Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/142

136 boots because you were ordered to put them out of sight?—Well, there was no reason given to me. I was told to put them out of sight.

Did you not think it rather strange that you were ordered to do this when the other things were preserved?—Well, I do not know; I was never about such a case before. (Laughter.)

Did you not think that these boots should be kept in order to be examined by those who have to form an opinion on the merits of the case?—Well, there is a description of them.

But do you think your description of them is as realistic as the boots themselves?—There is no doubt the boots would be better than the description.

They were buried below high-water mark, so that you were determined they should be properly out of sight?—I put some stones on the top of them. I have not gone for them, because they were never asked for.

Duncan Coll, police-constable, Shiskine, Arran, said, as to the boots of the deceased, he was told by Constable Munro, of Brodick, to “put them out of sight”. He thought he meant to bury them, and he did so.

 Horsehair turned into Water-Snake.— Had your correspondent, F.-L.J., vii, 317, or the Editor of The Spectator, from which he quotes, been as well read as they ought to be in Notes and Queries, they would have known that this subject has been exhaustively discussed there, and instances of belief in the matter adduced from every part of the world. See Series VII, ii, 24, 110, 230, 293; iii, 249 ; iv, 33, 253, and I think few unprejudiced persons will doubt that the suggestion I gave for the origin of this most curious piece of folk-observation, Series VII, ii, 24 (July 10, 1886), and iii, 249, is the most likely one.

