, but hitherto I have not had
much success.
Vol. III.--_The Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll_.
The stealing of an enchanter's cup at a fairy feast by a peasant is a
favourite subject of fairy mythology. See Ritson's _Fairy Tales_.
_The Distracted Emperor_.
William Tyndale in his _Practyse of Prelates_, 1530, relates the wild
legend of Charlemagne's dotage:--"And beyond all that, the saying is
that in his old age a whore had so bewitched him with a ring and a pearl
in it and I wot not what imagery graven therein, that he went a salt
after her as a dog after a bitch and the dotehead was beside himself and
whole out of his mind: insomuch that when the whore was dead he could
not depart from the dead corpse but caused it to be embalmed and to be
carried with him whithersoever he went, so that all the world wondered
at him; till at the last his lords accombered with carrying her from
place to place and ashamed that so old a man, so great an emperor, and
such a most Christian king, on whom and on whose deeds every man's eyes
were set, should dote on a dead whore, took counsel what should be the
cause: and it was concluded that it must needs be by enchantment.
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