Copy 1, Volume 1

Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright.

  • Wright, Thomas, 1810-1877.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on subjects connected with the literature, popular superstitions, and history of England in the Middle Ages / By Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    people, when asleep in their beds, are roused by a voice calling them, and a knocking at their doors. When they go out they find certain strange boats full of passengers. Having entered the boats, and begun to pull the oars, they arrive at the isle of Britain in a moment, although in their own vessels they cannot go over in less than a day and a night, with all their sails spread. There they disem- bark, and land their passengers without being able to see them. And they hear the voices of those who come to meet the passengers, calling them by their names, and family, and occupations, and the passengers answering them. After which they return home as speedily as they went.” We might almost suppose that Tzetzes, had he but lived a little later, had met with some Norseman, who told him the well-known story of the departure of the trolls from Vendsyssel. There can be no doubt that Greece had, and still has, abundance of legends. Many were brought from the east by the crusaders, and a few found their way into our west- ern chronicles. Two occur in the Chronicle of John of Bromton, both relating to the Gulf of Satalia, with the shorter of which we will conclude, because it is a curious instance of the formation of legends to account for natural phenomena : it requires no great acuteness to perceive that the worthy Grecians had seen a water-spout :—“ Another very extraordinary thing happens once in every month of the year in the Gulf of Satalia: a great black dragon is seen to come from the clouds, and puts its head into the water, and its tail seems as though it were fixed to the sky: and this dragon drinks up the waves so greedily, that it swallows up along with them any ships that may come in the way, with their crews and cargo, be they ever so