River Legends; Or, Father Thames and Father Rhine
great and frequent use. They dearly loved to wander amongst the enormous
trees, climbing over their branches, and playing around their gigantic
trunks. One tree in particular there was which they held very precious.
It had fallen down, and lay in the forest, covering a prodigious space
of ground. On, under, and around it, wherever they could do so, the
little mannikins planted a large number of fungi, under which they
sought shelter from the rays of the sun or the pelting of the storm, and
which they called their summer palace. Here they would spend hour after
hour when the weather was favourable, and I have often wandered up from
my river to have a sly peep at the merry little creatures sporting and
playing whilst the distant moon shone upon them from afar, lighting up
the walls of the old castle in the distance, and bathing with a flood
of light the forest and fallen tree and the mannikins’ playground around
the latter. There they would be, sure enough, night after night, running
one after the other round the tree and under the fungi, having sometimes
coaxed a butterfly or two, a big blue-bottle fly, or some other lively
insect, to sit up with them and make a night of it.
One would have thought that it would have been scarcely worth the
witches’ while to have troubled themselves with these harmless people,
when there was so much more mischief of a practical character to be done
in the world without. But there is no accounting for tastes, {187}and
when the evil passion of malice once seizes upon any one, whether mortal
or witch, no one can tell to what extremities it will lead. Accordingly,
several of the most notorious witches in that part of the country (and
ever since England was a country, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire have
been the favourite abodes of witches) resolved to harass and worry the
mannikins by every means within their power.
Dame Stokes, Mother Wandle, and old Goody Tickleback {188}were the names
of the three principal plotters, and a rare bad lot they were when you
came to know them. Dame Stokes lived at Datchet, whence she generally
sallied forth upon one of the biggest broomsticks ever known in that
part of the country.
Mother Wandle frequently assumed the shape of a large bat, under
which disguise she flitted about all over the country; whilst Goody
Tickleback, who resided not far from the playing-fields at Eton,
habitually rode the carcase of a fearful antediluvian monster whose
skeleton she had found in some queer place, and which, animated by her
particular evil spirit, made her a capital horse, and struck terror
{189}into the souls of all those who were unfortunate enough to see
it. These foul creatures, having secured the aid of others as bad as
themselves, determined to root out the family of mannikins if they
possibly could, or at all events drive them once for all from the castle
and its neighbourhood.
They first endeavoured to obtain as allies the nymphs who frequented
my banks, coming down oftentimes to bathe from their homes in the shady
recesses of Windsor Forest, where their dances were most beautiful to
behold, showing off their graceful figures to perfection, and making me
anxious that they should become permanent residents within the waters
of my river. These ladies, however, would have nothing to say to the
witches, whom they declared to be frightful as well as disreputable
people, not fit for the society of well-conducted females who had any
respect for themselves. They stated, moreover, that, in their opinion,
the mannikins had done nothing for which they deserved to be punished,
but were inoffensive and gentlemanlike little people, who ought rather
to be encouraged than the reverse. Then the witches tried to cajole my
elves, and to persuade them to splash, duck, and, if possible, drown
their enemies when they came down to play upon the river banks. But
the elves were exceedingly indignant at the request, remarking that the
witches had nothing whatever to do with _them_, whilst the mannikins
were their first cousins once removed, and that “blood was thicker than
water.”
So, as they could get no other allies, the old hags were obliged to
content themselves with the snakes and bats, the inferior class of
toads, rats, hedgehogs, and other {190}low-lived and despicable animals.
And, first of all, they determined to try and get rid of the old owl,
who was the guardian and protector of the mannikins, and the extent of
whose power was very little known. So they began by spreading all kinds
of false and wicked reports about the worthy bird. They caused it to be
said that he had been seen carrying off young chickens, that he had been
detected in robbing several pheasants’ nests, and that his private life
was no better than it should be. Unfortunately, however, for the
success of this scheme, the owl took no newspapers and saw no company.
Consequently, he never heard or read of the reports in question, and
therefore of course never took the trouble to contradict them. The
result was that, as is usually the case under similar circumstances,
people, seeing that the individual attacked took no notice of what was
said, thought they had better take the same course, and the reports
dropped gradually out of circulation, until no one believed them at all.
It was thus made evident to the witches that they must resort to more
active measures if they desired to disturb the owl. So they poisoned
a young rabbit, and put it near the window in which the ancient bird
commonly sat. But the owl was too many for them. A fox came and looked
at the rabbit, but having done so, although its appearance was tender
and tempting, he winked his eye and passed on. Then the owl slowly
raised his claws to his beak, chuckled a little in a sepulchral tone,
and told a couple of mannikins to bury that carcass out of the way,
and watch any one who came and brought such an article again, and, if
possible, bring them to his presence.
