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Notes and References

epic have been adapted to local requirements in Great Britain, as in the “Blinded Giant” (No. lxi.), or “Conall Yellowclaw” (Celtic Fairy Tales, No. v.).The fact of Continental parallels disposes of the possibility of its being a merely local legend. The fairies might appear to be in a somewhat novel guise here as something to be afraid of. But this is the usual attitude of the folk towards the “Good People,” as indeed their euphemistic name really implies.


Source.—Chambers’s Popular Rhymes of Scotland, much Anglicised in language, but otherwise unaltered.

Parallels.—Chambers, l.c., gave a variant with the title “The Red Bull o’ Norroway.” Kennedy, Legendary Fictions, p. 87, gives a variant with the title “The Brown Bear of Norway.” Mr. Stewart gave a Leitrim version, in which “Norroway” becomes “Orange,” in Folk Lore for June 1893, which Miss Peacock follows up with a Lincolnshire parallel (showing the same corruption of name) in the September number. A reference to the “Black Bull o’ Norroway” occurs in Sidney’s Arcadia, as also in the Complaynt of Scotland, 1548. The “sale of bed” incident at the end has been bibliogiaphised by Miss Cox in her volume of variants of Cinderella, p. 481. It probably existed in one of the versions of Nix Nought Nothing (No. vii.).

Remarks.—The Black Bull is clearly a Beast who ultimately wins a Beauty. But the tale as is told is clearly not sufficiently motivated. Miss Peacock’s version renders it likely that a fuller account may yet be recovered in England.


Source.—Mrs. Balfour’s “Legends of the Lincolnshire Fens,” in Folk Lore ii. It was told to Mrs. Balfour by a labourer, who professed to be the hero of the story, and related it in the first person. I have given him a name, and changed the narration into the oblique narration, and toned down the dialect.

Parallels.—“Tiddy Mun,” the hero of another of Mrs. Balfour's legends (l.c., p. 151) was “none bigger ’n a three years old bairn,” and had no proper name.

Remarks.—One might almost suspect Mrs. Balfour of being the