caudam gerit, &c.]
These three hexameters are, it would seem, the composition of Dundas.
“After this saynt austyn entryd in to dorsetshyre, and came in to a towne where as were wycked peple & refused his doctryne and prechyng vtterly & droof hym out of the towne castyng on hym the tayles of thornback or like fisshes, wherfore he besought almyghty god to shewe his jugement on them, and god sente to them a shameful token, for the chyldren that were borne after in that place had tayles as it is sayd, tyl they had repented them. It is sayd comynly that thys fyl at strode in kente, but blessyd be god at this day is no suche deformyte.” The lyf of saynt Austyn,—Golden Legende, fol. clxxiiii. ed. 1483. See too Nova Legenda Anglie (by Capgrave), 1516. fol. xxx.
“Anglos quosdam caudatos esse.
Svspicabar quod de Anglorum caudis traditur, nugatorium esse, nec hoc meminissem loco, nisi ipsi Anglicarum rerum conditores id serio traderent: nasci videlicet homines, instar brutorum animalium caudatos apud Strodum Angliæ vicum, ad ripam fluuii Meduciæ, qui Roffensem, siue Rocestrensem agrum alluit. Narrantque eius vici incolas, iumento quod D. Thomas Canthuariensis episcopus insideret, per ludibrium caudam amputasse, ob idque diuina vltione adnatas incolis eius loci caudas: vt in hos fatidici regis carmen torqueri possit: Percussit eos (inquit) in posteriora eorum, opprobrium sempiternum dedit illis. De huiusmodi caudis quidam in hunc modum lusit:
Fertur equo Thomæ caudam obtruncasse Britannos,
Hinc Anglos caudas constat hubere breueis.”
Anglicæ Descriptionis compendium, Per Gulielmum Paradinum Cuyselliensem, 1545. p. 69.
On the proverbial expression Kentish Long-Tailes, Fuller has the following remarks. “Let me premise, that those are much mistaken who first found this Proverb on a Miracle of Austin the Monk.... I say they are much mistaken, for the Scæne of this Lying Wonder was not laied in any Part of Kent, but pretended many miles off, nigh Cerne in Dorsetshire. To come closer to the sence of this Proverb, I conceive it first of outlandish extraction, and cast by forraigners as a note of disgrace on all the English, though it chanceth to stick only on the Kentish at this Day. For when there happened in Palestine a difference betwixt Robert brother of Saint Lewis King of France and our William Longspee Earle of Salisbury, heare how the French-man insulted over our nation:
Matthew Paris. Anno Dom. 1250. pag. 790.