Titania, "a spirit of no common rate," is yet subject to passion and jealousy, and had a mortal friend, "a votaress of my order."[91]
The fairy of folk-lore in Shakespeare's day is nearly everything that the fairies of A Midsummer-Night's Dream are; we may possibly except their exiguity, their relations in love with mortals, and their hymeneal functions. His conception of their size as infinitesimal at least differs from that of the popular stories, where (as far as can be ascertained) they are shown to be about the size of mortal children.
We may conclude these remarks with the modern Irish-Catholic theory of the origin of the fairies:—
"When Lucifer saw himself in the glass, he thought himself equal with God. Then the Lord threw him out of Heaven, and all the angels that belonged to him. While He was 'chucking them out,' an archangel asked Him to spare some of them, and those that were falling are in the air still, and have power to wreck ships, and to work evil in the world."[92]
OBERON'S VISION.
A Midsummer-Night's Dream, like too many other plays of Shakespeare, has been unable to escape the inquisition of "deuteroscopists"—those who are always on the look-out for historical and other allusions. The dainty passage (II. i. 148-174), in which Oberon gives Puck directions how and where to find the magic herb that works the transformations of love in the rest of the play, appears to contain a reference to Elizabeth as "a fair vestal throned by the west" and "the imperial votaress." So much may be reasonably granted; but Warburton in his edition proceeded to identify "the mermaid on a dolphin's back" with Mary Queen of Scots, the dolphin of course being the Dauphin, and so forth. This interpretation of the alleged secret allegory was displaced in 1843 by one rather more plausible—though still needlessly fantastic.
Oberon's Vision, by the Rev. N.J. Halpin (Shakespeare Society, 1843) attempts to prove that in composing this passage Shakespeare was referring to the Earl of Leicester's attempt to win Elizabeth's hand, when she visited him at Kenilworth in 1575; the mermaid, uttering dulcet and harmonious breath, so that the rude sea grows civil, and the stars that shot from their spheres, are explained, by parallel passages from contemporary accounts, as parts of the pageant or "Princely Pleasures" which formed the Queen's entertainment. The Earl was simultaneously intriguing with Lettice, Countess of Essex, who ultimately became his wife; and it is she who, according to the Rev. Halpin, is intended by the "little western flower"; to him the passage means:—
"Cupid, on behalf of the Earl of Leicester, loosed an arrow at Queen Elizabeth; but the Virgin Queen's maidenhood was so unassailable that the bolt missed her, hitting the Countess of Essex, who succumbed."
In other words, Shakespeare mentions the Queen only in order to point out her rival's success!
It is as unnecessary to discuss the degrees of probability in Halpin's identifications as it was for him to elaborate them. Certainly it is likely that Shakespeare intended a compliment to his queen; it is possible that the "mermaid on a dolphin's back" was a reminiscence of a pageant which he might have visited Kenilworth at the age of eleven to see; and it may be true that he meant to hint at Leicester.
On the other hand, I think that another explanation is more obvious and more rational. Shakespeare had to introduce into his play the magic herb which was to alter the loves of those into whose eyes it was squeezed. We may reasonably guess that he had read somewhere one of the many popular legends that explain why the violet is purple, why the rose is red, etc.; there are some in Ovid's Metamorphoses[93] which Shakespeare read in Golding's translation. He saw an opportunity of paying a graceful compliment to Elizabeth by saying that the magic flower, once white, had been empurpled by a shaft of Cupid's drawn at the fair vestal and imperial votaress, who yet passed on untouched;
"And maidens call it love-in-idleness"
—a popular name for the common pansy.
[1] For The Knightes Tale, see Prof. Skeat's edition (modern spelling) in the "King's Classics," and his excellent introduction.
[2] was named
[3] realm
[4] called
[5] were not
[6] besieged
[7] See Mr. R.B. McKerrow's note on Nashe's reference to the name in Have with You to Saffron-Walden (Works, iii. 111).
[8] See Statius, Thebais, I, 13-14, etc. (Chaucer refers to "Stace of Thebes," Knightes Tale, 1436.) Athamas, having incurred the wrath of Hera, was seized with madness, and slew his son Learchus. His wife Ino threw herself, with his other son Melicertes, into the sea, and both were changed into sea-deities, Ino becoming Leucothea, and Melicertes Palaemon, whom the Greeks held to be friendly to the shipwrecked. The Romans identified him with Portunus, the protector of harbours.
[9] See Skeat's The Knight's Tale, xi-xv.
[10] little.
