Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/192

Rh stray waifs and legends of the past. In the New Forest Sir Bevis of Southampton is no mythical personage, and the peasant will tell how the Knight used to take his afternoon's walk, across the Solent, from Leap to the Island.

Here in the Forest still dwell fairies. The mischievous sprite, Laurence, still holds men by his spell and makes them idle. If a peasant is lazy, it is proverbially said, "Laurence has got upon him," or, "He has got a touch of Laurence." He is still regarded with awe, and barrows are called after him. Here, too, in the Forest still lives Shakspeare's Puck, a veritable being, who causes the Forest colts to stray, carrying out word for word Shakspeare's description,—

This tricksy fairy, so the Forest peasant to this hour firmly believes, inhabits the bogs, and draws people into them, making merry, and laughing at their misfortunes, fulfilling his own roundelay—

Only those who are eldest born are exempt from his spell. The proverb of "as ragged as a colt Pixey" is everywhere to be heard, and at which Drayton seems to hint in his Court of Faerie:—

He does not, however, in the Forest, so much skim the milk, or 174