Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/92

 76 Collectanea.

There was an old man in the neighbourhood who remembered seeing a man sell his wife in Witney market. He said it was quite lawful if her husband "took her to market in a halter." She only realised the sum of five shillings !

The language of the people abounded in proverbs and similes ; most of them are very expressive, and need no explaining, and some of them are probably very old. I will give here a few of the sayings most often used :

" Women and linen look best by candlelight. Bread is the staft' of life, but beer's life itself. The greater the sinner, the greater the saint. The man's the head, and the woman's the neck, and the neck

turns the head. Bachelors' wives and maids' children are always well taught. The sharper the storm, the sooner it's over. Self first, then your next best friend. A creaking door hangs long on its hinges, [said of an invalid

who lives to be old]. You can eat apples and nuts, after any sluts. Little children make your head ache, and big ones make your lieart ache."' Speaking of children, —

" When you've got one you m;\\- run, When you've got two you may goo, But when you've got three you must stop where you be."'

Old people would solemnly tell children to work hard at school, for—

" When house and land are gone and spent, Then learning is most excellent."

" If you stop till the day of resurrection, I shall stop till the

day after, [said to a wife who goes to fetch her husband

from the public-house]. A salve for every sore, [an excuse for everything. I once

saw this saying in a very old manuscript in the Bodleian

Library]. Every tub stands on its own bottom. Like the old woman's dish-cloth, looks better dry than wet

[said of clothes that are a bad colour in the wash-tub].