[11] In this passage, Statius describes the meeting between Theseus, returning in triumph with Hippolyta, and the widows of those slain at the siege of Thebes, who complain that the tyrant Creon will not permit their husbands' bodies to be either burned or buried. This episode, as we shall see, is the opening of the Knightes Tale, and reappears in a modified form in The Two Noble Kinsmen.
[12] J. M. Rigg's introduction to his translation of the Decameron (1903)
[13] This opening, derived from Statius (see note, p. 13), serves merely to introduce the main story, much in the same way as the Theseus story in A Midsummer-Night's Dream is simply the "enveloping action" of the play.
[14] W.W. Greg's edition, i 19-20, ii. 168. Henslowe's dates for the performances are 17 September, 16 and 27 October, and November, 1594. Against the first entry are the much-discussed letters "ne," which appear to mark a new play. It will be seen that according to the theory that A Midsummer-Night's Dream belongs to the winter of 1594-5, this Palamon and Arcite play was performed immediately before.
[15] Professor Gollancz considers that Shakespeare had no hand in the play.
[16] Cf. I. i. 167 and IV. i. 129-30.
[17] It is perhaps fantastic to interpret too literally Arcite's song to May—"I hope that I som grene gete may"—but, however little of their primitive significance now remains, celebration of the rites of May is by no means extinct. See E.K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, I. 117: "their object is to secure the beneficent influence of the fertilization spirit by bringing the persons or places to be benefited into direct contact with the physical embodiment of that spirit."
Shakespeare's apparent confusion of a May-day with a Mid-summer-night may seem pardonable to the folk-lorist in the light of the fact that various folk-festivals appear to take place indiscriminately on May-day or Midsummer-day. See Chambers, op. cit. i. 114, 118, 126.
[18] Cf. III. ii. 331 and 401, etc.
[19] Cf. IV. i. 100-183.
[20] In V. i. 51.
[21] Reprinted in this book, p. 135.
[22] He might have added Lucius the Ass, a similar tale by Lucian of Samosata.
[23] Reprinted in this book, p. 139.
[24] Ovid, Met. iv. 55, sqq.
[25] See p. 73.
[26] Addl. MS. 15227, f. 56b.
[27] Faerie Queen, II. i. 6, II. x. 75.
[28] See A.W. Ward's English Dramatic Literature, i. 400, ii. 85.
[29] The Marchantes Tale, 983 (Skeat, E. 2227).
[30] A.H. Bullen's edition of Campion (1903), p. 20.
[31] Metamorphoses, iii. 173. Ovid, in the same work, uses "Titania" also as an epithet of Latona (vi. 346), Pyrrha (i. 395), and Circe (xiv. 382, 438). The fact that Golding gives "Phebe" as the translation of "Titania" in iii. 173, is a strong piece of evidence that Shakespeare sometimes at least read his Ovid in the Latin.
[32] Ed. Brinsley Nicholson, p. 32. Book III, chap. ii. (See p. 135.)
[33] Romeo and Juliet, I. iv, 53, sqq.
[34] In II. i. 40, "sweet puck" is no more a proper name than "Hobgoblin"; so also in l. 148 of the same scene. In neither case should the name be printed with a capital P.
[35] II. i. 34.
[36] V. i. 418, 421.
[37] Wright, English Dialect Dictionary, s.v. Puck, gives Scotland, Ireland, Derby, Worcester, Shropshire, Gloucester, Sussex and Hampshire as localities where the name is recorded.
[38] Text H in Child's Ballads, I. 352.
[39] Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1890), vol. ii, tales xxv, xxvi, etc.
[40] Ballads, I. 314, and note.
[41] M.N.D., II. i. 40. (See note on p. 37.)
[42] The Wyf of Bathe's Tale, at the beginning; and elsewhere.
[43] The Faerie Queene, chiefly in Book II, where in Canto X, stanzas 70-76, he gives a fictitious list of the generations of fairies; the first "Elfe" was the image made by Prometheus, to animate which he stole fire from heaven; the list ends with Oberon, and Tanaquil the Faerie Queen.
[44] Reprinted in this book, pp. 81-121.
[45] Mr. Chambers, in his edition of the play, Appendix A, § l8, gives (i) Tarlton's News out of Purgatory (1590) (see p. 63), (ii) Churchyard's Handfull of Gladsome Verses (1592) (see p. 141), (iii) Nashe's Terrors of the Night (1594).
[46] The word folk-lore has only been in existence sixty years, and the science is very little older; it was vaguely referred to as "popular antiquities" before that time.
