River Legends; Or, Father Thames and Father Rhine
performed his duty to his masters, making and altering mountains for
them when required, holding a gigantic umbrella over particular crops
which the rain would have damaged when a storm happened to break over
them, and performing very many other offices for the performance of
which brute strength was required. In short, he proved a most faithful,
useful, and obedient servant, never grumbled at being required to rise
early, complained of his victuals, or said that, ‘it wasn’t his place’
to do any particular service asked of him, but did his duty like a true
and good giant, and was consequently happy and contented during the
whole of his remaining life. I cannot tell you precisely when that life
terminated, but I rather fancy his head got confused when two great
nations took to quarrelling as to which of them had the best claim to
my river, and consequently to the giant who served the population of the
country near, and if this absurdity on the part of mortals turned with
them into madness, it is not a matter of surprise that the same disease
fell upon the less powerful intellect of the poor giant, and that he put
an end to himself when, like the nations themselves, he was labouring
under ‘temporary insanity.’ At all events, I have told you his legend
as {179}far as it has been well authenticated, and will now leave you to
pass your opinion thereupon.”
“A good tale, indeed, Brother Rhine,” remarked Father Thames at the
conclusion of this story.
“I am glad you approve of it,” replied the other. “Have you never had
giants of this kind in your own country, Brother Thames?”
Thus addressed, the old king pondered for awhile, and then made answer
as follows:--“Yes, we have had giants, of one sort or another, in old
England, but rarely of the size, and scarce even of the mischievous
character, of your Daddyroarers. But since you have told me a tale of
the giant, let me give you a legend of the small people;” and so saying
Father Thames commenced the history of--
THE MANNIKINS’ CASTLE
I don’t pretend, Brother Rhine, to have as many haunted castles upon my
banks as you have on and about the sides of your famous river. I have
always denied that the chief merit of a castle consists in its being
haunted, and the simple-minded people who inhabit this old England of
ours look to the circumstance of their houses being comfortable to live
in, free from draughts and bad smells, large enough to entertain their
friends, and possessed of good kitchen arrangements, rather than to
their being the residence of any supernatural beings such as those of
which you and your castles appear to be so proud. Moreover I have often
observed that the presence of such creatures is constantly connected
with the commission of some frightful {180}crime at a distant period of
time, the perpetrator of which appears desirous to perpetuate its
memory by haunting the place where it was performed as much as he or she
conveniently can. We islanders, on the contrary, when any of us happen
to commit a crime, prefer that it should be forgotten as soon as
possible, and think it very indecent and improper of any member of a
respectable family who may have distinguished himself in the paths of
vice if he seeks to keep up the remembrance thereof, and throw a stain
upon the escutcheon of his house by coming back again to earth after he
has once left it for the benefit of the survivors. There are exceptions,
of course, to this rule, but I state what I believe to be the popular
feeling here upon the subject; and although I am going to tell you a
story which concerns a castle, and also beings not strictly mortal or
ordinary, I may at once tell you that, so far as I know, no murder was
ever committed there, and no ghost or demon of an unpleasant character
ever entered the place, except under the casual circumstances which I
shall presently relate.
It was an old castle, however; a very old castle, built much more
massively than the structures of modern times, and full of curious old
bits of wall, over which antiquaries would puzzle nowadays to determine
their date, and having here and there wonderful windows with huge stone
mullions set into the great, deep walls, and apparently built with the
intention of lasting until the end of the world. In the chief window
of this old ruin--for a ruin it was at the time of my story--there
habitually sat a large black owl, who was generally supposed to be the
lord and ruler of the place.
Perhaps _he_ was a spirit if one only knew it, but as no one _did_ know
{182}it, it never entered anybody’s head to say so. He was hardly mortal
though, for he not only hooted like an ordinary owl, but spoke like
a Christian; at least so I suppose, or how would he have made himself
understood by other beings who were _not_ owls, and who yet had to
communicate with him? For beings more extraordinary than owls inhabited
the old castle. A large number of mannikins had taken possession of it
some years after its abandonment by mortals, and here the merry little
creatures would sport and gambol all the livelong day. They used to
clamber about the strong ivy-trees that grew up the sides of the old
walls, playing at hide and seek among the thick leaves, and making the
place re-echo with their joyous shouts. They were wont to sport and play
with the large lizards which basked upon the walls when the sun came out
with rays bright and strong, and warm enough to tempt them to do so, and
they would scamper up and down the whole place, trying their skill in
ascending and descending the steepest and most perpendicular places in
the old walls, where the stone was crumbling away from sheer age, and
where no being of mortal frame and mould could have found a secure
footing for a moment. Oh, they were merry little chaps, those mannikins!
