Whilst in the north wall of Rouen Cathedral is the tomb of an early archbishop, who having accidentally killed a man by hitting him with a soup ladle, because the soup given by the servant to the poor was of an inferior quality, thought himself unworthy of a resting-place within the church, and disliking to be buried without, was interred in the wall itself.
Miraculous Cures for Lameness.—The holy well Y fynnon fair, or Our Lady's Well, near Pont yr allt Gôch, close to the Elwy, has to this day the reputation of curing lameness so thoroughly, that those who can reach it walking on crutches may fling their crutches away on their return home. Welsh people still come several miles over the hills to this holy spring. A whole family was there when I visited its healing waters last month.
The same virtue is ascribed at Rouen to a walk to the altar at St. Katherine's Church, at the top of St. Katherine's Hill, where the cast-off crutches have been preserved. In the latter case something less than a miracle may account for the possibility of going away without crutches; for they may be required to mount to a lofty eminence, and may well be dispensed with on coming down: but as this supposition would lessen the value of a tradition implicitly believed, of course all sensible men will reject it at once.
Wm. Durant Cooper.
81. Guilford Street.
PIXEY LEGENDS.
In reference to your correspondent H.G.T.'s article on pixies (Vol. ii., p. 475.), allow me to say that I have read the distich which he quotes in a tale to the following effect:—In one of the southern counties of England—(all the pixey tales which I have heard or read have their seat laid in the south of England)—there lived a lass who was courted and wed by a man who, after marriage, turned out to be a drunkard, neglecting his work, which was that of threshing, thereby causing his pretty wife to starve. But after she could bear this no longer, she dressed herself in her husband's clothes (whilst he slept off the effects of his drunkenness), and went to the barn to do her husband's work. On the morning of the second day, when she went to the barn, she found a large pile of corn threshed, which she had not done; and so she found, for three or four days, her pile of corn doubled. One night she determined to watch and see who did it, and carrying her intention into practice, she saw a little pixey come into the barn with a tiny flail, with which he set to work so vigorously that he soon threshed a large quantity. During his work he sang,
"Little Pixey, fair and slim,
Without a rag to cover him."