_Source_.--I give this as it was told me in Australia in 1860.
The fun consists in the avoidance of all pronouns, which results in
jaw-breaking sentences almost equal to the celebrated "She stood at
the door of the fish-sauce shop, welcoming him in."

_Parallels_.--Halliwell, p. 151, has the same with the title
"Chicken-Licken." It occurs also in Chambers's _Popular Rhymes_,
p. 59, with the same names of the _dramatis personae_, as my
version. For European parallels, see Crane, _Ital. Pop. Tales_,
377, and authorities there quoted.



XXI. CHILDE ROWLAND.

_Source_.--Jamieson's _Illustrations of Northern
Antiquities_, 1814, p. 397 _seq._, who gives it as told by a
tailor in his youth, _c._ 1770. I have Anglicised the Scotticisms,
eliminated an unnecessary ox-herd and swine-herd, who lose their
heads for directing the Childe, and I have called the Erlkoenig's lair the
Dark Tower on the strength of the description and of Shakespeare's
reference. I have likewise suggested a reason why Burd Ellen fell into
his power, chiefly in order to introduce a definition of "widershins."
"All the rest is the original horse," even including the erroneous
description of the youngest son as the Childe or heir (_cf._ "Childe
Harold" and Childe Wynd, _infra_, No. xxxiii.), unless this is some
"survival" of Junior Right or "Borough English," the archaic custom of
letting the heirship pass to the youngest son. I should add that, on the
strength of the reference to Merlin, Jamieson calls Childe Rowland's
mother, Queen Guinevere, and introduces references to King Arthur