The Ingoldsby Legends

''The Ingoldsby Legends'' (full title: ''The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Marvels'') is a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham.

Background

The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine ''Bentley's Miscellany'' and later in ''New Monthly Magazine''. 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, when they ran through many editions. They were illustrated by artists including John Leech, George Cruikshank, John Tenniel, and Arthur Rackham (1898 edition).

As a priest of the Chapel Royal, with a private income, Barham was not troubled with strenuous duties and he had ample time to read and compose stories. Although based on real legends and mythology, chiefly Kentish, such as the " hand of glory", they are mostly deliberately humorous parodies or pastiches of medieval folklore and poetry.

The best-known poem of the collection is " The Jackdaw of Rheims", about a jackdaw who steals a cardinal's ring, and is made a saint, canonised in the name of Jem Crow.
text online
with "Jim Crow". The village pub of Denton was renamed "The Jackdaw Inn" in 1963, after the story. The collection also contains one of the earliest transcriptions of the song " A Franklyn's Dogge", an early version of the modern children's song "Bingo". Barham introduced the collection with the grandiose statement that "The World, according to the best geographers, is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Romney Marsh".

List of chapters

The chapters include:

Allusions and references in other works

* In Winston Churchill's ''The Second World War'', when describing the scientific report of the German beams to direct Luftwaffe bombing, given by R. V. Jones of Scientific Intelligence, he quotes from "The Dead Drummer": "now one Mr Jones comes forth and depones…".
* In Patrick Leigh Fermor's ''A Time of Gifts'', Chapter 11 "The Marches of Hungary", p. 312, on seeing a remarkably dressed old Hungarian soldier or official in a coach near the Danube in 1934, complete with brown fur and gold chain around his shoulders, a medal around his neck, and a scimitar across one knee: "('Twould have made you crazy' – the lines suddenly surfaced after years of oblivion – 'to see Esterhazy / with jools from his jasey / to his diamond boots.' Yes, indeed.)" ''jasey'' is a wig, the word possibly deriving from the garment a ''jersey''.* In H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel ''King Solomon's Mines'', Allan Quatermain describes himself as non-literary, claiming to have read regularly only the Bible 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's 1888 essay "From London", his stay at Morley's Hotel (and the recollection of the four-poster bed) brings to mind "The Ingoldsby Legends", he 'scarce knows why'.
* The narrator in H. G. Wells