Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/112

84 never met with this objection in any of the larger Swiss towns, nor in the Canton Glarus, where I took a good many photographs.

Davos Platz, Switzerland, and its neighbourhood, when the roof of any house is completed, a small fir-tree is tied to the top of a scaffolding pole and "an entertainment," as my informant expressed it, "with wine," is given to all employés, and a present, consisting of a large silk handkerchief, is given to the head man, a smaller one to the second man, and cotton ones, varying in size and quality, given to everyone else, even to the smallest boy. I enclose a photograph of a half-built house thus decorated (Plate II.).

The custom of decorating the roof of a newly-built house with a small fir-tree was in full swing at Dresden when I was there in 1890, but there the ceremony always took place as soon as the ridge-pole was up, before the roof was covered in. The workmen also had a feast of some sort, but I do not know about presents.

acquainted with some of the older inhabitants of Crathie, and have from time to time gleaned from them little portions of unwritten records of a past age. Many changes have come about within the recollection of my friends, perhaps accelerated by the residence of royalty in the parish, a factor which has