Before Browning, it had been told in English in books as
well known as Verstegan's _Restitution of Decayed Intelligence_, 1605;
Howell's _Familiar Letters_ (see my edition, p. 357, _n._); and Wanley's
_Wonders of the Little World_. Browning is said to have taken it from
the last source (Furnivall, _Browning Bibliography_, 158), though there
are touches which seem to me to come from Howell (see my note _ad
loc._), while it is not impossible he may have come across Elder's book,
which was illustrated by Cruikshank. The Grimms give the legend in their
_Deutsche Sagen_ (ed. 1816, 330-33), and in its native land it has given
rise to an elaborate poem _a la_ Scheffel by Julius Wolff, which has in
its turn been the occasion of an opera by Victor Nessler. Mrs. Gutch, in
an interesting study of the myth in _Folk-Lore_ iii., pp. 227-52, quotes
a poem, _The Sea Piece_, published by Dr. Kirkpatrick in 1750, as
showing that a similar legend was told of the Cave Hill, Belfast.
Here, as Tradition's hoary legend tells,
A blinking Piper once with magic Spells
And strains beyond a vulgar Bagpipe's sounds
Gathered the dancing Country wide around.
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