The hare-fairy reference comes at the end when the unnamed author is talking about a Mr Cowper and a Mrs Hodgson who have collected fairy stories. I've come across these before - both local historians at about the turn of the 20th century. Mrs Hodgson contributed an article on "Surviving Fairies" to the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society in 1901. Sadly I know nothing more about her (let me know if you do!) but I'll investigate further and see if her papers are kept in the Cumbria Archives.
The author mentions the witch that turned into a hare at Outgate near Ambleside (a famous legend) and then goes on to say...
...but Mrs Hodgson has caught a real live hare-fairy still haunting the neighbourhood of Carlisle. "There was a fairy that looked like a hare. It was a real fairy, but a man caught it for a hare, and put it in a bag and thought he would have a nice Sunday dinner. While it was in the bag it saw its father outside, and he called to it, 'Pork, pork'! (query, Puck, the Icelandic puki?) and it cried out 'Let me go to Daddy'! Then the man was angry and said 'Thoo ga to thy Daddy'! and it went away to its Daddy; and he was very much disappointed at not getting his Sunday dinner.
I assume when the writer says Mrs Hodgson has 'caught' a real live hare-fairy, he is meaning that she has tracked down a still current hare-fairy legend.
The rest of the article refers to other well-known Lake District legends (the phantom army on Souther Fell - though the author says there is also one on Helvellyn, need-fires and the Armboth boggle legend. The Saturday Review was evidently a weekly 'magazine' looking in-depth at a variety of subjects.
This is another delightful fairy legend - I keep a map locating other fairy legends in Cumbria so take a look at let me know of any I have missed!
This is really interesting - it has reminded me of a little story I read somewhere about in Devon of a boy catching a hare and putting it in a bag. It then says something weird that I cant remember and he is so surprised he lets it go - Wish I could remember where I read it... I wander if this is another of these stories with old roots - Some folklorist I read (Simpson and Roud?) suggested that as a general rule the more wide spread a myth the older its origins...
ReplyDeleteAha! Found it at last - only took a few days thinking! It was in Ruth E St Leger-Gordon's 1964 book "The witchcraft and folklore of Dartmoor" - A story from Belstone - An old man told her that his dad and a companion where carrying a snared Hare back in a net when a loud voice from the hillside behind them (Cosdon Hill for those that know the area - a big rounded hill that sticks out the north end of the moor). The voice shouted "Jacko! Jacko!" To which the little hare jumped up in surprise and cried out " That's my dad calling me!" at which the two men dropped the net in surprise and legged it - on returning they found the net but not the snared hare... Ruth says she was told the story and cant make sense of it, thinking it must be a fragment of a larger tale - but maybe not - the Cambrian and the Devonian tale must be from the same genesis...
ReplyDeleteThanks for that - most helpful. There's obviously a link (or some copying going on!)
DeleteI thought that - still, no harm in a little copying in the folklore world - folk songs are half made up of the best bits from older folk songs... If it was copied I hope it was the man's dad and not the folklorist!
DeleteMrs. Hodgson lived at Newby Grange, Crosby-on-Eden. There is a bit here about the Hodgson's and a Roman Stone that was found in the shrubbery. The reason for my interest is that I lived at Newby Grange for a few years as a child, my father, an electrical engineer, working for the Carlisle Co-op which had a market garden at Newby Grange. We emigrated to Canada in 1953.
ReplyDeletehttp://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2055-1/dissemination/pdf/Article_Level_Pdf/tcwaas/002/1901/vol1/tcwaas_002_1901_vol1_0011.pdf
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