The Roanoke times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1897-1977, 1897-06-03
POPULAR TRADITION.
INSTANCES WHERE 1T WAS FOUNDED
ON HISTORICAL FACT. 8


The Missionary and tho Old Stone Bench.
About the Black sea-IxSs to the Wicked
Earl's Treasure.
There was once an energetic and
strong minded missionary in the south
IN the folklore of the island where he
dwelt After years of study he made up
his mind for good and all that there
was not particle of fact in the legends
protesting to be historic which he had
laboriously gathered. In distrust at his
own credulity. unwilling to let people
know what a fool he had been, no toss
ed his whole collection into tho fire.
Some days afterward there was a terrif-
10 hurricane. The islanders had told
him that once upon time long ago o
certain famous ohieftain used to sit on
stone bench beneath a tree which
grew close to tho mission house. That
bench had disappeared, no one knew
when or how, but in the days of hea-
thendom they used to place offerings to
the spirit of the old chief near the spot
where it had stood. When the mission,
airy sailed out on the morning after tho
storm, the first object he noticed was
this tree overthrown-and in the midst
of its upturned roots hung stone
bench
The reverend gentleman--Whiting
was his name, if we remember right
stood i'll q maze. Tho legend was true,
then. Examination proved beyond q
doubt that tho bench had rested against
fhn hnln Of fhn in ;,ko
for there was no trace of an incision.
The wood had grown smoothly round
and over it. So far as he could roughly
compute, four centuries must have
passed since it stood outside the trunk.
For that time the islanders had pre-
served the memory Of circumstance SO
triding, for to question that this was
the bench they assigned to their mythio
hero would have been silly. And then
the good man mourned his haste. He
had destroyed the patient labor of years
because he would not credit the ac-
counts of grave events given in all Sc
robustness by members of his flock, and
it proved that they were trustworthy
even on such q detail as the personal
habits of man who died 400 years ago.
The story is ono to BIO borne in mind
by all students of folklore and of that
early stage ill human annals which is
based upon tradition. But it does not
follow that Mr. Whiting had good cause
to lament his burned manuscripts if he
valued them only for the records Of
events they might contain. That there
are particles of fact in the most gro
tesque of these legends, which profess to
hO h1ctnrio f,,1
son to believe as our knowledge widens,
but it is rarely possible to sift them
from the mass Of poetic nonsense. Say
ages everywhere keep the memory of
startling incidents which occurred, as
we learn by internal evidence, an in
definite number of ages ago.
Geologists recognize that the Black
sea was once lake, with no outlet to-
ward tho Mediterranean. They incline
|, to think OF believe that it escaped
through the Bosporus and tho Darda-
nelles shortly after the glacial period.
But Diodorus Sioulus mentions tradi-
ton OF the Samothracians exactly agree
ing with this account, which learned
men of tho day have framed upon the
teaching of science. Did the Samothra-
clans exist III the glacial period? They
say that when the Black sea broke it's
barriers at last all their country was
drowned-that was the Samothracian
flood. And it is evident enough that
such must have been the result of tho
cntaclysm. There is passage in Pin
dar also which some commentators in
terpret as an allusion to the same pro-
digious event.
| Traditions of the mammoth are so
| general and so vigorous in the extreme
north OF America that savants of repu-
tation arc not unwilling to admit the
possibility that it survived 200 wears
ago, and others who have no scientific
reputation to hazard go very much fur
Their. Very small details are preserved
by the popular memory sometimes.
When the wizard Earl of FOULS was
carried off to be boiled alive as the only
means of killing him, tradition report
ed that no threw away the key of his
| treasure chamber. It could never BIO
found. But less than 90 years ago
schoolboys playing in the haunted ruins
unearthed great key which might
very we'll have been tossed through the
a1rbole of q dungeon opening-the
Poino 10 elBhlhcant-DeS1de the road
along which the wicked earl was hur-
rled. Many cases might be cited where
even antique stories of buried treasure
have been proved true A notable one
is told by the worthy DR.. Plot in his
history of Herefordshire. Bransel castle
had specially fine tale of this sort,
alleging that king crown was sunk
IN the moat. In 1850 a cottager named
Taller, planting hedge along the moat