Twenty-Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls

THE BOGGART [33]

IN an old farm-house in Yorkshire, where lived an honest farmer named George Gilbertson, a Boggart had taken up his abode. He caused a good deal of trouble, and he kept tormenting the children, day and night, in various ways. Sometimes their bread and butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and milk be capsized by an invisible hand; for the Boggart never let himself be seen; at other times the curtains of their beds would be shaken backwards and forwards, or a heavy weight would press on and nearly suffocate them. Their mother had often, on hearing their cries, to fly to their aid.

There was a kind of closet, formed by a wooden partition on the kitchen-stairs, and a large knot having been driven out of one of the deal-boards of which it was made, there remained a round hole. Into this, one day, the farmer's youngest boy stuck the shoe-horn with which he was amusing himself, when immediately it was thrown out again, and struck the boy on the head. Of course it was the Boggart did this, and it soon became their sport, which they called larking with the Boggart, to put the shoe-horn into the hole and have it shot back at them. But the gamesome Boggart at length proved such a torment that the farmer and his wife resolved to quit the house and let him have it all to himself. This settled, the flitting day came, and the farmer and his family were following the last loads of furniture, when a neighbor named John Marshall came up.

"Well, Georgey," said he, "and so you're leaving t'ould hoose at last?"

"Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm forced to it; for that bad Boggart torments us so, we can neither rest night nor day for't. It seems to have such a malice against t'poor bairns, it almost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on't, and so, ye see, we're forced to flitt loike."

He scarce had uttered the words when a voice from a deep upright churn cried out. "Aye, aye, Georgey, we're flittin ye see!"

"Ods, alive!" cried the farmer, "if I'd known thou would flit too, I'd not have stirred a peg!"

And with that, he turned about to his wife, and told her they might as well stay in the old house, as be bothered by the Boggart in a new one. So stay they did.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Christmas Tales of Flanders. Illustrated and collected by Jean De Bosschere. Dodd, Mead & Company.

[2] Reprinted by special permission from Stories and Tales, by Hans Christian Andersen. Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin Company.

[3] Reprinted by special permission from Twilight Land, by Howard Pyle. Copyright by Harper & Brothers

[4] By permission of the publishers from The City That Never Was Reached, by Dr. Jay T. Stocking. Copyright by The Pilgrim Press.

[5] From Czechoslovak Fairy Tales, by Parker Fillmore. Copyright by Harcourt, Brace & Company.

[6] Reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Pool of Stars, by Cornelia Meigs. Copyright, 1915, by the Macmillan Company.

[7] Reprinted by special permission from The Sons O' Cormac, by Aldis Dunbar. Copyright, 1920, by E. P. Dutton & Company.

[8] From Jewish Fairy Tales and Fables, by Aunt Naomi. Robert Scott, London.

[9] From English Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs. Courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers, New York and London.

[10] From The Sweet-Scented Name, by Fedor Sologub. Edited by Stephen Graham. Constable & Company, London.

[11] By permission from Granny's Wonderful Chair, by Frances Browne. Copyright by E. P. Dutton & Company.

[12] By permission from Christ Legends, by Selma Lagerlof. Copyright by Henry Holt & Company.

[13] By permission from This Way to Christmas, by Ruth Sawyer Durand. Harper & Brothers.

Also in The Children's Book of Christmas Stories; ed. by A. D. Dickinson and A. M. Skinner. Doubleday, Page.

[14] From Children of the Dawn, by Elsie Finnimore Buckley. Stokes, London.

[15] Reprinted by permission from The Red Book of Romance. Edited by Andrew Lang. Longmans, Green & Company.

[16] By permission from Under Greek Skies, by Julia Dragoumis. Copyright by E. P. Dutton & Company.

[17] By special permission from The Punishment of the Stingy, by George Bird Grinnell. Copyright by Harper & Brothers.

[18] By permission from Waukewa's Eagle, by James Buckham, in St. Nicholas, Vol. XXVIII, Part I, The Century Company.

[19] From The Wandering Heath, by Arthur Quiller-Couch. Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers.

[20] From Legends and Tales of North Cornwall, by Enys Tregarthen. Wells Gardner, Darton & Co.

[21] Mad.

[22] Jack-o'-Lantern. Will-o'-the-Wisp. The Piskey Puck. Some say he walks about carrying a lantern, others, that he goes over the moors in his lantern.

[23] Waving.

[24] Little.

[25] In Cornwall, these "little Ancient People" are called Piskeys. In England and Ireland, Pixies.

[26] From The Wandering Heath, by Arthur Quiller-Couch; Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers.

[27] Beer-house.

[28] Breeches buoy.

[29] From English Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs. Courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons.

[30] To go from left to right, instead of following the Sun's course from right to left.

[31] Prose Version, by Anna Cogswell Tyler.

[32] It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any further than the middle of the next running stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveler, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever danger there may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back.

[33] From Fairy-Gold, a book of old English Fairy Tales. Chosen by Ernest Rhys.

Clyx.com