[47] Alfred Nutt, The Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare (1900), p. 24. This little book is instructive and valuable.
[48] Nashe's Works, ed. R.B. McKerrow, i. 347.
[49] Gower, however, does so, as early as the fourteenth century; Confessio Amantis, ii. 371.
[50] The opening of the beautiful Helgi and Sigrun Lay as translated by Vigfusson and York Powell in Corpus Poeticum Boreale (1883), i. 131; see also the editors' Introduction, i. lxi, lxiv.
[51] Danish History, iii. 70, 77; vi. 181; cf. O. Elton's translation (1894), pp. 84, 93, 223, and York Powell's introduction thereto, lxiv.
[52] "It is worth noting that the Romance of Olger the Dane contains several late echoes of the old Helgi myth. a. The visit of the fairies by night to the new-born child ... e. His return to earth after death or disappearance ... Mark that Holgi is the true old form ... The old hero Holgi and the Carling peer Otgeir (Eadgar) are distinct persons confused by later tradition."—Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i. cxxx.
"The Fates ... bestow endowments on the new-born child, as in the beautiful Helge Lay ... a point of the story which survives in the Ogier of the Chansons de Geste, wherein Eadgar (Otkerus or Otgerus) gets what belonged to Holger (Holge), the Helga til of Beowulf's Lay."—Saxo, Danish History, lxiv.
[53] Cf. Child's Ballads, i. 319.
[54] In Huon of Bordeaux Merlin comes with King Arthur to Oberon's death-bed; Arthur introduces him as his nephew, the son of Ogier the Dane and "my sister Morgan."
[55] The mere mention of these subterranean explorations opens up an immense field of discussion and speculation that can here be only relegated to a note; we can treat at greater length none but those legends which bear directly on our subject. Odysseus visited Hades, Aeneas descended to Orcus or Tartarus, and they have their counterparts in every land and every mythology. Human aetiological tendencies supply explanations of any cavern or natural chasm—even a volcano must be the mouth of the entrance to hell or purgatory—from Taenarus, where Pluto carried off Proserpine, and the Sibyl's cavern, whence Aeneas sought the lower regions, to the famous Lough Dearg in Donegal, the entrance to "St. Patrick's Purgatory," and the Peak cavern in Derbyshire. The student may begin his researches with T. Wright's St. Patrick's Purgatory (1844). A very common tale in Celtic literature is that of the visit of some hero to the underworld and his seizure of some gift of civilisation—just as Prometheus stole fire from heaven.
[56] Ballads, loc. cit.
[57] A version of Fytte I will be found in this book, pp. 122-132.
[58] See Child's Ballads, No. 37, Thomas Rymer, i. 317-329; also the romance, Thomas of Erceldoune (E.E.T.S., 1875), where Prof. J.A.H. Murray prints all texts parallel, and adds a valuable introduction.
[59] A similar episode survives in a Breton folk-tale, cited by Professor Kittredge in Child's Ballads, iii. 504. In Huon of Bordeaux (E.E.T.S. edition, p. 265), Charlemagne mistakes Oberon for God.
[60] See Gummere, The Popular Ballad (1907), pp. 66-7.
[61] Cottonian, Caligula A. II. A later version is at the Bodleian, MS. Rawlinson C. 86, and a Scottish version in Cambridge University Library, MS. Kk. 5. 30.
[62] It was licensed to John Kynge the printer between 19 July 1557 and 9 July 1558. See Arber, Stationers' Registers, i. 79. Two fragments are in the Bodleian; see Hales and Furnivall, Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript (1867), i. 521-535.
[63] In this year it is mentioned, as having been amongst Captain Cox's books, in Laneham's famous Letter. See Shakespeare Library reprint, p. xxx.
[64] Brit. Mus. MS. Addl. 27,879; see Hales and Furnivall, Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, i. 142.
[65] Harl. 3810 (British Museum), printed by Ritson in Ancient English Metrical Romances (1802) ii. 248; the Auchinleck MS. (W. 4. 1, in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh), printed by D. Laing in Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland, iii; and Ashmolean 61 (Bodleian Library, Oxford), printed by Halliwell in his Fairy Mythology, p. 36. The three are collated by O. Zielke, Sir Orfeo (Breslau 1880), a fully annotated edition. The last is used here.
[66] A grafted fruit tree; here probably an apple.
[67] It may be seen in Child's Ballads, i. 215, with a full analysis of the romance, and in the present editor's Popular Ballads of the Olden Time, Second Series, p. 208.
