Grail. These facts seem to warrant the hypothesis of a lost Brandan legend. The Irish MSS. may possibly contain something to throw light on the subject.
Nursery Rimes (Folk-Lore Record, vol; v. p. 154. Folk-Lore Journal, vol. i. p. 92.)—Strange to say the man it is who is called Dob in the version given by Halliwell of the tolerably well-known tongue-tripping lines communicated by Mr. Layton. The dog appears as Cob, and I have certainly heard of him as Bob elsewhere; would that anybody could explain the secret significance of this shuffling of names! In my family, where there was a judicious mixture of boys and girls, the rime was held to be specially appropriate to the latter, for it ran:—
"If you be a fair maid,
As I suppose you be,
You'll neither laugh nor smile
While I tickle you on your knee."
When the tickling test was tried on a boy, the first line was altered for the nonce, for we did not know, in our nursery, that "the literal meaning of maid is one grown up, an adult," and that "it is often applied to males as well as females" (Dr. Morris's Historical Outlines of English Accidence, p. 84); and I believe we were all of opinion that, however much a boy might enjoy the tickling and the attempt at self-control, the laughing or not laughing in his case proved nothing. Halliwell, No. dcliv. has:
"A good child, a good child,
As I suppose you be.
Never laughed nor smiled
At the tickling of your knee."
Curious Custom in Cheshire.—A case illustrating the remarkable survival of an old Cheshire custom was heard before the Norton magistrates the other day. The prosecutor, William Pullen, charged Thomas Lawton with being in his house for an unlawful purpose. Defendant entered Mr. Pullen's house, and said he had come to lift his wife, and two men followed defendant to the garden-gate. Prosecutor told defendant to get out, or he would kick him out. He would not allow any one to take such liberties. Defendant thereupon became
