Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/159

 THE FOLK-LORE OF DU AYTON. 151

The same authority would also have us believe that *' the holy springs " of Harlweston,* — one salt, the other sweet, that good for dimness of sight, this for disorder of skin, — are the essences of two nymphs beloved of sylvan deities, who in fond remembrance of the fair ones bestowed on the waters the healing qualities for which they are still locally respected.

It would be ultra crepidam for me to inquire whether Drayton himself credited such tales as these and others that I might repeat f until time should fail; but I would that I knew which of them he made " out of his own head." The account of the parting of Marceley Hill,J how that it burst asunder in vexation at not being invited to the wedding of Lug and Wye, was probably one of them ; for the earthquake which happened at the same time as the land- slip took place § in Drayton's day, and a tradition would hardly have rooted concerning it as early as 1612, when the first instalment of Polyolhion was printed. To the credit of this myth, then, I think Drayton may very fairly lay claim. What tale they tell in the West- Country about Marceley in this present year of grace I have no means of hearing ; but I venture to assert that here was a germ of folk-lore which the more favourable conditions of earlier ages than those in which Drayton sang would not have permitted to perish.


 * Pol. xxii. [iii. 1058, 9].

t Exempli gratia: the fourteen daughters of Brecan were turned into as many rivers, which, in all their maiden purity, fall into the Severn — " And from the seas with fear they still do fly, So much they yet delight in maiden company." — Pol. iv. [ii, 728]. Tenet (Thanet) was a daughter of Albion, and when he went to Gaul to fight with Alcides, of whose fame he was emulous, she was only kept from following by the widening of a channel which might before be crossed afoot. — [Pol. xviii. [iii 1020]. Rolright Stones, near Towcester, are, Drayton says {Pol. xiii. [iii. 925] ):

" A witness of the day we won upon the Danes." On which Selden, annotating the Polyolhion, remarks somewhat contemptuously, methinks " He means Rollritch Stones ... of which the vulgar there have a fabulous tradition that they are an army of men, and I know not what great general among them, converted into stone not having his superior in the ranks of untruths " [iii. 925].

X Pol.yn. [ii. 788; note, 794].

§ Selden's note says in 1575; another authority in 1671. In Cider, book i. Philips recommends apple-growers to distrust this '* deceitful ground."