Page:Cornish feasts and folk-lore.djvu/151

 Superstitions. 139 county, tied twelve pennies and this doggerel around the gander's neck — " Parson Peard, be not afeard, Nor take it much in anger, We've bought your geese at a penny a-piece, And left the money with the gander. " Hens must never be put to sit on an even number of eggs, eleven or thirteen are lucky numbers ; Basilisks are hatched from cock's eggs. When cocks crow children are told that they say, "Cock-a-doodle-doo ! Grammar's lost her shoe, Down by the barley moo (mow), And what will grammer do, Cock-a-doodle-doo. " Moles in this county are known as " wants," and once in the Land's End district I overtook an old man and asked him what had made so many hillocks in a field through which we were passing. His answer was, " What you rich people never have in your houses, ' wants.' " To this day in Cornwall, when anything unforeseen happens to our small farmers, or they have the misfortune to lose by sickness some of their stock, they still think that they are " ill-wished," and start off (often on long journeys) to consult a " pellar," or wise man, sometimes called " a white witch " (which term is here used indiscriminately for persons of both sexes). The following I had from a dairy-man I know, who about twelve years ago quarrelled with a domestic servant, a woman living in a neigh- bouring house. Soon after, from some reason, two or three of his cows died ; he was quite sure, he told me, that she had "overlooked" and " ill-wished " him. To ease his' mind he had consulted a " pellar " about the matter, who had described her accurately to him, and, for payment, removed the "spell" (I do not know what rites w£re used), telling him to look at his watch and note the hour, as he would find, when he returned home, that a cow he had left sick would have begun at that moment to recover (which he says it did).