Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/402

 370 Collectanea.

Worcestershire Folklore.

Calendar Customs. — The following notes were taken in the northern j^art of the county:

Mid-Lent, or Mothering Sunday, is not much observed in the Dudley district. Veal and rice pudding are served for dinner. Simnel cakes are largely sold, but no one knew anything of a special cake for Mothering Sunday.

At Whitsuntide it has long been the custom to wear new or best clothes, often white for women.

Easter is a popular season for marriages.

Kates Hill Wake, held at Midsummer, was very popular and largely frequented between i860 and 1880, but it has now lost its importance ; there are only a few stalls, and people do not trouble to attend.

Going into the country on May Sunday is the chief outing of the year.

A fertility o?nen. — In the Dudley district, if at an ordinary family tea, more than one person fills the cups, there will be an increase in the family within the year.

A wislmig well. — Below the Church of St. Kenelm, on the Halesowen side of Clent Hills, there is a Wishing Well. I was directed to taste the water and turn round nine times before making my wish. This is not the true St. Kenelm's Well, which is higher up the road leading past St. Kenelm's Church to Clent. The well was filled up some years ago, as it was situated on a declivity and was dangerous to carters.

T. E. LoNES.

West Indian Folklore.

The Zombi. — The Zombi, as it is called in the French, or the Jumby of the English-speaking West Indian Islands, is not a ghost, a reve?iant, nor a maker of malicious magic. It has a trace of the vampire about it, and probably its nearest parallel is the Irish Spectre Lover, a spirit capable of assuming human form and of winning the heart of a person of the other sex, from whom it