Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/162

154 appears as a dwarfish old man engaged in making shoes, and who, as the supposed guardian of treasure, is watched for and sometimes caught by money-wanting mortals. He always manages to evade his captors; but "he seems to be in great terror when under arrest," &c.; probably it may be then that he executes his moans, as it is characteristic of the Leprechaun that " hoarse cackling laughter is generally heard from him when he has safely escaped from a person's grasp."

The spell worked successfully, and poor Hobgoblin came to grief. As soon as ever he entered the charmed circle he felt a pain in his "head-piece"; he reeled about; he went astray; he tore himself amongst briars and brambles; and then he fell into a muddy ditch, and was well-nigh choked. He yelled and roared so heartily that Mab woke in alarm, which ended in laughter when Nymphidia told her what had happened.

During all this time Pigwiggen was gadding distraught about the fields, crying out defiance to Oberon, and proclaiming the immaculateness of his lady's honour, which he desired to prove to everybody by ordeal of arms. He harnessed himself in a coat-of-mail made of the scale of a fish; his helmet was a beetle's head fearsome to look upon, with its floating plume of a single horse-hair, a cockle-shell served him for shield, and his weapons of offence were a rush-spear pointed with a horse-fly's tongue, and rapier consisting of a hornet's sting; this

Mounted on a mettlesome earwig Pigwiggen met with Tomalin, a sometime valiant knight akin to Oberon. By him he sent his challenge, and ere long all fairyland was talking of the coming