men he ever met, except one, alluding to Pat; at the same time pretending he never knew him before. Then Pat and the beggar entered into an agreement that they would watch over the grave for half the money and property he -possessed. The master agreed, and the old lady was very easily kept down. Afterwards, the beggar took the money and went away; and Pat began a new life, and got on very prosperously.

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MAY-CHAFER AND SPRING SONGS IN GERMANY.

HE Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco having spoken, in her interesting article of last month, of the May-chafer and Lady-bird ditties of Germany, I think I should mention that there is good reason to believe that the word "Pommer-land" (Pomerania), in the song alluded to, is evidently a late corruption. There are several versions of that children's song. In one of them, "Engelland" is brought in; which may mean either England, or the Land of the Angels. Perhaps, for the solution of the question, I may be allowed to quote what I wrote in Freia-Holda, the Teutonic Goddess of Love, in the Cornhill Magazine of May, 1872.

Having referred to the Lady-bird, the hallowed messenger of that German Aphrodite, I said:—