Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/396

 364 Collectanea.

gives the man power to control any horse, however vicious it may be. One of my informants said the charm made a very savage horse so tame that it used to follow him about.

In connection with this belief, it may be noted that in a case in Scotland, at the Aberdeen Sheriff's Court, a farm servant was charged with entering his master's stable at night and ill-treating a mare. It was alleged that, having tied the head of the animal close to the woodwork in front of its stall, he got up close to the forestall, brandished a turnip cleek, and attempted to strike the mare with it, terrifying her and causing her to struggle violently. His master, hearing a noise in the stable, ran up and saved the mare from further injury. The Fiscal, in imposing a heavy fine on the offender, remarked that the accused had given no explana- tion of his conduct, but that his master had said something about "horseman's word," which the Court did not understand.^ A correspondent, writing next day to the same newspaper, states that '"the horseman's word' used to be a sort of freemasonry among farm servants, and men were initiated to the brotherhood and given ' the horseman's word,' or the secret of managing horses."

Boots. — If boots, especially new boots, are left on a table, a quarrel is sure to occur.

Table. — When I was sitting one day on a table in her house, a labourer's wife said that I must be wanting to get married. I find this belief to be prevalent in this district. If a knife drops from a table on to the ground, a man will soon visit you ; if a fork, a woman.

Lullaby. — The following is a common lullaby :

( ladv !
 * ' Sleep like a-. \,.

^ \ gentleman !

Vou shall have milk

When the cows come home.

Father is the butcher,

Mother cooks the meat,

Johnnie rocks the cradle •

While baby goes to sleep ! "

The Maji in the Moon. — When I asked a little boy about the Man in the Moon, he said that a man used to live with his grand- mother. One day he came back from work and found that the

^Aberdeen Free Press, 2nd March, 1914.