Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/430

 388 Correspondence.

Stone in Surrey, and a working-man (not a native of Pyrford), said that he supposed for that reason that the stone must have been set up for some man that had been killed.

Potter's Croft, Woking. Barbara Freire-Marreco.

A Spitting Cure.

On Wednesday, June 22nd, 1910, I was travelling in a third- class carriage from Spandau to Berlin in the company of a man, his wife, and their son and little girl. The man was seized with some kind of fit, foamed at the mouth, and made motions towards the door. I helped the wife to hold him, and she asked me if I had ever seen die Krdmpfe before. On my replying in the negative, she begged me to spit three times in his face. Her hysterical condition finally compelled me, with some natural reluctance, to comply. Though by no means satisfied with my readiness or the vigour of the performance, the good lady was quieted, and the fit passed. She subsequently confided to me that a friend of a friend of hers had been subject to fits, but that someone who had never seen die Krdmpfe spat three times in his face while the fit was on him, and he was cured for life.

W. R. Halliday.

A Surrey Birch-Broom Custom.

At Great Bookham in Surrey I saw recently an ordinary birch- broom sticking out from the chimney of a cottage, and enquired the reason. I was told that the neighbours had put it there because the man's wife had gone away on a visit, and "he was left on his own." No further explanation could be obtained, except that it was always done in such a case. The broom was placed in the chimney in the night-time, handle downwards.

Geo. Thatcher.

Liverpool Rd., Kingston-on-Thames.