Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/193

Rh price. "Very well," said the man, "now this is what you must do. Carry a hogshead of cider down to the Fairy Ring in the Big Meadow, and pour it out there on to the grass within the ring." With that he paid and went away. As soon as he was gone, the farmer began to think what a shame it was to waste so much good cider, and the more he thought the less he felt inclined to do it. He had the money safe, and the Fairy Folk would never know the difference, so when evening came he rolled down a hogshead of water and poured that out within the ring. No sooner, however, did he step outside the ring than he saw the same man who had bargained with him in the morning, very angry and threatening. He cursed John Jones and all his family, saying that as he had tried to cheat, the curse should not be lifted until he and his had lost as much blood as water had been poured down the ring. "And they do say," my informant told me cheerfully, "as how a power o' that family did bleed to death!"

There is only one nursery rhyme that I have found, and to my mind it explains why some of the local babies look so pale and sad.

I will conclude with a rhyme obviously composed by our envious neighbours.

Continuing my notes on Berwickshire Harvest Customs, I send the following extracts from a letter of Mr. W. Lockie of Kelso, recently forwarded to me by Mr. A. Falconer of Duns.