Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/140



At an inquest held on the 22nd November last, at Everdon, near Daventry, on a young lady who had drowned herself, it appeared that it was generally thought by the country people that the deceased had drowned herself in Sir Charles Knightley's great fish-pond, in Fawsley Grounds.

Edwin Bird, a farm labourer, employed by the deceased's father, told the Coroner that his master ordered him to take a loaf and some quicksilver down to the pond to find the body.

The Coroner.—How were you to do that?

Witness.—My master was told that if he got a penny loaf and put some quicksilver in it, it would show where the woman was drowned.

The Coroner.—What did you do?

Witness.—I made a hole in the loaf and put the quicksilver in, stopped the hole up, and then threw it into the pond. Master was told that when the loaf floated over the body it would jump about.

The Coroner.—How absurd!

Witness added that the loaf floated about the pond, but it gave no indication that the body was there. Ultimately the body of the deceased was found in a brook, some distance away, in about four feet six inches of water.

The jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst temporarily insane. Standard, Nov. 23, 1898.

On the 26th November, the Standard published a letter from a correspondent containing the following extract from the Gentleman's Magazine for 1767 (i. 189):