Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/121

 Correspondence. 103

the fender and stirred the fire into greater heat. Then she said, again and again, ' Burn, you white witch ! burn ! ' She was a well-educated person in good middle-class society. " Very faithfully yours,

"Stopford a. Brooke. "December 22nd, 1901."

To the above instances, I may add the following note, which I got from an old man at Cambridge some three or four years ago. He told me that when he was a boy his uncle used to prepare pigeons' hearts by drying them before a hot fire and sticking red- hot pins into them while saying a charm. He then sold them to girls or young men who wished to be revenged on a faithless lover or seducer. The old man told me his uncle had to leave Cambridge in consequence of his making these, as the police were after him. He said his uncle had made clay figures also. He never saw these, but he remembered the hearts well.

Alice B. Gomme.

A Wager Lost.

(Vol. xiv., p. 413.)

I know what appear to me to be two versions of Mr. Manning's story of the malefactor Price. One, which I heard from my grandfather fifty years ago, came certainly from the neighbour- hood of Sheffield. Two cutlers, I believe they were, who had been spending the evening not wisely but too well, just as the witching hour drew nigh were passing the spot where a former boon companion hung in chains. " There hangs poor owd Tom," says one. " I'll bet tha drinks, Sammy," returns the other, "tha durstna go and ask him how he is." " Done !" says No. I, turning back, while No. 2 slipped behind the wall and ran quietly back to the foot of the gibbet. " Well, Tommy, owd chap, how'rt gettin' on?" says the first one, approaching. "Ay !" replies his comrade from behind the wall. " Aw'm cowld, weet, and hungry, lad." At this the inquirer took to his heels and never stopped till he reached his own house, perfectly sobered.