Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/369

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AND SOME PARALLELS.
361

whence it has been taken before peace can be restored." March 21st, 1883.

(At Burton Agnes Hall, East Yorks, there is a skull of a female and, if it be buried out of the house, the whole place is disturbed with the most unaccountable noises, which last until it is brought into the Hall again: it now peacefully reposes in a closet in the wall.—W. H. J.)

"Nemere," a paper published in Transylvania, March 16th, 1883, says, "Mrs. A. G., of Szemerja, coming home last Friday night, found a little red man sitting by the oven: the moon shone on the oven, and the outline of the little man could therefore be distinctly seen: his size was about that of a man's arm; a black cap crowned his head; his dress was red; his face and hands covered with hair. The woman's blood ran cold, as she stood staring at the strange being, who sat immovable in the moonlight: after some time, the creature advanced a few steps and disappeared. That night was spent in prayer; and in the morning she scrubbed the place where the little man had sat with garlic, and fumigated the whole place: but all in vain, for that very night the little red man sat by the oven again. As the woman entered the room, he approached her; when (either actuated by fright or by returning courage) the woman threw the can she held in her hand at the goblin: in one moment, he was on her back, thrust her head down, and scratched her forehead. She fainted! and was bedfast for three days; nor did she recover until she had taken some dust from the place where the goblin sat, and drank of it three times, and she herself and the place had been fumigated three times! The little man was seen by other people last Saturday, after he had left the fainting woman, but has since disappeared. No doubt she must have seen some stray monkey, which had got loose by accident: but the good people of Szemerja are fully convinced that it was a goblin, if it was not the devil himself, as it has left traces of its footsteps behind, which are exactly like those of a goose."

"In the award of the parish of Ipolysátg, dated 1256, which is kept in the archives of the Great Chapter at Gran, mention is made of a double hill, marking the boundary 'ad fossam gigantium.' Mr. Louis Höke enquired into this, as to the folk-tradition concerning it, and found, on the banks of a dyke cut in the rock, a stone slab, in the