Tyrrell's DogAuthor(s): B. C. SpoonerSource: Folklore, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Sep., 1947), p. 343Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1257154 .

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CORRESPONDENCE To THE HON. SECRETARY

SIR,-Glancing through back numbers of Folk-Lore stored during the War, I came across " An Anecdote from Hampshire ", by Grace Part- ridge Smith (June 1938, p. 161), in which she speaks of the apparition of a black dog known to her friend's mother, as TYRRELL'S DOG. She acknowledges it might also have been " Devil's Dog "; but again it might also be a " survival of a popular legend of semi-historical char- acter "

Mathew Paris (Historia Anglorum, ed. F. Madden) relates how a great black he-goat appeared to Robert, Earl of Moreton, bearing a king, black and naked, wounded in the middle of the chest. And the goat, adjured by the Trinity as to the meaning of this, replied: " I carry to his judgment your King, or rather tyrant, William Rufus. For I am an evil spirit, and the avenger of the wickedness whereby he has sorely oppressed the Church of Christ, and this his slaughter I have encompassed at the command of the Blessed Alban ". This the Earl related to his followers, and within three days learned that at the very hour of the apparition Tyrel's arrow had done its work.

Was " Tyrrell's Dog " ever this goat? B. C. SPOONER

Trevallett, Wadebridge, Cornwall.

THE LIBER POENITENTIALIS OF THEODORE:

A CORRECTION

TO THE EDITOR OF Folk-Lore

DEAR SIR,-Mr. L. F. Newman, in his article on witchcraft in the eastern counties which appeared in Folk-Lore, for March, 1946 has fallen into the same error as I did-unfortunately in print-ten years ago. On p. 16 he says: " The Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore, . . . the most venerable compendium of ecclesiastical laws in England, is divided into fifty chapters, of which the twenty-seventh deals with idolatry and sacri- lege and the penances for offending". He then gives eight examples of witchcraft from Chapter 27, citing as his reference in footnote 16, " Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, p. 292 ".

Unfortunately Mr. Newman is quoting neither the Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore nor the " most venerable compendium of ecclesiastical laws in England ", but a much later document.

Much water has gone under the bridge with regard to research on the penitentials since Benjamin Thorpe published his Ancient Laws and Institutes in 1840. The document which Thorpe printed as the Peni- tential of Theodore is the first of the two penitentials in MS. 19o in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It is, however, rejected as

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