The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ebook offline txt] 📗

lived in Errits�, near Frederica, a very poor man who one day said, “If I had a large sum of money, I would build a church for the parish.” The following night he dreamed that if he went to the south bridge at Veile he would make his fortune. He followed the intimation and strolled backwards and forwards on the bridge until it grew late, but without seeing any sign of good fortune. When just on the point of returning, he was accosted by an officer, who asked him why he had spent a whole day so on the bridge. He told him his dream, on hearing which the officer related to him in return that he also on the preceding night had dreamed that in a barn in Errits�, belonging to a man whose name he mentioned, a treasure lay buried. Now the name he mentioned was the man’s own, who prudently kept his own counsel, hastened home, and found the treasure in a barn. The man was faithful to his word, and built the church.[FN#379]

 

Equally at home, as we have seen, in Sicily, Holland, Germany, and Denmark, the identical legend is also domiciled in Scotland and England. Thus Robert Chambers, in his “Popular Rhymes of Scotland,” ed. 1826, p. 56, speaking of Dundonald Castle, in Ayrshire, the ancient seat of King Robert II., relates the following local tradition:

 

Donald, the builder, was originally a poor man, but had the faculty of dreaming lucky dreams. Upon one occasion he dreamed thrice in one night that if he were to go to London Bridge he would make a fortune. He went accordingly, and saw a man looking over the parapet of the bridge, whom he accosted courteously, and after a little conversation, intrusted him with the secret of the occasion of his visiting London Bridge. The stranger told him that he had made a very foolish errand, for he had himself once had a similar vision, which directed him to go to a certain spot in Ayrshire, in Scotland, where he would find a vast treasure, and for his part he had never once thought of obeying the injunction. From his description of the spot, however, the sly Scot at once perceived that the treasure in question must be concealed nowhere but in his own humble kail-yard at home, to which he immediately repaired, in full expectation of finding it. Nor was he disappointed; for after destroying many good and promising cabbages, and completely cracking credit with his wife, who considered him as mad, he found a large potful of gold coin, with which he built a stout castle for himself, and became the founder of a flourishing family.

 

“This absurd story,” adds Chambers, “is localised in almost every district of Scotland always referring to London Bridge, and Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd) has worked up the fiction in a very amusing manner in one of his ‘Winter Evening Tales,’ substituting the Bridge at Kelso for that of London.”

 

But the legend of the Chapman, or Pedlar, of Swaffam, in Norfolk, handed down, as it has been, from one credulous generation to another, with the most minute details and perfect local colour, throws quite into the shade all other versions or variants of the ancient tale of the poor man of Baghdad.

Blomfield, in his “History of Norfolk,” 8vo ea., vol. vi. 211-213, reproduces it as follows, from Sir Roger Twysden’s “Reminiscences”: “The story of the Pedlar of Swaffam Market is in substance this: That dreaming one night, if he went to London, he should certainly meet with man upon London Bridge which should tell him good news; he was so perplexed in his mind that till he set upon his journey he could have no rest. To London therefore he hastes, and walked upon the Bridge for some hours, where being espied by a shopkeeper and asked what he wanted, he answered, ‘You may well ask me that question, for truly (quoth he) I am come hither upon a very vain errand,’ and so told the story of his dream which occasioned his journey. Whereupon the shopkeeper replied, ‘Alas, good friend, should I have heeded dreams I might have proved myself as very a fool as thou hast; for ‘tis not long since that I dreamt that at a place called Swaffam Market, in Norfolk, dwells one John Chapman, a pedlar, who hath a tree in his back yard, under which is buried a pot of money. Now, therefore if I should have made a journey thither to dig for such hidden treasure, judge you whether I should not have been counted a fool.’ To whom the Pedlar cunningly said, ‘Yes, truly: I will therefore return home and follow my business, not heeding such dreams henceforward.’ But when he came home (being satisfied that his dream was fulfilled), he took occasion to dig in that place, and accordingly found a large pot full of money, which he prudently concealed, putting the pot among the rest of his brass. After a time, it happened that one who came to his house, and beholding the pot, observed an inscription upon it, which being in Latin he interpreted it, that under that there was another twice as good.[FN#380] Of this inscription the Pedlar was before ignorant, or at least minded it not; but when he heard the meaning of it, he said, ‘ ‘Tis very true, in the shop where I bought this pot stood another under it which was twice as big’; but considering that it might tend to his further profit to dig deeper in the same place where he found that, he fell again to work and discovered such a pot as was intimated by the inscription, full of old coin; notwithstanding all which, he so concealed his wealth that the neighbours took no notice of it. But not long after the inhabitants of Swaffam resolving to re-edify their church, and having consulted the workmen about the charge, they made a levy, wherein they taxed the Pedlar according to no other rate but what they had formerly done. But he, knowing his own ability, came to the church and desired the workmen to show him their model and to tell him what they esteemed the charge of the north aisle would amount to, which when they told him, he presently undertook to pay them for building it, and not only that, but for a very tall and beautiful tower steeple.

