The Ingoldsby Legends is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories

Ghost story

A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...

 and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham

Richard Harris Barham

Richard Harris Barham was an English cleric of the Church of England, novelist, and humorous poet. He was known better by his nom de plume Thomas Ingoldsby.-Life:Richard Harris Barham was born in Canterbury...

.

The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany

Bentley's Miscellany

Bentley's Miscellany was an English literary magazine started by Richard Bentley. It was published between 1836 and 1868.-Contributors:Already a successful publisher of novels, Bentley began the journal in 1836 and invited Charles Dickens to be its first editor...

and later in New Monthly Magazine. The legends were illustrated by John Leech and George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.-Early life:Cruikshank was born in London...

. 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 but have since become little known. An omnibus edition was published in 1879: The Ingoldsby Legends; or Mirth and marvels.

As a priest of the Chapel Royal

Chapel Royal

A Chapel Royal is a body of priests and singers who serve the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they are called upon to do so.-Austria:...

, Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, such as the "hand of glory

Hand of Glory

The Hand of Glory is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left hand, or else, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that "did the deed."...

", they are mostly deliberately humorous parodies or pastiche

Pastiche

A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...

s of medieval folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 and poetry.

The collection contains one of the earliest transcriptions of the song A Franklyn's Dogge, an early version of the modern children's song Bingo

Bingo (song)

"Bingo", also known as "Bingo Was His Name-O" and "There Was a Farmer Who Had a Dog", is an English language children's song of obscure origin...

. Other than this, the best-known poem of the collection is the Jackdaw of Rheims about a jackdaw

Jackdaw

The Jackdaw , sometimes known as the Eurasian Jackdaw, European Jackdaw or Western Jackdaw, is a passerine bird in the crow family. Found across Europe, western Asia and North Africa, it is mostly sedentary, although northern and eastern populations migrate south in winter. Four subspecies are...

 who steals a cardinal's ring and is made a saint.

List of chapters

The chapters include:

• The Spectre of Tappington
• The Hand of Glory: the Nurse's Story
• 'Look at the Clock!': Patty Morgan the Milkmaid's Story
• 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, D.D.
• 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
• The Bangman's Dog: Mr.Peters's Story
• 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 Cock: 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 Afric {sic}
• 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 H. Rider Haggard
  H. Rider Haggard
  Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...
  
  's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines
  King Solomon's Mines
  King Solomon's Mines is a popular novel by the Victorian adventure writer and fabulist Sir H. Rider Haggard. It tells of a search of an unexplored region of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain for the missing brother of one of the party...
  
  , Allan Quatermain
  Allan Quatermain
  Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and its various prequels and sequels. Allan Quatermain was also the title of a book in this sequence.- History :...
  
   describes himself as non-literary, claiming to have read regularly only the Bible
  Bible
  The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
  
   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
  Henry James
  Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
  
  's 1888 essay "From London", his stay at the Morley's Hotel (and the recollection of the four-poster bed) brings to mind "The Ingoldsby Legends", he 'scarce knows why'.
• in Anthony Powell
  Anthony Powell
  Anthony Dymoke Powell CH, CBE was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975....
  
  's 1968 The Military Philosophers
  The Military Philosophers
  The Military Philosophers is the ninth of Anthony Powell's twelve-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time. First published in 1968, it covers the latter part of Nicholas Jenkins' service in World War II...
  
  , Nick Jenkins mentions reading The Ingoldsby Legends when he needs relaxation from Marcel Proust
  Marcel Proust
  Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
  
  's In Search of Lost Time
  In Search of Lost Time
  In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...
  
  .
• in Dorothy L. Sayers
  Dorothy L. Sayers
  Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
  
  ' The Nine Tailors
  The Nine Tailors
  The Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.- Plot introduction :For this novel, set in the Fens, Sayers had to learn about change ringing...
  
  , Lord Peter Wimsey
  Lord Peter Wimsey
  Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a bon vivant amateur sleuth in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which he solves mysteries; usually, but not always, murders...
  
   quotes from The Ingoldsby Legends.
• In Chapter 7 of Half Magic by Edward Eager
  Edward Eager
  Edward McMaken Eager was an American lyricist, playwright, and author of books for children. Eager's works for children were distinctive in their use of the theme of magic making an appearance in the lives of ordinary children - what would now be classed as contemporary fantasy...
  
  , Katherine reads from The Ingoldsby Legends.
• Edmund Wilson
  Edmund Wilson
  Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
  
   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
  Folk
  The English word Folk is derived from a Germanic noun, *fulka meaning "people" or "army"...
  
   band Los Salvadores
  Los Salvadores
  Los Salvadores is a four-piece folk group from south east England. They currently perform across the United Kingdom and appear at various festivals including Lounge On The Farm, Boomtown Fair, Zoo Thousand, Endorse It in Dorset, Sellindge Music Festival and the Rochester Sweeps...
  
   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
  Ngaio Marsh
  Dame Ngaio Marsh DBE , born Edith Ngaio Marsh, was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre director. There is some uncertainty over her birth date as her father neglected to register her birth until 1900...
  
   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.
• The narrator in the short story The Red Room (Wells)
  The Red Room (Wells)
  "The Red Room" is a novels written by H. G. Wells in 1894. It was first published in the March 1896 edition of The Idler magazine.-Plot summary:...
  
   by H.G. Wells refers to making up rhymes about the legend 'Ingoldsby fashion' to calm himself.

External links

• The Ingoldsby Legends. Full text available for download.
• The Jackdaw of Rheims