Within the precincts of the castle itself, in the ancient courtyards
which once reverberated with the shrill blast of trumpets calling men
forth to war; where men-at-arms formerly strode boldly along, filled
with warlike ardour, and where martial sounds rang out loud and oft in
the days of old, grass was now growing long and rank, which was trodden
under foot only by the lively mannikins in their daily and nightly
dances, whilst their shrill and merry cries replaced those sterner
sounds which had long {183}since ceased, and those who had caused them
had passed for ever from mortal ken and mortal vision. All was indeed
changed; but I am not prepared to say that the change was not for the
better, for I was never fond of the old feudal times myself; and the
barons who used to possess such castles, and send forth their retainers
to fight, were much more troublesome people to the world at large,
and their neighbours in particular, than were the little mannikins who
played around the old place, or the wise old owl who blinked his eyes
cosily and comfortably in the stone window.
You would have thought that such innocent creatures as owls and
mannikins could have had no enemies, but must have been on good terms
with all their fellow-creatures of every description. True, they
sometimes made themselves disagreeable in the way of taking new-laid
eggs from farmyards which were within temptingly easy reach of their own
abode, and now and then they were shrewdly suspected of having milked a
cow with which they had no business, and stolen cream when the dairymaid
had been careless enough to leave the dairy-door unlocked. In these
particulars, though, they were, after all, no worse than mortals have
frequently been, and in fact not half so bad, inasmuch as they made
what return they could to the country people who might have now and then
suffered from their depredations, sometimes going out in the moonlight
nights and making their hay for them or finishing the cutting of a
cornfield, and even condescending so far, on more than one occasion, as
to sweep a chimney and thoroughly dust a kitchen floor. For they were
very active little fellows, those mannikins, and could turn their hands
to almost anything if they saw fit to do so.
They {184}had some enemies no doubt, in wild and evil-disposed animals,
for they loved to warn the lamb when the wolf was lying in wait for him,
and often saved the poultry by a timely notice that the fox was coming,
whereby they incurred the wrath and hatred of these midnight marauders.
But the chief and principal of their enemies were the witches, who have
during all ages been a plague to this otherwise favoured land. I say
advisedly, in all ages, because this is indeed the truth, although in
their form and shape, as well as in their method of doing mischief,
persons of this class have wonderfully changed. In old times they were
generally of repulsive appearance, oftentimes clad in a red cloak,
generally with a stick in one hand, and almost invariably humpbacked or
misshapen in some way, and attended by a familiar in the shape of a cat.
They were consulted only on serious affairs, or when somebody wanted to
be revenged upon somebody else; they were malicious in their words
and actions; hated everything good, respectable, and handsome; and, if
possible, transformed it as soon as they could into something quite the
reverse. Nowadays, our English witches are entirely different: their
shape is usually beautiful, their figure perfect, their eyes bright and
full of expression, and their dress made in admirable good taste and
after an exceedingly becoming fashion. They have no familiar spirit, and
the best of them allow no one to be too familiar with them; neither
do they change the form and shape of mankind into those of hideous
creatures, but, on the contrary, rather prefer that men should be
handsome and well shaped; but they still exercise over them an almost
resistless sway, which, however, is far more {185}willingly obeyed
than was the power of the witches of the old times; and they are now
consulted, not so much on matters of hate and revenge, as on those which
concern feelings far more desirable to be cherished in the human breast.
But the witches of whom I have to speak to-day hated the mannikins as
much as a certain person is said to hate holy water. The reason of
this was sufficiently obvious, and arose from the entire and radical
difference between the views of the two sets of beings. The mannikins
were, as I have said, although mischievous, the friends of mankind; the
witches were the enemies of everything human which was not as wicked
as themselves: the mannikins found pleasure in the most innocent
amusements; the witches had no satisfaction in anything which did
not injure or give pain to somebody else: the mannikins were gay and
cheerful, the witches dull and morose, save when under the influence of
strong drink: the mannikins generally ran about on their own legs; the
witches habitually rode broomsticks, or toads, or whatever else came in
their way and could be made to serve as a horse--in fine, the mannikins
and witches did not, could not, and were never likely to, agree upon any
one point or in any one feature of resemblance, and therefore it was not
unnatural that they should be animated by feelings of hostility the one
against the other. I am bound to say, however, that the mannikins never
wished to interfere with or annoy the witches, and would have been well
content to keep out of their way altogether if they could only have
managed to do so. It was the witches who went out of their way to tease
and bully the mannikins whenever they could, and who were {186}entirely
responsible for all the troubles which occurred in consequence.
Not far from the owl’s castle was a large forest, in which all kinds
of creatures dwelt, and of which the little people from the castle made