[131] Jones's Relics of the Welsh bards, p. 75, where there is an old Welsh song, or Englyn on the subject.
[132] See Le Grand, Fabliaux et contes, ii. 426, who quotes the Tartarian tales for a similar story.
[133] See the exempla at the end of the Sermones discipuli, ex. ix. de. B. The Sermones fratris Gulielmi Cartusiensis, 1494, 12mo, sig. V. 7 b. An ancient collection of Latin sermons in the Harl. coll. No. 5396. See likewise A christen exhortation unto customable swearers, at the end of The christen state of matrimonye, 1543, 12mo, p. 28, the author of which cites the Preceptorium Johannis Beets, a German preacher about 1450; and Burton's Unparellelled varieties, p. 21.
[134] From Memorandums in India by John Marshall, beginning Sep. 11th, 1678, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 4523. The above person appears to have been a very curious and intelligent traveller, and many of his observations on the manners of the Indians would be exceedingly well worth publishing. Marshall was educated at Cambridge, had a great desire to travel, and by the interest of Lord Craven, went out 1667, in the India ship the Unicorn, in the Company's service.
[135] The whole of Occleve's poem may be seen in MS. Reg. 17 D. vi. with the moralisation, omitted by Browne, who has otherwise mutilated the poem.
[136] One reason for suspecting it might have originated in the East is that it forms the subject of one of the old French fabliaux, many of which came in with the Crusades. See Sinner, Catal. des MSS. de Berne, iii. 389. It has been likewise imitated by La Harpe in his Pied de nez. Some traces of resemblance may be found in the stories of Ahmed, and the enchanted horse in the Arabian nights entertainments.
[137] This incident has been introduced into the popular old ballad of The children in the wood.
[138] This was a common practice in the times of chivalry, and many examples of it may be found in ancient romances. The ladies not only assisted in bathing the knights, after the fatigues of battle, but administered proper medicines to heal their wounds. Similar instances occur in the writings of Homer. In the Odyssey, Polycaste, one of the daughters of Nestor, bathes Telemachus; and it appears that Helen herself had performed the like office for Ulysses.
[139] The incident of the weasel in this story is manifestly borrowed from a similar relation in the chronicle of Helinandus, a monk of the twelfth century, from which it is inserted in Wierus De præstigiis dæmonum, lib. i. cap. 14, as in allusion of the devil.
[140] Coll. of old ballads, vol. i. No. xiii.