Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/82

74 one or two villages are mentioned as the home of an amusement or game, it may not be found in the same, or in a somewhat different form in other villages.

M. Sébillot has devoted much attention to this subject, and has given the fruits of his labours in L'Homme, 2e Année, No. 16, 25 Aout 1885, pp. 481-90, and in Revue des Traditions Populaires, 1re Année, No. 1, 1886, pp. 5-12, in which he formulates a series of questions for the investigators of this branch of the knowledge of man.

There is a very striking agreement of the amusements of the children of the fisher-folks on the coast of France with those of the same class of children on the north-east coast of Scotland. Is it because both have sprung from the same home in the north? A collection of the amusements of the fisher-folks' children on the coasts of Denmark and the Scandinavian Peninsula would no doubt give results of considerable value. My wish is that others more competent for this interesting task may enter upon it, and work it out to a good end. Much remains to be done with regard to the manners, customs, work, and beliefs of a most useful, worthy, and interesting portion of the inhabitants of the British islands—the fisher-folks.

I have arranged the paper as follows:—

I.—.

A. The Baby.

(a) The "twalt oor" (twelfth hour), whether midday or midnight, is accounted an unlucky hour for the birth of a child (Pennan, Rosehearty)