[68] Ballads, i. 338-340; see also various "Additions and Corrections" in the later volumes, and s.v. Elf, Elves, etc. in the Index of Matters and Literature.
[69] Morte Darthur (ed. Sommer), vi. l. 3.
[71] See J.M. Synge, The Aran Islands (1907), p. 48, and A. Nutt, Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare, p. 22.
[72] See Synge, op. cit., p. 47.
[73] See his admirable article on Sir Orfeo in the American Journal of Philology, vii. 176-202. The Courtship of Etain may be seen in English, translated from the two versions in Egerton MS. 1782. and the "Leabhar na h-Uidhri"—an eleventh century Irish MS.—in Heroic Romances of Ireland, by A. H, Leahy, i. 7-32.
[74] A. Nutt, Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare, p. 12.
[75] Wyf of Bathe's Tale, 1-6.
[76] See A. Nutt, op. cit., pp. 16-17; and various authorities given by G.L. Kittredge, op. cit., p. 196 notes.
[77] Pronounced shee.
[78] Mr. Alfred Nutt (op. cit., pp. 19-23) is at pains to show the close association of the Tuatha Dé Danann with ritual of an agricultural-sacrificial kind, in the aspect they have assumed—"fairies"—to the modern Irish peasant. The Sidhe have fallen from the high estate of the romantic and courtly wooers and warriors, as they must once have fallen from the Celtic pantheon.
[79] Chap, xxv. (E.E.T.S. edition, 72). Oberon recites his history again in chap. lxxxiv. (p. 264).
[80] Chap. xxii. (E.E.T.S. edition, p. 65, sqq.).
[81] Cf. Child's Ballads, Nos. 2 (The Elfin Knight), 4 (Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight), 41 (Hina Etin), and perhaps 35 (Allison Gross), with his note on the last, l. 314, referring to No. 36 (The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea).
[84] Tarlton's News out of Purgatory, published by Robin Goodfellow (1590), Shakespeare Society reprint, p. 55.
[86] See the extracts from Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft and the Robin Goodfellow tract, pp. 133-140 and 81-121.
[87] Romeo and Juliet, I. iv. 33-94. See above, p. 37.
[88] Had I been able to find a book, Veridica relatio de daemonio Puck, referred to in the article Diable in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes (in Migne, tome 48, vol. i., p. 475), it might be that it would prove of great interest. In any case this allusion (pointed out to me by Mr. R.B. McKerrow) is an early instance of Puck used as a proper name.
[89] Abbreviated from E.K. Chambers' full analysis with references, Warwick Shakespeare edition of M.N.D. pp. 142-4.
[90] See II. i. 155.
[91] How far Shakespeare associated his fairy queen Titania with her nominal parent Diana, is a question that would make matter for an elaborate study in mythology and mysticism, and might yet lead to no result. Diana is Luna in the heavens; Lucina (the goddess of child-birth) and the Huntress on earth; and Hecate in the underworld, goddess of enchantments and nocturnal incantations, often also identified with Proserpina. Titania is a votaress of the moon; we have seen that fairies are intimately concerned with mortal babies, and that there is a fairy-hunt (see the quotation from James I's Demonology, p. 37 above); and we have also noted the confusion of Proserpina with the fairy-queen.—The Tuatha Dé Danann are said to be "the folk of Danu"—who is Danu? Hecate was called Trivia, on account of the above tripartition of Diana; her statues were set up where three roads met, and the fairy-queen in Thomas the Rhymer points out to him the three roads that lead to heaven, hell, and elf-land. Speculation is easily led astray.
[92] J.M. Synge, Aran Islands, p. 10.
[93] The metamorphosis of Hyacinthus, for instance, Bk. X, 162, sqq.; although there are others in the same book. See also the alteration in the mulberry caused by Pyramus' blood (pp. 77-80).
THE LEGEND OF PYRAMUS AND THISBE 73
ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW 81
THOMAS OF ERCELDOUNE 122
SCOT'S DISCOVERY OF WITCHCRAFT 133
'STRANGE FARLIES' 141
THE MAD MERRY PRANKS OF ROBIN 144
QUEEN MAB 149
THE FAIRIES' FAREWELL 151
THE FAIRY QUEEN 155
NYMPHIDIA 158
From Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1575), Book IV, ff. 52-3.
Within the town (of whose huge walls so monstrous high and thick,
The fame is given Semiramis for making them of brick)
Dwelt hard together two young folk, in houses joined so near,
That under all one roof well nigh both twain conveyéd were.
