o the past. "So he gets up and went
along." All this helps to give the colloquial and familiar air to the
English fairy-tale not to mention the dialectal and archaic words and
phrases which occur in them.

But their very familiarity and colloquialism make them remarkably
effective with English-speaking little ones. The rhythmical phrases
stick in their memories; they can remember the exact phraseology of the
English tales much better, I find, than that of the Grimms' tales, or
even of the Celtic stories. They certainly have the quality of coming
home to English children. Perhaps this may be partly due to the fact
that a larger proportion of the tales are of native manufacture. If the
researches contained in my Notes are to be trusted only i.-ix., xi.,
xvii., xxii., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xliv., l., liv., lv., lviii., lxi.,
lxii., lxv., lxvii., lxxviii., lxxxiv., lxxxvii. were imported; nearly
all the remaining sixty are home produce, and have their roots in the
hearts of the English people which naturally respond to them.

In the following Notes, I have continued my practice of giving (1)
_Source_ where I obtained the various tales. (2) _Parallels_, so far as
possible, in full for the British Isles, with bibliographical references
when they can be found; for occurrences abroad I generally refer to the
list of incidents contained in my paper read before the International
Folk-Lore Congress of 1891 and republished in the _Transactions_, 1892,
pp. 87-98. (3) _Remarks_ where the tale seems to need them. I have
mainly been on the search for signs of diffusion rather than of
"survivals" of antiquarian interest, though I trust it will be found I
have not neglected these.

XLIV. THE PIED PIPER

_Source._--Abraham Elder, _Tales and Legends of the Isle of Wight_
(London, 1839), pp. 157-164. Mr. Nutt, who has abridged and partly
rewritten the story from a copy of Elder's book in his possession, has
introduced a couple of touches from Browning.

_Parallels._--The well-known story of the Pied Piper of Hameln
(Hamelin), immortalised by Browning, will at once recur to every
reader's mind. 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