Thumbling, in another German version, gets into the cow's mouth less respectably. He had been engaged with some thieves in stealing from the parson, in whose hay he sought a retreat, but was actually swallowed by the cow. Afterwards, cow, Thumbling, and all, became the prey of a wolf, who in his turn died by the hand of the little hero's father, and his liberation was thus effected.

NOTE XXIII. p. 30.

This adventure is somewhat differently told in the ballad, and Tom's incomprehensible revenge is added,

"Where he for counters, pins, and points,

And cherry stones did play,

Till he amongst those gamesters young,
Had lost his stock away.

"Yet could he soon renew the same,

When as most nimbly he
Would dive into their cherry-bags,
And there partaker be.

"Unseen or felt by any one,

Until a scholar shut

This nimble youth into a box,
Wherein his pins he put.

"Of whom to be revenged he took,
(In mirth and pleasant game,)
Black pots and glasses which he hung
Upon a bright sunbeam.

"The other boys to do the like,

In pieces broke them quite;

For which they were most soundly whipt,
Whereat he laught outright."

NOTE XXV. p. 32.

The tinker and the pudding have always played their part in Tom Thumb's adventures, though in the ballad it is a black-pudding, and poor Tom is mixed in as a piece of minced fat.

"Thorough brake, thorough briar,
Thorough muck, thorough mire,
Thorough water, thorough fire.
And thus goes Puck about it."

Or in his threat in Midsummer Night's Dream:

"I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,

Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;
Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,

A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire:

And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,

Like horse, hog, bear, fire, at every turn."

So in the ballad in Percy's Reliques—

“Whene'er such wanderers I meete,

As from their night sportes they trudge home,
With counterfeiting voice I greete,

And call them on with me to roame,

Through woods, through lakes,
Through bogs, through brakes,

Or else unseene, with them I go,
All in the nicke

To play some tricke,

And frolicke it, with ho, ho, ho!

"Sometimes I meete them like a man,

Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;

And to a horse I turn me can,

To trip and trot about them round.
But if to ride

My back they stride,

More swift than wind away I go;
O'er hedge and lands,

Through pools and ponds,

I whirry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!"

In this capacity, as a "walking fire," Puck was supposed to be visible in the fleeting light, called Jack-a-Lantern and Will-of-the-Wisp; or in earlier times,

"She was pinched and pulled she said,

And he by Friar's lantern led."

Friar Rush being another owner of the mysterious bright exhalation, that even in our own times, now and then, flits over bogs and morasses.

NOTE XXVII. p. 38.

We have had recourse to the German Thumbling to account for our little hero leaving home, following Grimm nearly word for word, until the narrative casts imputations on the little Briton, which we are sure he does not deserve,

namely, that he stole away from his purchasers in the evening, eluded their pursuit by creeping into a mouse-hole, and afterwards sleeping in a snail-shell, overheard two thieves plotting to steal the parson's gold and silver, when he offered to join them; and though he prevented them from effecting their purpose, he suffered for joining such discreditable company, as before narrated.

Nor do the English ballad nor nursery version find any better means of transit than these continual deglutitions. In these, a raven flew away with him and his barley-straw, and dropped him on the walls of the castle of the Giant Grumbo, who, for no assigned cause, swallowed him like a pill, and soon threw him up into the sea, where being again devoured by a fish, and the fish being caught, he emerged, when it was cut up, before King Arthur's Court. So much for the sake of accordance with traditionary lore, as well as of a theory which considers these adventures to be the remains of the Brahminical legends, distantly connected with Druidical superstitions. There is said to be a divinity in Indian mythology, in size, and in some other points, resembling Tom Thumb.

NOTE XXVIII. p. 39.

It is safest not to inquire too narrowly into the geography of King Arthur's time, which was not in the most settled state. Caerleon is the favourite capital in the old romances

"Where, as at Caerleon oft he kept the table round,

Most famous for the sports at Pentecost so long,"

says Drayton, who fixes this as Caerleon on Uske; but Carlisle also puts in its claim to be the true Caerleon, and there are other almost equally noted capitals, such as Camelot, which old romances place at Winchester; though the Camelfords of Somersetshire and Cornwall, each with a River Camel, have both a better right to be supposed to have belonged to Arthur.

NOTE XXIX. p. 39.

Arthur, the son of Uther Pendragon and of the Lady Yguerna! Vain would it be to pause on the endless dissertations on his history, or on the romantic tales that describe his accession, when he proved his right to the throne by pulling out the sword that was so fixed in a certain huge stone that none but the rightful heir could draw it out. The simple truth would appear to be, that the veritable