Chapter Scipio to Scotland a Fief of England of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

hogs, and agreed to abide by the decision of the first person they met. This, of course, was Scogan, who instantly gave judgment against the herdsman.

A similar joke is related in the Hitopadesa, an abridged version of Pilpay’s Fables. In this case the “peasant” is represented by a Brahmin carrying a goat, and the joke was to persuade the Brahmin that he was carrying a dog. “How is this, friend,” says one, “that you, a Brahmin, carry on your back such an unclean animal as a dog?” “It is not a dog,” says the Brahmin, “but a goat;” and trudged on. Presently another made the same remark, and the Brahmin, beginning to doubt, took down the goat to look at it. Convinced that the creature was really a goat, he went on, when presently a third made the same remark. The Brahmin, now fully persuaded that his eyes were befooling him, threw down the goat and went away without it; whereupon the three companions took possession of it and cooked it.

In Thyl Eulenspiegel we have a similar hoax. Eulenspiegel sees a man with a piece of green cloth, which he resolves to obtain. He employs two confederates, both priests. Says Eulenspiegel to the man, “What a famous piece of blue cloth! Where did you get it?” “Blue, you fool! why, it is green.” After a short contention, a bet is made, and the question in dispute is referred to the first comer. This was a confederate, and he at once decided that the cloth was blue, “You are both in the same boat,” says the man, “which I will prove by the priest yonder.” The question being put to the priest, is decided against the man, and the three rogues divide the cloth amongst them.

Another version is in novel 8 of Fortini The joke was that certain kids he had for sale were capons. (See Dunlop: History of Fiction, viii. article “Ser Giovanni.”)

(Dr. Andrew Borde published, in 1626 a collection of facetiæ which he called “Scogan’s jests,” after Scogan, the favourite court fool of Edward IV. See MILLER, Joe, p.706.)

Scone [Skoon] Stone, a palladian stone. The tradition is that it was the “pillow” on which the Patriarch Jacob slept at Bethel. It was transported to Egypt; Gathelus (son of Cecrops king of Athens), who married Scotia (daughter of the pharaoh), alarmed at the fame of Moses, fled to Brigantia, in Spain, carrying the stone with him, as a palladium; Simon Brech (the favourite son of Milo the Scot) carried it from Brigantia to Ireland. It was afterwards heaved into the sea for an anchor during a violent storm, and when the sea lulled it was set on the Hill of Tara (Ireland), and became the Lia fail or “stone of destiny,” and on it Fergus Eric and his descendants were crowned. Fergus (who led the Dalriads to Argyllshire, and became the founder of the Scottish monarchy) removed it to Dunstoffnage, and as the Scotch migrated eastwards they carried the stone with them, and, in 840, set it up in Scone. Here it was encased in a wooden chair and placed beside a cross on the east of the “monastic ceremony.” The kings of Scotland, at their coronation, were seated on this chair by the earls of Fife, and it was made the Sedes principalis of Scotland, so that the kings of Scotland were called “the kings of Scone,” and Perth was their capital. Edward I. took it to London, and it still remains in West minster Abbey, where it forms the support of Edward the Confessor’s chair, the coronation chair of the British monarchs.

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.
   —Lardner: History of Scotland, i. 67(1832).

where er this stone is placed, the fates decree,
The Scottish race shall there the sovereigns be.

(Of course, the “Scottish race” is the dynasty of the Stuarts and their successors.

Scotch Guards, in the service of the French kings, were called his garde du corps. The origin of the guard was this: When St. Louis entered upon his first crusade, he was twice saved from death by the valour of a small band of Scotch auxiliaries under the commands of the earls of March and Dunbar, Walter Stewart, and sir David Lindsay. In gratitude thereof, it was resolved that “a standing guard of Scotchmen, recommended by the king of Scotland, should evermore form the body-guard of the king of France.” This decree remained in force for five centuries.—Grant: The Scottish Cavalier, xx.