The name of him was Pyramus, and Thisbe call'd was she,
So fair a man in all the East was none alive as he.
Nor ne'er a woman, maid, nor wife in beauty like to her.
This neighbourhood bred acquaintance first, this neighbourhood first did stir
The secret sparks: this neighbourhood first an entrance in did show
For love, to come to that to which it afterward did grow.
And if that right had taken place they had been man and wife,
But still their parents went about to let[1] which (for their life)
They could not let. For both their hearts with equal flame did burn.
No man was privy to their thoughts. And for to serve their turn,
Instead of talk they uséd signs: the closelier they suppressed
The fire of love, the fiercer still it ragéd in their breast.
The wall that parted house from house had riven therein a cranny,
Which shrunk at making of the wall: this fault not marked of any
Of many hundred years before (what doth not love espy?)
These lovers first of all found out, and made a way whereby
To talk together secretly, and through the same did go
Their loving whisp'rings very light and safely to and fro.
Now as at one side Pyramus, and Thisbe on the tother
Stood often drawing one of them the pleasant breath from other:
O spiteful wall (said they) why dost thou part us lovers thus?
What matter were it if that thou permitted both of us
In arms each other to embrace? or if thou think that this
Were over-much, yet mightest thou at least make room to kiss.
And yet thou shalt not find us churls: we think ourselves in debt
For the same piece of courtesy, in vouching safe[2] to let
Our sayings to our friendly ears thus freely come and go.
Thus having where they stood in vain complainéd of their woe,
When night drew near they bade adieu, and each gave kisses sweet
Unto the parget[3] on their side the which did never meet.
Next morning with her cheerful light had driven the stars aside,
And Phoebus with his burning beams the dewy grass had dried,
These lovers at their wonted place by fore-appointment met,
Where after much complaint and moan they covenanted to get
Away from such as watchéd them, and in the evening late
To steal out of their fathers' house and eke the city gate.
And to th' intent that in the fields they strayed not up and down,
They did agree at Ninus' tomb to meet without the town,
And tarry underneath a tree that by the same did grow;
Which was a fair high mulberry with fruit as white as snow,
Hard by a cool and trickling spring. This bargain pleased them both,
And so daylight (which to their thought away but slowly go'th)
Did in the Ocean fall to rest, and night from thence doth rise.
As soon as darkness once was come, straight Thisbe did devise
A shift to wind her out of doors, that none that were within
Perceivéd her; and muffling her with clothes about her chin,
That no man might discern her face, to Ninus' tomb she came
Unto the tree, and set her down there underneath the same.
Love made her bold. But see the chance, there comes besmeared with blood
About the chaps, a lioness all foaming from the wood,
From slaughter lately made of kine to staunch her bloody thirst
With water of the foresaid spring. Whom Thisbe, spying first
Afar by moonlight, thereupon with fearful steps gan fly
And in a dark and irksome cave did hide herself thereby.
And as she fled away for haste she let her mantle fall,
The which for fear she left behind not looking back at all.
Now when the cruel lioness her thirst had staunchéd well,
In going to the wood she found the slender weed that fell
From Thisbe, which with bloody teeth in pieces she did tear.
The night was somewhat further spent ere Pyramus came there.
Who seeing in this subtle sand the print of lion's paw,
Waxed pale for fear. But when that he the bloody mantle saw
All rent and torn; one night (he said) shall lovers two confound,
Of which long life deservèd she of all that live on ground.
My soul deserves of this mischance the peril for to bear.
I, wretch, have been the death of thee, which to this place of fear
Did cause thee in the night to come, and came not here before.
My wicked limbs and wretched guts with cruel teeth therefore
Devour ye, O ye lions all that in this rock do dwell.
But cowards use to wish for death. The slender weed that fell
From Thisbe up he takes, and straight doth bear it to the tree,
Which was appointed erst the place of meeting for to be.
And when he had bewept and kissed the garment which he knew,
Receive thou my blood too (quoth he), and therewithal he drew
His sword, the which among his guts he thrust, and by and by
Did draw it from the bleeding wound, beginning for to die,
And cast himself upon his back. The blood did spin on high
As when a conduit pipe is cracked, the water bursting out
Doth shoot itself a great way off, and pierce the air about.
The leaves that were upon the tree besprinkled with his blood
Were dyéd black. The root also, bestained as it stood
A deep dark purple colour, straight upon the berries cast,
Anon scarce ridded of her fear with which she was aghast,
For doubt of disappointing him comes Thisbe forth in haste,
And for her lover looks about, rejoicing for to tell
How hardly she had 'scaped that night the danger that befell.
