FOLK LORE.
"Nettle in Dock out" (Vol. iii., p. 133.).—If your correspondent will refer to The Literary Gazette, March 24, 1849, No. 1679., he will find that I gave precisely the same explanation of that obscure passage of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, lib. iv., in a paper which I contributed to the British Archæological Association.
Fras. Crossley.
[We will add two further illustrations of this passage of Chaucer, and the popular rhyme on which it is founded. The first is from Mr. Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Use in Wiltshire, where we read—
"When a child is stung, he plucks a dock-leaf, and laying it on the part affected, sings—
'Out 'ettle
In dock
Dock shall ha a new smock;
'Ettle zhant
Ha' narrun.'"
Then follows a reference by Mr. Akerman to the passage in Troilus and Creseide.—Our second illustration is from Chaucer himself, who, in his Testament of Love (p. 482 ed. Urry), has the following passage:
"Ye wete well Ladie eke (quoth I), that I have not plaid raket, Nettle in, Docke out, and with the weathercocke waved."
Mr. Akerman's work was, we believe, published in
1846; and, at all events, attention was called to these passages in the Athenæum of the l2th September in that year, No. 985.]
Soul separates from the Body.—In Vol. ii., p. 506., is an allusion to an ancient superstition, that the human soul sometimes leaves the body of a sleeping person and takes another form; allow me to mention that I remember, some forty years ago, hearing a servant from Lincolnshire relate a story of two travellers who laid down by the road-side to rest, and one fell asleep. The other, seeing a bee settle on a neighbouring wall and go into a little hole, put the end of his staff in the hole, and so imprisoned the bee. Wishing to pursue his journey, he endeavoured to awaken his companion, but was unable to do so, till, resuming his stick, the bee flew to the sleeping man and went into his ear. His companion then awoke him, remarking how soundly he had been sleeping, and asked what had he been dreaming of? "Oh!" said he, "I dreamt that you shut me up in a dark cave and I could not awake till you let me out." The person who told me the story firmly believed that the man's soul was in the bee.
F. S.
Lady's Trees.—In some parts of Cornwall, small branches of sea-weed, dried and fastened in turned wooden stands, are set up as ornaments on the chimney-piece, &c. The poor people suppose that they preserve the house from fire, and they are known by the name of "Lady's trees," in honour, I presume, of the Virgin Mary.
H. G. T.
Launceston.
Norfolk Folk Lore Rhymes.—I have met with the rhymes following, which may not be uninteresting to some of your readers as Folk Lore, Norfolk:—
"Rising was, Lynn is, and Downham shall be,
The greatest seaport of the three."
Another version of the same runs thus:
"Risin was a seaport town,
And Lynn it was a wash,
But now Lynn is a seaport Lynn,
And Rising fares the worst."
Also another satirical tradition in rhyme:
"That nasty stinking sink-hole of sin,
Which the map of the county denominates Lynn."
Also:
"Caistor was a city ere Norwich was none,
And Norwich was built of Caistor stone."
John Nurse Chadwick.
King's Lynn.