Source.—Henderson's Folk-Lore of Northern Counties, pp. 258-62 of Folk-Lore Society's edition. I have abridged and to some extent rewritten.
Parallels.—This in its early part is a parallel to the Tom Tit Tot, which see. The latter part is more novel, and is best compared with the Grimms' Spinners.
Remark.—Henderson makes out of Habetrot a goddess of the spinning-wheel, but with very little authority as it seems to me.
LXXXII. OLD MOTHER WIGGLE WAGGLE
Source.—I have inserted into Halliwell's version one current in Mr. Batten's family, except that I have substituted "Wiggle-Waggle" for "Slipper-Slopper." The two versions supplement one another.
Remarks.—This is a pure bit of animal satire, which might have come from a rural Jefferies with somewhat more of wit than the native writer.
LXXXIII. CATSKIN
Source.—From the chap-book reprinted in Halliwell I have introduced the demand for magic dresses from Chambers's Rashie Coat, into which it had clearly been interpolated from some version of Catskin.
Parallels.—Miss Cox's admirable volume of variants of Cinderella also contains seventy-three variants of Catskin, besides thirteen "indeterminate" ones which approximate to that type. Of these eighty-six, five exist in the British Isles, two chap-books given in Halliwell and in Dixon's Songs of English Peasantry, two by Campbell, Nos. xiv. and xiva, "The King who Wished to Marry his Daughter," and one by Kennedy's Fireside Stories, "The Princess in the Catskins." Goldsmith knew the story by the name of "Catskin," as he refers to it in the Vicar. There is a fragment from Cornwall in Folk-Lore, i., App. p. 149.
Remarks.—Catskin, or the Wandering Gentlewomen, now exists in English only in two chap-book ballads. But Chambers's first variant of Rashie Coat begins with the Catskin formula in a euphemised form. The full formula may be said to run in abbreviated form—Death-bed promise—Deceased wife's resemblance marriage test—Unnatural father (desiring to marry his own daughter)—Helpful animal—Counter tasks—Magic dresses—Heroine flight—Heroine disguise—Menial heroine—Meeting-place—Token objects named—Threefold flight—Lovesick prince—Recognition ring—Happy marriage. Of these the chap-book versions contain scarcely anything of the opening motifs. Yet they existed in England, for Miss Isabella Barclay, in a variant which Miss Cox has overlooked (Folk-Lore, i., l.c.), remembers having heard the Unnatural Father incident from a Cornish servant-girl. Campbell's two versions also contain the incident, from which one of them receives its name. One wonders in what form Mr. Burchell knew Catskin, for "he gave the [Primrose] children the Buck of Beverland,[[3]] with the history of Patient Grissel, the adventures of Catskin and the Fair Rosamond's Bower" (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, c. vi.). Pity that "Goldy" did not tell the story himself, as he had probably heard it in Ireland, where Kennedy gives a poor version in his Fireside Stories.