[9] Both these romantic tales may be considered as authentic narratives, though they have often been used by the writers of fiction. _La Châtelaine de Vergy_ has been sometimes confounded with _Le Châtelaine de Coucy_, the lover of _La Dame du Fayel_. The story of the Countess of Tergy (on which a romance of the thirteenth century is founded, Hist. Litt. de France, xviii. 779) has been a favourite with the tale-tellers--the Queen of Navarre, Bandello, and Belle Forest, and is elegantly versified in the "Fabliaux, or Tales," of Way. That of the Dame du Fayel, one of the fathers of French literary history, old Fauchet, extracted it from a good old chronicle dated two centuries before he wrote. The story is also found in an ancient romance of the thirteenth century, in the Royal Library of France.--Hist. Litt. de la France, xiv. 589; xvii. 644. The story of Childe Waters in Percy's Collection has all the pathetic simplicity of ancient minstrelsy, which is more forcibly felt when we compare it with the rifaccimento by a Mrs. Pye, in Evans's Old Ballads. [10] Montaigne was so well acquainted with this practice, that he has used it as a familiar illustration of the obstinacy of some women--which I suppose the good man imagined could not be paralleled by instances from the masculine sex; however, his language must not be disguised by a modern version. "Celui qui forgea le conte de la femme qui, pour aucune correction de ménaces et bastonnades, ne cessait d'appeler son mari, Pouilleux, et qui, précipité dans l'eau, haussoit encore, en s'étouffant, les mains et faisoit au-dessus de sa tête signe de tuer des poux, forgea un conte duquel en vérité tous les jours on voit l'image expresse de l'opiniâtreté des femmes." The punishment of our "Ducking-stool" for female brawlers possibly originated in this medieval practice of throwing women into the river: but this is but an innocuous baptism, while we find the obstinate wife here, who probably spoke true enough, _s'étouffant_,--merely for correcting the filthy lubbard, her lord and master. [11] Leland's "Itinerary," ii. 126. [12] Paston's "Letters," v. 17. [13] See the very curious chapter on the "Fetish Worship," in that very original and learned work "The Doctor," v. 133. GOTHIC ROMANCES.