Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/150

 1 3 8 Superstitions. an equivalent for your bees. The inside of hives should be rubbed with " scawnsy buds " (elderflowers) to prevent a new swarm from leaving them. Honey should be always taken from the hive on St. Bartholomew's Day, he being the patron saint of bees. Of course all the principal events happening in the families to whom they belonged, in this as in other counties, were formerly whispered to them, that the bees might not think themselves neglected, and leave the place in anger. At a recent meeting of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society a gentleman mentioned that when a boy he had seen thirty hives belonging to Mr. Joshua Fox, of Tregedna, tied up in crape (an universal practice) because of a death in the Fox family. Another at the same time said that when, some years since, the landlady of the "First and Last" Inn, at the Land's End, died, the bird-cages and flower-pots were also tied with crape, to prevent the birds and plants from dying. When withering, because this has not been done, if the plants be re- membered in time and crape put on the pots, they may revive. Enquiring a short time ago what had become of a fine maiden- hair fern that we had had for years, I was told "that we had neglected to put it into mourning when a near relative of out's had died, or to tell it of his death ; and therefore it had gradually pined away." After a death, pictures, but especially portraits of the deceased, are also supposed to fade. Snails as well as bees are thought here to bring luck, for " the house is blest where snails do rest." Children on meeting them in their path, for some reason stamp their feet and say, " Snail ! snail I come out of your hole. Or I will beat you black as a coal." Another Cornish farmers' superstition is that "ducks won't lay until they have drunk 'Lide' (March) water;" and the wife of one in 1880 declared "that if a goose saw a Lent lily (daffodil) before hatching its goslings it would, when they came forth, destroy them." Some witty thieves, many years ago, having stolen twelve geese from a clergyman in the eastern part of the