Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/402

 348 Collectanea.

"they were thought a lot of." In this case the stem was missing.^2

Hartlebury. {The late) E. J. Ladbury.

" I know 's soul isn't at rest because I saw a black cat

sitting on his grave." This was said in Worcestershire to the late Rev. E. J. Wrottesley, 1S92. Charlotte S. Burne.

Yorkshire.

When a storm sweeps over Ringinglow, near Sheffield, people say that Michael and his dogs are passing over.

At Bridlington they say that if a German band plays it will rain.^"^

They say in the East Riding that if the moon changes on Saturday bad weather will follow.

If you count seven stars for seven nights successively, you will marry the first person you kiss after the seventh night.

If you pull a tooth out in the dark, it will not hurt you.

It is unlucky to keep human hair.^^

If bacon or ham is salted by a menstruous woman it will go bad.16

It is unlucky to leave a white table cloth on the table all night.

Horse-shoes nailed behind the doors of houses are called "lucky shoes" in East Yorkshire.

To prevent cramp people make a bracelet of bits of cork and attach it to the waist.

A retired silversmith in Sheffield told me that every night, before getting into bed, he crossed his shoes in the shape of a T to keep the cramp off.

^^ Cf. Brockett, Glossa7y of North Country Words, s.v. "Fairy-pipes"; Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, s.v. " Fairishes Pipes."

^^ A Fifeshire boy of sixteen, a candidate in a Civil Service examination, in 1902, in an essay on "Street Music,"' gave as a reason for the decreasing number of German bands in this country that people will not give them money because they bring rain. (F.A.Milne.) Also heard in London. (C. S. Burne. ) Also in Dorset and Somerset, A'otes and Queries, 7th S., vol. iii. (1S87), pp. 306, 432.

"Also at Tutbur>-, Staffordshire. (C. S. Burne.)

^^ Universal in England, and applies to all meat.