Derby was up with many; and that he should be proclaimed traitor in those parts where he dwelleth. And also he heard, as he saith, that a great company was fled out of the land. And that the Duke of Norfolk’s grace was in the north parts, and was so to be set about, as he heard say, that he might not come away when he would. I pray God that it be not so. Also he said that the prophecy saith that three kings shall meet on Mousehold Heath, and the proudest prince in Christendom be their subject. And that the White Lion should stay all that business at length, and should obtain. And said, ‘Farewell, my friend, and know me another day if ye can, and God send us a quiet world.’” The same prophecies here alluded to were revived and repeated, together with many doggrel rhymes, at the time of the famous Kett’s rebellion. The historian of the event says that they were rung in the ears of the people every hour, such as “The county Gnoffes, Hob, Dick, and Hick, With clubbs and clowted shoon, Shall fill the vale Of Duffin’s dale With slaughtered bodies soon.” And also “The headless men within the dale, Shall there be slain both great and small.” So positively were these sort of prophecies applied to the circumstances of the time, that the rebels who had possession of a favourable position on the heights of the common, forsook it in expectation of realizing the prediction by coming into the valley, “believing themselves,” as the historian has it, “to be the _upholsterers_ that were to make Duffin’s Dale a large soft pillow for death to rest on, whereas they proved only the _stuffing to fill the same_.” The common phrase, “A cock and bull story,” took its origin from these symbolical prophecies, in which the figures of animals were so often introduced. Among the records of other mediæval superstitions, are many curious details of the “invocation of spirits” to aid the searchers after “Treasure Trove,” as it was called. In the days when “banking” was unknown, wealth oftentimes accumulated in the hands of its owners, to a degree that rendered its safe keeping a perilous task; and in very early ages it would seem to have been a common practice to commit it to the bosom of mother earth, until such time as its owner might have need of it. The changes wrought upon the land by the several conquests that succeeded the departure of the Romans, the reputed depositors of these hidden treasures, caused the ownership to be forgotten and obscure, and by degrees all such property became the right of the crown; and to conceal any discovery of it was made an act of felony, at first punishable by death, but afterwards subjecting the perpetrator only to a pecuniary fine.