The Ingoldsby Legends

The Ingoldsby Legends (full title: The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Marvels) is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham.

The Ingoldsby Legends
AuthorThomas Ingoldsby
IllustratorArthur Rackham
Cover artistArthur Rackham
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreHumorous verse & prose short stories
PublisherJ. M. Dent (R. Bentley & Son)
Publication date
1840, 1842, 1847, 1879 (and 1885)
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages3 vols.

Background

The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany and later in New Monthly Magazine.[1] They proved immensely popular and were compiled into books published in 1840, 1842 and 1847 by Richard Bentley. They remained popular during the 19th century, when they ran through many editions. They were illustrated by artists including John Leech, George Cruikshank, John Tenniel, and Arthur Rackham (1898 edition).[2]

As a priest of the Chapel Royal, with a private income,[3] Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, chiefly Kentish,[4] such as the "hand of glory", they are mostly deliberately humorous parodies or pastiches of medieval folklore and poetry.

The best-known poem of the collection is the "Jackdaw of Rheims", about a jackdaw, who steals a cardinal's ring, and is made a saint. The village pub of Denton was renamed "The Jackdaw Inn" in 1963, after the story. The collection also contains one of the earliest transcriptions of the song "A Franklyn's Dogge", an early version of the modern children's song "Bingo". Barham introduced the collection with the grandiose statement that "The World, according to the best geographers, is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Romney Marsh".[5]

List of chapters
A Saint, from the "Jackdaw of Rheims", by Briton Rivière, 1868

The chapters include:[6]

  • "The Spectre of Tappington"
  • "The Nurse's Story: the Hand of Glory"
  • "Patty Morgan the Milkmaid's Story: 'Look at the Clock!'"
  • "Grey Dolphin: a legend of Sheppey"
  • "The Ghost"
  • "The Cynotaph"
  • "The Leech of Folkestone: Mrs Botherby's Story"
  • "The Legend of Hamilton Tighe"
  • "The Witches' Frolic"
  • "A Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity"
  • "The Jackdaw of Rheims"
  • "A Lay of St Dunstan"
  • "A Lay of St Gengulphus"
  • "The Lay of St Odille"
  • "A Lay of St Nicholas"
  • "The Lady Rohesia"
  • "The Tragedy"
  • "Mr. Barney Maguire's Account of the Coronation"
  • "The 'Monstre' Balloon"
  • "The Execution: A Sporting Anecdote"
  • "Some Account of a New Play"
  • "Mr Peters's Story: the Bagman's Dog"
  • "Introduction to the Second Series"
  • "The Black Mousquetaire: a legend of France"
  • "Sir Rupert the Fearless: a legend of Germany"
  • "The Merchant of Venice: a legend of Italy"
  • "The Auto-Da-Fé: a legend of Spain"
  • "The Ingoldsby Penance!: a legend of Palestine and West Kent"
  • "Netley Abbey: a legend of Hampshire"
  • "Fragment"
  • "Nell Cook: a legend of the Dark Entry – the King's Scholar's story"
  • "Nursery Reminiscences"
  • "Aunt Fanny: a legend of a shirt"
  • "Misadventures at Margate: a legend of Jarvis's Jetty"
  • "The Smuggler's Leap: a legend of Thanet"
  • "Bloudie Jacke of Shrewsberrie: a legend of Shropshire"
  • "The Babes in the Woody; or, the Norfolk Tragedy"
  • "The Dead Drummer: a legend of Salisbury Plain"
  • "A Row in an Omnibus Box: a legend of the Haymarket"
  • "The Lay of St Cuthbert; or the Devil's Dinner-Party: a legend of the North Countree"
  • "The Lay of St Aloys: a legend of Blois"
  • "The Lay of the Old Woman Clothed in Grey: a legend of Dover"
  • "Raising the Devil: a legend of Cornelius Agrippa"
  • "Saint Medard: a legend of Africa"
  • "Preface to the Third Series"
  • "The Lord of Thoulouse: a legend of Languedoc"
  • "The Wedding-Day; or, The Buccaneer's Curse: a family legend"
  • "The Blasphemer's Warning: a lay of St Romwold"
  • "The Brothers Of Birchington: a lay of St Thomas à Becket"
  • "The Knight and the Lady: a domestic legend of the reign of Queen Anne"
  • "The House-Warming!!: a legend of Bleeding-Heart Yard"
  • "The Forlorn One"
  • "Jerry Jarvis's Wig: a legend of the Weald of Kent"
  • "Unsophisticated Wishes"
  • "Miscellaneous Poems"

