Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/145

 Superstitions. 133 only het (heat) and pelchurs," that sort of weather being favour- able for catching them. "A good year for fleas is a good year for fish," the proverb says ; and when eating a pilchard the flesh must be always taken off the bone from the tail to the head. To eat them from head to tail is unlucky, and would soon drive the fish from the shore. There are many other wise sayings about pilchards ; but I will only give one more couplet, which declares that — "They are food, money, and light, All in one night. " + Should pilchards when in bulk % make a squeaking noise, they are crying for more, and another shoal will quickly be in the bay. Fishermen dread going near the spot where vessels have been wrecked, as the voices of the drowned often call to them there, especially before a storm. Sometimes their dead comrades call them by their names, and then they know for certain that they will soon die ; and often when drowning the ghosts of their friends appear to them. They are seen by them sometimes taking the form of animals. Mr. Bottrell speaks of a farmer's wife who was warned of her son's death by the milk in the pans ranged round her dairy being agitated like the sea waves in a storm. There is a legend com- mon to many districts of a wrecker who rushed into the sea and perished, after a voice had been heard to call thrice, " The hour is come, but not the man." He was carried off by the devil in a phantom ship seen in the offing. But ships haunted with seamen's ghosts are rarely lost, as the spirits give the sailors warning of storms and other dangers. In a churchyard near the Land's End is the grave of a drowned captain, covered by a flat tombstone ; proceeding from it formerly the sound of a ghostly bell was often heard to strike four and eight bells. The tale goes that when his vessel struck on some rocks close to the shore, the captain saw all his men safely off + Train-oil is expressed from them. X To " bulk " pilchards is to place them, after they have been rubbed with salt, ia large regular heaps, alternately heads and tails.