Such an investigation, while it went
greatly to diminish our ideas of the richness of human invention,
would also show that these fictions, however wild and childish,
possess such charms for the populace, as enable them to penetrate into
countries unconnected by manners and language, and having no apparent
intercourse to afford the means of transmission. It would carry me far
beyond my bounds to produce instances of this community of fable,
among nations who never borrowed from each other anything
intrinsically worth learning. Indeed, the wide diffusion of popular
fictions may be compared to the facility with which straws and
feathers are dispersed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals
cannot be transported without trouble and labour."
Sir Walter, in appending this observation to a tradition extracted
from "Grahame's Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire" pp. 116-118,
remarks--"that this story, translated by Dr. G. from a Gaelic
tradition, is to be found in the _Otia Imperialia_ of Gervase of
Tilbury."
Now, it is not a little singular, that of the self-same legend we have
also an original edition, received from a Welsh woman, as it is
current in Wales, and "believed to be true in the place where it
happened"--as she averred--but whereabout in Cambria that was she
failed to inform us. Here, then, is her account of a fairy favour:--
"The _accoucheuse_ of a small village in Wales was one night aroused
by a carriage driving furiously through it, and stopping at her door.
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