Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/338

 3 1 o Collectanea.

Grinton, Swaledale, N. Yorkshire.— G'/^6'5/ of a dog. Near the Avenue gates, at Cogden Hall, Grinton, the ghost of half a dog — the head part only — used to be seen. (The Hall is not near the Church.) (From Mrs. Day, Minchinhampton —

native of Swaledale.)

Marrick, Swaledale, N. Yorkshire. — Shadoiv as ometi. Near to Hag Cottage, Marrick, there is a place on the road where a shadow is cast by the wall when no sun is shining, or it is cast the wrong way of the sun. It is a sign that "something is going to happen."

(From Mrs. Day, Minchinhampton, native of Swaledale.)

Birmingham. — The fire as omen of disaster. A friend of mine was recently visiting a house at which a suicide had just taken place. The charwoman, a native of Birmingham, said — "Anyone could have told that something dreadful was going to happen. There was such a queer fire in the grate a few days ago." She described the fire as being hollow in the middle and dead at the edges. In her o[)inion, the general appearance of a fire always "meant some- thing." (Told me by the visitor herself.)

Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. — White horses iti divination. "Thirty years ago, girls used to count the white horses they met in the road ; the first man met, after you had counted a hundred white horses, would be your future husband." This was very commonly done among girls of my acquaintance.

Redditch district. East Worcestershire. — Gifts. When I was a small child, it was considered a most mean action to ask for a gift back. The taunt for a boy or girl who did such a thing was — " Give a thing, take a thing. Naughty man's plaything ! " The " naughty man " was, of course, the Devil.

Snow rhyme. When "the old woman was plucking her geese," village children used to sing —

" Snow, snow faster. Come again at Easter." I have heard it myself when I was a child.

Aloechurch, Worcestershire. — Spirit after death. A child died .at the baker's house, cir. i860. One of the neighbours had been