Friar Rush
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Friar Rush is a diabolical Kobold-figure in the guise of a helpful monk who brought a monastery into dire confusion, who appears in Early Modern folk literature of Denmark and Germany.[1] The misadventures of this prankster are narrated in Low Saxon, Danish and High German metrical versions, and in the English Frier Rush. G.L. Kittredge[2] was of the opinion that the common opinion, that Friar Rush in England was simply another household manifestation of Robin Goodfellow, was an oversimplification.
Friar Rush appears in Thomas Dekker's If This Be Not a Good Play the Devill is in It.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Charles Harold Herford devotes his Chapter 5.iv to the figure of Friar Rush in Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century 1966:193-322) ISBN 0714620629 .
- ^ G. L. Kittredge, "The Friar's Lantern and Friar Rush" PMLA 15.4 (1900:415-441).
