The History of Thomas Hickathrift

“Here Lubin listen’d with awestruck surprise, When Hickathrift’s great strength has met his ear; How he kill’d giants as they were but flies, And lifted trees as one would a spear, Though not much bigger than his fellows were; He knew no troubles waggoners have known, Of getting stall’d and such disasters drear; Up he’d chuck sacks as we would hurl a stone, And draw whole loads of grain unaided and alone.”

And this view as to the existence still of a traditional form of the story is almost borne out by what the country people only recently had to say relative to a monument in that part of the country over which Sir William Dugdale travelled, and of which he has left us such a valuable memorial in his History of Imbanking. A writer in the Journal of the Archaeological Association (vol. xxv. p. 11) says:--“A mound close to the Smeeth Road Station, between Lynn and Wisbech, is called the Giant’s Grave, and the inhabitants relate that there lie the remains of the great giant slain by Hickathrift with the cart wheel and axletree. A cross was erected upon it, and is to be seen in the neighbouring churchyard of Torrington St. John’s, bearing the singular name of Hickathrift’s Candlestick.”

It appears, then, that the following may be considered the chief evidence which we have obtained about the existence of the story:--

That a chapbook or literary form of the story has existed from the sixteenth century;

That a traditional story existed quite independently of the literary story in the seventeenth century;

That a traditional story exists at the present time, or until very recently;

And knowing what folk-lore has to say about the long life of traditions, about their constant repetition age after age, it is not, I venture to think, too much to conclude that a story which can be shown by evidence to have lived on from mouth to mouth for two centuries is capable of going back to an almost endless antiquity for its true original.

Let us now consider what may be the origin of this story. There is one theory as to this which has gained the authority of Sir Francis Palgrave. The pranks which Tom performed “must be noticed,” says Sir Francis, “as being correctly Scandinavian.” He then goes on to say, “Similar were the achievements of the great Northern champion Grettir, when he kept geese upon the common, as told in his Saga. Tom’s youth retraces the tales of the prowess of the youthful Siegfried detailed in the Niblunga Saga and in the book of Heroes. It appears from Hearne that the supposed axle-tree, with the superincumbent wheel, was represented on ‘Hycothrift’s’ grave-stone in Tylney churchyard in the shape of a cross. This is the form in which all the Runic monuments represent the celebrated hammer or thunderbolt of the son of Odin, which shattered the skulls and scattered the brains of so many luckless giants. How far this surmise may be supported by Tom’s skill and strength in throwing the hammer we will not pretend to decide.”[D]

Now this takes the story entirely out of the simple category of local English tradition, and places it at once among those grand mythic tales which belong to the study of comparative mythology and which take us back to the earliest of man’s thought and belief. In order to test this theory let us have before us the passages in Tom Hickathrift’s history which might be said to bear it out, and then let us compare them with the stories of Grettir.

The analysis of the story based upon the plan laid down by the Folk-Lore Society is as follows:--

(1.) Tom’s parents are nobodies, “a poor man and day labourer” being his father.

(2.) Tom was obstinate as a boy.

(3.) Loses his father, and at first does not help his mother, but sits in the chimney corner.

(4.) Is of great height and size.

(5.) Strength is unknown until he shows it.

(6.) Commits many pranks, among which is the throwing “a hammer five or six furlongs off into a river.”

(7.) Kills a giant with a club, Tom using axletree and wheel for his shield and buckler.

(8.) Takes possession of the giant’s territory and lives there.

(9.) Commits more pranks, “kicks a football right away.”

(10.) Escapes from four thieves and despoils them.

(11.) Is defeated by a tinker.

It will not be necessary to analyse the whole of the stories to which we are referred for the mythic parallels of Tom Hickathrift; but I will take out the items corresponding to those tabulated above. In the story of “Grettir the Strong” we have the following incidents:--

(1.) Grettir’s father “had his homestead and farm land.”

(2.) Grettir was obstinate as a boy (does nothing on board ship.)

(3.) Plays pranks upon his father, and returns from attending the horses to the fire-side (Iceland).

(4.) Is short, though strong, and big of body.

(5.) He had not skill to turn his great strength to account.

(6.) He wrestles with other lads, and commits many pranks, flings a rock from its place.

(7.) Wrestles with Karr, the barrow dweller; and

(8.) Takes possession of Karr’s weapons and wealth.

(9.) Fights with and conquers robbers.

Now it cannot be denied that there is a great similarity in the thread of these two stories. Norfolk, the colony of the Northmen of old, may well have retained its ancient tradition until the moving incidents of English economic history brought about the weaving of it into the actual life that was pressing round men’s thoughts. It would thus leave out the great mass of detail in the old northern tradition, and retain just sufficient to fit in with the new requirements; and in this way it appears to me we have the present form of the story of Tom Hickathrift, its ancient Scandinavian outline, its more modern English application. Now it is curious to note that the cart-wheel plays a not unimportant part in English folk-lore as a representative of old runic faith. Sir Henry Ellis, in his edition of Brand’s Popular Antiquities (vol. i. p. 298), has collected together some instances of this; and whatever causes may have led to this survival there is nothing to prevent us from looking upon the wheel and axle in the story of Tom Hickathrift as a part and parcel of the same survival.

There now remains to notice one or two points of interest outside the narrative of the story itself. Of curious expressions we have--

fitted (p. 3), to pay any one out, to revenge one’s self;