It is pleasant to see so many of the correspondents of "N. & Q." joining in the remonstrance against the anonymous system. Were one to set about accumulating the reasons for the abandonment of pseudo-names and initials, many of the valuable columns of this periodical might be easily filled; such an essay it is not, however, my intention to inflict on its readers, who by a little thought can easily do for themselves more than a large effusion of ink on the part of any correspondent could effect. I shall content myself with recounting the good which, in one instance, has resulted from a knowledge of the real name and address of a contributor.
The Rev. H. T. Ellacombe (one of the first to raise his voice against the use of pseudo-names) having observed in "N. & Q." many communications evincing no ordinary acquaintance with the national Records of Ireland, and wishing to enter into direct communication with the writer (who merely signed himself J. F. F.), put a Query in the "Notices to Correspondents," begging J. F. F. to communicate his real name and address. There in all probability the matter would have ended, as J. F. F. did not happen to take "N. & Q.," but that the writer of these lines chanced to be aware, that under the above given initials lurked the name of the worthy, the courteous, the erudite, and, yet more strange still, the unpaid guardian of the Irish Exchequer Records—James Frederick Ferguson,—a name which many a student of Irish history will recognise with warm gratitude and unfeigned respect. Now it had so happened that by a strange fortune Mr. Ellacombe was the repository of information as to the whereabouts of certain of the ancient Records of Ireland (see Mr. Ellacombe's notice of the matter, Vol. viii., p. 5.), abstracted at some former period from the "legal custody" of some heedless keeper, and sold by a Jew to a German gentleman, and the result of his communicating this knowledge to Mr. Ferguson, has been the latter gentleman's "chivalrous" and successful expedition for their recovery. The English Quarterly Review (not Magazine, as Mr. Ellacombe inadvertently writes), in a forthcoming article on the Records of Ireland, will, it is to be hoped, give the full details of this exciting record hunt, and thus exemplify the great utility, not to speak of the manliness, of real names and addresses, versus false names and equally Will-o'-the-Wisp initials.
James Graves.
Kilkenny.
POPULAR STORIES OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY.
(Vol. v., p. 363. &c.)
Will you allow me, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to say how much obliged I should be for any communications on this subject. Since I last addressed you (about a year ago) I have received many interesting contributions towards my proposed collection; but not, I regret to say, quite to the extent I had anticipated. My own researches have been principally confined to the midland counties, and I have very little from the north or east. Such a large field requires many gleaners, and I hope your correspondents learned in Folklore will not be backward in lending their aid to complete a work which Scott, Southey, and a host of illustrious names, have considered a desideratum in our national antiquities.
I propose to divide the tales into three classes—Mythological, Humorous, and Nurse-tales. Of the mythological I have already given several specimens in your journal, but I will give the following, as it illustrates another link in the transmission of Mr. Keightley's Hindustani legend, which appeared in a recent Number. It is from Northamptonshire.
The Bogie and the Farmer.