“Tells how the drudging goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set;”
the task he set himself in recompense for the attention shown him being the threshing during the night of as much corn as would have required the labour of ten men. What thrifty housewife would grudge a bowl of milk or cream for so great a reward!
Queen Mab shares with Robin his functions as critic of household management, for it will be remembered that in the “English Parnassus” we find her described as—
“She that pinches country wenches
If they rub not clean their benches;
And with sharper nail remembers,
When they rake not up their embers.
And if so they chance to feast her,
In their shoe she drops a tester.”
Housewives would see their account in keeping such a belief vividly before the eyes of their serving-maids, and may even themselves have sometimes dropped a tester where their diligent hand-maidens would fancy it a fairy-reward for their zeal in her service, while the vague threats of fairy vengeance would come in most opportunely in support of their own chidings of the careless and indolent.
We turn, in conclusion, to the fourth class, the evil spirits of the water and the storm. Of such is the Cornish Bucca, a weird goblin of the winds, whose scream was heard amid the roar of the elements as some gallant vessel was hurled to destruction on the rocks. In Ireland the same creature was the dreaded Phoca or Pooka, in Wales the Pwcca, while in Scottish legends it is the Kelpie. The creature sometimes assumed the human form, and at others that of the eagle or the horse; thus in Graham’s “Sketches of Perthshire” we read—“Every lake has its kelpie or water-horse, often seen by the shepherd sitting upon the brow of a rock, dashing along the surface of the deep, or browsing upon the pasture on its verge.” The Nech is a similar creature in the folk-lore of Scandinavia. In Wales we meet with the belief in a creature called Cyoeraeth, so named, we are told, from its deadly chilling voice. We find it thus described in an old book:—“The Cyoeraeth is a being in the dress of a female, with tangled hair, a bloodless and ghastly countenance, long black teeth, and withered arms of great length;” in short, it is invested with a description which conveys to the mind the idea of a blasted tree as compared to the flourishing monarch of the forest, rather than as possessing the similitude of anything human. This being (fortunately for the people) seldom made itself visible, but its scream or shriek at night had a terrible and overpowering effect on all who heard it. It generally foreboded death or fearful disaster, and always occurred when the spirit approached a cross road or drew near to a river or llyn, when it would commence to splash and agitate the water with its long bloodless hands, wailing all the time so as to ‘make night hideous.’ Those who heard its dreary moaning (or thought they did, the case doubtless of the majority) fled in horror, fearing for their reason, while many were really affected in mind, and ever after had the shriek resounding in memory.
In Brecon a romantic gorge called the Cwm Pwcca bears record in its name of the old belief in the phoca. As a justification of its title we read the following story:—A countryman was wandering in the darkest of dreary winter nights in vain endeavour to find the path that would have guided him to his home, when he saw a light before him on the dreary waste, which he naturally took for the lantern of some wayfarer. He quickened his steps and made for it. As he rapidly neared it he was on the point of hailing its bearer when the roar of waters smote his ear in the silence of the night, and, barely arresting his steps in time, he found himself at the edge of a lofty chasm, the awful gulf at the base of which the torrent was sweeping with resistless fury. At this instant the bearer of the lantern took a flying leap to the opposite side of the gorge, burst into a scornful and unearthly peal of laughter, and vanished from the eyes of the affrighted rustic.
The ignis fatuus, will-of-the-wisp, or Jack o’ lantern was doubtless at the bottom of such a story as this, and in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” we find the following powerful illustrative passage, referring both to the natural phenomenon and the myth built upon it:—
“‘Lead, then,’ said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight,
To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and Joy
Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire,
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
Which oft, they say, some evil spirit tends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads the amazed night wanderer from his way,
To bogs and mires, and oft through ponds or pool;
There swallowed up and lost, from succour far,
So glistered the dire snake.”
In the same author’s poem of “L’Allegro” we find the will-of-the-wisp again referred to, this time under the title of “Friar’s lantern;” while Sir Walter Scott in his “Marmion” writes—