Yet till lately the mill stood to
prove if the narrator lied, and every circumstance of local
particularity seemed to vouch for the autochthonous character of the
myth. The incident is an instructive one, and I have therefore included
it in this volume, though it is little more than an anecdote in its
present shape.
LXII. SCRAPEFOOT
_Source._--Collected by Mr. Batten from Mrs. H., who heard it from her
mother over forty years ago.
_Parallels._--It is clearly a variant of Southey's _Three Bears_ (No.
xviii.).
_Remarks._--This remarkable variant raises the question whether Southey
did anything more than transform Scrapefoot into his naughty old woman,
who in her turn has been transformed by popular tradition into the
naughty girl Silver-hair. Mr. Nutt ingeniously suggests that Southey
heard the story told of an old vixen, and mistook the rustic name of a
female fox for the metaphorical application to women of fox-like temper.
Mrs. H.'s version to my mind has all the marks of priority.
Pages:
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284