Illustrations of the fairy mythology of 'A midsummer night's dream' / edited by J.O. Halliwell.

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of the fairy mythology of 'A midsummer night's dream' / edited by J.O. Halliwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    346/352 (page 318)
    An English gentleman, the particular friend of our author* to whom he told the story, was about passing over Duglas- bridge before it was broken down ; but, the tide being high, he was obliged to take the river $ having an excellent horse under him, and one accustomed to swim. As he was in the middle of it, lie heard, or imagined he heard, the finest symphony, he would not say in the world, for nothing human ever came up to it. The horse was no less sensible of the harmony than himself, and kept in an immoveable posture all the time it lasted; which, he said, could not be less than three quarters of an hour, according to the most exact calculation he could make, when he arrived at the end of his little journey, and found how long he had been coming. He, who before laughed at all the stories told of fairies, now became a convert, and believed as much as ever a Manks-man of them all.1 XXXIX. THE PORRIDGE-POT. [From Aubrey’s 44 Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey,” vol. iii., p. 366.] In the vestry here [Trensham Church], on the North side of the chancel, is an extraordinary great kettle or caldron, which the inhabitants say, by tradition, was brought hither by the fairies, time out of mind, from Borough-hill, 1 Waldron, p. 73. A little beyond a hole in the earth, just at the foot of a mountain, about a league and a half from Barool, which they call The Devils den, “ is a small lake, in the midst of which is a huge stone, on which, formerly, stood a cross: round this lake the fairies are said to celebrate the obsequies of any good person; and I have heard many people, and those of a considerable share of understanding too, protest, that, in passing that way, they have been saluted with the sound of such musick, as could proceed from no earthly instruments.”— p. 137.