The Ingoldsby Legends

The Ingoldsby Legends 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.

The legends were first printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany and later in New Monthly Magazine. The legends were illustrated by John Leech and George Cruikshank. 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, 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", they are mostly deliberately humorous parodies or pastiches of medieval folklore 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. Other than this, 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.

It has been discussed at length that the oldest documented usage of the phrase "two shakes of a lamb's tail" can be found within this compilation of Barham's works. Evidences of this are found within the chapters The Babes In The Wood; Or, The Norfolk Tragedy (p. 344), A Row In An Omnibus (Box): A Legend Of The Haymarket (p. 359), and The Lay Of St Aloys: A Legend Of Blois (p. 380). (See external links below for full text download.) This phrase has been attributed more modern-day importance since nuclear scientists during WWII coined a new unit of measure termed a "Shake," originally related to the Manhattan Project.

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'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 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's 1968 The Military Philosophers, Nick Jenkins mentions reading The Ingoldsby Legends when he needs relaxation from Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
 * in Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors, Lord Peter Wimsey quotes from The Ingoldsby Legends.
 * In Chapter 7 of Half Magic by Edward Eager, Katherine reads from The Ingoldsby Legends.
 * Edmund Wilson 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 band Los Salvadores 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 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) by H.G. Wells refers to making up rhymes about the legend 'Ingoldsby fashion' to calm himself.