 

“This is the tradition of the inhabitants, as it was told me there. And in testimony thereof, there was then his picture, with his wife and three children, in every window of the aisle, with an inscription running through the bottom of all those windows, viz., ‘Orate pro bono statu Johannis Chapman…. Uxoris ejus, et Liberorum quorum, qui quidem Johannes hanc alam cum fenestris tecto et … fieri fecit.’ It was in Henry the Seventh’s time, but the year I now remember not, my notes being left with Mr. William Sedgwicke, who trickt the pictures, he being then with me. In that aisle is his seat, of an antique form, and on each side the entrance, the statue of the Pedlar of about a foot in length, with pack on his back, very artificially [?artistically] cut. This was sent me from Mr. William Dugdale, of Blyth Hall, in Warwickshire, in a letter dated Jan. 29th, 1652-3, which I have since learned from others to have been most True.�Roger Twysden.”

 

Mr. William E. A. Axon, in “The Antiquary,” vol. xi. p. 168, gives the same version, with some slight variations, from a work entitled “New Help to Discourse,” which he says was often printed between 1619 and 1696: The dream was “doubled and tripled,” and the Pedlar stood on the bridge for two or three days; but no mention is made of his finding a second pot of money: “he found an infinite mass of money, with part of which he re-edified the church, having his statue therein to this day, cut out in stone, with his pack on his back and his dog at his heels, his memory being preserved by the same form or picture in most of the glass windows in taverns and alehouses in that town to this day.” The story is also told of a cobbler in Somersetshire (in an article on Dreams, “Saturday Review,” Dec. 28, 1878), who dreamt three nights in succession that if he went to London Bridge he would there meet with something to his advantage. For three days he walked over the bridge, when at length a stranger came up to him, and asked him why he had been walking from end to end of the bridge for these three days, offering nothing for sale nor purchasing aught. The man having told him of his strange dream, the stranger said that he too had dreamt of a lot of gold buried in a certain orchard in such a place in Somersetshire. Upon this the cobbler returned home and found the pot of gold under an apple-tree. He now sent his son to school, where he learnt Latin, and when the lad had come home for his holidays, he happened to look at the pot that had contained the gold and seeing some writing on it he said, “Father, I can show you what I have learnt at school is of some use.” He then translated the Latin inscription on the pot thus: “Look under and you will find better “

They did look under and a large quantity of gold was found. Mr. Axon gives a version of the legend in the Yorkshire dialect in “The Antiquary,” vol. xii.

pp. 121-2, and there is a similar story connected with the parish church of Lambeth.[FN#381]

 

Regarding the Norfolk tradition of the lucky and generous Pedlar, Blomfield says that the north side of the church of Swaffam (or Sopham) was certainly built by one John Chapman, who was churchwarden in 1462; but he thinks that the figures of the pedlar, etc., were only put “to set forth the name of the founder: such rebuses are frequently met with on old works.” The story is also told in Abraham de la Prynne’s Diary under date Nov. 10, 1699, as “a constant tradition” concerning a pedlar in Soffham.

 

Such is the close resemblance between the Turkish version of the Dream and that in the tale of Zayn al-Asnam that I am disposed to consider both as having been derived from the same source, which, however, could hardly have been the story told by El-Ish�ki. In Zayn al-Asnam a shaykh appears to the prince in a dream and bids him hie to Egypt, where he will find heaps of treasure; in the Turkish story the shaykh appears to the poor water-carrier three times and bids him go to Damascus for the like purpose. The prince arrives at Cairo and goes to sleep in a mosque, when the shayka again presents himself before him in a dream and tells him that he has done well in obeying him—he had only made a trial of his courage: “now return to thy capital and I will make thee wealthy,”— in the Turkish story the water-carrier also goes into a mosque at Damascus and receives a loaf of bread there from a baker.

When the prince returns home the shaykh appears to him once more and bids him take a pickaxe and go to such a palace of his sire and dig in such a place, where he should find riches,—in the Turkish story the water-carrier having returned to his own house, the shaykh comes to him three times more and bids him search near to where he is and he should find wealth. The discovery by Zayn al-Asnam of his father’s hidden treasure, after he had recklessly squandered all his means, bears some analogy to the well-known ballad of the