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In no place were the tidings of the rising at Modin received with greater exultation than in the lonely dwelling of Hadassah. The Hebrew widow could hardly refrain from taking down...
There was once a very beautiful young girl, who died suddenly on the day she was to have been married to a handsome young man. He was also brave, but his heart was not proof agains...
Long ago there lived an old man, who dwelt in a poor cottage. He possessed one thing only in the world, and that was a daughter who was so wise that she could teach even her old fa...
It is lucky to have crickets in a house, and to kill one is sure to bring bad luck after it. If they are very numerous in a house, it is a sign that peace and plenty reign there. T...
The power of the fairies was not confined to unchristened children alone; it was supposed frequently to be extended to full-grown people, especially such as in an unlucky hour were...
The Fairy tales that abound in the Principality have much in common with like legends in other countries. This points to a common origin of all such tales. There is a real and unre...
1. It was formerly believed that men could sell themselves to the devil, and thus become the possessors of supernatural power. These men were looked upon as malicious conjurors. 2....
Another imaginary being, closely allied to the Fairy family, was the Pwka. He seems to have possessed many of the mischievous qualities of Shakespeare's Puck, whom, also, he resemb...
At the corner of the first turning after passing the village of Llanrhos, on the left hand side, is a withered oak tree, called by the natives of those parts the Devil's Tree, and...
The thrice repeated notes of five sounds, with an abrupt note at the end, of which the cooing of the wood pigeon consists, have been construed into words, and these words differ in...
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"There are oxen, too, like that of India, some with one horn, and others with three; the leucrocotta, a wild beast of extraordinary swiftness, the size of the wild ass, with the le...
Of the Martin, or, as in Heraldry it is written, Martlet, Guillim thus writes:--"The Martlet, or Martinet, saith Bekenhawh, hath Legs so exceeding short, that they can by no means...
The Lion has a dreadful enemy, according to Pliny, who says:--"We have heard speak of a small animal to which the name of Leontophonus[36] has been given, and which is said to exis...
Aldrovandus portrays the Basilisk with eight legs. Topsell says it is the same as the Cockatrice, depicts it as a crowned serpent, and says:--"This Beast is called by the Graecian...
Whether the following bird is meant for the Hoopoe, or the Lapwing, I know not. The Latin version has "De Upupis," which clearly means Hoopoes--and the translation says, "Of the Wh...
Near the land of the Cynocephali or dog-headed men, there were many islands, and, "Also in this yle, and in many yles thereabout are many wyld geese with two heads." But these were...
Olaus Magnus writes of "The cruelty of some Fish, and the kindness of others. There is a fish of the kind of Sea-Dogfish, called Boloma, in Italian, and in Norway, Haafisck, that w...
The conjunction of the human form with birds is very easy, wings being fitted to it, as in the case of angels--and as applied to beasts, this treatment is very ancient, vide the wi...
Pliny tells us that in the Indian Ocean are Crayfish four cubits in length (six feet), and he claims for crabs a sovereign specific against bites of scorpions and snakes:--"River-C...
Of all extraordinary beliefs, that in the Barnacle Goose, which obtained credence from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries, is as wonderful as any. The then accepted fact tha...