[89] Aubrey, Miscellanies upon various subjects.
[90] See in Bib. Top. Brit., vol. iv., a Critical Memoir on the Story of Guy of Warwick, by the Rev. Samuel Pegge, who supposes that Guy lived in Saxon times, and was the son of Simon, Baron of Wallingford. He married Felicia, (Phillis,) the daughter and heiress of Rohand, Earl of Warwick, who flourished in the reign of Edward the Elder, and so became Earl of Warwick.
[91] In Ritson’s Ancient Songs and Ballads.
[92] The “pindar” was the man who took care of stray cattle, which he kept in the pinfold, or pound, until it was claimed and the expenses paid.
[94] The “Dropping Well,” one of the most noted petrifying springs in England, and so named on account of its percolating through the rock that hangs over it.
[95] This information we gather from a chapbook entitled “The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton, by Ferraby, printer on the Market Place, Hull.” It is evidently a reprint of a chapbook of the time of Charles II., as appears from many allusions.
[96] Once there was a man who led a holy life, and was a prophet, who could see what would come to pass; his name was Merlin, and he was the offspring of an evil and fiendish spirit. But though born from such a father, he shone forth in virtue, and after his death, became a companion of the saints.
[98] John Collet’s Historical Anecdotes, Add. MSS. 8890, p. 113.
[100] This broadside is reprinted in Notes and Queries for January 15, 1859. Sussex had its snake as late as 1614. There is a pamphlet In the Harl. Collection, entitled, “True and Wonderful--a discourse relating a strange and monstrous serpent, (or dragon,) lately discovered, and yet living, to the great annoyance and divers slaughter both of men and cattell, by his strong and violent Poyson, in Sussex, two miles from Horsam, in a woode called St Leonard’s Forrest, and thirtie miles from London, this present month of August 1614.” That this Sussex snake caused a great sensation, appears from the fact that seventeen years after, it is alluded to in “Whimsies: or, A New Cast of Characters,” 1631: “Nor comes his [the ballad-monger’s] invention far short of his imagination. For want of truer relations for a neede, he can find you out a _Sussex dragon_, some sea or inland monster, drawn out by some Shoe Lane man, [_i.e._, a sign-painter; they all lived in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane,] in Gorgon-like features, to enforce more horror in the beholder.”