Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/149

 Superstitions. 137 county, even down to such a small thing as taking the cream off the milk-pans set round the dairy, must for luck be done from left to right. Invalids, on going out for the first time after an illness, must walk with, not against, the sun, for fear of a relapse. Farmers here are taught that if they wish to thrive they must " rise with the craw (crow), go to bed with the yow (ewe)," not be " like Solomon the wise, who was loth to go to bed and loth to rise," for does not "the master's eye make the mare fat.?" "A February spring," according to one proverb, "is not worth a pin," and another says "a dry east wind raises the spring." Sayings current in other counties, such as " a peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom," are also quoted, but those I shall not give. There should be as many frosty mornings in May as in March, for "a hot May makes a fat church-hay." A wet June makes a dry September. " Cornwall will stand a shower every day, and two for Sundays." There is always a black month before Christmas. The farmer too is told — " A rainbow in the morn, put your hooli in the corn ; A rainbow in the eve, put your hook in the slieave." In Cornwall, as well as in Devon, there is an old prophecy quoted to the effect, that " in the latter days there will be no difference between summer and winter, save in the length of the days and the greenness of the leaf." It is erroneously asserted to be in the Bible. — Cornubiana, Rev. S. Rundle, Transactions Pemance Natural History Society, etc., 1885-1886. " Countrymen in Cornwall, if the breeze fail whilst they are winnowing, whistle to the spriggan, or air spirit, to bring it back." — Comparative Folk-lore, Cornhill, 1876. A swarm of bees in May is worth a "yow" (ewe) and lamb same day. It is considered lucky in these parts for a stray swarm to settle near your house ; and if you throw a handkerchief over it you may claim it as your own. To sell them is unlucky ; but you may have an understanding with a purchaser that he will give you