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JUXE, 1874.)
ARCHÆOLOGICAL NOTES.
161
lanes, listening to gipsy talk, before stealing run home and fetch one; and, that he might into Charlecote Park; and we may venture to know the spot again, he took off one of his red add that "Kaulopen" may not improbably origi- garters and tied it round the boliaun. nate from that commonest of Tamil low-caste "I suppose,' said the Fairy, very civilly, names, Kårüppăn, signifying "black fellow." 'you've no further occasion for me?' III.- Folklore.
"No,' says Tom, you may go away now, Of late years the researches of mythologists and may good luck attend you wherever you and gatherers of folk-lore have disclosed, in the go! most interesting way, how all popular fairy-tales "Well, good-bye to you, Tom,' said the and nursery stories have been current amongst Fairy, and much good may you do with what all Aryan nations from the remotest antiquity. you'll get ! More or less modified, the same old root-stories "So Tom ran for the dear life till he came appear in all languages and countries. Fairy home, and got a spade, and then away with tales and nursery legends, varied in accom- him, as hard as he could go back to the field paniments according to customs and climate, of boliaung; but when he got there, lo and are told in the same way from extremest Westbehold! not a boliaun but had a red garter, the to remotest East, from Ireland to Japan. An very identical model of his own, tied about it; example or two may be not without interest. and as to digging up the whole field, that was In that most delightful of all collections of all nonsense, for there was more than forty fairy stories, Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends good Irish acres in it. So Tom came home and Traditions of the South of Ireland, we find again with his spade on his shoulder, a little several most racy stories of the wily fairy who cooler than he went; and many's the hearty knows where the pot of treasure is concealed. curse he gave the Fairy every time he thought His general appearance is that of a shrivelled, of the neat turn he had served him.” pigmy old man, and if surprised and caught by Compare with the foregoing a legend given any mortal may be forced by threats to disclose | by Mr. W. R. Holmes, in his Sketches on the where the pot is hidden; only if whilst show- Shore of the Caspian, as current at Semnûn, in ing it he can get his captor's eyes turned from Persia, respecting a quarrel between Shem and him for an instant, he has the power of dis- Ham and the Guebres. The latter are said to appearing Tom, an Irish peasant, coming have pursued the prophets with intent to plunder home one evening, had surprised and seized them, and were about to overtake them on a one of these crafty beings, and threatened him plain, when the earth opened and closed upon with all sorts of horrors if he did not show them and their treasure. Nightfall being near, where his money was. The rest of the story the Guebres placed a small heap of stones on may be told in C. Croker's inimitable way :- the spot where they had disappeared, and
“Tom looked so wicked and bloody-minded returned next morning to dig them out, but to that the little man was quite frightened; so, their confusion found the whole plain covered says he, Come along with me a couple of fields with similar heaps of stones; so returned off, and I'll show you a crock (pot) of gold.' disappointed.
"So they went, and Tom held the Fairy fast Again in the Legend of Bottle-Hill," in the in his hand, and never took his eyes from off Croker collection, a peasant distressed for rent him, though they had to cross hedges and ditches | meets a Fairy on a hill, who gives him a bottle, and a crooked bit of bog (for the Fairy seemed, which the peasant takes home, puts on the out of pure mischief, to pick out the hardest ground, and on pronouncing, as instructed by and most contrary way), till at last they came the Fairy, "Bottle, do your duty two tiny to a great field all full of boliauns (ragweed, a maanikins rose like light from the buttle, and large plant growing abundantly on waste laud), in an instant covered the table with dishes and the Fairy pointed to a big boliarn, and and plates of gold and silver full of the finest says he, Dig under that boliaun and you'll get victuals, and when all was done went into the the great crock all fall of guineas.'
bottle again; the wealth thus obtained was soon “Tom in his hurry had never minded the spent, and the peasant, contrary to express inbringing a spade with him; so he thought to junction, sold the bottle, and then, poor as before,
