posed fare for a five-mile jaunt. I have been dropped into the money-box, borne in the mouth of the blind man's dog; and I have ROMANTIC FABLES AND POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. English poets are so frequent in been paid by the prudent mechanic into a THE gererences to the superstitions savings-bank, as a portion of the fund for the contingencies of future years. I have been consecrated to the promotion of the highest interests of man, and I have been paid as the price of vice and crime. I have encouraged the honest and the industrious, I have bribed the weak into wrong, and I have rewarded the thief. I have jingled in the pocket of the school-boy; have been bedewed with the tears of the needlewoman who received me as the pittance which competition doled out to her for her labor, her nerve, her very life; I have been flung in the air by the gambler; and I have been scrutinized, and bit, and punched, and pinched, and rung by the tradesman, to see that I was sterling. The influence which I have exercised on many a domestic circle, has been mighty for good and for evil; while, when in association with other coins of the realm, I may say that our power was paramount. I confess it, and I do so with sorrow, that we are the idol which millions of men adore—the silver or golden calf which they worship. Often and often have I wondered at the folly that could lead men to take such pains to heap up myself and my companions; slaving and toiling to do so; fretting and worrying their very lives out; and then, when they had accomplished their object, finding nothing, after all, but disappointment and vexation of spirit. One result of all my experience has been, I may mention, that unless I am come honestly by, I never in the end do good to any who possesses me. Often, too, in a poor man's cottage, where I have been earned by hard and honest labor, I have seen a peace and happiness that I never witnessed in the houses of those who had got possession of me by fraudulent or unfair means. But enough! I had no thought when I began my biography of thus moralizing. Let me, therefore, conclude with a stanza, penned upon me by a poet, one of a class which too often has known the want of me : "Molten, graven, hammer'd, and roll'd; which, less than three centuries ago, continued to exist in the popular mind, that such matters have acquired greater importance than they might otherwise have possessed; though it would be easy to show that many of the creations of fable, even without such recommendation, are intrinsically beautiful, and contain a germ of truth which may be easily discovered, if, as Cowley says, we 66 open and intend our eye." Not, however, to venture upon this higher ground, it may be safely asserted, that subjects which delighted Milton, even in his mature years-which were illuminated by the radiance of Spenser's fancy and imagination—and whereon the colossal mind of Shakspeare dwelt with love (to pass over a host of less great, but still mighty, intellects,)—are worthy of regard and investigation during the intervals of graver studies. No production of the human intellect can be altogether trivial; and whatever is beautiful or sublime, becomes a truth to the mind, if not a fact to the senses. The universality of this kind of fiction, also, gives it peculiar interest. Fable appears to have flowed from the same sacred oriental founts whence our very being is derived. Its origin is nearly coeval with that of humanity. The clear atmosphere of the world's morning hangs above it; and with the first gushing of the living stream of nations toward the desert places of the earth, the vast river of romantic fiction and superstition seems to have gone forth, and to have left remarkable evidences of its progress and omnipresence. As, however, the great family of man has been split up into a variety of races, each having the same general characteristics, but certain minor shades of difference, so has it been with the posterity of fable. Northern manners and customs, northern scenery, and northern climate, have imparted to the oriental stock a new complexion, and in some cases have even modified its form; but the identity may generally be traced. This variety, however, is one of the chief excellences of the popular superstitions of England. We have the fantastic and elaborate gorgeousness of the East, with the savage grandeur and primeval ruggedness of the North; visions full of color and aerial light, side by side with remote glooms and desolate enchantments. It is therefore no wonder that our poetical literature should abound with allusions to so rich a mythology; nor that we should desire to gossip with our readers upon imaginative creations which do not appear to have received their due share of attention. fable may have found its way to Greece, in the mythology of which country it frequently appears; and thence, possibly, it was disseminated over the rest of Europe. But whatever spot may have been its | cradle, or whatever the path by which it has traveled, certain it is that few countries in the civilized portions of the globe are without some traces of its presence. In the poetry and fairy legends of modern Europe, however, it has made the greatest figure. A dragon was the most terrific and dangerous enemy that the knighterrant of mediæval romance could possibly encounter; and numerous