9
And they grew, and they grew, to the very church-top,
Until they could grow no higher,
And twisted and twined in a true-lover’s knot,
Which made all the parish admire.
90. Jellon Grame.
P. 303 b, 513 b, III, 515 b, IV, 479 b. Precocious growth.
The French romance of Alexander. Albéric de Besançon: Alexander had more strength when three days old than other children of four months; he walked and ran better from his first year than any other child from its seventh. (The same, nearly, in Lamprecht, vv. 142-4: he throve better in three days than any other child of three months; 178-80, in his first year his strength and body waxed more than another’s in three.) MS. de l’Arsenal: the child grew in vitality and knowledge more in seven years than others do in a hundred. MS. de Venise: he grew more in body and knowledge in eight years than others in a hundred. P. Meyer, Alexandre le Grand, I, 5, v. 56 f., 6, v. 74 f., 27, v. 39 f., 240, v. 53 f. ‘Plus sot en x jors que i. autres en c:’ Michelant, p. 8, v. 20. A similar precocity is recorded of the Chinese Emperor Schimong: Gützlaff, Geschichte der Chinesen, hrsgg. v. Neumann, S. 19, cited by Weismann, Lamprecht’s Alexander, I, 432.
In the romance of Mélusine it is related how, after her disappearance in serpent-form, she was seen by the nurses to return at night and care for her two infant sons, who, according to the earliest version, the prose of Jehan d’Arras, grew more in a week than other children in a month: ed. Brunet, 1854, p. 361. The same in the French romance, l. 4347 f., the English metrical version, l. 4035-37, and in the German Volksbuch. (H. L. Koopman.)
Tom Hickathrift “was in length, when he was but ten years of age, about eight foot, and in thickness five foot, and his hand was like unto a shoulder of mutton, and in all parts from top to toe he was like a monster.” The History of Thomas Hickathrift, ed. by G. L. Gomme, Villon Society, 1885, p. 2. (G. L. K.)