Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/333

 Rh old font” as happened to me some ten years ago. But too often the collector may be met with the dignified repulse, “Our people are not superstitious, I am glad to say”; and it is not given to everyone to be able to confute the assertion, as the Rev. Elias Owen, in a paper on “Montgomeryshire Superstitions”, relates that he once did. His errand in the parish where it was made was to inspect the schools; and at the close of his examination he asked the first class, “Now, children, can you tell me of any place where there is a buggan” (a ghost, or bogey) “to be seen, or of anyone who has ever seen one?” Instantly every hand in the class was stretched out, and every child had a story to tell. He then asked, “Which of you can tell me of a cure for warts?” with like results, greatly to the discomfiture of his friend the clergyman, who had fondly imagined that there was no superstition in his parish! The clergy are very liable to this illusion, because the people are apt to keep superstition out of their way, which in itself is a not uninstructive folk-loric item. I have even known an old woman tell a most excellent ghost-story, and then utterly deny all knowledge of it when the clergyman’s wife (who, however, was a member of the squire’s family, whom the tale concerned) called to ask for further particulars.

Lawyers, doctors, and especially land-agents and gentlemen-farmers—people who, educated themselves, are yet brought by their professions into much contact with the uneducated—are often much better able to help than are the clergy, especially, of course, if they are natives of the district. The difficulty is to get at them; but a query on some definite point, inserted in a local newspaper, will seldom fail to produce a reply from some one who can help to get at other informants; and the newspaper staff themselves are generally local men, and often capital collectors.