are the narrations that have come down to us of battles between these mortal foes. The dragon appears, for the most part, as a lonely animal, living in obscure caverns among the clefts of mountains, or in morasses, and occasionally issuing forth to ravage It is proposed to introduce the reader to the most remarkable fables and superstitions which the great poets and early romance-writers of England have ennobled by their use, of course, with the exception of those borrowed from the stores of Greece and Rome, which are too well known to require further elucidation. The singular thread of connection, running from land to land, will in most instances be traced; and (wherever it is possible) the remote origin of the fable under considera- | the neighboring cities. His size is gention-whether existing in some terror common to the human mind, or in a national peculiarity-will be shown. The progress of races is often curiously exemplified in these slight histories; and few things are more pleasant than to find that, without knowing it, we have been enjoying a fairy tale or a poetical abstraction in common with the Chinese and Persians, or with the aborigines of America. The denizens of our nursery, and the shapes that people the heights of our Parnassus, come indeed from strange and remote places-from "the farthest steep of India," on the one hand; and, on the other, from the long-lost islands of Atlantis, across waters that were once thought to be the limits of the world. In no fiction is this more remarkably shown than in the one with which we propose to commence. DRAGONS. The dragon is perhaps the most celebrated animal in ancient or modern fable. It has been represented by poets, painters, and romancers, as a gigantic and anomalous creature, bearing some resemblance to a serpent, with the addition of wings and feet. Most probably the idea originated in the East; for we find that the Chinese, Persians, and other oriental races, believed in the existence of certain monsters, which, as far as can be ascertained, did not in any way differ from the dragons of European fiction. From the East the erally represented as gigantic, and his strength prodigious; his breath is poisonous, turning the country, for many miles round his abode, into a desert; his nature is remorseless and blood-thirsty; and, as if to render any attack upon him the more hopeless, he is completely cased in a species of armor, consisting of a succession of shining scales, of such adamantine hardness as to defy the sharpest weapon and the strongest arm. But he has one vulnerable point, which, like the heel of Achilles, eventually causes his destruction. The finest and most elaborate description of a dragon in English poetry is to be found in Spenser's Faerie Queene-see book i, canto 11-where the Red-cross knight contends for more than two days with one of these monsters. Dragon-encounters, however, had been rendered famous before Spenser's time by the metrical romance of Syr Bevis of Hampton, which was held in great estimation as early as the days of Chaucer. In this poemif such it may be called-the passage describing the dragon killed by Sir Bevis would seem to have furnished Spenser with some hints. Thus writes the old versifier : At least by the poets; but the painters and other artists appear to have made a mistake in this respect. In most old pictures, and on our own coins, the dragon is represented as a sort of overgrown winged lizard, not capable, one would think, of inspiring any great terror. He is as blacke as any cole, His bodye, from the navel upward, All that he toucheth he slayeth dead downe: There is no man that beare him mighte. The vulnerable part in the dragon was underneath the wings, the flesh there not being protected with scales; and by piercing this place, the heroes of the old romances generally obtained the victory. But the dragon in the Faerie Queene is killed in a different manner. On the morning of the third day of the combat, the knight rushes at his foe, sword in hand; and the monster advancing to meet him with his mouth "gaping wyde," the weapon passes down his throat into his vitals. The dragon in Guy of Warwick is slain in the same way. It is a curious fact that a method similar to this is often employed in South America in destroying the alligator; to which-or rather to its near relation, the crocodile-we shall presently show that the dragon of poetry and romance bears some resemblance. by two dragons darting fire from their mouths and eyes; and in the romance of Tom a-Lincolne is a similar adventure to that of the Hesperian apples-a dragon being employed as sentinel over a Tree of Gold that bears golden fruit, and a knight being sent to slay him. Dragons are often used in drawing the chariots of magicians and enchantresses through the air. Doctor Faustus accomplishes his aerial journeys by these means : "And behold, there stood a wagon, with two dragons before it to draw the same; and all the wagon was of a light burning fire; and for that the moon shone, I was the willinger at that time to depart. . . . . Hereupon I got me into the wagon, so that the dragons carried me up right into the air." Dragons have also been employed by the poets to draw the chariot of the Moon, or of Night. Milton alludes to this fiction in Il Penseroso : While Cynthia checks her dragon-yoke And Shakspeare, in Cymbeline (Act ii, Haste, haste, ye dragons of the Night! that dawning May bare the raven's eye. In the early ages of Christianity, the dragon was introduced into religion as a type of Satan-a symbol which, in all prob ability, was suggested by the similarity existing between the dragon of fiction and the serpent, in which shape, as we are told, the Evil One first appeared upon earth. Phineas Fletcher, in his Purple Island (canto 7), when allegorizing the Vices, describes their king as a dragon; and Dante calls one of his devils Draghigazzo-a venomous dragon. The saints, both male and female, are often represented in old pictures treading upon the necks of these monsters,* or quelling their fierceness by sprinkling them with holy water. in Scripture by St. John, as fighting against "the Dragon" and his host,-which expression is, of course, to be received as typical of Satan and his temptations; and We frequently find the dragon, both in | ancient and modern fable, in the capacity of a guard to enchanted castles, subterranean abodes of magicians, hidden treas- | St. Michael, the Archangel, is mentioned ure, &c. Thus, in the Grecian mythology, the Golden Apples of the Hesperides are watched by a dragon that sleeps neither night nor day; so, also, is the Golden Fleece, which occasioned the Argonautic expedition. In one of the stories told by the Countess D'Anois, in her collection of fairy tales, the entrance to a dark and fearful cavern, through which runs a fountain of inestimable virtue, is guarded Might not this have suggested to Milton the 5th and 6th lines of his sonnet to the Lord General Cromwell ?— And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Guido has painted a picture, in which Michael is represented treading on the prostrate Fiend, who has a tail and wings resembling those of a dragon. Hence Milton, in his Ode on the Nativity (st. 18), writes: The old Dragon under ground, Not half so far casts his usurped sway; Many other saints of the Roman Catholic calendar have been celebrated for overcoming dragons. Near the pillar on which St. Simeon Stylites is said to have dwelt from year to year, was the cave of a dragon, who was so exceedingly venomous, that he poisoned everything within a certain distance round his abode. This beast (according to the authority of the Golden Legend) having had his eye transfixed by a stake, came in his blindness-being now rendered meek and humble by pain-to the saint's pillar, placed his eye against it, and so remained for the space of three days in all gentleness and devotion, and never did harm to any living creature: insomuch that Simeon, seeing the hand of God in this matter, ordered earth and water to be brought and placed on the dragon's eye; which being done, behold! forth came the stake, a full cubit in length; and the people, seeing this miracle, glorified God; and the dragon arose and adored for two hours, and so departed to his cave. The renowned hero of the Seven Champions of Christendom, is not merely a creation of romance, but was worshiped by our Papistical ancestors as a veritable saint; and his contest with the dragon has been looked upon as nothing more than a type of his spiritual warfare with the powers of darkness. The dragon fable appears to have been very current among the ancient Britonsthe figure of a dragon, indeed, was adopted by them as their national symbol. Uther, King of Britain, and father of the great Arthur, was surnamed Pendragon, from the circumstance of his wearing an image of a dragon upon his helmet-Pen being the British word for head; and Spenser has placed the same ornament on the helmet of Arthur himself. (See Faerie Queene, book i, canto 7, st. 31.) The Britons may, perhaps, have been induced to assume the dragon as their national symbol from a tradition which is thus narrated by Selden in his Notes to Drayton's Polyolbion (Song 10)—"In the first declining state of the British empire, Vortigern, by the advice of his magicians, after divers unfortunate successes in war, resolved to erect a strong fort in Snowdon Hills, (not far from Conway's Head in the edge of Merioneth,) which might be as his last and surest refuge against the increasing power of the English. Masons were appointed, and the work begun; but what they built in the day was always swallowed up in the earth next night. The king asks counsel of his magicians touching this prodigy; they advise that he must find out a child which had no father, and with his blood sprinkle the stones and mortar, and that then the castle would stand as on a firm foundation. Search was made, and in Caer-Merdhin was Merlin Ambrose found:" [Merlin's father was a fiend; consequently, speaking in an earthly sense, he had no father:] "he being hither brought to the king, slighted that pretended skill of those magicians as palliated ignorance; and, with confidence of a more knowing spirit, undertakes to show the true cause of that amazing ruin of the stonework; tells them, that in the earth was a great water, which could endure continuance of no heavy superstructure. The workmen digged to discover the truth, and found it SO. He then beseeches the king to cause them to make further inquisition, and affirms that in the bottom of it were two sleeping dragons; which proved so likewise the one white, the other red; the white he interpreted for the Saxons, the red for the Britons." In their