366
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. VIH. NOV. s, 1913.
Col. Elizeus Burges.—As long ago as 1868 the late William H. Whitmore, a noted Boston historical, genealogical, and antiquarian scholar, asked (4 S. i. 100):—
"Colonel Eliseus Burgess. Who was this gentleman, Commission Governor of Massachusetts, March 17, 1714-5? He sold his appointment to Colonel Shute, in April, 1716; and May 9, 1719, he, or a namesake, was made Resident at Venice."
This request met with no response. Information about Burges will be found in the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xiv. 360-72, 389; xvii. 60-62. Albert Matthews.
Toft of Leeke, co. Stafford.—The entry of the marriage of a Richard Toft of Leeke, co. Stafford, to Sarah Clayton of Cambridge, 22 March, 1693, at All Saints', Cambridge, in the 'Cambs Parish Registers,' vol. iv., 1911, may be worth recording in 'N. & Q.' as interesting to pottery collectors. T. Jesson.
LEPROSY OF HOUSES. (See 9 S. iii. 409,
497.) Fourteen years ago I wrote a query
on this subject, it being stated on Hebrew
authority that no instance of this phenome-
non had occurred. The replies were un-
satisfactory. But an interesting letter from
the Rev. Walter Crick of Chichester (The
'Guardian, 17 Oct. last) cites an instance of a
cottage whose damp walls were discoloured
" with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish," the
successive occupants of which were attacked
by cancer. In view of the directions pre-
scribed in Leviticus, the topic appears to
be of more than merely medical interest.
RICHARD H. THORNTON.
A BOHEMIAN " PIED PIPER." In rollick- ing verse Browning has told the tale of the Hameln piper and his irresistible instru- ment. Among the Cechy there is a wide- spread legend of a hero Svanda Dudak <^vanda the piper, Cech dudka, Russian duda, German Dudelsack, whose stumpfe Nase is introduced by Goethe into the golden wedding of Oberon and Titania in ' Faust ' ), of equal powers, but with a different history. In some versions he is a humble farm- labourer or shepherd who receives from a beggar (Christ or St. Peter in disguise) a charmed pipe, with which he compels a wayfarer (monk, mayor, Jew, or his miserly master) to perform an involuntary dance into a thorny thicket. For this exploit the piper is sentenced to death, and when on the gallows he asks and receives permission to play for the last time, charms the whole
company into dancing, and effects his
escape.
Another version is that Svanda, under the influence of beer, played to an uncanny company who repaid him with gold, but when he thanked them with Zaplat Pan Buh (God reward you) or Pozehnej Pan Buh (God bless you), the whole scene vanished, and Svanda found himself on the gallows instead of in an illuminated dancing-hall. In this story he sometimes remarks, being thirsty, that fanners regale a musician with beer, whereupon a mask offers him a silver cup of wine. Svanda drinks, pronounces thanks as above, the company disappear, and he is on the gallows with the cup, with which he hurries home to sleep. On waking Svanda finds the cup is marked with the arms of the neighbouring nobleman, but as no inquiry is raised he retains it in memory of his adventure.
Svanda is credited with the invention of the large bag with two pipes. One tradition is that he was the son of a demi- goddess whose jealous rival tried to destroy him as Juno would have destroyed the infant Hercules. She incited evil spirits to dance to his pipe until, be- wildered by their gyrations, the piper staggered beneath the gallows prepared for his end, which had to be accomplished before midnight. At the right moment his mortal lady-love stepped up and touched Svanda, and thus the spell was broken and the baffled demons dispersed.
The traditional home of Svanda Dudak is Strakonice, in the beautiful Sumava (Bohmerwald) region, where, a native tells me, his memory is proudly preserved. After his experience Svanda is said to have hung his pipe in the church for good, but I am not sure if the local inhabitants care to be asked if it is still to be seen. I have before me Adolf Heyduk's poem, in which the story is laid at .Domazlice (Taus).* When the piper obtains leave to play on the gallows, the whole crowd, high and low, mingle in a variety of Bohemian dances. Thus the count starts on the Povrislo (straw band) with the head thresher's wife, and the lackey leads the countess to the Valecka (cylinder). An old Jew with the priest's servant dances the Kaplan (priest), and the stately priest breaks into the Zidak (Jew) with the cook.
- Here the Emperor Henry III. of Germany was
defeated in 1040; Prokop and his Hussites beat Sigismurid's host in 1431 ; in 1695 the peasant Kozina, head of the Chods, was executed for resisting encroachments of the nobility.