It {191}was plain that the owl was not to be caught asleep, and the
witches must betake themselves to some new plan. So they sent for some
hawks, and persuaded them that the owl was the natural and terrible
enemy of their race, and that by a combined attack upon him, they might
get rid of him at once and for ever. The hawks went to take a look at
the bird and the place, and, after a careful inspection, came to the
conclusion that there was nothing to be gained by attacking either.
Their eyes were so sharp, that they saw through the plan of the witches,
and were perfectly certain that they had some end of their own in view.
So they told the old ladies that they had been entirely mistaken in the
matter, that the owl was by no means a bad sort of person, and that they
could not interfere in any way in the private quarrels of other people.
Disappointed at this, the three witches next went to the jays, and
easily succeeded in inducing these mischievous birds to make such a
frightful and discordant screaming around the owl’s abode as would, in
all probability, oblige him to leave it. But the owl did no such thing.
He simply told the mannikins to tell the jays that unless their noise
instantly ceased, and was not again renewed, a birdsnesting party should
be organized by the little people as soon as ever the nesting season
should arrive, and that every jay in or near the wood should have to
deplore the loss of eggs and young. This was most alarming news to the
jays, who knew pretty well that the owl had full power to carry out his
threat, and that if he did so, the mannikins, who had eyes like needles,
and could climb with so much ease and agility, would certainly take
every jay’s egg in the place, and thus {192}wreak a fearful vengeance on
the disturbers of their monarch’s rest. So the birds desisted forthwith
from their noise, and observed that they had only done it for a “lark,”
and meant no harm; to which the wise bird replied, that there was a
great difference between an owl and a lark, which difference they had
better fully recognise before troubling him again in such a manner.
Still the witches would not desist from their attempt to obtain, by
secret cunning, the result which they feared to seek by open attack.
They hired bats to flit around the castle walls by night, with the
intention of pulling out the owl’s tail and wing-feathers, and thus
crippling him in his sleep, when he might be attacked with less fear
of evil consequences to the aggressors. The attempt, however, miserably
failed. The worthy bats, who really belonged to the castle, had
experienced such great and unvarying kindness from the owl, that they
had neither reason nor desire to prove faithless to him. They easily and
immediately detected the strange birds who entered the precincts of
the castle, and, having forced them to declare the object of their
intrusion, drove them out with blows and insults, so that they retired
in the utmost confusion.
Then the witches began to see that the owl was not to be outwitted by
cunning, or destroyed by fraud. War, open war, was the only resource
left; and the next question would be how it could be carried on with the
best chance of success. They had the impudence to send a deputation of
little witchlings to me, calmly asking me to overflow and put the castle
and its grounds under water, so that it might become too damp for
the mannikins to dwell in any longer. This, however, I naturally
{193}refused to do, having much better use to make of the waters of my
river than to employ them upon any such purpose to suit the pleasure of
such low and wicked creatures, and, moreover, I told them that, if they
dared to come to me any more with such base proposals, I would drown
half-a-dozen of them by way of teaching them manners.
They retired somewhat discomfited; but, knowing that I was too
good-natured to do them any injury as long as they left me quiet,
very soon came down to my banks again, and entered into successful
negotiations with a large number of water-rats. These creatures they
hired, with a bribe of moorhens’ eggs, which they took from the poor
birds in a cruel and reckless manner, to join with a number of land-rats
in an attack upon the castle. The rat-contingent was to unite on the
banks of the river, and thence to advance upon the castle through that
part of the wood which lay nearest the stream. They were to be supported
by a strong auxiliary force of frogs and toads of the worst character,
and a body of snakes would simultaneously creep upon the doomed place
from the other side. A number of bats, hooded crows, night-hawks, and
such evil birds and beasts as they could obtain for the service, would
constitute the reserve, which the three witches themselves would command
in person. The plan was that the castle should be invested on all
sides at once by the noxious reptiles and animals which constituted the
witches’ army, and that a bold, and it was hoped decisive, effort should
be made to destroy the whole race of mannikins.
Some difficulty was experienced from the fact of the frogs, toads, and
rats objecting to fight side by side with the {194}snakes, who were
not averse to them as food, and might perhaps remember their natural
instincts if overtaken by hunger in the hour of battle. The witches had
foreseen this probable objection on the part of the weaker animals, and
took measures to remove it without delay. Each of them was made to pass
before the great witch, Goody Tickleback, who dropped upon the body of
every one a single drop of magic fluid of extraordinary virtue, which
was warranted to prevent the creature so touched from being eaten by
any other. As she performed this strange process, she pronounced these
words:--
“This wondrous sign of magic art