subsequent contests with the Saxons, our British ancestors always had a red dragon painted upon their standards; while the colorless banner of their opponents bore the figure of a white dragon. It is a fact worthy of record, as showing the long-enduring influence of popular superstitions upon imaginative races, that when the Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., (who, it will be remembered, was of British descent,) landed on the Welsh coast in his insurrection against Richard III., he displayed to the people a flag emblazoned with a red dragon; upon which large numbers immediately rallied round him, thinking they were about to vanquish their old enemy, and regain their lost dominions. Henry's design, however, was totally different; but, on succeeding to the throne, he still further flattered the vanity of the Welsh, by placing the Cambrian dragon in his arms, and by creating a new poursuivant-at-arms, entitled RougeDragon. One of the most remarkable features of the dragon fable is its universality. In the romances of the oriental nations-in the mythology of the Greeks and Romansin the traditions of the Gothic and Celtic races-and in the fairy tales of the nursery, a creature having in all cases the same general characteristics, may be discovered. Difference of climate, of religion, of national origin, or of national peculiarities, seems not to affect this omnipresent phantom of the imagination. We find it among Pagans, Christians, and Mohammedans: in the north, among the modern descendants of the Goths and Celts; in the south, among the Persians and Indians; in the east, among the Chinese; and in the west, among the aboriginal Americans. In every quarter of the globe, and over almost every race, has this terrible chimera spread the shadow of its fancied presence; though whether it has been propagated from people to people, or whether in each case it was a spontaneous birth of the imagination, it would be impossible now to determine. It must, however, be admitted that the first is the more probable supposition. The Chinese believe in the existence of a monstrous dragon who is in hot pursuit of the sun, with intent to devour that luminary; and whenever an eclipse of the great orb occurs, the people assemble in vast numbers, beating large gongs, and making the most discordant sounds, in hope of frightening the ravenous beast from his prey. A green dragon is one of the characters introduced into a Chinese streetexhibition, similar to our " Punch;" and we may discover, in the ancient traditions of the same nation, a fable of a great dragon which spread terror between heaven and earth, and which was destroyed by one of the five celestial spirits who were supposed to govern the world under the Supreme Being-which fable, by the way, is probably another version of the insurrection of Satan and the rebel angels. The ancient Persians, likewise, believed in winged dragons; and the Indians, as appears in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, hunted dragons of awful size by the help of magic-a species of amusement in which Apollonius himself participated, as, according to his biographer, it was a chase "at once manly and divine." The eyes and scales of these creatures shone like fire; and the former had a talismanic effect on all who were not inducted into the mysteries of magic. "All India," says Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius, "is girt in with dragons of a prodigious bulk, as it were with zones. Not only the marshes and the fens, but the mountains and the hills, abound with them." The dragons dwelling in marshes, having no crests on their heads and not many scales on their bodies, resemble female dragons: their color is generally black, and in their nature they are sluggish, like the places in which they have their abode. Shakspeare makes Coriolanus allude to these animals (Act iv, scene 1.) :— I go alone Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen Makes fear'd, and talk'd of more than seen. The dragons of the mountains are large, fierce, and magnificent in their appearance. "They have a crest which is small when they are young, but increases with their growth till it becomes of considerable size. Of this species of dragons, some are of a fiery red, having backs like a saw, and beards: they raise their necks higher than the others, and their scales shine like silver. The pupils of their eyes are like stones of fire, and possess a virtue which is all-powerful in the discovery of secrets. Whenever the dragons of the plains attack the elephant, they always become the prey of the hunter, for the destruction of both generally terminates the contest." Others of the mountain dragons "have scales of a golden color; beards yellow and bushy; and eyebrows more elevated than the others, underneath which are eyes of a stern and terrible aspect. In their tortuous windings under the earth, they make a noise like that of brass: their crests are red, and from them flashes a flame brighter than that of a torch. These dragons conquer the elephant, and in their turn are conquered by the Indians in the manner following:They spread a scarlet cloth before their holes, embroidered with golden letters, which, being charmed, bring on a sleep that at last subdues those eyes which would be otherwise invincible. Other spells, consisting of many words extracted |