English Fairy Tales

English Fairy Tales

VIII. JACK HANNAFORD.

Source.—Henderson’s Folk-Lore of Northern Counties (first
edition), p. 319. Communicated by the Rev. S. Baring-
Gould.

Parallels.—”Pilgrims from Paradise” are enumerated in
Clouston’s Book of Noodles, pp. 205, 214-8. See also Cosquin,
l.c., i. 239.

IX. BINNORIE.

Source.—From the ballad of the “Twa Sisters o’ Binnorie.” I
have used the longer version in Roberts’s Legendary Ballads,
with one or two touches from Mr. Allingham’s shorter and
more powerful variant in The Ballad Book. A tale is the bet-
ter for length, a ballad for its curtness.

Parallels.—The story is clearly that of Grimm’s “Singing

Bone” (No. 28), where one brother slays the other and bur-

ies him under a bush. Years after a shepherd passing by finds

a bone under the bush, and, blowing through this, hears the

bone denounce the murderer. For numerous variants in Bal-

lads and Folk Tales, see Prof. Child’s English and Scotch Bal-

lads (ed. 1886), i. 125, 493; iii. 499.

X. MOUSE AND MOUSER.

Source.—From memory by Mrs. E. Burne-Jones.

Parallels.—A fragment is given in Halliwell, 43; Chambers’s

Popular Rhymes has a Scotch version, “The Cattie sits in the

Kilnring spinning” (p. 53). The surprise at the end, similar

to that in Perrault’s “Red Riding Hood,” is a frequent device

in English folk tales. (Cf. infra, Nos. xii., xxiv., xxix., xxxiii.,

xli.)