Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/165

 Collectanea.

155

have been a very big man ; some gentleman took possession of this bone, but he had nothing but bad luck as long as it was his ; he re-interred it. It is now in the British Museum." (1875.)

Devonshire. — When, in 1869, I asked the people at Clovelly about the singular-looking people at the neighbouring village of Bucksmill, they always got rid of the subject, and appeared to have some undefined fear of it. I was told in 1872 that Jemmy Braund, a Bucksmill man, had been frightening people by threaten- ing to bewitch them. (1869, 1872.)

A woman at Bovey told me that when anyone in a house dies the bees are "lifted," that is, when the corpse is taken out of the house some one lifts the hive, comb and all, and puts it down again. This is done to prevent the bees going away. (1874.)

Lydia Milton, a native of Devonshire, told me in April, 1893, that in her native place it is said to be lucky for a woman if, in putting on her dress, the end of it turns up ; she should not smooth it out, but let it fall of its own accord, as it is a sign that she is going to receive a present. The same applies to a man in putting on his coat.^ (1893.)

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I am a little workhouse girl,

My mother she is dead, My father is a drunkard,

He will not buy me bread.

I travelled through the country,

I had a mansion fair. God bless my poor old mother,

She's dead and in her grave.

I heard the above sung by a little girl at Sunderland (August 9th, 1895) while another little girl and a little boy joined hands and

' [I have heard the same thing from a maidservant born at Kingsbridge, Devon. It was described as " it is lucky if the hem of your dress turns up to make a pocket ; it is a sign of money coming." — C. S. B.]