Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/286

 258 Co7'respondcnce.

various colours are used, — for many coloured and variegated shaped stones can be used, — some round, some long, some flat, some in one colour, some in a different colour, — as can be seen in some of the rosaries.

The very same knots or sisit afore-mentioned must originally have had a blue thread woven into the fabric or mixed with the strands, as is still customary among the Karaites. The Jews have a blue stripe woven into that special garment to which the knotted strands are attached.

In this way the origin of beads finds a natural and simple explanation.

M. Gaster.

The Folklore of Irish Plants axd Animals.

The following notes from an article entitled " The Folklore of Irish Plants and Animals," by Mr, N. Colgan, in The Irish Naturalist for March, 19 14, seem to deserve reproduction :

The transmogrification of species, and the doctrine of sexes in plants, appear in popular belief. The Royal Fern is identified with the Wild Runnyock or common Bracken, and the Sparganium or Bur-Reed is held to be the Wild Shellistring or Flagger. A countryman in County Dublin assured Mr. Colgan that the com- mon Centaurea nigra or Blackhead grew out of the Plantain or Ribwort, and another alleged that a flowering plant of Angelica had originated in the Flaggers or Yellow Iris that grew beside it. A car-driver spoke of a He-and-She-Bulkishawn or Ragweed, and the female variety turned out to be the common Tansy.

The gi'immest belief associated with the Elder-tree was thus described by a car-driver : " Oh ! that's the Elder Tuff," he remarked. " It's a bad thing to give a man a scelp of that. If you do, his hand 'ill grow out of his grave."

The House-leek preserves the roof on which it is grown, but it has no effect unless it has been stolen from the previous owner, or at all events taken without his knowledge. If you were made a present of the plant it wasn't a bit of good.^

^ On the \-irtue of things stolen, which carry with them the good luck of the original owner, see The Folk-Lore Record, vol. i., p. 217 (meat for cure of