Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/384

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60 Collectanea.

Quebec Folklore Notes, III.

A De'iil-Child. — A woman living in a village not far from Montreal, who was formerly a good Catholic, began to neglect her religious duties seriously. Her impiety culminated during her pregnancy, when she repulsed a vendor of religious pictures, saying that she would as lief have the devil in the house. In due time her child arrived, and showed extraordinary precocity. He was born with teeth ; he learned to speak when a month old ; and, in general, he so astonished his parents, as well as the neighbours, who came from all sides to see the prodigy, that they began seriously to discuss the advisability of killing him. The child overheard them, and interposed with the significant remark, "If you kill me, there will come seven worse than I."^ He vetoed another proposal to send him to a travelling show as a "freak," declaring that they should never make money out of him.

L. B. is rather sceptical about this story, and says she would like to see the child (who is now alive, aged about twenty) before believing in it entirely ; but she is of opinion that the creature was sent as a punishment to its parent, and sure that "il n'est pas comme les autres enfants." In telling the tale she showed, like most habitants, marked reluctance to make any actual mention of the Evil One.

Folk- Medicine. — To cure whooping-cough, take a large cater- pillar, of a certain species black at both ends and yellow in the middle. Touch it to make it curl up, but be sure not to hurt it. Then put it in a tailor's thimble, enclose this in a bag, and hang it around the patient's neck. As the caterpillar dries up, the disease will disappear. -

L. B. once kept a number of these caterpillars as pets, but her brother drowned them all. Next spring, before the caterpillars of that species appeared, all the children of the family had whooping- cough, the offending brother being the' worst sufferer. He was in


 * Cf. .S". Maltke'v, cap. xii., v. 45.

"Cf. J. Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore, p. 156; Mrs. Gutch, County Folk-Lore, vol. vi. (East Riding), p. 72 ; vol. ii. (North Riding), p. iSo.