is properly Puck-ball or Puck-fist; the little folks' are well known to have a great liking for the fungus tribe."

In the "Athenæum" for 9th Oct., 1847, p. 1054, it is stated that "Pæccan or Pæccian (Anglo-Saxon) signifies to deceive by false appearances, to delude, to impose upon."

The following passage relative to Puck, and the derivation of the name, is taken from Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's very interesting work on "Ireland; its Scenery, Character," &c., Vol. i., p. 108, &c.:

"Of the malignant class of beings composing the Irish fairy mythology-and it is creditable to the national character that they are the least numerous,-the Pooka* excels and is preeminent in malice and mischief. In form he is a very Proteusgenerally a horse, but often an eagle. He sometimes assumes the figure of a bull, or becomes an ignis fatuus. Amongst the great diversity of forms at times assumed by him, he exhibits a mixture or compound of the calf and goat. Probably it is in some measure owing to the assumption of the latter figure that he owes his name, "puc" being the Irish for a goat. Golding, in his translation of Ovid, describes him by name, in a character of which the goat forms a component part :—

'The country where Chymæra, that same Pouk,

With goatish body, lion's head and breast, and dragon's tail,' &c.

"And Spenser has the following lines :

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'Ne let the Pouke, nor other evil spirit,

Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,

Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we know not,

Fray us with things that be not.'

The Pouke or Pooka means literally the evil one

playing

the puck,' a common Anglo-Irish phrase, is equivalent to 'playing the devil.'

to which he has given his name, as Drohid-a-Pooka, Castle Pook, and Carrig-a-Pooka. The island of Melaan, also, at the mouth of the Kenmare river, is a chosen site whereon this malignant spirit indulges his freaks. It is uninhabited, and is dreaded by the peasantry and fishermen, not less because of its gloomy, rugged, and stern aspect, than for the tales of terror connected with it. The tempest wails fearfully around its spectre-haunted crags, and dark objects are often seen flitting over it in the gloom of the night. Shrill noises are heard, and cries, and halloos, and wild and moaning sounds; and the fishermen, benighted or forced upon its rocks, may often behold, in the crowding groups which flit around, the cold faces of those long dead-the silent tenants, of many years, of field and wave. The consequence is, that proximity to the island is religiously avoided by the boats of the country after sunset; and a bold crew are they who, at nightfall, approach its haunted shores.

"The great object of the Pooka seems to be to obtain a rider, and then he is in all his most malignant glory. Headlong he dashes through briar and brake, through flood and fell, over mountain, valley, moor, or river, indiscriminately; up or down precipice is alike to him, provided he gratifies the malevolence that seems to inspire him. He bounds and flies over and beyond them, gratified by the distress, and utterly reckless and ruthless of the cries, and danger, and suffering, of the luckless wight who bestrides him. As the Tinna Geolane,' or Will-o'-the-Wisp, he lures but to betray; like the Hanoverian Tuckbold*,' he deludes the night wanderer into a bog, and leads him to his destruction in a quagmire or pit. Macpherson's "Spirit of Loda" is evidently founded on the tradition of the Pooka; and in the "Fienian Tales" he is repeatedly mentioned as the Puka (gruagach, or hairy spirit) of the Blue Valley.'

"The English Puck is a jolly, frolicksome, night-loving rogue, full of archness, and fond of all kind of merry tricks; a shrewd and knavish spirit, as Shakespeare has it. But he is, nevertheless,

See p. 424, as to Tuck Hill, &c. In Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," Vol. iii., p, 158, it is stated that the North German "Tückbolde" is identical with the Jack-o'-Lantern.

very probably in his origin the same as the Irish Pooka; as, besides the resemblance in name, we find he has not at all times sustained his laughter-loving character, but, on the contrary, exhibited unquestionable proof of his Irish affinity in descent. For this we have the poetical authority of Drayton, in his "Polyolbion:"—

'This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt;

Still walking like a ragged colt,

And oft out of a bush doth bolt,
Of purpose to deceive us;

And, leaving us, makes us to stray,
Long winter nights, out of the way;
And when we stick in mire and clay,

He doth with laughter leave us.'

"The early English adventurers imported to the Irish shores their softened version of the native Pooka under his Saxon appellation of Puck, and have left his name to Puck's Rock, near Howth, and Puck Castle, a romantic ruin in the county of Dublin."

The narrative continues with the detail of some practical jokes of the Pookat, which must have been far from pleasant to his riders.

