Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/260

 2 20 Collectanea.

1890, who, being the worse for drink at the time, said his late master had told it to him.)

" They say the Dawley people tried to rake the moon out of the cut (canal). And I beUeve they did, too, for I know they put a pig on the wall to see Captain Webb (the famous swimmer) go by, and, if they'd do that, they'd do anything. Yes, and I've heard about the barrow that they made too big to come out of the shed. Anything sharp like that is always put on to the Dawley people." (A. S., domestic servant, Madeley, Sept. 8, 1890.) Charlotte S. Burne.

Staffordshire.

"The idea of going to live in Shropshire! Why, the Shrop- shire man threw down corn to tice the weather-cock off the steeple!" (Wednesfield, about 1890.)

" The Shropshire people put a frog in a cage, and thought it was a canary." (F. T., gunner R.H.A., Whitsuntide, 1896.)

" That's a Shropshire present, giving away what you don't want yourself." (M. N., Norbury, 1S88.)

" If you sweep the dust out of the door, you sweep the luck out of the house." (D. G., Darlaston, 1900.)

If you hang up mistletoe at Christmas, your house will never be struck by lightning. (From E. H., Hanbury, Oct., 1891.)

If flies come into the house at an unseasonable time of year, it portends death. (C. N., Wednesfield, who has known it come true.)

W. A., head waiter at the Swan Hotel, Stafford, died on Thurs- day, Oct. 2, 1890, after a few days' illness. " William's death is deeply regretted by all who knew him, and by none more than his fellow-servants," who " tell that a night or two before the death a bell was heard to ring without apparent cause " ; and " it would be difficult to shake " some of them " in their belief that the bell conveyed a warning of the approaching end." {Stafford- shire Advertiser, Oct. 4, 1890.)

The turf sinks in on a murderer's grave. This may be seen in Broughton churchyard. (1892.)

A young woman was married at Eccleshall, and, as the party came out of church, the bell began to toll for a funeral. Her