Once upon a time there lived together a very rich gentleman and his wife, and they had a young and beautiful child—one of the fairest earth had seen. She had bright golden hair. Her eyes were blue, and her teeth like pearls from the ocean. Her parents loved her very dearly, and if in their power would grant her every wish that she asked. But Peggy fell down and broke her leg, and her father bought her a wooden one. And with Peggy having a wooden leg, the children called her Peggy Wooden Leg, and her father didn’t like that name. And at last, thinking that something was wrong with her, he bought her a cork one, and then they called her Peggy Cork Leg. And going into a shop one day, she asked the shopman if he could change her leg for a golden one. At last she was taken ill, and died, and the butler of her father’s house, thinking it was a sin to let her be buried in her golden leg, stole it, and hid it in his box. He was asleep one night, and he thought he heard a knock, knock, knocking at the door. He said, “Now, bother me, what’s that? No ghosts here.” On turning the bedclothes down he lay aghast, for there at the foot of the bed stood the ghost of beautiful Peggy, not as he had seen her the day before, beautiful as marble, but with features without flesh, sockets without eyes, head without hair, and mouth without teeth. He was terrified, but he thought he would speak to her, and he says, “Peggy, is that you?” And she replied, “Yes; ’tis I.” Then he says, “Peggy, where are those beautiful blue eyes of yours?” She said, “They are worm-eaten and gone.” And he said, “Where are those beautiful pearl teeth of yours?” She said, “Worm-eaten and gone.” And he said, “Where are those beautiful golden locks?” And she said, “Worm-eaten and gone.” Then he said, “Where is that beautiful golden leg of yours?” And she said, “You—have—got it!!!” and vanished through the floor.[119] [119] _Cf._ Pythagoras and his golden leg, referred to by Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii., 418; also the story about Isis, who, when she collected the scattered limbs of Osiris, replaced the missing member with one of wood.—Plutarch, _Isis et Osiris_, 18. MISCELLANEOUS FOLK-LORE A Skull as the Protector of a House