Thoms tells us, in the " Lays and Legends of Ireland," that "there can be no doubt that Puck, or Pouke, means the devil; and in Ireland that name is also variously localised. The form under which the Irish Puck, or Pooka, most commonly appears— for it seems to have the power of assuming forms at will—is that of a goat, a form in which the usual attributes of horns and cloven feet are preserved, as well as the similarity of name; 'boc' (usually pronounced puck) being the Irish for a goat. A celebrated waterfall of the Liffey, in the county of Wicklow, is called Poule-a-Phooka, or Phooke's Cavern. The Castle of Carrig-aPhooka, not far from Macroom, and the Castle Pooke, situated between Doneraile and the ruins of Kilcoleman, where Edmund Spenser wrote his " Fairy Queen," are in the county of Cork."

On the north side of the Bay of Dublin.

+ See also Vol. ii., p. 200.

Pp. 48, 49.

A passage relative to the derivation of the word "Puck" will be found in the "Archæological Journal," Vol. i., pp. 144, 145, under the title, "Observations on the Primeval Antiquities of the Channel Islands, by F. C. Lukis, Esq,," where the author, after referring to the derivation of the word "cromlech," speaks of the names pouque" and "laye," or lee," as occurring in those islands, “(from whence Puck, an elf, or dwarf,) meaning the place of the fairy.”

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ROBIN HOOD.

In the account of Robin Hood given in pp. 130 to 135, he is considered to have been contemporary with the battle of Evesham, temp. 1265; and the "Scottish Chronicle" of Fordun and Bower, and the "Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode," are quoted as authorities. Since that part of this work was printed, the Rev. Joseph Hunter has published No. 4 of his "Critical and Historical Tracts," entitled, "The Great Hero of the Ancient Minstrelsy of England, Robin Hood. His period, real character, &c., investigated, and perhaps ascertained." Mr. Hunter endeavours to identify him with one "Robyn Hode," who entered the service of Edward II. a little before Christmas 1323, and continued therein somewhat less than a twelvemonth; and considers that he was one of the vanquished at the battle of Boroughbridge, in 1321-2. In support of this view, Mr. Hunter joins Mr. Wright in regarding the passage in the "Scoti Chronicon," relative to Robin Hood, as part of the addition which was made to the genuine Fordun in the fifteenth century."

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Now, the above point is more with the critic than the collector; but as I considered, at the time I made the quotations from Fordun and Bower, that those passages were genuine, I certainly was struck with the remarkable fact that so many places in the north and north-east part of Worcestershire, in and about Feckenham Forest and bordering upon Evesham, bear the names Robin

It is as well to remark that the person described as Duguil in "Old England," as contemporary with Robin Hood (see p. 132 of this work), is called Daynil in the above "Chronicle."

aud Robin Hood*; and I was therefore led to the conjecture that they were so named after the people's darling, upon the disafforesting of those lands by Edward I., in 1299 (being about thirty-four years after the battle of Evesham), particularly as those lands had been tyrannically wrested from the people by his great-grandfather, Henry II., and added to the forest.

JACK-O'-LANTERN.

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In addition to what has been already said this name appears to be familiar in Scandinavia and North Germany, as well as in England. In Mr. B. Thorpe's " Northern Mythology," Vol. ii., p. 97, it is stated among the Swedish traditions, that Jack-witha-Lantern" was a mover of land-marks," and "is doomed to have no rest in his grave after death, but to rise every midnight, and, with a lantern in his hand, to proceed to the spot where the land-mark had stood which he had fraudulently removed," &c. And in Vol. iii., p. 158, among the North German traditions, it is stated that Jack-o'-Lanterns" are frequently said. to be the souls of unbaptised children that have no rest in the grave, and must hover between heaven and earth t." The name Jack well suits the tricksy spirit in question, for generally speaking it means a cunning fellow, who can turn his hand to any thing, as "Jack of all Trades," Jack and the

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Bean Stalk," "Jack the Giant Killer," "Jack in the Green," ‘Jack Pudding," &c.; the latter means a zany, a merry Andrew, a buffoon §.

According to some writers, "Jack in the Green " is a type or

* I observe Mr. Hunter considers that many of the places so named were places to which the persons in after times called Robin Hood's men" were wont to resort when they went out a-Maying, or to try their skill with the bow." There is another subject which it is to be hoped Mr. Hunter will treat upon, namely, the disputed " Itinerary" of Richard of Cirencester.

+ This appears to be the more modern idea. There is a fancy in Devonshire that the Yell Hounds and Pixies are the souls of unbaptised children. See the account of "Mathon," pp. 255, 256, and “ Pixie," infra.

Like "Black Jack," hereafter mentioned.

§ Spring-heeled Jack is still in the memory of most of our readers.