Allusions and references in other works
  • In Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, Chapter 11 "The Marches of Hungary", p. 312, on seeing a remarkably dressed old Hungarian soldier or official in a coach near the Danube in 1934, complete with brown fur and gold chain around his shoulders, a medal around his neck, and a scimitar across one knee: "('Twould have made you crazy' – the lines suddenly surfaced after years of oblivion – 'to see Esterhazy / with jools from his jasey / to his diamond boots.' Yes, indeed.)" [A jasey is a wig, the word possibly deriving from the garment a jersey.]
  • In H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain describes himself as non-literary, claiming to have read regularly only the Bible and the Ingoldsby Legends. Later in the novel he quotes a poem that he attributes incorrectly to The Ingoldsby Legends, its actual source being Sir Walter Scott's epic poem Marmion.
  • In Henry James's 1888 essay "From London", his stay at Morley's Hotel (and the recollection of the four-poster bed) brings to mind "The Ingoldsby Legends", he 'scarce knows why'.
  • The narrator in the short story The Red Room (Wells) by H. G. Wells (1894) refers to making up rhymes about the legend 'Ingoldsby fashion' to calm himself.
  • In Sarah Grand's 1897 novel The Beth Book, the narrator and main character, Beth, mentions the Ingoldsby Legends as a favourite of her childhood and recites a passage from "The Execution" that appears in the collection.
  • In E. Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), the children consult the Ingoldsby Legends when they want to improvise a magic ritual.
  • Rudyard Kipling's 1914 short story "The Dog Hervey", collected in A Diversity of Creatures (1917), references the dog Little Byngo from "A Lay of St Gengulphus".[7]
  • In Dorothy L. Sayers's The Nine Tailors, Lord Peter Wimsey quotes from The Ingoldsby Legends, as he also does in her Five Red Herrings.
  • In Anthony Powell's 1968 The Military Philosophers, Nick Jenkins mentions reading The Ingoldsby Legends when he needs relaxation from Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
  • In Chapter 7 of Half Magic by Edward Eager, Katherine reads from The Ingoldsby Legends.
  • Edmund Wilson referenced the Ingoldsby Legends in Memoirs of Hecate County when he states that his friend, "staggered in tonight like the jackdaw of Rheims, cursed by bell and book, —". The two main characters then discuss the Ingoldsby Legends.
  • Kentish folk band Los Salvadores song Smugglers' Leap is based on the story of the same name featured in the Ingoldsby Legends.
  • P.G. Wodehouse refers to The Ingoldsby Legends in his novel A Prefect's Uncle (1903), comparing his title character to the lady in the earlier work "who didn't mind death, but who couldn't stand pinching".
  • Ngaio Marsh refers to The Ingoldsby Legends in Death in a White Tie. Troy tells about coming across Lord Tomnoddy and the hanging and the 'extraordinary impression' it had on her. She also makes references in Surfeit of Lampreys, the second time (Chapter 19 Part 4) with reference to The Hand of Glory.
  • It has been discussed at length that the oldest documented usage of the phrase "two shakes of a lamb's tail" can be found within this compilation of Barham's works. Evidences of this are found within the chapters The Babes In The Wood; Or, The Norfolk Tragedy (p. 344), A Row In An Omnibus (Box): A Legend Of The Haymarket (p. 359), and The Lay Of St Aloys: A Legend Of Blois (p. 380). (See external links below for full text download.) This phrase has been attributed more modern-day importance since nuclear scientists during WWII coined a new unit of measure termed a "shake", a very short unit of time, originally related to the Manhattan Project.
  • In Angela Thirkell's novel Miss Bunting (1946) the Ingoldsby Legends are referred to repeatedly (along with Butler, Byron and W. S. Gilbert) for comic effect as the Mixo-Slavian maid must study them very seriously in her cultural classes as examples of English humour.
gollark: I can implement Macron, if you like.
gollark: ++remind 3y-7d implement Macron
gollark: Because it follows the Macron specification? Anyone can do that.
gollark: ++remind 1h guess (real)
gollark: People have lots of reasons to believe I'm right.

See also

References
  1. Ian Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature In English (London 1995) p. 472
  2. Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory Vol 1 (London 1994) p. 447
  3. Ian Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature In English (London 1995) p. 57
  4. Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory Vol 1 (London 1994) p. 44
  5. Quoted in Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory Vol 1 (London 1994) p. 443
  6. Ingloldsby contents
  7. McGivering, John (2008). ""The Dog Hervey" Notes on the text". Readers' Guide. The Kipling Society. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
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