Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/168

 158 Collectanea.

front a little patch of gravel, in which was an inscription " Please remember us," the letters being formed of white pebbles placed close to each other. I saw this in Camberwell Grove. (1895.)

Northampto7ishire. — In August, 1904, I made a tour through part of Northamptonshire. I saw a great many horseslioes placed over doors, often there were several on one house. At the Sondes Anns, Rockingham, eight horseshoes were fastened up in the inn-yard ; the landlady said that some of them were " favourites," which she explained to mean shoes of favourite horses, kept as memorials of those horses. (1904.)

At Watford (Northamptonshire) the Roman Watling Street is called the Old Street Road. (1904.)

Stowe Nine Churches was so named because attempts were made on nine successive days to build a church, but all the work that was done in the day was destroyed in the night, until, on the ninth day, the work was no more hindered. Who broke down the work they can't tell, " perhaps the devil," said my informant.

(1904.)

[See W. Johnson, Byways in British Archaeology (19 12), p. 1 6 sqq:\

At Weedon I was told that a wicked old gamekeeper died, and his ghost used to appear, exactly at twelve every night, within an old oak tree opposite to the park lodge gate. Many people used to go there at night and wait until twelve o'clock to see him. One night a parson went there and, the ghost not appearing, the parson called to him. Thereupon the ghost appeared, and said : " If you dig beneath this tree you'll find a lot of money." The next day a search was made in accordance with the ghost's directions, and a leather bag filled with sovereigns was dug out of the ground. After this the ghost never again appeared. (1904.)

Oxfordshire: The Ick?neld Way. That part of the Upper Icknield Way which, on the Ordnance Map, is called Ickleton Way, leads, "they say," to the world's end. A gentleman once travelled along this road till he came to the fiery mountains. He turned back long before he reached them, for the smoke and smell nearly suffocated him. He lived near Watlington, but the woman who told me this had forgotton his name, though she had heard many speak of him. He died before she came into this part.