Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/188

172 into the house, but should be thrown over the roof, that the ill- luck may pass over the household.

When there is a letter in the candle, you thump on the table until the spark falls off—so many thumps, so many days before the letter will arrive.

It is very unlucky to be offered money for any object; if a fair price be offered you should sell, as ill will come if you refuse.

It is "dreadful bad luck" to put a lanthorn on the table, but if you should have done so foolish a thing, throw salt on the fire, "for if you do waste the salt, you stop the luck." This applies also to other ill-omened actions.

There is a curious and unexpectedly tidy custom of drawing a line of white round the walls of the living-room and round the top doorstep, or the stone sill should there be no steps. The line must be unbroken, for then the evil spirits cannot enter the house.

Should you be troubled by unexplained illness and death amongst your pigs, you should bury the poor victims toes upwards, and the trouble will cease.

There are various death-omens; for instance, should an owl sit on the roof and whoop, or if a bird enters the house, or even when one "fetches up" against the windows, it bodes ill. "An old man did die along of Louie Jones, and I could not drive that bird away along until him was dead," as an old woman told me in proof of this last omen. A winding sheet in the candle of course bodes ill, and should you hear a sound like the stroke of a stick on a chair, you may be certain that there will be a death in the family shortly. Finally, should it thunder and lighten at a funeral, it does not speak well for the future happiness of the deceased.

Weather sayings are few and commonplace—cats playing about, cows lying down, valley-fog climbing the hill, all mean rain. When the mist lies flat, there will be hot weather. Pigs can smell the wind, and geese flying over forecast rough weather at sea.

Medicine of course comes naturally to the seventh son of a seventh son, but if your child has whooping-cough, and you do not wish to consult a doctor, wait until you meet a man leading a piebald horse, "and whatever him do say will cure the cough." Or pass the sickly child nine times over and under a bramble that is rooted at both ends.