Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/224

 2 1 o Collectanea.

dying out even in the most backward districts. They were considered beneath notice and are unrecorded. Unless an effort be made, all trace and memory of them will pass away with the present generation, just as much of the knowledge of the plants used a century ago for dyeing purposes is already irrevocably extinct. So will a chain connecting us with a simple past and the infancy of the nation, perhaps linking us in origin with some of the peoples of Europe, be broken for ever.

Joseph Meehan. Creevelea, Drumkeeran, County Leitrim.

Additions to " The Games of Argyleshire." (^Continued from supra, page io6.)

SELLS.

(P. 220, after line 26.)

A somewhat similar sell is Lifting a Man with a Straw.

Having found a probable victim, the operator says to him, if he will lie on his back on the ground, shut his eyes tight and hold the end of a straw, with that straw he will lift him to his feet. The victim lies down, firmly holding the straw, the other end of which is held by the operator, and shuts his eyes and probably, in addition his mouth. " It will not do to open your eyes like that," says No. i, but No. 2, aggrieved by the false charge, repels it, opening his mouth of course, into which No. i empties a good handful of salt, which generally has the effect of bringing No. 2 to his feet, and as the other has carefully retained a grasp of the straw, he claims to have performed what he undertook.