Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/195

Rh coloured snail the fairies cast a spell on the scythe for the rest of the day. The only way to remove this was by leaving work, thereby showing your sorrow for the offence. If you did this and were careful not to injure a snail the next morning you would have one of the luckiest of days, which would quite make up the previous day's loss."

I was not previously aware that the snail was in any way associated with harvest customs. It is not, I think, mentioned by Mr. Frazer. I shall be glad to know whether any members of the Society have met with it in this connection elsewhere.

Mr. J. G. Frazer in the Golden Bough quotes (ii., 264) an expression used in the north-east of France. "When a harvester, through sickness, weariness, or laziness, cannot or will not keep up with the reaper in front of him, they say, 'The White Dog passed near him,' 'He has the White Bitch,' or 'The White Bitch has bitten him.' "

I remember, when living at Culham, near Oxford, some fifteen to twenty years ago, hearing almost exactly the same expression used by (among others) a labourer, whom I know well, and who used it at hay-time of anyone who was lazy in the hayfield. My impression, however, was that the saying was "He has lost that little White Dog," and accordingly I took the opportunity of seeing the man in question at Culham this last December and asking him what the expression was and what it meant. At first he could not remember much about it, and was inclined to think that the form "he has lost the Little White Dog" was the phrase used, but on my happening to see him again a few days later he told me he had since remembered it all, and the usual expression was "He's got the Little White Dog." (I took these words down verbatim at the time; this also applies to all of the following that is between inverted commas.) He added that they "used to say it sometimes in haymaking," chiefly at harvest and hay time and "when the weather's hot," of a lazy man, "or one as wouldn't work;" but the expression was sometimes used on other occasions. It is still in occasional use I understand. "Some say 'the Dog got 'old of 'ee,' you know; that means you can't get to work." Again "they say sometimes 'the Lawrence got 'im;' it means