Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/405

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Is the following custom common in other countries? Every Cypriot shopkeeper or householder on locking his shop or house always makes a cross with his key over the keyhole, and every man, woman, and child on first leaving home in the morning makes the sign of the cross on the breast.

No Cypriot woman will commence the making of any garment on a Tuesday.

Larnaca.

This cure was given in a letter by a Suffolk woman as having cured her brother-in-law, a fisherman. Both parties are well known to the writer. Date, 1895.

Take a tallow dip and light it. When there is a very long piece of burnt wick in the flame, bend it down into the tallow and, coating it therewith as much as possible, pinch it off and swallow it.

This was sent in answer to a request for the spider-remedy, with which the woman was not, however, acquainted.

A short time ago I was solemnly assured that if a woman at certain periods goes near fresh meat it at once goes bad. On inquiry, I find this is a common belief, and so deeply-rooted that no woman is allowed to go near a dead pig whilst being salted if she be in this condition. I was told, too, that another woman attributed the failure of her "pickled cabbage" to the same cause.

The Nook, Oulton Broad.

A similar superstition is current in the Forest of Dean. E. S. H.