Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/101

 Collectanea. 85

Year's Day is to gnaw the ham bones all the rest of the year. Those who eat cabbages on New Year's Day groan for a whole year.

The spilling of oil is considered a very unlucky sign by the Maltese. The spilling of salt or wine, however, betokens good luck.

When one plucks up and replants a stem of parsley he may expect to lose one of his parents within the year.

When a hen crows it is at once destroyed, as it foretells the death of some member of the family.

The appearance of a white hawk-moth betokens the coming home of some one who is abroad A black hawk-moth, how- ever, is a harbinger of sad news.

Folk Medicine. — The blood of a tortoise is an excellent remedy for jaundice caused by a fright. If the patient be a man he is to bleed a female tortoise in the leg and make the sign of the cross with its blood on the joints of his arms and legs. But if the patient be a woman she is to bleed a male tortoise.

For Fright. — Kill a puppy, boil it, give the patient to drink the water in which it is boiled, then throw the whole boiled pup on to the plate in such a way as to cause a fright to the patient.

Margaret Eyre.

The Dog in Folk-Medicine. (See last paragraph of preceding article.)

The following paragraph is quoted from Our Dogs for May 3, 1902 : —

" The Blackburn magistrates had a gruesome case before them the other day. A youth of the name of William Heaton was caught red-handed, as it were, decoying a valuable dog from its home for the purpose of killing it and rendering it down to fat. It appears that dog-grease, as it is called, has attained considerable local notoriety as a cure for rheumatism. As a result, the killing of canine Avaifs and their transformation into ointment has de-