And as she knew right well the place and fashion of the tree
(As which she saw so late before) even so when she did see
The colour of the berries turned, she was uncertain whether
It were the tree at which they both agreed to meet together.
While in this doubtful stound[4] she stood, she cast her eye aside,
And there beweltered in his blood her lover she espied
Lie sprawling with his dying limbs; at which she started back,
And lookéd pale as any box; a shuddering through her strack,
Even like the sea which suddenly with whissing noise doth move,
When with a little blast of wind it is but touched above.
But when approaching nearer him she knew it was her love,
She beat her breast, she shriekéd out, she tare her golden hairs,
And taking him between her arms did wash his wounds with tears;
She meint[5] her weeping with his blood, and kissing all his face
(Which now became as cold as ice) she cried in woeful case:
Alas! what chance, my Pyramus hath parted thee and me?
Make answer, O my Pyramus: it is thy Thisbe, even she
Whom thou dost love most heartily that speaketh unto thee:
Give ear and raise thy heavy head. He, hearing Thisbe's name,
Lift up his dying eyes, and, having seen her, closed the same.
But when she knew her mantle there, and saw his scabbard lie
Without the sword: Unhappy man, thy love had made thee die;
Thy love (she said) hath made thee slay thyself. This hand of mine
Is strong enough to do the like. My love no less than thine
Shall give me force to work my wound. I will pursue thee dead,
And, wretched woman as I am, it shall of me be said,
That like as of thy death I was the only cause and blame,
So am I thy companion eke and partner in the same.
For death which only could, alas! asunder part us twain,
Shall never so dissever us but we will meet again.
And you the parents of us both, most wretched folk alive,
Let this request that I shall make in both our names belyve[6]
Entreat you to permit that we, whom chaste and steadfast love,
And whom even death hath joined in one, may, as it doth behove,
In one grave be together laid. And thou unhappy tree,
Which shroudest now the corse of one, and shalt anon through me
Shroud two, of this same slaughter hold the sicker[7] signs for ay
Black be the colour of thy fruit and mourning-like alway,
Such as the murder of us twain may evermore bewray.
This said, she took the sword, yet warm with slaughter of her love,
And setting it beneath her breast did to the heart it shove.
Her prayer with the gods and with their parents took effect,
For when the fruit is throughly ripe, the berry is bespect[8]
With colour tending to a black. And that which after fire
Remainéd, rested in one tomb as Thisbe did desire.
Not omitting that ancient form of beginning tales, Once upon a time it was my chance to travel into that noble county of Kent. The weather being wet, and my two-legged horse being almost tired (for indeed my own legs were all the supporters that my body had), I went dropping into an alehouse; there found I, first a kind welcome, next good liquor, then kind strangers (which made good company), then an honest host, whose love to good liquor was written in red characters both in his nose, cheeks and forehead: an hostess I found there too, a woman of very good carriage; and though she had not so much colour (for what she had done) as her rich husband had, yet all beholders might perceive by the roundness of her belly, that she was able to draw a pot dry at a draught, and ne'er unlace for the matter.
Well, to the fire I went, where I dried my outside and wet my inside. The ale being good, and I in good company, I lapt in so much of this nappy liquor, that it begot in me a boldness to talk, and desire of them to know what was the reason that the people of that country were called Long-tails[1]. The host said, all the reason that ever he could hear was, because the people of that country formerly did use to go in side-skirted coats. "There is," said an old man that sat by, "another reason that I have heard: that is this. In the time of the Saxons' conquest of England there were divers of our countrymen slain by treachery, which made those that survived more careful in dealing with their enemies, as you shall hear.
"After many overthrows that our countrymen had received by the Saxons, they dispersed themselves into divers companies into the woods, and so did much damage by their sudden assaults to the Saxons, that Hengist, their king, hearing the damage that they did (and not knowing how to subdue them by force), used this policy. He sent to a company of them, and gave them his word for their liberty and safe return, if they would come unarmed and speak with him. This they seemed to grant unto, but for their more security (knowing how little he esteemed oaths or promises) they went every one of them armed with a short sword, hanging just behind under their garments, so that the Saxons thought not of any weapons they had: but it proved otherwise; for when Hengist his men (that were placed to cut them off) fell all upon them, they found such unlooked a resistance, that most of the Saxons were slain, and they that escaped, wondering how they could do that hurt, having no weapons (as they saw), reported that they struck down men like lions with their tails; and so they ever after were called Kentish Long-tails."