the churchwardens; and this is said to be for the privilege of cutting and taking the wood in Hudnolls. The tradition is that the privilege was obtained of some Earl of Hereford, then lord of the Forest of Dean, at the instance of his lady, upon the same hard terms that Lady Godiva obtained the privileges for the citizens of Coventry.”[1]
I am fortunately able to correct this account by a statement most obligingly made to me by the Rev. W. Taprell Allen, M.A., the vicar of St. Briavels, whence it would appear that the payment was probably made, not to the churchwardens, but to the constable of the castle as Warden of the Forest of Dean. In other respects Rudder seems to have accurately related both custom and tradition, but I have been unable to obtain any further details.
I am not aware of any other European tradition that will bear comparison with that of Godiva, but Liebrecht relates that he remembers in his youth, about the year 1820, in a German newspaper, a story according to which a countess frees her husband’s subjects from a heavy punishment imposed by him. She undertakes to walk a certain course clad, only in her shift, and she performs it, but clad in a shift of iron.[2] The condition is here eluded rather than fulfilled; and the point of the story is consequently varied. It would be interesting to have the tale unearthed from the old newspaper, and to know where its scene was laid, and whether it was a genuine piece of folklore.
Eastern tales, however, furnish us repeatedly with incidents in which a lady parades the streets of a city, and during her progress all folk are bidden to close their shops and withdraw into their houses on pain of death. The example of the Princess Badroulboudour will occur to every reader of the Arabian Nights. This, however, is by no means a solitary example. In the story of Kamar Al-Zaman and the Jeweller’s Wife, one of the stories of the
