Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/87

Rh As I saw at his feet the bones of the cow, And beheld on his hair the plumes of our bird, That partridge so wise, our friend and our guide, What else can I say than 'slain is he now'?"

Then the lion asked the man, "Did you murder the partridge, our teacher?" "Yes, sir," he replied.

When he had heard those truthful words of his he was desirous of letting him go, but the tiger-king, seizing him with his teeth, dug a hole (in his throat) and then threw him off, saying, "This wicked fellow deserves to be put to death."

When the brâhman-youths came back (to the hermitage) and saw not their teacher, the partridge, they departed, weeping and wailing bitterly.

E will now go through Polyolbion and pick out some specimens of what I may call topic folk-lore, as well as all the local proverbs and sayings that we can lay our hands upon. As regards topical folk-lore I must again remark, that Drayton's flights of fancy often make it difficult for one who knows considerably less than everything to judge whether he is merely repeating an old wife's fable or is telling one invented for the occasion with an eye to literary graces. Here are a few samples which are not of his own make.

The very credible tradition that Scilly was once part of the