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The Popular Rhymes of Scotland, With Illustr., Collected by R. Chambers
The Popular Rhymes of Scotland With Illustr Collected by R Chambers Author:Robert Chambers General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1870 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: FIRESIDE NURSERY STORIES. What man of middle age, or above it, does not remember the tales of drollery and wonder which used to be told by the fireside, in cottage and in nursery, by the old women, time out of mind the vehicles for such traditions ? These stories were in general of a simple kind, befitting the minds which they were to regale ; but in many instances they displayed considerable fancy, at the same time that they derived an inexpressible charm from a certain antique air which they had brought down with them from the world of their birth -- a world still more primitive, and rude, and romantic, than that in which they were told, old as it now appears to us. They breathed of a time when society was in its simplest elements, and the most familiar natural things were as yet unascertained from the supernatural. It seems not unlikely that several of these legends had been handed down from very early ages -- from the mythic times of our Gothic history -- undergoing of course great change, in accordance with the changing character of the people, but yet, like the wine in the Heidelberg tun, not altogether renewed. A considerable number of popular stories, apparently of the kind here alluded to, are cited by name -- but, alas! by name only -- in the curious early specimen of Scottish prose composition, the Comflaynt of Scotland, a sort of quaint political pamphlet published in 1548. Amongst others are the tale of The Red Etin, The Black Bull of Norroway, The Walle of the World's End, and Pure Tynt Rashiecoat, all of which Dr Leyden, in his learned notes on the book, says he remembers hearing recit...« less