Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/213

 Folk- Lore of the Wye Valley. 177

All Hallows' Eve, drinking the water out of hairbell cups. People used to find these the next morning round the well, withered and thrown away. They used to gather them up and dry them, to use in illness. One churlish farmer dug up the ring, because he " didn't like all them silly tales." The next day, when he came, he found the water dried up, a thing hitherto unknown. And, strangely, it was only dry to him ; other people could get water. He went again in the morning, hoping to find some water collected, and found instead a little old man sitting there, who told him that he was very much displeased at the ring being dug up, and that the sods must be put back at once. When this was done the water came again, but not before.

My next story comes from the Forest of Dean, and was told by the same old woman in Hewelsfield, who was so fluent on the subject of witches.

"There do be them as says there be no such, but you and I, we knows ! Oh ! / could tell 'ee things ! Why, there was my father. Him did come home one night all of a tremble, and his horse as frighted as himself. Him 'ad been riding home through the forest — all covered in dead leaves, the road were — an' when he were well on in the lane, the leaves they did begin to rise up, they did, just a stone's throw ahead o' he, as though the wind were a-whirling of 'em, an' there weren't no wind, 'twas as still as still. They did get up a-twisting and a-twirling, more, and more, and more, an' always just that much ahead. My father him did get that frighted, him did ride hard to get past they, an' the poor horse all of a muck o' sweat. But 'twasn't no use, him couldn't never get no nearer they, for all his riding, they was just that much ahead, an' not a breath stirring. Eh, my father, he was rarely frighted, he was ! "

By this you will see that we hold the common belief

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