ted Verstegan to the locality. Newtown, when Hassel visited it in
1790, had only six or seven houses (_l.c._, i., 137-8), though it had
the privilege of returning two members to Parliament; it had been a
populous town by the name of Franchville before the French invasion of
the island of _temp._ Ric. II. It is just possible that there may have
been a local legend to account for the depopulation by an exodus of the
children. But the expression "pied piper" which Elder used clearly came
from Verstegan, and until evidence is shown to the contrary the whole
of the legend was adapted from him. It is not without significance that
Elder was writing in the days of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, and had
possibly no more foundation for the localisation of his stories than
Barham.

There still remains the curious parallel from Belfast to which Mrs.
Gutch has drawn attention. Magic pipers are not unknown to English
folk-lore, as in the Percy ballad of _The Frere and the Boy_, or in the
nursery rhyme of Tom the Piper's son in its more extended form. But
beguiling into a mountain is not known elsewhere except at Hameln, which
was made widely known in England by Verstegan's and Howell's accounts,
so that the Belfast variant is also probably to be traced to the
_Rattenfaenger_. Here again, as in the case of Beddgellert (_Celtic Fairy
Tales_, No. xxi.), the Blinded Giant and the Pedlar of Swaffham
(_infra_, Nos. lxi., lxiii.), we have an imported legend adapted to
local conditions.

XLV. HEREAFTERTHIS

_Source._--Sent me anonymously soon after the appearance of _English
Fairy Tales_. From a gloss in the MS. "vitty" = Devonian for "decent," I
conclude the tale is current in Devon. I should be obliged if the sender
would communicate with me.

_Parallels._--The latter part has a certain similarity with "Jack
Hannaford" (No. viii.). Halliwell's story of the miser who kept his
money "for luck" (p. 153) is of the same type. Halliwell remarks that
the tale throws light on a passage in Ben Jonson:

Say we are robbed,
If any come to borrow a spoon or so
I will not have Good Fortune or God's Blessing
Let in, while I am busy.

The earlier part of the tale has resemblance with "Lazy Jack" (No.
xxvii), the European variants of which are given by M. Cosquin, _Contes
de Lorraine_, i., 241. Jan's satisfaction with his wife's blunders is
also European (Cosquin, _l.c._, i., 157). On minding the door and
dispersing robbers by its