Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/308

 28o Three Lives of Saints :

It proceeds to tell how spirits, good and evil, come to men in sleep, and the evil ones cause nightmare. In many dark ways you may see companies, in form of women, dancing and playing (they are called Elves).

The devil is like a tied dog ; barking and biting at men. He beckons with his fingers : Their names are little man, leech, longman, teacher, the stronge (thumb).

The right pit of hell is : amid the Earth, within.

For the least star is,

In Heaven, as the book tells us : more than all the Earth, I-wis.

For whoso were on high by any star : if it might so be.

So little would the earth seem : that hardly he could it see.

As an apple the earth is round : so that evermore Half the earth the sun shines on : howsoever it go.

Eight firmaments there be.

The topmost is the right heaven : in which the stars are.

Beneath are seven firmaments : each of them I-wis

One star hath without more : that planet called is.

Saturnus is above all : and Jupiter then next.

Then Mars beneath him : and then the Sun is.

Venus next, the clear star : Mercury then I-wis.

That seldom is seen by us : the Moon is next the ground.

Through great wit of clergie : their names were first found. ^

For each of these seven Stars may : great wonder on Earth do.

Both of weather and of fruit : as their power lends thereto.

Man is born under their power.

The days of the week are called by name after the planets, and Mars and Saturn being evil influences men shun begin- ning work on Tuesday and Saturday. . . . The moon is black, except where the sun shines on her. . . . One hundred and

- A beautiful touch — the names were discovered, not given.