Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/337

 Collectanea. 309

Horns o?i the head. Two village women were walking together one Sunday in Oct. 19 13, when a girl approached them, wearing two projecting wings on the back of her hat. "Ah!" said the elder of the two women, "that reminds me of the old saying —

' When a man's married he's always in dread Of a large pair of horns growing out of his head.' " The saying was new to the younger woman, but she found that it was quite familiar to her mother.

(From daughter of a village mason here.) Sunderland, Co. Durham. — Death custom. The room in which a dead body lies is draped all round with sheets. Many of the older houses have a glass fanlight over the front door, and this too is draped with a white cloth.

(Seen by me in 1903 and 1904, but fast dying out.)

Carnarvonshire. — La?id tenure. There was an ancient pilgrim's way from Carnarvon to the holy Isle of Bardsey. It was marked by wells at several resting-places. One was the famous well of St. Bruno at Clynnog ; another was at Llanaelhaearn ; a third was St. Mary's well, Nevin. Somewhere on the hills between Nevin and Carnarvon there is a farm which used to be held free of tithe, on condition that a free meal should always be given to any person who asked for it as he journeyed along the road from Carnarvon.

(From Miss Williams Jones, doctor's daughter, Nevin, 1913.)

Reeth, Swaledale, N. Yorkshire. — Ghost at bridges. Late at night, " something " comes out of the middle arch of Reeth Bridge, goes along the road for about a mile, and disappears into the middle arch of Grinton Bridge. It never goes in the opposite direction, which would be against the stream. It will run along- side a cart, or cling on to the back. It has been seen as a big white cat with fiery eyes, or as the Devil with a chain. Mrs. Day knows two or three people who declare they have been followed by it.

W. and N. Yorkshire. — Lightning. The flickering sheet light- ning, or "summer lightning," is said to make the corn grow ripe. (Mrs. Day, Minchinhampton — native of Swaledale — and from a worker among the textile hands of the W. Riding.)