and that not always strictly in accordance
with nature; thus, a red horse will be
represented with one leg worked in blue, and
so on; the faces and naked limbs of the
warriors being worked in green or yellow,
or left white, apparently as was found
most convenient by the ladies of the
time."

Bayeux has other old belongings besides
its tapestry, one of which is the legend of
the fairy wife of Le Seigneur d'Argouges.
It seems that this Seigneur d'Argouges
being one day out hunting, as all seigneurs
were wont to be in those days, met twenty
lovely ladies mounted on twenty snow-white
palfreys. One of these ladies, apparently
their queen, was of a yet more incomparable
beauty than the rest, and of her the
good knight became so suddenly and
desperately enamoured, that he offered to
marry her on the spot. The fairy consented,
on the one condition that he was never to
pronounce the fatal word, death, before her:
and the knight undertook to obey this not
too difficult condition. They were married,
and lived for many years in supreme
felicity; having a quiver full of beautiful
children to increase their joy, and knowing
only peace, plenty, and prosperity.
Unfortunately, one day, the fairy wife made her
husband wait such a desperately long time
while she adorned herself to her satisfaction
for the tournament at which he was to
assist and she to shine, that he lost his
patience and his memory, and in a sharp
rebuke pronounced the forbidden word.
No sooner had it escaped his lips than she
gave a piercing shriek, and vanished,
leaving, however, the impress of her hand
on the door of the château. Every night
she may be seen, dressed in white,
wandering about the scene of her former joys,
sobbing, and crying, "La mort! La mort!"
Death, Death. That this story is absolutely
true, is proved by the arms of the house
of Argouges, which bear a female figure,
untrammelled by millinery, with the
conclusive motto: "A la fée."

In Normandy, too, are to be found les
dames blanches, or the white ladies, so cruel
to the discourteous, so friendly to the
polite. One of the most celebrated of these
fair virgins, la Dame d'Aprigny, had her
nocturnal place of adventures in a narrow
winding ravine, which was the old site of
the modern Rue St.Quentin, at Bayeux.
Her speciality was dancing, like the Wili
girls. If the unlucky passer-by refused
her proffer of a friendly waltz, she either
flung him into some abyss, or tied him
up in an inextricable network of thorns;
if he accepted, after a few turns he was
dismissed honourably, and set free,
unhurt.

In a little lane, not far from Dives, is a
gloomy old bridge, called Augot—Pont-
Augot—where the white létices are to be
found in great force. These are little
animals of dazzling whiteness, wonderfully
agile, and appearing only at night; not
quite familiar to the scientific world, but
assumed to be the souls of unbaptised
children, and in some respects not unlike
the "imps" which formed so important a
feature of, and played so sad a part in, the
cruel witch persecutions of England. And
beside the létices, all the cats of the old
witches, all the dogs of the thieving
shepherds, all the owls of the cursed ruins far
and near, hold there their sabbath. And
over this strange assembly presides a
beautiful creature, a dame blanche, who,
for the most part, chooses for her rickety
throne, the narrow plank of the bridge.
If the passer-by fail to beseech her,
kneeling humbly before her, that she
will allow him to pass the bridge, she
takes him by the scruff of his neck and
flings him as a plaything among the
meaner creatures of the diabolical cohort;
if he be very meek and soft-spoken, she
lets him pass without hurt. At other times
the beautiful lady may be seen washing
foul linen at the bridge, in silence and
solitude; then she seems to be rather
melancholy than malicious; but even then,
she is not to be trusted too implicitly.

Normandy is full from end to end of
old legends of all kinds; and has the
distinction of possessing all the hideous as
well as the lovely shapes into which
superstition and fear have moulded ignorance.
Loups-garous once abounded in Normandy;
and even yet the belief in these horrid
creatures still clings among the lonely and
the timid in remote districts, where drainage
is bad, and the schoolmaster not abroad.
As for ghosts, they are everywhere; so
are changelings; so are hobgoblins;
concealed treasures make the earth beneath
one's feet rich and beautiful, if one only
knew how to get at them; but how to
first propitiate the dwarfs to which they
belong? There is nothing to be done
without them, and not all the king's horses
nor all the king's men are of the slightest
use if les Goubelins are dissatisfied. The
rumour of concealed treasures in the hamlet
of Pincheloup, in the Commune of Trouville,
was so great in the last century, that, a