n is that the privilege was
obtained of some Earl of Hereford, then lord of the Forest of Dean, at
the instance of his lady, upon the same hard terms that Lady Godiva
obtained the privileges for the citizens of Coventry." It appears that
Rudder, while in the main accurately relating both custom and tradition,
has made the mistake of supposing that the payment was made to the
churchwardens, whereas it was in all probability made to the constable
of the castle of St. Briavels as warden of the Forest of Dean. The
custom is now in a late stage of decadence, and local inquiries have
failed to elicit any further details throwing light on the point under
consideration.[49]

I am not aware of any other European tradition that will bear comparison
with that of Godiva, but Liebrecht relates that he remembers in his
youth, about the year 1820, in a German newspaper, a story according to
which a countess frees her husband's subjects from a heavy punishment
imposed by him. She undertakes to walk a certain course clad only in her
shift, and she performs it, but clad in a shift of iron.[50] The
condition is here eluded rather than fulfilled; and the point of the
story is consequently varied. It would be interesting to have the tale
unearthed from the old newspaper, and to know where its scene was laid,
and whether it was a genuine piece of folklore.

Eastern tales, however, furnish us repeatedly with incidents in which a
lady parades the streets of a city, and during her progress all folk are
bidden to close their shops and withdraw into their houses on pain of
death. The example of the Princess Badroulbadour will occur to every
reader of the "Arabian Nights." This, however, is by no means a solitary
example. In the story of Kamar Al-Zaman and the Jeweller's Wife, one of
the stories of the "Nights" rejected on moral grounds by Lane, but
translated by Burton, a dervish relates that he chanced one Friday to
enter the city of Bassorah, and found the streets deserted. The shops
were open; but neither man nor woman, girl nor boy, dog nor cat was to
be seen. By and by he heard a sound of drums, and hiding himself in a
coffee-house, he looked out through a crevice and saw forty pairs of
slave girls, with uncovered heads and faces displayed, come walking
through the market, and in their midst a lady riding unveiled and
adorned with gold and gems. In front of her was a damsel bearing in
baldric a great sword with haft of emerald and tassels o