enarched bramble; and in some of the western counties that act, thrice repeated, will banish whooping-cough.[1] Freedom from ill is arrived at only through temporary abasement and exertion. Nymphidia sought deliverance; she hoped to emerge in safety from the evils connected with Puck's pursuit, so she prefigured her passage through the trouble; and, by afterwards jumping over the briar, foreshowed the victory that she meant to gain. This done, she invoked the fairies' goddess Proserpina in a litany of obsecration which I cannot do less than quote at full length:—
"By the croaking of the frog;
By the howling of the dog;
By the crying of the hog,
Against the storm arising;
By the evening curfew-bell;
By the doleful dying knell,
O, let this my direful spell,
Hob, hinder thy surprising.
By the mandrake's dreadful groans;
By the Lubrican's sad moans;
By the noise of dead men's bones,
In charnel-houses rattling;
By the hissing of the snake.
The rustling of the fire-drake [dragon],
I charge thee this place forsake.
Nor of Mab be prattling.
By the whirlwind's hollow sound,
By the thunder's dreadful stound,
Yells of spirits under ground,
I charge thee not to fear us:
By the scritch-cwl's dismal note,
By the black night-raven's throat,
I charge thee, Hob, to tear thy coat
With thorns, if thou come near us."
The "mandrake's dreadful groans" are horrors with which we are familiar by hearsay, if not by hearing; but "the Lubrican's sad moans" are phonic rarities. An attempt has been made to identify the Lubrican with the Leprechaun of Irish mythology, a fairy who
- ↑ "Choice Notes," Folk-Lore, pp. 88, 217.
