Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/95

Rh 11. Farmers used to hire labourers at a stone on the green, probably the base of a cross, [This was before living memory.]

12. May kittens are bad mousers, dirty, and apt to suck the breath out of children when allowed on the bed.

13. Christening cloths of satin or silk used to be carefully kept and handed down from mother to daughter. They are not known now.

14. Brough Hill Fair, in Westmoreland, was held on the 30th September and 1st October, and so called "The last and the first."

15. "Brough Hill weather" is stormy weather, which often occurs at the Fair time.

16. A lane near Gainford is called "Hob Gate."

17. A cave under a waterfall just over the river, in Yorkshire, is called the Hell Hole, and is supposed to be the entrance to an underground passage, [see Denham, Folk-Lore, 1858, p. 13, "Old Richmond"]. There are several ghosts about the roads, very nearly forgotten, mostly tall women, some headless, all harmless, and all nameless except one, "Blind Phyllis; who she was, no one knows."

One item, "When parson's hay is up rain begins," has, I find, only lately circulated, but I add it here.

(1) A bull, a tup, a cock, and a steg, set out together to seek their fortunes. When it got to night, they came to a house, and asked for a night's lodging, but the folks said no. However, at last they were let come into the kitchen. The bull said he would lie on the floor, the tup said he would lie by his side, the cock would perch on the rannel bank, and the steg would stand at t' back of the door. At midnight, when all was quiet, two men, meaning to rob the house, were heard parleying outside which should go in, and which watch outside. One went in, the bull got up and knocked him about, the tup did the same, and the cock said, "Fetch him here, I'll pick out his eyen." So he says, "I'd best be out of this." As he went to the door, the steg took him by the nose with its neb, and beat him with its wings.